Sunday Morning Book Thread - 09-04-2022 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material, even if it's nothing more than the script for Amazon's Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. As always, pants are required, especially if you are wearing these pants...(One Ring not included...)

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, enjoy a wafer of lembas (Elvish waybread) with your miruvor(Elvish cordial), and crack open a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

Since Friday marked the release of Amazon's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, I thought I'd celebrate a with a Tolkien-themed thread. Friday also marked the anniversary of his death (August 2, 1973). Today's pic comes from a man who is a bit of a superfan when it comes to collecting volumes of Tolkien's works. He has around 1100 copies of various Tolkien books. Visit The Tolkien Library for more details.

If any of you have an idea for a Sunday Morning Book Thread theme, please let me know and I'll see what I can do...

THE CRAFT OF STORYTELLING - CAUSE AND EFFECT

OrangeEnt posted the following comment recently (I believe it was on J.J.'s Morning Report):

Had to laugh at that Barnes and Noble story. As a dabbler who probably isn't any good at writing, and as someone who doesn't fit the current publishing criteria, I love hearing the complaints from "underrepresented" and "marginalized" voices.
Maybe your writing doesn't sell because it's not very good, not because who you are or what you write about.
Fifty years ago all these books were published from "new voices" types. Why didn't they sell? Because they contained nothing good, right, or true. The new voices types wrote hate filled garbage that improved nothing and led to nothing good. None of it should ever have been published by mainstream houses.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at August 26, 2022 07:24 AM (7bRMQ)

I think most of us are quite well aware of the poor quality in today's literary and cinematic output. And I think a lot of the reasons why the quality just plain sucks is because authors are not following the cardinal rule of CAUSE and EFFECT in their stories. What does this mean? Well, in the really real world in which we inhabit, nothing happens without a cause. You can trace this all the way back to the Big Bang. Stories need to reflect this fundamental principle, no matter how fantastic the story may be. So let's look at how CAUSE and EFFECT influence the main characteristics of storytelling: setting, plot, and characters.

SETTING: Within the context of the story, the time and place during which it is set didn't spring from nothingness. There needs to be a reason for why the setting is the way it is. Authors don't need to create truly extensive backstories like J.R.R. Tolkien did for Lord of the Rings, but there should be at least some reasonable explanation for the current state of the world in which the story is set. Even mythology tends to follow this basic principle, with an explanation of how the gods created the world and populated it with people.

PLOT: The events within the story itself also need to follow a logical progression of CAUSE and EFFECT. Audiences are pretty forgiving of plot holes, so long as they are able to remain immersed within the story. But when plot holes are so glaring that the audience is unable to follow the CAUSES and EFFECTS that are supposed to lead from one scene to the next, they will be unhappy, even subconsciously, because the story no longer makes sense within its own rules.

CHARACTERS: Finally, the characters within the story must have a rationale for their actions. They must have a motivation and a purpose behind everything they do within the story. One of the most glaring errors writers can make is to give characters dialog just so that they can move the plot along, rather than dialog that is organic and natural and serves the purpose of the overall story. Characters all have their own reasons for their actions. Characters drive the action, but not without reason.

J.R.R. Tolkien was an absolute grandmaster of CAUSE and EFFECT in his magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings. At every point in the story, the reader is fully immersed in the setting, as the Fellowship journeys from The Shire to Mordor. Each location is described in meticulous detail. Tolkien even went so far as to chart the phases of the Moon on their journey so that when he describes the Moon on any given night, it will look "correct." Indeed, when the characters spend time in Lothlorien, they get a bit confused when they realize that time seems to pass differently there. The plot starts out simple--walk to Mt. Doom and toss in the One Ring--but layers of complexity are added over time, increasing the challenges that must be overcome by the heroes. All of the characters have a well-developed motivation for everything they do. Frodo is the Chosen One (by chance) and Merry, Pippin, and Sam are his best friends who won't let Frodo go into danger alone. Gandalf, of course, is one of the driving forces of the plot because he's been sent to Middle Earth to challenge Sauron. Aragorn seeks to reclaim his heritage and birthright. Boromir is desperate for something that will help his people withstand Sauron's forces. Legolas and Gimli start out simply to represent their respective races in the Fellowship, but their relationship also heals the rift that existed between Elves and Dwarves. (It's implied in the Appendices that Gimli is the only Dwarf in history to be allowed to travel to the Undying Lands with Legolas.)

CAUSE and EFFECT...Good writing embraces this principle.

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WHY THE MORON HORDE IS AWESOME

Last week, I posted a picture of a map library. One of the maps was a relief map propped up in a prominent display. Unfortunately, the resolution of the image was not high enough quality for anyone to read the text on the map to know what it was depicting, leading to this comment:

OK, I give up. In the photo, what area does that raised relief map cover? There's no mountains in Florida ... just hills in the northern boarder area.
Posted by: SmokyStovetop at August 28, 2022 10:15 AM (GHdXS)

Naturally, the Moron Horde rose to the challenge to answer SmokyStovetop's question:

See the raised map tilted sideways and above the other maps on the table?
That is a series of 4 raised topographical maps of Tokyo to the end of Tokyo Wan. It shown Camp Zama and Kamakura. The time period shown was late 1950s.
How do I know? I have those 4 maps, even after many moves. They were fire to my young brain, back in the days. Still cool, for a period before the growth of the Tokyo metropolis.
Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at August 28, 2022 10:20 AM (u82oZ)

Sure enough, when I went looking for Mt. Fuji in Google Maps, I found that the geography around Mt. Fuji matched the image depicted in the map. The Moron Horde is just so amazing...

ADDENDUM: I told my friend about this little exchange and she was kind enough to take a much better picture of the map on her next visit to the library. You can see this picture HERE.

NOTE: In keeping with the Tolkien theme of this thread today, jim (in Kalifornia) suggested that the map depicts the following location:

Middle Earth, and that's Mount Doom with the tall peak...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at August 28, 2022 10:20 AM (ynpvh)

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MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

About to finish I Chose Freedom by Soviet defector Victor Kravchenko. Best expose of communism by someone who lived it that I've read.
Ought to be read in all schools; his observation that Americans seem more duped about the nature of Communism than Russians still rings true.
Posted by: Durak Kazyol at August 28, 2022 09:18 AM (4zxRq)

Comment: It's a shame more people are not informed about just how evil Communism really is. It takes away everything dignified and special about each individual human and reduces us to collective dust beneath the feet of "the elite" who arrogate to themselves a right to rule over us for perpetuity. I almost said it was a "divine" right, but they worship no gods other than themselves.

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I'm taking a break from bingeing on urban fantasy books with absolutely no redeeming value whatsoever and am just finishing up Kyle Harper's The Fall of Rome. Back in my misspent youth, I took four years of Latin in high school. I really didn't learn all that much Latin, but my teacher covered a lot of Roman history, and I've had a side interest in Roman history since then.
I have never read Gibbons' Rise and Fall. Just not interested. But I have read a bunch of fiction and nonfiction covering the entirety of Roman history, so I am pretty familiar with the larger outline.
Harper places the fall of Rome in the context of disease and climate change in addition to politics, something I'd never done myself. He writes about the three big pandemics that wracked Imperial Rome at about two hundred years intervals, resulting in a severe depopulation that depleted both the armies and the treasury. (I discovered I really should have paid a lot more attention to my biology teacher.) 1/2
Posted by: Captain Josepha Sabin -- I wasn't particularly fond of the '70s the first time around at August 28, 2022 10:06 AM (9SjWf)

Comment: I disagree that urban fantasy books have no redeeming value. I find many of them to be very entertaining indeed. Oh, and some of them involve knight errants of sorts who go out and perform good deeds for the sake of being good (Harry Dresden, for instance). As for the fall of empires, well, I suspect we will see a few such during our lifetimes. I remember living in Germany when the Berlin Wall fell, signaling the end of the great and powerful USSR. At the time, people thought it would last forever, but it was only around less than a century. Some empires last longer than others, of course.

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Probably the most interesting thing I read this week wasn't a book but a blog post by Bret Devereaux, on why the Romans didn't have an industrial revolution. It's on his blog, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, which I highly recommend.
Posted by: Trimegistus at August 28, 2022 10:11 AM (QZxDR)

Comment: I threw this in here today because some of the best reading can be found in blog format. After all, why else would we come to AoSHQ day-after-day? Bill Whittle had some terrific essays on his old blog, Eject, Eject, Eject.

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I would like to recommend a book by Elizabeth Letts, The Ride of Her Life, it is a true story about a woman from Maine who travels by horseback across the country to see the Pacific Ocean back in the early 1950's. Apart from the story of Annie and her dog and her horse, this is a story of America as well, the book is meticulously researched and very well written. It is a snapchat of what our nation used to be like, so a history book too in a way. It is a nice read.
Posted by: Debby Doberman Schultz at August 28, 2022 10:27 AM (a4EWo)

Comment: Does the book come with a map of her journey? If not, why not? Seriously, though, it sounds like she was driven to find one last great adventure in America-that-was...Imagine riding across America by horseback today. I'm sure it could still be done...

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (388 Moron-recommended books so far!)

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WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

Lost in Transmission by Wil McCarthy -- Second book of The Queendom of Sol series. The revolutionary kids from the first book have been exiled to Barnard's Star for a thousand years...

To Crush the Moon by Wil McCarthy -- The third book of The Queendom of Sol series. Things went downhill quickly in the Queendom of Sol and now humanity is on the brink of extinction from their own creations (robots)...

The Complete Tolkien Companion by J.E.A. Tyler -- A handy reference when watching the abomination known as The Rings of Power

Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan -- Book 11 in The Wheel of Time and the last book Jordan wrote before his death. Brandon Sanderson was able to complete the series with the help of Jordan's widow and editor as well as copious notes from Jordan himself.

That's about all I have for this week. Thank you for all of your kind words regarding my Sunday Morning Book Thread. This is a very special place. You are very special people (in all the best ways!). The kindness, generosity, and wisdom of the Moron Horde knows no bounds. Let's keep reading!

If you have any suggestions for improvement, reading recommendations, or writing projects that you'd like to see on the Sunday Morning Book Thread, you can send them to perfessor dot squirrel at-sign gmail dot com. Your feedback is always appreciated! You can also take a virtual tour of OUR library at libib.com/u/perfessorsquirrel. Since I added sections for AoSHQ, I now consider it OUR library, rather than my own personal fiefdom...

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 08-28-22 (hat tip: vmom stabby stabby stabamillion) (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Books!

Posted by: PabloD at September 04, 2022 09:00 AM (JCymI)

2 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at September 04, 2022 09:00 AM (k8B25)

3 Currently doing a re-read of the Recluse series series. I am about halfway through the series but what is odd is that I am on the first book published. The others were really prequels.

Posted by: vic /S at September 04, 2022 09:00 AM (mZwKe)

4 Tolle Lege!

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at September 04, 2022 09:00 AM (PiwSw)

5 hiya

Posted by: JT at September 04, 2022 09:00 AM (T4tVD)

6 Nothing new, busy doing other stuff that needs reading

Posted by: Skip at September 04, 2022 09:00 AM (k8B25)

7 I've been reading early tales of the Incredible Hulk, the ones originally published in Tales to Astonish, and enjoying their unintentional absurdities.

For example, the Hulk gets from the Asian mainland to New Mexico by island-hopping across the Pacific, hitching rides on passing jetliners as needed. Stan, an aircraft struck in mid-flight by an 800-pound object is going to crash!

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 04, 2022 09:01 AM (Om/di)

8 Lots of content here.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 09:02 AM (7bRMQ)

9 I don't think the pants guy owns a weedwhacker. (if you catch my drift)

Posted by: JT at September 04, 2022 09:02 AM (T4tVD)

10 Top 10?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:02 AM (c6xtn)

11 Morning. I have had my bacon and I am drinking my coffee.

I am ready for the world.

My Zoom book club is reading A Canticle for Liebowitz. I read it before, and I need to get on it as meeting is Wednesday.

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2022 09:03 AM (6TxNR)

12 Speaking of Eddie Gibbon, has anyone heard from Captain Hate recently?

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at September 04, 2022 09:04 AM (PiwSw)

13 Booken morgen horden!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 09:04 AM (gbzeC)

14 No pimp hat for squirrel.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at September 04, 2022 09:04 AM (zck5C)

15 I want those pants

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 09:04 AM (gbzeC)

16 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading.

Posted by: JTB at September 04, 2022 09:05 AM (7EjX1)

17 Ha! I made it!

Morning, all. I'm reading one of Cornell Woolrich's noirs, The Bride Wore Black. Good start to it for sure.

OrangeEnt, I've gone over your ms and enjoyed the rewrite. I'll email you my comments, and scan the script back to you on Tuesday.

MPPPP, I haven't gotten to your novel yet. And this morning my ceiling sprung yet another drip which I didn't catch before it dampened the edges of the pages! It's not bad; I'm air-drying the book now. (Damn this place.)

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:05 AM (c6xtn)

18 Repost coz of top pic
I watched Rings of Power - ep 2 with hubby, then ep 1.
I'm trying to give it a chance. Watched it that order it's not bad I guess.
The proto-hobbit characters are annoying though. The invented elf human couple are bland.
A lot of the male elves range from funny looking to ugly.
There is a giant who fell to earth in a comet and can't talk, so that's a mystery.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 09:06 AM (gbzeC)

19 I bought another book for the "to be read someday" pile - "The Liar" by Benjamin Cunningham. It's the true story about a double agent during the Cold War. I was listening to the local AM radio talk show guy the other day, and he was interviewing the author. It piqued by curiosity, so I decided to order it. As to when I'll get around to reading it, who knows...

Posted by: PabloD at September 04, 2022 09:06 AM (JCymI)

20 Sorry I missed last thread, Perfessor.

Maps almost always indicate a better book.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:07 AM (dNqv+)

21 Speaking of Eddie Gibbon, has anyone heard from Captain Hate recently?
Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at September 04, 2022 09:04 AM (PiwSw)

Still alive and well... Well, kind of...

To be mentioned in the same sentence with Eddie is kind of humbling. Kind of insulting too...

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 04, 2022 09:08 AM (y7DUB)

22 On the story elements entry by our esteemed moderator: Agreed on all the points. Of course if you set a story in today's world, you don't need to go into great detail. Saying "Philadelphia, 2022" and showing a few telling details about the pesthole it's becoming might well be enough. You have to establish your characters within it and the backstory that led them to be in the pesthole, but you don't need to tell the reader about the history of Philadelphia, its role in the Revolution, etc. Unless somehow that is crucial to the story you're telling.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:08 AM (c6xtn)

23 Morning, 'rons and 'ronettes.

One of the problems with purchasing books through a catalog is that while you might like the precis, the actual book can be a disappointment. Case in point: A Pilgrimage to Eternity by NYT (spit) writer Timothy Egan. He is traipsing the Via Francigena on a pilgrimage to Rome, and since the book's subtitle, From Canterbury to Rome in Search of A Faith intrigued unhappy me, I thought I would order it.

So it arrived yesterday and. . .ugh. Just from the twee style of writing, his obvious politics - he says "I start as a father, a husband, an American deeply troubled by the empty drift of our country" - as well as his squeeing like a pre-teen girl over Frankie Fabulous, I know he's going to be slamming Trump and / or Republicans at some point.

I don't know whether to throw the book away now or keep reading until he reveals himself to be the bigot I know he is.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at September 04, 2022 09:08 AM (AW0uW)

24 Hello book freaks!

And "Bored of the Rings" is no guilty pleasure, my mellon.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 09:08 AM (Dc2NZ)

25 To be mentioned in the same sentence with Eddie is kind of humbling. Kind of insulting too...
Posted by: Captain Hate at September 04, 2022 09:08 AM (y7DUB)

Your magisterial takedowns of his arrogant scribblings were memorable.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at September 04, 2022 09:09 AM (PiwSw)

26 Hiya Captain Hate !

Posted by: JT at September 04, 2022 09:09 AM (T4tVD)

27 Hiya Eris !

Posted by: JT at September 04, 2022 09:09 AM (T4tVD)

28 Koecher is one of the bases for the americans there was a pit if british sleeoer agents as eell

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at September 04, 2022 09:10 AM (i0Lci)

29 MPPPP, I haven't gotten to your novel yet. And this morning my ceiling sprung yet another drip which I didn't catch before it dampened the edges of the pages! It's not bad; I'm air-drying the book now. (Damn this place.)
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:05 AM (c6xtn)

Not to worry, Wolfus, I know you'll get there at some point. I'll be interested in your take.

Hmm - Portland classical radio now playing Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze. Wish that could lift me up.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at September 04, 2022 09:10 AM (AW0uW)

30 3 Currently doing a re-read of the Recluse series series. I am about halfway through the series but what is odd is that I am on the first book published. The others were really prequels.
Posted by: vic /S at September 04, 2022 09:00 AM (mZwKe)

LE Modesit (sp?)?

I have a few of those books around here. I liked the first one a lot. But the... mechanics of it, while interesting, did not sing to me.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:11 AM (dNqv+)

31 I don't know whether to throw the book away now or keep reading until he reveals himself to be the bigot I know he is.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at September 04, 2022 09:08 AM (AW0uW)
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If it well and truly stinks, make a tiny auto da fe out of the pages with a picture of Frankie sitting atop.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 09:12 AM (Dc2NZ)

32 Sauron's Blog. It's his online journal/diary. It needs to be read 'backwards', from the bottom of the page and up, etc. Here is page one...

https://tinyurl.com/ywafb4mn

Posted by: davidt at September 04, 2022 09:12 AM (oTZbj)

33 I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. This is a beautifully written story about an Afghani woman, Mariam, born out of wedlock to a rich businessman and one of his servants. Her and her mother are shunned by the family and banished to a hovel outside of Herat. When she is fifteen, her mother commits suicide and she is forced to marry a much older man who is a shoemaker in Kabul.

The book paints a picture of Afghani life. It is also the story of Mariam and Laila, a fifteen year old second wife, brought into the family when Mariam cannot conceive. The growing, complicated relationship between the two is the heart of the book. One also learns a bit of Afghan history from 1960 to 2003.

This is Hosseini's second book. I'm currently reading his first, The Kite Runner.

Posted by: Zoltan at September 04, 2022 09:12 AM (0ipkK)

34 Rome lasted 1400 hundred years another thousand on the byzantine side

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at September 04, 2022 09:12 AM (i0Lci)

35 Every time I see a reference to "The Rings of Power," I think of the Marvel villain the Mandarin.

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 04, 2022 09:13 AM (Om/di)

36 Saw this title on the library website. Alas, they don't have it in stock yet!

"Queens of Noise" by Leigh Harlen -- Mixi fronts the Mangy Rats, a motley found family of queers, crust punks and werecoyotes. Mixi and their band know they're gonna win the Battle of the Bands final showdown, no matter what it takes. But to make that happen, they'll also have to contend with poser goths, murderous chickens, and a bullshit corporate takeover ruining the best bar in town.

I just checked hir Amazon page and the rainbow-haired author's pronouns are they/them, because of course.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 09:13 AM (Dc2NZ)

37 Good morning Horde! Thanks Professor!

Still immersed in my All-Merrill's Marauders, All the Time effort. Anyone out there have a copy of the rare "Galahad", by Hunter?

Meanwhile, wifey wanted huevos racheros... and those tortillas aren't going to cook themselves!

Happy booking, everyone. Off to the beach tomorrow.

Posted by: goatexchange at September 04, 2022 09:14 AM (APPN8)

38 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:05 AM (c6xtn)

Thanks, W. How's your's going?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 09:15 AM (7bRMQ)

39 Good morning booksters. Other than reading through dozens of cartons of previously packed up educational materials for teaching college courses to determine if they got the barrel, I got nuthn'.

Posted by: Tonypete at September 04, 2022 09:15 AM (LsEU/)

40 Good Sunday Morning to the horde! Thank you Perfessor for another lovely book thread!

I'm still slogging through Mary Beard's SPQR, for those who enjoy Roman history. Gibbon's book will be next on my list!

Happy Reading!

Posted by: Moki at September 04, 2022 09:15 AM (JrN/x)

41 No redeeming value? What is the point of reading? To enjoy yourself. Maybe learn something. Keep your vocabulary loose. As I have gotten older I have lost more and more patience with the snooty assholes who somehow think their literature has to be 'important' (and use an arbitrary definition that includes the shit they are working on.)

Read what you like. Don't feel bad about liking it and don't let anyone else tell you it is shit with no redeeming value.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:15 AM (dNqv+)

42 Those pants are fine. I would wear them to Walmart to buy Cheetos and Mountain Dew and more pants like those.

Posted by: The Hobbit in the basement at September 04, 2022 09:15 AM (sn5EN)

43 "Florida Woman" by Deb Rogers was something I randomly picked up in the "new" shelf at the library. Slow burn story of a Florida gal who becomes an internet joke (tequila, flames, theft, and a pelican are involved) and her get-out-of-jail community service job (with ankle monitor) is to work at a macaque refuge in the middle of nowhere. The monkey halfway house is run by a trio of hippie chicks with a cultlike reverence for the critters. She knows weird shit is going on at the refuge but her common sense is drowned by all the love-bombing and sense of belonging, for the first time in her life. The sanctuary is a beautiful place but there is a constant hum of dread in the background, and something sinister is disturbing the macaques at night.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 09:15 AM (Dc2NZ)

44 Good Sunday morning, horde!

I have started multiple books this week, but can't stick with anything.

