From: Teramis <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: I'm in the library! Wow
(snip)
> Some authors don't care about libraries purchasing their
> books because they feel if ppl can read their book for free,
> why go buy a copy? Well that is true to a point, but when
> ppl read one book for free, and they *like* your work, they
> will be that much more inclined to impulse buy the next time
> they come across your name and recognize it in a store. So I
> think libraries are great. All that exposure....
Well, there's at least an exception, Deborah. Isaac Asimov
treated librarians with the uttermost respect. But then, all his
childhood reading was done thanks to libreries. So when he became a
renowned talker and could earn thousands of dollars for an hour of chat
he often talked in front of librarians for free.
========================
From: Dennis Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: "The Offog"
> The story you are looking for is a Hugo-Award-winner called
> "Allamagoosa" by Eric Frank Russell. The device is called
> the "Offdog," you left out the "d". Also, I was mistaken
> about Star Prince Charlie being a Hoka novel, something
> which I discovered when I came across it recently.
Yipe! The device misprinted as the "offog" is the point of all
the story, Dennis. The dropped "d" is an overimportant detail, otherwise
the story would have no sense.
========================
From: Darin Higashiguchi <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: not-liked authors reading and humor....
> Maybe Yoda isn't speaking English at all... maybe he is
> speaking a language that just happens to use the exact same
> words as English but which has different grammatical rules
> ;-)... Yoda is the man. He MAKES his own rules.
> Just a thought,
> Darin
Well, I can't imagine that a galaxy-wide Empire-cum-Rebel
Republic-cum-indipendent+undiscovered-planets speaks english everywhere.
My idea it doesn't speak english at all. Call it interlingua, or lingua
franca, or whatever you want, but *not* english.
However, this is not the issue. My idea is that either Yoda was
talking a different dialect of interlingua from Luke's or that he thought
he had more important things to worry about the position of the words in
the sentence, provided they made more or less sense.
========================
From: Mac Hume <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Turtledove's Worldwar series
> I read the whole series. I thought the first few books
> were very entertaining, but the last two (? maybe just the
> last one. Aren't there five, not four?) really dropped the
> ball. (snip) I think Turtledove got sick of the series
> towards the en, and just cranked out the last one to get the
> whole thing over with.
I got just about the same feeling for the last pages of the
fourth book of THE MISPLACED LEGION series; Turtledove got bored and
hastily went through the scenes just to get to the end. But this can
easily happen with the mammooth books and n-books series that plague our
times...
========================
From: "Judith M. Suhr" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Why read authors you don't like?
> In a message dated 97-05-02 09:32:16 EDT, you write:
> << I have just read a few pages by Anthony, and I didn't
> like it, so I haven't gone further, and I don't know
> anything about him. >>
> Please don't reject a story on the basis of a few pages. You
> could hate the first pages and love the story as a whole. It
> does happen, you know! :-)
> Judith
Judith, the first page - no, the first sentence - is the most
important of a book (or a story). It *has* to grab the attention fo the
reader, or (s)he reader won't go any further. It's the best way to judge
a book, without reading it completely.
Sorry, it's a suggestion I'm not able to accept and put to good
use.
========================
From: Steve Kerry & Carol Ann Green <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Nicola Griffith & Octavia Butler
(Snip)
> Nicola Griffith has written two novels to date,...
(snip)
> The novel you're thinking off, is called *Wild Seed*,...
(snip)
That should teach me to wait a coupla days before sending out
thanks! :) So to be sure I include everyone and all.
========================
From: Umberto Rossi <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Looking for a title
> Maaaaaaany years ago I read a (US? UK?) novel in
> translation. The title was something like "The Nightmare of
> the Syn" but it could have been changed like so many other
> titles of Sf novels/stories when translated in Italian (here
> Clifford D. Simak's Way Station became La casa dalle
> finestre nere, i.e. The House with the Black Windows...).
Simak's "City" became "Anni senza fine" or "Years without end".
Might not necessarily be a bad thing: "Years without end" is a better
title than "City", in my opinion.
--
Nicola Gebendinger
email: [log in to unmask]
Happiness is a butterfly.
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