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San Francisco, 12:09 AM
Sat Dec 12
27 posts in the last 24 hours

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    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of braak: You are, as usual, completely correct. braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
    12/01/09

    In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
    That settles it, I guess. I shall write a theatrical adaptation of this book.
     Reply
    braak: You are, as usual, completely correct. was starred braak: You are, as usual, completely correct. was unstarred
    Image of Moff Moff
    11/29/09

    In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
    Just a quick note:

    Does Fritz Leiber not LOOK FUCKING AWESOME? Like, doesn't that portrait make you think: "That dude is gonna science-fiction the fuck outta me"?
     Reply
    Moff was starred Moff was unstarred
    Image of Grey_Area Grey_Area
    11/29/09

    @Moff: He really does. I am all a-tingle!
     Reply
    Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred
    Image of Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
    11/30/09

    @Moff: He was really awesome even when old and sick. Sharp as a tack till the end, and could declaim that Shakespeare even in a reduced voice.
     Reply
    Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. was starred Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. was unstarred
    Image of Grey_Area Grey_Area
    11/29/09

    In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
    Loving your Hugo posts, Moffie.
    Have you ever read Leiber's 1968 A Spectre is Haunting Texas? Been out of print for too long but very worth hunting down. It too draws on his theatrical background. A Shakespearean actor from an orbital habitat foments a Marxist revolution in a North America now ruled by Texas. He was riffing on Lyndon Johnson's Great Society taken to comic extremes, but his picture of all-powerful anti-intellectual Good Ol' Boys seems eerily prescient.
     Reply
    Edited by Grey_Area at 11/29/09 5:18 PM Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred
    Image of Moff Moff
    11/29/09

    @Grey_Area: Oooh, I am intrigued. A few weeks ago, I finally picked up a copy of the first Fafhrd & GM book, too, which I am excited to get to, should I ever have free time again before my eyes begin to fail.
     Reply
    Moff was starred Moff was unstarred
    Image of Grey_Area Grey_Area
    11/29/09

    @Moff: Should your eyes fail, just use sonar like I do.
    EEEEEK EEEEK EEEEEK!
    I use this method to read in dimly lit bars where of course I do all my literary criticism.
     Reply
    Edited by Grey_Area at 11/29/09 9:29 PM Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred
    Image of fyngyrz fyngyrz
    11/29/09

    In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
    I also really liked the "conservation of reality" idea. The opposite of what most timeline change presumes. Very nice. Quite aside from enjoying SF works as full experiences, I always count it a win when I run into something very clever or insightful in very compact form.
     Reply
    Moff promoted this comment fyngyrz was starred fyngyrz was unstarred
    Image of RyanF RyanF
    11/29/09

    In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
    I can't say that I enjoyed this one. In fact, I think it's among my least favorite of the Hugos I've read (but at least not as bad as _They'd Rather Be Right_!). I just don't get the point. Locking people from various times and planets in a single room together and letting them have at each other for 150 pages is such a great idea. You'd expect an interesting discussion of the nature of history or humanity, and some in-depth character studies. Instead we get the politics of an off-stage "time war" in the vaguest and most jargon-heavy of terms.

    If we're going to spend the novel on the Change War, I'd rather see it in action than read allusions to it. If we're not going to see it, I'd like to see a focus on character and dialog among a really odd mix of people. Instead, we get the worst of both worlds.

    I enjoyed your review though, Moff. I just didn't see the Change War (as presented here) as all that interesting, and I didn't see the point of the book's strange format. I think Leiber actually crippled himself with his own rules here.
     Reply
    Moff approved this comment RyanF was starred RyanF was unstarred
    Image of Moff Moff
    11/29/09

    @RyanF: Yeah, the story Leiber gives us isn't what you'd expect from the elements it's made up of -- I mean, it would not make a particularly great movie, I think. But the story will stick with me, for whatever reason, and I liked the end, when it gets into ideas of the Demons as possibility-binders, etc. I'm a sucker for that kind of thing, though.
     Reply
    Moff was starred Moff was unstarred
    Image of KeithZG KeithZG
    11/29/09

    In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
    I don't know at what point you decided "let us blog about books that made a big impression on KeithZG during his childhood", but good choice ;)

    I dunno, there's definitely good science fiction out there nowadays, but really, reminding me of "The Big Time" reminds me of when science fiction still had the guts to be Science Fiction rather than "Fiction, and we'll throw in Something to do with Science too". The fact that the next installment of this series is about something by James Blish just rubs it in, really.

