The Reading Room

b_jonas

00:00

But it's hard to draw the line. Is Capitaine Hatteras sci-fi? Or Indes Noires?

Rand al'Thor

If you're not sure, and it's a book, then there's one site where you can definitely ask it :-)

BESW

There is no line, and one of sci-fi.se's greatest challenges lies in its iterative refusal to take that on the chin.

Hmm. @Randal'Thor I have the impression you've mentioned reading Gormenghast, or was that someone else?

Rand al'Thor

@BESW Yep, I read all three Gormenghast books.

b_jonas

Exactly. If the book is clearly sci-fi (as in, one of the about five books that have electric submarines in it, or one of the four that have giant cannons, or one with inventions like Drapeau or Docteur Ox) then I ask on Sci Fi; if question is about a sci-fi element like scifi.stackexchange.com/q/63670/4918 then I ask on Sci Fi; otherwise here.

BESW

But I assume you haven't read Lungbarrow.

Rand al'Thor

00:03

(Though the third one wasn't very good. It was easy to tell that the manuscript wasn't properly finished.)

@BESW Nope. My Whovian consumption is so far restricted to the screen.

BESW

There are apparently a number of Peake references in Expanded Universe material about Gallifrey during the Wilderness Years--like Lungbarrow and "Auld Mortality."

b_jonas

Hmm, that reminds me... I should add Deux ans de vacances to my TODO list too. Re-reading that might inspire some questions. That novel has unusually many well thought out characters with different views that there should be interesting things to ask.

Rand al'Thor

Gormenghast is for some reason considered on-topic at SFF, though I can't think of anything SF/F-y about it. At least not the first two books; the third is possibly set in a rather underdeveloped futuristic world.

b_jonas

And it's not clearly sci-fi (a kite lifting a child is not enough to qualify it).

doppelgreener

@BESW Like via the seasonal "is this series really scifi or fantasy & on topic?" meta questions?

BESW

00:08

@doppelgreener Aye. Or that absolutely surreal "is magical realism really fantasy?" debate.

I even once ran into an argument that one genre trumps another such that Gulliver's Travels is not fantasy inasmuch as it's also (instead) allegory.

b_jonas

@doppelgreener Does it count if the question is whether a particular event was fantastical or mundane, as in scifi.stackexchange.com/q/63670/4918 ? In that case, the submarines leave us no doubt that the novel is sci-fi, but that particular event isn't clear.

doppelgreener

@b_jonas Hm. Does one person firing a ray gun in one Sherlock Holmes story make Sherlock Holmes a sci-fi series?

I think at that point I'd go back to what BESW's mentioned in the past, that genres like "science fiction" are about target audiences, not subject matter.

Interesting question though.

b_jonas

@doppelgreener Oh come on. The first Sherlock Holmes story opens by Holmes developing a sci-fi device to help his investigations: a potion that can detect blood in small quantities. Isn't that enough to make it sci-fi?

BESW

Again, genres make so much more sense when considered as marketing tools descriptive of audiences which might like the content, rather than as categories descriptive of the content itself.

b_jonas

@doppelgreener What ray gun though? I don't remember that. Is that in one of Doyle's original stories? I've only read half of them.

BESW

00:13

...Aaand now I have a mainsite question about Sherlock Holmes.

b_jonas

> "I have found a re-agent which is precipitated by hæmoglobin, and by nothing else."

doppelgreener

@b_jonas It was a theoretical. Also I'm not actually trying to dive deep into that topic, 1am after I've had some rum is not a good time for me to debate the nature of genre. :D

b_jonas

(Study in Scarlet chapter 1)

@doppelgreener Yeah.

Rand al'Thor

@b_jonas The only Sherlock Holmes story I've heard argued to be potentially SF/F is "The Adventure of the Creeping Man", in which a man takes a potion which makes him behave like a monkey.

It's, shall we say, at least as SF/F as Jekyll and Hyde.

doppelgreener

@Randal'Thor that could also be Victorian sensibilities in the capabilities of medicine.

Rand al'Thor

00:16

> the professor sought out as a way of achieving rejuvenation, which he thought would be advisable if he were going to marry a young woman. The drug is an extract obtained from langurs, and although it has apparently given the professor renewed energy, it has also given him some of the langur's traits.

I'd forgotten that bit.

doppelgreener

& similar for forensics for that haemoglobin potion. CSI Miami has nonexistent techniques for scanning for fingerprints, but that's more of a plot convenience than a matter of science fiction.