Scourge of God by William Deitrich still looks promising to me, but I must be too tired when I start. It's been my bedtime reading choice, and I've had to start over three nights in a row, because I don't remember what I read the previous night.

Same with Mesopotamia by Serhiy Zhadan. It's been a distracting week.

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at September 04, 2022 09:16 AM (OX9vb)

45 As to when I'll get around to reading it, who knows...

Story of my life.

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 04, 2022 09:16 AM (Om/di)

46 And this morning my ceiling sprung yet another drip which I didn't catch before it dampened the edges of the pages! It's not bad; I'm air-drying the book now.

You need to get one of those waterproof Kindles. Or fix your roof. Either/or.

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 09:16 AM (nfrXX)

47 Read what you like. Don't feel bad about liking it and don't let anyone else tell you it is shit with no redeeming value.
Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:15 AM (dNqv+)
---

Hear hear!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 09:16 AM (Dc2NZ)

48 I just saw this posted on the Nitter:

OMG In the Penguin Random House/S&S antitrust trial it was revealed that out of 58,000 trade titles published per year, half of those titles sell fewer than one dozen books. LESS THAN ONE DOZEN.

So there is a metric for you.

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2022 09:17 AM (6TxNR)

49 I'll probably return Mesopatamia unread, and I'm waiting for The Sun Down Motel, by Simone St. James. This is my son's family book club choice this month. The suspense novels are keeping our interest lately, so high hopes.

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at September 04, 2022 09:17 AM (OX9vb)

50 I don't know whether to throw the book away now or keep reading until he reveals himself to be the bigot I know he is.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at September 04, 2022 09:08 AM (AW0uW)

I have only ever done that with a couple books ever. (Thrown them away.) The first book in the Gap series by Donaldson is the one that stands on the top of the mountain to me. So bad it made me go back and examine all the books by him I like and be very skeptical of anything that came out after.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:17 AM (dNqv+)

51 I'm still slogging through Mary Beard's SPQR, for those who enjoy Roman history. Gibbon's book will be next on my list!

I have that on my kindle. I liked it, despite Beard being a flaming leftist.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at September 04, 2022 09:17 AM (AW0uW)

52 The sanctuary is a beautiful place but there is a constant hum of dread in the background, and something sinister is disturbing the macaques at night.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 09:15 AM (Dc2NZ)
----
Hmmm...Better check the bushes to see if Dr. Fauci is lurking out there doing "research" on monkeypox...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:18 AM (K5n5d)

53 something sinister is disturbing the macaques at night.

That right there is a book in itself.

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2022 09:18 AM (6TxNR)

54 I am very excited as I just got the library copy of a new Baen author - The Crossing by Kevin Ikenberry. Premise is some Marines go back in time to the American Revolution.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 09:18 AM (gbzeC)

55 And when I say 'throw out,' I mean walk across the street to the neighbor's Little Lending Library and shove it in there.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at September 04, 2022 09:18 AM (AW0uW)

56 I read In the Shadow of the Wall, a story about a boy/man who grows up in East Germany and discovers freedom (mostly by growing up without it but also by discovering Elvis) and eventually escapes over the Berlin wall. True story, interesting life.

Does anyone know of any books on how people survived/thrived the fall of a nation? Asking for future reference. Anything about the lives of normal people in the fall of the Soviet empire, or any of the other nations that have collapsed in modern times.

Posted by: .87c at September 04, 2022 09:18 AM (zD2N3)

57 By contrasr the british empire lased 200 hundred years if thar so what standard was gibbon using.

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at September 04, 2022 09:19 AM (i0Lci)

58 But then Rome didn't have the Visigoths controlling all their media.

Posted by: Skip at September 04, 2022 09:20 AM (k8B25)

59 OMG In the Penguin Random House/S&S antitrust trial it was revealed that out of 58,000 trade titles published per year, half of those titles sell fewer than one dozen books. LESS THAN ONE DOZEN.
---

Ha! "How To Avoid Huge Ships" and "Outwitting Squirrels" have better numbers than that!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 09:20 AM (Dc2NZ)

60 Macaques>gibbons

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2022 09:20 AM (6TxNR)

61 I've been reading a book about The Somme by Martin Gilbert. Dismal, dismal, dismal.

I also just finished binge watching Better Call Saul. All 63, 45-minute episodes. I liked BB better, in part because I don't find lawyers arguing to be very fascinating. Prefer drug dealers.

Posted by: mnw at September 04, 2022 09:21 AM (NLIak)

62 Hmmm...Better check the bushes to see if Dr. Fauci is lurking out there doing "research" on monkeypox...
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:18 AM (K5n5d)
--

The macaques carry Hep B!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 09:21 AM (Dc2NZ)

63 OMG In the Penguin Random House/S&S antitrust trial it was revealed that out of 58,000 trade titles published per year, half of those titles sell fewer than one dozen books. LESS THAN ONE DOZEN.
---
Isn't mainstream publishing a kind of racket where they rely on key bestsellers (e.g. "Harry Potter") to prop up the rest of the mediocre shit they try to sell?

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:22 AM (K5n5d)

64 Yay book thread! I'm about halfway through Peter Kemp's Mine Were of Trouble which is about his experiences fighting for the Nationalists in Spain.

I only became aware of this book during the final stages of publishing Long Live Death and I decided not to postpone publishing it because I felt I had proved my point. After that, I was burned out on Spain, but kept Mine Were of Trouble in my Amazon cart "for later."

After finishing my China draft, I decided it was "later." So far, it's a good read and because I know the subject matter, I'm getting a lot out of it.

It's nice to read for fun rather than research.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 09:22 AM (llXky)

65 I have that on my kindle. I liked it, despite Beard being a flaming leftist.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at September 04, 2022 09:17 AM (AW0uW)

Check out John Maddox Roberts' Hannibal's Children. An alternate history novel of the Romans losing the second punic war. I REALLY liked the first one. He did do at least a second novel in the series.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:22 AM (dNqv+)

66 "Queens of Noise" by Leigh Harlen -- Mixi fronts the Mangy Rats, a motley found family of queers, crust punks and werecoyotes. Mixi and their band know they're gonna win the Battle of the Bands final showdown, no matter what it takes.

So... Basically an episode of "Josie and the Pussycats" but with ugly chicks?

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 09:22 AM (nfrXX)

67 Penguin Random House/S&S antitrust trial

***

Did not know about this. Sounds juicy

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 09:22 AM (gbzeC)

68 Good morning.

Well, I finished "Anna Karinina." Quite the piece of literature.

Funny thing, I read it after reading the history "In the Shadow of the Winter Palace" and the novel went well with the history of the period.

Currently reading "The First World War" by John Keegan, which will be followed up by Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "August 1914."

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 09:22 AM (5pTK/)

69 One thing I didn't understand about the LOTR why didn't they get a drone and drop the Ring into Mt. Doom.

More coffee...

Posted by: dantesed at September 04, 2022 09:23 AM (88xKn)

70 51 I'm still slogging through Mary Beard's SPQR, for those who enjoy Roman history. Gibbon's book will be next on my list!"

I found a like new set of Gibbons 6 volume work at a garage sale for $5 a few years back, so I had to read it. Incredibly detailed and unfortunately tending towards the tedious because of it. Before that I'd heard it said that we had lost a lot of info on the so-called "dark ages" - well if you want to see what the Byzantine Emperor was up to on every single day between 600 - 900, there it is.

but I think it would be useful to go through again, just to see how many of the political pathologies we are repeating.

Posted by: Tom Servo at September 04, 2022 09:24 AM (r46W7)

71 Ajax is staring at me intently and expectantly. He wants to go out. He never barks or yips at me to get my attention. He just always sits and drills his gaze into my head. BRB.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:24 AM (dNqv+)

72 Salty is wicked smaht.

Posted by: JackStraw at September 04, 2022 09:25 AM (ZLI7S)

73 Last week there was a mention of "A Cowboy In Carpathia: A Bon Howard Adventure". I got the Kindle version and started it. Fun reading so far and an interesting premise.

Posted by: JTB at September 04, 2022 09:25 AM (7EjX1)

74 And when I say 'throw out,' I mean walk across the street to the neighbor's Little Lending Library and shove it in there.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at September 04, 2022 09:18 AM (AW0uW)
--------------
Heh.

I've had books which were so bad and/or enraging, I've tossed them in the trash, rather than risk inflicting them on some other poor unsuspecting soul.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 09:25 AM (5pTK/)

75 71 Ajax is staring at me intently and expectantly. He wants to go out. He never barks or yips at me to get my attention. He just always sits and drills his gaze into my head. BRB.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson

Your hypno-toad is named Ajax?

Posted by: davidt at September 04, 2022 09:25 AM (oTZbj)

76 but I think it would be useful to go through again, just to see how many of the political pathologies we are repeating.
Posted by: Tom Servo at September 04, 2022 09:24 AM (r46W7)

Virtually all of them. Especially the bureaucratic control/destruction and technocratic Diocletian horseshit.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:25 AM (dNqv+)

77 LESS THAN ONE DOZEN.

So there is a metric for you.

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2022 09:17 AM (6TxNR)
---
How many do they print?

In Focault's Pendulum, there's a scene were editors at a vanity press outline how they rip authors off by charging them for books that are never printed and that the authors never notice because none ever sell.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 09:26 AM (llXky)

78 It was a good week for magazine reading. The 2023 Old Farmer's Almanac, the latest Muzzleloader, and the annual whittling issue of Woodcarving Illustrated. So many hours of dipping into varied and interesting topics. Yipeeee!

Posted by: JTB at September 04, 2022 09:26 AM (7EjX1)

79 Your hypno-toad is named Ajax?
Posted by: davidt at September 04, 2022 09:25 AM (oTZbj)

ACD, but I can see where they bear a resemblance.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:26 AM (dNqv+)

80 Loved your observation on reading blog posts, Perfessor!

I think that if we could get more young people to appreciate a good essay, we would be improving the world.

And sometimes, even a relatively brief exposition of an idea is worthwhile. Ponder the thought at the link, posted by Don in Kansas (whose photos are regularly seen in the Gardening Thread) on reading the Great Books in light of the context in which they were written:

https://shuffly.net/zoop/thoughts-for-the-day/

Posted by: KT at September 04, 2022 09:27 AM (rrtZS)

81 Has anyone read Holland's 'Rubicon'? I keep seeing Holland's name and yet don't know much about him.

Posted by: dantesed at September 04, 2022 09:28 AM (88xKn)

82 This week I reread Wind in the Willows, a book I fell in love with while reading it to my kids. It's become a favorite and I read it again every year or two. Beautifully written, hilarious, and heartwarming.

Posted by: DIY Daddio at September 04, 2022 09:28 AM (g4Yab)

83 One thing I didn't understand about the LOTR why didn't they get a drone and drop the Ring into Mt. Doom.

I have a vague recollection that there was some reason that the giant eagles that deus-ex-machina'd their asses on more than one occasion couldn't do it.

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 09:29 AM (nfrXX)

84 In Focault's Pendulum, there's a scene were editors at a vanity press outline how they rip authors off by charging them for books that are never printed and that the authors never notice because none ever sell.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 09:26 AM (llXky)
--------------

I've seen some "hey, send us a poem and some bucks and we'll publish it" stuff which looks like a complete scam.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 09:30 AM (5pTK/)

85 Perfesser, is Wil McCarthy a good writer?

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 09:30 AM (gbzeC)

86 Has anyone read Holland's 'Rubicon'? I keep seeing Holland's name and yet don't know much about him.
Posted by: dantesed at September 04, 2022 09:28 AM (88xKn)

I haven't read Rubicon, but I did read his Millennium, about the world in the year 1000. Very good, and I recommend it.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at September 04, 2022 09:30 AM (AW0uW)

87 On the topic of Tolkien, the core issue with the latest atrocious adaptation is that there's no single text to go off of. To write about the Rings of Power you basically have to read thousands of pages to piece together the timeline and plot, which Tolkien himself never fully determined.

Unfinished Tales is a neat read because you see how the great man changed his mind as new ideas came to him and how characters evolved in origins and motives.

To tell that story you'd need the mind of Tom Shippey, which Amazon had and got rid of because it turned out they really didn't like Tolkien at all. What they wanted was a Tolkien-branded D&D adventure.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 09:30 AM (llXky)

88 >One thing I didn't understand about the LOTR why didn't they get a drone and drop the Ring into Mt. Doom.

The Ring didn't want it. A closer read of the chapter Shadow of the Past shows The Ring chose Frodo to get it back to Sauron.

Posted by: davidt at September 04, 2022 09:32 AM (oTZbj)

89 I have only ever done that with a couple books ever. (Thrown them away.) The first book in the Gap series by Donaldson is the one that stands on the top of the mountain to me. So bad it made me go back and examine all the books by him I like and be very skeptical of anything that came out after.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:17 AM (dNqv+)

I've only thrown out one book, too. W's "Record of Accomplishment" from his re-election campaign. Trashed Trump (and us), trashed his book.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 09:32 AM (7bRMQ)

90 22. I would not assume that younger people know of Philly's role in the revolution, or are aware of its better days. Discussing the decline illuminates why people might feel angry, disillusioned, or hopeless about the world they now inhabit. To see the skeletons of the city or to see the areas still kept intact for people on the Main Line or visitors helps to set the tone. I think the juxtaposition of beautiful old Philly with the carcass it's become would be a great tool, unless the author is writing some silly romance in which the characters are too self-absorbed to see everything falling apart.

As you can see, I'm not one who finds description useless unless it advances the interactions of the characters. Yeah, a lot of people want "short and sweet and frolicking", but I rarely think that stagecraft is wasted.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 09:32 AM (Zzbjj)

91 Perfesser, is Wil McCarthy a good writer?
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 09:30 AM (gbzeC)
---
He's a decent science fiction writer. He tends to focus on "big ideas" so his characterization tends to suffer a bit.

He does have some really cool world building, though.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:33 AM (K5n5d)

92 82 This week I reread Wind in the Willows, a book I fell in love with while reading it to my kids. It's become a favorite and I read it again every year or two. Beautifully written, hilarious, and heartwarming.
Posted by: DIY Daddio at September 04, 2022 09:28 AM (g4Yab)

"the Piper at the Gates of Dawn"

Posted by: Tom Servo at September 04, 2022 09:33 AM (r46W7)

93 I have only ever done that with a couple books ever. (Thrown them away.) The first book in the Gap series by Donaldson is the one that stands on the top of the mountain to me. So bad it made me go back and examine all the books by him I like and be very skeptical of anything that came out after.
Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:17 AM (dNqv+)

There's a certain resistance to admitting you were so fucking wrong about whether or not something was marketed to appeal to your better senses that's hard to overcome and admit you've been wasting your time. That's what I finally had to admit about Neil Gaiman's Trigger Warnings. Just not for me.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 04, 2022 09:33 AM (y7DUB)

94 Well, I guess I'll go make another cup of tea, go back to Pilgrimage and wait for the inevitable disappointment.

The story of my life. . .

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at September 04, 2022 09:33 AM (AW0uW)

95 "Bored Of The Rings"....Dildo Bugger was always a favorite on the plains of Gonad.

Those pants are fine....hides all the stains.

Squirrel should be rocking a wizard's cap today.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at September 04, 2022 09:33 AM (R/m4+)

96 @69 --

That was the solution used in John Kovalic's Dork Tower comics.

The DM had set up an elaborate world, expecting months of game play. One of the adventurers snares a large bird, climbs aboard it, and flies with the ring to Mount Doom. Poof -- end of ring.

Cut to DM's face.

Man, I miss Dork Tower, but when Kovalic slammed Trump supporters after PDT's first electoral triumph, I dropped it.

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 04, 2022 09:33 AM (Om/di)

97 I have a vague recollection that there was some reason that the giant eagles that deus-ex-machina'd their asses on more than one occasion couldn't do it.

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 09:29 AM (nfrXX)
---
The giant eagles are the messengers of the Valar, specifically Manwe. Because the Valar refuse to attack Sauron directly, they assume only a supportive role.

That is to say, when the Free Peoples engage in battle against evil, the eagles will help, but they will not solve their problems for them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 09:34 AM (llXky)

98 I don't remember if there was any online map libraries listed last week, but during this past week I found this site, David Rumsey Map Colleciton

https://www.davidrumsey.com/

David Rumsey collected maps and digitized them. The site is searchable, and I wound up looking at the maps and surveys John Fremont did on his voyages West.
There are so many maps online there, historical and modern, it is amazing

Posted by: Kindltot at September 04, 2022 09:34 AM (xhaym)

99 Still on book 3 of the Saint Tommy NYPD because, after spilling coffee on my computer, I have been through computer hell. I'm still not sure I have all of my files back, even with Carbonite and a store near where I used to work. But maybe it's best if I don't have all the news articles I collected on the bad guy in my book. I have had enough acquaintance with evil in my life that I just need to remember what the kindly perfessor said about Cause And Effect.

Posted by: Tonestaple at September 04, 2022 09:35 AM (5LVyB)

100 66 - I think I'll pass.

The macaque story sounds interesting, though. Eris, you should side-hustle writing the back cover pitches for books!

Posted by: Moki at September 04, 2022 09:35 AM (JrN/x)

101 Not going to watch Rings of Power unless several people here give it a high 5. However, when you access the Amazon home page video pops up for it. The visuals are well done and yes, I know that they are CGI but very well-done CGI. Might watch a bit with the sound off just for the cinematography. Is CGI considered cinematography?

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at September 04, 2022 09:35 AM (2NHgQ)

102 Holy crap!!! MSM news report chyron reading, "Trump uses campaign speech to praise Chinese leader Xi Jinping."

PDT basically said that foreign leaders [Xi and Putin] aren't dementia-ridden eff-ups but are at the top of their game, using a Hollywood casting analogy.

Ironically enough it included PDT saying, "A lot of times I'll say 'somebody's smart' and the Fake News goes 'He called President Xi smart!' He rules with an iron fist 1.5 billion people'. Yeah, I'd say he's smart...."

BTW, PDT's '1.5 billion' sounded a bit like 'million' but re-listening to it multiple times I think it was just his speech mannerisms like saying 'Chyna!' and not pulling a Biden.

Posted by: andycanuck (yikp0) at September 04, 2022 09:36 AM (yikp0)

103 Not going to watch Rings of Power unless several people here give it a high 5. However, when you access the Amazon home page video pops up for it. The visuals are well done and yes, I know that they are CGI but very well-done CGI. Might watch a bit with the sound off just for the cinematography. Is CGI considered cinematography?
Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at September 04, 2022 09:35 AM (2NHgQ)
---
The best visuals on the planet can't save the awful mess of that show. It's just bad on so many levels...Makes Biden's latest speech look epic.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:38 AM (K5n5d)

104 22. I would not assume that younger people know of Philly's role in the revolution, or are aware of its better days...
Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 09:32 AM (Zzbjj)

Concur! I was trying to think of a good way to say this, but you got there first, and I could not say it better.

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at September 04, 2022 09:38 AM (OX9vb)

105 Just got a copy of Wendell Berry's "The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture". Not sure how I'll respond to the 1970s attitudes (too Hippyish?) but it might fit in with several other books I've been reading about the need to connect with the natural world to appreciate the miracles of Creation (and subcreation). Also have Berry's "Sabbath Prayers" but haven't started it yet.

Anyone familiar with Wendell Berry's writings or philosophy?

Posted by: JTB at September 04, 2022 09:38 AM (7EjX1)

106
The DM had set up an elaborate world, expecting months of game play. One of the adventurers snares a large bird, climbs aboard it, and flies with the ring to Mount Doom. Poof -- end of ring.

Cut to DM's face.

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 04, 2022 09:33 AM (Om/di)
---
The other problem is that the eagles showed up because Manwe knew they would be needed and when. Note also that when they showed up, the Nazgul broke and ran back to Mt. Doom because Frodo had just claimed the Ring.

The text is pretty clear that Sauron controls the weather in Mordor, so if a flight of eagles came into its "airspace" the Eye would immediately see them (and the Ring) and what lighting didn't take down, the Nazgul would have.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 09:39 AM (llXky)

107 I agree with Vmom. Those pants look really comfy.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at September 04, 2022 09:39 AM (Y+l9t)

108 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:05 AM (c6xtn)
*
Thanks, W. How's your's going?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022

***
If you mean my morning, I'm hustling around preparing for the arrival of the new kitten. Miss Linda will be here in about 20, and we'll tote Stirling in carrier over to her place, make sure a clean litter box and food are ready for little Dagny, and then hit the road: 1/2 hr. drive to meet the breeder. Then I have to get her settled in.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:41 AM (c6xtn)

109 I tried something this week that I wonder if anyone else has done?

I took a painting, Edward Hopper's "Night Hawks" and started a short story about it. Not finished yet, but has this type of thing been done before?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 09:41 AM (7bRMQ)

110 Makes Biden's latest speech look epic.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:38 AM (K5n5d)

Oh, Biden's speech was epic and important, no doubt about that.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:41 AM (dNqv+)

111 Bad story telling to me is when people do not act like people. Not saying people who do extraordinary things that's something we want to see. It's like writers don't know any real people.

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2022 09:41 AM (6TxNR)

112 My take on the 20 minutes of The Rings of Power that I watch before rejecting it utterly (apologies to those who have seen this before):

1) The repeated shots of child "Galadriel" in a semi-transparent gown against the light were creepy as fuck. Borderline pedo shit. The similar shots of adult "Galadriel" might have been a welcome diversion from the idiotic non-plot, except, to be blunt, the actress just isn't all that hot.

