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

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

Ugh...I did horrible with my 2012 Reading Challenge list, which was not long, but comprised of books I've been meaning to read *forever* (two of which happily coincided with S&L picks). I only read 8 of 14, though I'm about to finish Heir to reach 9.

I guess I will bump the unread ones to a 2013 Reading Challenge List and add more, or maybe I should just go for a numerical challenge again - I did much better with that before!

Kate wrote: "I shall also continue to try and read Infinite Jest."

Haha, I've tried to finish it twice! There's parts of it that are great but is so huge and meandering. I think I'll put that off til 2014 at least... (I totally love its footnotes, though, especially the long, colorful filmography of imaginary movies made by the Infinite Jest director...)

I'm tempted by the convenience of playing BG on an ipad, but I have already bought BG1 & BG2 from a gog.com sale some time back (includes the expansion packs), and still have not played them. Just last night I loaded them up with these recommended mods (BGT cooly joins 1 & 2 into one single game), so I'm going to have a spin with them that way.

Must stop thinking about mess of NaNoWriMo novel and start thinking of a story to write! *mental gears grind, but happily*

Best line to take out of context:

Veronica: "I didn't enjoy visiting Heaven."

I missed out on Dirty Streets of Heaven, but I'm excited to read The Hobbit with everyone - been looking forward to re-reading it ever since it was first hinted on S&L. Just have to finish up Heir to the Empire first.

I recently bought the Annotated Hobbit in preparation for the December read.

I do wish I still had the beat-up paperback I read as a kid, it had this cover:
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I vividly remember reading it while staying at my grandmother's house, and visualizing the outline of the Misty Mountains in the water stains of the bedroom ceiling where I was reading.

Sean wrote: "If Disney thinks there's money to be made off it, they'll release the unaltered original trilogy. Lucas claims that the original film no longer exists so there's no way to do it, but there have to be release prints out there somewhere that can be cleaned up, even if we have to put up with cigarette burns. "

Robert Harris, film archivist who restored Lawrence of Arabia and Vertigo, has said he has access to 35mm prints of the originals, and offered to do the restoration work. Lucasfilm never responded to the offer. Maybe Disney will.

Scroll down to the 5/19/06 article on this page:
http://www.digitalbits.com/site_archi...

Kate wrote: "Maybe Disney can release some un-messed with original trilogy dvds?
Cos Lucas sure wasn't gonna."

That's my one other hope with this annoucement! I feel like Lucas would still fight it, but maybe now there's a sliver of a chance (people at Disney would certainly know they could make a LOT of money on a restored but UN-special-editioned release of the original trilogy).

I'm slightly optimistic too. I feel no sense of outrage at the purchase, because Lucas has already done so much to destroy his franchise via the mediocre-to-horrible prequels PLUS trying to literally wipe the original version of A New Hope out of existence (my biggest disappointment with him).

SO Disney's claim to want to do a new SW movie every 3 years sounds sausage-factory-like, and could certainly result in more mediocre-to-horrible Star Wars. On the other side (of the force), in new hands, some *good* new Star Wars *might* be created.

As Tom tweeted, does this mean Whedon could direct Star Wars Ep 7?

Mike wrote: "Does it count if you work on stuff you're already writing?"

As said above, the official rules are you can plan, outline, etc. beforehand, but aren't suppossed to do any actual story-writing til November.

*However*, there is an officially-OK'ed group of NaNoWriMo 'Rebels' who still follow the rule of pushing themselves to write 50,000 words during that month, but who are nonetheless working on something they started before November.

There is a whole NaNoWriMo sub-forum for Rebels, here is the detailed Am I a NaNoWriMo Rebel FAQ.

I will be joining the Rebel camp this year as I will be re-writing the chunk of a novel I started last NaNoWriMo, and boy does it need that re-writing. I'm excited about it.

Sold! I mean, bought!

Especially excited for Stranger Things Happen which has been on my list for awhile, Pump Six and Other Stories since I've been meaning to read more Bacigalupi since reading The Windup Girl with this group, and Old Man's War since it's been talked about on these forums a lot (and proposed as an official S&L read). I'd never heard of that particular Gaiman work either, so that'll be interesting.

Recieved my blu-ray of it, so my re-watch and commentary-listen will occur this weekend!

My edition of Foundation has an introduction written by Asimov titled "The Story Behind the 'Foundation'". In it, he relates Foundation's genesis, evolution, publication history, and reception.

