Have Another Sammich, David
Le Roi du Sammich
Woohoo! Dafydd ab Hugh, the science-fiction writer and wackdoodle conservative blogger, has taken off time from writing about the mating rituals of the Straqnothlvorians, the hermaphroditic warrior race on the moon Phobos, to write a post revealing the truth about racist attacks on Barack Obama. Naturally, Dafydd’s idea of the truth here bears about as much relation to reality as his description of the mating rituals of the Straqnothlvorians (which, it would appear, could only have been dreamed up by a man whose entire sexual repertory is limited to self-gratification with the inside of an empty Snickers wrapper):
Everybody is reporting this little racist meme worm that slithered from the lips of Barack H. Obama on Friday:
We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”
…So how long will it be before a series of thuggish, racist e-mails, street-mailings, and YouTubes crudely attacking Barack Obama really does materialize? My guess is that it will wait until the election itself looms; possibly one week beforehand, just like the DUI hit on George W. Bush in 2000.
Why wait? For a very good reason: The perpetrators of that series of attacks do not want there to be enough time to discover the actual source of the “attacks”… which will originate from some radical leftist group hoping for a “backlash” against McCain.
Holy Tribbles, Lieutenant Uhura! You mean the Republicans did the DUI hit on W in 2000? No? Oh, I see. Republicans would never do such a thing. If it’s a late campaign hit against a Republican, it’s done by the Democrats. And if its a late campaign hit against a Democrat, it’s done by the Democrats All bad things are done by Democrats. Like the Democrat who spread the rumor in the Republican primary of 2000 that McCain fathered an illegitimate black baby. Because the Democrats wanted Bush to beat McCain, you see.
I am about 70% convinced that somebody on the Left will attempt just such a dirty trick.
Whew! At least he’s not 80% convinced, or we’d really be in trouble here.
The only defense is an immediate credible counter-accusation that if Democrats want to find the real racists, they should look in a mirror.
I know I’m gonna get in way too much trouble for saying this, but I can’t resist — I really don’t think Dafydd ought to be tellin’ other people to look in a mirror.
After all, so far in this election cycle, the only candidate to raise the point of Obama’s race has been — Hillary Clinton, who noted (correctly) that the only reason Obama was ahead of her in the delegate count was his overwhelming support by black voters.
Hold on there, big fella. Are you saying that it’s racist to observe (correctly) that Barack got more black votes than Hillary did? What planet are you living on? Oh, wait. This one:
Elsewhere on the planet, the Cardassian prisoner, Gul Ragat, walked in front of Julian Bashir like a man already dead whose legs had not yet gotten the message. Jadzia Dax followed somewhere far behind and to the side, so that she and Julian would not drift dose enough to make a single target. I wish we could talk, thought the doctor. But speech would have informed the prisoner that they were Federation, and Dax wanted to hold that information in reserve.
The Gul had recovered somewhat. The doctor quietly scanned him while he rested and determined that Ragat had no serious injuries — minor burns and abrasions, smoke inhalation, bruises, and other blunt-force trauma, but nothing life-threatening. The diagnosis was a relief. Had Gul Ragat required medical treatment, not all the wild splitheads on Sierra-Bravo 112-II could have stopped Bashir from doing his medical duty, and their cover as “Natives” would have been blown, Ragat would then realize that Starfleet officers had infiltrated the Cardassian/Drek’la occupation.
And so, you see, you can be 70% sure that the Democrats will be smearing their own candidate by disguising themselves as Cardassian natives and infiltrating the Drek’la occupation of the New York Times. Then they will enlist the aid of hermaphroditic Straqnothlvorian warriors to create a diversion while they say racist things about Gul Ragat, which will actually make people think that the Cardassians are doing that and rise up in rebellion. Or something like that.
Hillary Clinton, who noted (correctly) that the only reason Obama was ahead of her in the delegate count was his overwhelming support by black voters.
I geuss voters don’t count if they are black.
I know I’m gonna get in way too much trouble for saying this, but I can’t resist — I really don’t think Dafydd ought to be tellin’ other people to look in a mirror.
Oh no you di’int.
The fact is, you liberals have no idea about what’s best for the Heartland of Bajor. We Cardassians do, which is why we should be allowed to retake DS9.
If I had wanted your opinion, I would have solicited it. I grow weary of this blog, and if our cloning facilities were still operational I would have it replaced immediately.
Shalom, Founder Ruppert. It will be done.
Say, that looks like a Manwich&trade!
Sammich Amurkans™, Unite!
You have nothing to lose but your onions.
He’s ambitalentless. Science AND political fiction. Warp factor 9 Mr. Scott!
Not gonna do it. Well maybe I’ll make a 70% fat joke.
Oh preview – I trusted you …
That is one beefy Sammy!
What is that, a two-foot-long sloppy joe?
Can we just call Daffy ‘Sloppy Joe’ from now on?
walked … like a man already dead whose legs had not yet gotten the message.
Ab Hugh need braaaains.
Light-years away, on a strange an different world, Security Chief Odo sat rigidly on an overturned barrel, puzzling over the sheaf of documents Tivva-ma, daughter of hereditary Mayor Asta-ha, had just shoved into his hands.
Pooetry!
It’s like a giant Maid-Rite.
70%? Doesn’t the fool know that the Left is back?!?!? Battle stations!
I’m about 70% certain that this moron hasn’t seen his junk in about 15 years.*
______________________
*Example of liberal bigotry, viciousness, hate, and unseriousness.
I think you forgot the semi-colon, Kenga.
Fortunately, nothing even vaguely racist has emerged this campaign, and if it did it certainly originated from the Left.
Why a two-paragraph excerpt? The first paragraph isn’t *that* bad; it’s just bog-standard C-grade genre writing. I’m not sure why it was quoted.
Now that second paragraph… hoo boy. Especially loved, “not all the wild splitheads on Sierra-Bravo 112-II could have stopped Bashir from doing his medical duty”.
That’s some seriously bad shit.
.
JGabriel-
I beg to differ. That first paragraph was shite, too.
could only have been dreamed up by a man whose entire sexual repertory is limited to self-gratification with the inside of an empty Snickers wrapper):
My eyes! I can’t see!
I’m back!
Dang it! /
fadgeophile –
Yes, but it was *standard* shite. Any SF fanfic writer could have composed it. It’s the second para that stands out as truly special shite.
.
