Time To Fire Up The Blessing Generator
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For newcomers wishing to know more about what’s been going on here for the last decade and a half, in over 3,000 posts and over 130,000 comments, the reheated series is a pretty good place to start – in particular, the end-of-year-summaries, which convey the fullest flavour of what it is we do. A sort of blog concentrate. If you like what you find there… well, there’s lots more of that.
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As always, thanks for the support, the comments, and the company.
Now share ye links and bicker.
it’s surprising how many seemingly “progressive” people appear to have a fetish for cultures which have remained largely stagnant and unchanged for several thousand years. Cultures in which there is a demonstrable lack of the very thing they claim to admire.
For example.
Behaving in class is “white supremacy,” apparently.
Just got around to listening to this and to be honest, I kind of agree with him. Not so much on the “white supremacy” part but more in an “elitist supremacy” context. Just sitting, taking things in without debate and then regurgitating them back at a later date is a big part of the problem we are in. That is pretty much what indoctrination is. Of course were he to get actual pushback from other, possibly white, asian, hispanic, or wrong-thinking-blacks, his white ass may not be quite as enthusiastic about the idea. Careful what you ask for.
Re the envy of the world I doubt the veracity of the car mechanic’s comment on the grounds that there are no male GP’s.
new ringtone
April Winchell is a treasure. She’s a friend-of-a-friend in the “outsider music” community, and she was also the genius behind “Regretsy,” which was a source of delight for the few years it was active.
(But life is too short to waste time reading all those thousands of pages.)
You’re missing out. Banks is one of my favo(u)rites.
Bit late but:
I am not at all sure what is happening here.
Waffen SPQR?
Alright don’t push – I’m leaving.
Waffen SPQR?
Given the weapons, except for the guy with the Luger, more like the VII Guards Rifle Legion “Order of Suvorov”.
By the way, thanks to all who’ve chipped in so far, including all those much too shy to say hello, or who’ve subscribed, or done shopping via the Amazon links. It’s what keeps this place here and is much appreciated.
I agree with Governor Squid. Iain Banks’ SF got me to pay attention again to the genre after it went weak and woke.
The Culture’s energy sources and sociology are unlikely, but they make possible the interactions with non-Culture which generate the stories, which are well told.
Banks and I lived twenty miles apart, with mutual friends, though our paths never crossed. I am told he spent nine months of the year on his cars and motor bikes, then three months furiously writing the book, SF or not, he had conceived and plotted in the months before.
A sad loss.
McLuhan’s actual statement – much misreported and misunderstood – was The Medium is the Massage.
Massage = Mass Age
Behold the truth:
You’re missing out. Banks is one of my favo(u)rites.
Thanks, but unlikely: Leftist sf tends to annoy me and there is lots of other fiction to read.
Leftist sf tends to annoy me and there is lots of other fiction to read
Baen has a lot of exploding starships, although I now find Weber’s Honor Harrington series utterly insufferable.
An American love letter to Laurie Penny:
https://journal14.com/laurie-penny-and-americans-weird-about-our-first-amendment/
You got me with ‘The Year Reheated’. 😀
Tip jar hit.
Tip jar hit
Bless you, sir. When playing your favourite game on a tablet, as opposed to the phone on which said game has long been played, may you not lose your ninja-level muscle memory.
A prostration occurs:
Pale skin being a sign of “innate racism,” you see. According to Dr Crystal Duncan Lane, an educator at Virginia Tech.
Perhaps an apology for being a pretentious, neurotic, gaslighting shitbag might have been more appropriate.
Dear class, I sincerely apologise for being white.
It’s like a sickness.
It’s like a sickness.
It’s certainly not healthy. Just imagine, you turn up for a class on disability, and the first thing you get is a pantomime of pretentious collective guilt, which, by implication, insults any white students in the class as being innately racist too.
I suppose the question is how far gone you’d have to be, as a grown woman, to believe this woo, or to pretend such, publicly and ostentatiously, over and over again. (Which, in terms of neuroticism, amounts to much the same thing.)
