Links for 20-02-2007
Iain Banks profiled, Iain Emsley back in the blogosphere, cargo cults, Rob Sawyer on AI and science fiction…
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1 – Iain Banks: The novel factory
“Banks is the Tarantino of the book world.” High praise for the man himself in this Independent profile.
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2 – Yatterings
The mighty Iain Emsley returns to the UK sf blogosphere! w00t! Iain’s a great reviewer and a very knowledgeable fan; his blog will be well worth subscribing to.
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3 – John Frum and the Cargo Cults
Nice little introductory piece on this bizarre modern phenomenon.
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4 – Scientists to NASA: Study Earth
“At a time when the need has never been greater, we are faced with an Earth-observation program that will dramatically diminish over the next five to 10 years…”
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5 – Virtual war helps US soldiers deal with trauma
“A “virtual Iraq” simulation that allows soldiers to re-live and confront psychological trauma has produced promising results for the initial handful of patients treated using the system.” Talk about counter-intuitive.
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6 – Scientific literacy happens — when students think for themselves
“Give college students less instruction and more freedom to think for themselves in laboratory classes, and the result may be a four-fold increase in their test scores.” Hoodathunkit?
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7 – Getting Ready for Deep Impact
“…a little over two years after perhaps the biggest asteroid scare of all time, no planetary defense plan is in place nor an indication of who would put one into effect.”
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8 – LeGuin’s “The Dispossessed” and Anarchism
An essay by Robert Newman from the 70s.
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9 – ‘Against the Day’ by Thomas Pynchon, reviewed by Adam Roberts
“Summary is expected of reviewers, but it’s a tall order as far as this novel is concerned.” Roberts gets his teeth into Pynchon’s doorstep, and makes it sound like a pretty interesting piece of work in the process.
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“I have always been an admirer of John’s criticism, but never uncritically so [...] Nevertheless I tend to nod along with what he has to say, until every so often something just makes me stop dead in my tracks.” Kincaid on Clute.
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11 – AI and Sci-Fi: My, Oh, My!
Rob Sawyer’s essay on AI in science fiction for the Lifeboat Foundation. A pretty good read, though probably no big news for serious genre buffs.
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12 – Table-top fusion, back with a pop
“Rusi Taleyarkhan, the physicist at the centre of a furore surrounding so-called bubble fusion, was last week cleared of scientific misconduct.”
April 28th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
good luck to you
i will go ahead and share my heritage with you
http://www.eighthreeseven.com/2007/04/19/the-funniest-short-novels-ever-written-free/
enjoy, be happy