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Gaiman's American Gods Wins Hugo
H.I. McDonnough writes "Neil Gaiman won this year's Hugo for his novel American Gods.
A much better choice than last year. " If you are a curious, check out the review I did on it.
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It amazes me how narrow-minded scifis are about what is pure and what is not.
American Gods is no closer to being "pure" science fiction (whatever that may be) than last year's winner, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. So it's possible that he just thinks it's a better book, and isn't pursuing some purist political agenda.
I remember Hugo, grew up reading his pulp magazines. Here's an article about him. One of my favorite magazines was Hugo's magazine Radio Electronics. Not only was Hugo a brilliant science fiction promoter, but he was also a brilliant electrical engineer involved in the development of many of the gizmos which we now take for granted.
What surprised me was how much the book felt like Gaiman's comic books, Sandman in particular. I certainly enjoyed reading it and would reccomend it, but, and this is a big but, was it worthy of the Hugo ? Well I'm kind of surprised to discover that apparently it was. Yes it was good, entertaining even thought provoking in a minor way and nice twist at the end. But then I suppose that's more than you can say for most sci-fi which is lucky to achieve one of those. Anyway, if you haven't already read it, you should.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I must say that Gaiman's book was fun to read, although I wouldn't call it Sci Fi. In that catagory
I would have picked the Chronoliths, just ahead of Cosmonaut's Keep.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
There are two things I really appreciated about American Gods.
- The old god's interaction with the current world
- The mythos of the new "gods" of America
I also find it interesting that some of the elder gods fall victim to the allure of "The American Dream(tm)". The promise of prosperity didn't apply to them when their followers came over here and now they are bitter. The want a piece of the pie too.
If you're not familiar with this book, I will make a suggestion: Make sure you get at least half way through before you decide to quit. You won't regret it.
You can pick this up on Amazon, from your local library, or from your local audiobook store if you have one.
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
I liked "American Gods" so much that as soon as I finished it I told several friends to read it. All of them liked it as much as I did. It deserved a Hugo IMO even though it is *not* SF in the classical sense.
- Robin
I enjoyed "American Gods" well enough, but I thought it was not up to the par with his earlier work, "Neverwhere."
With the Norse pantheon and American tourist attraction motifs of "American Gods," I kept feeling like it was trying to be too serious for its airy fantasy blend of Douglas Adams' Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (the second Dirk Gently book), and LucasArt's Sam and Max Hit the Road graphical adventure game. The narrative is just disjoint enough that reading this book aloud would just lose some of the punch, I think.
Conversely, "Neverwhere" seemed to have fanciful influences from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Mary Poppins, where the delusional whimsy was a cover for the sinister trappings of a far more grave underworld that is best kept out of view. The bounds of the action are easily tracked and scenes segue smoothly, making Neverwhere a great story to read aloud to an older child or a spouse.
But that's just my opinion, and surely, both are quite palatable, and congrats to Neil Gaiman on his well-deserved accolades.
[
Apt thread title. :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - according to Arthur C Clarke, anyway. The line dividing science fiction and fantasy is a *lot* narrower than some purists would like us to believe - while there are plenty of sci-fi books/shows in which the science is an integral part of the story, there are just as many where it really is indistinguishable from magic, and where you could substitute the rayguns and spacecraft with wands of lightning and flying ships without really affecting the story.
You've mentioned one example yourself, which you're trying to excuse just because it falls under the 'sci-fi' banner - Jedi have mystical powers. So why on earth is it fine when Luke summons his lightsaber to his hand, but evil when Harry Potter summons his broomstick to his? Jedi even experience a life-beyond-death that is firmly set outside the Christian world view - but that's okay because it's science fiction?
And frankly it's sheer arrogance to say that you haven't read a book and then try to make value judgements on it. You refuse to read Harry Potter books because they're fantasy? Fine, your loss. But don't go telling me whether they deserve a Hugo award, because you don't know.
Oh, and don't check out American Gods. It's full of terribly un-Christian things - gods from a variety of pantheons, magic, that sort of thing. I'm sure you'll be able to tell us how good it was without reading a single page anyway.