It’s pernicious, degraded and revolting. Maybe our woke educator should just roll on the floor and piss on herself and be done with it.
Maybe our woke educator should just roll on the floor and piss on herself and be done with it.
Or nail herself to a cross? That, at least, would be less smelly. 😏
Part 2, QED.
I had no idea who that surly child was, until Ace of Spades identified her as Cara Delevingne, who has a history of very serious psychological problems. So…another entry for David’s thesis that leftist politics attracts damaged people.
My favourite of that genre is a couple of lads hearing Jolene for the first time. They pulled out some elements to praise that one takes for granted when it’s a really familiar piece.
Iain Banks’ Culture series.
You should read it. It is generally excellent.
The Culture’s communism works because it has such an abundance of everything that it can live by: from each according to what they fancy doing that day, to each whatever they can dream of. It is a society which has solved the fundamental problem of economics.
BMX kids FTW.
and the first thing you get is a pantomime of pretentious collective guilt, which, by implication, insults any white students in the class as being innately racist too.
Microaggression!
“Theodore Dalrymple described African towns which were wonderful to visit in the daytime but deadly dangerous at night when, in the pitch-dark streets, robbers would waylay and murder the unwary for what little they possessed.”
I may have mentioned that a lamp-post in my street hasn’t worked for at least three years. The Council spent much of last week painting markings on the road in preparation for the Great Parking Shakedown (50 years ago it was a private road; now they’re making us pay for the privilege of parking at our own front doors), but in the middle of winter it gets dark before 3 in the afternoon and I can’t help wondering how their enforcers are going to be able to see who has a ticket and who hasn’t.
Maybe they’ll give them miners’ lamps on their heads like the binmen used to have. Of course, that means we’ll be able to see them coming and move our cars as soon as we see the tell-tale flashes of light in the window.
I don’t think they’ve thought this through.
Maybe they’ll give them miners’ lamps on their heads like the binmen used to have.
Like 1960s Cybermen? Cool.
Did that Cyberman outfit pre or post-date Grolsch?
It is a society which has solved the fundamental problem of economics.
Which is why I find it facile (along with Star Trek‘s replicator-based post-scarcity). Economics is not a mathematical field of study; it’s the study of human behaviour. Human behaviour is determined by innate biological instincts evolved over a quarter million years in a neolithic hunter-gatherer environment. Banks’ SF makes the typical Soviet New Man mistake; the limited amounts of transhumanism in the system doesn’t address the fact that if you take away all scarcity human beings will still find something to define as artificially scarce and hoard that because we’re wired for it.
SF authors mostly assume that everyone in their milieux is an upper-middle class white SF author. There are never any soccer hooligans or teeming hordes of third-world underclass.
*emerges from bushes*
*throws quids in tip jar*
*hides in bushes*
*emerges from bushes*
*throws quids in tip jar*
*hides in bushes*
Bless you, madam. May your friends know the importance of punctuality.
SF authors mostly assume that everyone in their milieux is an upper-middle class white SF author.
And that upper-middle class white SF authors will always act for the greater good and never, ever, create cult religions, abuse children, advocate racism, or preserve their positions of power.
The Culture’s communism works because it…has solved the fundamental problem of economics.
I don’t buy it–just another fantasy, and intended in part to get people used to the idea of Full Luxury Communism as a desirable and possible thing. Chesterton and Dalrymple have criticized the basic assumptions in some depth.
Which is why I find it facile (along with Star Trek’s replicator-based post-scarcity).
I now find Star Trek frequently tiresome, too.
SF authors mostly assume that everyone in their milieux is an upper-middle class white SF author. There are never any soccer hooligans or teeming hordes of third-world underclass.
And have you noticed how few sf authors were/are believing Christians and Jews? Far, far more worshipers of technocracy, socialism, etc.
I don’t buy it…
Clarification: I don’t buy what Iain Banks was selling. I am far more genially inclined towards everyone here (unless certain not-to-be-named trolls were to reappear.)
SF authors mostly assume that everyone in their milieux is an upper-middle class white SF author.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sten_Chronicles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sten_Chronicles
Never heard of those stories. How do they relate to the topic at hand?
