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Patrick
Patrick is a mid-40 year old geek with an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a master's degree in Information Systems. Nothing he says here has anything to do with the official position of his employer or any other institution.
Government By Performativeness is a Failure
May 17, 2022
The Return of the Bedroom Police
May 9, 2022
Student Loan Forgiveness: Watch What Unfolds from Here
April 28, 2022
April 26, 2022
The Demise of the Big Tent Made Us Stupid
May 6, 2022
Recently comments that included the strings "zed" or "doug" were sent immediately to trash. This should be fixed now.
on Government By Performativeness is a FailureCulture does the heavy lifting on this issue. I can recognize a right-wing talking point when I see it. By 'cu… on Government By Performativeness is a FailureWhile the official poverty rate (based on family size and nominal income) is higher in rural areas, real pover… on Government By Performativeness is a Failureespecially for someone who largely FVCKING AGREES WITH YOU on this topic, Yes, you 'largely' agree with me, ex…
on Government By Performativeness is a FailureBy almost every metric, poverty is worse in rural areas While the official poverty rate (based on family size…
on Government By Performativeness is a FailureAll of that's true. But the big take aways I get are... 1) For all the talk of Blue caring about things and Re…
on Video Throughput: The Black HoleNo, no, these were all black holes small enough -- say 100,000 tons tops -- that you could manipulate them. Eg…
on Government By Performativeness is a Failure"My neighborhood's pretty nice and we all vote Republican" isn't the persuasive argument you may think. Red ar…
on Video Throughput: The Black HoleIt will take a typical black hole 10^67 year to evaporate so no worries there.
Screengrab from WIVB Buffalo Channel 4 News[/caption]
I would think this is exactly the kind of thing that could draw 300 comments in the main page. People love arguing about lists.Report
It’s less about the particular list, which I don’t analyze much, and the meta process of constructing such a list.
I’m still getting a feel for cross-posting stuff. It feels weird.Report
The Stars My Destination–Alfred Bester
Stand on Zanzibar—John Brunner
Dying Inside—Robert Silverberg
Bester in particular is stunning. Also wrote The Demolished Man and some killer short stories. His pages not only sing, they zing!
Brunner, not so much a poet as a stylist, and Zanzibar [1968] is monstrously prophetic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_on_Zanzibar
Norman Niblock House. House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of the all-powerful corporations. Using his “Afram” (African American) heritage to advance his position, he has risen to vice-president at age twenty-six.
Not bad, esp as the novel’s set in 2010…
As for Silverberg, he had an uncanny run of about 10 exc sci-fi novels c. 1970. He later turned to fantasy, which ain’t my bag, altho his Lord Valentine’s Castle and the ensuing “Majipoor” series is probably what he’s best known for today.
Thought I’d get in an early $0.02.Report
The Stars My Destination is really an awesome book. I haven’t read “Stand”, it’s one of the Hugo winners I haven’t gotten around to yet. “Dying” gets inversion award: usually telepathy stories focus around the telepath getting *stronger*, not vice-versa.
You should check out the post, TvD.Report
Oh, Pat, I did check the list—Those are my noted and notable lacunae [word of the day].
BTW, I picked these for their stature in Sci-Fi history as well: Zanzibar won the Hugo in 1968 and is called “a little-acknowledged forerunner of cyberpunk”; Dying Inside I took to be Silverberg’s best-known and most acclaimed sci-fi, but I see he won the Hugo for Time of Changes, which I prefer and even had him autograph.
As for Alfred Bester, there was a time when no top sci-fi author could speak of the greats without speaking of Bester as the ne plus ultra of the craft and among their influences. Wiki says even Stephen King “references The Stars My Destination in several works.” I see also the psychic cop in Babylon 5 is named “Baster” in tribute [per “The Demolished Man”].
And yeah, sure, I also like these books. 😉
Another interesting list—Bester is mentioned by 2 different modern authors, Not bad for a guy who did his best work c. 1960, before “the modern age”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/14/science-fiction-authors-choiceReport
> I see he won the Hugo for Time of Changes,
> which I prefer and even had him autograph.
Hey, put me down in the will for that one, would you?Report
PatC: You gotta buy me that beer first. Sheesh.Report
Fair ’nuff.Report
Norman Niblock House and Barack Hussein Obama: each name, same number of letters. Not as eerie as Nostradamus warning us of “Hister,” but still pretty cool.
House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of the all-powerful corporations. Using his “Afram” (African American) heritage to advance his position, he has risen to vice-president at age twenty-six.Report
And they both like to sleep with white women.Report
The world has come to an end, because I agree that these three are all magnificent.Report
Lists like this are hard to do. For example, I agree with Patrick that in addition to be good, you need to have had an impact to make it too a list like this.
But I’d still have to put Towing Jehovah by James Morrow in my top 10, maybe even top 5, even though I have yet to meet anyone who has read it.Report
There’s a reason why I give the most points to, “Hey, did *I* like the fishing thing, or not??”
Otherwise, you’re not admitting that the list is really about your preference. Pure objectivism is a silly endeavor, here.Report
The problem with popularity contests like this is they are most effective at measuring the current milieu’s temperature. Great works of literature such as you mentioned in the other OP that have clearly stood the test of time may not even make the next 100 list at all, squeezed out by the currently popular.
Compare it to music. Asked to name your top 10 works of music, would anything classical even make it? Yet it is “classic” /because/ it has stood the test of time. My brother went to Julliard, I assure you there are tons of obscure composers and works out there that only a music major would ever see, and for good reason. Not everyone is a Bach, but I’d sure hate to see Bach pushed out by Britney.
I overheard some kids talking about how John Stockton shouldn’t even be on the list of top 50 basketball players. Thanks to one of their iPhone’s, I was able to quickly show that Stockton owns not one but TWO unbreakable records and is pretty damn high up there in a bunch of other categories. But being kids and captives of modern media, they were unaware of the “old guy’s” accomplishments.Report
Kids these days. They have no appreciation for the finer things.
As a Laker fan, I *hated* John Stockton, but as a basketball fan, I thought the guy was freakin’ amazing.Report
Are you kidding? The first movement of the 5th Brandenburg is the best thing ever written.Report
The short story vs epic saga thing is the first thing I thought of when perusing the list before reading the post. (when I got to Flowers for Algernon, possibly the best short fiction of all time. Dune, also, which as you and others have said, stands alone)
Poul Anderson continues to be a vastly underheralded and underrecognized science fiction writer.
The order of the Heinlein books is completely backwards.
The only other thing to add is that if they could get King and Piers Anthony(!) (although at 99) (and Conan!) on this list, they could have got Michael Crichton.Report
I though Jurassic Park or The Lost World (my favourite of Crichton’s works) should have been on there. But most people are probably only familiar with the movies.Report
I have problems with Crichton. I could probably write a whole post about him.Report