Rand al'Thor

So it's also an elixir of youth.

b_jonas

Well, it's possible that some of the original Holmes stories are Sci Fi, and some aren't.

He should learn from Willy Wonka. He has a drug that makes you younger, one that makes you older (with a recipe showing that it's made from everything old), and a vitamin that makes your toes grow as long as your fingers (is that monkey-like enough?).

BESW

I seem to recall that the later Holmes stories, the ones concurrent with Professor Challenger, had a more credulous attitude toward spiritualism.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

00:33

"Rughr," growled Char in disgust. "That must be two, three hundred Earth-years old. If you want to prowl around in books, I got an up-to-date general board of directors' report that says we're thirty-five freighters behind in bauxite deliveries." - In case anyone starts wondering where George Lucas got his inspiration to base an entire Star Wars movie on trade route negotiations, I bet he read "Battlefield Earth"

Whoah... 40 messages moved to trash. What'd you all kids get in trouble for while I was not paying attention? Should I blame Steelers preemptively?

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-on-Ahch-To Ankit (and DForck and I a bit) kept going on about poop.

Nope, Steeler wasn't there :-)

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@Randal'Thor The last Freakonomics podcast featured poop. Seems like a respectable topic.

BESW

Hmm. Racist aliens, nonsensical and oversimplified politics, painful sciencey explanations that make less sense the more they say, a protagonist with barely any personality who is magically good at everything he tries... but if he'd really used Battlefield Earth as a template for Phantom Menace it would've had about 40% more lawyers and 30% fewer bright colors.

Rand al'Thor

@BESW I don't recall that offhand. Do you remember which ones specifically, other than "Creeping Man"?

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@BESW If Galactic Senate is in any way modeled on US Congress, I'd say they implicitly have 40% lawyers as on-screen characters :)

Oh goodie. Like "is it SciFi" relative to non-realistic technology wasn't enough of a contentious topic on SFF Meta, we have to argue about it on Literature too? :)

Down with genre divides!

BESW

00:43

@Randal'Thor I'll have to do some digging.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@Randal'Thor - do you recon there's a possible audience if I start a new chat room and do SinemaSins type reading of Battlefield Earth?

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-on-Ahch-To Well, no. That's the beauty of Literature: we can ignore that whole debate, and instead argue about whether film scripts and song lyrics and cookbooks and car manuals count as literature :-)

Bookworm

2

Q: Do Holmes and Challenger coinhabit the same fictional world?

Doyle published The Lost World well after both killing off and reviving Sherlock Holmes. He wrote about Professor Challenger and Holmes concurrently for about fourteen years, and continued to write Professor Challenger stories for a few years after the last Holmes story. Doyle always had a kind ...

DVK-on-Ahch-To

""Today," said Terl, brushing Char's push for work aside, "I got a sighting report from a recon drone that recorded only thirty-five men in that valley near that peak." Terl waved his paw westward toward the towering mountain range silhouetted by the moon.". FiveThirtyEight rates this as Bad Use of Statistics.

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-on-Ahch-To Sorry, I don't know what SinemaSins is, and don't know anything about Battlefield Earth either.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

00:45

@Randal'Thor youtube.com/user/CinemaSins

BESW

I'd lurk there.

Rand al'Thor

I may also be a poor judge of such things anyway. I was expecting a reasonable audience for my American Gods chatroom on SFF, but so far nobody except me has said anything in there.

DVK-on-Ahch-To

It's a youtube channel featuring funny videos that dock points to movies based on assorted stupid (or funny) things in them

@Randal'Thor I would highly recommend watching some of their content (as well as Honest Trailers channel)

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-on-Ahch-To Even for someone who hardly watches films at all?

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@Randal'Thor I've had fun at videos about films I never watched.

Rand al'Thor

00:50

Everything Wrong With Cinema Sins In 3 Minutes Or Less

►

+1 for meta, but that's probably not the best one to start with.

Oh right. I did watch one of these, for "Day of the Doctor" (the 50th anniversary Doctor Who special). Didn't like it, and never went back.

OK, I just got 50 seconds into this one and had to stop. Do they have ANY F---ING CLUE about the works they're trying to comment on?

Pompous know-it-all putdowns inspired by cocky ignorance ... doesn't really appeal to me, sorry.

One problem might be that I only watch good stuff. So either they're slagging off something I know nothing about, or something I like - neither of which is very appealing.

I suppose I could watch whatever they've got to say about Star Wars, but Peter Capaldi already has it nailed :-P

BESW

@Randal'Thor I'm positive I remember some kind of potentially spiritualist thing going unresolved in a latter-day Holmes story because it turned out to not have to do with the crime, but I can't track it down.