And while you're at it, you'd better steer clear of C S Lewis and his Narnia books, because fantasy is bad, right? Don't let the fact that he's probably one of the most convincing Christian authors of modern times get in your way.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Some definitions by the masters
:
:
Ben Bova
"1. Science fiction stories are those in which some aspect of future science or technology is so integral to the stroy that, if you take away the science or technology, the story collapses...
2. Science fiction writers are free to extrapolate from today's knowledge and to invent anything they can imagine -- so long as no one can prove that what they have 'invented' is wrong."
Isaac Asimov
"In my view, the best science fiction, the only valid science fiction and the science fiction I try to write depends on legitimate science rationally extrapolated. If something is wrong, distored and illogical, it cannot be categorized as science fiction, any more than noise can be called music or a used paint rag a painting."
So by these definitions, Harry Potter ain't SF. Then again, neither is American Gods.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
No. No kicks here. Just this is a site that actually wants people to subscribe to it but can't even run a semi-professional operation. It severely irks me. Yep, I saw the post on the Two Towers. Maybe i keep posting to think one day the system will actually work. Naive, I guess. But you're right. I'm about done here. I'm tired of reading about buffy, the Dance Dance Revolution and 2 year old rants on U571 as well as the massive biased against anything not open source. The site it busted and ran by ametures. But thanks for asking.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
And as such are voted on by attendees of Worldcon who are bothered enough to vote. There's between 500 - 1000 votes cast (I can't find accurate figures), but the nominating ballot counts are online. This year, there was a total of 381 nominating ballots for best novel.
We're not talking about a serious statistical sample here, folks.
As a side note, were the Hogu and Black Hole awards presented this year?
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
One interesting side effect of these definitions... what happens to Sci Fi if the science is disproven at a later date? Is "The Time Machine" still science fiction? What about much of Clark and Asimov's work that has been disproven by later scientific developments? Hell, what about 90% of what David "I don't know how to end a book" Brin writes?
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Now, ignoring the Usenet bit, tell me the poster wasn't trolling with this:
(Referring to Harry Potter).
Slashdot editors and story submitters really need to start restraining themselves from editorialising in the story itself. That's what the comment section is for. That's what would be professional.
This isn't intended to be a troll. Now mod me into oblivion.
- SMJ - (It's not just a name: it's a bad aftertaste.)
I've been a fan of Gaiman for a few years, and can remember being excited at finding Neverwhere ("a whole novel!") a few years back. But it just wasn't that good. The whole thing felt a little flat, and while it did seem to want to be a bit like Alice in Wonderland, it just didn't come close. See Coraline for a better attempt.
American Gods, on the other hand, was a fabulous book. Lots of Gaimanesque details and twists, but felt like it hung together much better. Anyhow, differences of opinion I suppose.
Congrats to Gaiman. It is well deserved.
While I am basically fond of American Gods, I did have a few quarrels with it. For those of you who haven't read the book, it's in the vein of the Odyssey in that you have a protagonist who is sent from one locale to another, dealing with gods and operating at their whim. The particular gods square off in two different camps - the modern gods and the old gods. The old gods are the standard mythological gods that we all know and love. The modern gods are the modern items we all need in our lives - television, the Internet, beauty, etc. My problem with it was that Gaimain seemed, at some points, to be making up rules for his world, not because they seemed like the way things would be in such a world, but because they were useful rules for him to have in order to advance the plot. In a word, some sections felt contrived. That being said, I thought the writing was superb and that not only was it an entertaining read, it also had very comedic moments. I also really enjoyed the ending [which I will not give away] but let me just say that it was a fun little twist that really wrapped things up nicely. And while I did enjoy the ending, that may have been partially responsible for my feeling that the book was a bit contrived. Oh, also look out for the inclusion of a dead woman walking the Earth. Clive Barker had a similar character in The Damnation Game and both texts do a nice job of showing just what problems someone who is dead runs into when they're not allowed to lie in the ground. All in all, it was one of the better books I've read in the previous year and would suggest you pick it up. After all, it's in paperback now and that's nearly free!
