Here’s a pic from my parents house, with my uncles dogs, my sisters dog, and Ginny and Guesly all paying a great deal of attention to my sister:
The paps are my aunt’s show dogs, the border collie is my uncle’s puppy, and the bigger dog is Huck, my sister’s pup. You all know who G & G are and who they belong to.
JenJen
What a delightful, wacky little kingdom! Loves it!!
bjacques
I do believe they have a quorum!
gwangung
By the way, I should pimp my own shows:
http://sgn.org/sgnnews37_26/page27.cfm
And so I will.
Hillary Rettig / www.lifelongactivist.com
papillons ROCK!
mom of 4
robertdsc
To quote your dad: “Oh my GOD!”
geg6
My oldest sister just rescued a puppy yesterday. She’s 12 weeks old, a yellow Lab/border collie mix. She’s adorable! She currently has worms and so is a bit lethargic but I know she’ll perk up. She’s been christened Belle. My 15 year old niece has a Disney fixation and their 12 year old German shepherd is named Purdy.
Stooleo
That must be quite a T-bone your sister is holding.
demkat620
Wow! That’s a whole lotta cute right there!
RevPhat
Support the Million Can March. While you’re shopping for your July 4th picnic pick-up an extra bag or two of groceries and take them to your local pantry. Then let me know how many cans you donated. Thanks.
JGabriel
“Duuude, your family’s knees and elbows are teh hawt !”
Ok, seriously, what is your sister doing that’s got so many dogs simultaneously enthralled?
.
Comrade Stuck
The Senate Health Committee has released it’s Health Care Bill, with a cost of 611 Bil over ten years, though this will rise when adding subsidies to poor. It has a public option.
lizzy
Now THAT’s family !
JK
Howie Kurtz Asks: Can African-American women objectively cover Michelle Obama?
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/02/kurtz-race-coverage/
Pearls of Wisdom from the Gods and Legends of MSM
Ron Fournier (AP Wash Bureau Chief, Karl Rove BFF) How to do Watchdog Journalism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxf90TXThY8
Bob Woodward on Investigative Journalism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVKGUctuoXE&feature=channel
Dana Milbank on Comedy and News Reporting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvEYffAVNng
Chris Cillizza on How to Not Sound Like an Idiot on TV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGp0tnchQQQ&feature=related
PeakVT
The FDIC is as hungry as those dogs look.
Violet
It’s a doggie chorus! Altogether now!
Pasquinade
Practicing for a new version of dogs “singing” Jingle Bells?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKhJ9IQdWQ8
Cat Lady
She’s using a dog whistle? When is a metaphor not a metaphor?
BDeevDad
@Comrade Stuck: Using the back of my napkin and considering the average cost increase in premiums to cover the uninsured is about $1000/year. If you figure 50 million policies nationwide over 10 years costs about $1trillion, the cost is about right.
JenJen
So is this basically Friday Open Thread? Weird to have a Friday holiday instead of a Monday one.
linda
@robertdsc:
still the funniest video ever posted here…
JGabriel
Lisa Derrick @ FDL:
Which, to be fair, might explain why they think divorce, porn, and teen pregnancy are such big problems.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the rest of have to vote for Republicans just because the red states lack self-control.
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JGabriel
JK:
Somehow, I find this question less compelling than whether or not white men can objectively cover Republicans.
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MikeJ
Hungry? You think that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation wants more failing banks?
Dennis-SGMM
Howie Kurtz Asks: Can I find my ass if I start at my ankles and work North?
Litlebritdifrnt
I am guessing that your sister was holding a treat or a bone or something, cause there is no way a human being without some sort of extra enticement holds that amount of goggie attention. (Unless of course your sister is seriously a goggie whisperer). BTW there is another pair of feets to the far right of the picture, to whom do they belong?
Punchy
She’s kinda hawt…..the dog, that is :)
Demo Woman
How do you get a good dog pic? Moxie sees the camera and runs.
inkadu
Wait. Is that faux hardwood linoleum over an actual beautiful hardwood floor?
Or should I say, hardwoof?
John Cole
@inkadu: It is our screened in porch with painted wood.
Comrade Stuck
Historic Hillbilly Architecture
JK
@JGabriel: @Dennis-SGMM:
It’s pathetic that Howard Kurtz is regarded by some as the dean of media critics.
JK
Why doesn’t CNN simply create a new network called CNNMJ thus allowing CNN to air any non Michael Jackson related news?
Comrade Stuck
@JK:
The funeral is not until the middle of next week so they’re just getting started. Matt Lauer will be sleeping in Michael’s bed this weekend bringing us the bare facts and Geraldo is on his way to sniff out any secret vaults. Pins and needles all around.
gwangung
@JGabriel: True dat.