2) The only remotely plausible part of the "Galadriel, Warrior Princess" storyline was the part where her troops mutinied, and that's only because fragmentation grenades hadn't been invented yet. Too bad. A good old-fashioned fragging would have a) provided some actual entertainment and b) killed off at least one annoying character (n.b., they're all annoying).

3) "Elrond" flirting with "Galadriel"? Ick. Just ick. She is his mother-in-law, not his sidepiece. These are elves, not Bidens. That's the scene where I switched it off. I won't be back.

Posted by: Show Tunes! at September 04, 2022 09:41 AM (bW8dp)

113 I tried to relisten to the Audible version of Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark.
The book is about the future of AI
I gave up partway through. The worship of SCIENCE got tedious as did it's deeply materialistic view of life.

Posted by: That NLurker guy at September 04, 2022 09:42 AM (eGTCV)

114 There's a certain resistance to admitting you were so fucking wrong about whether or not something was marketed to appeal to your better senses that's hard to overcome and admit you've been wasting your time. That's what I finally had to admit about Neil Gaiman's Trigger Warnings. Just not for me.
Posted by: Captain Hate at September 04, 2022

***
Not all the stories in that were winners, no, but a few were quite good.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:42 AM (c6xtn)

115 > The visuals are well done and yes, I know that they are CGI but very well-done CGI.

Yes, the CGI is very good. But the "plot" is preposterous, the characters are absurd, and the acting is wooden.

Posted by: Show Tunes! at September 04, 2022 09:43 AM (bW8dp)

116 I took a painting, Edward Hopper's "Night Hawks" and started a short story about it. Not finished yet, but has this type of thing been done before?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 09:41 AM (7bRMQ)
---
I think this is a great way to practice storytelling. When I was in junior high school, my English teacher would give us pictures (not paintings, just simple drawings) and we'd write little short stories. Mine tended to be on the creepy side...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:44 AM (K5n5d)

117 Since we are over 100 (willowed):
319 Hmmm, we were having a discussion last night on 'sultry ladies.' I was trying to think then of who is the triple crown winner of the sultry awards. Veronica Lake came to mind, but doing some searches this morning, here are a couple examples:

Veronica Lake:
https://tinyurl.com/m8zxwdmm

Lana Turner:
https://tinyurl.com/yhsa6tm5

And Lauren Bacall:
https://bit.ly/3RCzrz2

I think Bacall takes the crown, because she makes sultry a thing unto itself.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:44 AM (dNqv+)

118 I read Bulgakov's the Master and Margarita, a novel about the devil in Soviet Russia. It was the inspiration for Sympathy for the Devil, after Marianne Faithfull introduced Mick and Keith to it.

I bought the collected letters of F Scott Fitzgerald. After reading many of Hemingway's and Wolfe's letters, it's clear that understanding the man is important to understanding their works. In the letters from Wolfe and Hemingway, I gleaned that both men found Scott to be the superior intellect and an inspiration. Should be interesting.

Fitzgerald has stood up pretty well and I'm always a bit jolted to read the words "Gatsby Era" used instead of "the 20s", or "the Jazz Age". I was looking at details of available venues in the US and Europe, and the idea tha their product "evokes the Gatsby Era" seemed to be a big selling point. I would understand this in NYC or the Island, but to see it referred to in France and the UK shows how Fitzgerald created and enduring setting.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 09:44 AM (Zzbjj)

119 "Florida Woman" sounds like a must-read! ... well, after I finish "Venetia" by Georgette Heyer, of course.

Would anyone like to suggest alternate plot lines, characters, ideas for what would have been a GOOD TV series about the Second Age of Middle-Earth and the forging of the Rings of Power? E.g., it would have been interesting to follow just how the seven Dwarven rings were lost. Even more interesting would have been to see how nine kings of Men fell under the control of their rings, and evolved into Nazgul. Seeing as said kings could have come from the east and south, there's your cultural and racial diversity right there: at last, a good look at Harad and Far Harad! The costume designers might have rocked it....

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at September 04, 2022 09:44 AM (SPNTN)

120 The macaque story sounds interesting, though. Eris, you should side-hustle writing the back cover pitches for books!
Posted by: Moki at September 04, 2022 09:35 AM (JrN/x)
---

Thanks!

I'll need a rating system like Joe Bob Briggs' "Beasts/Breasts/Blood".

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 09:44 AM (Dc2NZ)

121 I took a painting, Edward Hopper's "Night Hawks" and started a short story about it. Not finished yet, but has this type of thing been done before?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 09:41 AM (7bRMQ)

Cool idea! You should finish it.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 09:44 AM (gbzeC)

122 I tried something this week that I wonder if anyone else has done?

I took a painting, Edward Hopper's "Night Hawks" and started a short story about it. Not finished yet, but has this type of thing been done before?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022

***
Probably often. I've been inspired by Twilight Zone episodes, by what I remembered of a dream, by the notion of "What if George Bailey had secretly been a hit man?", my memories of the first day of school, and more.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:44 AM (c6xtn)

123 111 Bad story telling to me is when people do not act like people. Not saying people who do extraordinary things that's something we want to see. It's like writers don't know any real people.
Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2022 09:41 AM (6TxNR)

This. A lot of hard sci-fi back in the day turned me off because of this.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:45 AM (dNqv+)

124 re: recluse and modesitt. i read somewhere, trman capote, i think, who said that you could tell how good a writer was by how many characters they could realistically portray. In his option, Shakespeare was the best, 18 or 19 (numbers from memory). He could only do 12 or 13. as much as i've read modesitt (recluse, spellsong, corean, forever hero, early half of imager) i never thought he could do more than 2 or 3.

i did like his portrayal of "magic" though. it wasn't a costless power, it demanded a lot from the user. and, on the bad side, his understanding of politcal power seemed to be naive. though i'd like to have his residuals.

Posted by: yara at September 04, 2022 09:45 AM (hBsVD)

125 As the Perfesser points out at the top of the thread, Tolkien's plot locks together like a Mauser C96 - every part fits without pins or screws.

If you start tinkering with it (as Peter Jackson did), you create problems downstream that require a very heavy narrative hand to solve, which in turn damages the story.

There's also the issue of symbolism. The eagles for example represent the angels - above everything, inaccessible, but they will intervene when God requires it.

With this lens in place, Gandalf's statement that "Bilbo was meant to find the ring, and not by its owner" makes sense and you can see that the eagles are the Valar making sure that the quest succeeds without taking a direct role against Sauron.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 09:46 AM (llXky)

126 Not finished yet, but has this type of thing been done before?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 09:41 AM (7bRMQ)

Everything's been done before, I think.

Not that I can think of any specific examples. I'd like to read this. In fact, I think it would be cool if multiple authors wrote a story about the same artwork, and put them in a single volume. I would read it.

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at September 04, 2022 09:46 AM (OX9vb)

127 On the Rings of Power, if you're not going to really watch it, and you probably shouldn't with today's political social environment, certainly don't watch it on amazon. Stream it from a pirate site if you want to watch the visuals or whatever.

Why is it everyone complains about things and then just watches them anyway?

Posted by: .87c at September 04, 2022 09:46 AM (zD2N3)

128 Then I have to get her settled in.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:41 AM (c6xtn)

Another cat? I always thought even though cats are solitary, a friend is probably a good idea.

Maybe Beckoning Chasm should consider a friend for Robert. Might cure his aggressiveness.

Meant your writing, though.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 09:47 AM (7bRMQ)

129 This week I reread Wind in the Willows, a book I fell in love with while reading it to my kids. It's become a favorite and I read it again every year or two. Beautifully written, hilarious, and heartwarming.
Posted by: DIY Daddio at September 04, 2022

***
One of these days I have to try it. My mother mentioned it as a favorite. I missed a lot of the traditional children's books, going straight from Roy Rogers and the Hardy Boys to Superman comics, thence to Alfred Hitchcock anthologies (the grown-up stuff), and then to James Bond, Nero Wolfe, and Ellery Queen.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:48 AM (c6xtn)

130
I will immodestly point out that the "flat" map that sits in from of the Mt. Fuji 3D map was indeed the same region rendered in 2D form as I asserted last week.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 09:48 AM (pNxlR)

131
I think Bacall takes the crown, because she makes sultry a thing unto itself.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:44 AM (dNqv+)
---
She has a unique singing voice as well. "To Have and Have Not" is one of the sultriest movies ever filmed. You can watch Bogart falling for her as the camera rolls.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 09:48 AM (llXky)

132 Not all the stories in that were winners, no, but a few were quite good.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:42 AM (c6xtn)

I guess that's true but at some point you have to admit "not for me" in total. Short story collections can be a real crap shoot.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 04, 2022 09:49 AM (y7DUB)

133 Another cat? I always thought even though cats are solitary, a friend is probably a good idea.

Maybe Beckoning Chasm should consider a friend for Robert. Might cure his aggressiveness.

Meant your writing, though.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022

***
Precious little writing, OE. I need to sit down with my "notes and story ideas" file and see if something sparks my interest, or combines with another idea to do that. You can never tell. I envisioned a serious story about Darrin & Samantha Stephens way back in the '70s, but never knew how to write it until a few years ago.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:50 AM (c6xtn)

134 I've been a fan of Harry Turtledove's alternate histories for a long time, so when I saw he had a new book out, I pounced. "Three Miles Down" is about the *real* reason the CIA sent the Glomar Explorer out to get that sunken Russian sub -- they detected what looks like an alien spaceship right next to the crushed submarine. Grad student Jerry Stieglitz is recruited to accompany the crew due to his marine biology degree (a good cover), his fluency in Russian, and his science fiction writing side hack (they feel his affinity for SF proves he has a flexible mind).

The Cold War is on everyone's mind and Watergate is playing out while this is all going down. Turtledove being the good liberal, there is a lot of ruminating (via Jerry) on Nixon's crimes. Jerry/Harry (Harry Stu?) wants him impeached (just like Trump!). I enjoyed the story but it really seems padded out, and I wonder if Turtledove is planning a trilogy, which he seems to like. A lot of his stuff, like the Yellowstone eruption trilogy, feels like a decent novel stretched out and stuffed with banal conversations and trivial detail.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 09:50 AM (Dc2NZ)

135 I'm putting together a suitcase full of books to deliver to the Balkans in a few weeks. English books are wildly expensive by local standards and online ordering is not A Thing, so I ask everyone I know if they want anything, then shop for cheap and fill a bag. Books on Neolithic Archeology, a couple of butterfly guides (the area has remote, tiny ecosystems with creatures that don't exist anywhere else), other stuff. Found a few WWII-era 'Boy's Adventure' type books at shops this year dealing with Yugoslavia, the kind of stuff that got printed once and never again. One of them is from a Catholic publisher, and features a downed aircrew (Ploesti runs) teaching the Commie Atheist Partisans about Christianity and Jesus Christ, rather an interesting little story...

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 09:50 AM (43xH1)

136 I'm reading "I Married a Communist" by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at September 04, 2022 09:50 AM (Ndje9)

137 It's my birthday today so I think I'll celebrate by taking the dog for a nice ride into the mountains and let her bark her silly head off at passing traffic.
Then maybe I'll see if I can get a free beer at the pub.

Posted by: That NLurker guy at September 04, 2022 09:50 AM (eGTCV)

138
Why is it everyone complains about things and then just watches them anyway?
Posted by: .87c

Why do people traveling in lanes headed in the opposite direction slow down and gawk at an accident scene in the other direction's lanes?

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 09:50 AM (pNxlR)

139 Not all the stories in that were winners, no, but a few were quite good.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022
*
I guess that's true but at some point you have to admit "not for me" in total. Short story collections can be a real crap shoot.
Posted by: Captain Hate at September 04, 2022

***
Yes; I skipped his "poetry." On the other hand his The Graveyard Book, for all ages, is dynamite and a textbook case of how to write simply and clearly.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:51 AM (c6xtn)

140 i did like his portrayal of "magic" though. it wasn't a costless power, it demanded a lot from the user. and, on the bad side, his understanding of politcal power seemed to be naive. though i'd like to have his residuals.
Posted by: yara at September 04, 2022 09:45 AM (hBsVD)

That is something I really liked about the first book- but the balance was off. Order gets indirect action but much longer life span, Chaos gets direct action, but a very shortened life. Greys get the best of both worlds, depending.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:51 AM (dNqv+)

141
I bought the collected letters of F Scott Fitzgerald. After reading many of Hemingway's and Wolfe's letters, it's clear that understanding the man is important to understanding their works. In the letters from Wolfe and Hemingway, I gleaned that both men found Scott to be the superior intellect and an inspiration. Should be interesting.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 09:44 AM (Zzbjj)
---
My favorite Fitzgerald quip: "Hemingway never sent anyone running for a dictionary."

There was an Amazon production about him and Zelda that was outstanding but was canceled because the harridans demanded that some other shitty show that no one watch be renewed and rather than face the woke mob, Amazon nuked them both.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 09:52 AM (llXky)

142 Why is it everyone complains about things and then just watches them anyway?
Posted by: .87c at September 04, 2022 09:46 AM (zD2N3)
---
For the same reason it's hard not to watch a train wreck in action...You know it's going to be bad...you just don't know for sure how bad it's going to be.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:52 AM (K5n5d)

143 @Krebs
At least they don't hand money to the crash instigator as they slowly pass by. Think of the incentives that would create.

Posted by: .87c at September 04, 2022 09:53 AM (zD2N3)

144 I don't have access to Rings of Power and I'm okay with that.

Posted by: That NLurker guy at September 04, 2022 09:53 AM (eGTCV)

145 I was listening to episodes of the radio series "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar" yesterday. Many of those were written by Blake Edwards.

He recycled one of them into a "Peter Gunn" episode, but I didn't realize it until near the end of the show.

Now I'll keep an ear out for more such instances.

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 04, 2022 09:53 AM (Om/di)

146 I won't watch the NuTrek or Lard of the Ringz crapulence, but I do enjoy watching RedLetterMedia and Nerdrotic videos. It's like picking a scab.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 09:54 AM (Dc2NZ)

147
I finally finished James Clavell's "Shogun" last week -- it had gone missing for a couple of months. As it so happens, I have hardcover editions of his "Tai-Pan" and "Noble House" works, too, and I have started reading the former. My early impression is that "Tai-Pan" is not as immersive as "Shogun", but is enjoyable enough nonetheless.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 09:55 AM (pNxlR)

148 Happy Birthday, NLurker!

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at September 04, 2022 09:55 AM (OX9vb)

149 My latest essay for bleedingfool.com discusses why Hollywood can't write anything decent. Short version is that you write what you know and today's writers only know woke so that's what they write. Top article at the link

https://bleedingfool.com/author/ahlloyd/

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 09:55 AM (llXky)

150 re: recluse and modesitt. i read somewhere, trman capote, i think, who said that you could tell how good a writer was by how many characters they could realistically portray. In his option, Shakespeare was the best, 18 or 19 (numbers from memory). He could only do 12 or 13. . . .
Posted by: yara at September 04, 2022

***
Capote described his own early journey as a writer as that it was fun at first, then he discovered the difference between good writing and bad writing. That made it harder. Then, he said, "he discovered the difference between good writing and *great* writing, and the whip came down."

Capote has odd characters, but his stories sing. I didn't care for Other Voices, Other Rooms -- too "southern" for me, I guess -- but "A Christmas Memory" and other short pieces are great.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:55 AM (c6xtn)

151
Think of the incentives that would create.
Posted by: .87c

Good point.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 09:56 AM (pNxlR)

152 I read Bulgakov's the Master and Margarita, a novel about the devil in Soviet Russia. It was the inspiration for Sympathy for the Devil, after Marianne Faithfull introduced Mick and Keith to it.

That book (the good edition of it) had a gazillion footnotes to make sense of it otherwise it was "good luck" time. It was still worth it.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 04, 2022 09:56 AM (y7DUB)

153 Anyone familiar with Wendell Berry's writings or philosophy?
Posted by: JTB at September 04, 2022 09:38 AM (7EjX1)
-----------

Yes! I read his book called Hannah Coulter earlier this year for my book club and enjoyed it very much. It's part of a series of books he wrote about the lives of the inhabitants of a small town based on the place where he grew up, which was a farming community. Bittersweet in some places but overall a happy book.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 09:56 AM (aeePL)

154 I think this is a great way to practice storytelling. When I was in junior high school, my English teacher would give us pictures (not paintings, just simple drawings) and we'd write little short stories. Mine tended to be on the creepy side...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:44 AM (K5n5d)

Ok, so I didn't come up with a great, new idea! I knew I didn't anyway.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 09:57 AM (7bRMQ)

155 149 My latest essay for bleedingfool.com discusses why Hollywood can't write anything decent. Short version is that you write what you know and today's writers only know woke so that's what they write. Top article at the link

https://bleedingfool.com/author/ahlloyd/
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 09:55 AM (llXky)

Almost every good writer with characters I have ever read had some sort of life experience. They did stuff. That experience informed their characters and made the characters live and breathe.

Most modern writers are naifs.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:57 AM (dNqv+)

156 Everything's been done before, I think. Not that I can think of any specific examples. I'd like to read this. In fact, I think it would be cool if multiple authors wrote a story about the same artwork, and put them in a single volume. I would read it.
Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at September 04, 2022 09:46 AM (OX9vb)
----
That could be an interesting Horde project...take one of CBD's Art Threads and then write a book around the painting. Maybe each person writes a chapter or something. We could call it: "The Deplorable Critic."

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:58 AM (K5n5d)

157 But the "plot" is preposterous, the characters are absurd, and the acting is wooden.

Posted by: Show Tunes! at September 04, 2022 09:43 AM (bW8dp)

I dunno, sounds like our political world today, if you ask me.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 09:58 AM (7bRMQ)

158 Fitzgerald may have given Hemingway a hard time, but, Hemingway was certainly no slouch.

I believe Hemingway was challenged to write a story in 4 words and came up with, "Baby shoes. Never worn."

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 09:58 AM (5pTK/)

159 109 ... "I took a painting, Edward Hopper's "Night Hawks" and started a short story about it. Not finished yet, but has this type of thing been done before?"

It probably has been done but I don't know of a specific example. If it hasn't been done, it should have. Could be intriguing as the impetus for a series of short stories or even novels.

Actually, thinking of some favorite paintings, the notion is damn inviting and could be a lot of fun. (Looks for fountain pens, bottles of ink, and clearing off the Royal KMM manual typewriter.)

Posted by: JTB at September 04, 2022 09:59 AM (7EjX1)

160 MNN Breaking News...

FBI AT MAR-A-LAGO SEARCHED BOY'S UNDERWEAR FOR SECRET WEAPON...

as usual.

Posted by: Manufactured News Network: "You Just Want to Date Us!" at September 04, 2022 09:59 AM (Ndje9)

161 "Every character in The Great Gatsby" is on my list of fictional characters who need a good asskicking, along with "Every character in Wuthering Heights".

#1 on the list: Holden Caulfield.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at September 04, 2022 09:59 AM (bW8dp)

162 Bad story telling to me is when people do not act like people. Not saying people who do extraordinary things that's something we want to see. It's like writers don't know any real people.
Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2022

***
Yes. Even in comedy and farce this holds. There is a Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode where Illya, in Tibet, disguises himself as a Yeti. What?? The idea of going undercover is that you should *blend in* with other people, not stand out like a signpost. (It's a silly script anyway.)

In farce, the essence is that you pile one complication atop another. The character reaches a point where anybody would say, "Now, hold on --!" And a new complication comes up with a motivation for him to go on with the craziness. See Just Go With It w/ Jen Aniston and Nicole Kidman for a good example in film.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:59 AM (c6xtn)

163 I think it is indication of the essential nobility of spirit of the Japanese that the they named a mountain after McHale's POW sidekick within a couple of decades of the end of WWII.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 10:00 AM (FVME7)

164 Last week I sang the praises of the Thunderbolts comic books from the late 90's. This week I'm going to bury the Thunderbolts comic books from the early 2000's. There's a new writer, and he's not as good as the original. Also, he's preachy, and not very good at.

Complaint #1, one of the heroes was shot and killed. The writer chose to complain about how easy it is for people to get guns, despite having already showing that the shooting was a targeted assassination, in a world where random thugs regularly get superpowers and level entire towns. Complaint #2: the writer put a character in blackface, ostensibly to hide his identity, but really just so other people can be racist to him.

The super-heroics are still mostly fun, but it's hard to enjoy them with 'the message' blaring in the background...

Posted by: Castle Guy at September 04, 2022 10:00 AM (Lhaco)

165 So, this week I read:
Storm Echo by Nalini Singh, the next book in her Psy-changeling series. Very good.
Reckoning by Catherine Coulter. Next book in her FBI series(I know but it's fiction). Kind of boring. Same storyline over and over or rather two story lines, b oth boring.
Soul Taken by Patricia Briggs. Next installment of the story of Adam(wolf) and Mercy(car mechanic and coyote's daughter). Talk about guilty pleasure....

