It's one of my formative books, not just as a reader but as a writer. Because of course I tried the visualization thing, and of course I tried it on other things I was reading, and I quickly became aware that it worked with some books and not others, and that some of the books it didn't work on were still good. So I think it's the book that really got me into analyzing what the text I was reading was doing for me as a reader, and how.
Did your copy have illustrations? Mine did, and it had an absolutely priceless illo of the spider alien in a bathrobe, looking both exactly like a spider alien in a bathrobe and like someone you could mistake for an elderly gin rummy player at a distance in dim light if your eyes weren't so great. Really perfectly drawn.
I always wanted more of the other dimension. I also wanted six jillion sequels, including trips to multiple other dimensions and Sarah's career as a locomotive driver/witch/force of nature.
I was delighted and unsurprised to stumble across the "aldoragamba" incantation in real occult sources decades later-- Roger Bacon, I believe. Actually all of the magic in the book is surprisingly close to medieval English sourcebooks.
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It's one of my formative books, not just as a reader but as a writer. Because of course I tried the visualization thing, and of course I tried it on other things I was reading, and I quickly became aware that it worked with some books and not others, and that some of the books it didn't work on were still good. So I think it's the book that really got me into analyzing what the text I was reading was doing for me as a reader, and how.
Did your copy have illustrations? Mine did, and it had an absolutely priceless illo of the spider alien in a bathrobe, looking both exactly like a spider alien in a bathrobe and like someone you could mistake for an elderly gin rummy player at a distance in dim light if your eyes weren't so great. Really perfectly drawn.
I always wanted more of the other dimension. I also wanted six jillion sequels, including trips to multiple other dimensions and Sarah's career as a locomotive driver/witch/force of nature.
I was delighted and unsurprised to stumble across the "aldoragamba" incantation in real occult sources decades later-- Roger Bacon, I believe. Actually all of the magic in the book is surprisingly close to medieval English sourcebooks.