Jlawrence’s Comments (group member since Mar 08, 2010)

Jlawrence’s comments from the The Sword and Laser group.

*moved to General Discussion*

Plan away!

*moved to General Discussion*

I have a large number of classic science-fiction ebooks I've pilfered from Project Gutenberg. Will never get to them all, but I'm looking forward to Jules Verne in particular.

There's also an interesting anthology series called The Road to Science Fiction, which traces sf's evolution (for instance, Vol 1 is subtitled "From Gilgamesh to Wells"). You can see the table of contents of the various volumes here. I'm especially excited about the first two volumes as a sampler of sf's roots, and will find out which I find dustbin-worthy or classic-worthy.

*moved to Demolished Man sub-forum because...it's now September!*

*Moved to the Chalion sub-forum because...August!*

As Tom wrote here, Ringworld won the vote for the July pick, but the vote was very close so Redshirts will be the first official alternate pick since S&L went on a monthly schedule.

Tom: "So get out there and read whichever one you like. I'll be diving into both and I know Veronica already has read Redshirts."

I'll be reading both - I've read Niven before, but I've never read any Scalzi, so I'm looking forward to them!

http://www.dennisantinori.com/Resourc...

Allows you to scroll through and various locations can be zoomed in and/or have info.

I only just barely messed with it because apparently it can be spoilery, but I'll definitely take a closer look once I'm done with the book.

I was so excited to interview him, one of my all-time favorite authors (I was actually nervous, Veronica helped counsel calmness :) ). And yes, very tangent-y, but in a good way. I'm glad you all enjoyed hearing it!

Patti wrote: "OK, I *just* finished listening to the podcast ('twas amazing), and towards the end, Mr. Wolfe mentions his (and his wife's) medical issues. Is there any way to contribute? I mean, the man is a F'in Grand Master?!? (200-300 short stories) and he has medical/financial problems? Please (!?!) tell me there's somewhere that I can contribute. No one should have to deal with this at his age.

P.S. Veronica & Josh: Thank you SO much for this interview, it was definitely a treat! ."

Yes, the stuff about his wife was heart-breaking, but also heart-warming in the way he and now his fellow writers are supporting her . If I understood correctly, the normal editor's and writers' fees for the upcoming Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe were instead contributed to Wolfe to help cover some of the costs of her nursing home care - and I imagine buying (pre-ordering a this point) a copy would be a way to contribute, too.

I laughed so hard at some of these that I fell off the Wall.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis...

(Also, somewhere an outraged Hordor is yelling...y'know..."HODOR!!!!!!")

Haha love it!

I voted.

Rick wrote: "Hmm.... I take exception to the assertion that I insulted anyone here or that there was any name-calling at all. I didn't call anyone an idiot, stupid, etc. I did call Geoff's *attitude* Pollyanna-like and I feel it is (that's not an insult, but a characterization of the attitude - read the link). "

I understand what a Pollyana-ish attitude is. But there's a large difference between saying, "I find it a Pollyana-ish attitude that only good things should be said about books, and that attitude's implied by your statement that people should not announce when they're lemming something" and what you wrote, which was:

"Hi Pollyanna, how are you? What's that, we can only say nice things about a book? Oh only people who read the entire book can post? Hey Polly? Who the hell are you to say who can post and what they can post??"

The former is a statement about what the poster said. The second is sarcastic comments about the poster himself. Even if you meant it as the former, the way you expressed it came off as the latter, and that's why it's not great for a civil discussion that includes various viewpoints.

Geoff has every right to say he doesn't think people should announce their lemmings, and you every right to argue why that's a bad suggestion. That's a discussion of varying viewpoints. And that discussion can be held without having to negatively comment on the participants of the discussion.

Joseph wrote: "His entire catalog is available electronically, either from the Usual Suspects or directly from www.jackvance.com these days."

Thanks for that, Joseph. Several there I've been seeking for a while.

Robert of Dale wrote: "Also, name calling? Really? You're sharp as a tack, and about as cuddly as a cactus, but could you perhaps take a step back and be more civil with the people you disagree with? Please?"