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at September 04, 2022 10:00 AM (Y+l9t)

166 Ok, so I didn't come up with a great, new idea! I knew I didn't anyway.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 09:57 AM (7bRMQ)
---
Harlan Ellison teamed up with surrealist artist Jacek Yerka to publish a book called "Mind Fields." Yerka created the artwork, Ellison wrote a short story about each piece as only he can. It's a truly terrific book.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:00 AM (K5n5d)

167 To Have and Have Not was more Howars Hawk's story that Hemingway's but I loved that film.

As for the Fitzgerald bio, his relationship with Zelda was also an issue for the harridans, I'm sure. It's very cool to suggest that Scott "drove" her to madness and squashed her talent, rather than admit that the Sayre's had an undeniable history of illness that had little to do with who they married. More than a few schizoaffective people present as enchanting and almost magical when young, but as it progresses, that falls apart.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 10:00 AM (Zzbjj)

168 I don't have access to Rings of Power and I'm okay with that.
Posted by: That NLurker guy at September 04, 2022 09:53 AM (eGTCV)
--------
Enjoy the Babylon Bee's version instead. I think they probably nailed it.

https://youtu.be/twmojN_N90Y

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:00 AM (aeePL)

169 I have a notion for a scifi short story about a fast food restaurant run by super intelligent AI. Actually the whole restaurant itself is the AI.
It gets customers addicted to its incredible food. And then things end badly for customers.

Posted by: That NLurker guy at September 04, 2022 10:01 AM (eGTCV)

170 When I'm in the Balkans the markets turn up the weirdest book stuff imaginable. One of my favorites is a German Nazi-era 'Rules Of The Road' guide, that has illustrations about right-of-way issues about troop movements, parades, etc.
One RoW issue involves men pushing an anti-tank cannon by hand down a street meeting an ambulance, and which has the right-of-way...
Books there can turn up in the strangest places on the strangest subjects, from any era you can think of. It's bizarre.

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 10:01 AM (43xH1)

171 Probably often. I've been inspired by Twilight Zone episodes, by what I remembered of a dream, by the notion of "What if George Bailey had secretly been a hit man?", my memories of the first day of school, and more.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:44 AM (c6xtn)

Its a wonderful life George Bailey? I would think if he was a hitman he would have taken out that shit bag Mr Potter.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 04, 2022 10:01 AM (VwHCD)

172 Hey, that "The DM of the Ring" webcomic, isn't it? I still love the strip where Aragorn tried to dismount a Warg, but failed the roll and rode it off a cliff! Maybe I'll re-read that instead of watching Rings of Prime.

Posted by: Castle Guy at September 04, 2022 10:01 AM (Lhaco)

173
Almost every good writer with characters I have ever read had some sort of life experience. They did stuff. That experience informed their characters and made the characters live and breathe.

Most modern writers are naifs.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 09:57 AM (dNqv+)
---
Absolutely. They can't write what they don't know.

For those who don't want to participate in my shameless self-promotion, one point I make (that we've discussed here) is that you can "know" something by doing lots of research. Not all of it comes from first-hand experience.

One of the failings we're seeing is that this is also not happening. Writers don't even know the genre they are writing in, so they get basic things wrong and create awful plot holes.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 10:02 AM (llXky)

174 That could be an interesting Horde project...take one of CBD's Art Threads and then write a book around the painting. Maybe each person writes a chapter or something. We could call it: "The Deplorable Critic."
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:58 AM (K5n5d)
----------
I will state upfront that I will not read the story based on Naked Guy on Ottoman, no matter who writes it.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:02 AM (aeePL)

175
I won't watch the NuTrek or Lard of the Ringz crapulence, but I do enjoy watching RedLetterMedia and Nerdrotic videos. It's like picking a scab.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes

I had no burning desire to watch Lucas' three Star Wars prequels, and once I viewed Mr. Plinkett 's disemboweling of them on RLM, I was satisfied that I had indeed made the right choice. Nerdrotic is equally deft at skewering content frauds.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 10:03 AM (pNxlR)

176 A couple of weeks ago, I made a comment about author Jack Carr going woke in his fourth book, The Devil’s Hand, which was such a surprise after The Terminal List. Carr leveled praise on a dead John Dingell and a D president, former Congressman from CA, elected via his tech friends’ assistance, while the R’s losing candidate, a Senator, was the personification of evil. Now, in book 5, In the Blood, he’s back to being more book 1 and much less book 4. He, obviously, was appalled by our Afghanistan debacle, but the flip-flopping of Carr has made for an interesting background.

Posted by: EveR at September 04, 2022 10:03 AM (MUpk6)

177 Comment: It's a shame more people are not informed about just how evil Communism really is. It takes away everything dignified and special about each individual human and reduces us to collective dust beneath the feet of "the elite" who arrogate to themselves a right to rule over us for perpetuity. I almost said it was a "divine" right, but they worship no gods other than themselves.

-
True believers: They wanted to be kings but wound up slaves.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 10:03 AM (FVME7)

178 . . . by the notion of "What if George Bailey had secretly been a hit man?", my memories of the first day of school, and more.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022
*
Its a wonderful life George Bailey? I would think if he was a hitman he would have taken out that shit bag Mr Potter.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 04, 2022

***
Hey, first rule of hitman work, you don't take jobs where you live!

Not literally GB, but a character something like him in a small Vermont town. I pictured Henry Fonda.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 10:03 AM (c6xtn)

179 That could be an interesting Horde project...take one of CBD's Art Threads and then write a book around the painting. Maybe each person writes a chapter or something. We could call it: "The Deplorable Critic."

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:58 AM (K5n5d)

I got a bad feeling naked ottoman dude is going to make his presence known.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 04, 2022 10:03 AM (VwHCD)

180 Hey, that "The DM of the Ring" webcomic, isn't it? I still love the strip where Aragorn tried to dismount a Warg, but failed the roll and rode it off a cliff! Maybe I'll re-read that instead of watching Rings of Prime.
Posted by: Castle Guy at September 04, 2022 10:01 AM (Lhaco)
---
DM of the Rings is awesome! Darths and Droids (inspired by DM of the Rings) is even better...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:04 AM (K5n5d)

181 I believe Hemingway was challenged to write a story in 4 words and came up with, "Baby shoes. Never worn."
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 09:58 AM (5pTK/)

Wow. Heartbreaking.

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at September 04, 2022 10:04 AM (OX9vb)

182 I will state upfront that I will not read the story based on Naked Guy on Ottoman, no matter who writes it.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:02 AM (aeePL)
-------------

*rubs hands with glee*

Challenge accepted!

I nominate bluebell to edit "Horde Book Art Story Time."

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 10:04 AM (5pTK/)

183 I got a bad feeling naked ottoman dude is going to make his presence known.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 04, 2022 10:03 AM (VwHCD)
----------

Okay, I revise my earlier comment. I would read it if you wrote it.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:05 AM (aeePL)

184 I will state upfront that I will not read the story based on Naked Guy on Ottoman, no matter who writes it.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022

***
Interesting challenge!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 10:05 AM (c6xtn)

185 You could see herod refracted through Bulgakov's experience with Stalin, yes it requires a certain perspectives,

getting back to Empires, the British exercise was sort of slapdash, their largest holdings india and the colonies, lasted under 200 years, the first was largely the winning of a contest with France, but as clive discovered what happens when you
catch the car,

since my tale, jambiya, concerns the Arabian peninsula with some segues to North Africa, consider the Aden settlement as an extention of India, where they confronted the Ottomans with various tribes as proxies, across the sea in Egypt, it was handling a poorly issued loan, Sudan was the codicil,

Posted by: no 6 at September 04, 2022 10:05 AM (i0Lci)

186 Bluebell, you made me lol.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at September 04, 2022 10:06 AM (Y+l9t)

187 As for the Fitzgerald bio, his relationship with Zelda was also an issue for the harridans, I'm sure. It's very cool to suggest that Scott "drove" her to madness and squashed her talent, rather than admit that the Sayre's had an undeniable history of illness that had little to do with who they married. More than a few schizoaffective people present as enchanting and almost magical when young, but as it progresses, that falls apart.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 10:00 AM (Zzbjj)
---
It hadn't gotten that far, had basically established the characters and season 2 got canceled. So stupid.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 10:06 AM (llXky)

188 Hey, first rule of hitman work, you don't take jobs where you live!

Not literally GB, but a character something like him in a small Vermont town. I pictured Henry Fonda.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 10:03 AM (c6xtn)

Burgess Meredith in grumpy old men. lol

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 04, 2022 10:06 AM (VwHCD)

189 "...Short version is that you write what you know and today's writers only know woke so that's what they write...."
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 09:55 AM (llXky)
----

I saw a historical marker on William Austin Burt. Just look at the breadth of experience in one life:

"William Austin Burt (June 13, 1792 – August 18, 185

was an American scientist, inventor, legislator, millwright, justice of the peace, school inspector, postmaster, judge, builder, businessman, surveyor and soldier."

He discovered the Marquette Iron Range and invented a typewriter and the solar compass, a solar surveyor, and the equatorial sextant.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 10:06 AM (Dc2NZ)

190 One of my English courses in high school or college used Nighthawks as a prompt - we had a few pictures to choose from. I did not pick Nighthawks.

Posted by: blaster at September 04, 2022 10:06 AM (6TxNR)

191 Cool idea! You should finish it.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 09:44 AM (gbzeC)

I will vmom. I'm about half way I think. But you never know how the story will turn out. I have it planned, but the characters may plan something else....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 10:06 AM (7bRMQ)

192 For those who don't want to participate in my shameless self-promotion, one point I make (that we've discussed here) is that you can "know" something by doing lots of research. Not all of it comes from first-hand experience.

One of the failings we're seeing is that this is also not happening. Writers don't even know the genre they are writing in, so they get basic things wrong and create awful plot holes.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 10:02 AM (llXky)
---
It would be impossible for anyone to learn all of the skills possessed by your characters, but you can at least do enough research on a subject to gain a basic understanding of it. Need a blacksmith? You don't need to pick up a hammer yourself. You can read about it or watch enough YouTube videos to gain some level of knowledge.

Today's entertainment writers are too lazy and self-centered to even try.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:07 AM (K5n5d)

193 Weasels, ferrets and stoats!

Posted by: Head puddi at September 04, 2022 10:07 AM (cDMEc)

194 > Enjoy the Babylon Bee's version instead. I think they probably nailed it.

As one of the commenters said, the "standing on land stolen from the indigenous orcs" part is great.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at September 04, 2022 10:07 AM (bW8dp)

195 I had no burning desire to watch Lucas' three Star Wars prequels, and once I viewed Mr. Plinkett 's disemboweling of them on RLM, I was satisfied that I had indeed made the right choice. Nerdrotic is equally deft at skewering content frauds.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 10:03 AM (pNxlR)
---
Red Letter Media got me really thinking about how to rewrite the prequels and the Man of Destiny series was the direct result.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 10:07 AM (llXky)

196 DM of the Rings was some epic cartooning. Waited on every episode a lifetime ago.
I often wondered why Peter Jackson didn't put a copyright stop on it but then I figured he probably loved it as much as I did.
That cartoon swept me back to the early 80's each week as it read like any Friday night in this D&D dorks teens.

Been a few years I might just go read through again today.

Posted by: Reforger at September 04, 2022 10:08 AM (rIgxl)

197 129 ... "One of these days I have to try it. My mother mentioned it as a favorite. I missed a lot of the traditional children's books"

Wolfus,
In my 60s I discovered, to my delight, many children's classics that I had never read. Wind In The Willows, Winnie-the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, even Beatrix Potter. But get editions with the original illustrations. They make a huge contribution.

Posted by: JTB at September 04, 2022 10:08 AM (7EjX1)

198 I took a painting, Edward Hopper's "Night Hawks" and started a short story about it. Not finished yet, but has this type of thing been done before?
Posted by: OrangeEnt

Not with pictures, but I used to imagine stories unfolding to classical music (using classical in the colloquial sense here, not to delineate the specific period in time). Don't think I ever wrote them down though, just fleeting stories in my own mind.

Posted by: She Hobbit at September 04, 2022 10:08 AM (ftFVW)

199 @162 --

In farce, the essence is that you pile one complication atop another.

Wodehouse was a master at this. Every chapter resolved a problem and ended by bringing up a new problem.

Starting a Wodehouse book was akin to jumping on a runaway train.

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 04, 2022 10:08 AM (Om/di)

200 A story based on a Bosch painting would be awesome.

Posted by: fd at September 04, 2022 10:08 AM (sn5EN)

201 As one of the commenters said, the "standing on land stolen from the indigenous orcs" part is great.
Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at September 04, 2022 10:07 AM (bW8dp)
----------

And I forgot to mention that an ancestor of Perfessor Squirrel has a cameo in the opening scene.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:09 AM (aeePL)

202 I am rereading Hayek's "The Road To Serfdom," and while the ideas are marvelous and perceptive, his writing style is just a tad verbose.
I wish he had used Hemingway 's editor!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 04, 2022 10:09 AM (1U4wg)

203
One RoW issue involves men pushing an anti-tank cannon by hand down a street meeting an ambulance, and which has the right-of-way...

There, in a nutshell, is as clear an example of how Adolf had taken Germany into a continental war when Germany's industrial base was no where near capable of doing such a thing. "... pushing an anti-tank cannon by hand ..." screams "... and why did you think engaging in all out war now was going to go your way?"

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 10:09 AM (pNxlR)

204 Happy birthday, That NLurker guy!

Posted by: She Hobbit at September 04, 2022 10:09 AM (ftFVW)

205 If I wrote a story based on Nighthawks, it would probably be about all the missing people who were last seen in that diner.

Then we'd learn exactly where the breakfast sausage links come from.

Sort of a Sweeney Todd thing.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at September 04, 2022 10:10 AM (bW8dp)

206 One (bad?) habit I've developed in my own 'cheap fiction' is something I saw once, and never forgot: in the novelization of DIRTY HARRY, when Harry shoots The Scorpio Killer, instead of describing the gunshot, Phillip Rock inserted a separate sound effect, like this:

Scorpio's P38 came up blazing his eyes wild, and

BLAM

Instead of describing it, Rock used a defined sound effect! I'd never seen anyone do that. It was incredibly effective. Never forgot it. So I stole it.

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 10:10 AM (43xH1)

207 Rome lasted 1400 hundred years another thousand on the byzantine side
Posted by: Miguel cervantes

What I learned this week: the singular of "spaghetti" is "spaghetto".

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 10:10 AM (FVME7)

208 CBD, don't you have other things you are supposed to be doing today?

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:10 AM (aeePL)

209 I will state upfront that I will not read the story based on Naked Guy on Ottoman, no matter who writes it.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022

***
Interesting challenge!
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 10:05 AM (c6xtn)
---
I guarantee you Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, and Neil Gaiman could write a compelling story about him...Just remember CAUSE and EFFECT and you'll be fine!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:10 AM (K5n5d)

210 It would be impossible for anyone to learn all of the skills possessed by your characters, but you can at least do enough research on a subject to gain a basic understanding of it. Need a blacksmith? You don't need to pick up a hammer yourself. You can read about it or watch enough YouTube videos to gain some level of knowledge.

Today's entertainment writers are too lazy and self-centered to even try.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:07 AM (K5n5d)
---
They don't even know the lore. The use of jumping into hyperspace as a weapon in Star Wars VIII wrecked the physics of the entire franchise. So why do it?

The answer was that the writers had boxed themselves in and rather than figure a way out, they just waved a magic plot wand.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 10:10 AM (llXky)

211 158 Fitzgerald may have given Hemingway a hard time, but, Hemingway was certainly no slouch.

I believe Hemingway was challenged to write a story in 4 words and came up with, "Baby shoes. Never worn."
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 09:58 AM (5pTK/)

He wasn't, my point is that the letters, unlike their public statements, show both Wolfe and Hemingway, turning to Scott for advice about life, work, and the business end of writing, and not the other way around.
Yes, A Moveable Feast suggests that Hemingway's role in Scott's life was bigger and better, but that doesn't seem to be true. Of course Mary Hemingway wanted to build up Ernest, and Ernest may have wanted this too.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 10:11 AM (Zzbjj)

212 153 ... Bluebell,
Thanks for the Wendell Berry book report. Happy reading, even with bittersweet moments, is always welcome these days.

Posted by: JTB at September 04, 2022 10:11 AM (7EjX1)

213 I enjoyed David Koepp's space fungus story "Cold Storage" a lot, but there were a couple instances of woke so clumsily inserted into the story that I wondered (seriously) if this was a requirement to get published.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 10:11 AM (Dc2NZ)

214 Everything's been done before, I think. Not that I can think of any specific examples. I'd like to read this. In fact, I think it would be cool if multiple authors wrote a story about the same artwork, and put them in a single volume. I would read it.

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at September 04, 2022 09:46 AM (OX9vb)

Yeah, nothing new under the sun, someone wrote somewhere. If Perfessor's ok with it, I'll send it to him and he can pass it on to you. Not finished with it yet, but I expect by next week. Then rewrite.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 10:11 AM (7bRMQ)

215 Okay, I revise my earlier comment. I would read it if you wrote it.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:05 AM (aeePL)

It would have to be a comedy. Then again, you never know what would come out of my head. lol

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 04, 2022 10:11 AM (VwHCD)

216 Today's entertainment writers are too lazy and self-centered to even try.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:07 AM (K5n5d)

That is nowhere more telling than in their ridiculous ignorance of guns!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 04, 2022 10:12 AM (1U4wg)

217 Remember, folks, there is a FRONTAL painting of Naked Guy on Ottoman, if you want to dabble in Cosmic Horror.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 10:12 AM (Dc2NZ)

218 I guarantee you Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, and Neil Gaiman could write a compelling story about him...Just remember CAUSE and EFFECT and you'll be fine!
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:10 AM (K5n5d)
----------

Yes yes yes, but I really don't want to know how he ended up naked on an ottoman looking into a mirror. No matter how compelling the story is.

Unless Berserker writes it.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:13 AM (aeePL)

219 I saw Full Frontal Ottoman open for the Meat Men in a punk club in Oakland back in '85.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at September 04, 2022 10:13 AM (bW8dp)

220 as I mentioned elsewhere, I picked up brideshead revisited,
having sloughed off in college, the film version with matthew
goode as ryder, that Captain dismisses, was partial inspiration,

Waugh may have been satirizing the Marchmains but not by much, he based it on his run ins with the Lygon family, and other members of the Railway club, and other bright young things,

Posted by: no 6 at September 04, 2022 10:13 AM (i0Lci)

221 I finished Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, which was recommended by another poster a year ago.

Published in 1917, placed in 1900, it is the story of Elizabeth Anne, a nine year old orphan who was raised by her overprotective Aunt Frances, who is placed with her mother's other cousins, the Putneys, who live on a farm in Vermont when her Aunt is called on to tend her Great-Aunt Harriet, who seems to have tuberculosis.
Betsy goes from being an dependent and fairly infantile girl to being an independent girl, able to take care of herself and her younger friend, by meeting a series of challenges and learning she is able to do things.
The Putney's approach is to say things like, "there is the cat's saucer under the sink, do you think you want to give it some milk?" and then leave her to, helping her when she asks.
AT the end of the book, Aunt Frances comes back offering to take Betsy back as Aunt Frances is getting married. Betsy asks to remain on the farm, making everyone happier.

Posted by: Kindltot at September 04, 2022 10:14 AM (xhaym)

222 The book has the tendency to veer into "appropriate books for good children" language, where the author stops to inform the reader that this is so very adorable, or frightening, or interesting or whatever, which I thought was irritating when I was a child, but it is a pretty good book. Betsy overcomes everything by thinking, not panicking and acting, or in the case of failing tests in the one room school, is advised that misspelling a word will not make the nearby mountains fall down, so study and get it right next time.

I would suggest the book for younger kids, it is simple but complex enough to keep attention, and the world of a 1900 farm is enough to be fascinating on its own

Posted by: Kindltot at September 04, 2022 10:15 AM (xhaym)

223 Remember, folks, there is a FRONTAL painting of Naked Guy on Ottoman, if you want to dabble in Cosmic Horror.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 10:12 AM (Dc2NZ)
---
Anyone up to writing a 50,000 word novel about Naked Guy on Ottoman in November? (National Novel Writing Month or something)

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:15 AM (K5n5d)

224
A story based on a Bosch painting would be awesome.

Posted by: fd at September 04, 2022 10:08 AM

The movie "What Dreams May Come" is probably close.

Posted by: Divide by Zero at September 04, 2022 10:15 AM (jE276)

225 I believe Hemingway was challenged to write a story in 4 words and came up with, "Baby shoes. Never worn."
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 09:58 AM (5pTK/)

IIRC it was:

For Sale:
Baby shoes.
Never worn.

The challenge was to write a story in as few a words as possible. It works. A lifetime of tragedy and heartache in six words.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:15 AM (dNqv+)

226 What I learned this week: the singular of "spaghetti" is "spaghetto".
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 10:10 AM (FVME7)

In the coming times, you'll be grateful to have a single spaghetto!

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at September 04, 2022 10:15 AM (OX9vb)

227 Yes yes yes, but I really don't want to know how he ended up naked on an ottoman looking into a mirror. No matter how compelling the story is.

Unless Berserker writes it.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:13 AM (aeePL)

Chapter 1
My neighbor was a fat bastard....

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM (VwHCD)

228 "56 I read In the Shadow of the Wall, a story about a boy/man who grows up in East Germany and discovers freedom (mostly by growing up without it but also by discovering Elvis) and eventually escapes over the Berlin wall. True story, interesting life.

Does anyone know of any books on how people survived/thrived the fall of a nation? Asking for future reference. Anything about the lives of normal people in the fall of the Soviet empire, or any of the other nations that have collapsed in modern times."

I have a ton of personal stories told to me, about the Yugoslavia breakup, and a bunch from Hungary. No books though. Went on a diner date with a lovely German woman who grew up in GDR. Most people have a lot of trouble describing any of it. 'Shock' is the usual state, and it seems to cause serious issues with accurate reporting.

