I was going to post the whole list here but terrible things happened
to my check marks and I was not willing to fix each one.
I was going to post the whole list here but terrible things happened
to my check marks and I was not willing to fix each one.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/which-hugo-winners-have-you-read
I was going to post the whole list here but terrible things happened
to my check marks and I was not willing to fix each one.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/which-hugo-winners-have-you-read
The list of Hugo-winning novels I have not read is more manageable:
2023 Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
2012 Among Others by Jo Walton
2009 The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
2008 The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
2002 American Gods by Neil Gaiman
1983 Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
1955 They'd Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley
On 2024-01-03, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
I was going to post the whole list here but terrible things happened
to my check marks and I was not willing to fix each one.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/which-hugo-winners-have-you-read
The list of Hugo-winning novels I have not read is more manageable:
2023 Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
2012 Among Others by Jo Walton
2009 The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
2008 The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
2002 American Gods by Neil Gaiman
1983 Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
1955 They'd Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley
I haven't read _Nettle & Bone_ yet, but have read the rest.
I'm surprised you haven't read _Among Others_; I thought it was fine
though not outstanding but would expect you to like it more than me.
I wouldn't particularly recommend any of the others you haven't read,
though _American Gods_ seems to have attracted a much larger reputation
than I think it deserves.
On Wednesday, January 3, 2024 at 4:02:08 PM UTC, James Nicoll wrote:
I was going to post the whole list here but terrible things happenedAnybody got opinions on Foundation's Edge? I've happily reread the
to my check marks and I was not willing to fix each one.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/which-hugo-winners-have-you-read
The list of Hugo-winning novels I have not read is more manageable:
2023 Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
2012 Among Others by Jo Walton
2009 The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
2008 The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
2002 American Gods by Neil Gaiman
1983 Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
1955 They'd Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll
original trilogy a number of times, but once for one of the prequels
was enough.
Of the most recent ones, I have read The Fifth Season, The Three Body >Problem, and Ancillary Justice. I wasn't impressed by the outer two. I
have just received a paperback copy of The Three Body Problem for
Christmas. I have read the trilogy as ebooks. I may reread The Three
Body Problem on paper, but my current reading will take me a while - I >decided I would alternately read books from Drake's RCN series and
Weber's main Honor Harrington series to compare the two.
I was going to post the whole list here but terrible things happened
to my check marks and I was not willing to fix each one.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/which-hugo-winners-have-you-read
The list of Hugo-winning novels I have not read is more manageable:
I was going to post the whole list here but terrible things happened
to my check marks and I was not willing to fix each one.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/which-hugo-winners-have-you-read
The list of Hugo-winning novels I have not read is more manageable:
2023 Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
2012 Among Others by Jo Walton
2009 The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
2008 The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
2002 American Gods by Neil Gaiman
1983 Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
1955 They'd Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley
The list of Hugo-winning novels I have not read is more manageable:
2012 Among Others by Jo Walton
1983 Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
In article <un40ds$a78$1@panix2.panix.com>,
James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
The list of Hugo-winning novels I have not read is more manageable:[...]
2012 Among Others by Jo Walton
I own this and want to read it, but I have had problems with my
eyesight lately that make reading physical books uncomfortable.
[...]
1983 Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
This is the most recent Best Novel that I actually *have* read, and I
have no idea why the voters chose it.
I was going to post the whole list here but terrible things happened
to my check marks and I was not willing to fix each one.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/which-hugo-winners-have-you-read
2002 American Gods by Neil Gaiman
1983 Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
1955 They'd Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley
1983 Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
Not having read it, I unfairly assumed that was a "He's still alive?
Quick, give him a Hugo before it's too late!" award.
James Nicoll wrote:
I was going to post the whole list here but terrible things happened
to my check marks and I was not willing to fix each one.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/post/which-hugo-winners-have-you-read
I've read them all except the 2023 winner.
Back in my teenage years (in the 1980s) I thought it would be a fun
project to read all the Hugo winning novels (of course, at the time
there only 30 or so of them). In 2017 I finally got serious about it
and start collecting the books, and then it took until 2022 to read
all of them (including the eventual winner for 2022, A Desolation
Called Peace, which I actually read before it won because I had bought
it at the same time as A Memory Called Empire).
