pdc said: "Jane Austen wrote satire -- her stories were merely vehicles to satirize the society of her day."

When I first had to try to read Pride and Prejudice, when I was in high school, I totally agreed with Gargoyle:   "Jane Austin - Pride and Prejudice - that first paragraph about a man who has money needs a wife makes me gag so I can't get past the first page because of waves of high-sea-nausea". Part of the problem, I realised much later, was that the teacher seemed to have no idea that it was satire and therefore that incredible idea was never conveyed to us, her students. I knew far too many high school girls, i.e. my classmates, who lived and breathed some of Austen's words in reality, not with their satirical meaning, and the mother in the story - she made me gag even more. Here was I, the potential new age career woman in the making, in an all girls' school being forced to read novels about women who are forced by society and their families to get married at any cost. The horror!

It wasn't until I studied Austen again at university with a Professor who had specialised in and who obviously loved her work that I realised it was satire. I had steered clear of her between high school and then.

Another author to add: Fantasy/SF author C. J. Cherryh - especially the Gate of Ivrel series (can't remember the series name, but I think that this is the first title in it).

And Richard Matheson rules! One of the best writers of short stories that I have ever read. I think he also writes screenplays, sometimes for the tv show called The Outer Limits, which pushes the boundaries of ethics and philosophy and the meaning of life, IMHO.

Helen