Work With Me On This One
I am endeavouring to work up to the list of sci-fi books that we've been perusing over the past three days, and am also feeling curious about the prompt criteria of the AI Art Generator I use. It seems to have odd choices about the nouns used, being okay with 'swimsuit' but O NOES YOU CANNOT HAVE 'BIKINI' even if they are essentially the same thing. Dog Buns! the perverts out there have spoiled things for the rest of us. Art!
FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY.
Honest.
From the prompt "bright young thing in a swimsuit with a manly man and a tentacled alien" and I've Snipped the lower parts of the picture lest it cause you to lose control and run forth committing carnal acts, or similar shizzle. Note how Manly Man is concealing his face, possibly because he fears wifey might see this tryst? I'd also be wary turning my back on an alien with that many fangs and a worryingly spiky flexible ear-appendage.
ANYWAY back to that list of '68 Philosophical Sci-Fi Books To Make Your Brain Melt', from 'Sci-Fi Odyssey' over on Youtube. Art!
No 49: A Case Of Conscience by James Blish (1958). Now you know why I used 'A Box Of Beatitudes' as today's title. Art!
Ol' Jim wrote one of my favouritest sci-fi novels evah, 'Earthman, Come Home', about the Okie culture and spindizzy drives and Dirac transmitters and one day some Hollywood suit WILL give in and greenlight it. ACOC, however, is what we're supposed to be talking about here. It dealt with religion and Catholicism at a time when both were almost* unknown in sci-fi, and frames a first contact mission in terms of whether an entire civilisation was created by Satan. Light and frothy themes, then.
No. 48: The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin (1974). Ha! An antithesis to Dostoevsky's 'The Possessed'? Er well no. I have read the latter, and it's a wild read, starting as a frothy provincial comedy and ending up with everyone dead through suicide or murder.
ANYWAY Art!
No 47: Xeelee by Stephen Baxter (1987). Another one I shall have to check up on. I do tend to confuse Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds and Neal Stephenson, perhaps because I've read so much brain-melty sci-fi over the years. Art!
I think I've read a short story of his on this subject matter, which seems to involve the entire history of the universe. The blurb does mention 'billions of years', so I hope the editors were there with a chainsaw to deal with the MSS.
No. 46: The Golden Age by John Wright (2002). Another 'Not sure' here. Allow me to go check. Thank you so much.
Nope. This one is about an incredibly advanced Hom. Sap. 10,000 years into the future, where immortality is the norm and where nobody wants for anything. Art!
Sounds a bit dull, to be honest. As Ol' Tolky pointed out, things that are pleasant and enjoyable are soon described, whereas worry and strife take a lot longer to portray and are more entertaining.
No. 45: Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks (1987). Haha! Yes, another one I've read, and it was - okay. People rave about the series this began. That's their prerogative. Conrad was rather less impressed. Art!
Do I have to?
Damning with faint praise, what you might call phlebasphemy.
No. 44: Too Like The Lightning by Ada Palmer (2006). Sorry, another Nope No Idea. However, do take note that this is the second female author on this portion of the list, meaning that girls are now breaking into the field of sci-fi. Good for them! which you might not expect Conrad to pronounce, except if you exclude 50% of the planet from creating your fiction then you impoverish yourself. Also, listening to Smoke Fairies as I type this. Art!
Also, Smoke Fairies.
NO! NO BIKINIS!
Quick nurse the screams!
No. 43 Stand On Zanzibar by John Brunner (1968). Another of those 'I'm sorry mum I started it and didn't carry on' ones for me. I remember getting well into it and then - nothing. I do remember good things about it, especially the internal reference to an anarchistic memoir that inspires hatred and loathing amongst the authoritarian dictatorship ruling South Canada. If I buy it it may make me continue the whole thing <wallet squeaks in torment>. Art!
As I recall, the title relates to how compact an island the whole of humanity can be condensed upon. It used to be the Isle Of Wight - and in John's dystopia, it's now Zanzibar.
More Romanian Satire
Yes, onward's with Daractenus' satirical look at - er - 'posh' Ruffian cities. Art!
Welcome to charming Chapayevsk, which Darac describes as a city best known for producing chemical weapons. That meant in the days of the Sinister Union it would have been a 'closed' city, no furriners allowed and precious few Sinisters, either. Under the Putinpot regime it's not closed but is still under-visited because, once again, chemical weapons. "See Chapayevsk and shorten your life by six months!" isn't a winning tourist slogan.
Another Failure To Lunch
Art!
This is all that's left of 'pets.com', a ridiculously over-hyped internet business from 1998 that launched with enormous publicity. Their business model was selling stuff for pets over the internet, which did not go down well with the pet-owning public, who stayed away in droves. It might have worked today, just not a quarter of a century ago. One of the more sobering and educational failures of the dot.com boom, the boom being the noise it made collapsing. It was gone by 2000. Thank you once again Museum Of Failure!
Someone Looks Stressed
Dimya, also known as Bunker Midget Grandad, doesn't know the first thing about economics or finance, and indeed is firmly convinced that you can fix an economy by shouting at it. Unfortunately for him, a non-sentient entity like an economy runs on different lines. Art!
Doesn't look happy, does he?
Since the orcs have to pay for the privilege of having the Tsar wage war, Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks is now tightening the new tax system, ordering stricter 'compliance' in collecting monies. Which probably means tax officials cannot take bribes to look the other way when it comes to taxing businesses. The problem with increasing the tax burden upon businesses is that the owners may simply close up shop and stop trading, as many are looking at looming bankruptcy.
Oooops.
A Change Of Scenery
If you follow the blog at all AND I WILL KNOW IF YOU HAVEN'T then you'll be aware that we sporadically cover the works of artist Terence Cuneo, which tend to be scenes from the First or Second Unpleasantness. Plus, we have been yarking on about light railways whilst covering the exploits of Sir Eric Geddes, whom we have informally dubbed 'Geddy'. Today's artwork is thus a bit different. Art!
This is 'Docklands Light Railway' 1986. A bucolic change from tanks and barbed wire, nicht wahr?
You've Gotta Be ******* Kidding!
I will allow your filthy minds to fill in the asterisks, but those of you who have seen 'The Thing' will know what Conrad means. Art!
"At a certain age, about 86, 87, he started getting, what do they call it?" he asked out loud, then turning to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt for the answer.
"Alzheimer’s," she responded, to which Donald replied, "Well, I don’t have it."
Finally -
I just need another ten words to boost us over the 1,300 Word Count. And we're there!
* See 'Out Of The Silent Planet'
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