The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion
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At least GR still allows export of your data, which is the main reason I chose this site rather than one of the alternatives.
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https://www.baybookfest.org/
They don't seem to understand I HAVE TOO MANY BOOKS !
Poor, Ed. Too many books is such a terrible problem.;)
Seriously, I know your pain.
LOL! I was thinking of Burgess Merideth sitting on the steps of the library with 'Time Enough At Last' & broken glasses or me struggling to find a clear bit of space to build another bookcase that won't cause my wife to shoot me.:)
Just had my last class in 'A Series of Beer' this evening. Sunday we're going to brew a batch.
When I was in high school, my dad tried making beer once. He didn't do it again because he had too much fizz in the bottles. What a mess!
When I was in high school, a buddy decided to brew some in a coat closet. Things went awry. His parents weren't pleased. Fast forward a generation +: A friend of my son's was into home brewing and asked us to save Michelob bottles for him. I mentioned this on a class field trip (beer field trips are fun) and our instructor and another guy who worked for a brewery had no clue about the iconic shape of the Michelob bottle. Has Michelob been gone that long?
Michelob is gone? I quit drinking about 30 years ago, so don't keep up on these things, but I find that shocking. It was a big brand.My son-in-law makes a few batches of beer every year flavored with all sorts of weird things like peaches & such. He says it is pretty good, but he really wants to put in a couple of bee hives & start making mead. Apparently that is the real nectar in their SCA circles.
I think Buck might have erred. My brief research says that the brand is doing fine, but the old bottles are no longer used. See picture:http://365beersand50pounds.blogspot.c...
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The author has been giving this book away for free for almost 15 years now! I'm almost tempted to read it to see how bad it is, but the reviews say it isn't "so bad its good" but simply bad.
Check out this story What the hell is Wild Animus.
[Edit: I edited this post to fix that link.]
Jim wrote: "GoodReads is changing the authors on all lectures to "NOT A BOOK" & not even listing the author as a narrator. They're deleting them entirely! I don't know why lectures suddenly aren't books. The..."
I discovered this when I tried to find How Great Science Fiction Works by Gary Wolfe, a lecture series I'm hearing in audiobook format, and following along with a written form in PDF format.
I sent an email to support@goodreads.com as you suggested, Jim, but I don't expect it to do any good.
Thanks, Buck. They've closed the topic in the Librarians group & say they are thinking about it. I also doubt it will do any good, although plenty of reasons were put forth why they should be considered books. I also asked to see if we could put in the author as a narrator, but was told no. It really sucks.
Ed wrote: "I was handed one yesterday: Wild Animus...."I read a couple of reviews & don't think I'm even interested in the link you kindly provided. There are some really weird books out there.
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I read a couple of reviews & don't think I'm even interested in the link you kindly provided..."
The link is about somebody trying to figure out who this guy is and why he is giving out so many copies of his book. The phenomenon is pretty weird. They had a big tent and booth babes handing it out. And he's been at this for 15 years. It almost feels like he is trying to start a cult.
I skimmed the article, Ed. Pretty weird story & search. I've never run into it that I can remember, so I'm going to add it to my do-not-read shelf which contains less than 2 dozen other winners of the distinction. Surprisingly, it doesn't have the lowest overall rating on that shelf. That distinction is still held by Birth Control Is Sinful in the Christian Marriages and Also Robbing God of Priesthood Children!!, a book written all in caps that is normally priced well over $100 per copy on Amazon.
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For things like "Birth Control is Sinful", I just prefer to ignore it. I fear that giving a rating, even a bad rating, to such a book might actually help it sell copies.
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In both cases I also had friends and acquaintances receive the same book. Seems like a weird marketing strategy. I prefer to not put any ratings on such books because I don't want to help their strategy.
If you'll look at my DNR shelf, you'll see it most books are just like you describe, Ed. There are a few others that I want to remember for other reasons. I find a book all in caps selling for over $100 amusing just like "Wild Animus". A review is a good place for saving links such as you provided.
I got a lot done tonight. Gorgeous weather. It's 80 out, so I got home tonight & got the goats' house cleaned out. I also pulled 5 bushes in front of the house. They were junipers that had just gotten too big so I was trimming them back too far which was leaving bare patches. I'd hoped they'd fill in, but that kind usually don't & these didn't. Thankfully, I have a tractor, chain, & front end loader so I got them all yanked out & dumped in the brush pile plus all the dirt graded back fairly well all in a few hours. I'm bushed, but happy.:)
My husband and I looked after our two year old granddaughter today and yesterday. We have her again on Friday. She lives in an apartment so she loves our back yard. She played there yesterday and today morning. On both afternoons we took her for a walk to the library, about 15 minutes and she had a lot of fun there.We are both bushed. The weather has been gorgeous here too and the birds have been singing like crazy, especially two lady cardinals today.
