@jerzydyd@mastodon.social - I felt the same - I couldn't put them down as a kid. It's definitely got some 70s era prejudice in how it was written, and in the strict cultural divisions based on race and religion that it portrays, but I never felt that it was overtly or deliberately racist - rather the author portraying a barbaric world ruled by gods who were very close at hand and fiercely protective of their people. I still get chills remembering the god Mara wailing in the ruins for the slaughtered Maragor.
arotrios
joined 1 year ago
4
cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/509859
At dawn he arose and stepped out onto the patio for his first look at Alexandria, the one city he had not yet seen. That year the five cities were Chang-an, Asgard, New Chicago, Timbuctoo, Alexandria: the usual mix of eras, cultures, realities. He and Gioia, making the long flight from Asgard in the distant north the night before, had arrived late, well after sundown, and gone straight to bed. Now, by the gentle apricot-hued morning light, the fierce spires and battlements of Asgard seemed merely something he had dreamed.
The rumor was that Asgard’s moment was finished, anyway. In a little while, he had heard, they were going to tear it down and replace it, elsewhere, with Mohenjo-daro. Though there were never more than five cities, they changed constantly. He could remember a time when they had had Rome of the Caesars instead of Chang-an, and Rio de Janeiro rather than Alexandria. These people saw no point in keeping anything very long.
- from Sailing to Byzantium by Robert Silverberg, on page 178
26
cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/403415
The Third Man is a 1949 British film noir directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard. Set in postwar Vienna, the film centres on American Holly Martins (Cotten), who arrives in the city to accept a job with his friend Harry Lime (Welles), only to learn that Lime has died. Viewing his death as suspicious, Martins elects to stay in Vienna and investigate the matter.
The atmospheric use of black-and-white expressionist cinematography by Robert Krasker, with harsh lighting and largely subtle "Dutch angle" camera technique, is a major feature of The Third Man. Combined with the iconic theme music by zither player Anton Karas, seedy locations and acclaimed performances from the cast, the style evokes the atmosphere of an exhausted, cynical post-war Vienna at the start of the Cold War.
Greene wrote the novella of the same name as preparation for the screenplay. Karas's title composition "The Third Man Theme" topped the international music charts in 1950, bringing the previously unknown performer international fame; the theme would also inspire Nino Rota's principal melody in La Dolce Vita (1960).[citation needed] The Third Man is considered one of the greatest films of all time, celebrated for its acting, musical score and atmospheric cinematography.[5]
In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Third Man the greatest British film of all time. In 2011, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out ranked it the second best British film ever.
1
cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/497764
In spite of its ominous literary associations, 1984 proved to be a rather quiet year for SF. There were no major scandals like 1983’s infamous Great Timescape Fiasco, no SF lines driven into oblivion by corporate greed and shortsightedness, no major editorial shakeups … but if you looked closely enough, in the right places, you could see the foundations of the genre’s future for the next decade or so being quietly laid down.
- from the introduction by Dozios
4
cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/491274
Here's the cream of the crop: short stories, novelettes, novellas by science fiction writers already well known and awarded for their high-quality work in science fiction. These are writers like Poul Anderson, Joe Haldeman, Tanith Lee, George R. R. Martin, Robert Silverberg, James Tiptree, Jr, Vernor Vinge and Gene Wolfe.
Here also are writers who are newer to the field, but just as excellent, including high-powered talents such as Greg Bear, Jack Dann, Jack McDevitt, Pat Murphy, John Kessel, Rand B. Lee, Pat Cadigan, Kim Stanley Robinson, Bruce Sterling, and Dan Simmons. Altogether there are 250,000 words of great science fiction; twenty-five stories by twenty- four authors. These are the stories that will be nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards this year, the stories that years from now people will still be talking about.
The Year's Best Science Fiction was a series of science fiction anthologies edited by American Gardner Dozois until his death in 2018. The series, which is unrelated to the similarly titled and themed Year's Best SF, was published by St. Martin's Griffin. The collections were produced annually for 35 years starting in 1984.
cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/423678
CW: They killed Fritz! Nazi mutants watching lots of Nazi propaganda. Elves with PTSD. Nuclear Armageddon. Pajama wearing assassins. Fairies of the night wearing near nothing. Evil Nazi wizard who skipped arm day.
Wizards is a 1977 American animated post-apocalyptic science fantasy film written, directed and produced by Ralph Bakshi and distributed by 20th Century-Fox. The film follows a battle between two wizards of opposing powers, one representing the forces of magic and the other representing the forces of technology.
The film is notable for being the first fantasy film by Bakshi, a filmmaker who was previously known only for "urban films" such as Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic and Coonskin. The film grossed US$9 million theatrically with a $2 million budget.
cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/478961
It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.
cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/429137
Shadow libraries, sometimes called pirate libraries, consist of texts aggregated outside the legal framework of copyright.
Today's pirate libraries have their roots in the work of Russian academics to digitize texts in the 1990s. Scholars in that part of the world had long had a thriving practice of passing literature and scientific information underground, in opposition to government censorship—part of the samizdat culture, in which banned documents were copied and passed hand to hand through illicit channels. Those first digital collections were passed freely around, but when their creators started running into problems with copyright, their collections “retreated from the public view," writes Balázs Bodó, a piracy researcher based at the University of Amsterdam. "The text collections were far too valuable to simply delete," he writes, and instead migrated to "closed, membership-only FTP servers."
More recently, though, those collections have moved online, where they are available to anyone who knows where to look.
The purpose of this site, then, is to have all these libraries at our fingertips when in need of a certain text or book.
As Aaron Swartz put it:
"Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves."
We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.
With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?
Read the full text of the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto
That's one of the reasons I posted the source material as available (free) downloads as well - Day has come under criticism before by Tolkien scholars. I personally found most of his mistakes and liberties in this work to be minor, but I'm not a Tolkien scholar. Nonetheless, the work has a unique artistic touch that regardless of its accuracy, brings the novels to life in a way that surpasses later catalogues, and it was responsible for getting young readers of my generation interested in reading them.
I've always dug it because it was one of the first explorations of a successful invasion from another species, and it was an excellent scifi deconstruction of colonialism, one that was groundbreaking for the time it was written (right before WWII).
If you need it in other formats, this link has a great selection of free alternatives - you can filter by your preferred file format. There's a azw3 version here that should work with Kindle.
Another great one - here's a link to get a free .pdf copy if you're looking to add to your library:
https://annas-archive.org/md5/ae962cb11c50e00ecdc2b50d2d813b54
I agree, Still Life is the stronger novel. I usually choose Cowgirls as the work of his to to introduce new readers to, as it's more accessible and lighthearted, but Still Life is where Robbins really shows his chops.
Here's a link to a free copy (.pdf download) from Anna's if you're looking for one: https://annas-archive.org/md5/85333852ce8e0b37dc4918f59cfb5bb1
I agree. I'm probably gonna post this to the !13thFloor@kbin.social with more of a synopsis another night, but here's an early screening for you.
Wut?
The internet archive lit the fire, or whomever posted the video collection did. I just found the smoke, and invited y'all around the campfire. There's no need get snippy, Zorak.
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Sorry - these are all table top games.