If anyone wants to waste a couple hours reading some overly
opinionated reviews I wrote up:
http://eichler.byethost11.com/books/Hugo/NonSpoilerReviews.html
(Be forewarned that I disliked some books that are considered
classics, and if you're a Heinlein fan you'll be very annoyed).
For what it's worth, I gave up after 2022 because at that point I had actively disliked about half of the previous dozen or so winners and
only really liked a few of them, so it definitely became a case of diminishing returns. As someone else said on this thread, whatever
the voters are currently looking for in a Hugo winner no longer seems
to mesh up very well with what I want to read.
In article <un509f$mns$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu>,
Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org> wrote:
I own this and want to read it, but I have had problems with my
eyesight lately that make reading physical books uncomfortable.
Obligatory ereader plug here.
In article <un568v$gfe$1@reader1.panix.com>,
James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
In article <un509f$mns$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu>,
Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org> wrote:
I own this and want to read it, but I have had problems with my
eyesight lately that make reading physical books uncomfortable.
Obligatory ereader plug here.
I have a nice enough tablet that I use to read Hugo voter packets,
Diane Duane, and Graydon Saunders. I don't, however, care to
re-purchase books I already own. It has its own drawbacks, like the
need to close one eye and hold it a few inches from my face, but that
is surprisingly still easier than reading paper these days. We'll see
what the eye doctor says after some specialized tests she ordered for
me.
On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 01:59:57 -0000 (UTC), wollman@bimajority.org
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:
In article <un568v$gfe$1@reader1.panix.com>,
James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
In article <un509f$mns$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu>,
Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org> wrote:
I own this and want to read it, but I have had problems with my >>>>eyesight lately that make reading physical books uncomfortable.
Obligatory ereader plug here.
I have a nice enough tablet that I use to read Hugo voter packets,
Diane Duane, and Graydon Saunders. I don't, however, care to
re-purchase books I already own. It has its own drawbacks, like the
need to close one eye and hold it a few inches from my face, but that
is surprisingly still easier than reading paper these days. We'll see
what the eye doctor says after some specialized tests she ordered for
me.
You know, there are these newfangled things called "eyeglasses" that
might help with that problem.
In article <0qagpiho2pd13td3oqiggslf8859m2jq65@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 01:59:57 -0000 (UTC), wollman@bimajority.org
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:
In article <un568v$gfe$1@reader1.panix.com>,
James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
In article <un509f$mns$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu>,
Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org> wrote:
I own this and want to read it, but I have had problems with my >>>>>eyesight lately that make reading physical books uncomfortable.
Obligatory ereader plug here.
I have a nice enough tablet that I use to read Hugo voter packets,
Diane Duane, and Graydon Saunders. I don't, however, care to
re-purchase books I already own. It has its own drawbacks, like the
need to close one eye and hold it a few inches from my face, but that
is surprisingly still easier than reading paper these days. We'll see >>>what the eye doctor says after some specialized tests she ordered for
me.
You know, there are these newfangled things called "eyeglasses" that
might help with that problem.
Surely this is a fifty dollar bill on the sidewalk situation? If glasses
(or increasing font size) would help, he'd be doing that already?
On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 01:59:57 -0000 (UTC), wollman@bimajority.org
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:
re-purchase books I already own. It has its own drawbacks, like the
need to close one eye and hold it a few inches from my face, but that
is surprisingly still easier than reading paper these days. We'll see
what the eye doctor says after some specialized tests she ordered for
me.
You know, there are these newfangled things called "eyeglasses" that
might help with that problem.
In article <0qagpiho2pd13td3oqiggslf8859m2jq65@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 01:59:57 -0000 (UTC), wollman@bimajority.org
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:
re-purchase books I already own. It has its own drawbacks, like the
need to close one eye and hold it a few inches from my face, but that
is surprisingly still easier than reading paper these days. We'll see
what the eye doctor says after some specialized tests she ordered for
me.