    I'd say more, but it'd be too "you kids! get off my lawn!" to be respectable . . . especially since I'm still in my 20s! What can I say, I read too much Asimov and Brunner in my childhood. Thinking of, dear gods, how powerful would a miniseries or a made-for-tv movie of The Wrong End of Time be today? Especially after so much of Brunner's dystopian predictions ended up true . . . I get shivers just thinking of it.

    ...or in other words, keep doing what you're doing ;)
     Reply
    Moff promoted this comment KeithZG was starred KeithZG was unstarred
    Image of Austin Grossman Austin Grossman
    11/28/09

    In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
    I haven't thought about that the Change War in forever! Is it me or is Leiber kind of a forgotten man of SF/F literature? Because of his sexual politics, maybe? I suppose Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road was a tribute.
     Reply
    Austin Grossman was starred Austin Grossman was unstarred
    Image of not_Bridget not_Bridget
    11/29/09

    @Austin Grossman: Forgotten? Hardly. At least, no more than many other SF pioneers now mostly out of print.

    Yes, Gentlemen of the Road is (among other things) a tribute to Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser, his sword & sorcery heroes. (What if Conan had a sense of humor?) In fact, Leiber invented the phrase "Sword & Sorcery."

    But Leiber didn't write any huge, sprawling epics. Faff & his pal had long careers that were published as short stories & novelettes.

    The Big Time is, indeed, small--a gem that could have been done as an arty B&W TV production back in the day. (With a bit of puppetry for one character.)

    My first Change War story was "No Great Magic"--published in Galaxy & available here: [www.gutenberg.org]

    Some of the same characters & even more theatrical!
     Reply
    Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. promoted this comment not_Bridget was starred not_Bridget was unstarred
    Image of Dr Emilio Lizardo Dr Emilio Lizardo
    11/28/09

    In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
    Without rules, SF becomes fantasy. And not in a good way. Without rules, every resolution can be a deus ex machina. Since we are dealing with new worlds, it is important that we have rules that are explained so we can understand the importance of events. Every good SF book has rules. In the best books, they aren't just laid out for all to see, they are made apparent by the background. The rules may be physical or sociological but they must be consistent. Without rules, Niven's "Known Space" with technology controlled for the people's own good has much less impact. As you pointed out, the rules serve as a framework for whole series of stories. Again, in Niven's universe all crimes are capital crimes because organ transplants are easy and in demand. Asimov's robot stories were an excellent example of this. Asimov seemed to delight in finding loopholes to write new stories about.
     Reply
    Edited by Dr Emilio Lizardo at 11/28/09 8:32 PM Dr Emilio Lizardo was starred Dr Emilio Lizardo was unstarred
    Image of braak: You are, as usual, completely correct. braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
    12/01/09

    @Dr Emilio Lizardo: Listen: fantasy also has rules. Deus ex machina is not intrinsic to fantasy, and actually also is subject to rules. You have two genres here that are explicitly about avoiding the real literal, they work exactly the same way. You don't have to like them both, but there's a point at which you've got to stop pretending that they're fundamentally dissimilar.
     Reply
    braak: You are, as usual, completely correct. was starred braak: You are, as usual, completely correct. was unstarred
    Image of Dr Emilio Lizardo Dr Emilio Lizardo
    12/01/09

    @braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.: You missed my point. I have nothing against fantasy even though I read far more SF. Frankly, the boundries have been blurring in a lot of what I have been reading lately. I didn't mean that it becomes Fantasy (big F) as a literary genre, I meant fantasy (little f) as in it's just some imaginary thing the author thought up to write himself out of a corner that comes out of nowhere. That's why I said "not in a good way." Sorry if I was unclear.

    In short, Braak, you are, as usual, completely correct.
     Reply
    Dr Emilio Lizardo was starred Dr Emilio Lizardo was unstarred
    Image of Guang Guang
    11/28/09

    In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
    I have this book filed under first of a series, but not sure if I've read it or not. Wikipedia has no further info - was this a trilogy or something like that?
     Reply
    Dr Emilio Lizardo promoted this comment Guang was starred Guang was unstarred
    Image of Dr Emilio Lizardo Dr Emilio Lizardo
    11/28/09

    @Guang: Check Lieber's bibliography on his Wikipedia page. It lists several Change War books and stories. Probably easiest to Ctrl-f and search for "Change."
     Reply
    Dr Emilio Lizardo was starred Dr Emilio Lizardo was unstarred
    Image of klondykekid klondykekid
    11/28/09

    @Dr Emilio Lizardo: Besides The Big Time, the 7 short stories are collected in a volume called Changewar. There's a bit of autobiography (about 114 pages called "Not Much Disorder and Not so Early Sex") in another collection called The Ghost Light. These were all Ace books between 1982 and 1984.
     Reply
    Moff promoted this comment klondykekid was starred klondykekid was unstarred
    Image of rebelj12a rebelj12a
    11/13/09

    In reply to What If the Beatles Never Broke Up?
    I heard this on the radio so i thought I'd post it here.