Fortunately, nothing even vaguely racist has emerged this campaign, and if it did it certainly originated from the Left.
There, fixed.
Stupid tags.
#
Gul Gary Ruppert Dukat said,
The fact is, you liberals have no idea about what’s best for the Heartland of Bajor. We Cardassians do, which is why we should be allowed to retake DS9.
Ha-ha! Fake! Fake! A REAL Cardassian would call the station Terak Nor, not DS9!
Kerners are go!
Little Pig:
I am so glad I did not know that.
.
Dammit. You got me. Well done.
Everybody is reporting this little racist meme worm that slithered from the lips of Barack H. Obama on Friday
Like someone said on Alicublog. Lately, right wingers often seem to switch into hallucination mode when describing Obama.
Democrats have already caused terrorist attacks, allowed Al Quaeda into Iraq, wiped out New Orleans with their love of teh ghey. A charge of racism is rather tame.
If “drifting dose” Star Trek jargon?
Speaking of lighting discharge, I wonder how many socks Daffy le Huge goes through when he writes this crap. Wow. Yuck.
I think that, if it is even possible, Sammich Boy’s sci-fi is even worse than his political analysis. Also reminds me why I quit reading science fiction about 20 years ago.
IS La Stupide, she is catching, non?
<blockquote
Dammit. You got me. Well done.
Although…I’ll cheat and say Dukat was such a manipulator that I could see him in an early season whipping out the DS9 name to get in those Federation suckers’ good graces. Yeah. That’s the ticket.
Fortunately, nothing even vaguely racist has emerged this campaign, and if it did it certainly originated from the Left.
Fortunately, nothing even vaguely racist has emerged this campaign, and if it did it certainly originated from the Left.
Do I have to be the first to welcome our Straqnothlvorian overlords? Well I’m not doing it, I tell you, no fucking way.
ℙ◎◎ℙ
this little racist meme worm that slithered from the lips of Barack H. Obama
Sounds like wishful thinking in more ways than one.
I think we broke teh dragon king.
No sammich for PeeJ.
I think we broke teh dragon king.
John McCain could NEVER be broken.
That’s really Daffy’s writing? It reads like one of the lesser fanfics. Perhaps written by a sixteen year old during his/her first attempt at a Star Trek Vs. Star Wars crossover. It sucks, is what I’m trying to say. I’m sure “Doom: Knee Deep in the Dead” is a lot better though.
Anyway, I guess Daft thinks Stormfront and American Renaissance are Leftist sites.
Dragon-King, your research is exemplary but as we are aware of all internet traditions here at S,N your formulation should be:
Fortunately, nothing even vaguely racist has emerged this campaign, and if it did it certainly originated from someone on the Left.
There is only one The Left
It isn’t all that bad or my bookshelves would be rather bare. However, my neck and back are aching because working through that exerpt made me want to dive out of the nearest window.
Let us pause a moment to pray for the poor editor.
I was going to say Hugh should stick to writing SciFi … & then you had to go & ruin everything by showing me some of it.
That stuff actually constitutes an effective argument AGAINST universal literacy.
It’s the literary equivalent of tertiary syphilis.
Minus the comedy value of the locomotor ataxia.
That’s really Daffy’s writing? It reads like one of the lesser fanfics.
It’s like a text version of those Linda-McCatney-backup-singing tapes.
I’m pretty sure when Democrats “look in the mirror,” they’re going to see strong majorities of most of America’s ethnic, racial and religious groups looking back at them. I guess that’s what “racists” look like. A party must be almost exclusively made up of white Christians to be un-racist. Up is down.
Or McCartney. McCatney was cute and playful.
Phew. Urge to engage in crass look-ism fading.
Apologies to Happy Furry Story Time, I did indeed mean to say someone on the Left.
But anyways, that guy is both fat and ugly.
He’s right, you know — the thuggish, racist e-mails, street-mailings, and YouTubes crudely attacking Barack Obama would never come from Teh Right. I mean, Bill O’Reilly specifically said that we should not organize a lynching party and go after Michelle Obama, right? It’s a well-known fact that The Left (when not Attacking The City) employs a super-double-secret Machiavelli, a Bizarro Karl Rove so skilled that nobody knows who he is (hint: not Carville). He’s the guy who came up with the Obama sock monkey, too.
oops.
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Yes. This will work perfectly. It’s mid-October and Charlie Black says to Tweety “My last name might be Black, but that Obama boy’s darker than any of my kin.” And then Rick Davis comes out and says “Hey if you guys thought that was racist you should see what the Dem’s are saying about monkey boy.” A brilliant plan. JiSM3 should definitely go with it.
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Janeway briefly fondled Jadzia Dax’s statuesque, Amazonian posterior. “Why don’t we retire to the adjourning suite for … a cup of Rigelian space coffee?” she inerrogated provocatively.
Meanwhile, on a planet, Security Chief Odo was morphing into different objects, a recreation and exercise he often pursued not without some frequency although not as frequently as the Str’con’deXx of Stramulognophon-Gamma-II-Electric-Boogaloo engaged in ritual Phnarr. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, he rapidly decided to do something different: he morphed into Seven of Nine. It took him not a few tries to properly duplicate her lithe opaque nose, but by the time he consummated this arduous task another ideation had occurified itself unto him: he would sojourn toward the vicinity of the authentic Seven of Nine her self and play a trick on her: a sexy trick.
Speaking of Seven of Nine, may we all take a moment to thank her for the presidential candidate Barack Obama. For if she had been totally cool with the swingers club thing, instead of repulsed, Hillary Clinton would be running for president right now instead.
Yep. That story has been my go-to thing to say in bars over the past few months.
It has replaced the one about me being related to Charlie Daniels. Which I am.
How about her stringy orchid twines of hair?
Liberals made George Bush drive drunk.
On behalf of all people of Welsh descent, I demand Daffy Duck go back to his legal name.
For some strange reason, I clicked through on the DS9 fiction link. Man, at the rate he’s burning through characters, he’s going to have to have Christopher Pike show up in Chapter Five in a Tribble infested Excelsior.
Due to Ryan’s failure to broach the topic of sex with an audience before they got there we also got to see Obama give Alan Keyes a well deserved stomping. Three cheers for the GOP ego!
Thread title: Concern Troll of the Day
Excerpt from thread just two away: WTF is it with all these people who are so convinced that IF ONLY YOU KNEW THE TROOOOTH, you’d poop rainbows and fart butterflies and vote for Obama?
