The further and continuing adventures of the girl who sat in the back of your homeroom, reading and daydreaming.
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Hey, Look--
Be nice to one another today, please? You shouldn't be a doormat, but give people a little room, all right? Morons are gonna moor but you don't have to sink an anchor next to 'em and croon along.
Here's hoping the symptoms continue to abate, and that you feel much better today.
How about a total change of subject? I just finished re-reading an old favorite, Harry Harrison's "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah". He manages to throw in a few other SF authors as characters (Brian Aldis, Arthur C. Clarke) and includes the direct descendant of one of my favorite Empire-era engineers, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. My copy is a first paperback edition from 1972, and the acid-filled paper is starting to get a little crisp.
I read this because I picked up a beautifully-bound hard-cover (with box-cover) edition of "The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft" and plowed through the whole thing. I needed some lighter reading after nothing but eldritch horror stories, most of which I'd never read before.
I'm not sure, but I'm wondering if Harrison's novel isn't the genesis of the entire steampunk genre. Nuclear reactors and rocket ships in the British Empire, yay!
Harrison's novel is the way it is not for Steampunk reasons but in order to facilitate the circumstances that make the construction of the tunnel sociopolitically feasible: steampunk almost by accident, and not all that much steam by the time of the novel, save for steam created by atomic energy. Here's some background.
K. W. Jeter may have written the first intentional Steampunk with Morelock Night. His later Infernal Devices is more steampunk than most steampunk: lots of clockwork and actual reasons (at least for some values of "reason") for all of it.
Roberta: Thank you so much for that link to Harrison's essay. That's why I love dropping an occasional comment here, I always learn something I'd never have known. Regards, Blackwing1
If we could figure a way to hedge the market betting on morons being morons we would all be rich until hyperinflation struck or the banks changed the rules and got themselves bailed out by the government. Have you seen "The Big Short"?
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Good morning, Ms. X.
ReplyDeleteHere's hoping the symptoms continue to abate, and that you feel much better today.
How about a total change of subject? I just finished re-reading an old favorite, Harry Harrison's "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah". He manages to throw in a few other SF authors as characters (Brian Aldis, Arthur C. Clarke) and includes the direct descendant of one of my favorite Empire-era engineers, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. My copy is a first paperback edition from 1972, and the acid-filled paper is starting to get a little crisp.
I read this because I picked up a beautifully-bound hard-cover (with box-cover) edition of "The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft" and plowed through the whole thing. I needed some lighter reading after nothing but eldritch horror stories, most of which I'd never read before.
I'm not sure, but I'm wondering if Harrison's novel isn't the genesis of the entire steampunk genre. Nuclear reactors and rocket ships in the British Empire, yay!
Good idea, working on it.
ReplyDeleteHarrison's novel is the way it is not for Steampunk reasons but in order to facilitate the circumstances that make the construction of the tunnel sociopolitically feasible: steampunk almost by accident, and not all that much steam by the time of the novel, save for steam created by atomic energy. Here's some background.
ReplyDeleteK. W. Jeter may have written the first intentional Steampunk with Morelock Night. His later Infernal Devices is more steampunk than most steampunk: lots of clockwork and actual reasons (at least for some values of "reason") for all of it.
Earl: "Working on it" is about as good as I ever get at it. It's a noble aspiration!
ReplyDeleteRoberta:
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for that link to Harrison's essay. That's why I love dropping an occasional comment here, I always learn something I'd never have known.
Regards,
Blackwing1
Morons gonna moor and idiots gonna id.
ReplyDeleteI also work on it but I admit there are times my ability suffer fools lightly wears perilously thin.
If we could figure a way to hedge the market betting on morons being morons we would all be rich until hyperinflation struck or the banks changed the rules and got themselves bailed out by the government.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen "The Big Short"?
JayNola, I have not -- but it looks interesting. I'll check it out.
ReplyDelete