Don’t throw those annoying AOL CDs out! Save them for me! I’ve just begun collecting AOL CDs for an art project I’d like to do as soon as possible…. and I need something between 1000 and 1200 AOL CDs. Earthlink CDs and other annoying ad CDs are no good. Just AOL CDs. My dad had ~150 of them for me, and that’s a good start, but let me know if you can find more.
Thanks!
So, I guess this book list has been going around, but … well. The Science Fiction Book Club has released their list of The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002. I was going to ignore it, but … well… I was looking at it and I’m not sure what tools they used to determine which books were “significant”. Since I haven’t even heard of most of them. Here’s a chart:
Note: Potentially interesting continuation below.
1 = Heard of the author
2 = Heard of the book
3 = Started reading it
4 = Finished reading it
5 = I own it
6 = I liked it (if finished)
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Title, Author |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien | ||
| 1 | 2 | The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov | ||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Dune, Frank Herbert |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein | |||
| A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Neuromancer, William Gibson |
| 1 | Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick | ||
| The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury | ||||
| The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe | ||||||
| A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. | ||||||
| 1 | The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov | |||||
| Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras | ||||||
| Cities in Flight, James Blish | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 5 | The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett | |||
| 1 | Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison | |||||
| 1 | Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison | |||||
| The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester | ||||||
| Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany | ||||||
| 1 | Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey | |||||
| 1 | 2 | Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card | ||||
| The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson | ||||||
| The Forever War, Joe Haldeman | ||||||
| 1 | Gateway, Frederik Pohl | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams |
| I Am Legend, Richard Matheson | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice | ||
| The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin | ||||||
| Little, Big, John Crowley | ||||||
| 1 | Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny | |||||
| 1 | The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick | |||||
| Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement | ||||||
| 1 | More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon | |||||
| The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith | ||||||
| On the Beach, Nevil Shute | ||||||
| 1 | Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 6 | Ringworld, Larry Niven | |
| Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien | ||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 6 | Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut | |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson |
| Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner | ||||||
| The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein | ||||
| 1 | Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock | |||||
| 1 | The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks | |||||
| Timescape, Gregory Benford | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer |
Okay, so what this says is what? I know I’m not very well read, but I was pretty sure I had a good grasp on ‘significant’ authors, at least, especially in the genre of books of which I have read the most. Maybe it says their list isn’t as good as it is meant to be. Maybe I just need to get through these books on my own before I say whether these books are ‘significant’ or not. Except… not ever even having heard of most of them OR many of the men who wrote them, I’m not sure how feasible that is.
If you have a copy of any of these books you’d lend me (I am very good with borrowed books, generally. Zoe once commented something to the effect that I am ‘the only person [he] knows that returns books in better condition than they were lent in,’ thought I expect he must be exaggerating.) I would be glad to read them. My lifestyle here in Pine calls for not less than three days a week (soon five) with nearly full days that can be spent reading. I was going to practice languages and then start going through my standing collection of books (and will likely move books from this list to the top of ‘the stack’), but if I could get access to the rest of these books, that would be a good thing. Maybe we could make a virtual book club out of this list.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to arrange a virtual book club anyway. I was thinking we could have a book selected to be read by a particular date and then get several people together at a pre-determined time in an IM conversation to discuss the book. Then post the log of the discussion in Reviews or a new section on Modern Evil. This could be done even if a few people were passing around a couple copies of the book if there’s enough lag before the discussion. I’m guessing Zoe would be up for it, anyone else want to throw their hat in the ring?
So, my grandfather has another doctor’s appointment on Tuesday, so I’ll be coming down to the valley Monday night and staying through Tuesday afternoon at the earliest. Two movies opened today that I would like to see, Bringing Down the House and Love Liza. While BDtH is something I believe other people will be interested in seeing with me and playing at many more theatres, Love Liza is something I’ve been looking forward to a long time and am trying to make a priority to see when I’m in town. Unfortunately, Love Liza is playing exclusively at the Harkins Centerpoint in Tempe, far from where my father lives & where I will be staying Monday night. And, I’m not sure who else in the world would want to see it or be available. Esp. on a ‘school night’.
Anyway, I’ll hitchhike down to Tempe and watch the late show if I need to, but I’d much rather be able to share the experience with friend(s). And not just because they could drive me, but because as you may have noted I now live approximately 100 miles away from most of my friends. Ooh. Which reminds me. I need to ask you guys whether I know Zylon. Do I know Zylon? I mean, how many could there be, really? I just don’t have much memory with regards to people I haven’t been good friends/acquaintences with for years and years.
Okay. I’m going to … errr… Nothing. But somewhere, somehow I get the feeling that Edison is about to be working on the next New Comic right now…
^-^
I can’t really say ‘up and running’, since it’s a virtual webcam. I’ve taken several shots of myself sitting at my desk & will be swapping them out at appropriate. Eventually I hope to have an actual webcam up, and to get as many ME authors set up with webcams and to create a whole ‘cam page’ for looking at the different people that contribute to ME. I’ll be giving Iain back his (non-mac-compatible) webcam the next time I see him, and maybe he’ll plug it in and set it up. Warpshadow has a webcam, just itching to be put online somewhere. We’ll see who else we can talk into it.
Oh yeah, to see the virtual webcam image for me, you have to actually have to look at the right-hand column of a FYTH page. It should be there. Everywhere.
So, I was looking at some of Edison’s roughs for the next New Comic that he emailed me, and since it had been a while I went back and looked at the first two (1, 2) New Comics he did. It blew me out of the water. Well, figuratively. These are much better than the comics I’ve done. (So much better, I won’t even bother linking to the ones I did…) I mean, did you see the two shots of Baz’s legs in the stream? Such elaborate work.
I guess that’s why he emailed me this new work. Everything I’ve seen so far of the new work is drawn, not photographed. Maybe he just sent me part of it, but it’s definitely a change from the first two. Still, better than just about anything I’ve posted. I wonder if this is really what happened to him. I seriously hadn’t noticed Edison had been replaced by a stuffed monkey until I saw that second comic and then went and checked him out. I just thought he was being quiet.
Anyway, Ed says he’ll probably be posting the third New Comic early next week. I can’t wait to see it come together.
UPDATE: Links are fixed