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Tue Dec 1
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| posts about #thesteelremains more → |
Richard K. Morgan Talks Noir Fantasy |
Richard K. Morgan on the Failures of Capitalism and the Success of Science Fiction |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
io9 
09/22/09
For me that was a nice twist, a fun way of looking at it - it's fantasy through a sci-fi lens.
09/23/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
Agreed.
09/22/09
I guess what I'm saying is, this is hardly new. And it's been hardly new for quite some time. Which doesn't make it any less enjoyable. It just irks me when folks forget past-as-precedent (even as they interact or intertextualize with it).
Okay, I'll go back to being quiet now.
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
And you know this how?
09/22/09
09/22/09
The black plague would seem to indicate that they, in fact, did not know how to wash themselves.
09/22/09
09/22/09
it's just too simple to say that anything that isn't "Democracy" is bad
09/22/09
The spread of the black plague had almost nothing to do with germ theory, and almost everything to do with lack of cleanliness. It was spread by fleas that passed from animals to humans. In countries wear bathing was common (the middle east) it's impact was drastically reduced.
So no, the western world in the middle ages did not bath much at all.
09/22/09
[www.gallowglass.org]
[www.traditioninaction.org]
see the section 'Bathing and bouquets'
09/22/09
09/22/09
Interesting, but I think you'll concede the vast majority of scholarship on the period falls on my side of the argument.
And there's that whole 1/2 to 2/3 of the entire population dying off too. That's pretty hard to ignore in favor of your well washed surfs hypothesis.
09/22/09
Also this thread brings up the eternal notion that springs up all the time that simple technological advancement is interchangeable with total human evolution. For some reason, we have it in our heads that man from hundreds of years ago was a primitive and stupid creature, that the governments were barbaric and murderous, that everything was basically a bad episode of Xena.
But man's history is pretty uniform. Middle ages man was no different than we are intellectually or physically. The only thing that has radically changed is basically our diet. It's a mistake to think they were "primitive" when in many ways, Middle Ages man far surpassed us in achievement. And feudalism, all in all, had some plusses. It wasn't always dictatorship.
09/22/09
The pyramids were a fantastic achievement, but I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to live when their were built and been part of the construction crew. Just because they achieved things does not mean they lived good lives.
As to bathing and the plague, and fleas. No, of course bathing alone doesn't get rid of fleas, but it does greatly reduced them, and coupled with general cleanliness it drastically reduces exposure to them.
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
Happily adding these to the queue.
09/22/09
09/22/09
People say the same thing about porn but that doesn't make it true.
The myth of Good Guys and Bad Guys is one of the most pervasive we own, and morally grey anti-heroes are simply one of modern fictions attempts to shake off that mythology and replace it with something a bit more honest.
One hesitates to suggest that honesty and justice are no less mythical, and "morally grey anti-heroes" no less clichéd, than farmboys with secret destinies and swarthy, wicked enemies.
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
I'm going to have to check out Morgan now...hopefully his stuff is just as dark as Abercrombie's!
09/22/09
09/22/09
Yes of course, Takeshi-san. That's where.
09/22/09
09/22/09
Some poor demigod perpetually reincarnated to fight the causes of others I imagine.
Anyone read Black Man (AKA Thirteen)?
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09