Most amusing is his story at being pressued by his publisher in the early 80's to revisit the Foundation series (there had been fan & publisher interest in continuation of the series for awhile). At that time he had been long away from the Foundation and even ficiton writing in general, producing non-ficton by the ton instead.

Bribed with a huge advance from the publisher, he sat down to re-read his own trilogy:

"I had to. For one thing, I hadn't read the Trilogy in thirty years and while I remembered the general plot, I did not remember the details. Besides, before beginning a new Foundation novel I had to immerse myself in the style and atmosphere of the series.

I read it with mounting uneasiness. I kept waiting for something to happen, and nothing ever did. All these volumes, all the nearly quarter of a million words, consisted of thoughts and of conversations. No action. No physical suspsense.

What was all the fuss about, then? Why did everyone want more of that stuff? - To be be sure, I couldn't help but notice that I was turning the pages eagerly, and that I was upset when I finished the book, and I wanted more, but I was the author, for goodness' sake. You couldn't go by me.

I was on the edge of deciding it was all a terrible mistake and of insisting on giving back the monkey, when (quite by accident, I swear) I came across some sentences by science-fiction writer and critic, James Gunn, who, in connection with the Foundation series, said, 'Action and romance have little to do with the success of the Trilogy - virtually all the action takes place offstage, and the romance is almost invisible - but the stories provide a detective-story fascination with the permutations and reversals of ideas.'

Oh, well, if what was needed were 'permutations and reversals of ideas,' then that I could supply. Panic receded..."

...And he goes on to cheerily relate resuming work on the series.

I thought this was a great quote from the author himself, because it underscores a lot of reactions we've seen on these forums: "Argh! It's just people sitting around talking endlessly"...."Yet for some it's somehow still compelling"..."so it that the ideas are really intersting, or is that Asimov's skill as a story-teller manage to make a whole lotta talking compelling for some readers", etc...

Sean wrote: "Seven billion or seven quadrillion makes no difference -- psychohistory can only make predictions based upon facts in the initial equation. It can never predict whether we'll have cold fusion in fifty years because nobody knows whether cold fusion is even possible, let alone the technological requirements to make it useable. Once factors unknown to psychohistorians appear, their ability to make predictions go down the drain, and technological progress is one of those factors. "

I'm ok with accepting it for the course of the book, because Asimov makes its ramifications interesting through the varous snapshots of story. But I agree that unknowns of technological progress would seem to throw too much of a monkey wrench into psychohistory's (and anything like it) ability to be strongly reliable, in any real-future-world sense.

Yet, for this book at least, maybe psychohistory evades the unknown-variable of technological advancement, since Seldon predicted the period of his Foundation project would be one of stagnation/regression -- that stagnation/regression applying to technological advances as well? Ie, it wouldn't matter what limits of technology were unknown because no-one would be pushing towards those limits?

I know, I know - the idea that technology did not advance in the actual historical 'middle ages' is not really accurate either, but I'm just saying this might give psychohistory a bit of a sneaky loophole for the case of the novel?

I do find the treatment of prediciton of possible futures more convincingly explored in the Dune series, as others have mentioned, because it contained room for more widely deviating paths -- acknowledging possible unknowns both in the initial conditions being extrapolated from, and in crucial but unforseeable future events (like technological advances).

Legolas's heart is for Aragorn (but maybe should be "Ranger respect" instead?).

Faramir is not shown, but might get the same "Stay away from my man" that Boromir gets. ;)

Beard respect goes a long way...



Click for original, larger version

Joseph, I remember when all Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber books were done that in style, too (I assume the same artist) - I loved that.

You and Ralff enjoying it, V? I keep reading that the world and story is great but the combat is dull. I'm intrigued, though...

I had a strong anti-fantasy bias (total laser 'tude) before joining Sword & Laser. Song of Ice and Fire, The Wise Man's Fear and Veronica's recommendation of Kushiel's Dart -- all books I ended up loving and likely would not have read otherwise.

The goblet toss was awesome and should become an S&L sporting event.

I never knew Foundation was initially separate but related short stories. Excited to read it, I originally read it when I was 10 and all I remember is the metal-covered planet Trantor (which of course had Death Star resonances for my Star Wars-soaked mind) and that Seldon had some kind of tablet-like device on which he displayed the symbols & equations that spelled the empire's dooooooom.

I've added Homeland to my to-read shelf, because I wants to see some Drizzt.