Am I the youngest?

[Moggie]

I am practically exactly 3 jupiter years old.

And I read the first book atleast a jupiters year ago.....

[talkingbeast]

I'm 25. Best I can remember, I first read the YW books in eigth grade. I had used some kind of computer program at the library that lets you make choices about a story and then suggests authors you might like. One of the authors suggested was DD. I didn't pick up her books right away, but shortly after that a teacher passed out some magazines in class (free copies of Scholastic, maybe?) and the mag had "Midnight Snack"! I decided to go back and check that author out.
I think I read the first two "Door" books that year, and YW 1-3, all that was available at the time.

[Peter Murray]

Originally posted by calliope:
Sounds like Timeheart. ^_^
Wow, I was under the impression that everyone was much older! I'm only thirteen, but I'll be fourteen in May. Huh...I have no idea where I found my first YW book. I just remember loving them since 5th grade. Has anyone ever read _A Door Into Fire_?

I've read A Door Into Fire a few times since I bought it in 1980. (Does that make me much older ?) I think I ought to read it again - I can't remember what happens in the second Door book, and I'm not even sure if I've read the third one, though I definitely have it.

[After catching up on the whole thread]
I've got the Corgi editions of the first four YW books, two of which are dated 1993, so I bought them about 1993-1995 - can't remember. So I'd have read them when I was about 35-37. Like Kathy, I'd read The Wounded Sky and a couple of other Trek books, as well as the first couple of Doors by then, so I seem just to have bought the set - £11.96 back then.

And now I'm up to the end of chapter 3 of Wizards at War.

[Agent M]

*cry* I wanna read Door into Fire but my bookstore doesn't have it and NONE of my librarys do... It's the only book of DD's they don't have...

[talkingbeast]

Agent M- I think I still have my copy. Would you like to arrange a swap?

[Kathy Li]

Peter: Door Into Shadow = Segnbora and Hasai. Remember, now? And if you remember the wedding, then you remember the third book. If you don't, you really need to, just to get to the wedding.

M, Meisha Merlin's reprinted it in The Sword and the Dragon, if that's any help.

Thinking about it, I was probably 14 or 15 the first time I read DD. I definitely own the 1979 Dell paperback of Door Into Fire.

[Peter Murray]

Kathy: I don't think I've read it, then. I know I have it - it's the book that was on top of How Much For Just The Planet? when I went to get it during yesterday's chat.

I think I got Door into Fire in 1980, because I know I saw it reviewed in an amateur magazine called Alarums and Excursions, and that was about then. It's also the 1979 Dell, with the David Gerrold "overture".

[Kathy Li]

Ah, yes, the Gerrold foreword that almost (but not completely) gives you the wrong idea of what the book might be like.

And cool! Now you have two unread DDs waiting for you, and IMHO, two of the best.

[Agent M]

Wait... So they changed the name of Door into Fire?? Or they put it in the book The Sword and the Dragon?

[Kathy Li]

The Sword and the Dragon contains both Door Into Fire and Door Into Shadow, hence the new title. The tentative title for the volume that's going to contain Door into Sunset and Door Into Starlight is, according to an Amazon thingie that DD wrote, The Lion and the Door. However, we have no idea when that will be, because she has to clear movies, YW, and Star Trek off the schedule before she can get around to finish writing Door Into Starlight.

[Agent M]

Oh! Ok I get it now! Thanks kli!

[crookedfrog21]

So, which should we read first? Which is the frist book in the series? 'Cause I am sure they are really good, since DD wrote them, I just don't know where to start...

[Peter Murray]

Originally posted by crookedfrog21:
So, which should we read first? Which is the frist book in the series? 'Cause I am sure they are really good, since DD wrote them, I just don't know where to start...

Note that these aren't "young adults" books. I know some people found the feline wizards books "dry" and harder to read than the Nita & Kit ones.

If you can find the separate volumes, they go:
1 Door Into Fire
2 Door Into Shadow
3 Door Into Sunset
As Kathy said, DD is still writing 4 Door Into Starlight.

The first two are collected into The Sword and The Dragon so that's both 1 and 2. The second two can't be collected until book 4 is finished.

I think I just made this even more confusing.

[Kathy Li]

Oh, heck, let's make this as confusing as it can possibly be by throwing in the Middle Kingdoms short stories, too! :-) They're nearly impossible to find and all completely self-contained with different characters from the novels. There's "Lior and the Sea" in Susan Schwartz's Moonsinger's Friends, and the two Sirronde stories, "Parting Gifts" in Flashing Swords #5 edited by Lin Carter, and "The Span," which Nathan found for us in Dragon Magazine, #256.

[crookedfrog21]

PM: No, no, that actually really helped. Now I am really not confused!

Kli6: Thanks for those! They will be interesting, I am sure.