Maurs
Cat lovers on Meth should not make videos. Or should. Or something….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuOpWeQw05Q&eurl=http://www.facebook.com/home.php%3Fref%3Dhome&feature=player_embedded
JK
@Comrade Stuck:
I wish that someone possessed the technical background and expertise to simply block out the signals of the cable news outlets and the network morning shows. I always thought Michael Jackson’s music was vastly overrated, but I understood the coverage of his death given his superstar status and the zillion dollar sales figures he generated. This balls to the wall commitment of asshole tv execs to track down and report every last fucking detail of the Jackson story is, to quote Jon Stewart, “Hurting America”
The continued pursuit of all these secondary and tertiary angles of the Jackson story is pure bullshit and an abdication of journalistic responsibility. Anyone outside of relatives and friends who gives a damn about the lingering, unanswered questions surrounding the Michael Jackson saga is a fucking moron in dire need of psychiatric help.
JGabriel
Comrade Stuck:
But who will sleep with his corpse?
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Notorious P.A.T.
Someone defend this proposition: “Dune” by Frank Herbert is one of, if not the best, sci fi books ever.
JK
@JGabriel:
Larry King, of course. You had to ask?
Comrade Stuck
@JK:
To clear up any confusion.
It should be noted that Larry will be the one wearing regular glasses.
Lesley
Very cute photo and lemme guess, the person standing is holding or eating food.
RedKitten (formerly Krista - the Canadian one)
That’s one benefit about the fact that I’ve been insanely busy this week (and will even more insanely busy next week) — I’m missing all of the Michael Jackson coverage.
Love the pic of all of the doggies. They look VERY interested in whatever it is your sister is doing/holding. Cute little farts.
Dennis-SGMM
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Nope. I’d say that Alfred Bester’s “The Stars My Destination” is one of the best, if not the best sci fi books ever because Bester took sci fi away from rocket rot and into humanity. “Dune” is a neat entertainment but it’s sort of like “The Lord of the Rings in Space.”
Ian M. Banks and China Mieville write rings around Herbert’s belabored prose.
Mike in NC
So when all is said and done in the next few days will Larry King announce that his next wife is a 14-year-old Jackson fan?
2liberal
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Dune is boring and overly verbose. The best sci-fi book of all time is “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson, written before he started writing to please the NYT Book Review.
Ripley
@Notorius P.A.T.: I’m partial to Philip José Farmer’s ‘River World’ series, especially the first, super-coolly titled novel “To Your Scattered Bodies Go.” I’m with Dennis-SGMM @43 as regards “Dune.”
Doctor Science
Dune is one of the best, if (a) it’s a moderately long list, and (b) you don’t let the rest of the Dune series influence your appreciation of Dune. I dropped out somewhere around book 4 IIRC, but others have described the series as “watching Frank Herbert unlearn to write”.
A more interesting list is “best science fiction novel written after 1955 [first year for the Hugos] that was never even on the ballot for a major award” — where major = Hugo, Nebula, and Locus (though what counts as “on the ballot” for Locus? hm)
Two nominees off the top of my head: Aristoi, by Walter Jon Williams, and Fitzpatrick’s War, by Theodore Judson.
Cat Lady
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Dune and Asimov’s Foundation trilogy changed my way of perceiving the world when I was 13. I gave up sci fi a long time ago, but those worlds remain vivid in my imagination. I’ve always been drawn to deserts, maybe because of Dune. It may not be the best, but it was never boring to me. I had lived on Dune when I finished those books.
Edit: Philip K. Dick stories. Also.
JGabriel
Notorious P.A.T.:
Why? It has merit, more in its time than now – the ecological themes are well-explored nowadays – but I wouldn’t rank it as one of the best ever.
I don’t know that I’ve even read enough Sci-Fi to make a best of list, but I suspect Gibson’s Neuromancer or Count Zero would be on it, maybe Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, and definitely some of Jorge Luis Borges’ short stories/essays – in particular “A New Refutation of Time“, “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius“, and “The Aleph“.
(That last translation is particularly good – and interesting in that Borges is one of the translators.)
Also, Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris. I suspect there may be even better books by Lem, but I haven’t read any of his other works yet.
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Litlebritdifrnt
@Notorious P.A.T.:
My DH would agree with you, he is obsessed with the books and the series and the really good miniseries on TV had him.
JK
@Mike in NC:
Larry King has done more than his fair share of tabloid trash in the past, but this week just feels more aggravating than his past tabloid dumpster dives. Given the serious problems that exist outside of Jackson mania, I don’t understand how CNN can continue pissing away its credibility as a serious news organization. Yes, their ratings are up, but they’ve become a joke in terms of professionalism.
Twice this week, Sarah Palin’s BFF Great Van Susteren was discussing real news (in the predictably biased and dishonest fashion Fox News does best) while Anderson Cooper was indulging in Michael Jackson nonsense.
Comrade Stuck
@Cat Lady:
Certain phrases have stuck in my head from Dune, and it’s been 40 years my last rereading.
Fear is the Mind Killer has been useful for me in certain situations over the years. And the whole concept of Paul being The One understanding the whole female power side of life, if I remember that correctly, was fascinating.
John Cole
Dune was great, but I’m a big fan of Weaveworld and Ender’s Game. Card is a total wingnut, though, and I guess Weaveworld is more fantasy.
