Thursday, January 27, 2011

Shows I no Longer Follow

  • Stargate Universe - I've discovered that I simply do not care about any of the characters. Worse, I actively hate most of them.
  • The CSI Franchise - It's time for something new.
  • Criminal Minds - No one else wants to watch it with me. Too 'dark'.

Shows in Danger:
  • No Ordinary Family - The lack of plot advancement in the face of obvious opportunity even to the point where the characters must either be morons or actively ignoring what is in front of them is getting ridiculous. Oh well, it likely won't see a second season anyway.
  • Bones - Quit jerking us around. Get Bones and Seeley together already. The only thing worse than when the main characters finally get together is when they never do. . . IMO. (You hear me Nathan?)

Edit: Seems I'm behind the times yet again. SYFY has already decided not to renew Stargate Universe for another season. Maybe now we'll get that third SG1 movie? Or the Atlantis movie?

Friday, January 21, 2011

Virga: Cities of the Air by Karl Schroeder

Mini Review

Virga: Cities of the Air by Karl Schroeder is a great adventure in World building, not unlike Larry Niven's Integral Trees. The story is, however, dragged down by the immorality of its characters, by its over-reliance on coincidence, and by a very odd concept that a bullet can both remember it's journey and transfer that memory to the person it hits.

***/5

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Editing The Past

Well, looks like the PC revisionists are at it again. At least they waited 100 years after the passing of Samuel Clemens before they took a hatchet to his work.

For those not in the know, apparently the publisher NewSouth Books has released a version of Mark Twain's classic novel, Adventures of Huckelberry Finn, in which all instances of a certain word which begins with the letter 'N' have been replaced with the word 'slave'.

I hope they have included an attribution to a second author, Alan Gribben, much as they have done with the novels of the new mashup genre. But I digress.

Why am I once again defending the use of the 'N' word? Because that's the word the author used. What's more, that's the word his characters would have used. Don't forget, this book was first published over 115 years ago. It is not only period correct, it was written in that period! In fact, initial criticism of the book wasn't that it contained the 'N' word, but rather, at least in part, that it portrayed a black man as a sympathetic and fully human person. Go figure.

Denying the realities of history is like poking out an eye. Sure, you might not see anything on that side anymore, but that doesn't mean that nothing is there.

It is even worse to push such ignorance on others. Want to know why the youth of today are so dumb? Look to those who are taking a black marker to history.

Wait a few more years and the word 'slave' will no doubt be replaced with 'freedom challenged person' or whatever PC term is popular at the moment. At least that would be synonymous with the word it is replacing (the first substitution, not the original).

Here are some famous quotes to close with:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayana

". . . he who does not know the past can never understand the present, and he certainly can do nothing for the future."
- John Diefenbaker

"Freedom includes the right to say what others may object to and resent. . . The essence of citizenship is to be tolerant of strong and provocative words."
- John Diefenbaker

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."
- Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)