I finished Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land today, as part of my “Jason Needs to Read More Classic Sci-Fi if He’s Going to Have Nerd Friends” initiative.
I’ve never read Dune, or Neuromancer, or Snow Crash, or any Asimov, or almost any Philip K. Dick, and I read Ender’s Game for the first time about a year ago. If you’d like to recommend me sci-fi books to read, please do.
Let me diverge for a moment. I never cease to be amazed at the breadth of things I haven’t read. I read very slowly, and have almost never in my life read just for the fun of it. The latter may be caused by the former. That’s not to say that I don’t find reading to be fun, just that in most cases I find more readily fun things to do than read.
But since I’ve recently moved to a place that, for the first time since moving to New York, comes with a subway commute to work, I now find myself with plenty of time in which there’s nothing better to do than read.
So I read Stranger in a Strange Land, and I liked it, for the most part. There were things I didn’t like.
Like when I read something, I like to know where it’s heading. As in, within the first third of a book, I like to know what the point of the book is, what the conflict is and what I’m reading to find out.
If it’s a murder mystery, am I trying to figure out who killed the butler?
If it’s a war novel, am I reading to see if the courageous Yanks will defeat those nefarious Krauts?
If it’s a novel about high society, am I supposed to learn how to tie a cravat?
Stranger in a Strange Land didn’t get to the point of the book until the last third or so. The book cover made it look like it was going to be about a Martian named Smith. Then it looked like it was going to be a mystery about the kidnapping of Ben Caxton.
Then Jill got to Jubal’s house and nobody really cared what happened to Ben. Then it looked like it was going to be about making sure the Martian didn’t get screwed over by the evil nasty government. Then the government was pretty okay after all, and everyone was happy with it.
Then it became a Martian-out-of-water tale about religion and questioning social norms.
Which I’m fine with — I liked the final point of the story. I just didn’t get why we had to go into so much detail about Ben when he didn’t play a big part at all for the rest of the story. Or why we were led to care about General Secretary Douglas at all when he wasn’t mentioned but once after he was disposed of.
The book was long, and I’m a slow reader, with precious little time to read. Please, let’s just get to the point already. (I’m sure you’re saying the same thing about this post…)
It also got pretty preachy sometimes, which might be true of a lot of science fiction. I understand that the goal of science fiction is to magnify our current culture’s shortcomings and either explain how things will reform and get better, or decay even more. I agreed with most of what the book was saying. But that doesn’t make it any less preachy.
Preachiness is more about how it’s framed within the novel, how the point is explained and stated. When a character’s dialogue goes on uninterrupted for three or more pages, it’s preachy. The author might as well just remove all the quotation marks and print it as a pamphlet.
Make it a conversation, break it up with some action, be a novelist. I really hate when I feel like I’m reading someone’s prepared speech, even more than I hate listening to someone’s prepared speech.
Those were pretty much my only qualms with it though, just Heinlein’s writing style I guess. Otherwise it was really good.
I promise I liked it.
Loud N’ Clear helps old people:
This is easily the most badass person in existence. Easily.
I loved this video as a kid. I even bought a VHS copy on eBay at some point (then lost it). Thankfully good old YouTube has kept this from being entirely inaccessible.
edit: Duck
Fun Fact: Three of the final four teams in the NFL playoffs have bird mascots (Cardinals, Eagles and Ravens), and four of the NFL’s five bird teams made it to the playoffs this season. This is, as far as I can tell, pretty unusual.
So, since I was really bored today, I decided to figure out what kinds of mascots performed the best this past season. Of course, my suspicions were on target, birds were the best with a final regular season record of 44-35-1, an average winning percentage of .556.
The next best category, a close second, was the “Other” category — teams whose mascots didn’t fit into any other category. Their overall record was 53-43, a winning percentage of .552. Pretty much all of this success came from the Titans and Giants, each conference’s number one seed going into the playoffs (both of whom were eliminated this weekend).
On the other side of the coin, teams with cat mascots did incredibly badly this season, with a record of 21-42-1, a winning percentage of .335. The most notable of these teams was the Detroit Lions, who made NFL history with the league’s first 0-16 season.
Team data was copied from ESPN.com and compiled in this spreadsheet.
Lauren and I went to a pug owners meet-up this afternoon with my co-worker Kai and her partner Sarah (who own a pug). It was…the absolute cutest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. Imagine if you will a room filled with 30+ adorable pugs, running around, barking, playing, snoring and peeing all over the place. Yeah, it’s like that.
Commence crappy camera phone YouTube video!
If you ever get invited to a pug meet-up, I suggest you take them up on it.
“If you, me, and a collection of our British friends who have never played American football got together, we could, and almost certainly would, have ended the NFL season with the same record as a professional team. That is inspiring.” — Andy Zaltzman, from the latest episode of The Bugle, regarding the Detroit Lions
Or just over the circumference of the Earth. This due in part to a wonderful trip to Iceland and Wales, two work trips to California and more trips back and forth from Ohio than I care to count.
I got my copy of the Protomen’s new single today in the mail, and I gotta say, it’s getting me pretty excited for their new album, coming out next year.
In case you’ve never heard of the Protomen, they’re a group of Tennessean musicians who wrote and perform a Mega Man rock opera, and if those words all side by side like that doesn’t get your blood warm, then I doubt anything will. Their first album was, and is, one of my favorites of all time, and the thought of more from them is getting me pretty excited.
Way back when, when I ran my little music blog, I had the pleasure of helping introduce them to the world, and when they came through Columbus (at an anime convention of all things) they invited me backstage afterward, there to receive a lesson in both bourbon drinking* and hotel vandalism** from what I can only assume were experts in both fields.
Aw, memories.
The Protomen - Father of Death
The Protomen - No Easy Way Out (from the soundtrack for Rocky IV)
* Protip: always drink from the side of your mouth
** Protip: always cover it with a painting