RedKitten (formerly Krista - the Canadian one)
I’ve always preferred sci-fi that deals more with society and humanity, rather than technology. “The Gate to Women’s Country” by Sheri S. Tepper is an excellent read, and one I keep coming back to.
Cat Lady
@Comrade Stuck:
Yes, exactly. There are analogs for everything (maybe not the worms) in this world for that world, and that book felt very portentous. Every time I use cinnamon that smell kicks me out of this world into that one for just a brief second, still. Every time. I have very blue eyes too.
AhabTRuler
@John Cole: I loved Ender’s Game when I read it, am cool to it now, and I wish I could erase every other Orson Scott Card book that I read from my memory. Frankly, Pern porn by McCaffrey is more worthwhile (and that’s not saying much).
I do have a deep fondness for David Brin’s Earth, not as hot on the Uplift stories. However, the Postman is a book that deserved better that Kevin Costner.
Notorious P.A.T.
Wow, thanks for the suggestions. That will keep me busy for a while )
JK
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Dune is still on my list of books to read. One day I hope to finally read it.
I enjoyed The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle and Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke.
Interesting list – David Pringle’s Best 100 Science Fiction Novels
http://www.listology.com/list/david-pringles-best-100-science-fiction-novels
Hour of the Wolf is a radio show devoted to science fiction and fantasy airing from 5 am – 7 am Saturday on WBAI in NY 99.5 FM. There’s a website http://www.hourwolf.com/toc.html that archives broadcasts for people who can’t wake up or stay up from 5-7.
Hour 25, another radio show devoted to science fiction, appears to no longer be airing, but its website is still up http://www.hour25online.com
Punchy
Fuckin christ…..who Dune-jacked the thread, and how do I hate them?
Demo Woman
Somehow between watching Wimbledon in the morning and remodeling the master bathroom the rest of the day, I missed the Michael Jackson stuff. Once again I have to thank the commenter on this site who linked to ATDHE.Net. I have enjoyed many sports games online including the football team that John hates because they had cameras openly rather than hiding them in the stands.
By the way how did the master bath get that name?
JGabriel
@John Cole:
Speaking of fantasy, I’m surprised no one has mentioned anything from Pratchett or Gaiman.
And I know Donald Barthelme isn’t usually thought of as a fantasy writer, but I’d include Snow White and The Dead Father as among the best fantasy novels, as well as his short stories, “The Emerald” and “The Palace At 4 A.M.”, which are two of the loveliest short stories I’ve ever read.
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MazeDancer
Doctor Science
Aristoi!
Certainly, Walter Jon Williams’s best book. And he is a mighty fine writer. (And a New Mexican). Anyone who likes science fiction should certainly read it.
Also agree with John Cole about both the splendor of Ender’s Game and the political agony of Orson Scott Card.
JGabriel
Punchy:
Given that it’s turned into a more general discussion of good sci-fi and fantasy, I think you can relax a li’l bit.
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Zuzu's Petals
@RevPhat:
Just posted at your site…made a $ donation to local pantry.
Great idea!
JGabriel
@Demo Woman:
“King Bath” was already taken?
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Cat Lady
Switching topics, I think today is the day we can mark as the end of any pretense that the MSM is viable. As recently as last week you could make a lame argument that the mission of the WaPo was to commit some journalism. That was supposedly its intrinsic value to the consumer. Now we all know that they’re just clowns, dicks and whores. Like Roy Batty said, time to die.
CaseyL
Dune is epic – a political novel, a revenge novel, a religious novel, and and ecological novel, with some romance thrown in – so it’s certainly ambitious. I might even grant it’s brilliant in scope.
But it lacks a couple things. First, Herbert had no sense of humor whatsoever, and so neither do his characters. (I think Duncan Idaho makes one little smart-ass remark in the whole book.)
Second, and this might just be me, but I didn’t feel any emotional resonance with any of the characters. (That might be related to lack of humor; I can’t identify with people like that.) It’s not like I hated or even disliked everyone, but I didn’t hurt for any of them, or exhult with any of them. The story was the only reason for me to keep reading. Granted, it was an amazing story, but still…
After a great deal of thought, and based on the criteria that the book must be intelligent, emotionally compelling, and epic in scope, I have the following nominations for Best SF Novel(s) Ever. Both are series (serieses)?
1. The Pleistocene Exile books by Julian May. There are 4 books in this series, starting with “The Many Colored Land,” and ending with “The Adversary.” The plot driver is a one-way time tunnel to 6 million years ago. Misfits and criminals are sent through it by a very benevolent, paternalistic Galactic Milieu; the 4 books in the series follow a particular group that all go through the portal at once. What they find when they get there (and what they can’t tell the “present” because, hey, the tunnel only goes one way) is that aliens have settled Pleistocene Earth and enslave every human that comes through. The aliens are the Tanu and Firvulag, clearly modeled after the Celtic gods, and they wear torques that give them metapsychic powers. Oh, and there are also humans who fled through the portal after an unsuccessful rebellion against the Galactic Milieu – these humans are also metapschic; in fact, more powerful than the Tanu and Firvulag, because they don’t need torques. Everyone is at war with everyone else.