I'm personally amused by those who are so deeply entrenched in their religions (I hesitate to call them zealots, but let's call a spade a garden tool, here,) that they can bring themselves to a near boil over books like American Gods and Harry Potter. Try explaining Wicca, Satanism, or hell JUDAISM to these people some time... it's hilarious. They're so entrenched in their religious dogma that they refuse to even HEAR the other side.
It's like trying to convince a hard SF fan to read Harry Potter... or a Linux user to load MS Windows. Hmmm... maybe zealot is perfect.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Magic Realism is a sub-genre of both Fantasy and Science Fiction (though its roots are more firmly in Fantasy than Science Fiction) that was fist recognized in South America, but has spread across the globe. I consider much of Gaiman's work to be in this catagory, though others might argue. Certainly American Gods is part Magic Realism, though also part traditional Fantasy.
It's nice to see Fantasy moving forward beyond the niches in which it had languished for so long. Not that there weren't brilliant Fantasy authors or stories that broke out of the standard molds of the genre, but let's face it: science fiction has roamed far and wide from hard science speculation to space opera to the new wave SF of the 60s to the alternate histories of the 90s. Fantasy has maintained a fairly narrow range during that time, focusing mostly on European mythology in various forms (here I include purists such as Tolkein and origial mythologies such as Moorecock's) and the Horror Fantasy that was pioneered in the late 1800s and early 1900s by Poe and Lovecraft among others.
Fantasy is now re-discovering its vast potential, and I could not be more thrilled. Authors like Ian Banks, Jonathan Lethem and others of the genre are well worth checking out. Hopefully this is only the beginning, and we'll have another three or four sub-genres of Fantasy sprouting in the coming decades!
Sci Fi is NOT fantasy.
Actually, in a very roundabout way, it is.
The line between what is "science fiction" and what is "fantasy" is often a moot point. They're both books about worlds that are not and probably never will be, and have (almost) identical target audiences. It used to be that they were just one catagory, but then fantasy broke off on its own--although they still carry the same stigmas, and they still are stocked in the same sections in some stores.
As for the so-called witchcraft in Harry Potter... there's no more real withcraft in there than there was in Star Wars or anything C.S. Lewis ever wrote. In fact, there's more anit-Christian moments in American Gods.
You should give Harry Potter a chance. It's a fun book, with more than a few christian or nearly-christian themes, even if God is a bit absent. But if you refuse to give "Harry Potter" a chance because of its "witchcraft" themes, can you at least be consistent and stay away from Star Wars, Star Trek, American Gods, Babylon 5, everything Asimov wrote, and just about all the other avenues of Science Fiction ever written? They ALL have rather blatant anti-Christian messages, and are filled with blasphemy, aside from a very small minority.
As for Harry Potter being a fad... there's still two or three books in the pipe, as well as another movie coming out next year. You don't see anything in the media about Harry Potter now because (1) it's not longer news and (2) the next movie/book isn't out for awhile, so advertising would be moot.
(Oh, and on a side note, I'm rather certain that seeing the future, preaching, guided-action, levitation, and telekinesis are all historically "witchraft" activiites, while shootling lightning bolts from one's hands didn't get there until D&D and its contemporaries entered print.)
I am very happy with American gods as their choice. I think Gaiman's writing is lush and well-crafted. While American Gods may thematically reflect the flavor of the Sandman comics/graphic novels as a book it gave Gaiman the space to explore the themes with a lot more depth. Despite having a signature darkness his writing has shown a great range from Stardust to Neverwhere to Smoke and Mirrors and even his children's books. I am glad that he is receving some of the critical acclaim that is his due.
And yet... Robert Heinlein's old novella, "Magic Inc." was fantasy in the sense that it was based on the postulate that magic worked and was part of everyday business life, but could also be considered "alternate timeline" science fiction, because other than magic working, the story was about American small-town "main street" business and politics as they existed when the story was written.
