I've still not seen it myself, only watched Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away.Originally Posted by Timbuk2
This is a book?
I thought it was solely a Ghibli studios movie?
Which I have, and it's very good. Astonishing visuals, as with many of Ghibli/Miyazaki's productions.
Furiously maturating to Crime and Punishment. I surprisingly like Fyodor.
I remember reading the original in paperback. It did not have these errors.Cuz a republican wrote it.
Last edited by Lewkowski; 01-27-2011 at 09:10 PM.
I was just messing, the publisher is probably a moron then.
http://www.epbot.com/2011/01/book-re...-for-mars.html
I remember watching it explode, I was home sick from school and decided to watch the launch.
I just thought the book sounded entertaining in the blog post, added it to my list.
I'm currently rereading The Second Sex, incidentally. Hadn't read it since high school.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
I'm reading through "The Girl Who Played with Fire" now. I really should be reading my textbooks instead.
Your search had no results.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Slow start, but great book.
Obtained today: About 2 000 pages of Finnish political history
Next 2 000 after I'm through these
Whee
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Want an article on Finnish (and Swedish neutrality)? It's very recent.
Hope is the denial of reality
Sure! I've been reading about it for the, uh, past month or so. But from an inside perspective. It'd be interesting to see which 'suomettumis'-cliches they invoke!
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
If by "outside perspective", you mean Swedes.
http://www.box.net/shared/7jcl3rok5o
Hope is the denial of reality
Thought I'd try Dan Simmons, an American Sci-Fi ish author.
About 2/3rds of the way through this one.
It's really rather good.
If a little bit strange. A marriage of Homer's epic; The Iliad, with all its Greek mythology and Gods abound, and futuristic sci-fi tech, nano-bots, and space travel. Then sprinkled with brave new world post-humans and spiced up with Jovian cybernetic organisms who have an appreciation for Shakespeare and Proust.
The man has quite an active imagination.
Last edited by Timbuk2; 03-10-2011 at 07:27 PM.
Simmons seems to like writing sci-fi with heavy influence from classics. You should also try the Hyperion Cantos, which bears a lot of similarities to The Canterbury Tales.
But only read the first two books.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Almost finished with Scratch Beginnings.
http://www.amazon.com/Scratch-Beginn...0162400&sr=8-1
Pretty enjoyable and fits my world view too! (Though I thought he was a bit too understanding of the lazy bums at the homeless shelter he stayed at though).
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, I really like it. I read the Fountainhead before and thought that was fantastic, but this one puts my thoughts and views into a novel in a way I never could.
I'd love to see Nessus' reaction to that
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
It was long ago, but how did the folks here like the Foundation series (before the prequels)?
Caught hold of those in my freshman year in high school and fell in love with it.
Brevior saltare cum deformibus viris est vita
You mean the original Asimov, not the later Brin stuff? I didn't care for Second Foundation, and didn't read any of the additions Asimov added after, but I liked the first two books.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
I think it's better for everyone if I keep it to myself.I'd love to see Nessus' reaction to that
But let's throw this one in for good measure
Two novels can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.I really love them. It has been a couple years since I read them last, though.
The series changes quite a lot as it goes along, the first book in particular is pretty ordinary sci-fi Fall of the Roman Empire stuff, but then it gets more, hm, funky with the telepathy stuff. And the last two books, Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth read much more like sci-fi adventure material, which is obviously a disappointment if one was intrigued primarily by the Fall of the Roman Empire in space aspect. And I personally think it's cool he tied it into the Robot universe in the end, but many disagree.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
I don't have any problems with psi-fi, I quite like Schmitz' short stories, but I don't think Asimov did it very well.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
When I was around 13 and Babylon 5 was airing over here, I compared the Psi-Corps to the Mule and the 2nd foundation and at that time I preferred the Mule; it seemed more plausible to me that one could sense and control emotions rather than individual thoughts. Since I have no education on how the brain actually works, I can't today justify that with anything, but I think that's still the main reason why I like Asimov's take on psi-fi. (Neat term!) And I personally found Mule's character pretty believable, though the "super bull man of Kalgan" was a bit much. Asimov in general is a bit of a hit and miss writer though, and if he were writing today I don't know how highly I'd rate him.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
When I first read Foundation (holy shit, that was nearly twenty years ago - I remember he died just as I was finishing the last one), the Mule stories were my favorite parts. Never read the later parts of the series, after Foundation's Edge (IIRC). I never had a desire to read Foundation stories written by someone other than Asimov.
Heh, without Asimov we Germans would have never had Perry Rhodan
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
you were 13 when B5 came out?
I feel really old
Brevior saltare cum deformibus viris est vita
Finally got around to reading, and finishing Surface Detail, by Iain Banks. Not as good as the other culture books I've read so far. I suppose I should finish them off - still have Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons, the latter of which I keep hearing is really good.
Just picked up "Ilium" from Dan Simmons. It is fucking great! I can't put it down. 3 storylines, all completely bonkers and completely realistic at the same time. All connected by the story of Troy.
1. Battle of Troy. Scolics (people from current day Earth) are used by the Muses to check whether Homer's account of the Siege of Troy was accurate. Gods are real and use high-tech gadgetry to do their godstuff, but at the same time there's lots of mythology. But then the shit hits the fan.
2. 5 Constructs, one being a big fan of Shakespeare, one of Proust and arguing all the way there set off from Europa (the moon, not the continent) to figure out how Mars got terraformed all of a sudden. But then the shit hits the fan.
3. A community of people who all grow to be exactly 100 (or 5 Twenties as they call it), travel by faxportals. A select group goes in search of The Wandering Jew and find out a couple of disturbing facts about their way of life. The shit here is in the process of fan hitting.
I could have had class. I could have been a contender.
I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum
Which is what I am
I aim at the stars
But sometimes I hit London
John Scalzi *won the Campbell award for best new Sci-fi writer, in 2006* recently wrote Fuzzy Nation a reboot of H. Beam Piper's excellent Little Fuzzy world. It's not as personable or charming, but it's less dated than the original works are.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Heh, I saw that book on Amazon yesterday and thought of you.
Yeh Surface Detail was average. Not as piss-poor as Matter.
Look to Windward which leaves me breathless, and Excession are my favourites. Use of Weapons is excellent for its ending.
Consider Phlebas was his first Culture novel (and perhaps his first sci-fi one too ...) and is a bit ...
You should try his non-Culture sci-fi too. The Algebraist is
~
It's good eh. Very readable.
~
Have just finished Christopher Brookmeyer's All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses an Eye. Light-hearted, comedic, espionage page-turner.
And about half-way through the #1-selling and award-winning The Slap by Australian author Christos Tsiolkas.
Which is all about an adult who smacks his friend's unruly child's face when he is seriously misbehaving, during a suburban Melbourne barbeque.
Each chapter continues the narrative through a different person who was present, what their views are about this occurrence, and how they deal with it. A novel approach to this most topical of current affairs. A fantastic book, can't put it down.
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