2. There’s also a series about the Galactic Milieu itself, written after the Pleistocene books and filling in the “history” leading to them: the rise of metapsychic humans, the intervention of the Galactic Milieu; and the Metapsychic Rebellion. These are also wonderful, but not as mind-blowingly wonderful as the Pleistocene Exile books.
3. A little-known series of novels by Phyllis Gottleib: “A Judgment of Dragons,” “Emperor, Sword, Pentacle,” and “Kingdom of the Cats.” The main characters are a family of sapient leopards who explore the galaxy for the Galactic Federation. Gottleib writes aliens that are REALLY alien (among the species we meet are giant intelligent shrimp, an avian species with a very strange value system) and even humans that are stranger than strange (the protagonist and antagonist in her second book are humans who, thanks to a pre-natal virus, never developed past the second trimester). Her stories manage to be adventurous romps that still deal, and deal well, with ethics, morality, sex, revenge, paranormal powers, and so on and so forth.)
If I had to pick the books I would take with me to a desert island – or, for that matter, if alien abductors only allowed me to take a few books with me – these are the ones I’d take.
JGabriel
Someone is outside playing with what sounds like a very loud squeeze toy – some sort of rubber duckie, or maybe they’re trying to play with / keep entertained a cat or dog.
Anyway, it highlights one of the problems of living in NYC. One single idiot, all by his or her lonesome, can find ways to annoy hundreds, even thousands, of people with the barest of efforts.
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The Dangerman
Howie Kurtz couldn’t find his ass in the dark with a map AND a flashlight.
Dennis-SGMM
SciFi, other than the redoubtable and prescient P.K. Dick, does the phrase “Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons” ring a bell for anyone else? Cordwainer Smith’s Norstrilia was one of the first and best complete worlds and cultures.
JGabriel
CaseyL:
Oh, thank god someone said it. I must have read Dune when I was in my mid-teens or so, and I still recall it as the first book I’d ever read without a single joke or laugh in it anywhere – and I’d been in the book-a-day club for about a decade at that point.
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Zuzu's Petals
Speaking of outlandish works of fiction …
Another great Palin smackdown from The Mudflats:
The Accidental Secessionist – An Alaskan Fable
Comrade Stuck
Going to finish watching Caprica now. So far pretty good with good actors and script. Did you know it will become a Sci Fi Channel series in 2010?, January I think.
And whoever warned about the 90 minute movie not being family friendly viewing was spot on,.
AhabTRuler
@JGabriel: Unless that rubber duckie is hooked up to a 1000W amp, I think that thousands is probably a bit of a stretch.
JGabriel
AhabTRuler:
Hundreds is more likely, but low thousands is not out of the question – there are an awful lot of residential units on this block, including the apartment buildings. OTOH, I’m on one of the lower floors and maybe the sound doesn’t travel that high. But it didn’t (it’s gone now) sound all that much quieter than a car alarm, and I know those can be heard pretty far up.
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demimondian
@JK: I’ve always loved _Childhood’s End_, although the rewrite Clarke did of it twenty years later seemed weak, by comparison. Of course, Clarke wrote the single greatest line in all sci-fi, which starts “Overhead, without any fuss…” in _The Nine Billion Names of God_. I confess to a weakness for Le Guin’s _The Name for World is Forest_, and then there’s _I Have No Mouth And I must Scream_ by Harlan Ellison.
Frankly, _Dune_ is a book I appreciate intellectually, and find utterly without any charm in itself. In my opinion, the best part of the book _Dune_, in fact, is in the first movie, when Sting steps out of the shower and the camera cuts to Baron Harkonnen. And it’s not even in the book.
Crashman06
Must brag. Posting from my brand new iPod touch. I love this thing already.
Gus
My wife loves hers, too, but it makes her want an iPhone. It would be nice to have access to the web without a wireless connection.
Montysano
How did I go for 40+ years as a serious music fan, a Hendrix and Chili Peppers fan to boot, and miss out on early Funkadelic? Esp. anything with the amazing Eddie Hazel and Bernie Worrell. It’s all I’ve listened to the last couple of weeks.
JK
@The Dangerman:
Howie Kurtz wouldn’t know how to pour piss from a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.
@Cat Lady:
The Washington Post’s actions were despicable, but I’m not prepared to completely stop reading them yet.
For all of the faults of the Washington Post and other newspapers, I’d be much happier to see the 3 cable news channels teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Top to bottom, I think CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News Channel have done a much more atrocious job of reporting the news than the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Crashman06
@Gus: I understand where she’s coming from. Makes me want an I Phone too, but I can’t justify spending 100+ a month on a cell phone plan.
Crashman06
Speaking of sci-fi novels, please tell me someone’s read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy? It’s a bit more hard sci-fi than what’s already been mentioned, but dammit if Red Mars wasn’t the best sci-fi book I’ve ever read. Politics, environmentalism, technology, betrayal, science, and an awe for the galaxy. It’s got everything.
JK
@demimondian:
I need to re-read Childhood’s End at some point. It’s been about 25 years since I first read it. I’m not familiar with Clarke’s rewrite of it.
