Anyone who rereads knows that feeling. You read a book that you thought was awesome when you were twelve and discover that it wasn't so awesome. It somehow retrospectively destroys the memory. Despite that, I've gone back to a couple of different books I loved as a teenager. I'm doing this mostly because I have lately been bored with most of the things I've been reading currently.

First up was Ringworld, which I got from R343L's giveaway. I think I last read it in high school. I know it has been decades. But I was pleasantly surprised. It really is much the way I remembered it. The beginning is so 70s that it is to laugh and Niven was never known for character, but this has what he was known for: ideas, cool aliens and awesome settings. You do have to ignore the ignorance of biology as the basic premise of breeding for luck is pure fantasy, but then, the book is more about following that through than in believing it. I wish the SciFi channel would do a miniseries out of it or something. (A Hollywood film wouldn't work...not enough violence.)

This morning, I took an even bigger risk and started reading Little Fuzzy. I have distinct memories of reading this when I was twelve during a long distance trip to New York. I believe I read through it two or three times on that trip. I absolutely adored it. But I don't think I've read it since.

At this point, I'm only 60 pages in, and am surprised at how fast the memories of it are flooding in after 30 years. Despite the title, this isn't a "young adult" novel. Parts of it are straight out of the time. (The characters seem to spend all their time drinking high balls and smoking.) But the basic plot doesn't really date at all.

This is, of course, distracting me from another resolution, which is to start actually reading things in my to-read pile. I started a collection by Pat Murphy. I haven't a clue why I bought it, but I am fairly certain I bought it new. The copyright date says 1990. I'm finding it mostly meh.

The next oldest book on my to-read pile is The Magic Mountain back from my German novelist phase. Mann's my stepfather's favorite author, but I've never read him as my stepfather only had the German editions.

I was going to read all the Hugo nominees and vote, but after finishing the novels, I've screeched to a halt because I can only get the novellas in electronic form, and I can't bring myself to read on a laptop for great lengths of time.