"What if?" is the basic question asked by most of the science fiction I enjoy. What it is asked about can be almost anything: "What if dragons not only existed, but could become partners with selected humans?" is an example, as is "What if we had faster than light travel and met up with an interesting alien civilization?"
- Robin
Sheesh. The one Gaiman book I don't fly through right away turns out to be one of the best.
I've come to like the collective term "speculative fiction". It nicely describes the whole range.
Some people take their fun way too seriously. The hugos are a classic example of this. It's just a vote by a group of geeks attenting a yearly international party. Your local mayor probably gets more voter turnout in the local election.
See you at Torcon.
No Zen is good zen
The good news is that an amazing book won the award, the bad news is that it beat out another amazing book: China Mieville's Perdido Street Station.
This is the first time in years where some books I have read have showed up as nominations ( I read Chronoliths as well, but it was so-so). American Gods and Perdido St. represent (to me) the best things to come out of the SCI-Fi genre in a long, long time.
My love for these books aside, I think the arguements over whether these books are actually Canonical Science Fiction are ridiculous. The genre will stagnate (if it hasn't already) if authors are limited to space operas or extrapolating the latest sci-tech flavor (hmmm, I got it, nanopunk! or how about genomepunk?). Neal Stephenson has moved beyond the genre for the most part, and his books keep getting better. Gaiman and Mieville's work are obviously pushing the boundaries of what is or is not science fiction and this is something to be embraced.
As a bonus, both of these books have covers that are actually interesting (Perdido more so that AG). It's nice to be able to read a book in public which doesn't have a cover that looked like someone moonlighting from Harlequin Romances designed it.
The best way to characterize the genre is from the intention of the writer. If the writer is trying to write science fiction, it's SF (admittedly sometimes bad and illogical). It's not a precise rule; you can't just count up the how many times the author uses (telepathy | time travel | FTL travel | mythical creatures | inherited memory | returning from the dead | ... ) and when it hits a magic number throw up your hands and say "That's it! This is fantasy!".
Should we be snobs and disdain fantasy? Of course not. I would consider "Perdido Street Station" the most intellectual of the nominees, and it's clearly not SF (Mieville calls it "weird fiction"). But it's a useful distinction even if it can be difficult to make. Should we throw away the specualtive-fiction super-genre entirely simply becuase Vonnegut and Crighton are difficult to place? (by my rule, of course, neither are SF)
As for the Asimov quote, he's haldly pure. The premise of humans originating from aliens (the Pak, in his Known Space books) is about as "illogical" as can be. But he's trying to write SF, and so that's what it is.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Well yes, I liked PSS better too. But this is, after all, the Hugo; it's a fan award and can be a little populist. If you want something a little more intellectual (though not always better), look at the Nebulas. I like Bujold, for example; her books are fun. But intelligent? No. Yet she's won four Hugos (3 novels, one novella).
In horror: Bram Stoker Award (winner)
In fantasy: World Fantasy Award (nominated, the winner has not been decided yet)
In sci-fi: Hugo Award (winner)
Look at the tons of other awards in Neil Gaiman's collection.
Take a look at the rating breakdown of Titanic at IMDB. Now, it may not be your favorite movie, but if someone is scoring it lower than, say, a 3 (much less the 10.7% that scored it a ONE), then we know that it's just popularity backlash.
Personally, I thought it was a great movie. Not the best movie of all time (the dialogue WAS a little clunky in places), but it is certainly among the greatest disaster sequences ever filmed.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
If Harry Potter is still being mentioned every once in a while in 20 years....then I will say it's not a fad. Personally, I don't think it will have the holding power that Star Wars or Star Trek has had. Sure peoole may be reading it for decades just as people watch the same crap movies time after time on TV. But I don't think that their will be a Harry Potter in Witchcraft College book stating the tales an tribulations of Harry as he enters his 20's.
Gorkman
From the
constitution of the WSFS:
3.2.1: Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year.
Admittedly, prior to Harry Potter the winning novel has never been fantasy (Lord of Light and To Your Scattered Bodies Go are probably the closest, and few people would characterize those as anything other than SF). But fantasy often wins in the short fiction catagories.
From Neil's weblog today:
Fortunately, we mere mortals aren't plauged by such concerns.
Why I haven't got to it is I've been plowing through Terry Pratchett's works (Night Watch due in November) and have a way to go before finishing warping my mind with those.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Star Trek was just a massive metaphor for today's world.
ST is not so much anti-Christian as anti-religion. There have been quite a few comments by characters in the newer series (not classic, that I'm aware of) that humankind is "enlightened" and no longer indulges in "primitive superstitions" such as religion.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
Yes, because we know that anything that is popular is automatically bad. And of course we know that anything obscure and unread by the masses is automatically better.
You really think American Gods is obscure and unread by the masses? Sorry, but unread and obscure books don't get on the New York Times Bestseller List.
I will never, ever, understand why certain people must hate anything that a lot of other people happen to like (see also: movies, Titanic).
Titanic is a bad movie, period. Has nothing to do with its popularity. Most of the people who liked it have very underdeveloped taste. Star Wars was a good movie, and it was quite popular. Apocalypse Now was a great movie, and it was popular. So was the Godfather. So was Schindler's List.
Let's see: which is better, Power Rangers or Dune? I'd gather that Power Rangers is a lot more widely known. . .
I think the thing that most people were really annoyed with about Titanic was its status as a pop culture phenomenon, not the movie itself. It was a good movie. A little didactic in a place or two, dialogue missing something in a few places, but I really quite enjoyed seeing it once I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried a little bit thinking about the human tragedy of the actual event while watching the film, thought about hubris, and was glad to be on dry land in the middle of a Southwestern US desert.
However, it was terribly annoying to have to put up with that Celine Dion song over and over and the people who saw it 10 times and insisted it was the greatest film ever made and a turning point in their lives.
I think most reactive iconoclasms are that way. It's not so much the thing that's popular itself. It's the utter ridiculous prominence on the landscape that's hard to put up with.
Of course, then there are things like Brittney Spears and O-town, for which there are no excuse...
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
We'll see. Yeah alot of that stuff is secondary. But personally, I don't see it going on forever. Some things just do. To me a fad is just what I think Harry is now. The IN thing to read for kids. Kids are really faddish. After a while, something else will peak their interest (read when the next set of kids turn 8). There's nothing I see in Harry Potter that will just make it like Star Wars. The funny thing about Star Wars....I enjoy it and my newphew does and I am sure my Son will too. It's appeal is universal. Harry doesn't seem to me to be that. I have no interest in reading it in any form while I am sure my neice loves them. BTW one could say the same about beanies....some folks STILL collect them. They are STILL popular....they just aren't out in the media. Pogs are too. Every once in a while I will see a stack of POGS sitting somewhere. Be thankful kids are faddish....that means Britney's time is just about up! ;) Then she will be the next E! true hollywood story.
Gorkman
However, for the more general bookreading audience, the success of American Gods has proven that Gaiman can be far more than a great comic book writer (after all, Gaiman first made a name for himself as the writer for the DC comic book series Sandman ).
:-)
I wonder is American Gods out in paperback yet.
Given the fact that the Hugos honor both science fiction AND fantasy novels, let's consider this interesting what if: J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was published in 2001 instead of 1953-1955.
Given how amazingly well put together LoTR is, I'm sure LoTR (had it been published in 2001) would likely have garnered both Hugo and Nebula nominations--and probably would have won both awards for Best Novel this year.
Let's see: which is better, Power Rangers or Dune? I'd gather that Power Rangers is a lot more widely known. . .
Well, if Power Rangers is a movie, it's probably better than the movie made of Dune.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Star Trek anti Christian? I doubt that very much. First off, my pastor loves Star Trek and see's nothing anti christian in it at all. You don't see sex portrayed much in Star Trek and I hope they never go down that line.
I don't see anything anti-chrisitan in Harry Potter or D&D either, but I can see the possiblities.
Star Trek: God doesn't exist, and the universe is ruled by capricious powers called "Q" that are more akin to the deacent roman gods than anything in the Christina mythos.
