I've listened to and read way too many elitists who think that scifi is a crap genre. I will grant you that a lot of what is written sucks, but I would add that most of what pretends to be literature also blows great big enormous chunks. Anyway, Megan McAardle links to what she calls "a stirring defense of science fiction". I can't disagree. Excerpt:

The big problem with being sniffy about SF is that it’s just too important to ignore. After all, what kind of fool would refuse to be seen reading Borges’s Labyrinths, Stanislaw Lem’s Fiasco, Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World or Wells’s War of the Worlds just because they were SF? These are just good books, irrespective of genre. But they are also books that embody the big ideas of the time – both Wells and Lem were obsessed with human insignificance in the face of the immense otherness of the universe, Huxley with technology as a seductive destroyer and Orwell with our capacity for authoritarian evil. Borges, like Lem, suspects we know nothing of ourselves. Interested in these things? Of course you are. Read SF.

As an addendum, here's a link to the short story Answer referred to in the article above.

Update: It appears that both Vox and Bane have started related threads, which mainly state that the vast majority of new scifi writers suck. A lot.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:45 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Michele reposted her classic rewrite of one of the holiday season's favorite TV specials. Excerpt:

So what happens? Does Rudolph finally have enough of the bullying and dons a trenchcoat, listens to Marilyn Manson and mows down his enemies? No, Rudolph goes off on an adventure. He escapes his problems instead of confronting them. When you think about it, running away on adventure isn't so bad, as he could have turned to a life on the streets, doing "favors" for old barflys in exchange for salt licks.

I really missed Michele's blogging during her absence. And her post put me in mind to repost an old image:

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:50 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 That would have been the perfect image to put with the post. Now, it might make the perfect Christmas card

Posted by: michele at December 04, 2007 04:08 PM (t3OS0)

2 Color me cynical, but the message I always got from that show was that if you're a freak, the mob will attack and abuse you, until and unless they find a way to exploit you. "Then all the reindeer loved him" my ass. The next Christmas, Santa had installed a GPS, and Rudolph was run out of town.

Posted by: Glenn at December 04, 2007 06:00 PM (jzSh4)

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Color me green over this little gizmo.

Thanks go to Brian Tiemann for the link.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 04:22 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Annika popped her head out of the studying for and taking the bar hole to post that she's most definitely NOT back. And she keeps on NOT being back. Repeatedly. Which would make me doubt her veracity except hey, it's Annie, so I'll take her at her word. And I'll keep NOT reading her.

Welcome NOT back, Annika.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:26 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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