Glad you had a great time with your granddaughter, Rosemarie. They're fun at that age in small doses. Being able to give the child back is the best thing about being a grandparent. Well, never changing dirty diapers or dealing with teething is right up there, too.;)
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If my library loans it out, shouldn't I be able to review it on GR? I'll petition the librarians for a change! ;)
Our re-roof job is almost finished. They started on April 6 - surely they'll be finished tomorrow. They found a lot of rotted wood. A good amount of the roof deck, most of the fascia and sub-fascia, and some of the soffit had to be replaced. $$$. It's the third time we've had to replace our roof. We've lived here a long time. This one should outlive us.
Do they have an ISBN, Ed?;-)
Seriously, that's pretty cool you can get stuff like that from the library. I don't think ours have them.
Good luck, Buck. That sounds like a lot of roof replacements, although I guess the sun ruins your shingles pretty quickly especially a second layer. They never last as long. That's a drag they found so much rot. I'm going to probably just get metal roofing put over our shingles when we need it done. That should last until after we die.
Our roof is mostly flat. Even the sloped parts are too flat for shingles. The first two roofs were called built-up - tar and gravel. The next one was called hot-mopped. This one is peel and stick - I can't recall what the roofer calls it. We have a lot of trees around our house. They shed leaves onto the roof. The leaves build up. Things start to grow. I intend to be much more vigilant about keeping the roof clean. It's out of sight - out of mind. Need get up there with a leaf blower frequently.
That peel & stick, if it is the same thing I used on the low slope roof (1:12) at my last house, is awesome stuff. It's rubbery & the glue is fantastic. I put shingles over it for looks & it never leaked at all no matter how much snow built up or which way the wind blew.
Tomatoes, zucchini, & cantaloupe planted today. Put the first 2 in my regular garden & all on the dirt/manure pile which I rotated yesterday. The horses, especially Tango, were a BIG help. Had to chase Tango away as he was trying to eat a tomato plant. It's small enough that it couldn't hurt him & I doubt he'll be interested after this since the novelty will have worn off. I hope, anyway.
I just did a pop-up Goodreads survey on 'My Books'. Does this mean they're going to fix something that ain't broke?
I sure hope not. Did it ask about sub shelves? That's the only thing I can think of that people have been asking for. They've said for a decade that it would be too much trouble.
There weren't many questions. Did I go to my own my-books shelf or some one else's; how often do I go to my-books; why do I go to my-books. That sort of thing.
Oh dear....Going off to export a backup *now*.
Ok, I got it too. Same few questions as Buck; can't guess their goal.
I just got the survey, too. Managed to forget to do what I went there for. I wish they'd asked more questions, but I have no idea what they're looking for. There were half a dozen questions about shelves, read dates, binding, & page counts.Scary that they asked about the last read date. I hope they're not thinking of getting rid of read dates. I use them a lot & my shelves are highly personalized since I export fairly often & put the latest additions into a spreadsheet & database of my own.
I couldn't care less about their page counts since they're completely screwed up. For instance, Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals is 326 pages in hardback, but 0 or 12 pages in audio which is silly.
I just got the survey, too. Managed to forget to do what I went there for. I wish they'd asked more questions, but I have no idea what they're looking for. There were half a dozen questions about shelves, read dates, binding, & page counts.Scary that they asked about the last read date. I hope they're not thinking of getting rid of read dates. I use them a lot & my shelves are highly personalized since I export fairly often & put the latest additions into a spreadsheet & database of my own.
I couldn't care less about their page counts since they're completely screwed up. For instance, Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals is 326 pages in hardback, but 0 or 12 pages in audio which is silly.
I found out why they asked about the 'Last Read Date' which is no longer updated for rereads in the export file last year, although tech support told me they've never updated it in the export file. I know that's wrong. For a decade the total books for the year have always matched what was in my GR stats until last year when it was off by 8 books. Not enough to be a big deal & I thought I'd goofed something. I exported the other day & realized that a batch of rereads weren't among my 2018 reads, either. I hope they change that.I guess I'm going to have to export monthly, sort by "Date Added" & check for missing books not to mention editing lectures. What a PITA.
Great news! Audio lectures with an ISBN are now books again!!! Thanks to all who wrote in to help get them to change their minds.In other news, it's our 36th anniversary today & I'm moving the fish pond. I'm taking a couple of days off work to get spring projects done. Of course, my long list got completely derailed. The frogs & toads are making so much noise that my wife has been out hunting them.
About a decade ago, I had a plastic fish pond given to me & I thought putting it outside my wife's window was a good idea. She did, too. It would be pretty, fill up an unusable corner created by the end of the house & deck, plus it wouldn't obstruct her view of the horses & barn.
It was a fair amount of work to put in. Not just digging the 4'x6' hole, but I also created a stream & shallow pond for the birds. I transplanted flowers around it & then had to make a low fence to keep the dogs from tramping through it & the garden along the north end of the house.
