Nine Hundred Grandmothers
by R. A. Lafferty · first published 1970
83% recommend17% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Short story collection of funny, quirky, insightful science fiction and fantasy, with a devoted following; the Camiroi stories are singled out as the place to start for readers new to Lafferty.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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I love Lafferty's work. It is so funny, quirky, and insightful. Nine Hundred Grandmothers, Continued on Next Rock. Brilliant stuff. Lafferty's critically acclaimed, and has a small, devoted following of readers, but somehow most scifi readers haven't heard of him, much less read him. Perhaps…
on “Classic Sci-Fi: Olaf Stapledon and R. A. Lafferty [pdf]” ↗Nine Hundred Grandmothers, by R.A. Lafferty (out of print except for "The Books of Sand") Last and First Men, by Olaf Stapledon, free at http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2028/last-and-first-men Accelerando, by Charles Stross, free…
on “Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?” ↗R.A. Lafferty's Nine Hundred Grandmothers blends fantasy and science fiction, http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/roboman/www/sigma/review/90... "I can point to two writers who stand outside, who aren't like anyone before them, and whom nobody…
on “What are your favourite sci-fi books?” ↗Nine Hundred Grandmothers by R.A. Lafferty. Timeless and immortal: http://www.conceptualfiction.com/nine_hundred_grandmothers.h... Anything on vision therapy/improvement, e.g. https://gettingstronger.org/2016/03/faq-for-vision-improveme...
on “Ask HN: Which books do you wish you'd read earlier in life?” ↗By all means, get Lafferty's collection _Nine Hundred Grandmothers_, and if you read nothing else, read the stories about the Camiroi.
on “Forgotten Greats of Science Fiction” ↗Fiction: The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov The Steerswoman - Rosemary Kirstein The Carpet Makers - Andreas Eschbach Nine Hundred Grandmothers - R.A. Lafferty Weaveworld - Clive Barker A Small Death in Lisbon - Robert Wilson Bones of the Earth - Michael Swanwick Enough Rope - Lawrence Block The Anubis Gates - Tim Powers Her Smoke…
on “Ask HN: What books should I read this summer?” ↗Have your read “Nine Hundred Grandmothers” by R. A. Lafferty?
on “Fat Dactyls” ↗I have, actually this year too (missed it in the list because it didn't come from Amazon). I read the collection Nine Hundred Grandmothers. I thought it was pretty uneven, but the highs were very high. There were 4 or 5 stories in that collection that were just amazing, of the "how the hell does he DO that" kind. Some others were kind of…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2015?” ↗…most joyfully embrace the flexibility of language need to be largely linguistically conservative else the meaning of a sentence is lost (consider Lafferty's story where the language changed every day -- Nine Hundred Grandmothers IIRC). And in that list your condemnation of "correct" is itself conservatively prescriptivist as I have always read it (in this context) as a a shorthand extension of "typically customary" or "etymologically…
on “The dwarfs of our vocabulary” ↗…are on the web, http://www.ralafferty.org/works/collections/online-stories/ An overview of his style, http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/aug/13/ra-la... His most popular collection was Nine Hundred Grandmothers, http://www.ralafferty.org/works/collections/nine-hundred-gra... Most of his work is out of print or rare, but a search for "Man Who Talled Tales" may help.
on “Messaging App Jott Is Blowing Up Among Junior High and High Schoolers” ↗