I did find another example of CSI science though, so [edits to be more representative].

DVK-on-Ahch-To

01:14

Everything Wrong With Return of the Jedi

►

DVK-on-Ahch-To

03:13

@Randal'Thor Hey, that describes a lot of my infamous Obi-Wan lying answer on SFF :)

BESW

08:36

This is a map showing where all of the characters originated in Homer’s epic poem The Iliad http://kottke.org/17/02/map-showing-the-homeland-of-every-character-in-homers-iliad https://t.co/HNE3RLvFga

Tweeted by ticiaverveer on February 13, 2017 at 3:09 PM

Gallifreyan

09:05

Blood Stain vol. I is being given away for free!

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan Are you planning to get bloody?

Gallifreyan

@Mithrandir I already have... both volumes!

b_jonas

10:24

@Randal'Thor I haven't even borrowed that book yet! Originals are available in Szeged, and there's one in OIK but currently borrowed, and I have other books I have to read first.

b_jonas

10:56

@Randal'Thor english.stackexchange.com/q/384350/32815 is yours, I think, after all the "Patience, young padawan" you've done here.

Rand al'Thor

@DVK-on-Ahch-To I don't think your answer was based on cocky ignorance :-) You know your Star Wars; those CinemaSins people seem to not know sh*t.

Gallifreyan

"Patience, my young padawan." - courtesy of Rand al'Thor. — Gallifreyan 27 secs ago

Rand al'Thor

0

A: What is an idiom to tell someone to control their excitement, mostly before taking action?

What I always use in this situation is: Patience, my young padawan. See Yoda Quotes.

cc @Mithrandir ^

Mithrandir

'

Rand al'Thor

in The Sphinx's Lair, 2 hours ago, by Mithrandir

yesterday, by Deusovi

...That's not an answer to the question. It's an apostrophe.

Mithrandir

11:10

in The Sphinx's Lair, Feb 2 at 15:19, by Rand al'Thor

in The Reading Room, Jan 22 at 17:43, by Rand al'Thor

in Mos Eisley, Jan 10 at 19:10, by Rand al'Thor

Sep 15 '16 at 20:22, by Rand al'Thor

yesterday, by Rand al'Thor

5 hours ago, by Rand al'Thor

Patience, my young padawan.

Rand al'Thor

Sandbox

Where you can play with chat features (except flagging) and ch...

2

^ if you want to experiment with quote nesting :-P

BESW

12:38

13 Tweets about monster creation. 1: When an artist has an imbalance between beauty and tragedy, or rage, in his/her sense of self-

Tweeted by RealGDT on April 16, 2017 at 11:59 AM

DVK-on-Ahch-To

is.muni.cz/th/74993/ff_b/thesis.pdf

seems like an interesting essay/thesis

BESW

Does it talk about why both are so popular despite being some of the most boring detectives of the golden age?

b_jonas

@BESW Who?

Oh wait, that essay DVK linked.

BESW

Holmes and Poirot. Give me Alan Grant, Philip Trent, or Albert Campion.

b_jonas

@BESW What? Poirot isn't boring.

BESW

12:45

YMMV, obviously.

b_jonas

Perhaps Holmes is…

Rand al'Thor

Holmes is great!

If you want a really unreadable detective, try Dupin. (Unreadable unless you happen to be used to maths research papers, that is. I loved the Dupin stories.)

b_jonas

@Randal'Thor Yeah, he's a good detective, but he doesn't tell what he's doing, not even as much as Poirot does.

@Randal'Thor I will try him, yes. You already recommended him, but I haven't read the stories yet.

There are only four of them, so it shouldn't take too long. But I'm still reading The Moon is a harsh mistress and maybe I can come up with more questions about it.

Rand al'Thor

@b_jonas Four? I thought there were only three.

Rue Morgue, Marie Roget, and Purloined Letter. What's the fourth?

b_jonas

(And of course, even of maths papers, I like the well-written ones, but those are rare. Very few mathematicians are good textbook writers.)

@Randal'Thor Uh, I don't know. Maybe only three.

Rand al'Thor

12:50

Marie Roget is the best, and also the hardest to read.

It's basically a very extended analysis of newspaper articles, without even visiting the scene of the crime, in order to deduce, very carefully and rigorously, what must have happened to this young woman.