You know, there are these newfangled things called "eyeglasses" that
might help with that problem.
Having worn them for the past forty-five years, I am well acquainted
with what vision defects they can and cannot correct. My *corrected*
vision in the bad eye is 20/80; that's the best they can do.
On 1/6/2024 6:05 PM, Garrett Wollman wrote:
In article <0qagpiho2pd13td3oqiggslf8859m2jq65@4ax.com>,*wince* My sympathies.
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 01:59:57 -0000 (UTC), wollman@bimajority.org
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:
re-purchase books I already own. It has its own drawbacks, like the
need to close one eye and hold it a few inches from my face, but that
is surprisingly still easier than reading paper these days. We'll see >>>> what the eye doctor says after some specialized tests she ordered for
me.
You know, there are these newfangled things called "eyeglasses" that
might help with that problem.
Having worn them for the past forty-five years, I am well acquainted
with what vision defects they can and cannot correct. My *corrected*
vision in the bad eye is 20/80; that's the best they can do.
I think that I going to start listing ALL of the Heinleins as my
favorite Heinleins. I like them all.
Lynn
Don wrote:
There's something polemic about _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_. It,
along with _The Door Into Summer_, rank as my favorite Heinleins.
_The Man in the High Castle_, _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep_,
and "Fiat Lux" (_Canticle_'s middle story) are also favorites.
I think that I going to start listing ALL of the Heinleins as my
favorite Heinleins. I like them all.
I think that I going to start listing ALL of the Heinleins as my
favorite Heinleins. I like them all.
Lynn McGuire wrote:
I think that I going to start listing ALL of the Heinleins as my
favorite Heinleins. I like them all.
I think I spent 30 years hoping Heinlein was going to change his mind
and write "The Sound of His Wings" which was a story outline in Revolt
in 2100 where Heinlein says that he will probably never write the
novel as he hated the protagonist too much. Everybody I knew thought
that was a swipe against all televangelists though after 2016 I
thought it was an early Trump-like character
The Horny Goat wrote:
Lynn McGuire wrote:
I think that I going to start listing ALL of the Heinleins as my
favorite Heinleins. I like them all.
I think I spent 30 years hoping Heinlein was going to change his mind
and write "The Sound of His Wings" which was a story outline in Revolt
in 2100 where Heinlein says that he will probably never write the
novel as he hated the protagonist too much. Everybody I knew thought
that was a swipe against all televangelists though after 2016 I
thought it was an early Trump-like character
"All televangelists" covers a lot of ground. Presumably you meant
religious televangelists, and not scientistic televangelists, for
instance.
Lynn McGuire wrote:
Don wrote:
<snip>
There's something polemic about _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_. It,
along with _The Door Into Summer_, rank as my favorite Heinleins.
_The Man in the High Castle_, _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep_,
and "Fiat Lux" (_Canticle_'s middle story) are also favorites.
I think that I going to start listing ALL of the Heinleins as my
favorite Heinleins. I like them all.
This thread talked me into listening to _The Door Into Summer_ once
again. And this time through the topic of grammar caught my eye, or
rather, my ear:
Nothing could go wrong because nothing had ... I meant "nothing
would." No-Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if
time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going
to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive
situations-conjugations that would make the French literary
tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.
Don schrieb:
Lynn McGuire wrote:
Don wrote:
<snip>
There's something polemic about _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_. It,
along with _The Door Into Summer_, rank as my favorite Heinleins.
_The Man in the High Castle_, _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep_,
and "Fiat Lux" (_Canticle_'s middle story) are also favorites.
I think that I going to start listing ALL of the Heinleins as my
favorite Heinleins. I like them all.
This thread talked me into listening to _The Door Into Summer_ once
again. And this time through the topic of grammar caught my eye, or
rather, my ear:
Nothing could go wrong because nothing had ... I meant "nothing
would." No-Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if
time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going
to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive
situations-conjugations that would make the French literary
tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.
See Douglas Adam's little treatise on the subject from "The Restaurant
at the End of the Universe".