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM (43xH1)

229 re: the comment about bingeing on books with no redeeming values, I refer to those books as 'potato chip books'. No nutritional value but they fill a void and keep you occupied for a while. Some times you don't want to read a full 7 course meal of a book, you just want to kick back with a potato chip book and blow though a couple of mindless hours. Often on the couch with 1 or more cats in close proximity

Posted by: Stacy0311 at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM (VfLe7)

230 I've been a fan of Harry Turtledove's alternate histories for a long time...

Then maybe you can identify a book I remember. Every time I try to describe it, somebody insists that it's "Guns of the South" but I'm 90% sure it isn't. The point where the plot turns and it becomes alternative history is when Lee is retreating from Gettysburg and sets up his troops behind a bend in, I think, the Rapidan river trying to bait Grant into splitting his forces. In real life, Grant didn't fall for it; in the book he did. I didn't see anything in wikipedia matching that description.

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM (nfrXX)

231 I've had books which were so bad and/or enraging, I've tossed them in the trash, rather than risk inflicting them on some other poor unsuspecting soul.
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 09:25 AM (5pTK/)

Same here. I don't know whether it's envy or a sniff of superiority, but I am a SLOOOOOW reader, so I place high value on every word placed in book form. So when a writer slashes lines of shite down on paper, I take it as a personal insult, and for others like me, I feel I'm saving them from wasting that valuable time.

For those of you who are speed readers, you do you. Burn through the words, set the book down, pick up another one. This is where the superiority comes in, I tell myself you can't POSSIBLY be enjoying your books as much as I do. So sad. So sad.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM (NWBBy)

232 Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:10 AM (aeePL)

Lots! But I am taking a quiet moment to enjoy my coffee. Then my first task...Bearer of The Bourbon...begins.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM (1U4wg)

233 Anyone up to writing a 50,000 word novel about Naked Guy on Ottoman in November? (National Novel Writing Month or something)
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:15 AM (K5n5d)
-------------

"A Day in the life of Naked Man and an Ottoman" could be a great comedic end point or starting point.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 10:17 AM (5pTK/)

234 I envisioned a serious story about Darrin & Samantha Stephens way back in the '70s, but never knew how to write it until a few years ago.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at September 04, 2022 09:50 AM (c6xtn)

With the witchcraft angle, I'm surprised no one has done that already. Of course they'd make her a purple haired qwerty and Durwood closeted. You could probably make a real hoot of a character with Endora, though.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 10:17 AM (7bRMQ)

235 I would suggest the book for younger kids, it is simple but complex enough to keep attention, and the world of a 1900 farm is enough to be fascinating on its own
Posted by: Kindltot at September 04, 2022 10:15 AM (xhaym)
----------

I read that when I was a young bluebell, and remember liking it.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:17 AM (aeePL)

236 Fat guy on an ottoman is a starting point, not the end.

Posted by: Fat Guy and the Flying Ottoman at September 04, 2022 10:18 AM (sn5EN)

237 > Of course they'd make her a purple haired qwerty and Durwood closeted.

One of them was, I believe. I forget if it was First or Second Darrin who was teh ghey.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at September 04, 2022 10:18 AM (bW8dp)

238 yes last jedi was ruinous garbage, they should have shot all writing staff involved, they should have just tried to adapt dark empire, or the thrawn series,

Posted by: no 6 at September 04, 2022 10:18 AM (i0Lci)

239 "Potato chip books..."

Posted by: Stacy0311 at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM (VfLe7)

Perfect! I shall use that term from now on!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 04, 2022 10:18 AM (1U4wg)

240 Lots! But I am taking a quiet moment to enjoy my coffee. Then my first task...Bearer of The Bourbon...begins.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM (1U4wg)
---------

Hoo boy. Well, it's 5:00 somewhere! Enjoy your day!!

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:19 AM (aeePL)

241 For Sale:
Baby shoes.
Never worn.

The challenge was to write a story in as few a words as possible. It works. A lifetime of tragedy and heartache in six words.
Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:15 AM (dNqv+)
---------

I think you're correct. Telling a story that poignant in so few words is definitely a talent.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 10:19 AM (5pTK/)

242 Want to understand the culture of corruption at the FIB?

You need to go to its second origin story-the Boston FIB office.

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/
show/whitey-bulger

Posted by: sven at September 04, 2022 10:19 AM (Lzpvj)

243 209 I will state upfront that I will not read the story based on Naked Guy on Ottoman, no matter who writes it.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022

---
I guarantee you Harlan Ellison...could write a compelling story about him..
---

"Recline, Heavyqueer!" Said the Tik-TokMeme

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 10:19 AM (Dc2NZ)

244
I will state upfront that I will not read the story based on Naked Guy on Ottoman, no matter who writes it.

Posted by: bluebell

Isn't he the guy in every art thread who "wakes up, scratches self, makes a pithy comment, and then goes looking for coffee"? It's a serial narrative ...

[ profound apologies to Diogenes ]

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 10:20 AM (pNxlR)

245 > I forget if it was First or Second Darrin who was teh ghey.

Wikipedia says Second Darrin.

First Darrin had a wife and five kids.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at September 04, 2022 10:20 AM (bW8dp)

246 "Recline, Heavyqueer!" Said the Tik-TokMeme
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 10:19 AM (Dc2NZ)
---
Threadwinner!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:20 AM (K5n5d)

247 202 I am rereading Hayek's "The Road To Serfdom," and while the ideas are marvelous and perceptive, his writing style is just a tad verbose.
I wish he had used Hemingway 's editor!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 04, 2022 10:09 AM (1U4wg)

Unlike the slashing done to Wolfe, Max Perkins rarely cut Hemingway's work. Just the usual make sure there's nothing libelous stuff. Hemingway needed spell check more that removal of grand words or repetition.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 10:20 AM (Zzbjj)

248 Enjoy your day!!

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:19 AM

Thank you...I shall!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 04, 2022 10:21 AM (1U4wg)

249 Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM (nfrXX)

Sorry, I only read his WWII-meets-aliens stuff and other midcentury tales.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 10:21 AM (Dc2NZ)

250 @213 --

The entire chapter with the state trooper could have been deleted with no harm to the story.

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 04, 2022 10:21 AM (Om/di)

251 this was largely why hoover didn't want to get the bureau involved in the internecine elements of organized crime, compare him with anslinger, the godfather of the dea, and all the wrangling he was a part of,

Posted by: no 6 at September 04, 2022 10:23 AM (i0Lci)

252 I think you're correct. Telling a story that poignant in so few words is definitely a talent.
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 10:19 AM (5pTK/)

I first heard it here at AOSHQ and have always remembered it. Makes me want to weep if I think on it too long. Probably my favorite Hemingway story.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:24 AM (dNqv+)

253 Hemingway needed spell check more that removal of grand words or repetition.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 10:20 AM (Zzbjj)

Perkins was a great editor. His death probably contributed to Hemingway's slide, both emotionally and professionally.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 04, 2022 10:24 AM (1U4wg)

254 IIRC it was:

For Sale:
Baby shoes.
Never worn.

The challenge was to write a story in as few a words as possible. It works. A lifetime of tragedy and heartache in six words.
Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:15 AM (dNqv+)

And it has become an internet meme. So not just one lifetime.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 10:24 AM (NWBBy)

255 122

George Bailey as a secret hit man. Decides to commit suicide but is saved when the angel shows him how much better the world is because the people he killed aren't in it.

Then at the end, he goes over and whacks Mr. Potter.

Posted by: Toad-O at September 04, 2022 10:24 AM (cct0t)

256 221. It was a good book about repairing learned helplessness and replacing it with enhanced ability and self confidence.

Poor old Dorothy. Her name was stripped from the award because some wokester made an evidence free case against her.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 10:25 AM (Zzbjj)

257 Isn't he the guy in every art thread who "wakes up, scratches self, makes a pithy comment, and then goes looking for coffee"? It's a serial narrative ...

[ profound apologies to Diogenes ]
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 10:20 AM (pNxlR)
------------

Ha! I have had the pleasure of meeting Diogenes in person and I assure you, he looks nothing like that guy. But I'll tell him you said so! (Just kidding.)

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:25 AM (aeePL)

258 That could be an interesting Horde project...take one of CBD's Art Threads and then write a book around the painting. Maybe each person writes a chapter or something. We could call it: "The Deplorable Critic."

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 09:58 AM (K5n5d)

You know you'll be swamped with submissions if you lead this project....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 10:25 AM (7bRMQ)

259 Sorry, I only read his WWII-meets-aliens stuff and other midcentury tales.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 10:21 AM (Dc2NZ)

You would love the movie Zone Troopers.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 04, 2022 10:26 AM (VwHCD)

260 Ha! I have had the pleasure of meeting Diogenes in person and I assure you, he looks nothing like that guy. But I'll tell him you said so! (Just kidding.)
Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:25 AM (aeePL)

I have always liked the nic. It is evocative. 'Diogenes with his lamp, looking for an honest man...'

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:26 AM (dNqv+)

261
Chapter 1
My neighbor was a fat bastard....
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division

... he was fractally fat. You know fractals, don't you? A fractal pattern repeats itself at one level, and again at the next and smaller level, and so forth. Well, that's my neighbor. His slabs of fat folds had their own slabs of fat folds. He was fat folds all the way down.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 10:27 AM (pNxlR)

262 Does anyone know of any books on how people survived/thrived the fall of a nation? Asking for future reference. Anything about the lives of normal people in the fall of the Soviet empire, or any of the other nations that have collapsed in modern times."

Penguin put out a paperback series I think in the 70s called "Writers From the Other Europe" that addressed what you're talking about.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 04, 2022 10:27 AM (y7DUB)

263 253. My money is on alcohol and repeated brain injury. Combined these things contribute more to the lost abilities and growing delusions than the loss of an editor ever could.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 10:27 AM (Zzbjj)

264 "Baby shoes. Never worn."

-
I saw a YouTube biography of Fred Gwynne, Herman Munster. His toddler son fell standing on a couch striking his head on a coffee table. He suffered seizures throughout his life and Fred blamed himself. Later, another young son drowned in the pool and his wife blamed herself. Fred threw himself into his work, although he didn't need the money, to distract himself.

Also, he was an artist (as was his mother) and he wrote and illustrated a number of children's books.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 10:27 AM (FVME7)

265 ... he was fractally fat. You know fractals, don't you? A fractal pattern repeats itself at one level, and again at the next and smaller level, and so forth. Well, that's my neighbor. His slabs of fat folds had their own slabs of fat folds. He was fat folds all the way down.
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 10:27 AM (pNxlR)
-----------

"Jabba the Hut: The Early Years."

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 10:28 AM (5pTK/)

266 Is it possible that the book I'm trying to remember isn't Turtledove? Who else writes Civil War alternative history?

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 10:28 AM (nfrXX)

267 261: Fractalized fat? LOL

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 10:29 AM (Zzbjj)

268 Well... I can 'recommend'? 'Refugee Tears', by Natasha Bartula, but it's very badly written by a clearly unprofessional person, filled with every kind of bad writing thing you can imagine, but I won't say it's not informative and compelling.
It covers some of the behavior the author witnessed, and a few things I'm pretty sure are displacement: she tells a few tales of having 'seen' her 'friends' do demeaning things...
I could be wrong, but...

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 10:29 AM (43xH1)

269 "Edward Hopper's "Night Hawks" "

I looked into the back story of one of my favorites.

Hopper was walking around Manhattan the night of Dec 7 1941 and was inspired by what he saw: People up late at a diner and quite uncertain about what would happen next.

Painted in a month, Hopper sold it to the Art Institute of Chicago where it's been ever since. When I saw it, it was next to American Gothic, so a powerful one-two punch of Americana.

The diner was across from St Vincent's Hospital in the west village. Bothare now gone.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 04, 2022 10:29 AM (i0slg)

270 ... he was fractally fat. You know fractals, don't you? A fractal pattern repeats itself at one level, and again at the next and smaller level, and so forth. Well, that's my neighbor. His slabs of fat folds had their own slabs of fat folds. He was fat folds all the way down.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 10:27 AM (pNxlR)

You live next to Nadler?

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 04, 2022 10:30 AM (VwHCD)

271 "Jabba the Hut: The Early Years."
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 10:28 AM (5pTK/)
---
A very young Jabba the Hutt plays a significant role in the Star Wars novel Darth Plagueis...And yeah, he's not quite as corpulent...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:30 AM (K5n5d)

272 Who else writes Civil War alternative history?
Posted by: Oddbob

The Democrat party.

Posted by: She Hobbit at September 04, 2022 10:30 AM (ftFVW)

273 Getting into Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Excellent so far but he's spending a little too much time on Alchemy. Also reading The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11.

Posted by: who knew at September 04, 2022 10:30 AM (4I7VG)

274 And so 'fractally fat' enters the horde lexicon. I am happy to say I was here for it.

And we were not even talking about Stacy Abrams. Five years from now (if we are around) someone will misremember the subject as her.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:30 AM (dNqv+)

275 Harlan Ellison teamed up with surrealist artist Jacek Yerka to publish a book called "Mind Fields." Yerka created the artwork, Ellison wrote a short story about each piece as only he can. It's a truly terrific book.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:00 AM (K5n5d)

I'll see if I can find it.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 10:31 AM (7bRMQ)

276 In Sunday School, coffee and the Good Book!

Posted by: Eromero at September 04, 2022 10:31 AM (DXbAa)

277 Want to understand the culture of corruption at the FIB?

You need to go to its second origin story-the Boston FIB office.

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/
show/whitey-bulger
Posted by: sven at September 04, 2022 10:19 AM (Lzpvj)

I think that's just one side of it. We have enough circumstantial evidence now, that we can be sure the CIA and FBI were responsible for political assassinations in this country. Not just the big ones, but small ones too. The CIA would do the actual hit, then the FBI would come in and muck up the investigation, so in the end, your patsy gets blamed and/or nobody really has all the facts about what actually happened. I have no doubt they still do it, and anyone who dies young, or under weird circumstances, I just assume it's an FBI/CIA operation.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 10:31 AM (NWBBy)

278 Fat Naked Otto Mann

Posted by: That NLurker guy at September 04, 2022 10:31 AM (eGTCV)

279 "Recline, Heavyqueer!" Said the Tik-TokMeme
Posted by: All Hail Eris,

*snort

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at September 04, 2022 10:32 AM (OX9vb)

280 And so 'fractally fat' enters the horde lexicon. I am happy to say I was here for it.

And we were not even talking about Stacy Abrams. Five years from now (if we are around) someone will misremember the subject as her.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:30 AM (dNqv+)

She isn't fractally fat, if she was the folds would hide the harpoon scars.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 04, 2022 10:32 AM (VwHCD)

281
I have always liked the nic. It is evocative. 'Diogenes with his lamp, looking for an honest man...'
Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson

Didn't the original Diogenes wear a barrel as his attire?

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 10:33 AM (pNxlR)

282 we bulger, the goal was to take out the providence mob, well mission accomplished then what,

anslinger dealt with the italian and corsican mobs, he lent some of his operatives to the oss and the company, some of them facilitated the drug rackets to fund operations in western europe, hence the french connection,

Posted by: no 6 at September 04, 2022 10:33 AM (i0Lci)

283 Painted in a month, Hopper sold it to the Art Institute of Chicago where it's been ever since. When I saw it, it was next to American Gothic, so a powerful one-two punch of Americana.

The diner was across from St Vincent's Hospital in the west village. Bothare now gone.
Posted by: Ignoramus at September 04, 2022 10:29 AM (i0slg)

I have always loved that painting, but did not know the history. Thanks for this.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:33 AM (dNqv+)

284 "I am rereading Hayek's "The Road To Serfdom,"

Reader's Digest put out an abridged version around 1947 that was widely read. You can find it online.

Reagan, a closet intellectual, was a huge fan.

It's more relevant today than ever. Our wannabee galactic overlords believe that with Big Data and their super smarts they can solve the information problem that Hayek cited as why free markets will always beat central planning.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 04, 2022 10:33 AM (i0slg)

285 I think that's just one side of it. We have enough circumstantial evidence now, that we can be sure the CIA and FBI were responsible for political assassinations in this country. Not just the big ones, but small ones too. The CIA would do the actual hit, then the FBI would come in and muck up the investigation, so in the end, your patsy gets blamed and/or nobody really has all the facts about what actually happened. I have no doubt they still do it, and anyone who dies young, or under weird circumstances, I just assume it's an FBI/CIA operation.
Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 10:31 AM (NWBBy)
----------

I'm pretty sure Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran confessed to a bunch of stuff he was never anywhere near.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 10:33 AM (5pTK/)

286 Oh, Lord, now I'm thinking of Fat Man on Ottoman as Kaspar Guttmann back in Istanbul before he gets dressed and starts the day's plotting of how to steal the black bird.

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 04, 2022 10:34 AM (Om/di)

287 I need to run off but Captain Hate, I'm very glad to see you here and I hope you are feeling better. The HQ is just not the same without you.

Posted by: bluebell at September 04, 2022 10:34 AM (aeePL)

288 And so 'fractally fat' enters the horde lexicon. I am happy to say I was here for it.

I'm mentally stashing away "fractally stupid" for deployment on an appropriate target.

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 10:34 AM (nfrXX)

289 Cause: Trump

???

Effect: Biden's hate speech

Sam Harris@SamHarrisOrg
I love seeing Trumpists condemning the political optics of this image. Admittedly, they are terrible. But they are only bad by reference to values that should lead you to totally repudiate Trump himself. For Biden, this is a gaffe; for Trump, it would be a window into his soul

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 10:35 AM (FVME7)

290 One of the failings we're seeing is that this is also not happening. Writers don't even know the genre they are writing in, so they get basic things wrong and create awful plot holes.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 10:02 AM (llXky)

But yet, they sell and are on the best seller lists. Because they're cool normie insulters.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 10:35 AM (7bRMQ)

291 Another book I liked for kids was The Puppy who Wanted a Boy, the story of a pup whose Christmas dream was to have a boy of his own, despite mommy dog's insistence that there was a supply chain issue that year. Petey tries to convince other dogs to give up their boys to no avail, but meets great success in the end. It's puts dogs in a much better light than humans.

Well off to take Bogie to the park for a nice walk. A tired JRT is a happy JRT.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 10:35 AM (Zzbjj)

292 She isn't fractally fat, if she was the folds would hide the harpoon scars.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division

Could you classify her as geometrically fat? You know, with the doubling.

Posted by: She Hobbit at September 04, 2022 10:35 AM (ftFVW)

293 172 Hey, that "The DM of the Ring" webcomic, isn't it? I still love the strip where Aragorn tried to dismount a Warg, but failed the roll and rode it off a cliff! Maybe I'll re-read that instead of watching Rings of Prime.
Posted by: Castle Guy at September 04, 2022 10:01 AM (Lhaco)

You can find DM of the Rings here:

http://www.shamusyoung.com/
twentysidedtale/?p=612

Like everything the late Shamus Young wrote, it's worth reading. Particular favorites include his autobiography and Chainmail Bikini.

Posted by: Don at September 04, 2022 10:36 AM (4c8hG)

294 "I have no doubt they still do it, and anyone who dies young, or under weird circumstances, I just assume it's an FBI/CIA operation."

You talkin' to me ...

Posted by: Zombie Andrew Breitbart at September 04, 2022 10:36 AM (i0slg)

295 mackinlay cantor,

charles stross, before he went insane, had an alternate explanation for the glomar explorer, more lovecraftian hijinks,

Posted by: no 6 at September 04, 2022 10:37 AM (i0Lci)

296 I totally believe this.

Andrew Wortman@AmoneyResists
Multiple vendors are selling Nazi flags at the #TrumpRally to prove just how strongly his supporters stand against fascism.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 10:37 AM (FVME7)

297 Sam Harris is best seen for what he is, a pompous hater of everyone unlike himself. A big, big, bigot.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 10:37 AM (Zzbjj)

298 Sam Harris@SamHarrisOrg
I love seeing Trumpists condemning the political optics of this image. Admittedly, they are terrible. But they are only bad by reference to values that should lead you to totally repudiate Trump himself. For Biden, this is a gaffe; for Trump, it would be a window into his soul
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 10:35 AM (FVME7)
------------

If Harris projected any harder, he could show a picture on the side of El Capitan.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 10:37 AM (5pTK/)

299 292 She isn't fractally fat, if she was the folds would hide the harpoon scars.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division

Could you classify her as geometrically fat? You know, with the doubling.
Posted by: She Hobbit at September 04, 2022 10:35 AM (ftFVW)

Logarithmically fat.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:38 AM (dNqv+)

300 I'd say that Trump broke Sam Harris' brain, but that happened long before 2015.

Posted by: PabloD at September 04, 2022 10:38 AM (JCymI)

301 297 Sam Harris is best seen for what he is, a pompous hater of everyone unlike himself. A big, big, bigot.
Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 10:37 AM (Zzbjj)

He certainly seems like a raging asshat from the blurbs posted over at Insty.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:38 AM (dNqv+)

302 ...For Biden, this is a gaffe; for Trump, it would be a window into his soul

Now see, that could fairly be called fractally stupid except that I'm reluctant to expend the new ordnance so soon. So maybe it's just asymptotically stupid. Or at least quadratically stupid. "Yeah, it's bad but if your guy did it, it would be really bad."