More items on my list of books to read.
demimondian
@Crashman06: I’ve read all three, although my tastes run to fantasy, not sci-fi. (What can I say? I’m a childish loser. Deal.) I agree, though, they’re deep complicated and beautifully written stories.
burnspbesq
@Montysano:
Free your mind, and your ass will follow.
Not just a great record, a complete philosophy in eight words.
Crashman06
@demimondian: Hey, no crime there. I love me some fantasy as well. Can you recommend anything along the lines of GRRM’s Song of Ice and Fire? Looking for a new series while I wait out Martin’s 5th book.
Montysano
@burnspbesq: The kingdom of heaven is within.
That album just screams “recorded while tripping”.
burnspbesq
@Montysano:
One of my college friends referred to acid as The Sacrament of Enlightenment.
At that stage of my life, I thought that Cuervo Gold was enlightening enough for me.
Doctor Science
Crashman:
Clearly you are not restricted to *happy* books.*g* My husband just read The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing and has started on the sequel, and he reports that it’s hugely well-written, gripping, and unique. It’s “young adult”, but don’t let that stop you.
If you haven’t read Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books, why not? If Patrick O’Brian had written books with dragons, these would be them.
JGabriel
Crashman06: (Raises hand.) Ditto Demi, I’ve read all three. I remember them as enjoyable, but I never went back to re-read them.
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MikeJ
Thank gopod. Can’t fucking stand them, or Herbert either. But I’m a curmudgeon.
I can’t believe that nobody has mentioned a scifi author that’s on the sidebar here, Scalzi. He’s not my all time favorite, but I’d put him in the top fifteen writing today.
demimondian
@Crashman06: If you’re willing to reach back in time a bit, I strongly suggest Zelazny’s _Amber_ novels — all nine of them are collected in _Nine Princes in Amber_. In fact, I’d recommend almost anything he wrote, from his pure sci-fi (e.g. _Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep_) and to his intermediate stuff (_Lord of Light_ is one of my frequent rereads).
Steeplejack
@JGabriel:
Pratchett is kind of like Beetlejuice around here. Say his name three times and the entire thread gets ‘jacked and explodes in size.
But, er, since you brought him up, I will have to submit a book report in the next day or two. I have sailed through all the Night Watch novels and am about halfway through the Death novels. (Currently in the middle of Soul Music.)
JGabriel
@demimondian: Umm, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is Dick, not Zelazny. Just FYI.
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Crashman06
@demimondian: I’ve heard good things about the Amber series. And it’d be nice to get into one that’s already been finished, so I don’t have to wait around in agony until the next one is finally written.
Steeplejack
@Montysano:
Dude, condolences on the lost years. P-Funk can really tear the roof off the sucka. So to speak. Although I was always partial to “Mothership Connection.”
CaseyL
Crashman – Yes! I love Kim Stanley Robinson! If you liked the Mars trilogy, you might also enjoy “Antarctica.” He actually wrote it as an Artist In Residence stationed there. It fits rather nicely into the same ‘verse as the Mars trilogy, though there is no direct connection between the two.
JK
What about Samuel Delany, Michael Moorcock, and Christopher Priest?
I want to put in a plug for
An SF short story Press Enter by John Varley
2 SF short story collections
Asimov’s Mysteries – Isaac Asimov
The Wind from the Sun – Arthur C. Clarke
An SF anthology series
The Year’s Best Science Fiction – edited by Gardner Dozois. Each edition includes a lengthy year in review introduction.
demimondian
@JGabriel: D’oh. Yes, it absolutely is. Not only is it Dick, it’s *such* a Dick. And I can’t even imagine what of Zelazny’s work I confused it with.
Crashman06
@CaseyL: I’ll check that out, thanks! The only other thing I read by him was The Years of Rice and Salt.
Steeplejack
@Crashman06:
I haven’t gotten to it yet, but a coworker has been liking The Name of the Wind, the first volume in a trilogy by Patrick Rothfuss.
(P.S. Cole! What to I need to add to a generic Amazon link to include the Balloon Juice vig-mo-tron?)
demimondian
@JK: It’s hackneyed, but a truly memorable book — if you haven’t read _2001: A Space Odyssey_, it’s a fascinating read, particularly if you read it and then watch the movie.
Steeplejack
@Crashman06:
I am currently beached about a quarter of the way through The Years of Rice and Salt. Started it months ago, made pretty good progress and then ground to a halt in the “Moors in Spain” section. Don’t know why. Give me a reason to press on.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Amazon link to The Name of the Wind got eaten in previous unsuccessful edit.
Crashman06
@Steeplejack: It’s been a while since I read it and I don’t specifically remember that part… It’s an interesting book, but it’s not as good as the Mars Trilogy. There’s some interesting philosophical stuff in the middle to latter part of the book. The problem is, the counterfactual plot stuff really starts to weaken halfway through and makes it hard to finish. I don’t blame you at all if you find it hard to continue.
But if you want to see what World War I would have looked like if it were fought between Islam and China, keep reading.