Can’t make these people up. Oh yes, we give it a good shot with the IrisBot, but even she can’t completely mask her programmed duplicity.
You’d kind of think it would be enough to say “I believe you’ve seen my wife, Jeri Ryan, whom I’ve slept with“, rather than being all “hey everyone look at my pasty white butt while I awkwardly hump my wife on a little stage or something”.
Also, I think just wanted to prove how not gay he was.
lithe opaque nose
Quick! Where’s Grignr?
Why yes, I AM aware of all Internet traditions…
I wonder why Obama thinks JiSM3 would use fear-mongering?
I can understand how Barry might feel a bit self-conscious about his name but certainly no McCain supporters would do such a thing.
Next on Daffy’s writing schedule: rewriting the novelization of “Far Beyond the Stars” so that it turns out that the series of racist attacks that Benny Russell witnesses and experiences are really a plot by Adlai Stevenson.
clif, tell me you were parodying that writing.
Please.
The Golden Age of Sci-Fi is 12. By an amazing coincidence, that’s Davey’s mental age.
clif, tell me you were parodying that writing.
It’s right there in the original post.
Here’s the first line of Chapter One
Here’s the last line of Chapter One
(correctly)
It’s not racist if it’s in parentheses.
Um, yeah, Jeri Ryan.
Jack Ryan’s stupid makes me sad.
“Speaking of Seven of Nine, may we all take a moment to thank her for the presidential candidate Barack Obama. For if she had been totally cool with the swingers club thing, instead of repulsed, Hillary Clinton would be running for president right now instead.”
Someone please explain!! I know the 7 of 9 swinger club thing story, but what is the link to Hilary Clinton?
On a marginally more serious note – but I still need answers to these important questions above – I’ve always enjoyed most of the Star trek TV series, if not the books, but finding that people like this are actually allowed to contribute to the Star Trek Universe makes me rethink my liking for the whole ST universe. Imagine if Adolf Hitler had been a science fiction writer!!!
On a marginally, marginally more serious note, over the past few years I have come to realise that Deep Space 9 is in fact the perfect expression of the libertarian fantasy universe. It’s a vision of society as a place where people come together from all over the universe almost entirely by choice. Almost nobody has children – in the real world 15% to 35% of people in any society are children, but on DS9 there are 2 or 3 teenagers and one young child, so all the costs of social reproduction are borne elsewhere – as I said the perfect libertarian fantasy universe.
You know what I hate? I’ll tell you what I hate. I hate when everybody throws around all those pop-culture references and allusions, drops names right and left (names I’m sure I never heard before), and everything else that reminds me I’ve been living in a shoe box the last twenty or thirty years. I’m left wondering WTF y’all are talking about.
I mean, with the exception of Neal Stephenson and David Zindell and perhaps a few others, there hasn’t been any decent SF written since I barfed in Harlan Ellison’s hotel room at somethingorothercon in the 70’s. You guys get that crap from watching teevee or sumpin? Sheesh.
Don’t feel bad PeeJ, I don’t really know shit about popular culture either.
I just sit back and go, “Wow, look at all the wacky crap these SadlyNauts have dredged up for our amusement!”
Stanislaw Lem was writing past the 70s.
Now he is dead.
Now he is dead.
Well there it is then!
You guys get that crap from watching teevee or sumpin? Sheesh.
Summer Glau
Hell, I don’t know that you’d call Star Trek popular culture, just geek culture.
“Popular culture” makes me think of Will Farrell movies, of which I have seen precisely zero.
And now she’s the new Terminatrix, Dragon-King. Or was – I expect that series died a quick and not-entirely undeserved death.
Someone please explain!! I know the 7 of 9 swinger club thing story, but what is the link to Hilary Clinton?
Well, Jeri Ryan didn’t like the whole swingers club thing, so she said so in her divorce deposition or whatever you call it, as part of the reason for the divorce (and I guess it helped her case in settlement or something).
Somehow, I forgot how, those court records got unsealed and reported on by someone while Jack Ryan was gearing up for the senate race against the largely unknown Obama that Ryan was expected to win easily. That blew his candidacy out of the water, and the IL GOP replaced him with ALAN AWESOME KEYES! Since Obama couldn’t possibly lose to him, Obama won the senate race, and the rest is history.
Seven of Nine, we love you!
PeeJ, if you enjoy Stephenson and haven’t yet found Iain M. Banks, you need to hie yourself out to Powells ASAP and find a copy of Use of Weapons. Or Player of Games or Excession Against a Dark Background or just about any other book he’s ever written.
Don’t let Daffyd Huge Abdomen’s dreck make you think Sci Fi is for kids.
I’ve been living in a shoe box the last twenty or thirty years.
Sheesh! OK, OK, you can have some sammitch.
Oh, Jesus Christ. You’ve done it now, Clif.
Giggling over “hermaphrodite warriors”? A huge Sloppy Joe pshop for Daffy? Comments about sexual gratification coming from candy bars (plainly fat-hatred speech, there)? zomfg.
And below, Brad put up a vid in which George Carlin — a white man — says “nigger”. [Shut up, shut up, I don’t care if he’s using it ironically.]
You’re totally asking for the International Invisible Knapsack of Anti-Looksist Sammichhood to come crashing in and pwn us. Again. Cuz we’re Liberal Dudes and completely deserve it.
Not a big fan of Sarah Connor Chronicles. Just looking for good post 70’s sf. Charles Sheffield shuffed off the mortal coil in ’02 but left us the Heritage and Proteus Universes.
Note: Excession and Against a Dark Background are separate books.
And Feersum Endjinn is incredible but maybe not a Banks starter book.
Imagine if Adolf Hitler had been a science fiction writer!!!
Indeed.
Ted
Thanks.
As a member of the super-sized community, I have to point out that Daffyd ab Hugh would be a dimwitted bigot and a really, really crappy writer even if he had the same BMI as David Beckham. Srlsy, it’s not all the gunk that’s gone into his mouth that’s the problem.
Little Brother Cory Doctorow,
Technological Singularity Vernor Vinge,
Mars, bitches!!!
OneMan: noted. Mebbee I’ll stroll down there this afternoon.
NUMM NUMM NUMM NUMM
OMFG! 1981 is after the 70’s.
You’re the Duke of New York!!!!!
woo hoo! Norman Spinrad! I got it! I get it! woo hoo!
