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Today,

snarp is a terrifyingly accurate Darkover book.

...I'm feeling nostalgic for them now. I'm not sure whether I should re-read any or just savor my adolescent memories and stay far, far away.

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My money's on savoring, since only about two-thirds of the linked post made sense to me. Mmmm, fading over time.

I am half-tempted to try one of Deborah Ross's based-on-notes Darkover novels, though.

These days I can get my RDA of hot redheads by watching the San Antonio Spurs (when Bonner's not injured, that is.) Unfortunately there are no six-fingered beautiful sex-switching elves in the NBA. I guess Dirk Nowitzki will do.

(whimper) There was a Darkover book with furry... Good thing I stopped reading.

I reread a couple a few years back when some sequeloid thing came out, and believe me they do not hold up. As I recall, I found myself paging past long sections to get to plot moments where something happened. I should probably just burn all the Pern books too, before I think of rereading them...although the social problems of Pern society were apparent to me even as a teenager, so at least I'll be spared that moment of recognition.

I missed the problematic social aspects of Pern as a teen, but even then I was rereading through a haze of nostalgia, as they were some of the earliest SF/F books I'd discovered (a friendly bookstore employee put Dragonsong into my 7-year-old hands when I told him that I was looking for a book to read and that I liked The Hobbit and LotR, and I never looked back from there).

The best part of reading them that young was that all the stuff I didn't understand whizzed over my head. When I started reading commentary on Pern, I was astonished at how much I'd missed!

The best part of reading them that young was that all the stuff I didn't understand whizzed over my head.

This! My brain kind of ignored over the creepy sexual stuff for years, because I didn't understand it.

(If decide you do want to try re-reading Darkover stuff, I think Stormqueen! (with exclamation point) holds up well - at least to the point that I was not going "oh jeez what" every couple minutes, like with many of the others.)

I think Stormqueen! was the first one I ever read! Wait, no ... Hawkmistress! (also with exclamation point!) was. S! was second. XD

H! hit a HUGE narrative kink for me: girl-disguised-as-boy. I think I read it until it fell to pieces.

Have you read the one where someone goes into this ... storage tower or something, near a weird lake, and sees a bunch of old weapons and stuff stored there? (minor, teeny, tiny not-really-spoiler) There's a sleeping/preserved/in stasis woman there, who I think was supposed to be Whatsherface from S!, but I read it so long ago I don't remember.

Maybe they should have kept the exclamation-point thing going, so that we could look forward to anthologies with titles like Darkover: WTFBBQ!

You may have a point there.

I haven't read that one yet! I need to find it now, just for that...

For some reason my first two were also Stormqueen! and Hawkmistress! I remember getting mad at Hawkmistress! because of the guy not wanting to sleep with her anymore when he realized she was actually a girl. I was too young to appreciate this as being Bradley snarking at narrative conventions! It merely struck me as a betrayal.

I don't remember what my reaction was to that! XD

When I started reading commentary on Pern, I was astonished at how much I'd missed!

I am feeling like a sad, lost Becca because while I've been picking up on the weird sexual politics in my rereadings, I've missed most of the societal problems.

'Course, it probably doesn't help that the only books I reread are the Harper Hall Trilogy. (Menolly! <3)

I reread Hawkmistress! a couple of years ago, and it stood up pretty well. I suspect because it was more YA, and thus the creepy sexual politics did not come into play as much. It is total wish fulfillment the bonding to animals, but it tries to show the downsides to that.

Two to Conquer was the one I had the most problems with as a young teen, with narrative forgiving the main character for his rapes at the beginning of the book.

I don't remember that from TTC, but I also didn't like it very much, and only read it the once, so it's entirely possible I missed that (I was very good at missing problematic aspects as a child and teenager).

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