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 10:39 AM (nfrXX)

303 302 ...For Biden, this is a gaffe; for Trump, it would be a window into his soul

Now see, that could fairly be called fractally stupid except that I'm reluctant to expend the new ordnance so soon. So maybe it's just asymptotically stupid. Or at least quadratically stupid. "Yeah, it's bad but if your guy did it, it would be really bad."
Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 10:39 AM (nfrXX)

asymmetric, gorilla tactic stupid.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:40 AM (dNqv+)

304 He discovered the Marquette Iron Range and invented a typewriter and the solar compass, a solar surveyor, and the equatorial sextant.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 10:06 AM (Dc2NZ)

But he was white, so none of that counts! He probably stole all those ideas from a slave, who was the real genius!

Posted by: 1619 Project at September 04, 2022 10:40 AM (7bRMQ)

305 Slightly OT. I watched the the first episode of "Rings of Power" yesterday. Amazon's Tolkien series based on the rights to "The Appendices" they bought for $250M. And then spent another $450M making.

Spoiler: It's truly awful. Bad acting. Terrible dialog. "Maid and butler" conversations in every other scene because the writers don't know how to tell a story. Some of the visuals are decent. But that's it.

The series was widely disparaged before it appeared due to Amazon's insistence on emphasizing "diversity" and "representation" in their promotional material: black dwarves and elves and you're a rayciss if you point out that's not "lore".

At this point Amazon can only dream that the only problems with the show are lack of adherence to the original material and wokeism. It's a billion-dollar disaster.

Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 10:40 AM (g1EEm)

306 Sam Harris@SamHarrisOrg
.....
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 10:35 AM (FVME7)

I've seen his name a lot of places before, but none more than the past week or so. I guess some people value what he has to say.

To me he's just a male Taylor Lorenz. If he's ever written anything worthwhile, I surely don't know what it is, and never will.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 10:41 AM (NWBBy)

307 On the real-book front, I'm still ocassionally plugging my way through "Tide of Empires volume 1" by Peter Padfield. Just finished his chapter on the rise of the Dutch, and of how their navy scattered a second Spanish Armada. I'm starting to wonder how Spain ever became a great naval power. They get their butts kicked by everyone on the Atlantic coast, and their only successes seem to go along the lines of "Sir Francis Drake tried to organize a raid on Spanish shipping, but it failed and he died."

Anyways, I ordered an Osprey book on the Dutch navy, and I'm waiting for it to arrive. My vision of sailing ships is locked in the Horatio Hornblower/Napoleonic ships-of-the-line style, and I need a better idea of how things were before that time...

Posted by: Castle Guy at September 04, 2022 10:41 AM (Lhaco)

308 but you compare the american security services with the brits, never mind the french,

this is why I think the likes of flowers for mother, and the rope dancer, are probably most pitch perfect depiction

in the first, angleton is clearly the antihero to the protagonist and colby is the villain, that was much like marchetti's tale, his mid level operative defects to the Soviets, and then finds out the agency top people, beat him to it, by a generation,

Posted by: no 6 at September 04, 2022 10:41 AM (i0Lci)

309 I only recently learned more about Diogenes than his "searching for an honest man" schtick. He was a merry prankster, twitting the great thinkers:

"When Plato gave Socrates’s definition of man as “featherless bipeds” and was much praised for the definition, Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it into Plato’s Academy, saying, “Behold! I’ve brought you a man.” After this incident, “with broad flat nails” was added to Plato’s definition."

"He criticized Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates, and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting listeners by bringing food and eating during the discussions"

https://tinyurl.com/9e3brytb

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 10:41 AM (Dc2NZ)

310 I do not understand anyone on the right wanting to engage with the likes of Sam Harris, because I think anyone with any sort of notoriety who gives Harris a platform helps to legitimatize Harris' way of thinking.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 10:42 AM (5pTK/)

311 At this point Amazon can only dream that the only problems with the show are lack of adherence to the original material and wokeism. It's a billion-dollar disaster.
Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 10:40 AM (g1EEm)
---
Just as the original is the greatest fantasy epic in history (and one of the greatest stories of all time), Amazon's attempt is going to be the most epic disaster in history. It was Morgoth's attempt to twist Tolkien's vision. It failed.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:43 AM (K5n5d)

312 I once read a short history of Japan: We are not Chinese.

I used to say that the American version is: We are not European. Developing ...

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 04, 2022 10:43 AM (i0slg)

313 310 I do not understand anyone on the right wanting to engage with the likes of Sam Harris, because I think anyone with any sort of notoriety who gives Harris a platform helps to legitimatize Harris' way of thinking.
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 10:42 AM (5pTK/)

Ideas should be engaged- especially stupid ones.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:44 AM (dNqv+)

314 Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 10:27 AM (Zzbjj)

Absolutely! And of course a family history of depression.

But Perkins was one of his anchors in reality.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 04, 2022 10:44 AM (1VrUy)

315
I saw a historical marker on William Austin Burt. Just look at the breadth of experience in one life:

"William Austin Burt (June 13, 1792 – August 18, 185 was an American scientist, inventor, legislator, millwright, justice of the peace, school inspector, postmaster, judge, builder, businessman, surveyor and soldier."

He discovered the Marquette Iron Range and invented a typewriter and the solar compass, a solar surveyor, and the equatorial sextant.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes

His house, still standing and the oldest building in Marquette, MI, is open some days during the summer months and is owned by the county historical society.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 10:45 AM (pNxlR)

316 A story based on a Bosch painting would be awesome.

Posted by: fd at September 04, 2022 10:08 AM (sn5EN)

They already have one. It's called "Up the Down Staircase."

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 10:45 AM (7bRMQ)

317 singularity stupid, summoning the hellmouth,

as with tim power's declare, where the great game concerned a meteorite found in the Empty quarter and entangles the protagonist and kim philby in an origin story for the Soviet Union, among other things,

Posted by: no 6 at September 04, 2022 10:46 AM (i0Lci)

318 "He criticized Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates, and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting listeners by bringing food and eating during the discussions"

https://tinyurl.com/9e3brytb

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 10:41 AM (Dc2NZ)

Wait, I was emulating Diogenes in college?!

Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:46 AM (dNqv+)

319 "Well, in the really real world in which we inhabit, nothing happens without a cause. You can trace this all the way back to the Big Bang."

Saw a debate between Dr. Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute, who has pretty much proven the theory of Intelligent Design is correct (IMHO) and an arrogant prick of a "physicist". That last jackass, with a straight face, declared triumphantly that:

"The laws of physics require that the universe pop into existence from nothing."

So, who wins an arm-wrestle between the God of Physics and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

Posted by: Sharkman at September 04, 2022 10:46 AM (Gda1b)

320 One thing about nations, especially Commie ones, collapsing: a lot of working stiff types don't experience it as Liberation. They like the idea of More Stuff and Freedom, until they realize they have no skills in a capitalist society, and can't afford any stuff or to go anywhere. A lot of Socialist locales experienced truly jaw-dropping unemployment, misery, and degradation after they became free essentially overnight. Some players got very, very rich; many without those skills became very, very poor. I'm not advocating any political system, just reporting what I saw and experienced. A lot of societal breakdown and organized corruption, explosive crime, drugs (open borders), etc. It takes YEARS for a place to pick up from those conditions. In my experience a lot of people just don't like to talk about it, except in vague terms like, "Well, it's better, now..."

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 10:46 AM (43xH1)

321 I'm reading A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell. It may have been discussed here before because I know the horde's fascination and knowledge of WWII. It's extremely well written, and I just read a review explaining that this is a sequel to The Sparrow.

Posted by: Unkaren at September 04, 2022 10:47 AM (QSPZM)

322 He criticized Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates, and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting listeners by bringing food and eating during the discussions

Nacho Cheese Doritos and a Slurpee!

Posted by: rhennigantx at September 04, 2022 10:47 AM (BRHaw)

323 Amazon's knock-off was created by committee. A bad committee. And there was no core original work to start with.

There's a reason why great original works nearly always strat with a single author.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 04, 2022 10:47 AM (i0slg)

324 I'm flashing on William F. Buckley bringing Kentucky Fried Chicken to a staged anti-Vietnam hunger strike.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 10:49 AM (Dc2NZ)

325
She isn't fractally fat, if she was the folds would hide the harpoon scars.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division

Her bingo wings have bingo wings.

Definitely fractally fat.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 10:49 AM (pNxlR)

326 its like trying to hang on to a sandworm, there are no ideas here, to peg your notion, it's more a consensual hallucination,

like michael scheuer developed this inordinate fascination with bin laden, partially because of his declining career,

Posted by: no 6 at September 04, 2022 10:49 AM (i0Lci)

327 It would have to be a comedy. Then again, you never know what would come out of my head. lol

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 04, 2022 10:11 AM (VwHCD)

Dear Penthouse Forum....

Posted by: Naked Fat Guy on Ottoman at September 04, 2022 10:50 AM (7bRMQ)

328 When the Soviet Union collapsed, most people had a place to live - Soviet housing, such as it was.

And the populace was rough and tough, used to privations. Shortages, making do. Everybody had a side gig going, because they had to.

Compare and contrast with the welfare state in America, what it's morphed and degraded into. What happens in a similar scenario?

A whole bunch of people who will completely lose their shit, and unable to cope in any way. Should he fun to watch, from a distance.

Posted by: Common Tater at September 04, 2022 10:50 AM (hnrPR)

329
Biden's Hitler-esque speech was 'Miracle in the Meadowlands' bad. The apologists have had a couple of days to think of some way to make it less bad but all they come up with 'but Trump'. Like some petulant mean girl with a face full of acne, passing out notes in class, then pointing to some other girl as the originator.

Posted by: Divide by Zero at September 04, 2022 10:51 AM (jE276)

330 Excellent recommendation, Kindltot! During my cubs' bedtime-story years, Understood Betsy went over very well, as did The Secret Garden. There truly was a Golden Age of children's literature, now choked off and deliberately forgotten by the Woke Conquest of the field. The 8th - 12th grade summer reading lists in the public school system of my shabby declining NY home (now fled) literally had nothing published before about 2000.

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at September 04, 2022 10:51 AM (SPNTN)

331 Sultry ladies @117. Is this a poll. I say Bacall all the way, then Veronica Lake. Lana Turner strikes me as just typical Hollywood.

Posted by: who knew at September 04, 2022 10:53 AM (4I7VG)

332 There, in a nutshell, is as clear an example of how Adolf had taken Germany into a continental war when Germany's industrial base was no where near capable of doing such a thing. "... pushing an anti-tank cannon by hand ..." screams "... and why did you think engaging in all out war now was going to go your way?"
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars

And to illustrate this point, cut to the 'defeat march' scene of Band of Brothers, where one solider in our band snaps and starts yelling at captured Germans about using horses in a modern war.

Posted by: Castle Guy at September 04, 2022 10:53 AM (Lhaco)

333 I do not understand anyone on the right wanting to engage with the likes of Sam Harris, because I think anyone with any sort of notoriety who gives Harris a platform helps to legitimatize Harris' way of thinking.
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 10:42 AM (5pTK/)

Ideas should be engaged- especially stupid ones.
Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson at September 04, 2022 10:44 AM (dNqv+)

Ah, this is the always significant argument. What purpose do intellectuals serve?

And the answer seems to be, in times of peace they are a luxury, and we can engage their ideas. But in times of war, they serve no purpose whatsoever, except getting in the way of things.

Sam Harris is an intellectual. We are at war.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 10:54 AM (NWBBy)

334 Back from a constitutional with the lively and athletic Mrs naturalfake.

Lessee what's upstairs...

Posted by: naturalfake at September 04, 2022 10:55 AM (5NkmN)

335 Currently enjoying True Grit by Charles Portis.
It's been recommended by others here many times.
I'll get to the John Wayne movie and more recent remake at some point.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at September 04, 2022 10:56 AM (2j1hH)

336 why the Romans didn't have an industrial revolution. It's on his blog, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, which I highly recommend.

Reading and enjoying it now. Thanks.

Posted by: t-bird at September 04, 2022 10:57 AM (Jg92y)

337
Thanks to All Hail Eris and her link to Diogenes, we have today's entry for "It Pays to Icrease Your Word Power":

chreia:
A chreia was a brief, useful anecdote about a particular character. That is, a chreia was shorter than a narration — often as short as a single sentence — but unlike a maxim, it was attributed to a character. Usually it conformed to one of a few patterns, the most common being “On seeing…”, “On being asked…”, and “He said…”./i]

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 10:59 AM (pNxlR)

338 I was always taught as a ute in skool when the teachers actually taught things that the Romans had no need for an industrial revolution as they had slaves to do all the hard work.

Plus they drank....a lot.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at September 04, 2022 11:00 AM (R/m4+)

339 And there was no core original work to start with.
Posted by: Ignoramus

Other than the entire Tolkien LOTR universe, I would agree

There's a modern version of movie-making that I loathe: spectacle over story. The Marvel movies went this way. "Rings of Power" falls in the same category.

I don't understand it. Do modern audiences not care? Or is it more sinister than that? If the movie is nothing more than a spectacle then it's much easier to write in the obligatory quota of references to leftist shibboleths.

Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 11:00 AM (g1EEm)

340 Steven Pressfield has a help book for authors called No One Wants to Read Your Shit ( and other tough truths ) .

Posted by: polynikes at September 04, 2022 11:00 AM (ZB6WQ)

341 One RoW issue involves men pushing an anti-tank cannon by hand down a street meeting an ambulance, and which has the right-of-way...

-
Norman Mailer may have been a wife-stabbing asshole but he could write. There is a very moving story in The Naked and the Dead about men manhandling a gun uphill through a jungle.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 11:00 AM (FVME7)

342 Time to get started on the day's cooking. Later, horde.

OrangeENT, email is in my nic--if you want to send me your Nighthawks story, I'll be delighted to read it.

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at September 04, 2022 11:01 AM (OX9vb)

343 Plus they drank....a lot.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at September 04, 2022 11:00 AM (R/m4+)
----------

Didn't the Romans conduct diplomacy while half in the bag, by law, because, "In Vino Veritas" or some such?

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 11:01 AM (5pTK/)

344 Is it possible that the book I'm trying to remember isn't Turtledove? Who else writes Civil War alternative history?

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 10:28 AM (nfrXX)

Every Southern writer?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 11:01 AM (7bRMQ)

345 I was always taught as a ute in skool when the teachers actually taught things that the Romans had no need for an industrial revolution as they had slaves to do all the hard work.

Plus they drank....a lot.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at September 04, 2022 11:00 AM (R/m4+)

That's why the cotton gin upset the apple cart in the US .

Posted by: polynikes at September 04, 2022 11:02 AM (ZB6WQ)

346 344 Is it possible that the book I'm trying to remember isn't Turtledove? Who else writes Civil War alternative history?

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 10:28 AM (nfrXX)

Every Southern writer?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 11:01 AM (7bRMQ)
---

*laughs*
*runs for bunker*

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 11:03 AM (Dc2NZ)

347 275 Harlan Ellison teamed up with surrealist artist Jacek Yerka to publish a book called "Mind Fields." Yerka created the artwork, Ellison wrote a short story about each piece as only he can. It's a truly terrific book.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 10:00 AM (K5n5d)

I'll see if I can find it.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 10:31 AM

Mind Fields is available used at Better World Books for $7.88, new for $24.73. My pleasure.

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at September 04, 2022 11:03 AM (SPNTN)

348 I don't understand it. Do modern audiences not care? Or is it more sinister than that? If the movie is nothing more than a spectacle then it's much easier to write in the obligatory quota of references to leftist shibboleths.
Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 11:00 AM (g1EEm)
---
It's much more sinister, especially with established IPs. If audiences unfamiliar to the source material are exposed to crap like Rings of Power, then they will expect the source material to also be crap. Thus, they are less likely to read a story that is good, and noble, and true, like Lord of the Rings.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 11:05 AM (K5n5d)

349 Well, an observation about people right after a ComBloc nation goes tits-up. Everything was PC and History had stopped. But everyone had memories they couldn't share. So if you appeared, from The West, and were willing to just listen, people would erupt in stories that had been in the deep-freeze for whole lifetimes, that they couldn't tell anyone previously. I heard the craziest stuff.
It was like being a priest at confession, but for everyone. That's one effect of sudden Free Speech: practically public confessions by almost everyone to you about anything at all, of what they'd never been able to say out loud. Buses, subways, bars, museums, lighting a cigarette on the street. Frozen stories suddenly thawed.

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 11:05 AM (43xH1)

350 So Harris absolves the corrupt, senile totalitarian who actually gave an Hitlerian speech from blame but does blame the man who hasn't given such a speech.
Odd.

Posted by: That NLurker guy at September 04, 2022 11:05 AM (eGTCV)

351 The word of the 21st century is Ultracrepidarian.

Posted by: polynikes at September 04, 2022 11:05 AM (ZB6WQ)

352 Hopper was walking around Manhattan the night of Dec 7 1941 and was inspired by what he saw: People up late at a diner and quite uncertain about what would happen next.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 04, 2022 10:29 AM (i0slg)

I'm going to tell you what happens next.

I found a YT channel, "Great Art Explained" with James Payne. I watched the video on "Starry Night" and "Night Hawks," and just started the idea of writing a story based on the painting.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 11:06 AM (7bRMQ)

353 "DM of the Rings" is a hoot!

Frodo: Please please don't say we meet in a tavern

Narrator: "In a tavern called The Prancing Pony, an age-old meeting place..."

Hobbits: ARG! Total cliche! Lame!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 11:07 AM (Dc2NZ)

354 Then maybe you can identify a book I remember. Every time I try to describe it, somebody insists that it's "Guns of the South" but I'm 90% sure it isn't. The point where the plot turns and it becomes alternative history is when Lee is retreating from Gettysburg and sets up his troops behind a bend in, I think, the Rapidan river trying to bait Grant into splitting his forces. In real life, Grant didn't fall for it; in the book he did. I didn't see anything in wikipedia matching that description.
Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM (nfrXX)

George Gordon Meade commanded the AoP during the 1863 post Gettysburg maneuvers. At the time, Grant was recovering from a painful fall caused by his fractious horse.

Posted by: mrp at September 04, 2022 11:08 AM (6eRlp)

355 Other than the entire Tolkien LOTR universe, I would agree

There's a modern version of movie-making that I loathe: spectacle over story. The Marvel movies went this way. "Rings of Power" falls in the same category.

I don't understand it. Do modern audiences not care? Or is it more sinister than that? If the movie is nothing more than a spectacle then it's much easier to write in the obligatory quota of references to leftist shibboleths.
Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 11:00 AM (g1EEm)

I would lay some of the blame at the feet of Pete Jax, for when he did the LOTR movies, he fell in love with the CGI. So much so, that when it came time to make the story of The Hobbit, he turned a simple story into an epic adventure, complete with CGI marvels... that Marvel decided it needed to imitate and surpass.

So that's where we are. Spectacle over story, and who knows, everyone ragging on this Amazon LOTR may be wrong, it may earn Amazon monies to rival the Marvelle Cinematic Disneyverse.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:08 AM (NWBBy)

356 I just assume it's an FBI/CIA operation.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 10:31 AM (NWBBy)

Outsourced to Pfizer.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 11:08 AM (7bRMQ)

357 Sam Harris is an intellectual. We are at war.
Posted by: BurtTC

Sam Harris is not an intellectual. Sam Harris wishes he was an intellectual. His scientific credentials are minimal. He is a grifting guru to those who follow his deterministic, mechanistic faith.

There's nothing clever or original about his arguments. They're just a means by which he and his followers channel and confirm their superiority complexes.

(Superiority over the ignorant plebs who (correctly) believe that science does not explain all that there is.)

Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 11:09 AM (g1EEm)

358 Wildest, most embarrassing thing I got told:
Hungarian, Middle-aged woman: "My birth was very difficult and my mother almost died! She sold her teeth gold fillings to pay the doctor!"
Me: "Wow. She must love you very much."
Woman, stage-whisper: "No! She hates me and always has! A Russian soldier raped her, but our family is Catholic and she could never abort a child! It's against God!"
Then she just walked away and I never saw her again.
That kind of stuff.

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 11:10 AM (43xH1)

359 In case I omitted this I'm waiting for the library to get in the first volume of Waugh's Sword of Honor trilogy.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 04, 2022 11:10 AM (y7DUB)

360 "I found a YT channel, "Great Art Explained" with James Payne. I watched the video on "Starry Night" and "Night Hawks," and just started the idea of writing a story based on the painting."

Orange, that works for Hopper, in particular. Hopper paid the bills by illustrating stories in magazines, and many of his paintings are (IMHO) illustrations of stories that have never been written. "Nighthawks" is one such painting; "Chop Suey" is another.

Good luck with your stories. If you finish them, please let us know where we can read them.

Posted by: Nemo at September 04, 2022 11:11 AM (S6ArX)

361 Is it possible that the book I'm trying to remember isn't Turtledove? Who else writes Civil War alternative history?
Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 10:28 AM (nfrXX)

"If the South Had Won the Civil War" by McKinley Kantor?

Posted by: Wethal at September 04, 2022 11:11 AM (ZzVCK)

362 I glanced through one of Turtledove's early books during a visit to a bookstore. My eyebrows began to quiver, my head started shaking, and I felt an urge to express an opinion that was not complimentary.

Posted by: mrp at September 04, 2022 11:12 AM (6eRlp)

363 It's much more sinister, especially with established IPs. If audiences unfamiliar to the source material are exposed to crap like Rings of Power, then they will expect the source material to also be crap. Thus, they are less likely to read a story that is good, and noble, and true, like Lord of the Rings.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 11:05 AM (K5n5d)

Hmmm, interesting. I hadn't thought of that aspect. It may be in part a concerted effort to destroy our literature, our culture, our values.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:12 AM (NWBBy)

364
Read what you like. Don't feel bad about liking it and don't let anyone else tell you it is shit with no redeeming value.
Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson

_____________

It's what I say to people who don't know where to start with classical music. Just start. No pants required. Listen to parts. Find what you enjoy. Learn something about who wrote it, find others who wrote at that time and listen to their stuff. Don't let yourself be intimidated by the pseuds.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at September 04, 2022 11:12 AM (1Nxff)

365 Could you classify her as geometrically fat? You know, with the doubling.

Posted by: She Hobbit at September 04, 2022 10:35 AM (ftFVW)

You know, now that it's the holiday season, I heard Macy's was thinking of using Adams in their parade. She the right size, but the helium shortage put the kibosh on that idea.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 11:13 AM (7bRMQ)

366 Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 11:09 AM (g1EEm)

These snake oil salesmen will eventually reveal themselves with over the top, ridiculous rhetoric because they fell in love with the grift they pander and start to believe they really are what they hype.

Posted by: polynikes at September 04, 2022 11:13 AM (ZB6WQ)

367 348 I don't understand it. Do modern audiences not care? Or is it more sinister than that? If the movie is nothing more than a spectacle then it's much easier to write in the obligatory quota of references to leftist shibboleths.
Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 11:00 AM (g1EEm)
---

Well, it's hard to sell 'good writing' to studio execs, but it's easy to sell spectacle. Also, you can get spectacle just by throwing money at a project, even when its already in-progress. But throwing money at a project won't make the story any better. Spectacle can be re-worked and still be a spectacle, but a good story can be easily damaged by studio interference.

In short, a good story is hard to do, and easily damaged by the process of making modern entertainment...

Posted by: Castle Guy at September 04, 2022 11:13 AM (Lhaco)

368 Has anyone read Holland's 'Rubicon'? I keep seeing Holland's name and yet don't know much about him.
Posted by: dantesed

I quite liked it. If I have a criticism of his books, and even more so of his brother James' books, it is that there is too much detail. (Tom writes about ancient and medieval times; James writes of WWII.)

I hereby disclaim any responsibility for any soul crushing depression arising from noticing any similarities between the fall of the Roman Republic and current events.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 11:13 AM (FVME7)

369 Hmmm, interesting. I hadn't thought of that aspect. It may be in part a concerted effort to destroy our literature, our culture, our values.
Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:12 AM (NWBBy)
---
That is *exactly* what is happening.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 11:14 AM (K5n5d)

370 Sam Harris is an intellectual. We are at war.
Posted by: BurtTC

Sam Harris is not an intellectual. Sam Harris wishes he was an intellectual.
Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 11:09 AM (g1EEm)

An intellectual is someone who lives through ideas and thoughts, rather than actions. An intellectual need not be intelligent.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:14 AM (NWBBy)

371 Was the final solution just a gaffe by Hitler?

Posted by: That NLurker guy at September 04, 2022 11:15 AM (eGTCV)

372 Sven @ 242 FIB stand for F***ing Illinois Bastard. At least in the Badger state. So a Boston office makes no sense.

Posted by: who knew at September 04, 2022 11:15 AM (4I7VG)

373 Is it possible that the book I'm trying to remember isn't Turtledove? Who else writes Civil War alternative history?
Posted by: Oddbob

Newt Gingrich. Yes, that Newt Gingrich.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 11:15 AM (FVME7)

374 Castle Guy

I can't help myself. I know I'm an irritating pedant, but...

1) Drake died peacefully in Plymouth, wealthy & celebrated-- a former mayor of Plymouth & member of Parliament.

2) The scene in Band of Brothers you reference about "horses": the point of the GI's comment ("You're just horses! That's all you are.") was NOT that the Germans were technologically primitive, but rather that German soldiers were like dumb beasts being misused.

Posted by: mnw at September 04, 2022 11:16 AM (NLIak)

375 Hmmm, interesting. I hadn't thought of that aspect. It may be in part a concerted effort to destroy our literature, our culture, our values.
Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:12 AM (NWBBy)
---
That is *exactly* what is happening.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 11:14 AM (K5n5d)

Oddly parallel to the epic story Tolkien told.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:16 AM (NWBBy)

376 Read what you like. Don't feel bad about liking it and don't let anyone else tell you it is shit with no redeeming value.
Posted by: Aetius451AD Johnson

I agree with the theory of this personal freedom without criticism of that choice but I still think the producers of that drek should still be subject to criticism. We have to stop dumbing down society in the name of tolerance.

Posted by: polynikes at September 04, 2022 11:17 AM (ZB6WQ)

377 An idea for the book thread. Discuss various noir books such as Raymond Chandler's, Dashiell Hammett, etc. I am a big fan of this style.

Posted by: Zogger at September 04, 2022 11:17 AM (zLpRk)

378 Sam Harris is not an intellectual. Sam Harris wishes he was an intellectual. His scientific credentials are minimal. He is a grifting guru to those who follow his deterministic, mechanistic faith.

There's nothing clever or original about his arguments. They're just a means by which he and his followers channel and confirm their superiority complexes.

(Superiority over the ignorant plebs who (correctly) believe that science does not explain all that there is.)
Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 11:09 AM (g1EEm)

Well, I never!

Posted by: Bill Nye, the Science Guy at September 04, 2022 11:18 AM (PiwSw)

379 Who the hell is Sam Harris, btw?

Posted by: mnw at September 04, 2022 11:18 AM (NLIak)

380 George Gordon Meade commanded the AoP during the 1863 post Gettysburg maneuvers. At the time, Grant was recovering from a painful fall caused by his fractious horse.

So obviously I'm not remembering everything about the story. But still, I'm pretty sure I didn't make the whole thing up in my head. I'm not that creative.

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 11:19 AM (nfrXX)

381 Stupid intellectuals ... hmmm ... why did the name Howard Zinn just come to mind?

Posted by: mrp at September 04, 2022 11:20 AM (6eRlp)

382 "Other than the entire Tolkien LOTR universe, I would agree"

Maybe I got it wrong, but I heard that the heirs only licensed the appendices, which I presumed weren't fully developed stories. More like Sham begat Moe; Moe begat Curly ...

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 04, 2022 11:21 AM (i0slg)

383 Oh, and I'm also reading Brubaker-era Catwoman comix.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 11:22 AM (Dc2NZ)

384 The best one-line review of Rings of Power I saw on RT:

"This is so bad it has me rooting for the orcs."

It's true. The main characters are so poorly written and unlikable, I want them to die...

Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 11:24 AM (g1EEm)

385 So obviously I'm not remembering everything about the story. But still, I'm pretty sure I didn't make the whole thing up in my head. I'm not that creative.
Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 11:19 AM (nfrXX)

The earlier comment suggesting Newt Gingrich as your author is a good one. He wrote or co-wrote a number of ACW-themed books.

Posted by: mrp at September 04, 2022 11:24 AM (6eRlp)

386 Maybe I got it wrong, but I heard that the heirs only licensed the appendices, which I presumed weren't fully developed stories. More like Sham begat Moe; Moe begat Curly ...
Posted by: Ignoramus

No, you're correct. But the series is still set in Tolkien's world. They can draw on all of that.

Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 11:25 AM (g1EEm)

387 Oddly parallel to the epic story Tolkien told.
Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:16 AM (NWBBy)
---
Both Tolkien and his friend C.S. Lewis were well-aware of the nature of Evil and how it corrupts everything it touches...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 11:25 AM (K5n5d)

388 On rotten tomatoes, the critics give it 84%, actual people 37%.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 04, 2022 11:25 AM (i0slg)

389 I think what has helped destroy writing is the destruction of both culture and history.

It seems to me, writing needs historical cultural references as an anchor to help explain things going forward.

From what I'm reading, the the LotR prequel isn't using anything in the original as an anchor, and, instead, is taking the characters, treating them in the currently approved manner while completely divorcing the characters from the original story.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 11:26 AM (5pTK/)

390 Late to the party this morning. After the Tolstoy am still decompressing with Simenon's non-Maigret novels. Tempted to dive headlong into the Maigrets as well, but Jeez Louise there's 75 of 'em so I haven't talked myself into that yet. Yet.

109 & others -- Lawrence Block edited an anthology of stories suggested by Hopper paintings (I think Michael Connelly did one suggested by Night Hawks); the books is called In Sunlight or In Shadow. Good stuff. The recent British Penguin Simenon editions used Night Hawks as the cover for Simenon's Three Bedrooms in Manhattan, and that's as perfect a cover for that book as you could imagine.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at September 04, 2022 11:26 AM (a/4+U)

391 Maybe I got it wrong, but I heard that the heirs only licensed the appendices, which I presumed weren't fully developed stories. More like Sham begat Moe; Moe begat Curly ...
Posted by: Ignoramus

No, you're correct. But the series is still set in Tolkien's world. They can draw on all of that.
Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 11:25 AM (g1EEm)
---
A competent author could easily write epic stories based on the Appendices. Gamers have been doing it for decades in Middle Earth Role Playing and Rolemaster.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 11:26 AM (K5n5d)

392 Stupid intellectuals ... hmmm ... why did the name Howard Zinn just come to mind?
Posted by: mrp at September 04, 2022 11:20 AM (6eRlp)

Noam Chomsky enters the chat...

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:26 AM (NWBBy)

393 I believe Hemingway was challenged to write a story in 4 words and came up with, "Baby shoes. Never worn."
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 09:58 AM (5pTK/)

Wow. Heartbreaking.
Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs!

Mebbe da baby had YUGE feet !

Posted by: JT at September 04, 2022 11:27 AM (T4tVD)

394 No one told me the DM of the Rings was so long I can't seem to get to the end even though it is vastly entertaining. How long is the damn thing?

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at September 04, 2022 11:27 AM (Y+l9t)

395 Sam Harris tricks himself out as a philosopher. Main claim to fame: mom produced and had a hand in The Golden Girls. A Hollywood nepotism from UCLA.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 11:27 AM (Zzbjj)

396 Morning Hordemates.

Posted by: Diogenes at September 04, 2022 11:28 AM (anj39)

397 No one told me the DM of the Rings was so long I can't seem to get to the end even though it is vastly entertaining. How long is the damn thing?
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at September 04, 2022 11:27 AM (Y+l9t)
---
Darths and Droids is even longer (and also just as funny!)

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at September 04, 2022 11:29 AM (K5n5d)

398 Sam's mommy wrote the abortion episode for Bea Arthur, btw. Tremendously lib stock.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 11:30 AM (Zzbjj)

399 Re: ComBloc collapses: the worst were The Intellectuals, almost all of whom, despite protests, were Far, Far Left. Their Big Bitch about CommieLand wasn't that it was Communist, but that, ala Eric Hoffer's essential observation, that CommieLand didn't work because it was insufficiently Communist! That was my basic takeaway from Hoffer: that 'rebels' aren't mad because a system doesn't work, they're upset because it doesn't work well enough.
That describes a lot of The Intellectuals I encountered: they viewed the big collapse as an opportunity to make Socialism REALLY work! Re-imagine, retool, etc. You know, REAL Socialism, that's never been tried, or it got corrupted, or some other excuse. It was incredible and was a BIG motivator for some of my subsequent decisions and rather iffy behaviors.

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 11:30 AM (43xH1)

400 RE the comment on ride of her life. It not only can be done, it seems to be being done continually. Google veteran riding horse across America. There are several vets doing this to raise awareness/money for veterans.

Posted by: markreardon at September 04, 2022 11:30 AM (p/b1c)

401 From what I'm reading, the the LotR prequel isn't using anything in the original as an anchor, and, instead, is taking the characters, treating them in the currently approved manner while completely divorcing the characters from the original story.
Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing(5pTK/) at September 04, 2022 11:26 AM (5pTK/)

I heard someone say the other day that Elrond was flirting with Galadriel. As if the show is hinting that the two are going to get it on. That is, if Galbadass ever stops doing CGI shite where she kicks male arse.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:31 AM (NWBBy)

402 Having played D&D with a bunch of guys, I get all the jokes and the DM asides are hysterical. I can't stop....
It is just brilliant.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at September 04, 2022 11:33 AM (Y+l9t)

403 OrangeENT, email is in my nic--if you want to send me your Nighthawks story, I'll be delighted to read it.

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at September 04, 2022 11:01 AM (OX9vb)

Dang it, NBC! The More You Know should have told me hovering over the nic gave the e-mail, I always clicked and was led back into a comment link!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 11:33 AM (7bRMQ)

404
John Bartlow Martin, in his book, "Call It North Country: The Story of Upper Michigan", wrote about William Austin Burt. The chapter, "Chain!" recounts his survey work in the Upper Peninsula, his solar compass' utility and the discovery of the Marquette Iron Range.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 11:33 AM (pNxlR)

405 I am almost done with "Rising Tiger" by Brad Thor.

A fun thriller.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at September 04, 2022 11:33 AM (C1rbv)

406 Sam Harris tricks himself out as a philosopher. Main claim to fame: mom produced and had a hand in The Golden Girls.

-
The Golden Girls: the War and Peace of our time.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 11:34 AM (FVME7)

407 There's a lot of crap fantasy being published, mostly earnest young girls who are THE CHOSEN ONE that SAVE THE EMPIRE or whatever through their GRLL POWER to SLAY QUEEN.

Its pretty challenging to find any books whatsoever of any genre with a male protagonist, unless its a long, ongoing series. And usually if there is a male, the buddy/love interest female character is very prominent and important, overshadowing the male.

Older fantasy works tended to be very male-centric, so I suppose this is considered some kind of balance, as if history is considered as a whole at all times instead of the present vs the past.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 04, 2022 11:36 AM (Ivdso)

408 Dang it, NBC! The More You Know should have told me hovering over the nic gave the e-mail, I always clicked and was led back into a comment link!

If you want the link to be clickable -- and I understand why you wouldn't because it would expose your email address to page scrappers -- you need to use "mailto:yourEmail@yourISP" with the real values and no spaces.

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 11:37 AM (nfrXX)

409 Sam Harris was better when he was on Star Search.

Posted by: polynikes at September 04, 2022 11:37 AM (ZB6WQ)

410 Mind Fields is available used at Better World Books for $7.88, new for $24.73. My pleasure.

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at September 04, 2022 11:03 AM (SPNTN)

Thanks, I'll look. Local library dist doesn't have it. Might see about interlibrary loan.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 11:38 AM (7bRMQ)

411
as with tim power's declare, where the great game concerned a meteorite found in the Empty quarter and entangles the protagonist and kim philby in an origin story for the Soviet Union, among other things,
Posted by: no 6 at September 04, 2022 10:46 AM (i0Lci)

I loved Powers' early work, but his later Fisher King universe became a sort of paranoid conspiracy theory where everything turned to support the narrative. I find it exhausting.
I had trouble with Declare for the same reason. Also the main character was so depressed all the time. I wish he would write exciting characters instead of middle aged depressed academic types.

Posted by: Kindltot at September 04, 2022 11:38 AM (xhaym)

412 Story: A female engineer, smoked 3 packs a day. Went to the Kiosk to buy cigarettes, and got told they couldn't get her cigarettes anymore. She asked, "Where can I get them?" He pointed to 'a guy' on the street and told her, "From him. We're Capitalist now. He buys them and sells them for a profit."
She went home and collapsed. Her daughter (telling me this tale) was terrified. Her mother had to be helped out of bed, to the toilet, for TWO MONTHS. Nervous breakdown. Near catatonic.
Then, her mom got up and returned to her workplace, which had all but shut down.
She never smoked another cigarette.

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 11:38 AM (43xH1)

413 Noam Chomsky enters the chat...
Posted by: BurtTC

OMG. The worst. He's actually brilliant. The work he did in early computer grammar was groundbreaking. But then something happened. I always wondered if he isn't mentally ill.

Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 11:38 AM (g1EEm)

414 Thanks for another excelsior book thread, Perfessor and Horde!

Off to read, of course!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 11:40 AM (Dc2NZ)

415 I don't understand it. Do modern audiences not care?

Story doesn't always translate well into other languages, or is more difficult to make happen. Spectacle works for everyone. Its really that simple, the studios are aimed at the biggest audience possible in global release.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 04, 2022 11:41 AM (Ivdso)

416 Try as I might, I cannot read Tolkien.
I just can't get into the flow of the story.

Posted by: Diogenes at September 04, 2022 11:43 AM (anj39)

417 406. He's a product of his connections. He's an active hater of religion, therefore despises conservatives. Not so much a God is dead, demon as much as a demolition guy, who stated he wants to destroy the " pretensions " of Christianity. He's a globalist, an abortion extremist, and general bigot. He carefully selects texts from thre Bible to make religious people look violent and dastardly.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 11:43 AM (Zzbjj)

418 But then something happened. I always wondered if he isn't mentally ill.

Like Christopher Hitchens, he has a big blind spot that he cannot seem to get past. I suspect we all have them, and I fear what mine is, because they are so hard to spot for ourselves.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 04, 2022 11:44 AM (Ivdso)

419 "If the South Had Won the Civil War" by McKinley Kantor?
Posted by: Wethal

AKA "If my Aunt had balls she'd be my Uncle"

Posted by: JT at September 04, 2022 11:44 AM (T4tVD)

420 Speaking of things that suck, being a dinosaur lover, I tried to watch Jurrasic World: Dominion but made it only about fifteen minutes. Our hero lassos a parasaurolophus from horseback and takes it down because a man on horseback can clearly outmuscle a three ton dinosaur. Then, restraining the dinosaur on foot with a rope around its neck, approaches the dinosaur with his hand raised to let it know that he means no harm. Immediately they're BFFs. I couldn't help but think of the idiots who approach wild buffalo, moose, what have you.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 11:44 AM (FVME7)

421 407. Fair enough. I think the balance is quite destroyed.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 11:45 AM (Zzbjj)

422 One thing I didn't understand about the LOTR why didn't they get a drone and drop the Ring into Mt. Doom.

More coffee...
Posted by: dantesed at September 04, 2022 09:23 AM (88xKn)
***

Or just pick up he hobit carrying the ring and throw his ass in.

Posted by: Diogenes at September 04, 2022 11:47 AM (anj39)

423
George Gordon Meade commanded the AoP during the 1863 post Gettysburg maneuvers. At the time, Grant was recovering from a painful fall caused by his fractious horse.

Grant did not come East until after the siege of Chattanooga had been broken. Late autumn 1863, IOW.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 11:47 AM (pNxlR)

424 420 Speaking of things that suck, being a dinosaur lover, I tried to watch Jurrasic World: Dominion but made it only about fifteen minutes. Our hero lassos a parasaurolophus from horseback and takes it down because a man on horseback can clearly outmuscle a three ton dinosaur. Then, restraining the dinosaur on foot with a rope around its neck, approaches the dinosaur with his hand raised to let it know that he means no harm. Immediately they're BFFs. I couldn't help but think of the idiots who approach wild buffalo, moose, what have you.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 11:44 AM (FVME7)
---

Boy Powerrrr!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at September 04, 2022 11:47 AM (Dc2NZ)

425 Story these days in movies? I'm wondering if it's in part because the writers of older movies grew up getting their stories mostly from books. Today's film and tv writers probably got most of their story sense from other movies and television, and I think it shows too often in what gets released nowadays.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at September 04, 2022 11:48 AM (a/4+U)

426 Good luck with your stories. If you finish them, please let us know where we can read them.

Posted by: Nemo at September 04, 2022 11:11 AM (S6ArX)

Thanks. I know Hopper didn't really like being an illustrator, we wanted to paint. If they don't end up in the waste basket, I'll probably let someone here know I'd like a reading.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 11:48 AM (7bRMQ)

427 Naom Chomsky confronts the Tower of Babel. A three-part series. EPIC.

Posted by: mrp at September 04, 2022 11:48 AM (6eRlp)

428 Fair enough. I think the balance is quite destroyed.

The problem with trying to balance the past with the present, is that all you do is create the same imbalance for everyone living now. Its like trying to offset slavery by enslaving white people: nobody alive dealt with slavery, so there's not any sort of correction going on, just bondage of a different group.

Proper balance is not achieved by overloading a system with one side. You have to make it balanced now, as if the past never happened.

Boys having only books about girls to read now is no better than girls having only book about boys to read in the past. It just perpetuates the imbalance.

But you cannot get a leftist to grok this, they are trained to think only in terms of total effect over time, not practical effect in the present.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 04, 2022 11:48 AM (Ivdso)

429 Hmmm, interesting. I hadn't thought of that aspect. It may be in part a concerted effort to destroy our literature, our culture, our values.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:12 AM (NWBBy)

Looks like he's on to us, Chief.

Posted by: Schwab's Assistant at September 04, 2022 11:50 AM (7bRMQ)

430 And I'll second the recommendation for the Ellison/Yerka MIND FIELDS -- it's excellent.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at September 04, 2022 11:50 AM (a/4+U)

431 He's a product of his connections. He's an active hater of religion, therefore despises conservatives. Not so much a God is dead, demon as much as a demolition guy, who stated he wants to destroy the " pretensions " of Christianity. He's a globalist, an abortion extremist, and general bigot. He carefully selects texts from thre Bible to make religious people look violent and dastardly.
Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 11:43 AM (Zzbjj)

I guess he's vying for biggest atheist of our time. For me, I never had any use for Dawkins, who I mostly know through the South Park episode he's featured in. Hitchens, I'd say he was a fine writer, but also a drunkard and an arsehole, so there's not really anything left of him on this planet anymore.