But wasn’t that also written back in the dark ages?
Oh shit!
Now were doomed, DOOMED I tell ya.
Can I just prostrate myself on the sunbaked asphalt now, begging the forgiveness of the larger, differently gendered, sammich loving, patriarchy hating anti-looksist community now, before they come and pummel me around the head and shoulders again with garbage can lids??
Please?
mikey
Vernor Vinge
I’ve read him. Seemed like silly bullshit and plain writing.
Peej (any relation to CJ?)
Ah yes – the dark ages – when we had hope.
Re: Shakesville funnies:
You know, I’ve been keeping up with Shakesville, and it’s hardly a hotbed of anti-Obama fulmination. It’s not fair to lump it with No Quarter, Hillaryis44, etc. as a target.
I put forth that the 80’s was a magical time for SF movies.
Blade Runner
The first Terminator
Aliens
The Star Trek movie where they save the whalesThe Adventures of
John BigBootéBuckaroo BanzaiThe one where they make peoples heads explode using psychic powers
The Quiet Earth
I’ll buy that for a dollar!
Brazil.
Takeshi Kovacs wants you to read Altered Carbon. (2003)
Help! Help! I’m being repressed!
Any minute now…
a recreation and exercise he often pursued not without some frequency
That’s so bad, right there, that it wrapped around to comedy gold. I want to read the rest of it! I laffed statisically.
Let me recommend this book for the science fictionauts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Things
Gray’s written some other science-fiction/fabulist type stuff and is often brilliant.
I’ve read him. Seemed like silly bullshit and plain writing.
Valid criticism. None of his characters feel really, well real. I stuck him and Sheffield in to boost my hard sf cred. It’s certainly less silly than say, e.e. smith, but you can have my lens when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Elsewhere on the planet, the Cardassian prisoner, Gul Ragat, walked in front of Julian Bashir like a man already dead whose legs had not yet gotten the message.
It’s like bad P.G. Wodehouse. Or, I suppose, bad Douglas Adams, since it’s sci-fi/science fiction and all. Frankly, it’s so bad it sort of defies comparison.
Frankly, it’s so bad it sort of defies comparison.
My rotten, pothead, WoW addicted, spoiled nephew writes just like this.
Fortunately for civilization, he gets Cs….
mikey
Okay, this one’s not from the eighties, but if you watch one post-apocalyptical movie where the Russians have taken over a nuclear wasteland of America, and it’s a race to Vegas to see who will suceed Elvis as the leader of the free world, let it be this one.
It has everything that an Islamo-elitist would want. It has commie-Elvises, it’s got a Wind farm, it’s got cannibals, it’s got a hero who carries a fricking parasol.
Also, the overuse, of commas, can be, somewhat, distracting. At least Douglas Adams had the decency to make his convoluted and hilariously awkward sentences grammatically unambiguous. And he didn’t make every damned sentence like that:
“The problem is, or rather one of the problems, for there are many, a sizable number of which are continually clogging up the civil, commercial, and criminal courts in all areas of the Galaxy, and especially, where possible, the more corrupt ones, this. The previous sentence makes sense. That is not the problem. This is: Change. Read it through again and you’ll get it.”
Ah yes, Takeshi Kovacs…where noir meets sci fi.
I enjoyed the hell out of Altered Carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies but they were pretty corny.
The ending to Market Forces left me cold. A friend and I have argued over it; he thought it was brilliant. I guess that at least means it got us both thinking.
As i just pointed out in the wrong thread, Vernor Vinge’s strong suit is mediocrity.
[I liked the line so much I had to say it here as well.]
no serious injuries — minor burns and abrasions, smoke inhalation, bruises, and other blunt-force trauma, but nothing life-threatening.
In the interests of doctorological accuratude and general pedantry, I need to point out that “blunt-force trauma” is not a general term for “minor non-penetrating injuries”.
“Blunt-force trauma” is life-threatening by feckin’ definition (unless it’s in a pathology report).
(unless it’s in a pathology report).
I’m not a doctor but I was an autopsy technician. I can’t say I recall the phrase being much, if at all. The patho’s usually just dictated something about ecchymosis. I guess it was assumed that blunt force trauma would be the cause of same.
The two best Sci-fi writers working today are Ken Macleod and (the even better) Charlie Stross.
Some of Stross’ writing is available for free on his website, antipope.org
Ok, I’m late. Much weirdness in Sili Valley today, including smoke so thick you can’t see across the street. Weird, still, washed-out world, an odd, sadly let-down post apocalyptic sense in the sepia tint.
But what about Robert Silverberg and Samual Delaney?
mikey
PeeJ said,
woo hoo! Norman Spinrad! I got it! I get it! woo hoo!
But wasn’t that also written back in the dark ages?
How about, for the rest of us, someone provides a link?
And my God, but Dafydd Uck is a shit writer.
After all, so far in this election cycle, the only candidate to raise the point of Obama’s race has been — Hillary Clinton, who noted (correctly) that the only reason Obama was ahead of her in the delegate count was his overwhelming support by black voters.
Hold on there, big fella. Are you saying that it’s racist to observe (correctly) that Barack got more black votes than Hillary did? What planet are you living on?
—————————————————————————————————
Don’t know if you’re being serious or not. I don’t know if Hillary ever said anything like this, would be interested, because as you can see by some of your comments, I think many people would say it was racist. Big Dawg got killed for insinuating the same thing after the SC primary.
“Popular culture” makes me think of Will Farrell movies, of which I have seen precisely zero.
Sorry this is late, Little Pig, but at least watch “Stranger Than Fiction.” I hate his drivel, too, but that one’s worth renting.
Elf is a good movie.
But what about Robert Silverberg and Samual Delaney?
I’ve only read short fiction by the latter, which was good. I’ve owned Silverberg novels and just never finished them.
And neither of them have written much, too my knowledge, since the 70’s. I could look it up. But I won’t.
I’ll preempt the Roger Zelazny mention on the same grounds.
Oh, Bubba, “Dying Inside” is a fucking masterpiece.
mikey
Just looking for good post 70’s sf.
I’m very out of touch – I doubt I’ve read anything newer than about 1985 except newer novels by authors who had been writing before then.
Unless you can count Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next stuff. Not sure it’s sci-fi, but it happens in a parallel universe and has some weird technology in it. People riot in the streets over their disagreements about who wrote Shakespeare’s plays, genetic engineering is available in hobbyist kits, the Crimean War is still going in the 1980s. Stuff like that. Highly recommended.
