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Margaret Atwood's Latest Deals With Financial Crisis, Horrific Floods, Hymns About Al Gore

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Dessad
04/09/09

In reply to Margaret Atwood's Latest Deals With Financial Crisis, Horrific Floods, Hymns About Al Gore
Margaret Atwood? Really, io9?

Seriously, my respect for this website just dropped several hundred points.
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Lassus
04/10/09

@Dessad: Why?
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Pope John Peeps II
04/10/09

@Lassus: One doesn't question the idiots. You always get an idiotic answer.
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Lassus
04/09/09

In reply to Margaret Atwood's Latest Deals With Financial Crisis, Horrific Floods, Hymns About Al Gore
Science Fiction and choral music! If there's baseball in this book, I'm going to be buried with it.

Oh wait. Maybe they are solo hymns. Hmmmm....
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
04/09/09

@Lassus: Baseball is probably a tool of the patriarchy. All those straight lines and keeping score and rules. Certainly the manicured grass isn't eco-friendly.
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TheAlmanac
04/09/09

In reply to Margaret Atwood's Latest Deals With Financial Crisis, Horrific Floods, Hymns About Al Gore
Ahh, good old Margaret Atwood...you can always count on her to deny that her science fiction novels are science fiction when asked about it in interviews. :/
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
04/09/09

@TheAlmanac: They'd make her give back all her literary awards and her whole reputation if she didn't.

Plus, everybody knows it isn't science fiction if there aren't ray guns, spaceships, and robots.
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JeremiahRam
04/09/09

In reply to Margaret Atwood's Latest Deals With Financial Crisis, Horrific Floods, Hymns About Al Gore
Okay, I am reading Oryx and Crake right now, and Year of the Flood seems to be a related novel (God's Gardners are in O&C, Amanda the bioartist, Jimmy, etc.), but I can't find anything that mentions that it's a sequel or companion novel to Oryx and Crake. Am I crazy?
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twophrasebark
04/09/09

@alphanumeric1971:

What do you mean by "relevant?"

I think her work is important. Maybe she's not hip anymore, I dunno.
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twophrasebark
04/09/09

Ooops, responded to wrong post...
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alphanumeric1971
04/09/09

In reply to Margaret Atwood's Latest Deals With Financial Crisis, Horrific Floods, Hymns About Al Gore
Ms. Atwood hasn't been relevant since "The handmaidens Tale" and even then, that was little more than a femminist nightmare compilation that will never happen.
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
04/09/09

@alphanumeric1971: And even that wasn't an original idea like everyone who overpraises her thinks.

I'm as feminist, anti-religious right, anti-pollution as the next womyn (heh) but I find Atwood both tiresome and tedious.
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gtheule
04/09/09

@alphanumeric1971: That's strange. The literary community, from the Booker Prize and Giller Prize to the Chicago Tribune Literary Awards seem to think pretty highly of her work since Handmaid's Tale, but I'm sure that you, who don't quite seem to be able to spell the name of the book correctly, know better.
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
04/09/09

@gtheule: Things that win literary awards aren't necessarily good writing.

They're often bad -- or at least unoriginal -- science fiction.
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gtheule
04/09/09

@Evil Tortie's Mom: Sure, win one award, maybe bad SiFi. At two you kind of wonder. When the awards continue to accrue from a broad cross section of sources and are supplemented by honours like France's Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, or a Guggenheim Fellowship then I'll take the literary community's word for it over someone who's pretty sure that her work of fiction won't come true, that's all.
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
04/09/09

@gtheule: My criteria for good fiction has nothing to do with whether it will come true or not. Where did you get that idea?

I find her tiresome and tedious. You may agree with the litfic crowd about how great and original she is; I do not.
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Discodave: R.O.A.C.H. M.O.T.E.L.
04/09/09

@alphanumeric1971: Isn't there a bridge somewhere that's missing you sitting under it?
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twophrasebark
04/09/09

I like Margaret Atwood.
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alphanumeric1971
04/09/09

@Discodave: Nope. that's my honest opinion. I'm in no way trying to bait anyone. She's just an average liberal Canadian artist.
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steampoweredboy
04/09/09

@alphanumeric1971: I think I'd prefer your dishonest opinion. Cause this honesty has you coming off like a jackass.
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Lassus
04/09/09

@alphanumeric1971: Funny, I heard the same hate from the same people for Tepper. Shocking.

Atwood has written some unbelievably beautiful works; and "The Blind Assassin" is simply stunning storytelling.

Even your (plural) favorite author wrote some dreck somewhere.

I'm looking forward to this, but I'm going to read Oryx & Crake first. I will strongly recommend the Blind Assassin to anyone who loves the written word.
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alphanumeric1971
04/09/09

@steampoweredboy: well so do you with that jackass comment, resorting to name calling is a sign of someone losing an argument.
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
04/09/09

@Lassus: Tepper doesn't win major literary awards and sell millions and get taught in schools and such.

I'm all for women writers and feminist writers at that -- we need more.

But Atwood? Eh.
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Pope John Peeps II
04/10/09

@alphanumeric1971: No big daddy, actually it's not. It just means, cowboy, that you're a tiresome boob and people actually lack the energy to bother arguing with you.

And just for the record, chief, you're firmly allowed to not like her. But sarge you're actually not allowed to say "she's a terrible writer". Point 1 is a subjective opinion, point 2 is a stupid troll-ish statement devoid of any sort of real-world consideration.

Atwood's very relevant, just not to you, buckaroo. And she's very good, just not to you, captain. So I hate to tell you this, but the world don't begin and end with you.
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steampoweredboy
04/10/09

@alphanumeric1971: You're more than welcome not to like a writer, but your "opinion" is:

A: Misspelled.

B: Factually incorrect. Since there are any number of examples of anti-female religious tyranny's around the world. And if you think that the theocrats on the right in the US don't have wet dreams about the society described in "The Handmaid's Tale" you're simply misinformed.

C: This is not an argument.

Now lie down and wait for the nice men to come in with your tonic and strap you in for the night.
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alphanumeric1971
04/10/09

@steampoweredboy: Atwoods premise for the handmaidens tale was that women would lose there power in North America. I'm sorry, but I really don't see that happening.
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Pope John Peeps II
04/10/09

@alphanumeric1971: IT WASN'T A FUCKING INSTRUCTION MANUAL JESUS CHRIST. IT WAS A WORK OF FICTION.

Just quit it. You're so far up yourself that it's kind of embarrassing. Just stop defending the idea that your opinion is somehow some objective fact. The longer that goes on the more silly, inane things you're going to be forced to imagine and say.
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Rasselas
04/09/09

In reply to Margaret Atwood's Latest Deals With Financial Crisis, Horrific Floods, Hymns About Al Gore
We don't have debtors' prisons anymore, either.
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twophrasebark
04/09/09

@Rasselas:

I thought so too:

[www.nytimes.com]
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