So that leaves Harris. Go Sam, go. Your pointless legacy awaits.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:50 AM (NWBBy)

432 350 He hates Trump. Just a gaffe v window into his soul is a pretty telling statement. It defines Harris not Biden or Trump. He loves to use the language of religion to defile the religious.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 11:50 AM (Zzbjj)

433 Later gang.
I have another truckload of beauty bark to spread.
At least it isn't manure.

Posted by: Diogenes at September 04, 2022 11:51 AM (anj39)

434 "Who else writes Civil War alternative history? "

Newt Gingrich. "Gettysburg, a Novel".

Posted by: gourmand du jour, prepping like mad at September 04, 2022 11:51 AM (jTmQV)

435 I've been enjoying Daniel Humphreys' Paxton Locke series. In the latest the hero does something that seems wildly out-of-character in the big fight towards the end of the book (and someone else goes along with it!), which I think *should* come back to bite him, but we'll see. Afterwards Locke gets to meet an unnamed famous someone (but you'd have to be pretty slow not to recognize him) who is described as far more resolute than I think the real-life person is.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at September 04, 2022 11:52 AM (llON8)

436 Who the hell is Sam Harris, btw?

Posted by: mnw at September 04, 2022 11:18 AM (NLIak)

as far as I can tell, a public atheist who is trying to resolve his understanding that the universe creates entropy yet has complex order, against his interpretatio of religious belief that only has personal revelation and faith as a basis

Posted by: Kindltot at September 04, 2022 11:52 AM (xhaym)

437 Hmmm, interesting. I hadn't thought of that aspect. It may be in part a concerted effort to destroy our literature, our culture, our values.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:12 AM (NWBBy)

Looks like he's on to us, Chief.
Posted by: Schwab's Assistant at September 04, 2022 11:50 AM (7bRMQ)

It's hard to elaborate this stuff without getting too wordy. Which isn't really doable here. There's a difference between the Schwab and Soros and Gates types, and these dimwits who produce "entertainment." They may ultimately serve the same purpose, but I always assumed the "entertainment" types were not really setting out to do what the NWOs are.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:53 AM (NWBBy)

438 Thankfully will most likely never get a chance to see any fake LotR series, Jackson alone is enough to rub my nerves.

Posted by: Skip at September 04, 2022 11:53 AM (k8B25)

439 Also, what happens after ComBlocs go down is a result of doing anything for obvious profit being illegal. Recall, that includes any service for pay (exploitation) or buying and selling for a profit (speculation). The only people who know how, and are willing to instantly strike out and do it, are already criminals. And I mean, Commie-hardened criminals. Those guys are/were Hard. Core.
It's just now, their 'crimes' are totally legal!
So all their networks are there, but now they can do whatever they want, totally aboveboard. So entire nations can become, overnight, the equivalent of a State run by The Outlaws Motorcycle Gang. All the industries are corrupt, because they had to be, so they dovetail over money, and you get a Devil's Brew of the wildest corruption you could possibly dream up in your craziest opium haze.

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 11:54 AM (43xH1)

440 Guys like Dawkins et al harm the cause of atheist in the way that really obnoxious black "leaders" hurt blacks. They present a public face of someone very unpleasant, often wrong, and never ashamed at being annoying to people. Most atheists just don't care and want to live their lives.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 04, 2022 11:54 AM (Ivdso)

441 109 & others -- Lawrence Block edited an anthology of stories suggested by Hopper paintings (I think Michael Connelly did one suggested by Night Hawks); the books is called In Sunlight or In Shadow. Good stuff. The recent British Penguin Simenon editions used Night Hawks as the cover for Simenon's Three Bedrooms in Manhattan, and that's as perfect a cover for that book as you could imagine.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at September 04, 2022 11:26 AM (a/4+U)

(considers throwing story in trash)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 11:56 AM (7bRMQ)

442 I'm finally reading Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It's pretty good. For nonfiction I'm reading The Foundations of Knowing by Roderick Chisholm. Also pretty good if you're into that whole epistemology thing.

Posted by: Jim S. at September 04, 2022 11:56 AM (ynUnH)

443 Hiya Cannibal ! (I know you're in here ! Regards to Heidi !)

Posted by: JT at September 04, 2022 11:56 AM (T4tVD)

444 Guys like Dawkins et al harm the cause of atheist in the way that really obnoxious black "leaders" hurt blacks. They present a public face of someone very unpleasant, often wrong, and never ashamed at being annoying to people. Most atheists just don't care and want to live their lives.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 04, 2022 11:54 AM (Ivdso)

Could probably say the same thing about anyone who yearns to be the "public face" of these modern movements. It's not so much about the movement, as it is about ME ME ME.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:56 AM (NWBBy)

445 Sorry, not book related... just a rant...

/grabs microphone...

Just had to go water my new solar panels! Yeah.... energy production has dropped by 12% over the last month, even with almost every day over 100 degrees... had to wash the damn things off. Talk about a First World Problem.

Posted by: Romeo13 at September 04, 2022 11:57 AM (oHd/0)

446 Hm.
Perhaps the book about everyday people after Commie Collapses the above commentor is looking for is mine.
Haha!

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 11:57 AM (43xH1)

447 Hiya Skip !

Posted by: JT at September 04, 2022 11:57 AM (T4tVD)

448 436. Oh he states he's Jewish, but believes Jews are basically athiests.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 11:57 AM (Zzbjj)

449
But you cannot get a leftist to grok this, they are trained to think only in terms of total effect over time, not practical effect in the present.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor

Leftists want an equilibrium world and so seek "balance" to maintain equilibrium. Consider their fixation on how the economic pie gets sliced -- your piece is bigger than mine, so you stole the extra portion from me. Earth's climate has always been what it now is, so it must stay how it now is and "climate catastrophe" is our enemy!

It's such a shame that reality is an open-ended, non-equilbrium system with kinetic change built into the package. They'll never grok that. They are in terror of that.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 11:58 AM (pNxlR)

450 Hiya Donna of the Ampersands ! (i know you're in here too !)

Posted by: JT at September 04, 2022 11:58 AM (T4tVD)

451 Who was it who said (and the quote's garbled here because memory ... senile ...) "If I can write a country's songs I don't care who makes its laws." Wouldn't surprise me if some of the 'storytellers' in the current entertainment industry were deliberately destructive. Wasn't at least one of the Hollywood 10 found bragging in correspondence about slipping in leftist sentiment or keeping out projects like a film of Koestler's Darkness at Noon?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at September 04, 2022 11:58 AM (a/4+U)

452 (considers throwing story in trash)
Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 11:56 AM (7bRMQ)

I used to want to write fiction. Came up with all sorts of story ideas, some better than others, but ultimately decided it couldn't hold my interest long enough to flesh it out, and then put it out there for the world to see.

If you have an idea, and want to pursue it, then do. Please don't let anything that has been done before keep you from telling your version.

Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:58 AM (NWBBy)

453 I half recall something in James Holland's "Italy's Sorrow" about Allied forces advancing to or across the Rubicon, but there being a dispute (then) about exactly which river it was or which part, or something. Sounded odd.

Posted by: rhomboid at September 04, 2022 11:59 AM (OTzUX)

454 Do Jews believe in an afterlife?
The ones I know do not, but I wouldn't classify them as observant.

Posted by: gourmand du jour, prepping like mad at September 04, 2022 11:59 AM (jTmQV)

455 I have read a number of fantasy books by horde writers and I can cheerfully recommend them all. Currently I'm reading Firehearted by Sabrina Chase.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 04, 2022 12:00 PM (Ivdso)

456 Orange Ent -- don't throw it away unfinished. Who says there can be only one story suggested by a painting?

If you don't like the story when you finish it, you can always throw it away then. (I've done that more times than I can count...)

Posted by: Just Some Guy at September 04, 2022 12:00 PM (a/4+U)

457 Dang it, not finished with the thread, but I gotta go. Guess I'll finish up later.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 12:01 PM (7bRMQ)

458 BUCK UP FOR A NOOD

Posted by: Skip nood advisor at September 04, 2022 12:01 PM (k8B25)

459 really obnoxious black "leaders" hurt blacks.

-
Tom Elliott@tomselliott
.⁦@rolandsmartin⁩ on Trump voters: “We are at war with these people [Trump supporters]. These folks are evil. They have allowed evil into their house with Donald Trump.”

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 12:01 PM (FVME7)

460 Speaking of things that suck, being a dinosaur lover, I tried to watch Jurrasic World: Dominion but made it only about fifteen minutes. Our hero lassos a parasaurolophus from horseback and takes it down because a man on horseback can clearly outmuscle a three ton dinosaur. Then, restraining the dinosaur on foot with a rope around its neck, approaches the dinosaur with his hand raised to let it know that he means no harm. Immediately they're BFFs. I couldn't help but think of the idiots who approach wild buffalo, moose, what have you.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at September 04, 2022 11:44 AM (FVME7)

Pssst (stage whisper) It's just a movie.

And yes, I too have been a dinosaur lover since childhood. And growing up in the 50's saw every single movie that features dinosaurs. But, I went to be entertained. The Jurassic Park series are pure entertainment. I have all of them on Blu Ray. Great popcorn movies.

Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguy at September 04, 2022 12:01 PM (Zvtjl)

461 Always late to this, my favorite thread.

Floofy (good, easily readable, and THERAPEUTIC) on my Kindle this week are:
--Dorothy Grant's Between Two Graves (immediately followed by a re-read of the related books, Going Ballistic, etc),
-- Ilona Andrews' final novel in the Catalina Baylor story, Ruby Fever,
-- three of Mercedes Lackey's 500 Kingdoms confections.

The *real* books that sit on the end table next to "my spot" on the loveseat:
-- on the third week of reading T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, with support from Tom Brous' Why Read Four Quartets? and Kramer's Redeeming Time
-- Holy Bible. Per Andrew Klavan's advice I am reading through Gospel of Luke. Slowly, with care.

Posted by: sinmi at September 04, 2022 12:01 PM (teDSj)

462 It's such a shame that reality is an open-ended, non-equilbrium system with kinetic change built into the package. They'll never grok that. They are in terror of that.

You cannot control or understand such a system. If you eliminate God, then you are the only one in charge, and the left does not want to believe that they cannot control and shape reality as their own gods. The idea that we are not powerful and important is terrifying to many.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 04, 2022 12:02 PM (Ivdso)

463 If you have an idea, and want to pursue it, then do. Please don't let anything that has been done before keep you from telling your version.
Posted by: BurtTC

OKAY !

It was a dark and stormy night.
A woman barked.
A dog screamed.
brandon shit his pants and tried to blame it on the dog.

Posted by: JT at September 04, 2022 12:02 PM (T4tVD)

464 Most atheists just don't care and want to live their lives.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor

Right. I am an atheist in the sense that I don't believe in any religion or in a divine being (although I believe as a matter of fact that Christianity is a force for good).

But I loathe Dawkins, Harris, et al. Dawkins for his supercilious yet superficial claims that evolution explains everything. No it doesn't. You can't tell me *how* complex life evolved. You just have a theory that *might* one day explain how it evolved.

In my view science both explains everything and nothing at the same time. There are no "observers" in science. You cannot point to a part of the whole and say "therein lies consciousness". It's just not there.

Posted by: quantum mechanic at September 04, 2022 12:02 PM (g1EEm)

465
Did WokeNASA launch Artie Johnson yesterday? If not, why not?

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at September 04, 2022 12:03 PM (pNxlR)

466 "I used to want to write fiction. Came up with all sorts of story ideas, some better than others, but ultimately decided it couldn't hold my interest long enough to flesh it out, and then put it out there for the world to see.
If you have an idea, and want to pursue it, then do. Please don't let anything that has been done before keep you from telling your version."

Isaac Newton, the Yogi Berra Quote of Science: "There is no new thing under the Sun."

But it's YOU that is seeing it, it my opinion. Much of what you do, at first, will suck. It's a trade, a craft, like woodworking. Don't burn your early work, though. I did that and regret it.

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 12:05 PM (43xH1)

467 Unless all your early work is love poetry to a girl.
Burn all that.

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 12:05 PM (43xH1)

468 He sat slowly, as fast as his old, arthritis knees would let him, upon the ottoman. Then looked across the room.
He stared at the naked huddled figure shivering in the corner, and waited for the look of recognition. Restless, he drummed the fingers of left hand on the soft, flab of his right leg.
When he married Jenny, he quit it all. Everything without a thought. Happy for the first time, that he could remember. Happy in love. Happy with their children. Happy.
They lived a long life together. The kids were grown and had lives of their own. He got to play Grandad and loved it. Still, after Jenny died of cancer, that old, red, hot anger snuck back in. And he knew what he had to do to snuff it out.
(con't)

Posted by: The Naked Man on Ottoman Rises at September 04, 2022 12:06 PM (5NkmN)

469 (con't)

He'd had a few of the others left over from those days bought in here and faced them in the only way that made sense to him now. Naked. No weapons, tricks, or gimmicks. No costumes. Mano a mano in the most primitive way.
He didn't care if they won. But, they didn't.
He broke their jaws, their faces, their ribs, their arms and legs. He crushed them all in preparation for this moment.
Finally. There. The look of recognition.
"B-b-b-b-b-b..." Old Man Joker babbled in fear. Tears squeezed out of his eyes.
Batman was gone, but Bruce Wayne remained.
He rose slowly, as fast as his old, arthritic knees would let him.
He rose with murder in his eyes.

FIN

Posted by: The Naked Man on Ottoman Rises at September 04, 2022 12:08 PM (5NkmN)

470 *sigh*

"The Naked Man on the Ottoman Rises"

Posted by: naturalfake at September 04, 2022 12:12 PM (5NkmN)

471 He clawed up the rolls of fat, feeling the old, crusted sweat, and fished for his turgid member. Ah! He thought, My old friend, so abused all these years.

The doorbell rang: he checked his Ring Camera: it was a young, handsome buy, in shorts and a tank top, holding a clipboard. He pushed the thumb recognition button on his iPhone with his bulbous nose, and answered with a verbal leer: "Eeeeyesss?"

The boy, looking nervous, up-responded "I'd like to speak, like, with you, um, about, uh, voting Democrat?"

The Fat Man On The Ottoman felt his congealed heart valves flutter and flipper: he answered, "Eeyyeeess!"

...and frantically abused himself

Posted by: LenNeal at September 04, 2022 12:14 PM (43xH1)

472 239 "Potato chip books..."

Posted by: Stacy0311 at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM (VfLe7)

Perfect! I shall use that term from now on!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at September 04, 2022 10:18 AM (1U4wg)

KTE & I call them Doritos

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 12:15 PM (APc2i)

473 462. Probably more insulting to many. People like Sam Harris worship individual happiness, theirs, and don't appreciate that morality might stand in their way. Morality, as defined by most religions, just stands in the way of carpe diem for me, and fuck you for everyone else. He hates religion and belief to such a degree that he has stated that religious Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 12:18 PM (Zzbjj)

474 435 I've been enjoying Daniel Humphreys' Paxton Locke series.

--

Currently in chapter 2 of book 5
End of book 4 broke my heart

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 12:18 PM (APc2i)

475 336 why the Romans didn't have an industrial revolution. It's on his blog, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, which I highly recommend.

--

Just discovered that blog this week. Fantastic. Working my way thru his series on polytheism

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 12:23 PM (APc2i)

476 This thread is probably done but two things:
Do not try and watch Jurassic Park

ominion. I watched the incredibly tedious story line with wooden acting and ridiculous dialog. There is not a single memorable scene.
And, I also have Ilona Andrews book on my Kindle. If you see the list of what I've been reading, it is all light entertainment with no real world issues.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at September 04, 2022 12:27 PM (Y+l9t)

477 >>> 474 435 I've been enjoying Daniel Humphreys' Paxton Locke series.

--

Currently in chapter 2 of book 5
End of book 4 broke my heart
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at September 04, 2022 12:18 PM (APc2i)

Hey vmom!! I would love to hear what you think of book 5 when you finish it.

His blog says he's working on book 6...

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at September 04, 2022 12:40 PM (llON8)

478 344 Is it possible that the book I'm trying to remember isn't Turtledove? Who else writes Civil War alternative history?
Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 10:28 AM (nfrXX)
Every Southern writer?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 11:01 AM (7bRMQ)
---
*laughs*
*runs for bunker*

Oddbob, sounds like the book you're describing is part of the trilogy from William R. Forstchen. Wrote it with Newt Gingrich (as someone else said, Yeah THAT Newt Gingrich).
Gettysburg
Grant Comes East
Never Call Retreat.
Pat Conroy also wrote a lot of alternate history.

Posted by: Stacy0311 at September 04, 2022 12:40 PM (VfLe7)

479 Sorry wrong Conroy. Robert not Pat

Posted by: Stacy0311 at September 04, 2022 12:41 PM (VfLe7)

480 It's fitting to this special week in our republic's history, that "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry" is recommended in the same thread as What purpose do intellectuals serve?

You'd never have that discussion in a bar.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at September 04, 2022 01:21 PM (x61Im)

481 I'm a Kindle reader (too old and have moved too many times to truck around a lot of hardcovers and paperbacks). My favorites this year are mysteries in historical settings, and right now I've fallen back on the Ellis Peters series "Brother Cadfael". I like to piece together the clues and see if I can guess the miscreant. Sometimes I can, especially in the later books of a series because they often become so formulaic. Still most of them are a pretty satisfying read because if the world setting is well done, I enjoy that as much as the puzzle.

Posted by: RebeccaH at September 04, 2022 02:22 PM (JI6AV)

482 Then maybe you can identify a book I remember. Every time I try to describe it, somebody insists that it's "Guns of the South" but I'm 90% sure it isn't. The point where the plot turns and it becomes alternative history is when Lee is retreating from Gettysburg and sets up his troops behind a bend in, I think, the Rapidan river trying to bait Grant into splitting his forces. In real life, Grant didn't fall for it; in the book he did. I didn't see anything in wikipedia matching that description.

Posted by: Oddbob at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM

No, that's not Guns of the South. That's How Few Remain

Posted by: Cybersmythe at September 04, 2022 02:35 PM (6jmQG)

483 Oddball @266, if you enjoy alt-history versions of the Civil War I would recommend "No Spot of Ground" by Walter Jon Williams. It is a version of history where Poe did not die in Baltimore in 1849 but lived on to become a Confederate general. Not a flattering picture of Poe but a good story.

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at September 04, 2022 03:18 PM (w6mSC)

484 before the fractally fat thread arose, I was going with

Chapter 1
My neighbor was a fat bastard....
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 04, 2022 10:16 AM (VwHCD)

No. don't get me wrong. He WAS fat. But he was a nice guy. It was his parentage. He was raised by his father, but that's a tale best told by him....

{we should let the Perfesser set a theme and everybody add to it. Improv on the last line.

Posted by: yara at September 04, 2022 03:22 PM (hBsVD)

485 About to finish I Chose Freedom by Soviet defector Victor Kravchenko. Best expose of communism by someone who lived it that I've read.
Ought to be read in all schools; his observation that Americans seem more duped about the nature of Communism than Russians still rings true.

Posted by: Durak Kazyol
-------

This seems worth pursuing. Sadly, copies are not easy to come by. Many being overseas, and having high shipping costs.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at September 04, 2022 03:23 PM (TIW4Q)

486 Ugh. Finished "Three Miles Down" and the lead character's ultimate decision really pissed me off.

Plus Turtledove practically made this a real-time blow-by-blow account so we are treated to every meal eaten and every highway driven. Next time make it a short story, Harry!

Posted by: All Hail Eris at September 04, 2022 03:51 PM (0JevL)

487 LenNeal,

Thanks for your input and recommendation, I will check out that Tears book. Have you also written a book or were you referring to your series of posts on this thread or a potential book on your life?

Posted by: .87c at September 04, 2022 03:55 PM (zD2N3)

488 http://acecomments.mu.nu/?blog=86&post=400805#c37175964
something this week that I wonder if anyone else has done?

I took a painting, Edward Hopper's "Night Hawks" and started a short story about it. Not finished yet, but has this type of thing been done before.

Orange Ent, the word you are looking for is “Ekphrasis.” It’s a common technique in poetry.

Posted by: March Hare at September 04, 2022 05:10 PM (lwrAe)

489 485. Try ebay. I got a more reasonably priced one there.

Posted by: CN at September 04, 2022 05:14 PM (Zzbjj)

490 Red Letter Media got me really thinking about how to rewrite the prequels and the Man of Destiny series was the direct result.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 04, 2022 10:07 AM (llXky)

Critical Drinker, an author himself, also sometimes gives hints on how to correct today's disasters in movie and tv writing.

Posted by: Oldcat at September 04, 2022 09:59 PM (NkGvj)

491 (considers throwing story in trash)
Posted by: OrangeEnt at September 04, 2022 11:56 AM (7bRMQ)

I used to want to write fiction. Came up with all sorts of story ideas, some better than others, but ultimately decided it couldn't hold my interest long enough to flesh it out, and then put it out there for the world to see.

If you have an idea, and want to pursue it, then do. Please don't let anything that has been done before keep you from telling your version.
Posted by: BurtTC at September 04, 2022 11:58 AM (NWBBy)

Most story frameworks have been done - hero's journey, say, or travelogues. If you really found a type of story no human had anticipated probably no one will like it.

Its the execution and the meat you add to the bones that makes the package work.

Posted by: Oldcat at September 04, 2022 10:02 PM (NkGvj)

492
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Posted by: Caroline Calderon at September 05, 2022 10:46 AM (n6Akg)

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