PeeJ: Zelazny’s dead, but he was writing well past the ’70s. The second Amber cycle was written from ’85-’91, according to my handy omnibus edition.
Are we trying to refute the notion that no good SF has come out since 1980 or so?
Elf is a good movie.
Sure, for certain non-standard definitions of “good.”
I hate people who trash whole genres based on one or two bad writers. Teh stupid, yadda yadda. Try: Lois McMaster Bujold; Charles Stross; Liz Williams; Elizabeth Moon; Sheri S. Tepper; C.J. Cherryh; Barbara Hambly (OK, more fantasy & also historical mysteries, not so much SF); John Varley, for God’s sake.
Sure, for certain non-standard definitions of “good.”
Lissen, lieberal, your War On Christmas won’t fly here. Elf remains a good movie.
But Peej… you’re missing out on the cyber punk! No William Gibson?
I also like Tad Willam’s Otherland. Warning: extremely looong.
I hate people who trash whole genres based on one or two bad writers.
A cough and a splutter. Have you perhaps visited a store that stocks only one or two bad science-fiction writers in the section? I have not.
Also I hereby trash superhero comics as a genre. I love them, but they are stupid stupid stupid.
And if you’re looking for something more recent, although I’m not sure I’d call it science fickshun, “Cryptonomicon” is one of the really great books of our time.
Along with “Gates of Fire”, it’s one of my favorite books NOT written by Stephen Hunter, Robert Crais or Tom Robbins…
mikey
“Cryptonomicon” is one of the really great books of our time.
Oh yes – second that. Neal Stephenson is great fun, though his work is wandering farther from SF the longer he goes on. Among his SF stuff I consider The Diamond Age to be a really fine book, and solidly post-70s.
mikey, I already mentioned Stephensos as an exception.
sagra, William gibson is a preening self important ass and it shows in his writing
Djur, check.
Tehanu – Varley is like Vivaldi. Brilliant but it’s the same god damn thing over and over.
Anybody else wnat to fuck with me? phpthptphtppht
Mmmmmmm, that looks like pulled pork.
Say, do you think he pulls his own pork?
I’ll preempt the Roger Zelazny mention
My ambition is to use the phrase “Features of Light and Darkness” as the title of a scholarly article on the perception of colour and luminance. When that is in print, my mission on Earth will be accomplished.
When that is in print, my mission on Earth will be accomplished.
Don’t go! Or take me with you if the sandwiches are bigger where you come from!
Robert Anton Wilson did some good SF writing after 1980, including (just barely) Schrodinger’s Cat.
I’ll just throw out China Mieville, who I believe has been mentioned before in this space. Not sci fi exactly but enormously imaginitive “steampunk”. Highly recommended.
And King Rat is the shizzle, yo.
The second Amber cycle was written from ‘85-’91, according to my handy omnibus edition.
I found it kind of disappointing, though.
Mind you, I’m a rather indifferent reader of SF, so I’m as happy to go dig up something seriously old-school like Alfred Bester as I am to read new stuff. Happier, maybe.
I always liked the high concept stuff, like CM Kornbluth, AA Attanassio, etc. I really enjoy Cordwainer Smith in particular for his far future Instrumentality of Mankind universe.
Ob-S,N!: You liberals are going to be negatively surprised this fall.
Well I’m gobsmacked! Troofy calling out Cordwainer Smith!?!?!!?!?!
Hoe-lee shite.
Oh! The ships were golden!
Looka this pretty much unsubstantiated Cordwainer Smith gossip.
Gonna step in here and defend Vernor Vinge. Yeah, his prose can be stiff, but the man understands the way technological and society develop together in a way that I’ve never seen anyone else quite manage. The excerpts from the galactic USENET in A Fire Upon the Deep are particularly hilarious to us that spend too much time trying to communicate on the internets.
Brandi: I guess I’m the only person who mostly preferred the Merlin cycle. The first cycle was brilliant, of course, but it went into eyeroll “days of old, when knights were bold” territory too often, and Zelazny liked to stretch Shadow walking sequences out for fucking pages at the time.
And I guess I’ve always preferred the metaphysical/magical aspects of Amber; I remember being beside myself with joy when Corwin visits Dworkin and the latter makes offhand references to the creation of the universe. That kind of stuff only started in earnest with the third book and on, and the second cycle was absolutely stuffed with it. And I always found Merlin easier to relate to than Corwin.
And with that, I’m off to the teatro for Avenue Q.
Of course, all SF after “Star Maker” is fundamentally trash, anyway.
Stephenson, 1992, Snowcrash. Required geek reading.
William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, I don’t care what PeeJ says.
Alexander Besher, Rim, Chi, Mir, 1995+: virtual worlds, sentient tattoos, and orangutans implanted with human chi.
The excerpts from the galactic USENET in A Fire Upon the Deep are particularly hilarious to us that spend too much time trying to communicate on the internets.
Those are funny, but I never got the point of imagining bands of technological or intellectual achievement in the galaxy. That’s science fiction in the same way that Harry Potter is.
Dafydd ab Hugh, the science-fiction writer
I just choked on MY sandwich.
Those are funny, but I never got the point of imagining bands of technological or intellectual achievement in the galaxy. That’s science fiction in the same way that Harry Potter is.
I do agree with Vinge’s general hacktackular-ness but this indictment I gotta contest. I suggested both him and Charles Sheffield (much better with pacing, but just as “skilled” with character development) because of their hard science backgrounds. Those universes are well thought out, with rules that have their roots in technology as we understand it. Vinge’s idea of a nomadic Merchant class that roams the universe trading and seeding technology? Not too far off from the multi-national corporate owned world we’re currently in. With high-tech everything, the real power is in the operating systems that run life support rather than super-magical-high-tech energy blasters? That’s our world, the world where Saudi Arabia getting multi-billion dollar arms deals is a small wrong compared to Total Information Awareness. This isn’t some cobbling together of things that’ll make the story better, like whatever the Quidditch score is, whoever scores the Golden Snitch wins. These writers are more concerned with an internally coherent universe than good narrative, which makes for intersting sf ideas, but admittedly mediocre stories.
