Friday Ephemera (800)
For a second, I thought it was chicken. || Intriguing meat. || Less difficult than it seemed. || For whumping. || It weighs 60 tonnes and arrived 80,000 years ago. || They do this better than you would. || On heels at the beach. || “A less crazy candidate,” says she. || The 100 most spoken languages. || Mother of six. Also drunk. Also a moron. || Two cats, two theremins. || The wrong concerto. || How to aggravate wasps. || On who should be in charge. || She knows she’s pretty, you see. || A three-year project to see music. || Pounder. || Point well made. || Today’s word is parenting. || Five hundred years of the vulgar tongue. Previously. || And yet what I noticed was the finger pinch. || He, unlike you, has an autonomous flying umbrella. || Frozen dinner. || And finally, a notable display of vocal range.
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Oh, and since you ask, 800 Ephemera posts equals around 20,000 entries.
When your conspiracy theories spawn.
You still don’t understand. Correia did not “rip them off” when creating worlds for his stories. He and some commenters merely used those names in a fake Facebook flame-war between people posing as Krasnovians and people posing as Pinelandians. It was all just silly fun, which expanded into mockery of Facebook when Facebook briefly banned him for inciting hatred of Pinelandians.
Celebrities” say so, it must be true.
Construction workers, guys working on oil rigs, rozzers, military, farmers, any or all of the them?
Of course not silly, “trans” athletes. “
Ever get the feeling those screaming ‘Nazi‘ at every turn are acting?
It’s best that way.
Lacking the pathology of either farcebook or obscure scifi, I’ll take that as a win.
‘T list’ celebs.
Monty Python was supposed to be satire.
[ Plays Rogue Defence. ]
[ Mad cackling. ]
Sporadic outbreaks of sanity.
I don’t know how obscure he is–he’s sold quite a few books, he’s been on New York Times and Locus bestseller lists, and was nominated for the John W Campbell Award. But the only one of his books I’ve read is on the Second Amendment.
I found him via someone else’s blog, possibly sf writer Michael J Williamson or maybe even Glenn Reynolds.
Sadly, a number of bloggers I followed as far back as the early 2000’s are now only on Facebook or
TwitterX.I don’t like to throw around the words heroic fortitude…
Our AI future?
Superman standing on mountain peak, cape streaming behind him.
[ Whirr of wind machine. ]
[ Dramatic billowing. ]
[ Stirring music. ]
Claiming to find oppression in highly unlikely places.
Lazy buggers can’t even be arsed to hide their contempt.
Genuine replica. Only £104.70.
There’s a reason this is the only blog into whose tip jar I have bunged a few coins over the years. Does what it says on the tin, with a sense of humor.
Sometimes these days on long drives I miss Rush Limbaugh something fierce. Used to be around midday you could turn the AM dial, pull in a station with his show and have 3 hours of poking the pathology with a sense of humor – granted more political and US-centered than this blog, but similar atmospheres. All joking aside, I appreciate what you’ve built here, David, and if there’s anything left over after the new, unexpected and rather large bills are paid, I’ll be bunging another couple quid your way.
The vid of the Israeli woman speaking to Greta is priceless. She is wishing the Iranian people well and asking when will Greta condemn the mullahs. The fact that so few lefties have condemned the slaughter of thousands (20,000 in one estimate) condemns themselves.
I saw the clip where Mn gov said outright that ICE is kidnapping innocent citizens and ICE are the gestapo. holy ship. What outright lies. MN mayor is repeating that the protesters are innocent people (who throw dangerous objects and ram ICE with cars ….but never mind that) and that ICE is an invasion. So is MN an independent nation now, not under federal rule? Are we in a time loop with ft sumpter? And the dimwit mayor also urged the police to intervene against ICE (or even said they WOULD do so), at which the police chief next to him gave a WTF look.
I KNOW, RIGHT?
Your host endorses these fine sentiments.
[ Slides tip jar to more prominent position, awaits bounty. ]
And the vocal fry … holy frijoles, when do we get rid of that annoying tic? Valley Girl speak was easier on the ears.
“The mental health collapse among teenage girls tracks almost perfectly with smartphone adoption, with stronger effects for girls than boys. The same vulnerability that made social exclusion more costly in ancestral environments made the new consensus engines more capturing.
This machine wasn’t designed to capture women specifically. It was designed to capture attention. But it captures people more susceptible to consensus pressure more effectively. Women are more susceptible on average. So it captured them more.”
So much THIS^^
And I bet the huge increase in teen girls claiming to be ‘trans’ tracks with the increase in giving smartphones to minors, too.
We all have a pretty good idea of what sorts of things he wants to get done. Not sure whether to cue a Nazi or a Soviet song.
Matter of taste, but Correia is heads & shoulders a better writer than Asimov (I read the Foundation series … once … the writing is so dry and flavorless it makes a meal of cardboard look tasty). I’ve read some of Clarke but he just didn’t grab my attention enough to go through and read everything he ever wrote.
