March 13 Readings
"Exposures" by Gregory Benford
I'm going to do a play by play as I read this one again because, from the looks of the first page and a half, I think I'm going to need the breaks.
445-446: It's going to be a LOOOONG reading week if all the stories are like this. "Hard" sf may not be for me. Let's just say Graeme had to help me just a tad on those pages to even have half a clue what was going on. Man looking at pictures of a planet with an alphanumeric code name and red and blue jets. That's about all I can decipher from that blather. I wondered if there is something to his remembering the "plates from breakfast past" as he looked at the NGC 1097 plates.
Semi-redemption in the paragraph talking about his son and his son's smell on p. 446. I can so relate, there's something about snuffing your babies' heads. I am a snuffer, have been for all three of my babies. It surprises me to no end that I can relate to anything this man writes after the first two pages. It amuses me that he is telling his son how to go about reading something difficult (maybe the son is reading his daddy's writing???).
Okay, opening mind and preparing for a couple more pages...
Empathising with his attempt to figure out whatever it is he's trying to figure out with his plates and develop hypotheses; I am doing the same with the story thus far.
More science-y stuff - mysterious Sagittarius pictures amongst his NGC business...
"decidedly untheological daydreams" while doing altar duty - okay, I might be able to like this guy, that was a great line.
Reading about Open House at son's school: not surprised son wins first prize for the moon mock-up, hearing Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" song in my head.
I'm sure there's some great and deep metaphor buried in amongst the father's inability to decipher his work problems and his son's reading problems but there would be about a zillion different ways I would rather read about it.
PS - even a bit of research did nothing to enlighten me or make me like this one any better.
----------------------------------
"Schrödinger’s Plague" by Greg Bear
Okay, this one was COOL...freaky and cool and even though I didn't understand the quantum physics of it, I could ENJOY it and it's a hell of a big WHAT IF. Even with the big open ending, I liked it.
Also - AMEN to Marty! - I agree with his "if the best mankind can do is come up with an infuriating theory like this...we should be willing to live or die by our belief in the theory." - blame physics for this whole damn mess in my opinion. Marty was driven made by people who had nothing better to do with their time than worry about cats and men in boxes. Stick a wireless monitor on them and then you'll know if they're dead or alive in the bloody box. I can't say I blame Marty, I felt like that reading the last story. This one made up for it. Maybe hard sf will not be as bad as I initially thought.
----------------------------------
"...The World, As We Know 'T," or "Hell on Earth" by Howard Waldrop
Bunch of guys from the Lunatick Society (I'm thinking/guessing some sort of Alternate history?...or maybe people really were that whacked in our known history now that I think of it...) fighting over some scientific stuff, French people get dissed on p. 488, Curwell appears to be a bigot, un-organized laboratory, poaching, experiments and Hitchcockian pigeons, poacher Bumppo and the Great Experiment, bang! (and they talk about the damage WE do to the ozone), New Chemistry appears to suck as bad as New Math and now the Earth is gone.
Confusing blog post for confusing story. Possibly a warning about too much science/experimentation but, like the first story, there's a lot of different ways I'd rather read about that.
Image Credit
----------------------------------
"Schwarzschild Radius" by Connie Willis
(and yes, that IS Schwarzchild!) I didn't dislike this story, I didn't love this story. The whole story seemed based on the phenomena of the Schwarzschild Radius and similar to Bear's characters in "Schrödinger’s Plague," the characters are (seemingly) living out the theory. This must be a popular theme in hard sf stories. I'm not sure if the old guy is living out the theory in his mind (some sort of psychosis, where he is stuck in his mind back in the war) or whether they are all really in the radius. After all, this IS SF we're talking.
I'm just wondering why the old guy was hesitant to share the info with Travers.
Image Credit
----------------------------------
"Half-Life" by Paul Preuss
Lots of metaphor in the first couple paragraphs, and hey, if you're losing your soul, let's throw in a simile about butterflies to make it sound nicer.
Okay, I've done a bit of research, and a lot of this story seems like non-fiction. I'm not really sure exactly where the sf comes in, the "hard" science is there, in the story of Curie's discovery, I guess I'm just a little perplexed as to the sf-ish-ness?
I think I liked this one because it seemed almost like a biography of Curie & her death experience (which may be the sf part but I don't know, it's been a confusing week for me).
Image Credit
----------------------------------
Michael Swanwick's
Periodic Table of Science Fiction
As much as I always strive to do the best I can do with my school work, I shan't be blogging on each of the 118 stories of the Periodic Table. I will dutifully read them and may do a general blog post on them overall but that's about all I can do for this week!
I'm going to do a play by play as I read this one again because, from the looks of the first page and a half, I think I'm going to need the breaks.
445-446: It's going to be a LOOOONG reading week if all the stories are like this. "Hard" sf may not be for me. Let's just say Graeme had to help me just a tad on those pages to even have half a clue what was going on. Man looking at pictures of a planet with an alphanumeric code name and red and blue jets. That's about all I can decipher from that blather. I wondered if there is something to his remembering the "plates from breakfast past" as he looked at the NGC 1097 plates.
Semi-redemption in the paragraph talking about his son and his son's smell on p. 446. I can so relate, there's something about snuffing your babies' heads. I am a snuffer, have been for all three of my babies. It surprises me to no end that I can relate to anything this man writes after the first two pages. It amuses me that he is telling his son how to go about reading something difficult (maybe the son is reading his daddy's writing???).
Okay, opening mind and preparing for a couple more pages...
Empathising with his attempt to figure out whatever it is he's trying to figure out with his plates and develop hypotheses; I am doing the same with the story thus far.
More science-y stuff - mysterious Sagittarius pictures amongst his NGC business...
"decidedly untheological daydreams" while doing altar duty - okay, I might be able to like this guy, that was a great line.
Reading about Open House at son's school: not surprised son wins first prize for the moon mock-up, hearing Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" song in my head.
I'm sure there's some great and deep metaphor buried in amongst the father's inability to decipher his work problems and his son's reading problems but there would be about a zillion different ways I would rather read about it.
PS - even a bit of research did nothing to enlighten me or make me like this one any better.
"Schrödinger’s Plague" by Greg Bear
Okay, this one was COOL...freaky and cool and even though I didn't understand the quantum physics of it, I could ENJOY it and it's a hell of a big WHAT IF. Even with the big open ending, I liked it. Also - AMEN to Marty! - I agree with his "if the best mankind can do is come up with an infuriating theory like this...we should be willing to live or die by our belief in the theory." - blame physics for this whole damn mess in my opinion. Marty was driven made by people who had nothing better to do with their time than worry about cats and men in boxes. Stick a wireless monitor on them and then you'll know if they're dead or alive in the bloody box. I can't say I blame Marty, I felt like that reading the last story. This one made up for it. Maybe hard sf will not be as bad as I initially thought.
"...The World, As We Know 'T," or "Hell on Earth" by Howard WaldropBunch of guys from the Lunatick Society (I'm thinking/guessing some sort of Alternate history?...or maybe people really were that whacked in our known history now that I think of it...) fighting over some scientific stuff, French people get dissed on p. 488, Curwell appears to be a bigot, un-organized laboratory, poaching, experiments and Hitchcockian pigeons, poacher Bumppo and the Great Experiment, bang! (and they talk about the damage WE do to the ozone), New Chemistry appears to suck as bad as New Math and now the Earth is gone.
Confusing blog post for confusing story. Possibly a warning about too much science/experimentation but, like the first story, there's a lot of different ways I'd rather read about that.
Image Credit
"Schwarzschild Radius" by Connie Willis
(and yes, that IS Schwarzchild!) I didn't dislike this story, I didn't love this story. The whole story seemed based on the phenomena of the Schwarzschild Radius and similar to Bear's characters in "Schrödinger’s Plague," the characters are (seemingly) living out the theory. This must be a popular theme in hard sf stories. I'm not sure if the old guy is living out the theory in his mind (some sort of psychosis, where he is stuck in his mind back in the war) or whether they are all really in the radius. After all, this IS SF we're talking. I'm just wondering why the old guy was hesitant to share the info with Travers.
Image Credit
"Half-Life" by Paul Preuss
Lots of metaphor in the first couple paragraphs, and hey, if you're losing your soul, let's throw in a simile about butterflies to make it sound nicer. Okay, I've done a bit of research, and a lot of this story seems like non-fiction. I'm not really sure exactly where the sf comes in, the "hard" science is there, in the story of Curie's discovery, I guess I'm just a little perplexed as to the sf-ish-ness?
I think I liked this one because it seemed almost like a biography of Curie & her death experience (which may be the sf part but I don't know, it's been a confusing week for me).
Image Credit
Michael Swanwick's
Periodic Table of Science Fiction
As much as I always strive to do the best I can do with my school work, I shan't be blogging on each of the 118 stories of the Periodic Table. I will dutifully read them and may do a general blog post on them overall but that's about all I can do for this week!
posted by Lisa W. at
4:41 PM
4 Comments:
oh my i did not know the currie family was real! your so good at research! i feel emberassed i blog posted without realizing that.
good work, once again, detective.
"Exposures" was a pretty dense story; I think I would have liked it more, if it had gone somewhere... but there weren't really any big revelations at the end. It just kind of stopped.
I loved "Schrödinger’s Plague" - easily my favourite story of the week. I got chills when I came to the final line of the story, and realized that I might be the one who tips the balance...
I really read "Half-Life" as a feminist story, about several women who don't really live their own lives, but end up living for someone else. I didn't realize that it was based in fact, however, until I read your blog... good catch.
Radius -- I think the old fella did not want to share too much with Travers cause he was afraid Travers would get sucked into the black hole himself and forever live out the effects of the front, like he himself is doing.....OR he finds Travers so annoying he just wants him to go away.
I believe that we owe Marie Currie so much! Without her and her husband there would be no x-ray machines! Quite a fascinating women, especially for her time! Lisa, you really do go above and beyond in your blogs and they are quite enjoyable to read!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home