Agreed. You can disagree against someone all you want, but you need to leave insults and name-calling at the gates whenever you're in the S&L Galactic Castle of Varied Discussions. Read our Forum Conduct section about that.

My own take on "lemming it" threads is similar to what several others have said here: they're fine *if* the posts give some substantial reasons about what the posters felt didn't work in the book - because that can inspire discussion. And of course, a critique of a book is going to be more informed the more the critique-maker actually read of the book.

As Robert of Dale said earlier: "Giving up on a book is something I long ago decided was okay; the only modification to that behavior for book club picks is how far I'm willing to push into the book before dropping it. And I always give myself the option of just not reading the month's pick at all. If I'm going to post that I disliked what I'd read so far, I do expect to back up my opinion with examples and conviction. "

I know some of the liveliest face-to-face bookclubs I've been where ones where a lot of hashing out of what people thought didn't work in the book. Tom mentioned this in a recent podcast - that's it's always interesting and enlightening to explicitly tease out *why* elements of a particular book didn't work compared to other books.

*Moved to the Among Others sub-forum because: June!*

I've only read The Dying Earth by him, but I loved it, and will be reading more. By all accounts, he's left an amazing legacy. RIP.

"Nothing you've said has been remotely clever. You are coming across as a douchebag defending an asshole. "

OK, the call to stop flaming each other has been ignored, so this thread is now locked.

Micah wrote: "Thane wrote: "No, Kevin. I understood. I was just being intolerant...

You're right Micah. If I'd read up on the OSC threads I probably wouldn't have dipped my toe in here about the name calling an..."

Yeah, everyone, I know tempers run hot on the issue of Card's controversial statements, but please refrain from calling each other names. Argue against what the poster is expressing, instead of blasting the poster him/herself.

Jason Bergman wrote, "I'm not a fan of Ender's Game (read it as an adult, not a kid, didn't care for it) however this thread is nothing but trolling.

There are better ways to have this discussion than to start a thread that immediately calls out a book that many people love as "awful."

Jason, I disagree that this thread has been nothing but trolling - I said before, the initial post was brunt but the discussion that came out of it (for a while) had various responses to the charge of Ender being unbelivable and included many interesting points of view on the believablity of prodigies as heroes in genre fiction, etc. - some of which I'd never considered before.

But then we inevitably ran into OSC's public statements - which have always understanably heated things up whenever discussed in this group. That can easily derail, but I think we can have discussion of controversial topics as long as we all refrain from insulting each other.

Avatar was the first 3D movie that even worked (looked 3D) for me, and it was built from the ground up to be using 3D in a cool but not-super-intrusive way, so I did genuinely enjoy that, but in general I prefer to see 2D.

Seeing the Hobbit in 3D + high framerate in particular was SUPER distracting - just looked weird and was tiring - but in 2D & normal frame-rate on blu-ray I loved it.

The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction is an excellent SF short story collection. Here's my review:

"Fantastic selection of short stories (some novella length) distilled from 20 years worth of Dozois' "The Year's Best Science Fiction" collections. There are a few duds, but otherwise an embarrassment of riches, and Gene Wolfe's was the only one I had read before (and this time his story, 'A Cabin on the Coast', clicked with me as it hadn't before), so it was discovery after discovery for me. I was especially blown away by Nancy Kress's 'Trinity', Gibson's 'The Winter Market', John Kessel's 'The Pure Product,' Brian Stableford's 'Mortimer Gray's History of Death, Tony Daniel's 'A Dry, Quiet War', Ted Chiang's 'Story of Your Life' and Geoff Ryman's 'Have Not Have'. I'll definitely be looking into more works of a number of authors presented here."

For that book I somehow left out Greg Bear's 'Blood Music' and Greg Egan's 'Wang's Carpets' in the blown-away-by-list: those too!

Also have the The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume 1, mentioned by Phil, from the library, but haven't read it yet.

Tamahome wrote: "Great questions everybody. Use the silent 25 minutes at the end to ponder Kim's life."

It looks like Veronica has sneakily edited out those extra 25 mins now - I think she should have just labeled it KSR Zen Break. ;)

Also: Jinx!