S.C. Butler's Blog, page 11

Sam-Who-Likes-Nothing - True Blood

We've watched the first four episodes so far, and the pace is glacial. Which leads me to conclude that I'm just not that into vampires. Which in turn raises the question of why I like Buffy so much. But my wife figured that out. Buffy isn't really a vampire show, it's a superhero show, and I love superheroes.

Besides, I'm not so sure that what I've seen of True Blood qualifies as a vampire show. More like softcore porn, if you ask me. And if it's softcore porn I'm looking for, I'm much m...

I'm Hoping to Be Excommunicated Next!

I'm doing a school visit in CT tomorrow and have just heard from the teacher of one of the classes I'm visiting that a very religious student will not be able to attend if I read anything about magic, um, I mean witchcraft. Oy. Now I have sections I can read that have no magic in them at all, but I don't think I'll be able to talk about my books much if we have to keep steering the conversation away from magic. Magic is what my books are about.

Why are so many religions so terrified of...

Sam-Who-Likes-Nothing - The Black Swan

Not a fantasy novel, The Black Swan is a non-fiction polemic about randomness and the inapplicability of the bell curve to the real world. Although I completely agree with the premise, this 300 page book could have been as well done in about 50. Taleb is actually much more interested in showing off how much he knows about everything, and making up metaphors and thought experiments that make no sense, and never really explaining what he's talking about (except in three late chapters which...

This Can't Be a Good Thing For the Publishing Industry

Wal-mart and Amazon are having a price war.

The Importance of Not Being Too Earnest

My latest blog post is up over at SFNovelists.

Too Smart For Wall Street

Interesting Op-Ed piece by Calvin Trillin in today's NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/opinion/14trillin.html?ref=opinion

What makes it doubly interesting is that I've heard the first part of the argument before. Often. Trillin is of my father's generation, and my father always said the same thing. The smart guys he knew were all lawyers or doctors or academics. None of them went into banking.

And then in the '80s the bankers started making more money than anyone else and...

Quote of the Day

"Because the plastic brain can always allow brain functions that it has brought together to separate, a regression to barbarism is always possible, and civilization will always be a tenuous affair that must be taught in each generation and is always, at most, one generation deep."

Norman Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself.