science fiction and fantasy

Something I noticed re-reading Roger Zelazny's "Doorways in the Sand"

I recently re-read Roger Zelazny’s “Doorways in the Sand,” which I last read when I was a teen-ager. I loved it as much today as I did then. One of my favorite Zelazny books, which makes it one of my favorite books. In that novel, a character in his 60s is looking back on his life and says that the world goes through one massive change after another—but they happen one at a time, spaced out at long intervals, and after each change life goes back to pretty much what it was before, so you can convince yourself nothing has changed.

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A Wikipedia dive on ships named “Enterprise”

I knew about the starship and aircraft carrier, of course, but I got to wondering about other ships named USS Enterprise. The earliest example cited by Wikipedia is a 1775 Continenal Navy sloop captured from the British and burned top prevent recapture in 1777. There were actually two aircraft carriers of the name, one in service 1938-47, the most decorated U.S. Ship of World War II, and the other in service 1961-2017, the first nuclear-powered carrier.

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Listen to our talk about the novel “Alas, Babylon” on Seth Heasley’s Hugos There podcast

Thanks to the indomitable Seth, who had me as a guest to talk about one of my favorite novels, “Alas, Babylon,” by Pat Frank. Hugos There.

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“You’ve got me? Who’s got you?!” Rewatching Christopher Reeve’s “Superman”

The 1978 “Superman,” starring Christopher Reeve, launched the superhero film genre as it exists today. We rewatched it recently, enjoyed it, and I recommend it. However, the movie takes a painfully long time to get going. ”Superman” starts with pages turning on the 1938 Action Comics issue that launched the Superman character, narrated by a child’s voice-over. We did not remember this from seeing the movie previously. We wondered whether we had accidentally rented the wrong version of “Superman.

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My 15 minutes of badass literary scholarship

In another online community, somebody asked for the title and author of a story about humans encountering another race that seemes to live a simple agrarian life. When asked how they generate electricity, or other questions about advanced technology, the agrarian person responds that they don’t know. Later, it becomes clear this other race is far advanced of humans, with great psychic powers. Asking them about electricity and such is like asking us about the best kind of wood to rub together to start a fire—something our distant ancestors knew but almost nobody today does.

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