It's also essentially identical to a real-life story, except that the country and the names were changed. IIRC, when that real-life case was (partially?) solved, it transpired that all of Poe's/Dupin's deductions were spot-on.

b_jonas

@Randal'Thor That's normal. The best Poirot novel is Five little pigs, which happens like twenty years after the murder, so Poirot can't really look for anything at the scene of the crime, the lady who was put into prison for the murder have already died, and so has his husband. All Poirot can do is interview the five little pigs, and in an unofficial capacity, since the police has already closed the case.

(In contrast to Curtain, where Poirot is already there before the criminal even decides to do anything.)

I think both Poirot and Holmes prefer to be on the scene of the crime already. That's the easiest, being on a train or cruise ship cut off from the rest of the world so he clearly can't miss any victims. (The cruise ship one does manage to end up badly, with a lot of people dying.)

BESW

13:42

Just ICYMI... but there's still a Tezuka KS going on. You want these books. Yes. yes you do. :) http://kck.st/2mKcIHj

Tweeted by TezukaInEnglish on April 15, 2017 at 4:29 PM

Hamlet

16:03

@Randal'Thor songs, not song lyrics. FIlms, not film scripts.

b_jonas

17:01

Ok, so what I don't understand is this. Was it the real doctor Budah who gave the poison to the king, or was it a body double? Neither the king nor don Rumata had met Budah before, so they wouldn't be able to tell. I presume we would find this out later, but it wasn't clear to me from the doctor's explanation about the poisoning.

I think it was a double.

Yeah, the explanation does cover it. “És a gazember egy szélhámost csempészett a király elé, akinek odaígérte az udvari kuruzsló címét, ha meggyógyítja az uralkodót. [… don Reba] keresve sem találhatott volna jobb alkalmat arra, hogy az ál-Budahot a király elébe vigye.”

That clears it up.

Rand al'Thor

17:32

@Gallifreyan ?? literature.meta.stackexchange.com/posts/649/revisions

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor Oh crap.

I think I misread it initially

Rand al'Thor

Read the "as" as an "are" perhaps?

Gallifreyan

I thought you were going to say "[are] an interesting form", so I didn't think of "form" as a verb.

@Randal'Thor That too.

Fixed now.

Rand al'Thor

Also, wow. +11?

And what happened to my Nice Answer badge?

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor I also needed that edit to be able to reverse my vote :D

Rand al'Thor

17:36

@Gallifreyan You downvoted? :-o

Ah, because it was in danger of overtaking HtBaG before this month started?

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor Initially, because I thought they'd be boring. But then I remembered there's the exciting stuff, when I learned that Neil Gaiman wrote the script for Beowulf the atrocious CGI film.

@Randal'Thor And that too :D

But that was after I downvoted it for being boring :)

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan You only think an ancient and highly influential category of literature is interesting because of Neil Gaiman and a film?!

migrates Gallifreyan to Movies & TV

2

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor I didn't say the film was interesting, I meant the source might have been interesting.

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan I was practically asking people to downvote that answer, after I'd already announced HtBaG as the April topic challenge and then the Icelandic sagas were overtaking it.

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor Well, you have my upvote now.

Rand al'Thor

17:50

@Randal'Thor There it is, padawan.

@Gallifreyan :-D

Gallifreyan

Suggests 75-issue-long Sandman as the reading challenge.

Bookworm

19:45

0

Q: Who are the Mephistophelians?

In Mark Dunn's "progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable" Ella Minnow Pea, the populace of a small island are forbidden the use of certain letters of the English alphabet in speech and writing as they fall off of a sign. The story develops as characters write letters to each other. In one le...

mark-dunn ella-minnow-pea

Rand al'Thor

@Bookworm @Shokhet Oh, nice, another lipogrammatic tale!

I was just chatting about The Wonderful O earlier in another room.

Love the wordplay in "Ella Minnow Pea" too.

Hmm, it's set on an island as well? I wonder if it was even inspired by The Wonderful O.

Gallifreyan

16 days, 8 hard-to-be-a-god questions. Not bad, I say.

Shokhet

20:06

@Randal'Thor Haven't heard of that one

My sister was reading Ella Minnow Pea for school. I think she's writing a book report on it.

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet You should try it: it's short and very beautifully written. Thurber has the amazing knack of writing prose with such perfect rhyme and rhythm that it reads like poetry.

in The Sphinx's Lair, 6 hours ago, by Rand al'Thor

> I’ll build you a better man of firmer flesh and all complete, from hairy head to metatarsal feet, using A’s and I’s and U’s and E’s with muscular arms and flexible knees; eyes and ears and lids and lips, neck and chest and breast and hips; …

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor That looks good!

I'll see if the library has a copy

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