Of course, all SF after
“Star Maker”The Starchild Trilogy is fundamentally trash, anyway.Fixed!
mikey
Don’t you dare try to wreck pulled pork sandwiches for me. Don’t you…
Uggh. Well, looks like I’ll be having lots of salad this BBQ season. Thanks a lot.
But what about Robert Silverberg and Samual Delaney?
I took a Comparative Literature class at ZooMass that Delaney gave, during the Bush I years. Great guy, fun professor, and introduced the lot of us philistines to some great stuff that had previously been quite obscure to us. Budrys, Disch, Russ, among others. He spent the entire semester talking about and recommending other peoples’ work – so effectively that I have neglected finding stuff that he’s written. Dur.
I have to say I enjoyed Fire Upon the Deep – one of the more original things I’d read in years at the time. RB, my impression of the bands wasn’t about achievement but rather the achievements that were possible in those regions due to different physics …
I thought he and Zelazny (in My Name is Legion) offered a refreshing look at the dangers of coming to rely utterly on your technology. But, I don’t read nearly as much as I ought, and haven’t for many years now, so I’ve a meager sample to judge by.
But, you know, how many of you would trade the current crop for Edgar Rice Burroughs? I mean, not relative to his peers, but as was. Anybody had a glance at Beyond the Farthest Star? So. Tired.
Stephenson, 1992, Snowcrash. Required geek reading.
I don’t know why Cryptonomicon gets all the props. It’s a great read, but it also feels like his editor was too awed by working with Neal Stephenson to tell him to cut the three fricking pages about Captain Crunch. Seriously, book is at least 50% longer than it should be.
Allow me also to say that my faith in humanity is uplifted by the absence of mentions for Orson Scott Card.
Subject: Hexapodia as key insight
The whole “bands of technological or intellectual achievement in the galaxy” thing is all based on the idea that the the speed of light as a universal speed limit becomes less constraining farther away from the center of the galaxy. I figure something like that qualifies as the sort of “change one thing” rule, and it’s applied consistently, so it doesn’t have to be fantasy.
RB, my impression of the bands wasn’t about achievement but rather the achievements that were possible in those regions due to different physics …
Yeah, but that’s what I just could not buy. It was nevertheless interesting to think about a society that could be completely destroyed by a gamelan orchestra.
John Brunner, baby!
Seriously, book is at least 50% longer than it should be.
By failing to fight Neal over Crytonomicon, the editor allowed The Baroque Cycle’s 50,000 pages to enter the world.
Also I gave up on Iain Banks after reading The Bridge, the it-was-just-a-crazy-dream follow-up to I’ve-been-reading-post-modernists-and-can-drop-names Walking on Glass.
No, no, NO!
Don’t you see? The long stretches about Cap’n Crunch or the mathematics of masturbation would, if trimmed to a “reasonable” length, only serve as some kind of silly semaphore.
It is PRECISELY in their overly long slavish devotion to detail beyond that which we, the reader might expect, that makes them both enlightening and amusing.
Look. I’m sorry. I never went to college or had even one professor give me a way of looking at the world.
But this seems, oh, I dunno, kinda, well, OBVIOUS…
mikey
But this seems, oh, I dunno, kinda, well, OBVIOUS…
Three or four page diversions that have nothing to do with the story? Oh, wait you’re saying that the pointless bits help add to the characterization of Randy as an anal retentive neurotic freakshow. Guess what? The book’s called Cryptonomicon. Anybody reading is already tuned into Randy’s mental issues.
Seriously, less happens in this book then happens in Snow Crash, and it’s like twice as long. I’m not suggesting that the vignettes or whatever they’re supposed to be get cut down to half their length, I’m saying throw half of them out of the book. It’s make for a better paced and more coherent read.
Hmmm.
Maybe.
I guess it really comes down to whether your about the journey or the destination.
For me, I enjoyed the long descriptive sidetrips, with the elegant, rhythmic language and the clever word play.
I knew Neal would move the story eventually, and at the pace he envisioned, and I was delighted to take the journey along with him. If it was four thousand pages I suspect I would not have tired of the ride.
I dunno. It’s a novel, not a screenplay. In an odd way, Stephenson is like Robbins. The best parts of the story are the individual paragraphs that can sometimes read like fine poetry, and the crazy iconoclastic characters and events, whether it’s Bobby Shaftoe becoming a hero ’cause he was trying to recover the morphine from the german sub, or Switters’ anal sex with a nun to preserve her virginity.
The denouement is less important, to me at least, than the path…
mikey
Well sure, if you enjoyed the read, that’s the measure of the book isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Stephenson fan. I’ve got a copy of Zodiac in my to-read pile. And although I enjoyed Cryptonomicon immensely, the length of it has put me off starting the next series. I think stryx put it best:
By failing to fight Neal over Crytonomicon, the editor allowed The Baroque Cycle’s 50,000 pages to enter the world.
By failing to fight Neal over Crytonomicon, the editor allowed The Baroque Cycle’s 50,000 pages to enter the world.
Hey, since Thomas Pynchon gets away with it, what could I say?
Cryptonomicon also is where Neal has Bobby Shaftoe the Nazi with the necrotic hemorrhoids….
Hey, the hermaphroditic Straqnothlvorian warrior stories aren’t gonna write themselves…cut him some slack.
“After all, so far in this election cycle, the only candidate to raise the point of Obama’s race has been — Hillary Clinton, who noted (correctly) that the only reason Obama was ahead of her in the delegate count was his overwhelming support by black voters.”
Ahhh, the ever popular, “The only reason your team won is because they scored more points then my team did.” foot stomping hissy. Call 911, we need a waaahmbulance, stat.
Karl Schroeder
There’s even a free download of one of his books there. Go. Read. Enjoy.
It’s not always but usually, a bachelor party. There’s one guy, sometimes he’s fat, sometimes he’s just well…we’ll leave that aside for now. But he’s the guy who gets way too drunk and does something so stupid, self-destructive, mindlessly pointless that the whole event takes a nosedive. Then, it’s a matter of extracting said individual from the above alluded to description.
Every time I read one of your hilarious posts about this blowhard that’s what I think about.
Oh, that book sample, sweet fucking jeebus, I realize star trek fanfic is the very definition of drek but are telling me that a company publishes that shit and people buy it? No fucking kidding?
Wow. I had no idea. And I had a pretty low opinion of humanity before this epiphany.