Oh, you found an exception to a qualified general statement?
Well, congratulations. You found an exception.
There’s no prize for that.
Star Trek’s utopianism was tiresome and all, but it sure was a pleasant fiction. Personally a little more starry-eyed idealistic SF/F would be welcome against the sea of blackpills being served up currently. Authors thinking of ways we get from here to some beautiful, majestic future would possibly even help a little.
Nobody needs a self-help book about How To Be Sad, and our culture is brimming with How We Fall stories, almost like we collectively lack the imagination to foresee how humanity and society can improve or even thrive beyond limit. Maybe it’s just me.
“I blame Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
“We represent the vegetarian space socialists who are always right”
“You guys are the worst”
“We know”
Youtube>”Every Episode of Popular Space Show™”
“And that upper-middle class white SF authors will always act for the greater good and never, ever, create cult religions, abuse children, advocate racism, or preserve their positions of power.”
Besides Sci-Fi and (some) fantasy I also enjoy (some) alternate history series. One of the more prolific authors is S.M. Stirling. He is now “verboten” for his Draka series and his comments about “der muzzies”. His Emberverse series about a post utopia US set in and near Portland (prescient !) is decent enough and he made one of the main villains a university professor. Always seemed on point to me.
Oh, you made a BS general comment that isn’t really true?
No prize for that either.
Full Luxury Communism as a desirable and possible thing.
It’s neither desirable nor possible, unless some drastic changes are made to human animal biology and psychology. The only thing the hand wavey utopians “fixed” was where all the free stuff comes from. In the current world, somebody has to make it and/or pay for it before it can be distributed. Even assuming the fantasy could be made reality with replicators or whatnot, the assumption that everyone would therefore find happiness and satisfaction is false, I think.
Animals in zoos are/were given everything according to the zookeepers’ understanding of their needs. Yet they were depressed, lethargic, miserable. When zookeepers added a little competition, some spice into their lives – made them have to work a little bit for their food/mates/whatnot, the animals’ quality of life improved. Human animals are no different. Theodore Dalrymple has documented the stories of people on the dole in the UK, and both in the UK and the US, where people are housed in zoos – housing projects – and given food and expense assistance, the result is far from utopian. Give humans everything according to the State’s understanding of their needs, and they become entitled, dissatisfied, and in my opinion, lazier. Why bother to expend effort when it’s all given to you, regardless of what you do or don’t do. And it’s never enough. A friend of mine used to say that if people were given a check for $1000 a week, with the only stipulation that they had to show up at a physical location to collect it, it wouldn’t be more than a few months before some would be asking why it couldn’t just be mailed to them.
If these Full Luxury Communism stories involved alien species that were not like human animals in any respect, I might be able to tolerate them, but it still sounds kind of boring. I prefer my science fiction and fantasy to be adventure stories, where the heroes overcome challenges, beat the odds, escape the evil whatever – that sort of old fashioned thing.
It’s neither desirable nor possible
Agreed. Now why can’t I get my Mensa friends to understand that? 😉
Heh.
Via Ben.
“Additionally, any Amazon UK shopping done via this link…”
Nice timing… 😉
Even assuming the fantasy could be made reality with replicators or whatnot, the assumption that everyone would therefore find happiness and satisfaction is false, I think.
The lead characters in the Banks books are always doing that. They are from the Culture, but they need more to make their lives worth living. And so they take risks in a world where they can live forever, should they wish to. (And Banks does get that in the end, we all choose to die.)
I prefer my science fiction and fantasy to be adventure stories, where the heroes overcome challenges, beat the odds, escape the evil whatever – that sort of old fashioned thing.
Which his does. You think he has become popular by writing books in which nothing happens?
You might not like the Culture idea, but it pays not to discard his books on a false basis.
By the way, a thread with rumblings about Star Trek’s later iterations can be found here.
The “pernicious ideal,” as Dicentra puts it.
And this is your brain on wokeness.
Every Episode of Popular Space Show™
FTFY.
No need to thank me – I do it instead of paying my bar tab.
