Monday, January 9, 2012

Arrgh, There Be Treasure

Treasure is in the eye of the beholder.

What I find valuable my hubby finds...odd. LOL

My greatest find was in 2002 (why yes, I do remember the year), we'd just moved to Honolulu and were broke. I couldn't afford to buy any books and found my way to the local library. To my horror they were closing down. (a sin, I know.) However, they were selling off all their books dirt cheap.

The librarian gave me a box and told me to go for it. Boy, did I. I discovered out of print copies of old sci fi books. (let me wipe my drool) I'd gone to heaven. I came out struggling under the weight of books. (I think she charged me a dollar.) And bused it home with a two year old in tow. (Some of those books were his too.)

My husband thought I was a nut but he loved me anyways.

To make a long story short, I still have those books and read them all. Some of them are from my FAVORITE authors. This year, that two year who followed me in Honolulu is now twelve and he read the first of my treasures.

Ender's Game




In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers, Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If the world survives, that is.

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
 
 
He loved it! Did a book report on it and got an A+ and best of all, his friends want to read it too. My copy is now coverless and bedraggled but it's been passed along to another generation. I'm happy.

Before I pass on any of my other treasures, I'll introduce him to my second favortie book.

The Protector


Phssthpok the Pak had been traveling for most of his thirty-two thousand years. His mission: save, develop, and protect the group of Pak breeders sent out into space some two and a half million years before...

Brennan was a Belter, the product of a fiercely independent, somewhat anarchic society living in, on, and around an outer asteroid belt. The Belters were rebels, one and all, and Brennan was a smuggler. The Belt worlds had been tracking the Pak ship for days -- Brennan figured to meet that ship first...

He was never seen again -- at least not by those alive at the time.
 
 

No comments: