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Gods Secular-Progressives and Generals
Sure,
I read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. But like most
people, I only read it to impress a girl. I never was blown away by
his prowess as a political mastermind, which looks to be the right
reaction in light of Empire, his
new novelexcerpt.
What the terrorists aren't counting on, thought Cole, is that America isn't a completely decadent country yet. When you stab us, we don't roll over and ask what we did wrong and would you please forgive us. Instead we turn around and take the knife out of your hand. Even though the whole world, insanely, condemns us for it.
Cole could imagine the way this was getting covered by the media in the rest of the world. Oh, tragic that the President was dead. Official condolences. Somber faces. But they'd be dancing in the streets in Paris and Berlin, not to mention Moscow and Beijing. After all, those were the places where America was blamed for all the trouble in the world. What a laugh -- capitals that had once tried to conquer vast empires, damning America for behaving far better than they did when they were in the ascendancy.
"You look pissed off," said Malich.
"Yeah," said Cole. "The terrorists are crazy and scary, but what really pisses me off is knowing that this will make a whole bunch of European intellectuals very happy."
That's really what this book is like. It'd be far more interesting to read a liberal's perspective on this dystopia - "the Colmes Diares," or something, wherein the liberal licks his chops at memories of the Organization marching white evangelicals into detention zones. I could point out that this kind of fantasizing is what conservatives (including me) used to accuse liberals of doing with The West Wing, but the peerless Roy Edroso's already covered that base.
I muddled through some similar attempts to convey the seriousness of our Current Struggle through sci-fi back in September.
different ed|11.30.06 @ 1:11PM|#
There were girls who were impressed by someone reading Ender's Game?
Brian|11.30.06 @ 1:11PM|#
Looks like something copied off a C-List warblog. There's less stilted dialog in four-hour North Korean state operas about the Five Year Plan to increase tractor production.
|11.30.06 @ 1:13PM|#
I haven't read "Ender's Game", but that kind of writing as described in the excerpt reminds me more a book written by Ann Coulter than a serious writer. Trite and thoughtless prose.
D.A. Ridgely|11.30.06 @ 1:16PM|#
There were girls who were impressed by someone reading
Ender's Game?
The better question is what sort of guy would ever attempt to
impress such girls.
"Ender's Game" was a so-so sci-fi novel that came out during a
period when just about everything else was even worse. Card's work
since then? Bleech!
I haven't read "Empire," but let me guess: a plucky band of Mormons
save the day at the very end.
|11.30.06 @ 1:16PM|#
Different Ed,
Very few of the datable girls at my school would have been
impressed at my knowledge of any book, let alone a sci-fi one.
Something to do with socialization as opposed to isolation.
|11.30.06 @ 1:17PM|#
My question is, do the saviors of the US burn Hollywood to the ground in the book?
|11.30.06 @ 1:23PM|#
If it came down to a blue states vs red states war, who's side would most libertarians be on? A few decades ago, I would have said red, now I'd say blue.
|11.30.06 @ 1:24PM|#
There's less stilted dialog in four-hour North Korean state
operas about the Five Year Plan to increase tractor
production.
Brian, I'm going to be laughing about this all day long. That's the
best analogy I've read in weeks.
|11.30.06 @ 1:24PM|#
I liked Ender's Game.
I'm disappointed to hear about Card's descent into yet more banal
Lib/Con stupidity.
I alway's liked that he seemed to march to his own drummer.
Democrat, conservative, pro-gun control, anti-free market, mormon,
complicated views of homosexuality and such.
Needless to say, I already agreed very little with his politics but
they were complicated enough that at least I always thought he was
thinking for himself.
Poof! What a wanker.
|11.30.06 @ 1:25PM|#
A general comment about sci-fi books in general. They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but some of the cartoonish cover art on sci-fi and fantasy are practically repellant which really pushes me away from even opening the cover. To me, the better the cover art, the more valuable the publisher sees his writer, which is possibly a reflection on how good the author is. Does anyone else feel that way?
|11.30.06 @ 1:26PM|#
"But like most people, I only read it to impress a girl"
I wish that were the case. I think I could have gotten laid alot
sooner if I put down the likes of Ender's game, and Dune for
something along the lines of Cats Cradle at an earlier date. Which,
when I did ultimately wound up resulting in coitus.
|11.30.06 @ 1:28PM|#
I seem to remember co-ed living facilities in Ender's game with
naked tween boys and girls running around. And in a sequel a good
secular man comes and delivers all the ignorant catholics from
their dirty, sexually repressed, drunken lives.
I liked Ender's Game by the way....and not because of the pedophile
innuendo. All the sequels sucked though.
Anyway if you want to read a sci-fi book from the far left I
suggest "Oryx and Crake" I think it would make good ol' revolution
biology libertarians vomit uncontrollably.
Jeff P|11.30.06 @ 1:30PM|#
Read Ender's Game and hated it. Never touched Card again.
Yes, it is quite popular with girls. It has been on many high
school elective reading lists for a while.
His over the top chest-thumping columns and articles over the last
few years have been close to embarrassing, on par with John Norman
preaching about how much the Gor series has done for popular
SF.
In a red-blue civil war, Libertarians would sell helmets to both
sides.
Stephen Macklin|11.30.06 @ 1:31PM|#
Boy when that Cole guy gets angry you'd better watch
out!!!
"Yeah," said Cole. "The terrorists are crazy and scary, but
what really pisses me off is knowing that this will make a whole
bunch of European intellectuals very happy.
I've tried but I'm not sure it would be possible to make that sound
angry, or even like human speech. It sounds like a line from a blog
post.
|11.30.06 @ 1:31PM|#
America isn't a completely decadent country yet.
Card is wrong. Actually, the US has been completely decadent for
some time now. I for one am willing to live with the fact of our
decadence. How many of us really want to live in a militarized
Sparta? The question is what to do about it. The right-wing
reaction to American decadence lately is to live in a fantasy
world, like Card, where there are still a significant number of
Americans willing to risk their lives for abstract ideals. Since
there clearly are not a significant number of such Americans we
need to design a foreign policy that plays to our current strengths
(i.e. corrupting our enemies with material goods and bribery),
rather than trying to play on our enemies' playground where 19th
century rules of honor and manliness still apply. There's nothing
inherently wrong with being soft and decadent -the Chinese have
managed to survive despite a conspicuous lack of any military
prowess for the last 1000 years or so.
|11.30.06 @ 1:31PM|#
L-I-T, I agree with you. I make it a policy never to read anything with tinfoil letters for the title, or one with a cutout top cover over a red page, so the red shows through the cutout like blood. This almost always means little plot and lots of gore. Also, anything glossy is probably bad, too.
|11.30.06 @ 1:32PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
Phillip K Dick.
|11.30.06 @ 1:32PM|#
I must have missed the episode of the West Wing where
conservatives are shown slaughtering innocent people and treating
with our enemies, and avenging liberals respond by killing
them.
Sick, eliminationist fanties like this are remarkably common among
the modern right, and the silence from so-called "mainstream"
conservatives is deafening.
damaged justice|11.30.06 @ 1:33PM|#
So, the same childish indulgence on display in the movie version of V for Vendetta; as Alan Moore put it, "a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values against a state run by neo-conservatives -- which is not what [the comic] was about."
|11.30.06 @ 1:34PM|#
1) I actually agree with the passage: "Official condolences.
Somber faces. But they'd be dancing in the streets in Paris and
Berlin, not to mention Moscow and Beijing. After all, those were
the places where America was blamed for all the trouble in the
world."
2) This kind of writing should be celebrated. In fact, with this
type of control of the English language he should start a religion.
Oh, wait, there is already a religion founded by a failed science
fiction writer.
|11.30.06 @ 1:34PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
Harlan Ellison. Richard Matheson
|11.30.06 @ 1:34PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
Stanislaw Lem
|11.30.06 @ 1:36PM|#
MarsNeedsWomen:
If it came down to a blue states vs red states war, who's side
would most libertarians be on? A few decades ago, I would have said
red, now I'd say blue.
Who's side are we on? We're on the side of the demons, cheif. We're
evil men in the gardens of paradise. Sent by the forces of death to
spread devistation and destruction wherever we go.
I'm suprised you didn't know that.
Bonsu points if you know the reference.
|11.30.06 @ 1:36PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
David Brin
R C Dean|11.30.06 @ 1:39PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
Off the top of my head:
Iain Banks
A. A. Attanasio
Charles Stross
Stephen Brust
Tim Powers
Steven Erikson
Sick, eliminationist fanties like this are remarkably common
among the modern right,
The modern left having no need to fantasize, having more than
enough real-life examples of extermination campaigns helmed by
Marxists and other fellow-travellers to satisfy their
bloodlust.
|11.30.06 @ 1:39PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
Douglas Adams
|11.30.06 @ 1:40PM|#
Will,
Besides the classics, Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, I like
-Tad Williams (atleast his Otherworld 4 book thing, what is that, a
qaudrology?)
-Harry Turtledove, but alternative history wears thin after a while
and the plot is fairly simplistic.
Honestly, I'm more of a fantasy fan than sci-fi. There are many
more good fantasy writers than sci-fi writers I've found.
However, one of the most interesting books out there is Clarke's
"In Light of Other Days". It is complex and thought provoking,
along with being easily readable. Clarke is simply one of the best
damn writers of sci-fi, period.
grylliade|11.30.06 @ 1:40PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
Neal Stephenson.
|11.30.06 @ 1:42PM|#
I love Card's work. Period. Ender's Game was a work of brilliance and the rest of the series have spawned hours of discussion and contemplation among all of my friends. I don't plan on reading Empire, however. Is there any doubt how a war between left and right would end? Let me just say, when political civil war breaks out in the U.S. I want to be on the side with all the guns ...
|11.30.06 @ 1:42PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
It's funny - 20-40 years ago there were great scifi writers and all
the dramatic film and TV sci fi was dreck. It seems like the wheel
has made a complete revolution - Battlestar Galactica and Firefly
are far more compelling than any of the sci-fi I've read lately and
you could certainly make a case for Babylon 5 and Stargate being as
good as most books out there.
|11.30.06 @ 1:43PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
Stephen Colbert
|11.30.06 @ 1:44PM|#
The modern left having no need to fantasize, having more
than enough real-life examples of extermination campaigns helmed by
Marxists
God...not more silliness equating liberals with Marxist Kmer
Rouge-types. And not more garbage about how Commies were worse than
Fascists because they killed more people.
Once you've offed more than a million people you're an arch-evil
S.O.B. (as opposed to the merely evil S.O.B. whose scores are
between 1 and 1 million souls) and from where I'm sitting there's
just as many death dealers on the far right as the far left.
wingnutx|11.30.06 @ 1:46PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
William Gibson
Neal Stephenson
|11.30.06 @ 1:47PM|#
RC Dean,
"The modern left having no need to fantasize, having more than
enough real-life examples of extermination campaigns helmed by
Marxists and other fellow-travellers to satisfy their
bloodlust."
In order to find something comparable to what is commonly written
by Republicans in good standing who are often asked to appear in
major media outlets, you have to hearken back to a foreign
dictatorship that no contemporary liberal has a good word
for.
Pretty telling how your attempt at a parallel falls apart.
|11.30.06 @ 1:47PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
Jonathan Lethem is not a purely sci-fi writer, but _Girl in
Landscape_ is a sci-fi book. Anything by Iain Banks is also
recommended.
|11.30.06 @ 1:48PM|#
Someone told me that Ender's Game was really good and that I should read it. Damn, I wish I could get those hours of my life back...
|11.30.06 @ 1:48PM|#
"I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging. Any
suggestions?"
-L. Ron Hubbard
|11.30.06 @ 1:49PM|#
According to Wired, the book is part of a larger franchise that
will include video games:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,72093-0.html
|11.30.06 @ 1:50PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
Heinlein. If you haven't read it yet, start with "The Moon is a
Harsh Mistress"
|11.30.06 @ 1:51PM|#
Ken MacLeod is a good SciFi author. His book "The Stone Canal"
should appeal to libertarians -- better than the stuff than L. Neil
Smith writes anyway.
And going back to the classics, Heinlein is a must read.
|11.30.06 @ 1:52PM|#
joe,
I think we basically see the rightward tilt in popular literature
nowadays. The far left would find it hard to publish a manifesto
that would be noticed among all of the center left literature.
Whereas the far right find it much easier to stand out among the
rather mild and somewhat intellectual centre right material (ever
read a book on economic theory, it can make brain cells kill
themselves).
|11.30.06 @ 1:52PM|#
The modern left having no need to fantasize, having more
than enough real-life examples of extermination campaigns helmed by
Marxists and other fellow-travellers to satisfy their
bloodlust.
A great example of how caricature has come to dominate political
discourse. If you don't have something intelligent to say, then
please, set an example for others by remaining silent.
wingnutx|11.30.06 @ 1:53PM|#
Heinlein (like everyone) has his hits and misses.
His hits are fucking fantastic.
TANSTAAFL
|11.30.06 @ 1:53PM|#
It was Col. Tigh on BSG, Grizzly.
I tried to read Ender's Game, but I just couldn't get into it. It
must have been the fact that all Ender was doing was playing Lazer
Tag all day and messing around with computer generated giant's
corpses. I gave up on card entirely when his Church of Mormon
("Joseph Smith was a prophet, Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb...")
inspired delusions prompted him to spit on gays and science.
I myself have toyed with the notion of writing a Red Vs. Blue Civil
War novel where the libertarians throw up their hands, move to
Alaska and declare themselves independent from the now dead United
States hoping the two sides wipe the other out and leave them alone
once and for all.
Sadly the novels end with a news announcement stating that the
newly formed Red and Blue nations have set aside their differences
to conduct an joint military action against the secularist,
capitalist, pro-gay, pro-gun, pro-drug Alaskan Free State which
which doesn't have a modern military machine of its own.
Bleak, I know. But that's that's just me all other.
|11.30.06 @ 1:56PM|#
L-I-T,
If a far left author published a book celebrating exterminationist
fantasies surrounding a band of bold left-liberals who use violence
against conservatives, it would be denounced across the political
spectrun, including by very liberal liberals.
It just isn't the same for far-right fantasies of violence -
they're a-ok with conservatives. Liberals, after all, need to be
physically intimidated.
|11.30.06 @ 1:56PM|#
Oh come on! There's a link to a one of the most blatant
libertarian sci-fi novels (turned graphic novel in this case) right
on the right hand and no one here has mentioned it?
Or has L. Neil Smith become too kooky for most Reason reader's
tastes?
|11.30.06 @ 1:58PM|#
Akira,
Screw Alaska, let's take Northern California/Oregon/ Washington.
Better weather. We will have the western states as buffers and
southern California will essentially be Mexico by then, so we will
have good trade relations with Canada and Mexico.
wingnutx|11.30.06 @ 1:59PM|#
If a far left author published a book celebrating
exterminationist fantasies
Read some Stewart Home.
Granted, he's not an American author.
|11.30.06 @ 2:01PM|#
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?
Vernor Vinge
|11.30.06 @ 2:01PM|#
Joe, have you actually read the book? I think you're mischaracterizing it. At least, judging by book reviews it doesn't appear to be "celebrating extermanationist fantasies." I think you're burning down a straw man here ...
|11.30.06 @ 2:01PM|#
Joe,
I don't think a liberal exterminationist book would be so much
condemned as it would be ignored. Just like we ignore people who
put tinfoil on their heads to keep out CIA brainwaves.
Unfortunately with the far right, we gave them their very own TV
channel and radio shows and people worry that there's enough of
them to matter. And they're entertaining is a car wreck sorta
way.
|11.30.06 @ 2:03PM|#
According the conservative writer Jacques Barzun: "Decadence is
the point at which reform is no longer possible." It has nothing to
do with killing people, but rather the point at which the
accumulated weight of vested interests and sclerotic political and
cultural mechanisms conspire to prevent a society from adapting to
circumstances.
The Iraq War, allegedly the most important campaign of the War On
Terror, soon dissolved into an inept feeding frenzy of corrupt,
politically-connected contractors. The US Comptroller and hundreds
of economists, businessmen, and actuaries agree that the
government's accumulating liabilities are propelling it towards an
Argentina-style currency meltdown. Decadence differs from
incompetence only in that everyone can see there's a problem, but
no one is willing to do anything about it. Martial spirit is
irrelevent to the process.
As for gleeful European intellectuals, that's not how I remember
it. I remember the Swedish Prime Minister giving an interview in
which he flatly declared that "We are all Americans now." I doubt
they still hold that sentiment, but that's not because they're
happy about 9/11. Beijing? Our biggest trading partner? Were they
pleased with the recession that followed the incident? Not likely.
Card's claim is, for all his chest-thumping, nothing more than a
whiny, self-pitying sulk, quite common amongst the rugged
individualists that inhabit that particular ring of fringe
culture.
|11.30.06 @ 2:04PM|#
I must have missed the episode of the West Wing where
conservatives are shown slaughtering innocent people and treating
with our enemies, and avenging liberals respond by killing
them.
I do recall Tolbi saying that we should fly an American flag over
mecca and that the Muslim world will like us after we win....then
there is that whole assassination thing that Bartlet approved.
|11.30.06 @ 2:07PM|#
Who's side are we on? We're on the side of the demons,
cheif. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise. Sent by the
forces of death to spread devistation and destruction wherever we
go.
I'm suprised you didn't know that.
You know that whole 4-5 episode arc really endeared me to the
coronal.
James|11.30.06 @ 2:08PM|#
LIT-
That was the exact scenario I developed earlier this decade when we
were all dazzled with the idea of seceding out in California (That
was before we discovered we lacked an ability to govern
ourselves).
|11.30.06 @ 2:17PM|#
"As for gleeful European intellectuals, that's not how I
remember it. I remember the Swedish Prime Minister giving an
interview in which he flatly declared that "We are all Americans
now." I doubt they still hold that sentiment, but that's not
because they're happy about 9/11. Beijing? Our biggest trading
partner? Were they pleased with the recession that followed the
incident? Not likely. Card's claim is, for all his chest-thumping,
nothing more than a whiny, self-pitying sulk, quite common amongst
the rugged individualists that inhabit that particular ring of
fringe culture."
I think China and a lot of countries would cut off their own noses
to spite America. Think about North Korea. A second Korean war
would destroy the South Korean economy, put the world into a
recession and put God knows how many millions of Chinese out of
work. In addition, the continued belligerence of North Korea is
creating an increasingly aggressive and eventually probably nuclear
Japan. Japan is China's historic enemy. A return of Japanese
militarism would be a disaster for the Chinese. Yet, China
continues to support the North Koreans and hamstring all
international efforts to control them. It is outright lunacy. All
things being equal, it is the Chinese who ought to toppling Kim,
not the U.S. The same is true with Russia. Iran is Russia's
historic enemy and rogue Iranian nuke is more likely to end up in
the hands of Chechen radicals as it is anywhere else. Yet, the
Russians continue to do everything they can to let Iran build
nukes. The only explanation I can see for this is the desire to
stick it to the US at all costs.
|11.30.06 @ 2:19PM|#
Drat...the parvenu Andrew is about again!
Joe, there are LOTS of liberal paranoid fantasies circulating in
the field of Sci-Fi/ Techno-Thrillers.
Eclipse by John Shirley, or Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
are fairly representative of the species.
And that's just the part that is KNOWN to be fiction. The discount
table of B&N or Borders spills over with last year's
best-sellers on how the US is but a step away from the Theocracy to
be imposed by Karl Rove and the Evangelicals...and how we must all
be prepared to act when the come first for the Jews, next for the
Trade Unionists...and so on, through the entire, over-used
Niemoller quotation.
At least conservatives know Ferrigno's book is a novel. The ugly
fantasies featured at Borders - and unmistakebly geared for a
Blue-State audience - are taken for real by the liberals who buy
them, then recycled through their blogs, and Air America.
|11.30.06 @ 2:21PM|#
I could never get in to an Orson Scott Card book, so I can't
comment on this one.
However, I have noticed that most science fiction nowadays is
little more than a thinly disguised allegory intended to convey a
"message."
Give me a Heinlein or Anderson book, about people trying to make
there way through a situation. Heinlein would take a premise, and
then try to see how people would live in that situation. Sometimes
it was revolution: "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", sometimes it was
working within the system: "Double Star". Look at the ideas that
Heinlein explored:
1) Anarcho-Capitalism: "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"
2) Social Credit & voluntary eugenics: "Beyond this
Horizon"
3) Roman Republic: "Starship Troopers"
4) liberal Republic: "Methuselah's Children"
5) Theocracy: "Revolt in 2100"
6) Fascism: "Between Planets"
7) Constitutional Monarchy: "Double Star"
I can't recall him exploring a functioning Marxist society, but if
he had, it would have been much better than the trite treatments
I've seen in either the utopic or dystopic books I've read.
Anderson's "Flandry" novels were the best exploration of a decadent
Empire anywhere.
|11.30.06 @ 2:25PM|#
Another book for the reading list: A Canticle for
Liebowitz
And, of course, everything by PKD
wingnutx|11.30.06 @ 2:25PM|#
I'm halfway through "Ecotopia", which is about the pacific
northwest seceding and building, well, building just what the title
would lead you to believe.
It got 5 stars from the NYT back when it was first published.
It's not very good, which is why I've been halfway thorugh it for
the past year. I pick it up periodically to see if the next layer
of cheese is any more ridiculous than the last one.
|11.30.06 @ 2:27PM|#
Wow. Reading the excerpts, either Card's writing has gone to
Hell or he dashed this off in one draft under an absurd
deadline. Or both. The exposition is just kinda serviceable (aside
from the paragraphs apparently looted from someone's 2002 blog
posts), but the dialogue clunks horrifically.
As to whether this constitutes "extermanationist [sic] fantasies",
couldn't say. One of the excerpts has a liberal professor concerned
about the possibility of someone starting a Blue/Red civil war and
who wants to recruit the protagonist into some conspiracy to
prevent that, but there could be some double-crosses along
the way.
As dismayed as I've been with Card's political weirdness the last
ten years or so (especially his coming out against the eeevils of
homosexuality years after writing a number of quite sympathetic gay
characters), I feel the need to hold off on assuming this is some
frothing politic fantasy about killing off the liberals, as opposed
to a phoned-in techno-thriller meant for a videogame license, until
at least someone here reads the thing.
|11.30.06 @ 2:33PM|#
P Brooks,
I've read that one. Wonderful book, a colorful, if sad commentary
on humankind, a kind of Vonnegut without all the anger and razor
edged sarcasm.
D.A. Ridgely|11.30.06 @ 2:39PM|#
Liberals, after all, need to be physically
intimidated.
Well, since reason is to no avail...
(P.S. -- that's a joke, joe.)
|11.30.06 @ 2:42PM|#
Thanks for the suggestions. Some of them I've read already, but
of those mentioned above, which writers really a have an ear for
dialogue? I've come to have practically zero tolerance for fiction
in which the dialogue between characters isn't really, really,
good, and by that I mean avoiding the stilted conversations which
are typical in so much fiction, but also the overstylized,
Mamet-like, sort of nonsense which some writers aspire to.
Of course, since the plots are usually not in our present world, or
a past world which is known, the demands of writing dialogue are
somewhat different, but who would be considered outstanding in this
regard?
Rhywun|11.30.06 @ 3:03PM|#
I stopped reading Card when I realized the series I was in (not
Ender, a newer one) was a thinly-disguised retelling of Mormon
theology.
suggestions?
Octavia Butler
Ursula K. LeGuin
Robert Sawyer
Robert Silverberg
Dan Simmons
I think Octavia Butler's dialogue is pretty good - I really like
her prose.
|11.30.06 @ 3:07PM|#
The Grand Master changed my life.
"I always get the shakes before a drop."
"Grokk"
"TANSTAAFL"
"Requiem" He is the reason I started learning Latin.
|11.30.06 @ 3:12PM|#
"If it can't be expressed in figures, it's opionion." -Lazarus
Long
RAH RAH RAH
|11.30.06 @ 3:22PM|#
I'll put in a vote for Vernor Vinge's writing, incidentally, since nobody had mentioned him yet.
|11.30.06 @ 3:24PM|#
Will Allen,
Put me down as another vote for Philip K Dick. Read his later
works. VALIS trilogy and Flow My Tears, the Policeman
Said.
|11.30.06 @ 3:24PM|#
How about this idea for a novel. A terrorist group supported by the Iranians and the Chinese manage to get a nuclear weapon onboard a Chinese satellite. The satellite explodes over North America and acts as an electronic pulse attack and disables piece of electronics in the country. Every automobile and truck in America won't start. There is no phone service, no television, no power supply, nothing. The country completely breaks down. The Chinese and Russians then send "peace keeping" troupes in to assist the U.S. under the auspices of a U.N. Security Council, which is now meeting in Europe sans the U.S., resolution and occupies the country. The U.S. is powerless to stop them. After a short while, the U.S. divides among those who collaborate with and welcome the occupiers as needed help and also a way to impose a more sophisticated form of government on all of the yokels. Yes, the Chinese are here to take away your guns for your own safety. A Vichy type state is installed in the U.S. and an insurgency breaks out between the collaborators and those who took to the hills and rebelled. Sound interesting?
|11.30.06 @ 3:26PM|#
Robert Silverberg
I'll heartily second that. Similarly, Roger Zelazny's stuff is
good, though a lot of his best short work was in the 70s and might
come across as dated.
Hell, Card's short work in the 80s was excellent. These
excerpts dismay me.
|11.30.06 @ 3:31PM|#
JkP,
I didn't watch that. I thought that was when the soviets actually
won the war and took over. This would be a bit more subtle than
that. The U.S. is disabled and welcomes international occupation
and then turns on itself. Perhaps that is Amerika, I don't know
since I didn't watch it.
|11.30.06 @ 3:43PM|#
JKP,
I just pulled it out of my ass in about 30 seconds and frankly it
sounds just as interesting as this guy's book, which makes me
wonder about Card.
Larry A|11.30.06 @ 3:56PM|#
A terrorist group supported by the Iranians and the Chinese
manage to get a nuclear weapon onboard a Chinese satellite. The
satellite explodes over North America and acts as an electronic
pulse attack and disables piece of electronics in the
country.
Firearms aren't electronic.
Joe: I must have missed the episode of the West Wing where
conservatives are shown slaughtering innocent people and treating
with our enemies, and avenging liberals respond by killing
them.
There's a hitch when it comes to writing the blue state version of
this genre. If the blue states did seize dictatorial control of
government, I can see red state folks saying, "Okay, get the guns,
dust off the Declaration, it's time to take the law back into our
own hands.
If red states seize dictatorial power, I can only see the blue
state folks standing around, wringing their hands, and saying, "The
government ought to do something! Oh, wait..."
The definitive libertarian end-of-civilization novel is Fallen
Angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn.
Hilariously profound.
|11.30.06 @ 3:58PM|#
In "Amerika" the godless commies exploded several H-bombs above
the USA. The EMP knocked out communications, forcing a surrender. A
UN peacekeeping force (more or less controlled by the Russkies)
occupies the country to restory order in the chaos that follows.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_%28TV_miniseries%29
Amerika was an oldie but a ... well, not really a goodie.
Right-wing response to "The Day After". One of those Cold War
things, I suppose.
|11.30.06 @ 3:59PM|#
Firearms aren't electronic.
No, but all of the gee whiz weaponry the military has certainly is.
M16s yes, M1A1s and F18s, no. Further, you local grocery store has
about two days supply of food on hand. An EPC attack would be a
diaster. It is really hard to imagine how quickly order and
standard of living would deteriorate under those conditions. Yes,
everyone would have their hunting rifles and shotguns, but we
wouldn't have a much of a military anymore. The military is
terrified of these kinds of attacks and really hasn't come up with
a good sollution to defending against one.
|11.30.06 @ 4:00PM|#
JKP,
Wow, I did not know that. It doesn't sound like much of a goodie to
me either, but really neither does this Card book, which was kind
of my point.
|11.30.06 @ 4:04PM|#
Ursula K. LeGuin is worth a look, especially The Dispossessed.
It's about the flaws of an anarchist society as imagined by someone
who favors anarchy.
Amerika -- The Soviets disable American defenses by means of an
"electromagnetic pulse," then take over in a short, sharp military
operation. The series takes place about 10 or 20 years down the
road, when the US has been organized into soviets and a resistance
movement is gathering force. It was a botch of a series but had
some fascinating bits -- a visit with the figurehead president of
the US, who explains about living life with triple and quadruple
deceptions; a hospital administrator watching for signs of a power
struggle in the party.
Oscar|11.30.06 @ 4:12PM|#
i use to really like Card's ender series, then I read everything that came after Ender's Game
|11.30.06 @ 4:13PM|#
Andrew the Venerable,
My point wasn't about paranoid fantasies; you are correct, they are
found all over the spectrum. My point was about bloody,
exterminationist revenge fantasies. The women didn't rise up and
assassinate anybody in the Handmaid's Tale. None of those Borders'
books talks about killing conservatives, that I've seen. On the
other hand, fantasies about killing a certain segment of their
fellow Americans - or God killing them, or some other implausible
plot device to make killing them in large numbers seem acceptable
or even fun - has become a cottage industry on the right.
|11.30.06 @ 4:16PM|#
Card has always struck me as a regressive authoritarian - you
know the kind that used to sterilize certain minorities because
they wouldn't want them breeding more of their kind.
Now after doing some background reading, I see that I'm not far
from the mark.
Lazlo|11.30.06 @ 4:27PM|#
Card's best work is still his short fiction, which showed up often in Omni. Some of it was seriously perverse (as is his longstanding insistence that he's really a Democrat). I enjoyed Ender's Game but lost interest once he decided the world needed to be told -- repeatedly -- how horrible the homos are.
Nobody Important|11.30.06 @ 4:40PM|#
Will Allen | November 30, 2006, 1:30pm
I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging. Any suggestions?
The stuff James P. Hogan
wrote during the 1970s and 1980s. Small-l libertarianism was a
common theme.
|11.30.06 @ 4:46PM|#
I'm not a huge Card fan, but I have enjoyed the Tales of
Alvin Maker series. Is that the one you eventually bounced
off, Rhywun? I thought the last one got a bit Mormony. Since it's
fantasy not stf, it fits a bit better, as I can just read it as
background mythology.
Vinge? Check. Stirling? Check. Stephenson? Check. I've even got a
current "favorite pinko" SF writer, Eric Flint, in addition to my
old one, John Brunner. Haven't got to McLeod yet, but people I
respect like him fine. For good, crunchy SF-with-the-rivets still
in it, I like Greg Bear. Charlie Stross is fun, too.
Kevin
wingnutx|11.30.06 @ 4:47PM|#
fantasies about killing a certain segment of their fellow
Americans - or God killing them, or some other implausible plot
device to make killing them in large numbers seem acceptable or
even fun - has become a cottage industry on the right.
Such as...?
clone12|11.30.06 @ 4:48PM|#
Look on the bright side, instead of a rightwing revenge fantasy,
Card could be writing "Ender's Dog Spot", the retelling of the same
story through a canine's perspective.
Now we wouldn't want that, would we?
damaged justice|11.30.06 @ 4:53PM|#
"I stopped reading Card when I realized the series I was in (not
Ender, a newer one) was a thinly-disguised retelling of Mormon
theology."
And did you stop reading The Chronicles of Narnia when you realized
the series was a thinly-disguised retelling of Christian
theology?
|11.30.06 @ 4:57PM|#
This string has very few libertarians and very many leftist tards. Never would have quessed it. Card is a Democrat who doesn't toe the line with the Democrats usual bullshit. Must be why you all hate him.
|11.30.06 @ 5:00PM|#
Since I'm not ever going to read this shit, can somebody tell me: is it better than The Turner Diaries?
|11.30.06 @ 5:01PM|#
"And did you stop reading The Chronicles of Narnia when you
realized the series was a thinly-disguised retelling of Christian
theology?"
Seriously--adults read this shit?
Jesus Christ....
|11.30.06 @ 5:03PM|#
Iran is Russia's historic enemy
John,
Where did you get that idea? The real resistance to Russian
expansion over the last 300 years has always come from the West -
first Sweden in the 18th century than Great Britain in the 19th
century, then Germany in the first half of the 20th century,
finally the US (now together with Germany and Britain) in the
second half of the 20th century, and from the Russian POV the US
continues to meddle in Russian affairs. Iran does not. Russia has
never had any serious conflicts with Iran. If anything maybe
Russia's long term historic enemy is Turkey, but the Persians are
certainly no friends of the Turks. You can make a good case that
Iranian interests are more closely aligned with Russia's than with
any other major country. Which does not bode well for Russian-US
relations.
How's that for a tangent?
|11.30.06 @ 5:07PM|#
henry,
As a child, I read it, completely missed the metaphor and loved it.
Then, recently having seen it in a movie, I realized how stupid and
dogmatic it was. I practically threw up when that lion was
resurrected, such was the crudeness of the metaphor. I think I'll
stick to the richness of Tolkiens world compared with the 2
dimensionalism of Lewis's Narnia.
|11.30.06 @ 5:14PM|#
I stopped reading Ender's game when I realized it was a thinly-disguised escapism for highschool nerds. ("I might get wedgies because I'm so smart, but if I lived in the future I would be a respected SPACE CAPTAIN!")
|11.30.06 @ 5:36PM|#
I thought Ender's Game was good, the rest of the series got
progressively less entertaining.
I've been immersing myself in sci-fi this year, and the two best of
the genre were The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Heinlein and the
as-yet unmentioned The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.
Arthur Clarke is great, and I've just finished the first book of
his (with Stephen Baxter) "Time Odyssey" trilogy. Excellent work.
Stephen Baxter's The Timeships, which is an official sequel to H.
G. Wells' The Time Machine, is quite engaging too.
Nobody Important|11.30.06 @ 6:57PM|#
This was never published:
Enemy Within
A Nove of the Next Civil War
by Caspar W. Weinberger, Peter Schweizer
Hardcover
ISBN: 0895262738
Pub. Date: November 1999
Product Details
ISBN: 0895262738
ISBN-13: 9780895262738
Format: Hardcover, 380pp
Publisher: Regnery Publishing, Inc., An Eagle Publishing
Company
From the Publisher
For more than a century, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has been the
place where the United States prepares its most promising
commanders to prepare for the next crisis. Increasingly, they
anticipate a domestic role for the military. This year military
leaders conducted a hypothetical wargame called Prairie Warrior.
The scenario: a rebellion in the continental United States. From
this true beginning, best-selling authors Caspar Weinberger and
Peter Schweizer spin off the political thriller of the year.
State leaders in Idaho, Montana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas have
launched referenda in 2012 to reject widespread federal authority.
When the initiatives pass with narrow majorities, and governors
sympathetic to the movement are elected in these states, a
constitutional crisis develops. Newly elected President Morgan Boyd
must deal with a Union that appears to be dissolving. Sensing the
opportunity to make trouble, America's friends and enemies get
involved, looking for an opportunity to benefit from the domestic
political turmoil and the uncertainty in the armed forces.
This book will not only provide plenty of action, it will also
address some profoundly important questions concerning the role of
government, and warnings about the apparent trend toward a greater
domestic role for the armed forces.
|11.30.06 @ 7:29PM|#
This is an impressive array of comments...have any of you actually read the rest of Empire past what's posted online? Because the book as a whole is most definitely not a "right-wing revenge fantasy", nor is it "exterminationist", or any other such silliness.
|11.30.06 @ 8:12PM|#
Suggest reading anything by Clarke. His earlier stuff is
better--I'd say ignore anything he co-authored with anyone.
Heinlein--yeah, but ignore "A Time For Love" and everything after
unless you like a lot of sex which is pretty irrelevant to the
story. Larry Niven. Jerry Pournelle (C'mon guys, no one has
mentioned A Mote In God's Eye? Wankers!). I've loved Pournelle ever
since he said "the Shuttle has the glide ratio of a dead
cat."
Bester--fantastic.
Cordwainer Smith: anything he's written.
Also would suggest someone not very well known but very good:
Melissa Scott.
|11.30.06 @ 8:22PM|#
Aresen
I can't recall him (Heinlein) exploring a functioning Marxist
society, but if he had, it would have been much better than the
trite treatments I've seen in either the utopic or dystopic books
I've read.
I don't think he believed in Marxism. Not only that he disaproved
of it, he didn't believe in it. I seem to remember one of his
characters arguing that Marx didn't believe in it, either. ("He
didn't finish his last book. Geniuses just don't do that, I could
cite you cases." or words to that effect).
|11.30.06 @ 8:42PM|#
I think that "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad should be
required reading (particularly for libertarians).
Of course I read it 25 years ago and could be suffering from
nostalgic over-estimation of its worth...
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/norman-spinrad/iron-dream.htm
|11.30.06 @ 9:04PM|#
The real resistance to Russian expansion over the last 300
years has always come from the West
*cough*Japan*cough*
|11.30.06 @ 9:14PM|#
Bester--fantastic.
Nice to see another mention for the man who was the namesake of
Walter Koenig's character on Babylon 5. Alfred Bester was a
genius.
|11.30.06 @ 9:34PM|#
As far as Iran and Russia. The Russians have been fighting the Muslims of Central Asia for 100s of years. I can't imagine why a country at war with chechen radicals would ever want any Muslim country, much less a radical one on its doorstep, to have the bomb. It makes no sense.
|11.30.06 @ 9:39PM|#
Heinlein's quality is variable after TEFL, but I think
many here would enjoy Job: A Comedy of Justice.
Kevin
|11.30.06 @ 11:27PM|#
As far as Iran and Russia. The Russians have been fighting
the Muslims of Central Asia for 100s of years. I can't imagine why
a country at war with chechen radicals would ever want any Muslim
country, much less a radical one on its doorstep, to have the bomb.
It makes no sense.
Sounds reasonable enough.
I tend to think countries like China and Russia don't worry about
proliferation because if Iran or Pakistan hit them it would be
suicide.
Us, on the other hands, might lack the will to destroy them. We'd
counterattack, but as soon as the UN started bitching about
civillian casualties we'd stop way short of what China or Russia
would do.
There's no reason that a nuclear North Korea shouldn't be China and
South Korea's problem and a nuclear Iran shouldn't be a big problem
for Russia. But they've learned that we'll take responsibility for
every damn thing that happens in the world and due to that get
blamed for everything.
90% of our problems in foreign relations would go away if we
stopped acting like pussies and didn't try to solve things that are
no concern of ours.
|12.1.06 @ 12:08AM|#
Judging by his essays that I've seen since 9/11,
I'd say Card's politics are of the hand wringing crypto-fascist
variety
danger! danger!
quick! kill something!
|12.1.06 @ 12:17AM|#
george
I agree Heinlein did not think Marxism was workable. I've always
thought that the character of the Philosophy teacher - Mr Dubois
[?] - in "Starship Troopers" spoke with Heinlein's voice, and that
character is flatly dismissive of Marxism.
That being said, Heinlein loved to explore ideas. I think if he had
chosen to create a Marxist society as a backdrop for one of his
stories, the society would have been far more real and beleivable
than any I've seen.
|12.1.06 @ 12:32AM|#
If you think "Empire" is a right-wing "kill-all-the-dirty-liberals" fantasy, try "A State Of Disobedience by one Tom Kratman where America is run by an evil lesbian (a point the author constantly drives home as a pejorative) president who bans guns, imposes socialism, and cracks down on antiabortion protesters leading to another "American Revolution."
|12.1.06 @ 1:26AM|#
"A second Korean war would destroy the South Korean economy,
put the world into a recession and put God knows how many millions
of Chinese out of work."
Yeah, uh, the ROKA would kick the North's ass in one, maybe two
weeks. There's this thing called will to combat and the North
doesn't have it whereas we do.
Nukes, you say? The likelihood of a DPRK nuclear weapon working is
quite slim.
Unlike you, we are not afraid.
|12.1.06 @ 2:00AM|#
Kim Yung Kim
Yeah, uh, the ROKA would kick the North's ass in one, maybe two
weeks. There's this thing called will to combat and the North
doesn't have it whereas we do.
That's what the South said about the North (and vice versa) in the
American Civil War. That's what at least one side, and often both,
said before every war, "They won't fight, they don't have our
spirit." Don't kid yourself, your enemy is as brave as you are
(whoever you are).
|12.1.06 @ 2:15AM|#
"I've never found any sci-fi author consistently engaging.
Any suggestions?"
I suggest GENE WOLFE
|12.1.06 @ 3:18AM|#
Weigel is a conservative?!?
I'm not being sarcastic here...it's just that every post I've ever
read by him (at least those that I remember) seems to bash those on
the right. I skipped past the top of the post, but instantly knew
it was Weigel because of whose viewpoint he was mocking. Not saying
you have to love everybody who calls themselves a Republican to be
a conservative, but still, I was pretty shocked to see the line
"conservatives (including me)". For a while there, I'd thought
Weigel was an exchange student visiting Reasonia from Daily
Kosland.
|12.1.06 @ 5:32AM|#
I read Ender's Game years ago, and while I don't remember it
very clearly, Card certainly did predict the influence of bloggers
well before most of us were online at all.
Anybody ever read David Gerrold's "War against the Chtorr"
(spelling?) series? More importantly, does anyone know if he ever
finished it? Last time I checked, he stopped writing them just as
the story was starting to get interesting. I read them while I was
still in middle school, and always thought he was onto something
with the idea that people would carry small phones, and instead of
calling locations, you would actually be calling the individual you
wished to speak to. Imagine! It makes me feel old that I once lived
in a time where that was "futuristic".
I wish I still owned a copy of "A Rage for Revenge", a lot of the
book centered around a sort of badass self help seminar on
steroids. There was a lot about the nature of authority and it's
relationship to responsibility; also some ideas on how you deal
with people who don't recognize your authority and laws. Might be
an interesting re-read in the time of Guantanamo terrorist
camp.
Hopefully somebody has a better memory of the book than I. Alas, as
this is the billionth post in the thread, nobody will be reading
it.
|12.1.06 @ 5:55AM|#
Heinlein is a massively overrated writer. Stranger in a
Strange Land is a dreadful book.
J G Ballard is certainly worth checking out, even if only his early
novels are considered to be science fiction.
Has anyone read Ira Levin's This Perfect Day?
R C Dean|12.1.06 @ 7:03AM|#
In order to find something comparable to what is commonly
written by Republicans in good standing who are often asked to
appear in major media outlets, you have to hearken back to a
foreign dictatorship that no contemporary liberal has a good word
for.
Rather concedes my point that there have been, in recent memory,
plenty of "exterminationist" regimes headed by Marxists and other
lefties that contemporary lefties had no problem with.
I could also point out that your hard-core lefties still have nice
things to say about such paragons as the Communist governments of
China (decades into the slow motion cleansing of Tibet), the NORKs,
and even Viet Nam, still ruled by the same bunch who killed
hundreds of thousands in the name of their leftist ideology. In
fact, I rarely hear your more garden variety liberals have a harsh
word for any of the three, and I seem to recall the last bunch of
liberals to hold power actually collaborating in the advancement of
nuclear power in NORK and missile technology in Red China.
So yeah, I feel pretty comfortable asserting that contemporary
liberals have a blind spot when it comes to mass murderers on the
left.
|12.1.06 @ 8:35AM|#
I really liked 'Enders Game', I also like the story of Bean. Was
that soo wrong? Do I really have that bad taste?
Godamned server squiresl. I thought y'all had fixed that
problem.
And no I don't want to preview my comment, I'll just assume I
spelled everything right, and that I coherently typed my
thoughts.
|12.1.06 @ 8:53AM|#
"It'd be far more interesting to read a liberal's perspective on
this dystopia ... I could point out that this kind of fantasizing
is what conservatives (including me) used to accuse liberals of
doing with The West Wing, but the peerless Roy Edroso's already
covered that base."
On that note, I'd recommend Sherri Tepper's "The Fresco" - it's
basically an aliens-land-on-Earth-and-change-Society
wish-fulfillment fantasy novel. Samples: chronic alcohol abusers
are rendered unable to drink, the police are given
probable-cause-o-meters, traditional women-abusing Afghani males
are cursed with wives who appear (to them) ugly [the men are
magically prevented from hitting their ugly women], Jerusalem is
removed from this plane of existence until the warring parties can
come to a peaceful coexistence, &c. Great fun (though nobody
will agree 100% with Tepper's perspectives).
|12.1.06 @ 9:08AM|#
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Gene Wolfe. (Or maybe someone has; I didn't have time to read every post.)
|12.1.06 @ 9:32AM|#
This string has very few libertarians and very many leftist
tards. Never would have quessed it. Card is a Democrat who doesn't
toe the line with the Democrats usual bullshit. Must be why you all
hate him.
Thanks for clearing that one up...and I thought it was because he
just published a poorly written book with a lame premise...oh, and
he's an anti-freemarket, anti-NRA homophobe who supports tha
Patriot Act.
|12.1.06 @ 9:42AM|#
John,
The Russians realize that the Chechens are radical because they are
Chechens, the fact that they are muslims is a side note, and they
are supported by the Saudis not the Iranians. Remember that
Iranians are Shiites and the only radical muslims that cause
problems in Russia are Sunnis. Also Russia has had a large muslim
population for the past 300 years, they aren't as paranoid about
muslims as people in the West. And finally in the minds of the
Russian elite, unfortunately, the US is still the real enemy (even
though you can argue that China now poses a much greater long term
threat to Russian interests than the West), and a number of people
in Russia would be perfectly happy to see Iran have the bomb if it
would piss of the US.
|12.1.06 @ 10:31AM|#
"Ender's Game" was a so-so sci-fi novel that came out during
a period when just about everything else was even worse.
Yeah, but the short story it was based on was fantastic. It focuses
entirely on the Battle School section, plays up the violence and
provides no explanation whatsoever for why these kids are being
trained to kill. Extremely creepy.
Don't kid yourself, your enemy is as brave as you are (whoever
you are).
They're also practically starving to death. Hard to fight when
you're hungry and only have whatever weapons you can scrounge from
the farming equipment at the local collective.
|12.1.06 @ 10:42AM|#
I will only point out to the fantasists who think that the DPRK
is powerful ...
The ROK has more people, more money, better weapons and a much
better society to defend. Our conscripts have much more to fight
for than the North's.
The only way we are like the South in your Civil War is that, yes,
we do have greater spirit than our enemies. Not because we are
different but because we have something better to fight for.
Combine that with the fact that there is zero chance of the ROK
conducting an offensive war - we're not planning to drive North
unless attacked.
To combine material and moral advantage is to ensure victory.
To paraphrase a Thai, "South Korea is not a domino."
Rhywun|12.1.06 @ 10:58AM|#
Clark's "The City and the Stars" is probably my favorite SF book
of all time. It just entranced me as a kid and it still holds
up.
I have enjoyed the Tales of Alvin Maker series. Is that the one
you eventually bounced off, Rhywun?
That's the one. And it's too bad cuz I rather enjoyed the first
book.
And did you stop reading The Chronicles of Narnia when you
realized the series was a thinly-disguised retelling of Christian
theology?
I never read any of it. But considering that I'm not a Christian
and have no desire to be preached at, I'm not likely to read
it.
|12.1.06 @ 11:21AM|#
Thank you, Kim Yung Kim, for making points about the DPRK that I
have often thought but never expressed.
The DPRK has a numerous army, but it is poorly equipped and built
on the Soviet Model.
I think in an initial attack, the DPRK might inflict some horrific
casualties - I am not so sanguine about their nukes - but they
would be driven back very quickly.
I do not have any idea whether the DPRK would implode following a
failed attack, but I would not be surprised.
Sincerely, for your sake, I hope my thinking on this matter never
gets tested in the real world.
|12.1.06 @ 11:53AM|#
yeah funny thing about the Korea conflict. The math I did
matches what you two were saying, but on the intel books last time
I looked, they had the North winning in less than a week. I wonder
why.
There is a bunch that I think the two of you aren't aware of. But
still.
|12.1.06 @ 12:19PM|#
Mr. Kwais,
Your intel also told you how powerful the Soviet Army and economy
were and about the fighting prowess of the Republican Guard.
Think of these questions. Of all the artillery the DPRK has when
were the recoil mechanisms last checked? How will Type 69 tanks
perform against K-1s? How will DPRK riflemen perform under fire?
There are many similar questions you can ask and not get a
satisfactory answer from intel.
Intel has a strong bias toward exaggerating the strength of the
enemy. If you want to keep USFK there has to be a "need" for it,
therefore the DPRK must be a fearsome military power.
Yours,
KYK
|12.1.06 @ 12:21PM|#
kwais
If you have links to the books, I'd be interested.
However, that sounds suspiciously like the Cold War Era projections
that had the Soviet Army at the channel in 3 weeks. It was based on
the assumption that every Soviet Division was fully up to strength,
fully equipped, competently commanded, properly trained and that
the Soviets were able to obtain 100% surprise. Plus the Warsaw Pact
countries would be fully committed and cooperative.
In reality, many Soviet Divisions were "castrated" divisions [the
Russian term], morale was disasterous, the equipment was antiquated
and poorly maintained, and the command was excreable. As to how
they were going to maintain surprise in the presense of spy
satellites able to track mobilizations, no one could say.
|12.1.06 @ 12:29PM|#
I stopped reading Ender's game when I realized it was a
thinly-disguised escapism for highschool nerds. ("I might get
wedgies because I'm so smart, but if I lived in the future I would
be a respected SPACE CAPTAIN!")
Wow, way to identify yourself as an idiot to anyone who actually
read past the first chapter.
|12.1.06 @ 1:16PM|#
...thinly-disguised escapism for highschool
nerds.
Now why would a bright teenager prone to being given wedgies by
bigger, dumber teenagers - but blessed with intellect and
imagination - want to escape high school?
|12.1.06 @ 1:32PM|#
"90% of our problems in foreign relations would go away if we
stopped acting like pussies and didn't try to solve things that are
no concern of ours."
Exactly. I would add that if we stopped trying to solve things that
are not our concern we would look a lot less like pussies because
we would stop entering situations where our only significant
interest is not looking like pussies.
|12.1.06 @ 2:16PM|#
R C Dean,
Tim Powers is one of my favorite authors, but I don't know if I'd
call any of his novels science fiction (save perhaps for
Rust, but good luck finding that one). I'd characterise
them as very artfully-written fantasy, or even more thinly as
alternate-history.
|12.1.06 @ 2:16PM|#
80% of life is just showing up Woody Allen
The other 20% is not looking like a pussy Madpad
|12.1.06 @ 3:27PM|#
"David Weigel, did you actually read the Turner Diaries?"
--Actually, I'm kind of wondering if he actually read Card's
"Empire"....
|12.1.06 @ 3:30PM|#
I like Asimov, even his weaker stories. Heinlein has some great
stuff, but he was also a little weird. And he had an awfully strong
authoritarian streak for a libertarian. At least, I think so.
Ender's Game isn't bad, but I haven't been able to digest
much more Card than that. Of more recent authors, I think I've
liked Dan Simmons' Hyperion series the best.
R C Dean|12.1.06 @ 3:34PM|#
Tim Powers is one of my favorite authors, but I don't know
if I'd call any of his novels science fiction
Me neither, probably, but I gave up long ago trying to keep
alt-history, fantasy, and sci-fi in separate boxes.
|12.1.06 @ 3:36PM|#
"The women didn't rise up and assassinate anybody in the
Handmaid's Tale." - joe
Nah, it just advocates eugenics to "cure" the male side of the
species by replacing it with a psychic metrosexual eunuch species
and setting up a society intended to force the men who live in the
Barracks to periodically wipe one another out.
"On the other hand, fantasies about killing a certain segment of
their fellow Americans - or God killing them, or some other
implausible plot device to make killing them in large numbers seem
acceptable or even fun - has become a cottage industry on the
right." - joe
Maybe if you are talking about that moronic Left Behind series
crap. But that's just a modern spin on the bloody nonsense in the
Bible. Che Guevara, on the other hand, wrote charmingly bad advice
on how to conduct guerilla warfare and spoke of how it was
necessary to kill one's countrymen for the greater good. I'd say
neither the right nor the left has a monopoly on genocidal
fantasies - but the left certainly has the lead in implementing
them over the past 100 years or so...
"God...not more silliness equating liberals with Marxist Kmer
Rouge-types. And not more garbage about how Commies were worse than
Fascists because they killed more people.
Once you've offed more than a million people you're an arch-evil
S.O.B. (as opposed to the merely evil S.O.B. whose scores are
between 1 and 1 million souls) and from where I'm sitting there's
just as many death dealers on the far right as the far left." -
madpad
No doubt. But anyone who defends one side by pointing at the other
is a hypocrite at best. A pox on both houses, etcetcetc.
Also, IMHO, Card misses frequently, true, but some of his stuff is
great.
Heinlein and Asimov are also damn good authors, certainly better
than Tepper. But for some reason Tepper gets assigned as college
reading material while Heinlein, Card and Asimov rarely do. Wonder
why that is?
|12.1.06 @ 4:11PM|#
No one's mentioned Larry Niven?
His early Known Space series and his collaborations are the best,
escpecially with Pournelle. "Footfall" has an incredible last 1/3
that you can't put down.
The recent Man-Kzin series, written by other authors in
the Known Space universe is very good as well.
|12.1.06 @ 4:45PM|#
...or some reason Tepper gets assigned as college reading
material.. - rob
Ms. Tepper lacks a Y chromosome, and she's too young to have the
Stench of Pulp about her.
RCD: I find it useful to remember that one way to read "SF" is
"Speculative Fiction." It includes all the sub-genres you
mentioned.
[Unless you turn the lens around, embrace the "many-worlds" view of
cosmology, and consider fantasy a sub-set of Science Fiction that
takes place in alternate universes where physical laws are
different enough to allow for magic. :) ]
Kevin
Jesse Walker|12.1.06 @ 8:42PM|#
Re: Tim Powers: Dinner at Deviant's Palace is definitely science fiction, and I'd say The Anubis Gates is too.
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