Especially love the part where the woman turns into a lizard, and the goat sacrifice scene near the beginning.

but i'm not digging Glasshouse all that much...seems kinda predictable to me. I'll have to read up on reviews before i get any of his other books.

What I've always liked about the series is its playful attitude and it looks like that shall continue.

As an aside, Timothy Leary said in the 60's and 70's that the Japanese are the "most advanced society" on the planet and are most able for constructive extraterrestrial communications. Not that i'm a Leary fan or anything, just interesting to point out.

Sci-fi Dune, Children of Dune: These were both good i thought, though lacking alot of the earth-shattering philosophical and spiritual insight that permeates the series. Children of Dune has some thrilling parts, may be better than Dune. The end of "Part 1" with Inama Nushif and after is stunning. "Use my eyes father. Yes, father, it is me!" Gives me shivers of joy just thinking about it. James McAvoy IS Leto II. Not sure I like the actor who played Paul Muad-dib. Chani is great, as is Irulan, Alia, Ghani, and the Baron Harkonnen. Don't care for the "2nd" Lady Jessica.
Also, I totally agree that the Harkonnens were a little too much "cartoon" evil in the series. And if you actually dig into the books, the Harkonnens aren't necessarily "evil," they are a vital component of the manifestation of the Kwisatz Haderach.

And i actually think the human waste issue could be solved by the composting idea i mentioned before...

I could see these as being capsules for our meat-bodies to live, while our consciousness is online.

In Bruce Sterling's wonderful book Distraction, New Orleans is reconstructed to be like Venice. I think that's a solid idea.

True dat. But being horrified at seal-clubbing is not "wrong" or "against nature." It's just a product of our dualistic perceptions within an infinite, non-dual universe.

That's an interesting way to look at it, but i would propose that memes/transhumanism are Gaia's doing, as much as anything else. Non-duality, baby. We are never seperate from nature, no matter what we do. To paraphrase Frank Herbert, we are all a lens through which the universe comes into focus. We're all in this terrible beauty together. And yes, it does trouble me that means that G. Dubya and the Dick is a lens, just as much as Gandhi and Christ.

We visit boards like this, and cheer on great things like controlled mutations and posthumanism, because we're open to such things, and our "mutated" minds push us in those directions.

A combination of fear and hubris makes mainstream society deeply suspicious of such things, and i do believe there is a percentage of elites who wants to maintain a permanent underclass while they pursue their dreams. So the mainstream propaganda against consciously-directed evolution keeps coming, while sci-fi oriented artists do what they can to move this human organism forward.

You have the right idea. Personally I'm all for expatriating to another dimension.

What it comes down to is that actual free-market economic policies and true representative governance is much too threatening to oligarchical power structures, so that's why the elites need government as their tool of control. It's all about preserving power.

And not to stand on my soapbox, but we're not going to beat them at their game. We have to change the game. (Which is another reason I find sci-fi so inspirational.)

I actually just saw Cell 1 for the first time about a month ago. I thought it was moderately interesting with some great imagery...

P.S. anyone into synchromysticism, take note of John Cusack being in this...

Maybe it's not funny to joke about stuff like that.

agreed. the aesthetic reasons against alternative energy are so ludicrous. The "Progressives" in massachusetts really showed their true colors when they raised holy hell against wind turbines off their coast. Like coal smokestacks and oil refineries are so aesthetically pleasing? Though i did see an oil or gas refinery at night in Memphis that looked like something from H.R. Giger...

Once again, creativity is the solution. Build aesthetically-pleasing alternative energy and people will be clamouring to see them, and live nearby.

"I'm going to be get terribly elitist on your sorry asses and say if you think it's slow and sterile, your thought processes simply aren't deep enough."

agreed. it's actually quite exciting and mindblowing as long as you're tapped into the symbolism and the ideas behind it.

BTW, there's nothing wrong with people not liking one or another "important" movies. There's all kinds of books and movies that everyone tells me i "need" to watch that bore me to tears.

oh gosh you're right. "Do it to Julia!!! Not me, Not me!"

Definately agreed. In my opinion Frank Herbert is one of the greatest visionary thinkers that's ever walked this earth. Though i know he was inspired by many great ones before him.

"Religion is the emulation of the adult by the child. Religion is the encystment of past beliefs: mythology, which is guesswork, the hidden assumptions of trust in the universe, those pronouncements which men have made in search of political power, all of it mingled with shreds of enlightenment. And always the ultimate unspoken commandment is "Thou shalt not question!" But we question. We break that commandment as a matter of course. The work to which we have set ourselves is the liberating of the imagination, the harnessing of imagination to humankind's deepest sense of creativity."

I've only eaten it twice since then (being stuck in the middle of nowhere and starving) and both times it messed up my digestion for days.