Literature Corner

[Muscle Car Lover]

I figure this thread is DOA, but here goes.....


I love reading, books, short story's. anything. I think literature is way better than TV (except porn ) in all ways.

A great short story is Harry Turtledove's "The Road Not Taken" which explores the idea of what hyperdrive capable aliens may be like. I loved it as it was a great thought experiment.

Here is a link to the story:
http://pastebin.com/aJQfubrK

Spoiler alert! I will paste in some text:

"Back on Roxolan, they'll have realized something's gone wrong by now," the steerer answered in the same tongue.

That did nothing to cheer Togram. "There are so many ways to lose ships," he said gloomily. "And even if the High Warmaster does send another fleet after us, it won't have any more luck than we did. These gods-accursed humans have too many war-machines." He paused and took a long, moody pull at a bottle of vodka. The flavored liquors the locals brewed made him sick, but vodka he liked. "How is it they have all these machines and we don't, or any race we know of? They must be wizards, selling their souls to the demons for knowledge."

Ransisc's nose twitched in disagreement. "I asked one of their savants the same question. He gave me back a poem by a human named Hail or Snow or something of that sort. It was about someone who stood at a fork in the road and ended up taking the less-used track. That's what the humans did. Most races find the hyperdrive and go traveling. The humans never did, and so their search for knowledge went in a different direction."

"Didn't it!" Togram shuddered at the recollection of that brief, terrible combat. "Guns that spit dozens of bullets without reloading, cannon mounted on armored platforms that move by themselves, rockets that follow their targets by themselves... And there are the things we didn't see, the ones the humans only talk about -- the bombs that can blow up a whole city, each one by itself."

"I don't know if I believe that," Ransisc said.

"I do. They sound afraid when they speak of them."

"Well, maybe. But it's not just the weapons they have. It's the machines that let them see and talk to one another from far away; the machines that do their reckoning for them; their recorders and everything that has to do with them. From what they say of their medicine, I'm almost tempted to believe you and think they are wizards -- they actually know what causes their diseases, and how to cure or even prevent them. And their farming: this planet is far more crowded than any I've seen or heard of, but it grows enough for all these humans."

Togram sadly waggled his ears. "It seems so unfair. All that they got, just by not stumbling onto the hyperdrive."

"They have it now," Ransisc reminded him. "Thanks to us."

The Roxolani looked at each other, appalled. They spoke together: "What have we done?"

[6bangerBOOM]

I love me some SciFi/Horror. This usually translates to video game novelizations. Hard core nerd over here, and that's why I have the Camaro to balance out my coolness level.

My current fave is this one. Decently creepy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00CSD...&pi=SY200_QL40

[Muscle Car Lover]

Glad you liked it! Great short story.

Check out Poul Anderson's "Tau Zero" for a really cool and short read.

[Muscle Car Lover]

Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" is a great short story worth a look:
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

Snippet:

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

[jewel25]

Following

[ChrisBlair]

Ever read R.E. Howard's Conan stories? Only one of them is really a novel- 'The Hour of the Dragon', but they are all good.

Howard's Conan is very different from the John Milius/Oliver Stone version of Conan in the 1982 film 'Conan the Barbarian'. Howard's Conan is cunning, intelligent, and multi-faceted. Howard was possibly insane- he thought Conan stood over him as he wrote according to some reports. But his stories are intriguing.

best part- you can read all those stories for free:


http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1303751h.html#stories

[Muscle Car Lover]

Originally Posted by ChrisBlair

Ever read R.E. Howard's Conan stories? Only one of them is really a novel- 'The Hour of the Dragon', but they are all good.

Howard's Conan is very different from the John Milius/Oliver Stone version of Conan in the 1982 film 'Conan the Barbarian'. Howard's Conan is cunning, intelligent, and multi-faceted. Howard was possibly insane- he thought Conan stood over him as he wrote according to some reports. But his stories are intriguing.

best part- you can read all those stories for free:


http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1303751h.html#stories

I had a set of first editions of those books. I sold them years ago. I love the first film so very much. The books IMO were ok. I fell in love with the "Legends of Lone Wolf" novels by John Grant, just wonderful reads with so much magic to offer. A sample?:

'And then the first fire of sun rose above the far horizon. A single shaft of dawn light came across the sea.
Lone Wolf stood, the Sommerswerd still stretched out towards the huge red tent.
The shaft of light touched the very tip of the sword.
Both Lone Wolf and the Sommerswerd became a statue carved out of incandescent white light.....
A thrust of lightning sprang from the Sommersword to the Darklord's tent. Thunder shattered the air. The tent vanished, and in it's place there was a great column of fire, expanding heavenwards.
All of the world seemed to howl with the anguish of Zagarna's death.....
And then there was rain - warm, gentle rain.
Lone Wolf sheathed the Sommerswerd, its light now only a subdued red glow, and cupped his hands to the rain.
He tasted the water once, and then again.
And then he fell.