While I will agree that Star Wars had some witchcraft connotations they are just that....connotations. And with the release of The Phantom Menace and other prequels we find out that Jedi's aren't as mistifying as they seem. There's a scientific reason they can do the things they do....even if it's made up (midichlorians).
Anakin was concieved by the midicholorians, and is referred to many times as "the chosen one." If you're going to count anything in media as "witchcraft" or "anti-christian", you had better count Star Wars in it.
Harry Potter is blantant. It comes right out and screams we are witches and worlocks. To me ANY form of that is evil. There's no such thing as a good witch. Now I am not going to go on a witch hunt because the ones who say they are are being fooled by satan.
Why, exactly, is witchcraft evil? The most damning thing I've ever seen in the bible about it is it being listed along with other "desires of the flesh" like sex and anger. Hardly a "damn on name" thing, if you ask me.
One of the most interesting books I have read was a comparison of the Jedi to Christians. It was a really compelling book albiet small.
I saw a website not too long ago that laid out a "Jedi" wicca tradition. Notwistanding the obvious similarities between wicca and our own faith, I don't think Jedi are any closer to Christians than they are to Witchcraft.
I am not closed minded. I believe that there's one god and there's noone more powerful then him. I cannot accept that there are any more gods than the only god I know.
Why not? God said not to worship them. He said don't obey them. He said be wary of them--he never said "there aren't any other gods but me."
They do exist. They shouldn't be given any more respect than a mortal soul (at best--some are doubtless as bad as fallen angels), but they do exist.
Telekenesis is not really an indication of god either. You think god is going to come down and make thing levitate to prove he's god? That's laughable in this day and age.
I didn't say it was an indication of God. It is, however, one of the feats that modern-day witches aspire to.
Dogma is nothing more then legalism and it's not what is preached at my church...
I am not condeming you if you read Harry Potter. I am saying I will not read it because it's counter to all of my belief system. If that's closed minded, well, so be it. At least I have the guts to try to stick to my beliefs rather then roll over and submit to satan's whims like most folks do.
You believe in an unwavering, judgemental dogma that brands "witchcraft" as satanism. This is simply not the case. I know a whole slew of witches, and they're not satanists--they're not christians either, but they're certainly not satanists any more than christians of a different denominations (or Jews or Muslims) are.
There's nothing evil or automatically damning about Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, or any other story. Every question raised about our faith can be answered, and every act of God understood with enough knoweldge. Our religion is not one of hidebound route and routine--it's one of love and forgiveness, and the God I know isn't someone who will damn someone who just reads a book.
And yet, if you read the actual rules for the Hugo Awards, it clearly states that "Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy"
...who would have thought that so much posting and controversy would be stirred up by this! For the record:
1) I liked American Gods very much when I read it and even felt it was a sort of commentary about current american values. 'Course, I love everything Gaiman has ever written including Sandman, Neverwhere, Good Omens, and so forth.
2) I thoroughly enjoyed Goblet of Fire and all of the other Harry Potter books. They are mere mind candy (not difficult reading) and enjoyable for what they are.
3) Should a Harry Potter book have recieved the Hugo? Well it is good writing for what it is. But in the rampant discussion concerning what is fantasy and what is sci-fi, there are many grey lines. That being said, I believe that Harry Potter is purely fantasy. And if the Hugo is a sci-fi award, then it shouldn't have been awarded to Goblet of Fire. Gaiman's works tend to fall in the grey area and are even similar to the "urban fantasy" works of Charles DeLint. I don't think that I would give DeLint an award in the sci-fi category (even though I really love his stuff and recommend it to everyone) but surely in the fantasy realm. Maybe American Gods should be in that realm too. Then again, I really like Gaiman's work, and since it is in that grey area (an area that theoretical physics is in as well) I'd just as soon not argue at length as to whether it deserves the Hugo or not. Let's just say that I'm glad it got an award.
4) Finally, there are way too many posts under the "Narrow Minded Bigot" subject that are just way off-topic but have been modded up for being "insightful" or similar. People debating what is christian/pagan etc. (though very politely in general, thank-you) is not on the topic of this years and last years Hugo award winner.