Heinlein? I believe I’ve read everything. My favorite Grand Old Master. Bradbury? I enjoy his writing style, originality, and I even have a couple autographed books of his. Zenna Henderson … a sheer delight.
And Correia? Always look forward to his next book. He writes mostly in sci-fi/fantasy realm and he KNOWS “the story is the thing.” Praise God.
I recall enjoying his stories when I was a kid, but now I find many of them no better than adequate and sometimes stylistically cringe. But he came from a time when godawful pulp was the norm. If sf had not gotten better, starting in the 60’s, I would have stopped readingit by age 20.
His stories usually have a sort of lonely feel, as if Clarke connected more with ideas and technology than with people.
He was a pioneer in bringing quality prose to sf, showing writers how to tell better stories.
One of a kind. Masterful style for the sorts of stories he told. More on that later.
One of these days I’m going to get around to his stories. Lately it’s been nonfiction, though.
On style:
More Delany from many years ago:
@Darleen: Would you suggest any particular Correia stories for young teens? I’ve been putting together some suggested reading lists.
S-backing still makes me want to throttle the speaker.
Start with Hard Magic. An alternative history post WWI sci-fi/fantasy. Great characters. It’s got a sort of Raymond Chandler-esque feel.
I’m not sure about any of his stories are for young teens. I’d recommend Heinlein’s juveniles (“Farmer in the Sky” is a particular fave). Zenna Henderson’s short-stories of The People (“In Gathering” is a great compilation) are appropriate. The sci-fi story that got me hooked in the genre in middle-school was “Star Surgeon” by Alan Nourse. The Pern books by Anne McCaffrey would be good, too.
I’ve only tried reading one book by Samuel Delaney — “Dhalgren” — tried more than once, never got thru it. Absolute dreck on all levels – writing is disjointed, pointless, no story, no plot. It’s the book equivalent of all the “performance art” our host inflicts on us from time to time.
I’ve already started them on Heinlein. Thanks for reminding me of Zenna Henderson.
It’s always tricky, since some kids are ready for more adult stuff sooner than others.
Oh, another thing … in the past, say, 15-20 years or so, if you find any book as a “Hugo Winner”? Avoid it.
I agree. (my parents let me read Ayn Rand when I was 12)
I’m currently reading Corriea’s Academy of Outcasts and I think it would do as an YA appropriate read.
Agreed. It’s Delany being experimental and terminally lit’rary. Unfortunately, lots of “smart” people told us that we “needed” to read it. Come to think of it, most of the books that the “smart” people told me I must read turned out to be, well, disappointing.
Some of his early novels are good–Nova and Babel 17. Tales of Neveryon was that last book of his that I found at all readable. (He described it as Conan the Barbarian but everyone sits around talking more than anything else.) Unfortunately, his political and sexual dysfunctions (Marxism and race and NAMBLA) became increasingly central to his stories, and thus cringe or even horrifying. Basically, a monster with some literary talent.
Current targets are 14 and 16 years old. Of course, at that age we’re talking about moving targets, so that their tastes change faster than one can make recommendations. 🙂
I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich when I was about 14. Also Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Indeed. Sad Puppies and Dragon Award nominees would be better.
Baen Books is good.
If you can find any of his work, try Clifford D. SImak. I remember The Werewolf Principle as an interesting read. Way Station also.
Theodore Cogswell’s The Wall Around the World also comes to mind.
Do not forget Poul Anderson. The Dominic Flandry books are great fun, as are the Nicholas Van Rijn tales. His retelling of Norse tales are masterful (Hrolf Kraki’s Saga is a favourite, as are The Last Viking books). His Hoka stories with Gordon Dickson are silly fun.
Ever get the feeling reality is ‘far right‘?
Me too. Also Gulag Archipelago.
How tedious … AWFL has been in use far before Renee Good decided she was immune to the FO consequence of FA. And I note how the complaint is all about “look, they’re calling these white Karens a name!” with nary a mention of WHY or HOW this label came or about and if it has any truth to it at all.
Not only a good storyteller. A libertarian, too.
Yes, well, everyone is allowed a vice or two.
Don’t know how this slipped under the radar…maybe just my radar…but apparently from a week ago(?)… I had to verify and yes, this is D-CA Jimmy Panetta, Leon Panetta’s son warning of the danger of…lower oil prices. The Party will tell you what to believe. Low oil prices are now BAD for the economy. Understand that? Bad! B-A-D for the economy! Just as freedom is slavery and stuff. His dad ran the CIA, the DoD, OMB under Slick Willie so…you know…this ain’t no backwater yahoo Democrat.
Added: A friend pointed out….Superman’s Bizarro World was the term I was looking for here.
Lower oil prices are dangerous . . . to the prospects of the Democrat party.
A conservative libertarian.
Oh, yes, this.