This thread talked me into listening to _The Door Into Summer_ once
again. And this time through the topic of grammar caught my eye, or
rather, my ear:
Nothing could go wrong because nothing had ... I meant "nothing
would." No-Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if
time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going
to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive
situations-conjugations that would make the French literary
tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.
And this time through the topic of grammar caught my eye, or
rather, my ear:
Nothing could go wrong because nothing had ... I meant "nothing
would." No-Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if
time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going
to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive
situations-conjugations that would make the French literary
tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.
French and Latin tenses are apparently abstruse?
On 2024-01-09, Don <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
And this time through the topic of grammar caught my eye, or
rather, my ear:
Nothing could go wrong because nothing had ... I meant "nothing
would." No-Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if
time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going
to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive
situations-conjugations that would make the French literary
tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.
I noticed as much when watching _Doctor Who_. The English tense
system copes poorly when different people experience a flow of
events in different orders.
French and Latin tenses are apparently abstruse?
Not if you know French or Latin! ;-)
Generally speaking, the tense systems of the Romance and Germanic
languages have partially converged due to intense language contact.
The standard Latin six-tense system presented in textbooks doesn't
look abstruse, but it cast a long shadow. The typical analysis of
the English (and German) verb system with six tenses seems to have
been either an attempt to shoehorn English etc. grammar into the
strictures of Latin, or, maybe, even reflect a conscious attempt
to shape those languages into the form of Latin.
Customary school grammar considers "he will become president" to
be future tense (some grammarians, such as Geoffrey Pullum, disagree),
but the future-of-the-past "he would become president" isn't
classified as a tense, which seems odd... until you realize that
Latin lacks such a form. (Latin's offspring, the Romance languages,
have filled this gap with the conditional.)
If you find English's tense/aspect system to encode insufficiently
subtle distinctions, *insert moans from many ESL learners*, may I
interest you in Spanish? This graphic is helpful... >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_verbs#/media/File:Tiempos_verbales_del_indicativo.png
... although I think more needs to be said about the imperfect/
simple past aspect distinction as well as the dimension added by
the estar+gerund construction. A 3D display might come in handy.
Oh and if for some reason you feel intimidated by the Latin verb
system, Ancient Greek or Sanskrit will make you cry until your tears
run out. Of course that's all Indo-European trifles. The truly
Lovecraftian horrors lurk elsewhere among the world's languages.
Do NOT look at a description of the Georgian verb. Some things
cannot be unseen.
Beings Heinlein's never going to write "The Sound of His Wings" at
this point, #nevertrumpers jonesing for a fix might turn to
_The Truth About Trump_ (D'Antonio).
On Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 3:17:31 PM UTC+11, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
The first 55, plus the retros.
Stopped in 2010. Any recent recommendations?
NK Jemisin's three-peat trilogy that won from 2016 to 2018 are great. The Fifth Season is the first. I quite liked 2015's The Three Body Problem too.
You stopped in 2010? So I'm assuming you read The City and the City, which won that year? If not, that's a great book.
Moriarty wrote:
Peter Fairbrother wrote:
The first 55, plus the retros.
Stopped in 2010. Any recent recommendations?
NK Jemisin's three-peat trilogy that won from 2016 to 2018 are great. The Fifth
Season is the first. I quite liked 2015's The Three Body Problem too.
You stopped in 2010? So I'm assuming you read The City and the City, which won
that year? If not, that's a great book.
It depends, as always, on what you like.
Jemisin's works are perhaps the best, though won't appeal to everybody.
_The Three Body Problem_ for me was more interesting for its Chinese background and perspective than for the SF.
The Leckie and Martine books are very good more classical SF if that's what you like.
For the Wells' you should definitely start with the first Murderbot book which
is the best. I regard it as the most enjoyable SF book of the past 20 years.
On 2024-01-13, Moriarty <blues95@ivillage.com> wrote:
On Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 3:17:31 PM UTC+11, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
The first 55, plus the retros.
Stopped in 2010. Any recent recommendations?