JK
@demimondian: Haven’t read 2001, but I’ve seen and enjoyed the movie. If my memory is correct, I think Clarke wrote 2001 following release of the movie or in time to coincide with release of the movie.
The film 2001 originated as an adaptaion of Clarke’s short story The Sentinel, which was later expanded into novel form as 2001.
Morbo
@MikeJ: Clearly it does, as it eated 7 of them today. 6 of those were in Illinois, ouch.
PGE
@AhabTRuler: Brin actually gives Costner’s Postman higher marks than one would expect though, obviously, it’s not even in the same league as the book. I liked the first three Uplift books a lot, though I think it goes downhill a bit from there. I particularly liked the idea behind one of Brin’s early books (I forget the title), where he envisions a world where I-forget-which law of thermodynamics is turned on it’s head, so entropy is reversed so, for example, things get better with use, instead of wearing out.
merrinc
Many, many years ago I read a story called “Beggars in Spain” in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine. It was about a group of people who had been genetically engineered to go without sleep. As a lifelong insomniac, I was fascinated by it. Imagine what you could accomplish without sleep! (If you weren’t dragging ass from being so damn tired, like I usually was.)
I eventually lost the magazine but never forgot the story. Years passed and when I joined the unwashed masses on the internets, one of the first terms I entered into a search engine was that story title. To my immense satisfaction, I learned that the author, Nancy Kress, had expanded the original novella into a full length novel — in fact, she wrote a trilogy. Highly recommended.
Montysano
@Steeplejack: “Mothership Connection” and the stuff that followed are great, but I’m really taken with the earlier albums. Plus, there’s a lot to know about the whole Parliaments/Funkadelic/P-Funk saga, which has been in process for 50 years now. It’s not always pretty, but it’s very interesting.
“Cosmic Slop” is simply one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.
JK
@merrinc: That’s a great premise for a story. Thanks for that recommendation.
JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN's Official Stalker
@Crashman06: Steven Erikson’s Malazan: Book of the Fallen is very good, and it has plenty of length to keep you going. It’s not as good as SoIaF, but very good. The first book is Gardens of the Moon.
As for favorite science fiction, I can’t stand Neal Stephenson. There are plenty of authors that I don’t like, but can at least understand why other people do. He’s not one of them. I consider liking Stephenson to be a sign of intellectual defect, kind of like really falling for the late, stupid, Heinlein.
I am very, very fond of Jon Courtenay Grimwood. His Arabesk trilogy, Pashazade, Effendi, and Fellaheen, set in a cyberpunkish world where the Ottoman Empire never fell is very good. Stamping Butterflies and Lucifer’s Dragon are only so-so. Redrobe is great. End of the World Blues is one of my favorite books ever, though you have to be able to appreciate books in which very little actually happens. Grimwood has a particularlcharacter he writes very well, the young man with severe identity issues and also frequently some memory problems, trying to find a place in the world in a whole new environment. ZeeZee in the Arabesk, Kit in End of the World Blues, and Axel in redRobe all fit this bill.
Steeplejack
@Montysano:
If you like their early stuff, you also probably would like James Brown’s Love Power Peace: Live at the Olympia, Paris, 1971, with Bootsy Collins and brother Phelps as part of the original JB’s. (Title has Amazon link embedded.) Check out the snippet from “Ain’t It Funky Now” or (my favorite) “Super Bad.”
gbear
@Cat Lady:
It’s worse than you think:
Bostondreams
@JGabriel:
I’ll bring them both together: Good Omens. I have read and reread that book a dozen times at least. A devil child that gets mixed up at the hospital, and it gets better from there!
MikeJ
Insurance companies rarely like having to rescue the people that premiums. Calling the FDIC “hungry” is lazy and stupid.
They didn’t “eated” them. They rescued the people who put their money in federally insured banks. Surely you don’t think federal insurance for small depositors is a bad idea?
JK
@gbear:
The passage you cite reminds me of Dennis Miller explaining to Bill O’Reilly that liberal women hate Palin because they are jealous of her incredible sex life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viR4cMHizPA
angulimala
Crashman,
I’m also a big fan of the Song of Ice and Fire series. I wish he would hurry his ass up … :)
asiangrrlMN
First of all, NEIL GAIMAN! Everything he’s ever written!
Secondly, I have to defend Howie Kurtz to some extent. I am much harder on Michelle Malkin because she’s Asian and a female. No, wait. It’s because she’s fucking nuts! Screw Howie Kurtz and his faux deep concern.
@gwangung: That’s fucking cool, man. Let me know if you ever tour the Midwest. I would love to see you perform.
Where the hell is Lily in the family photo? Huh?????? And where is Tunch and his futon?
To all the scientists out there: If you can invent a pill that allows me to bypass sleep, I will be eternally grateful. That is all.
burnspbesq
@Montysano:
If that stuff does it for you, you should also give a listen to this.
http://www.amazon.com/Emergency-Tony-Williams-Lifetime/dp/B0000047GA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1246598105&sr=1-1
AnotherBruce
In keeping with the science fiction theme, there is obviously no oxygen on the Planet Palin.