Optimist: The glass is half full
Pessimist: The glass is half empty
Doofus: The glass is half full, no, wait, empty, ummm what was the question?
Realist: Hey, I ordered a cheeseburger!
:::Horrendous Experiences Make Amusing Anecdotes:::
Well, if Power Rangers is a movie, it's probably better than the movie made of Dune.
Make that "better than both movies made of Dune." Not quite, but close enough to make it funny.
I wonder is American Gods out in paperback yet. :-)
Paperback came out May 2002, according to the CIP data in my paperback copy (HarperCollins; N. American printing).
Just to clarify, I was thinking about his fiction writing, rather than his religious writing (although as an atheist you might not make the distinction ;) - haven't read any of the latter, though there's a copy of Mere Christianity lying around the house somewhere that I keep meaning to read. Once I've finished all the evil satanic fantasy books I keep buying, that is...
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
I almost ate the flame bait myself. Even if I didn't like Harry Potter, the comment is clearly antagonistic, and adds nothing to the news item itself.
One thing that bothered me a little about American Gods... if each god's power is based on his/her mindshare, shouldn't Jesus/Buddha/Krishna/etc be stomping around the planet like Godzillas? (erm... no pun intended
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Well, which is it? If you were presented with incontrovertible evidence of other gods besides yours, would you accept it or not? If not, you're closed minded.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I think sci-fi is like art (and pornography for that matter). I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.
- SMJ - (It's not just a name: it's a bad aftertaste.)
Sigh... Incarnations of Immortality is a series by Piers Anthony, not Roger Zelazny. Zelazney is best known for the Amber series, which would actually form a better example for your first category, since the Amber multiverse is a superset which contains our mundane little universe within it.
Thus, although the stories are full of magic, this isn't contradicted by the lack of overt magic in our particular piece of Shadow; you could therefore make the case that it is science fiction, just barely. In Incarnations magic is an integral part of the world, which puts it firmly in the fantasy camp; it does not follow the known structure of our universe.
This is special that it goes beyond the myriads of children's book awards that she had already one and why she also wins in adult categories.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. - Exodus 22:18 KJV (Modern translations say "sorceress.")
While a literal translation would read "poisener". I.E. one of the people who tried to assassinate kngs with poisen in the glorious days that the bible was written in.
It was changed to "witch" sometime in the middle ages, as a political tool to allow arbitrary enforcement of the death penalty against people that the Church didn't like.
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
Thought this was funny! From his journal:
Several hundred congratulatory e-mails came in today. My favourite so far, from my son Mike, just said Well, it is always weird to wake up and read your family news at the top of slashdot, but I suppose I'll get used to it at some point. Congratulations Dad!
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Thank you thank you thank you! Praise the lord someone whose good at the bible found this thread! While I have been doing better at reading my bible, I still aspire to know it better.
So many people are fooled by Satan believing if it feels good or is entertaining, that it's a good thing to watch. Of course Satan wants you to see something evil as good. That's how he tricks you down the slippery path. This PROVES my arguement that Harry Potter should just not be shown to kids. I am sorry. No Harry Potter in my house. I am going to try so hard to make the money so I can afford to send my kid to a Christian school so I can be certain he'd never be asked to read this. Sure, it's fun. That's what Satan wants you to think. If I just let my son watch immoral and imitate immoral things then what will become of him?
As against witchcraft as I am, I still let my son particpate in Trick or Treat. Trick or Treats origins are from the druids (Celebration for Samhain I think....) and are satanic, but I personally let my son dress up in good things. No scary stuff, no monsters. Sorry. He can dress up as his favorte NASCAR driver or something like that. I plan to put tracts in with my treats too this year. Basically we celebrate Halloween (or Harvest Festival or whatever you want to call it) by bringing god into a holiday that there usually isn't. Bible says to go where your enemies are and not to avoid them. Everyone trys to remove god from Christmas (those that do call it Winter Festival or maybe Saturnalia yet they have the same images we do (snowmen, Santa Claus)), so why can't we bring god into a fall celebration?
Gorkman