[ale] "i am a god" - Sci-F

Craig Button craigb.rn at gmail.com
Sat Dec 19 09:15:02 EST 2009


Haven't thought about Stanislaw Lem in ages.  I had an English teacher that
turned me on to him.  Let me read stuff like that in place of the drivel we
were supposed to read.  Probably the only reason I got a passing grade in
high school English.

 

But to explain why I'm so warped, I remember reading Dahlgren by Delany as a
teen. 

 

From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Jeff
Lightner
Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2009 9:01 AM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!
Subject: Re: [ale] "i am a god" - Sci-F

 

Stranger in a Strange Land is one of the classics of SciFi - Even if you
read no other Heinlein you should read it.   Heinlein was called "The Dean
of Science Fiction" because many of his contemporaries saw him as a master
of the genre.  

 

Don't get me wrong - There are some Heinlein books that I could do without
but by and large I enjoyed most of what he wrote.   

 

By the way Jubal shows up again in Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice.

 

My favorite concept from Stranger was the "Fair Witness".   This was a
professional beyond a notary public that you would hire to observe something
that could be used as an unbiased witness in the event there were legal
questions later.    The example Jubal uses in talking to Dorcas (his staff
fair witness) is to ask her what color the house up the hill is.   She turns
and looks at it and says "It is white on this side".   He notes that since
he asked her what color it "is" rather than "was" she had to look before
replying and also could only state what she could observe "this side".
This despite the fact she had seen the house many times before and the
obvious assumption most would make that it is white all the way around.

 

Arthur C. Clarke was also one of my favorites.  If you like him you'd
probably like Orson Scott Card as he like Clarke spends time exploring how
his characters feel.   

 

Stanislaw Lem was interesting reading.  He writes in his native Polish.
His books translated into German and then into English seemed very humorless
though quite good.  His books translated directly into English were quite
humorous.  I always wondered if it was the German translation that lost
humor or if it was just the difference in the stories themselves.

 

  _____  

From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Jim
Kinney
Sent: Friday, December 18, 2009 9:06 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!
Subject: Re: [ale] "i am a god"

 

You should see the company he keeps!

On Dec 18, 2009 6:47 PM, "aaron" <aaron at pd.org> wrote:

On 2009, Dec, 18, , at 8:51 AM, Jim Kinney wrote: > I never read Stranger
until 1993. A that time I...

I haven't read Stranger -- more of an Arthur Clarke / Kurt Vonnegut /
Kilgore Trout / Stannislaw Lem scifi fan  -- so the name alone made
me curious about the character.  This is the front of his wikipedia
entry:

" Jubal Harshaw is a fictional character featured in Stranger in a
Strange Land,
a novel by Robert A. Heinlein. He is described as: "Jubal E. Harshaw,
LL.B., M.D.,
Sc.D., bon vivant, gourmet, sybarite, popular author extraordinary,
neo-pessimist
philosopher, devout agnostic, professional clown, amateur subversive,
and parasite
by choice. "

I definitely can see the appeal in being this person.  Sans the
degrees (which I can fake if needed...) I'm about 75% Jubal without
even knowing it and I figure Jim at about 85% without trying, too.
:-)

peace
aaron

> >> On Dec 18, 2009 8:38 AM, "Jeff Lightner" <jlightner at water.com> wrote:
>> >> I know - I ...

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