I was planning to take a couple of days off, but five or six people have emailed me the link to this quote, and it's far too good not to feature:
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
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The writing's better in the one concerning orcs, too.
What about Stranger in a Strange Land? It seems to have a big impact on people at about that age - or are saying it's more for 15-y.o.'s?
I keep re-reading the one about the orcs (and I'm 44 now), but I could never manage to get all the way through the other one.
Good one. A friend and I both read Atlas Shrugged as a teen. He couldn't believe the good guys. I couldn't believe the bad guys--the ones that wanted their whims and prejudices taken for laws of nature. But then I heard some of George W. Bush's accolytes saying just that. Odd, isn't it?
Not only orcs but elves!
I'd put several early and middle period Heinlein novels in the set of books that stuck with me and made me think: Glory Road (sex), Stranger in a Strange Land (religion), Starship Troopers (a coming-of-age story), The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (politics and family). And James H. Schmitz stories, where the women were as competent and as litttle described as men.