[ ducks ]
PayPalled coz you deserve it!
PayPalled coz you deserve it!
Bless you, sir. May your kettle be fast and whisper quiet.
Heh.
To be fair, I suppose we should remember that photographers often manipulate their subjects into posing in ways that appeal to the photographer regardless of how unnatural they are to the subjects. On the other hand, this is Harry. If I were a bad man I would ask ‘Which one is the the Duke?’
And this is your brain on wokeness.
Dat girl ain’t no ghetto. Why she be acting so white and shit? Da-yam, girl. Why is you hates your peeps?
Also..curious if Biden made the list of 100 most influential people. Certainly not Kamala.
Heh.
That was hilarious, and now I can’t unsee it that way.
The first thing I noticed about that pic was how yte people she looks. Good grief – her hair is yte people, her face is yte people – she looks like any yte actress with a Hollywood tan. The Woke have really gone back to the One Drop rule, haven’t they. But if yte people are born with the Racism Original Skin baked in, never to be expunged, how does that work in someone who is only partly Sacred Black? Does the Sacred Black blood magically cleanse the person of Evil yte-ness?
No need to thank me – I do it instead of paying my bar tab.
That was fun. Have a drink.
Star Trek’s utopianism was tiresome and all, but it sure was a pleasant fiction.
I sometimes wonder whether people have remembered a different Star Trek than I watched (as a lad). I always remember Star Trek as primarily an adventure yarn. Classic episodes like “The Trouble with Tribbles”, “A piece of the Action”, “Mudd’s women”, “The Corbomite Maneuver” come to mind. Minimal wokeness in these episodes. Even so called “woke episodes” like “City on the Edge of Tomorrow” had a hefty doses of escapist action. In short, you watched it for fun – excessive preachiness actually was a turn off. Next Generation was different, but the best episodes were still the ones where there was some danger, time running out, damage to the ship, and such. Maybe because television seasons were longer in those days, you could afford a better mix of action, woke, funny. Now with a season comprising maybe only a 8-12 episodes it seems that storytellers have decided to jettison the fun and adventure.
And that upper-middle class white SF authors will always act for the greater good and never, ever, create cult religions, abuse children, advocate racism, or preserve their positions of power.
Sure thing, L. Ron….
*ducks*
There were episodes of the original Star Trek that were just good adventure stories, but there was also an awful lot of preachiness. “I’m half-black on the left, and he’s half-black on the right! KILL HIM!”
It was bad enough that my D&D group introduced a magic weapon called “Roddenberry’s Club of Subtlety” that did extra damage to any humanoid whose alignment differed from the wielder’s.
Also, as far as Banks and the Culture novels, I’d like to ask our literary/political critics if I need to stop enjoying any of my other favo(u)rite SF authors. For starters, I’d love a ruling on Vernor Vinge. Thanks in advance!
How to alienate the public.
How to alienate the public.
Heh. Uncivil “civil disobedience”. What wrath hath Gandhi wrought?
Heh. Uncivil “civil disobedience”. What wrath hath Gandhi wrought?
Perhaps good citizens should make a habit of abusing police who infringe their liberties or who allow bad people to do so. A possibly useful behavior modification technique.
Squid: You are missing the point. Nobody is telling you what to read or to not read.
On the other hand, everyone is required to enjoy this.
There were episodes of the original Star Trek that were just good adventure stories, but there was also an awful lot of preachiness.
I’m going to blame a lack of budget for season 3 where most of the wokeness occurred. Hard to generate much action in episodes like “The Tholian Web”, “The Empath”, and the perennial favorite “Spock’s Brain”. So I think scriptwriters tried to make the series more cerebral – which in their minds was woke. Even in well crafted popular series there is still a lot of dross.
No need to thank me – I do it instead of paying my bar tab.
Thank you (so pay up). I don’t seem to make it through the filter sometimes if I post links.
Is a “Link Passport” necessary ?…. /s
I think my favourite of his little mini skits is the “every scandinavian noir” one though. His ability to make two separate yet equally believable characters is unmatched.
Specially for ginger.