Brandi: I guess I’m the only person who mostly preferred the Merlin cycle. The first cycle was brilliant, of course, but it went into eyeroll “days of old, when knights were bold” territory too often, and Zelazny liked to stretch Shadow walking sequences out for fucking pages at the time.
Hey, taste no accounting for– I just found that in the Corwin cycle there was still a sense of mystery about Amber and the shadow worlds that seemed pretty much gone from the Merlin cycle. I wasn’t crazy about Merlin’s high-powered toys, either. YMMV.
I’m going to have to say that because Daffy-D’s “writing” is all fanfic, either Trek or Doom, he does not qualify for the top category in this handy chart. More likely, it is only the unsung, heroic efforts of his poor editor that keep him out of the bottom one.
Who wants to place bets as to whether he’s a lion, a fox or a weasel furry?
D.a.H., What’s in your closet…
I’m interested in hearing what people thought of Infinite Jest.
“Drek’la occupation”?
Call Dr Freud.
Let me recommend this book for the science fictionauts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Things
Gray’s written some other science-fiction/fabulist type stuff and is often brilliant.
Bubba, not just Banks, but this too, you are the man……..!!
Next you are going to recommend pre 2000 Coupland or anything by Paul Auster & I know you have been stalking me for the last 10 years…..
Non-stop laughs, of course.
Bubba, I also met the old bugger years ago, when I was at uni in Glasgow. He used to wander about late at night getting inspiration, or ‘just looking around’, as he described it to me (I was waiting at a bus stop). The police and even the local ‘neds’ knew him well, and let him be. Unfortunately, I didn’t know who he was at the time (being a morally degenerate Engineering student), but when I told the story to my flatmate, she told me who he was, and so began a literary journey for me. My favorite is “The Fall of Kelvin Walker”, and “Lanark” runs it close. Thought he would be difficult to ‘get’ outside of Scotland, but you have proved me wrong. One of the most memorable nights of my life was listening to reading by him around the time of the release of ‘Poor Things”.
I haven’t read his most recent; “Old Men in Love”, as Saigon book shops being a bit short on his books.
He is now pretty well known back home now for his saying, inscribed on our Parliament; “Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.”.
Of course, all SF after
“Star Maker”TheStarchildFoundation Trilogy is fundamentally trash, anyway.Fixeder!
Cryptonomicon also is where Neal has Bobby Shaftoe the Nazi with the necrotic hemorrhoids….
No, that’s Hermann Goering. (Or else you missed out a crucial “and”).
Banks has done some truly brilliant work. Feersum Endjinn is, as mentioned above, fucking amazing. The Bridge put me off a bit as well. Most everything he’s done that has his middle initial in the credit I have liked.
I’m a bit surprised not to see any mention of Gene Wolfe in here. Love him, but 5k or so pages for the Book of All the Fucking Suns is a bit of an investment, timewise. It does actually come together fantastically, but you had better like the journey, as mikey said above about someone else. Wolfe gets a little Churchy at times, too. I’m not all that put off by fairly appropriate use of iconography. I do know some folks for whom it’s like fuming acid. The guy can fucking write, though.
After a recent-ish re-read of Norstrillia, I found out they had published a complete volume of Cordwainer Smith’s short fiction. It sits at the foot of my bed, eying me hungrily. I just haven’t found the right chunk of time for it yet. It also doesn’t have the neat little chronology that the not so complete collection that I lent out had. I need to get a xerox of that.
Vinge, while admittedly not the craftiest wordsmith, can be truly visionary. True Names was a seminal work that influenced the development of actual technology as well as an emerging writing movement. It’s only a so-so bit of prose, but the ideas are all there.
I’ll weigh in with the “not too long” side on the Cryptonomicon. I was quite ready for more when it ended, actually. Not that I have given in to the urge to submerse myself in the Baroque Cycle just yet. Heh, when I read
I immediately thought, “not a Pynchon fan, I see.” Of course, somebody beat me to it, and with a much better snark index. That’s what keeps me coming back.
Oh, and…
YOU’RE ALL A BUNCH OF GEEKS!
Neener neener.
Yeah, I know. I am too…
Actually, as I explain here, DS9 is a prescient warning about the folly of cutting and running from Iraq.
I unreservedly agree with everyone who recommended Iain M. Banks and Charles Stross; they’re great at both creating bizarre and unusual settings, and telling interesting stories within those settings. I’m working my way through Banks’s latest right now, but I second the recommendations of Player of Games and Use of Weapons, but I also have a soft spot for Look to Windward, which had some interesting reflection regarding terrorism and cultural self-determination, made more haunting by the fact that it was published in the U.S. shortly before the 9/11 attacks.
I may slightly prefer Stross to Banks these days, but that’s probably in part because Stross is so prolific; he’s come out with at least four books in the last two years, and he doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down. Everything of his that I’ve read is pretty good, but I have to admit that I like it when he riffs on themes that other authors have touched on. Some of his fans dislike his Merchant Princes series, but I enjoy the way it combines the central conceit of Zelazny’s Amber series with free-trade economic theory. The Glass House struck me as what The Handmaid’s Tale may have been like, had Margaret Atwood been less of an optimist.
Also, props to Gene Wolfe, whose books are good; I think justme’s comment at 10:35 is pretty accurate as regards Wolfe.
As for the Zelazny debate, I have to come down on the side of those who prefer the Corwin books. The Merlin series struck me as suffering from setting bloat; Zelazny seemed to keep stuffing all sorts of new characters and metaphysical gewgaws into the setting, but they struck me as out of keeping with the tone of the original books. In some ways, the original series was about being trapped in a dysfunctional family, turning the dysfunction up to 11, and being unable to escape from that because, in many ways, there’s no real outside world for you to escape to. Once you expand the setting the way the Merlin books did, that sense of social claustrophobia disappears, as do most of the compelling conflicts. That was my experience, at least.
Science Fiction is such a demanding genre that, book or film, it tends to be either very good or very bad.
I was spoiled as a bored kid in a small town with a good library, so my adolescence was a blur of cream-skimming from the 50’s, ’60s, and early ’70’s.
Set my personal bar pretty high. After what I consider a real Trough of Despond, I think it’s picking up again.
It’s a cookbook!
I think Daffyd needs a girlfriend, obviously someone with a sci-fi bent, and who better than (fanfare) Doctress Neutopia!
OMFG!–she’s running for President!
