Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 18

Newspeak Nations: How Language Erases Struggles – by Charlie Martin

Newspeak Nations: How Language Erases Struggles – by Charlie Martin

I’ve been re-reading George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” again, something I recommend anyone interested in politics or writing should do regularly. Here’s a bit that struck me today:

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.

Orwell, like Ayn Rand, wasn’t so much inventing a f...

The Martian Chronicles – Reading the Future of the Past

So, the short version of this is: I decided to go on a trip through how I fell in love with the science fiction genre. My voyage was facilitated by there being only one imprint of science fiction books when I was in Portugal (though there were some fly by night imprints and the occasional Brazilian translation. Also at one time this amazing collection supposed to be read by artificial light without glare. It was light blue. Lasted like 3 books, but that was when I was in my early twenties.) ...

Cold War Kids Are Hard To Kill

I have finished Martian Chronicles, and will give you a review tomorrow.

There are a couple of big flaws in the book, but not enough to outweigh the fact it is a bardic masterpiece in a 100 ways.

The other flaw, which I will discuss tomorrow is understandable and it’s just “the limits of a person in his/her time.” but this one…. This one sticks out like a sore thumb, because it doesn’t feel organic to the story.

Yes, of course I’m talking about the anti-nuclear-war propaganda. The...

Pouring Some Cold Memes

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Oh, Friday, is it?

From Holly the Assistant

Well, it’s been that sort of day all around these parts. Everyone’s fine. There were checkups and shipments and pollen and just . . . it was very much a Friday. (Ok, with the pollen, fine might be pushing it, but everyone’s alive and breathing, which is not Nature’s fault: she tried.)

So, please amuse yourselves, or not, with what might be on the other side of that door. And there will be memes tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar there’ll be meming.

Check Things Up

Yeah, yeah, things got delayed because …. well, I hope I’m not getting sick again. It is possible. The thyroid prescription has been upped to maybe stop this cycle.

I’ve actually been up since — much too late 10:30. I mean the cats thought we’d died. But it was the two of us, so maybe it’s something else? — but exceptionally ADD with it and not getting much of anything done, though much started.

Anyway, part of the … interruption …. was a young friend who’s been down a long time, and h...

Meeting The Impossible

This is not my post about the Martian Chronicles, or not the full post at any rate. Mostly because I’m still at 25%. I’ve been rationing it — it’s not difficult to read — because Bradbury is contagious on the word sense level, and I’m in the middle of a revision that I don’t want full of poetic light and sound.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the poetic vision. On the contrary. But if the middle chapters are THAT people will wonder what good drugs I had for those chapters and why I d...

Still Editing

Alive and also still under the weather. Thyroid medication got upped.

I will in fact try to put up a post a little later today. Until then….

Have a pretty pic or two. Tell me what stories they suggest. (They’re mine, but they’re on Pixabay, so free. Why? Well, because they were cluttering my drive and while Pixabay doesn’t really pay artists, I’ve had a lot of pics from them over the years.)

Oh, yeah, a side-note that will amuse you: my kindle stopped functioning suddenly early morning...

This, That, And Making The Assistant Happy.

I have a doctor’s appointment today which will allow him to wrap up the thyroid saga.

Still, why no post. As we all know I often write these the evening before.

Well, the problem is this: I’m actually working again. As in at normal rate.

I might or might not have told you that I got grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged to the computer room, two months ago to revise the monster novel.

To explain, I’m not over-revising or guilding the lilly. It’s just that this novel has ...

All The Trouble In The World

I promised my assistant I wouldn’t pick fights with the world in general on Tuesdays and Fridays, as she’s very busy elsewhere and doesn’t have time to comb through the comments.

Cracks knuckles, uses carnival barker voice: Welcome to the rumbl— er… Monday!

Smiles sharkilly.*

Let’s talk about the new, new thing and how terrible it is and fraught with trouble.

Which new thing? Well, sweetlings, we live in an era of rapid change. Real change, not the social from the top down bs, bu...