Nobody is telling you what to read or to not read.
…or are they?
If you haven’t already everyone should read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, it is the influence for a huge chunk of dystopian scifi from 1984 to THX1138.
If you are too cheap or too broke despite the 16 cent hot dog savings to buy it from David’s Amazon link, it is at Project Gutenberg.
Heh
I was just thinking, AntMan should be a British superhero, cos you guys have an Inchcape. But then, no, he’d still need a smaller size, he’s an ant, for god’s sake.
I was just leaving.
I was idly wondering, like you do, about the Met Gala, and why someone thought it was a good idea to show the rich and sometimes competent enjoying themselves “Hunger Games” style unmasked against black-clad and masked servants. Are they really as dumb as I think they are?
And then it struck me, like a hot kiss at the end of a wet fist.
They meant very much to do that.
All this display of status and power is intentional, because it is a test of their power, and when there’s no blowback, proof to themselves and to us who holds the whip-hand.
Nancy Pelosi’s husband can wheel and deal in the financial markets based on his wife’s position in Congress, and not suffer an investigation for insider trading.
Martha Stewart, however, did. This means that Martha Stewart, someone you expect to be protected, wasn’t truly a member of the Establishment. Nancy Pelosi and her husband are.
All those photographs of politicians enjoying potential superspreader events sans masks fulfill the same function. It reassures them that they hold the power.
But for some people — AOC, Greta Thunberg, Cindy Sheehan — they are puppets. Useful as lightning rods bleeding the contempt people hold away from the true sources of power, and cast aside and ignored when their usefulness runs out.
As for who is manipulating the strings, well, George Soros is one, as well as our various tech overlords. There are also plenty of families with money who have no desire for publicity, and make sure that they’re never mentioned. Sophy Burnham’s book “The Landed Gentry” (1978) describes many of them, such as the King Ranch, who still held onto their power and wealth today. These are the people we should fight, not their puppets.
David, this establishment is falling behind.
Cf. “The Seat of Uncomfortable Ecstasy” currently available through that crowd of louts over at Insty’s place.
If you haven’t already everyone should read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, it is the influence for a huge chunk of dystopian scifi from 1984 to THX1138.
Agreed. It’s on my list, although I still haven’t gotten around to it. Although one might counter that “influenced other writers” does not automatically mean one must read something, as the first work might be influential because of its ideas while being inferior in execution.
“I was just thinking, AntMan should be a British superhero, cos you guys have an Inchcape.”
Weirdly, that reminds me of an old Victorian joke my dad remembered his granny telling: “Who are the lightest men in Britain? In Ireland there are men of Cork; in Scotland, men of Ayr; but the Thames has lightermen.”
Hey… I didn’t say it was funny, just that you reminded me of it.
“On the other hand, everyone is required to enjoy this.”
That, though…
Although one might counter that “influenced other writers” does not automatically mean one must read something…
True, but I would counter that counter in that if something was inherently crappy it probably won’t be an influence, or if it did on odd chance lead to something superior, usually the converse is true – e.g., 90% of the “reboot”, sequel, and prequel movies these days. The Sharknado franchise is, of course, an exception.
Regarding Zamyatin, though, “influence” is a kinder and gentler way of saying “nigh a blatant rip off” particularly in the case of THX 1138 (which I like regardless).
Merits of execution can be debated endlessly (see discussions above) but Zamyatin is particularly prescient given that the book was written only three years after the Commie Revolution.
I agree, but would counter the counter of the counter with early sf stories that were influential but are no longer read much because the authors were not the greatest stylists. Some of Asimov’s come to mind, although I ought to (but cannot) recall other better examples.
Only three years after the commie revolution is indeed somewhat prescient, given that nearly everyone on the left still supported it so uncritically, although some few people recognized the totalitarian menace before the revolution.
Merits of execution are indeed a source of endless debate: I now find A E Van Vogt virtually unreadable but I have friends who love him.
…early sf stories that were influential but are no longer read much because the authors were not the greatest stylists.