Enjoying the hell out of alt.society.neutopia posts all those years ago and weeping when the Monster Truck Neutopian website went dark, I never thought I’d live to see this day. She wants to build a network of solar-powered arcologies, starting with New Orleans (and maybe Cedar Rapids?). Throw away your sci-fi, because the future has arrived.
Hey, the hermaphroditic Straqnothlvorian warrior stories aren’t gonna write themselves…
Why not? If those Straqnothlvorian warrior stories really are hemaphroditic, they shouldn’y need any assistance in procreating.
Who wants to place bets as to whether he’s a lion, a fox or a weasel furry?
D.a.H., What’s in your closet…
Oh please, Mr. “squeezed novel” is 100% skunk.
Following that link to Neutopia’s site quickly leads to The Galactic Research Institute of the Foundation of the Law of Time, the awesomeness of which cannot be overstated.
In particular, you can download a pdf of the 13 month lunar calendar for the year of the white lunar wizard (7/26/2005-7/25/2008).
Since I kind of started this, I’ll have to admit that I was deliberately just a bit hyperbolic.
Gene Wolfe, absolutely. I was always proud of my lexical knowledge but frakkin A he sends me to the OED every page. Which is great.
Disch? Camp Concentration is one of the funniest and best written short novels EVAH. But again, what’s he done since 1980?
Same for Delany – he did most of his work and certainly the best was pre-1980.
On the other hand, no love for Rudy Rucker?
Dan Simmons? C’mon – the Hyperion shit was fan-fucking-tastic. Olympos/Ilium didn’t seem to hold together very well – like he was just going through the motions.
Ursula LeGuin. Had the pleasure of hearing her speak recently. She could give Gore Vidal a run for snidest most condescending brilliant writer.
for mikey, justme and all the other Cryptonomifans
Anathem is due out Sept. 9 – another 960 pages of Stephenson-y goodness for y’all.
And by the way, at Wikipedia SF authors page, Daffy abSplooge is at the very top of the list. Somebody with some spare time really ought to update his wiki entry.
Wow, Doctress Frutopia is still around? Man, that takes me back. I wonder what Archimedes Plutonium is up to these days.
I loved Infinite Jest, personally. The only problem I have with its length is how damned hard it makes it to convince other people to read it. I’ll trick my brother into picking it up someday.
I think Daffyd needs a girlfriend, obviously someone with a sci-fi bent, and who better than (fanfare) Doctress Neutopia!
OMFG!–she’s running for President!
Enjoying the hell out of alt.society.neutopia posts all those years ago and weeping when the Monster Truck Neutopian website went dark, I never thought I’d live to see this day. She wants to build a network of solar-powered arcologies, starting with New Orleans (and maybe Cedar Rapids?). Throw away your sci-fi, because the future has arrived.
I can’t wait for the press conference in which she goes into great detail about her sexcapades with Thomas Jefferson.
Seriously, this news made my day. This calls for a Monster Truck Neutopia family reunion! Anyone else out there?
ʘ ʘ
\__/
Dragon-King Wangchuck said,
June 25, 2008 at 22:30
For some reason that makes me laugh.
since I barfed in Harlan Ellison’s hotel room at somethingorothercon in the 70’s
You’re my fucking hero.
who better than (fanfare) Doctress Neutopia!
Fanfare?
Does that consist of pizza and carbonated-caffeine drinks?
Barbecue and Mekons singalongs. And monster trucks.
Disclosure: I was never an MTN but alt.society.neutopia (and alt.religion.scientology) introduced me to online entertainment in ’94 and ’95.
It has everything that an Islamo-elitist would want. It has commie-Elvises
i believe the plural is Elvii.
Three or four page diversions that have nothing to do with the story? Oh, wait you’re saying that the pointless bits help add to the characterization of Randy as an anal retentive neurotic freakshow.
Yes, quite like Melville’s 12 pages on frikkin’ rope in Moby Dick.
Spiders, were you on ARK back in those days?
Alt.religion.scientology is what got me my first cease-and-desist letter.
Good times, good times.
Alt.religion.scientology is what got me my first cease-and-desist letter.
Thanks for fighting the good fight Doc…or wait a minute…
Yes, quite like Melville’s 12 pages on frikkin’ rope in Moby Dick.
Okay I guess music video’s have wrecked me. Moby Dick? Too long by 50%. WTF? The guy’s crazy and his all consuming obsession has not only ruined his life, but it’s going to kill him too. If you need more than 100K words to say that, you’re doing it wrong.
Hey, since I’m burning books anyways, the Bible? Too fricking long. Whoever thought that keeping Numbers in was messed in the head. And cut the stupid begat lists to maybe two. Son of Shlmiel, son of Schlomo – and that’s it. No one cares who the great great great X30 grandpappy of anyone was. The whole I can trace my heritage back to
the MayflowerNoah is fucking elitist garbage, and thousands of years out of date. Axe out that shit. Fucking greatest story ever told? Maybe if you need help getting to sleep.i believe the plural is Elvii.
Well sure, but I just replaced Red with commie. Don’t blame me if the russian rokenrol revolution don’t have a grasp on pluralizatia.
disinterested observer: Imagine if Adolf Hitler had been a science fiction writer!!!
What an odd comment! For Adolf Hitler was a science fiction writer; and what else was he? Who that has ever heard the obscure name “Hitler” knows him for anything else? Only, at best, a handful of friends and family. After all, aside from his vivid fantasy life, Adolf Hitler made no great mark upon this world.
And he was definitely one of the best SF writers; a luminary of science fiction’s “Golden Age.” Hitler was not a prolific author, yet what little work he did produce was of the highest quality. As all dedicated SF fans know; Hitler won a Hugo in 1954 for his extraordinary masterpiece, Lord of the Swastika.
Master
of obscure triviaKiernan,linkee no workee. Try this instead.
Also, book to burn for this comment – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. This sucker is too long by 99%. And to piss-off the non-muggles and Jonah Goldberg even more, I haven’t even read the thing. I figured that since Rowling wrote it as a screenplay, I’d just watch the movie – and dear me, what a load of horribly hideous garbage. Here’s my plot summary:
Snotty brat, with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever (except that Daniel Radcliffe is kinda cute in that way too young and of the wrong gender kinda way) gains admittance to a super exclusive school, the graduates of which exercise privileges and powers beyond the mere mortals, by virtue of who his parents were. Ostracized at the beginning, he gains way more respect then he deserves, by virtue of being good at sports. What a great message for all the young readers out there.
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