Anne Laurie
The previously mentioned LeGuin is actually called The WORD for World Is Forest. And since we’re including fantasy, the Earthsea Trilogy is now a pentalogy, and I would put TEHANU (#4) up against any other single fantasy of the last 50 years. Also, Buffalo Gals & Other Animal Presences.
Couldn’t get thru Dune, nor Stranger in a Strange Land — the “pivotal sf” of my formative years included Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar & Jagged Orbit, the Pohl/Kornbluth collaborations, a bargeload of Groff Conklin short-story collections, and anything by Andre Norton I could get my hands on. Anybody else remember Night of Masks and Beast Master and Star Man’s Son and The Stars Are Ours and The X Factor and… ?
Bill E Pilgrim
The best work of science fiction or fantasy I’ve read was that Republican budget from a few months ago.
Oh and it’s not from a real sci fi writer but if anyone hasn’t read Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan, it’s my favorite science fiction work ever. Also I lurved Asimov’s The End of Eternity, and Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man.
JK
@asiangrrlMN:
I find Malkin more repulsive than Kurtz simply because she’s much wackier. Her criticism of Dunkin Donuts because she thought Rachael Ray was wearing a kaffiyeh-style scarf in a Dunkin’ Donuts ad was insane. Howard Kurtz is more of a useless tool.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
I loved Andre Norton in my early SF reading days! Haven’t gone back to reread them, and they are kind of jumbled in my memory, but I especially loved her treatment of telepathy and mental communication with animals.
asiangrrlMN
@JK: True. I was responding to the fact that Kurtz was writing about whether black wimmin could, you know, cover the black first lady without being prejudiced about it. Funny. He’s never asked that about white female reporters and Laura Bush.
Prick.
@Bill E Pilgrim: I am so glad you live in France and post at the same time I do. You crack me up.
Steeplejack, aren’t you home early?
Bill E Pilgrim
@asiangrrlMN:
We have to stop meeting like this.
Are you just up late in the US?
JK
@asiangrrlMN:
The sad part is that Kurtz honestly believes he’s providing valuable media criticism.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
No, I got home a little after 11:00, as per usual when I work the late shift. Maybe just commenting earlier than usual because there was less stuff for me to read, i.e., fewer interesting (to me) Balloon Juice threads. I’m sick of Mark Sanford, I’m sick of WaPoGate (already), I’m sick of Sarah Palin (again!), etc., etc. It’s a nice change of pace to be a blowhard about funk music and science fiction.
I have been thinking about your sleep situation (lack of). Have you tried this–Jeffrey Thompson’s Delta Sleep System? It is excellent. I don’t suffer from insomnia, but I have used some of Thompson’s other products, and a couple of hard-core insomniacs I know swear by this one.
asiangrrlMN
@Bill E Pilgrim: Yes. I am a night owl and an insomniac. It’s not a pretty combination.
@JK: I know. The fact that much of the traditional media believes the same or pretends to believe the same is just as sad.
@Steeplejack: I’m with you. I skip Sanford threads, WaPo threads, most of the Palins threads as well. I much rather talk animals and music and books, oh my! Thanks for the suggestion for my sleep problems. I’m game to try anything at this point.
JK
Anyone seen an SF film called Sleep Dealer?
From the reviews of it that I’ve read, it sounds very good. It also won 2 awards at the Sundance Film Festival.
Tattoosydney
@Crashman06:
Yep. Loved them. Although they suffered a little from dimishing returns by the time Blue Mars came around, I concur that they are some fo the best crafted SF ever…
I also want to get in a plug for “A Canticle for Leibowitz“, which was recommended by someone last month, and which I have just finished. An extraordinary book.
JGabriel
JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN’s Official Stalker:
I wouldn’t go quite that far, though I understand the sentiment. Snow Crash was fun, but way overrated – it’s basically a comic book version William Gibson after too much caffeine and too much of Julian Jaynes’ Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. And I kind of lost interest in The Baroque Cycle about 3/4 of the way through the first book, though I sadly kept trudging until maybe 2/3 into the second book when I finally said, “Fuck this shit.”
But Cryptonomicon was quite good, except for the usual Stephenson flaw of not so much ending as just running out of steam.
.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
P.S. I forgot that I also used this other Jeffrey Thompson CD for a while: Delta Sleep Solution: Sleepy Rain (Amazon link embedded in title). Helped me a lot when I needed to take short catnaps during the afternoon to help adjust to weird work scheduling. It’s just rain sounds, which you might like better than ambient music.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
(Previous version of this got snagged in moderation. Think I removed the offending word.)
I forgot that I also used this other Jeffrey Thompson CD for a while: Delta Sleep Solution: Sleepy Rain (Amazon link embedded in title). Helped me a lot when I needed to take short catnaps during the afternoon to help adjust to weird work scheduling. It’s just rain sounds, which you might like better than music.
JGabriel
@Bostondreams:
Yes, I enjoyed that one too. Good times. Interestingly enough, they both claim Gaiman was responsible for most of the Death material, instead of Pratchett.
