May I share two brief passages from my latest reading: Australian author/historian Inga Clendinnen's "Tiger's eye: a memoir":

p. 61
"It was a beautiful river, small -- four hours would see you to the source -- but with all the joys of a big one: soprano rapids, tenor waterfalls, baritone backwaters with water-boatmen clog-dancing and gumleaves waltzing. I'd heard no Mozart then, but now I think of it as a Mozartian river, it was so confident and shapely."

p. 284 [about birds, or could it be people?]
"Here everyone is a stranger. We meet, nod, pass on. They sometimes say where they came from, where they once had been. Some are eager to talk, others not. We don't remember what they say, or we get it wrong -- such things have no significance. We are not part of their story. They are local fauna: a colony of fluff-headed septuagenarians in flight from New Zealand's winter, a couple of stilt-legged Swedes, the sixty-year-old hippie in his draggled plumage stalking the beach."

My Sweet paulb, thank you. These are lovely passages--I can fairly hear the river singing. I've read some things where that sort of style just sounds artificial, but she makes it acceptably natural. Do you know why the book's called Tiger's eye?
Oh--it just hit me: water-boatmen isn't literal, is it?
Aren't they those bugs that walk on water, all legs and only a little body?
{Geez, this is the second time in less than 24 hours I've made it obvious that I've taken something literally, that wasn't intended to be. Take warning, all.)

That's odd - I was just thinking about word pictures this morning when I read a chapter of Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson's House Harkonnen. Herbert Jr and Anderson have the story down pat - well thought-out and plausible within the context of the original Dune books - but they completely and utterly lack the ability of Herbert Sr to take you there.

to take you there

What a good turn of phrase Cap. That is exactly what happens when you read a book by a good writer. It doesn't matter if it is comedy, fiction, science-fiction or suspense. The author manages to erase your surroundings and transports you to the scene of the action.