I will have to defer to your knowledge regarding scifi, though I was a child of Willy Ley and Heinlein for various reasons got more into history later and only read scifi occasionally after.
I now find A E Van Vogt virtually unreadable but I have friends who love him.
Which get to the heart of style and execution. Many people won’t, I think, bother to put things in perspective. Zamyatin writes in a style more ponderously Russian (looking at you Fyodor) than probably most contemporary scifi (though I had a hard time getting through the first “Dune” for that reason) and would likely be off putting to many rather than taking into account the time in which it was written.
I suppose it is the same for any genre, I know guys who will swoon over the Allman Brothers doing “Stormy Monday” but put wax in their ears rather than listen to the T-Bone Walker version on a 78.
Willy Ley and Heinlein
!! I did not realize that Willy Ley had written any sf. Will have to search it out. Thank you!
Heinlein was, of course, one of the most influential writers because he brought literary quality and because he invented so many useful storytelling techniques, such as rendering a different society with casually dropped references. (Two of the most famous are “the door dilated” and a mention of the protagonist’s dark olive skin seen in the mirror while getting ready for a date–revealing half way through the novel that he is not white, and showing thereby that race is no longer important the way it was in 1960.)
Which get to the heart of style and execution. Many people won’t, I think, bother to put things in perspective. Zamyatin writes in a style more ponderously Russian…
Good example from a different stylistic tradition–I too have great difficulty with Russian novels, quite apart from the names.
Van Vogt is my favorite example of work whose reputation has declined because the field’s standards have improved: He was from the early pulp era when it was all about ideas and literary style was rare and was not highly valued by the readers.
I had a hard time getting through the first “Dune”
Many critics have found fault with its style. I sometimes wonder if I would have found it very hard going if I had first read it in my thirties rather than teens. “The Golden Age of SF is 12.”
Allman Brothers…T-Bone Walker
Sigh. Indeed. And I’ve known people who could enjoy electric rock arrangements of very old folk songs but not the original arrangements.
I did not realize that Willy Ley had written any sf.
I think I probably should have said science speculation rather than straight scifi, but we had all the books he wrote aimed at kids back then, but one of my older brothers was big into scifi and IIRC Ley had stuff in Analogue or Galaxy or one of those subscription things.
…I would have found it very hard going if I had first read it in my thirties rather than teens.
Indeed that was my problem…
…people who could enjoy electric rock arrangements of very old folk songs but not the original arrangements.
Yep, Clapton, Baker, and Bruce doing “Crossroads” may be brilliant, but it is antipodal to Robert Johnson’s original – no reason one can’t appreciate both.
I think I probably should have said science speculation rather than straight scifi
Got it. Yes, I read some of those when I was a kid. And Wikipedia says that he did indeed write some fiction, too.
I find it fascinating that so many people here have friends who read books. And by “books” I mean anything other than Stephen King. I have one friend who reads books but he’s blind soWTH else does he have to do with his free time? Plus, I haven’t heard from him in a year. There was a guy I worked with years ago but…impressive.
I have one friend who reads books but he’s blind soWTH else does he have to do with his free time?
Where does he live ? Blind Lemon Jefferson invented Texas Blues…
My counterexamples to the tendency noted by pst314 (which is not to say it doesn’t exist) include three prominent authors in the field who happen to also be among my favorites: Poul Anderson, H. Beam Piper, and Jerry Pournelle. I only just finished rereading Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions last week and found it as lovely as ever.
Ping. In the immortal words of Kiss:
“Girl, I wanna lay it at your feet”
Ping. In the immortal words of Kiss: “Girl, I wanna lay it at your feet”
Um. Bless you, sir. When dried, may your towels be soft and fluffy, not akin to cardboard.
When a country defies our ideological preferences, of course, we cannot hear enough about what a cruel and benighted place it is. A telling example of the sort of credulity this encourages emerged during the Trump years. In perhaps the most outrageous case, an award-winning reporter for Der Spiegel, Claas Relotius, was found to have “falsified his articles on a grand scale”. Relotius’s pieces, many of which explored life in Trump’s America, contained such comically obvious fabrications as a town in Minnesota having a “Mexicans Keep Out” sign on display. You would think Relotius could never get away with printing such unbelievable stories, but he did, for years, because he told his audience what they wanted to read.