.
rachel
@CaseyL:
That was a huge problem for me after I got over the “Oh, wow. What an interesting universe,” phase. What good is an interesting universe if you don’t identify with a single character in it? Give me Lois Bujold’s Vokosigan series any day.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Yeah, that might actually be better. Can you tell me if it differs from nature music because I have those CDs. Hm. Maybe I should try those again. I can’t use headphones while I sleep, though, because I would end up strangling myself with the cord. I toss and turn all night. I think I will try this one first.
@JGabriel: Not odd. Gaiman does a great Death. Good Omens is what got me hooked on Gaiman. Pratchett–not so much.
JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN's Official Stalker
Cryptonomicon was horrible. It made no fucking sense. The plot didn’t make sense, for one thing. Why the hell would the Germans put all of their gold onto a submarine, and send it to the Japanese? What the hell good was that supposed to do the Germans?
Stephenson’s history is all wrong, and in very sloppy ways. It’s not like he needed to change things around to make his non-sensical story to work. He was just too lazy to actually learn his subject material.
His characters were weak. Just bad. Step back, and no one’s motivations really made much sense.
The whole thing was just permeated with an attitude of, “Wouldn’t it be cool if . . .” with no serious attempt to make all of the potentially cool thoughts fit together, or make sense, or contribute to a complete story.
When I make new friends, I always find out if they’ve read Cryptomomincan, and liked it. If both are true, I make sure that I never let them pick what movie we go see.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
My memory (don’t have the CDs in front of me) is that both the Thompson ones–music and just rain sounds–have stuff “embedded” in them to heighten the effect. So, yeah, they differ from “nature music.”
I didn’t listen with headphones. Just having it playing on a boom box or the computer’s CD drive and speakers was good for me.
Going to bed now. Will check back in the morning.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Ok, cool. I’m gonna try my own CDs first (I buy them, but never get around to trying them), and then his. Night!
asiangrrlMN
Hey. Music peeps out there. WTF is “Digipack” and will it make a difference to a pair of indifferent ears?
JGabriel
JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN’s Official Stalker:
Hmm, my favorite movies include Hiroshima Mon Amour, His Girl Friday, The Seven Samurai, M, Fanny and Alexander (the 5 hour version), Local Hero, and pretty much anything by Hitchcock, Almodovar, Hal Hartley, Godard, Truffaut, P.T. Anderson, and Michael Winterbottom.
If you don’t like any of those people either, then I guess that’s a criteria that’ll work for you.
Oh, and my favorite writers include Milan Kundera, Donald Barthelme, Jorge Luis Borges, George Bernard Shaw, Anne Carson, Proust, Jeannette Winterson, Stephen Jay Gould, Salman Rushdie, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, Dorothy Sayers, Scott Fitzgerald, and P.G. Wodehouse, so I guess you’d better stay away from them too.
.
JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN's Official Stalker
@JGabriel: That mostly means that I can’t rely on you as a critic at all, since you aren’t always wrong, either.
JGabriel
@JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN’s Official Stalker:
No, really, I am.
.
asiangrrlMN
Oooh, pissing contest! Well, dang, JMN, you took the fun right out of that.
JGabriel, great. Next thing I know, you two will be linking arms and singing Kumbyah.
JGabriel
asiangrrlMN:
I haven’t been to church in about 25-30 years. I’d get all the words wrong – although to be fair, at least that would apparently be in character.
Heh.
.
Tattoosydney
@JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN’s Official Stalker:
One more reason to love you, JMN. Red Robe is one of those books I can read over and over…
I want a soundtrack machine in my brain, just like Axel…
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
Oi! How you, woman?
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Hi, fake hubby! How are ya?
@JGabriel: Not that hard.
Kumbyah, m’lord
Kumbyah.
Kumbyah, m’lord
Kumbyah
Kumbyah, m’lord
Kumbyah (and then the real twist)
Oh, lord….
Kumbyah.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Itchy. Lay down with cats and wake up itchy.
How the hell are you? I’ve missed ya.
JGabriel
asiangrrlMN:
Sigh. There’s just too many options…
.
asiangrrlMN
@JGabriel: Huh? I was referring to the song, not church.
Jon H
Obama has appointed Douglas Kmiec to be our ambassador to Malta.
As anyone who knows a little history of Malta should be aware, this is a slap in the face to the Knights Templar!
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
Not bad – working hard… have to head home now, will chat to you over the weekend.
Glocksman
@Demo Woman:
Doggie treats, patience, and photoshop.
This picture was the fourth attempt.
It’s not perfect but it captures Haley’s intrinsic personality.
That said, I used bounce flash and PS to eliminate the outsized pupils that result from regular flash photography.
Wile E. Quixote
@John Cole
It’s because she’s dogmatizing them? Get it, dogmatizing? Man you all are a tough audience, that joke killed them in Walla Walla.
Ruckus
Have to agree with most everyone about Dune. Hadn’t read it in a long time, picked it up and wtf, I liked this the first time through? And then I remembered, I’m pretty sure I was stoned while reading it. Books just don’t resonate the same under those conditions.