NK Jemisin's three-peat trilogy that won from 2016 to 2018 are great. The Fifth Season is the first. I quite liked 2015's The Three Body Problem too.
You stopped in 2010? So I'm assuming you read The City and the City, which won that year? If not, that's a great book.
It depends, as always, on what you like.
Jemisin's works are perhaps the best, though won't appeal to everybody.
_The Three Body Problem_ for me was more interesting for its Chinese background and perspective than for the SF.
For the Wells' you should definitely start with the first Murderbot book which >is the best. I regard it as the most enjoyable SF book of the past 20 years.
On 13 Jan 2024 13:56:19 GMT, Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:
For the Wells' you should definitely start with the first Murderbot book which
is the best. I regard it as the most enjoyable SF book of the past 20 years.
Glad for the recommendation - I tend to assume that anything with that
many sequels is cotton candy for the brain just like the potboilers
people like L Ron Hubbard and James Patterson.
On 2024-01-13, Moriarty <blues95@ivillage.com> wrote:
On Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 3:17:31 PM UTC+11, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
The first 55, plus the retros.
Stopped in 2010. Any recent recommendations?
NK Jemisin's three-peat trilogy that won from 2016 to 2018 are great. The Fifth Season is the first. I quite liked 2015's The Three Body Problem too.
You stopped in 2010? So I'm assuming you read The City and the City, which won that year? If not, that's a great book.
It depends, as always, on what you like.
Jemisin's works are perhaps the best, though won't appeal to everybody.
_The Three Body Problem_ for me was more interesting for its Chinese background and perspective than for the SF. > The Leckie and Martine books are very good more classical SF ifthat's what
you like.
For the Wells' you should definitely start with the first Murderbot book which
is the best. I regard it as the most enjoyable SF book of the past 20 years.
Thomas Koenig wrote:
Don schrieb:
This thread talked me into listening to _The Door Into Summer_ once
again. And this time through the topic of grammar caught my eye, or
rather, my ear:
Nothing could go wrong because nothing had ... I meant "nothing
would." No-Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if
time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going
to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive
situations-conjugations that would make the French literary
tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.
See Douglas Adam's little treatise on the subject from "The Restaurant
at the End of the Universe".
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most
extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering. It
has been built on the fragmented remains of ... it will be
built on the fragmented ... that is to say it will have been
built by this time, and indeed has been -
One of the major problems encountered in time travel is
not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother.
There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or
mother that a broadminded and well-adjusted family can't
cope with. There is also no problem about changing the
course of history - the course of history does not change
because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important
changes have happened before the things they were supposed
to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.
The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and
the main work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan
Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense
Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe
something that was about to happen to you in the past
before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in
order to avoid it. The event will be described differently
according to whether you are talking about it from the
standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the
further future, or a time in the further past and is
further complicated by the possibility of conducting
conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one
time to another with the intention of becoming your own
father or mother.
Most readers get as far as the Future Semi-Conditionally
Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional
before giving up: and in fact in later editions of the
book all the pages beyond this point have been left blank
to save on printing costs.
The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly
over this tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to
note that the term "Future Perfect" has been abandoned
since it was discovered not to be.
This treatise takes more thought...
I was going to post the whole list here but terrible things happened
to my check marks and I was not willing to fix each one.
1955 They'd Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley
In article <un40ds$a78$1@panix2.panix.com>,
James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
The list of Hugo-winning novels I have not read is more manageable:[...]
2012 Among Others by Jo Walton
I own this and want to read it, but I have had problems with my
eyesight lately that make reading physical books uncomfortable.
I think that I going to start listing ALL of the Heinleins as my
favorite Heinleins. I like them all.
I think of Heinlein as three basic authors in one: first of all the YA
author who wrote Podkayne of Mars and the rest of those juveniles. Secondly the author who wrote those great future history stories, and some fine
early novels. Then thirdly the guy who wrote that later stuff from
Number of the Beast on, which were sexual in rather unrealistic and poorly-thought-out ways which actually detracted from their plots.
