Have you ever come across a fictional protagonist that you just can't stand?

[SheilaT]

32. Oh yes!

My personal favorite of all of hers is The Doomsday Book. Somewhere later on in this century time travel has been invented/discovered (the details of that aren't part of the story) and it's in the hands of historians in Oxford, England. Various trips to the past using historians have already been done, and now a trip to the early 14th century has been planned. Things go horribly wrong.

Connie has a particular almost chatty style that I happen to like a lot. One thing I especially love is how she'll have a character thinking one thing, while saying something completely different. Something like (and I'm totally inventing this on the spot; it's not an actual quote from one of her books) "What a stylish outfit you're wearing," Merrilee told Ginger. Why in the world Ginger would think green was her color, and didn't she understand that this outfit made her look like a sausage in a too-tight casing? Merrilee thought.

She has written two other novels that involve the time-travelling historians. They are not an actual series, as you can read them in any order. The next one is To Say Nothing of the Dog where the historians go to Victorian England to try to find a hideous piece of Victoriana, and the third is a single novel published in two volumes: Blackout and All Clear, which are about WWII. If you pick up those, it is crucial you read them in that order, as it really is one novel published in two pieces. If you pick up All Clear first you won't have a clue what's going on.

She is currently working on a novel about telepathy, which is running late, so it probably won't be out until late next year at best. She also has one about Roswell in the works, which I'm also eager to read. She's not a fast writer, alas, but you are discovering her (assuming you like her books) at a point where she's got a fair amount of work out there. She's also a writer of many short stories, and has at least two or three anthologies out there.

Hope you like her!

A couple of other s-f writers I just love are Robert J Sawyer and Robert Charles Wilson. Especially the latter. Try his A Bridge of Years or Harvest. For a long time his earlier works, of which these are two, had gone out of print but now they're back. In the first one a man buys a long abandoned house and discovers that in the basement there's a doorway leading to a tunnel which takes him to NYC in 1962. Why that tunnel is there and what happens after he starts using it is the novel. I just love it. In the second aliens come to earth and offer everyone on the planet the opportunity to give up their physical bodies and join them on a galaxy-wide journey. The novel centers around a few of those who decline the offer. I also like that one a lot.

Personally I've never been able to read the Game of Thrones series. I'm not one for high fantasy. I've never been able to get into Tolkein. In science fiction I like time travel, alternate history, ones that could be considered sociological or anthropological as well as a lot of very hard science fiction. Not fantasy. I've read some of Fannie Flag, but nothing by Kingsolver or Allende. They've just never quite grabbed me when I've looked at them. I read a lot, about two or three books a week typically. I read widely, almost every genre except romance or westerns. I also read as much non fiction as I do fiction. I also have very eclectic tastes.

I have a good friend who reads only mysteries, and I just can't begin to imagine reading one and only one genre.