[Muscle Car Lover]

I will tell you what, I love sharing books, poems, etc. If this thread has any takers I can update daily.

Here is a tease from one of my most favorite stories:

"So I think I can tell you this: I can just about guarantee you, I believe I can guarantee you, that if you'll take this on faith and commit yourself for two years, assuming you get through some further testing, you will thank me. You'll say I was right. You'll tell me that the very thought that you might have missed out on this gives you the chills. How many human beings have ever lived, Si? Five or six billion, maybe? Well, if you should test out, you'll become one of maybe a dozen out of all those billions, maybe the only one, who just might have the greatest adventure any human being has ever had."

EDIT:
Jack Finney's "Time and Again":

[Muscle Car Lover]

A new novel that I believe is well worth a look is Daniel H. Wilson's "Robopocalypse":
http://www.amazon.com/Robopocalypse-.../dp/0385533853

The book chronicles (in a non-Terminator way!) an idea about machines becoming self aware and what that would mean. If you liked Max Brooks' "World War Z" chances are you will like this book as it's told in a person narrative form as well.

An excerpt? A creepy part is when a little girl's doll (Buttercup) that has adaptive intelligence becomes "alive" and begins to talk to her, and calls her by her name:

"How come you know my name? You aren't supposed to know my name, Buttercup."
"I know lots of things Mathilda. I have gazed through space telescopes into the heart of the galaxy. I have seen a dawn of four hundred billion suns. It all means nothing without life. You and I are special, Mathilda. We are alive."

[Muscle Car Lover]

Well, sometimes a film is better than the book.

From "The Grey"; enjoy this scene:

[Muscle Car Lover]

From Stephen King's (about banned everywhere) short story "Rage":

"High school toilets are all the same; they sound like 747's taking off. I've always hated pushing that handle. It makes you sure that the sound is clearly audible in the adjacent classroom and that everybody is thinking: Well, there goes another load."

[Muscle Car Lover]

"The Kurgan liked modern cities. They were seething with violence, always ready to explode. He liked the fever of the streets, especially in New York. Everything was close to the surface. If you stopped to listen, you could hear the city screaming, in a thousand different ways, through a thousand separate mouths. You could feel the tension in the air. You could sense it was ready to snap. There was always a climate of despair hanging over the false gaiety. Drunks had sudden insights into the deeper layers of the city, and tried to warn others, but people took no notice. People thought they had control. Then, occasionally, something happened-like a series of decapitations-which showed them they did not, and the normal quiet panic moved into the hysteria zone."

From the novel "The Highlander" by Garry Kilworth

[Muscle Car Lover]

Thomas Harris is famous for "The Silence of the Lambs" but a far superior novel is "The Red Dragon" which was made into two films; an old one in the 80's starring William Petersen (awesome flick!) and the new one with Edward Norton (film sucked).

As the serial killer's next moon phase comes into play, Will Graham gets deeper and deeper into truing to find the killer and into his mind. He is watching the home movies of previous victims when he figures out how the killer is finding them..... he has access to the video tapes because his company transfers them to tape for the consumer. Remember this was a LONG time ago

You knew that was the Jacobis' cat ...
You brought a boltcutter...
Cause you thought there was a padlock...
And the Leeds' dog doesn't have a collar...
But you know it's the Leeds' dog, don't you, my man?!

See the woman? The bloom on the woman. You can almost feel her. You can see her again and again. Anytime you want.

The doggy doesn't have a collar. But you know the Leeds' dog, don't you?

And you know the Jacobi cat. And the padlock on the door and you know you need a boltcutter and every other goddamn thing 'cause...

YOU'VE SEEN THESE ****ING FILMS!

Haven't you, my man?

[Muscle Car Lover]

"Peace is a lie. There is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory my chains are broken."

The Sith Code from "Darth Bane: Path of Destruction" by Drew Karpyshyn