Taken from this quick and entertaining read from Ben Sixsmith.
Belated ping. 🙂
Belated ping. 🙂
Bless you, madam. Should you be seen laughing loudly at your own joke, may it be a bloody good one.
Worth every penny of the licence…
Did you read the comments on that article, Farnsworth? Many agreed with the piece but seem to have not learned from it.
Did you read the comments…
Mi web looker no dem talk back at BBC dey see.
My counterexamples to the tendency noted by pst314 (which is not to say it doesn’t exist) include three prominent authors in the field who happen to also be among my favorites: Poul Anderson, H. Beam Piper, and Jerry Pournelle.
Those are excellent examples of fine writers. They all started writing sf in the 1950’s, which puts them after the pulp era and squarely in the flowering that followed. And what’s more, Anderson and Piper were libertarians while Pournelle was a conservative. No Asimovian Stupidities™ from them.
Should you be seen laughing loudly at your own joke, may it be a bloody good one.
In the Glorious Socialist Utopia of Tomorrow you must always choose the lesser of two weevils.
My counterexamples to the tendency noted by pst314 (which is not to say it doesn’t exist) include three prominent authors in the field who happen to also be among my favorites: Poul Anderson, H. Beam Piper, and Jerry Pournelle.
I’ve been struggling along with “The Boat of a Million Years” on and off over the last six months. I find Anderson… grueling.
Perhaps my fantasy based tastes are not refined enough. I do still enjoy Fritz Lieber for instance and once made a pilgrimmage to the gravesite of Robert E. Howard.
My bad. I meant that question to Nikw211.
Though on Farnsworth’s post, I cannot believe they keep that up. That’s legitimate BBC? Stunning. First time I saw one of those articles I thought it was The Onion (I think they predate The Babylon Bee). It’s so absurd to me that the first couple of subsequent sightings I still thought it was parody because the absurdity was so absurd, contrary to how I usually remember things, I had forgotten. This has been going on so long..is there a formal, standardized grammar guide for it? If so, who maintains it? Are there competing authorities as to what is “proper”? Are there professional editors who review these articles? If so, WTF for? The whole edifice is stunningly absurd.
That’s legitimate BBC?
One hell of lot of work for a parody if not.
I’m just here to informate you.
Mealworm banquet
That is a very manky-looking Chinese cabbage in the headpost photo.
Though on Farnsworth’s post, I cannot believe they keep that up. That’s legitimate BBC? Stunning.
Well, Pidgin is the lingua franca in Nigeria and the BBC has traditionally broadcast in many languages…
Mealworm banquet
IIRC, we’re in the 3,048th wave of “eating insects is de future” (nod to the BeeB there) in my lifetime. The explanation of why we’re going to be consuming said bugs is always a bit vague, though… it’s always to “be better for de planet” or sumting…
I do still enjoy Fritz Lieber for instance…
A good writer, as I recall–although it’s been decades since I read him.
…and once made a pilgrimmage to the gravesite of Robert E. Howard.
I have read that Howard was a big influence on many writers (I’ve tried unsuccessfully so far to enjoy him–too pulp) so he must have accomplished some important things.
Yeah. I get that it is widely spoken…’spoken’ being the key word. But it is a lingua franca and thus self-correcting within its usage domain. Aside from the BBC, is there a broad written use of it? Curious if many who use it would use it in written communication. Without instantaneous verbal clarification, could someone in the western most domain where Pidgin is spoken write several paragraphs of information and send it to a person that they never met in the eastern most domain of Pidgin and have reasonable confidence that such information would be clearly understood such that it could be acted upon?
WTP: I have no idea.
Gender pay gap sighted.
I blame the patriarchy.
“Worth every penny of the licence…”
In fairness, carrying the blessings of British civilisation to the uncultured peoples of the distant Empire is what the World Service was founded for. Good to see it’s still diligently carrying the white man’s burden in these less progressive times.