In article <20240108a@crcomp.net>, Don <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
This thread talked me into listening to _The Door Into Summer_ once
again. And this time through the topic of grammar caught my eye, or
rather, my ear:
Nothing could go wrong because nothing had ... I meant "nothing
would." No-Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if
time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going
to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive
situations-conjugations that would make the French literary
tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.
There is no time travel (so far as has been revealed) in the
Commonweal, but the sorcerers there seem to accomplish a lot by
changing the past -- "what used to have happened" in the words of one character -- and the text regularly comments on how they don't have
good language to talk about, for example, having the cause of one's
death removed from the past. It's sort of an inverse-Many Worlds interpretation: there is only one present, but there are many possible
pasts, and a sufficiently powerful talented person can change which
past is manifest in the here and now, probably by doing some
complicated algebraic topology.
In article <un568v$gfe$1@reader1.panix.com>,
James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
In article <un509f$mns$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu>,
Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org> wrote:
I own this and want to read it, but I have had problems with my
eyesight lately that make reading physical books uncomfortable.
Obligatory ereader plug here.
I have a nice enough tablet that I use to read Hugo voter packets,
Diane Duane, and Graydon Saunders. I don't, however, care to
re-purchase books I already own. It has its own drawbacks, like the
need to close one eye and hold it a few inches from my face, but that
is surprisingly still easier than reading paper these days. We'll see
what the eye doctor says after some specialized tests she ordered for
On 1/4/2024 17:38, Lynn McGuire wrote:
I think that I going to start listing ALL of the Heinleins as my
favorite Heinleins. I like them all.
I don't like Number of the Beast or I Will Fear No Evil or really any of
the late works much at all. (Time Enough for Love being a weird
exception; I shouldn't like it, but I do. However, it doesn't have the
faults all the rest of the late stuff does, to anything like the same >degree.)
On 1/8/2024 18:07, Scott Dorsey wrote:
I think of Heinlein as three basic authors in one: first of all the YA
author who wrote Podkayne of Mars and the rest of those juveniles. Secondly >> the author who wrote those great future history stories, and some fine
early novels. Then thirdly the guy who wrote that later stuff from
Number of the Beast on, which were sexual in rather unrealistic and
poorly-thought-out ways which actually detracted from their plots.
Nowhere in that categorization does there seem to be room for some of
the very best of Heinlein -- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Starship >Troopers. (And then Podkayne is the *worst possible* exemplar for the >juveniles.)
On 1/4/2024 17:38, Lynn McGuire wrote:
I think that I going to start listing ALL of the Heinleins as my
favorite Heinleins. I like them all.
I don't like Number of the Beast or I Will Fear No Evil or really any of
the late works much at all. (Time Enough for Love being a weird
exception; I shouldn't like it, but I do. However, it doesn't have the >faults all the rest of the late stuff does, to anything like the same >degree.)
On 1/9/2024 15:46, Garrett Wollman wrote:
In article <20240108a@crcomp.net>, Don <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
This thread talked me into listening to _The Door Into Summer_ once
again. And this time through the topic of grammar caught my eye, or
rather, my ear:
Nothing could go wrong because nothing had ... I meant "nothing
would." No-Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if
time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going
to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive
situations-conjugations that would make the French literary
tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.
There is no time travel (so far as has been revealed) in the
Commonweal, but the sorcerers there seem to accomplish a lot by
changing the past -- "what used to have happened" in the words of one
character -- and the text regularly comments on how they don't have
good language to talk about, for example, having the cause of one's
death removed from the past. It's sort of an inverse-Many Worlds
interpretation: there is only one present, but there are many possible
pasts, and a sufficiently powerful talented person can change which
past is manifest in the here and now, probably by doing some
complicated algebraic topology.
But the repaired plates weren't quite the same color as the rest, yeah.
Always pleased to find somebody else who loves those books! They went >instantly (when I discovered them) onto my heavy-reread loop (which by
any reasonable standard I do rather too much of, but whatever).
Nowhere in that categorization does there seem to be room for some of
the very best of Heinlein -- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Starship >Troopers. (And then Podkayne is the *worst possible* exemplar for the >juveniles.)
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