    This guy claims that he fell into another dimension and took a tape (cds never made it) from a guys house who was helping him. This tape is from the Beatles, who apparantly never broke up. Of course, he has posted all the songs online.

    While this is obviously fake i'd feedback on here to debunk this nice and good, give it a good stomping. So here, listen and I leave it to the wolves.

    [thebeatlesneverbrokeup.com]
     Reply
    gunluva is prepared to drop. promoted this comment Edited by rebelj12a at 11/13/09 6:18 PM rebelj12a was starred rebelj12a was unstarred
    Image of gunluva is prepared to drop. gunluva is prepared to drop.
    11/14/09

    @rebelj12a:

    I love this story. It's got tons of holes, sure, but still. I'm listening to the music, and it's all obviously a bunch of remixes. The drums sound like samples put on repeat. There's not much humanity to them. It's pretty nice to listen to, though. I'm keeping this stuff. #thebeatles
     Reply
    gunluva is prepared to drop. was starred gunluva is prepared to drop. was unstarred
    Image of Klebert L. Hall Klebert L. Hall
    11/13/09

    In reply to What If the Beatles Never Broke Up?
    "How might the face of music, television, and politics have changed if the Beatles had stuck around?"

    Probably not very different at all.

    The Beatles broke up pretty much at the top of their game. This was almost certainly a good thing. Artists (perhaps especially musicians) really only have so much to give. After that, it just becomes sort of sad and embarrassing.

    Why would anyone want them to have become what the Rolling Stones have become? Or The Who?
    -Kle. #thebeatles
     Reply
    Klebert L. Hall was starred Klebert L. Hall was unstarred
    Image of Sunshineyness Sunshineyness
    11/12/09

    In reply to What If the Beatles Never Broke Up?
    Honest? I cried reading that thinking of how awesome that would have been. SEVEN MORE SEASONS OF THE MUPPET SHOW???

    II think in all honesty, had Lennon not been shot I suspect they would have pulled their heads out of their asses long enough to realize they may be good on their own but they were magic together. Maybe never do another album but at least a special reunion concert.

    Happenstance, I just watched Hard Day's Night again the other night and forgot just how plain... fun The Beatles were. Seeing them young and funny like that. Man, it breaks your heart knowing how it ends. #thebeatles
     Reply
    Sunshineyness was starred Sunshineyness was unstarred
    Image of Smeagol92055 Smeagol92055
    11/12/09

    In reply to What If the Beatles Never Broke Up?
    That was brilliant and well-thought out... except I would have expected it to be Bill O'Reilley that criticized Lennon, not Hannity. #thebeatles
     Reply
    Smeagol92055 was starred Smeagol92055 was unstarred
    Image of meehawl meehawl
    11/12/09

    In reply to What If the Beatles Never Broke Up?
    All this warble garble on an SF blog and not a single mention of Ian MacLeod's "Snodgrass", an alternative history where the Beatles started out very different indeed?
    [www.infinityplus.co.uk] #thebeatles
     Reply
    Bootknife-Jackson promoted this comment meehawl was starred meehawl was unstarred
    Image of Bongoes Bongoes
    11/12/09

    In reply to What If the Beatles Never Broke Up?
    Fascinating. I wonder why Ringo disappeared at the end. That made no sense. #thebeatles
     Reply
    Grey_Area promoted this comment Bongoes was starred Bongoes was unstarred
    Image of Grey_Area Grey_Area
    11/12/09

    @Bongoes: Read the entry before that again. I think Ringo causes this timeline and goes back to try for another iteration where none of them die from cancer or assassination. Fookin' brill story. #thebeatles
     Reply
    Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred
    Image of Wookie1972 Wookie1972
    11/12/09

    @Grey_Area: He'd have to tell George to not start smoking. #thebeatles
     Reply
    Wookie1972 was starred Wookie1972 was unstarred
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