I got it all done & we found out she couldn't sleep with the fountain going. She kept waking up thinking water was running in the house. Fixed that with a timer, but Mother Nature has another timer. Every year the frogs & toads flock to the pond to mate & this year they're particularly loud. Marg was out hunting them the other night in a fury.
I just pulled bushes on the other side of the house & was planning to turn it into a hosta garden. I have about a dozen varieties & they're far too crowded. I don't have many good areas to plant them. I'm going to have a little less than I'd planned on since the fish pond will now go there, but I'll just cut more of the lawn off to make the area bigger - easy to do with the front end loader.
I plan to get the hole dug & the basic landscaping done today plus moving all the rocks I collected that line the pond. I got them out of the stream in the woods. They're full of fossils, so make a very cool border. Hopefully I can pick up new pond liner at Lowes tomorrow on the way home from work & get it in. I can probably use some of the old one, but the edges where the sun have hit it are getting brittle.
I might pull the fish out today & put them in an extra horse water trough we have until their new digs are ready. I'm not sure how I'm going to move the pond itself. I guess the lily can go in with the fish & I should be able to move it once it's empty. Might be easier to put a rope around it & move it with the front end loader, though. Well, I won't get bored...
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Cool, though doesn't affect me much. And congratulations on your anniversary.
Before and after pictures of the fish pond?
I'll try to post some eventually. It's a tough project. I got the new hole dug today, the rocks moved, the old pond mostly empty, & the fish in the small horse trough. They started out as 3 little feeder goldfish. We're up to 8 huge ones. One is really fancy looking.Josh, my SIL, is going to help me move the pond tomorrow. I'm hoping we can pick it up with the front end loader. I plan to push & pry a bit to break any vacuum seal (It sits in clay.) & then put chain hooks under the edges. Wish me luck!
Happy Mother's Day! We started ours off with a bang. I got up & was brushing my teeth, so Pip went outside & started barking. I didn't think much of it, so finished my various ablutions before going out to tell him to be quiet. It was about 5am & Marg didn't want to get up until 5:30. He had a young coon & they had quite a battle. It finally escaped from him over the fence & back into the woods. Hopefully it learned its lesson. Amber is too old & deaf. She slept through the whole thing. Lily stayed in the house. She wants no part of coons any more.
The pond is coming along. I got the water running, a 1/2 bucket of gravel scattered through the stream, & all the rocks put around it. Lily & I need to get some more rocks as this is a little bigger than the last one. Then I'll transplant some of the hostas, cone flowers, & such. I'll dig up some myrtle (periwinkle) & transplant it, too. There's lot of steep areas that will need to be held together & protected over the winter after the hostas lose their leaves.
I also have to transfer the fish. The water is murky, but it doesn't look like the system lost a drop. That's always a worry. The tiniest leak can drain the pond over night. Hopefully I'll get this done this morning. I have a lot of other projects that need attention, not the least of which is my lawnmower. I got dry gas & more gas yesterday, so I'll see if that is the issue.
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Don't you know it is bad luck to wish "good luck" ?
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What the what? I thought the whole point of that book is shooting birds.
I finally finished my week plus long project of moving the fish pond to the other side of the house. It came out pretty good. I documented it with about a dozen pictures on Facebook here:https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...
I'm hoping it will look a lot better in a couple of years. I need to get some more stones from the stream & plan to buy a bunch more fantasy creatures from the gal who sold me the fairy princess during the Ren Faire in June. Father's Day is during the fair, so I have a feeling I'll get a few as gifts. Since my wife & kids never know what to get me, I'm sure I will.
:)
We are visiting Ball Ground, Georgia. Our nephew and his wife have a brand new baby. My spouse Peggy is in heaven. On Saturday we are going to a baby shower for the baby of another nephew due in late July.
My wife likes babies, too. I'm glad someone does. Just when they really get useful and human, they move out. I like them much better as adults & it's fun to watch them deal with their own babies.
The Evolution of Science Fiction
Books mentioned in this topic
A History of the English Speaking Peoples, 4 Vols (other topics)Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer (other topics)
A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? (other topics)
Bleak House (other topics)
A Night in the Lonesome October (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Winston Churchill (other topics)Roger Zelazny (other topics)
Felix Salten (other topics)
Sam Kean (other topics)
Chuck Tingle (other topics)
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I don't know why lectures suddenly aren't books. They have an ISBN & are distributed by libraries & resellers as books. They often come with an ebook full of notes. I've spent a lot of hours reading & writing reviews for them here. I often refer to those in discussions of other books by the same author here in various groups.
I've never been happy with they way GR has handled audio books. Listing the number of CDs or tapes as pages was stupid from the start & yet they don't list the number of files as pages. They should just list a minute per page, IMO. I think that's close to an average reading speed & would work for me. As it is, I never pay attention to that data.
Anyway, could you please send an email to support@goodreads.com & ask them to keep lectures as books? Apparently this is a staff decision & maybe if enough of us complain they'll change their minds. Making the author a narrator would be fine, but deleting them entirely really sucks.