GNC
King-Sized Canary
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2001
- Messages
- 33,633
Nice beaver!
Those are his sideburns.
Nice beaver!
I have brain misfires like that myself. Relax.A most embarrassing situation in my local library yesterday.
I decided it was time to re-read '1984' by George Orwell.
It wasn't on the shelves, so I approached the (relatively) ancient librarian at the information desk.
Problem was, you see, I had been thinking about Orsen Wells radio broadcast of War of the Worlds.
So I said the this guy, who was probably around at the time..
Have you got a copy of Orsen Wells '1984' ?
The moment I said it I started to retract, but it was too late.
'Don't you mean George Orwell' ? he asked, giving me a pitying glance.
It turned out they didn't have a copy and had to order it in. I suppose I could have come back with 'What, no 1984. Call yourself a library'. But no doubt he would have replied along the lines of 'Orsen Well, Hah. Call yourself a reader.
It spoiled the whole day.
INT21
It spoiled the whole day.
The novel deviates from the myth by concentrating on the issues of artificial insemination and individuality: genetics versus environment. A scientist, Professor Jakob ten Brinken, interested in the laws of heredity, impregnates a prostitute in a laboratory with the semen of a hanged murderer. The prostitute conceives a female child who has no concept of love, whom the professor adopts. The girl, Alraune, suffers from obsessive sexuality and perverse relationships throughout her life. She learns of her unnatural origins and she avenges herself against the professor.
Old Venus, a "retro Venus science fiction"-themed anthology edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. All of the stories are set on the planet Venus as styled in the pre-space probe pulp magazines of the 1930s through the 1950s, in which it is a planet where humans could live.
I found an interesting website about 'the old solar system': https://www.solarsystemheritage.com/
I love that stuff. The website mentioned they were putting together an anthology too, though I wouldn't be able to vouch for the quality.Reading Old mars at the moment, another Retro Anthology, wonderful. Martian pirates on seas of sand! Terran pirates transported to Mars battling giant sentient spiders, even a Michael Moorcock story which reprises some of his old Martian sword epics with pulp SF.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Mars
Anything by Jon Ronson is good. I've just been recommending his The Psychopath Test to a colleague. May have to reread it myself.
There's a lot of trash literature on this subject and "The Psychopath Test" is not in that category. I'd recommend it.I've just been recommending his The Psychopath Test
I just found my childhood favourite, the Reader's Digest 'Strange Stories, Amazing Facts' on the internet archive
https://archive.org/details/strangestoriesamalwa00alwa
So many of the pictures are thoroughly familiar to me X decades later, which is rather strange in itself
And so many things of Fortean interest, things that I've been interested in ever since. Screaming skulls, fire walking, giant octopuses, those freaky faces on the floor in Spain (shiver), the Money Pit, Springheeled Jack etc. etc. etc.
Thanks, Dad, for buying that. It was on the shelf and in my consciousness from as long back as I can remember.