• (ReacTor) SFF Works About Creating, Revising, & Obfuscating History

    From James Nicoll@21:1/5 to All on Tue Sep 24 14:07:20 2024
    Five SFF Works About Creating, Revising, and Obfuscating History

    Each of these works explores attempts at controlling the past, and
    rewriting history...

    https://reactormag.com/five-sff-works-about-creating-revising-and-obfuscating-history/
    --
    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

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  • From Christian Weisgerber@21:1/5 to Michael F. Stemper on Tue Sep 24 17:37:36 2024
    On 2024-09-24, Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:

    Five SFF Works About Creating, Revising, and Obfuscating History

    Each of these works explores attempts at controlling the past, and
    rewriting history...

    https://reactormag.com/five-sff-works-about-creating-revising-and-obfuscating-history/

    "We have always been at war with Eastasia."

    "A cockroach in the concrete, courthouse tan and beady eyes
    A slouch with fallen arches, purging truths into great lies
    A little man with a big eraser, changing history
    Procedures that he's programmed to, all he hears and sees
    Altering the facts and figures, events and every issue
    Make a person disappear, and no one will ever miss you
    ..."
    --Megadeth, "Hook in Mouth"

    --
    Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

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  • From The Horny Goat@21:1/5 to All on Tue Sep 24 22:55:42 2024
    On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 17:11:18 -0400, Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com>
    wrote:

    On 9/24/24 12:20 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
    On 9/24/2024 11:44 AM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
    On 24/09/2024 09.07, James Nicoll wrote:
    Five SFF Works About Creating, Revising, and Obfuscating History

    Each of these works explores attempts at controlling the past, and
    rewriting history...

    https://reactormag.com/five-sff-works-about-creating-revising-and-
    obfuscating-history/

    "We have always been at war with Eastasia."

    Yeah, that's the obvious missing example.

    Only sort of missing - the first sentence quote[1] in the article comes
    from 1984.

    Tony
    [1] "who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present >controls the past"

    Anybody here NOT know that?

    (Hint: I first read Nineteen Eighty-Four in high schoo which I suspect
    is before some of the younger people reading this were born. Let's
    just say I was young enough to consider some of Winston's + Julia's
    encounters "hot")

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  • From The Horny Goat@21:1/5 to All on Mon Sep 30 00:05:35 2024
    On Thu, 26 Sep 2024 17:49:03 -0400, Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com>
    wrote:

    (Hint: I first read Nineteen Eighty-Four in high schoo which I suspect
    is before some of the younger people reading this were born. Let's
    just say I was young enough to consider some of Winston's + Julia's
    encounters "hot")

    The one-and-only time I read it was also in high school. I'll never
    re-read it, but it gets referenced so often that I'm positive my
    knowledge and understanding of it has grown and will continue to do so.

    I've read Nineteen Eighty-Four 2 or 3 times since high school (though
    to be fair we had our 50th anniversary reunion last year so it has
    been awhile) though finally read Homage to Catalonia (Orwell's Spanish
    Civil War memoirs) within the last year.

    (If you're remotely interested in the Spanish Civil War don't miss it
    - my senior high math teacher was an ex-International Brigader who was discharged from the IBs in Feb 1939 and he did odd jobs and played
    tourist around Britain and France and was intending to stay another
    year before returning to Canada but when Britain declared war on
    Germany in Sept 1939, made his way to the Canadian consulate in London
    to present his papers and volunteer for active service. They assigned
    him to the British army as a rifle drill instructor until 1942 at
    which point there were enough Canadian troops in Britain that he was transferred back to the Canadian forces. Then served till 1945 and
    became first an engineer then a high school teacher on the Canadian
    version of the GI bill. Helluva math teacher and I owe him a ton. And recommended Homage to Catalonia to me back then but I didn't get
    around to finally reading it last year)

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  • From The Horny Goat@21:1/5 to wthyde1953@gmail.com on Mon Sep 30 19:32:10 2024
    On Mon, 30 Sep 2024 15:36:02 -0400, William Hyde
    <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:

    - my senior high math teacher was an ex-International Brigader who was
    discharged from the IBs in Feb 1939 and he did odd jobs and played
    tourist around Britain and France and was intending to stay another
    year before returning to Canada but when Britain declared war on
    Germany in Sept 1939, made his way to the Canadian consulate in London
    to present his papers and volunteer for active service. They assigned
    him to the British army as a rifle drill instructor until 1942 at
    which point there were enough Canadian troops in Britain that he was
    transferred back to the Canadian forces. Then served till 1945 and
    became first an engineer then a high school teacher on the Canadian
    version of the GI bill. Helluva math teacher and I owe him a ton. And
    recommended Homage to Catalonia to me back then but I didn't get
    around to finally reading it last year)

    Fascinating.

    I heard that one of the older chess players in Toronto was IB, but by
    the time I began playing in tournaments he was gone.

    Wouldn't surprise me though my teacher was the only person I knew
    personally who was an International Brigader.

    And as an officer of the Chess Federation of Canada (https://www.chess.ca/en/cfc/personnel/ - you'll quickly figure out
    which is me) I confess I know just a few chess players. <grin>

    But seriously, my teacher gave an extremely good pre-calculus
    preparation in every way - though the fact I did my undergraduate in
    math should demonstrate he made quite an impression on me.

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