Iskandar
10-27-2011, 11:35 PM
I hate doing this, I know these topics can be a bit annoying, but this is driving me crazy.
I read a LOT of books. I have bookshelves and boxes and e-readers crammed full of books. This is a change from my childhood, when most of what I read came from the library. Which means that a lot of what I once read has been forgotten. Every now and again, a memory will surface and I will track a book down, just to see how well the memory matches the reality, is the book still a good read.
In 99% of the cases, I can track a book down on my own, the internet blessing for that, really. Two books, however, have been constantly dodging my Google-Fu for the past 7 or so years, so I'm asking for help, so these books can quit bugging me.
The first one should be easy, ish. Read this back in elementary school, so it was AT LEAST 30 years old now, maybe a bit older. Two kids exploring their attic come across a ghost cat who tells them about his (or her? his I think) 9 lives, separate short stories, all tied together through the outer tale of the two kids and the ghost cat. This plot has been done quite a few times, so separating the signal from noise has been hard, and I can't quite find out which book it was.
The second one is harder, because I read it just about the same time I read Starship Troopers. Over the years, re-reading Starship Troopers has pretty much ground most of my memories of the other book into nothing. This would have been high school, near enough to 20 years ago. The plot was at least superficially similar to Starship Troopers, as in the protagonist goes through basic training to learn to operate a mecha type suit. The only sure thing I remember now is that the drill sergeant referred to the protagonist as "vac skull", I think, or "zat skull" maybe. And at the end, the drill sergeant and the protagonist meet up just as they are about to drop on an alien planet. This one is annoying, because I cannot remember enough about to yank a story title loose, but I remember just enough where the memory REFUSES to die.
A little help from anyone would be greatly appreciated, as these two books have been niggling memories in the back of my head for a decade or so.
I read a LOT of books. I have bookshelves and boxes and e-readers crammed full of books. This is a change from my childhood, when most of what I read came from the library. Which means that a lot of what I once read has been forgotten. Every now and again, a memory will surface and I will track a book down, just to see how well the memory matches the reality, is the book still a good read.
In 99% of the cases, I can track a book down on my own, the internet blessing for that, really. Two books, however, have been constantly dodging my Google-Fu for the past 7 or so years, so I'm asking for help, so these books can quit bugging me.
The first one should be easy, ish. Read this back in elementary school, so it was AT LEAST 30 years old now, maybe a bit older. Two kids exploring their attic come across a ghost cat who tells them about his (or her? his I think) 9 lives, separate short stories, all tied together through the outer tale of the two kids and the ghost cat. This plot has been done quite a few times, so separating the signal from noise has been hard, and I can't quite find out which book it was.
The second one is harder, because I read it just about the same time I read Starship Troopers. Over the years, re-reading Starship Troopers has pretty much ground most of my memories of the other book into nothing. This would have been high school, near enough to 20 years ago. The plot was at least superficially similar to Starship Troopers, as in the protagonist goes through basic training to learn to operate a mecha type suit. The only sure thing I remember now is that the drill sergeant referred to the protagonist as "vac skull", I think, or "zat skull" maybe. And at the end, the drill sergeant and the protagonist meet up just as they are about to drop on an alien planet. This one is annoying, because I cannot remember enough about to yank a story title loose, but I remember just enough where the memory REFUSES to die.
A little help from anyone would be greatly appreciated, as these two books have been niggling memories in the back of my head for a decade or so.