The Best 10 Fictional Works
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Re: The Best 10 Fictional Works
 
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Thanks Robert C On 10/11/10 12:00 PM, Victoria Hughes wrote: Just checking - this is the Friam list and not the discuss list, right? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The Best 10 Fictional Works
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In reply to this post by Victoria Hughes
I have never heard of him, Tory, lord help me. The second most widely read author in the UK and the seventh most widely read non-US author here. I wonder who compiled that statistic. But there's glory for you nonetheless.Â
Thanks to all for mentioning him - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett ScottÂ
On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 11:57 AM, Victoria Hughes <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: The Best 10 Fictional Works
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In reply to this post by Victoria Hughes
Favorite one? Â Well, I love the whole interplay with DEATH and his granddaughter, so I agree that Thief of Time is excellent. Â For my favorite I'm going to go with one of the city watch books though ... either Night Watch or Jingo. Â (Night Watch overall is better, but that bit near then end of Jingo, where Vimes learns what would have happened if he'd made different choices is pretty powerful.)
Of course if you only want literature, Robert, then I suppose No Country for Old Men is more your cup of tea. Â Excellent stuff. Â But I do prefer stories that have an ending myself. Cheers, -Ted
On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 1:57 PM, Victoria Hughes <[hidden email]> wrote:
--
Ted Carmichael, Ph.D. Complex Systems Institute Department of Software and Information Systems College of Computing and Informatics 310-A Woodward Hall UNC Charlotte
Charlotte, NC 28223 Phone: 704-492-4902
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Pratchett & Fiction as a precursor to Fact
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In reply to this post by Scott R. Powell
For the sake of Owen's list ettiquete, let me change the thread
Subject: here. And relieve Cordingly from trying to compile from
messages in this subject line.
I enjoy Pratchett's work the same way I enjoyed Piers Anthony's Xanth Series with titles such as Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn. Very clever yarn spinning for sure, but in both cases, I find the constant multiple entendres, puns, etc. tedious after a while. Both involve very clever world-building and since Pratchett is more recent for me, I have to say that I think his world-building is more elaborate/complete/cool... but that could just be the natural distortion of the rear-view-mirror of time. Pratchett (IMO) does expose some interesting philosophical and scientific/technical ideas but for the most part doesn't develop them as far as perhaps some of the Hard SF writers (Doug's Niven or Pohl suggestions) do. I have to second (and third) Tory's rant (rave) on the topic of how fiction writing and fact pursuit are part of an autocatalytic network (I think she said something more like fiction/storytelling providing the seeds for scientific/technical development). I invited the Nebula Awards attendees (SF 1998) to LANL for a series of talks and "meet the scientist" opportunities for this very reason... it is my opinion that much of Science itself has been preceded by fairly "wild" speculation... it is much easier to intuitively speculate about possible scientific developments than it is to actually do the hard work of hypothesis testing and generation. The result is that Speculative (Science) Fiction can not only prophesy scientific development sometimes, but in it's own way, *lead* it. My friend Jack Williamson has a couple of examples of this in his various autobiographies. He was, for example, the first (apparently) to talk about anti-matter. He called it Contra-Terrene (or CT matter) and pegged many of the qualities of it, long before anyone else suggested it, much less demonstrated it in a laboratory). One might imagine that young scientists reading his pulp might have been inspired/lead to go do the hard work... Similarly, Jack was accosted by the FBI during WWII/Manhattan Project, accusing him of leaking secrets about the A-Bomb and wanting to know where he got the information to write a story on the topic. He shut them up by producing a story from 1932 that he wrote that developed the ideas. Of course, it *was* the FBI. The Oxford English Dictionary has a whole project to gather up ideas from science coined in Science Fiction... Contra-Terrene would be an example. I believe that Heinlein's "Waldos" would be another. http://www.oed.com/newsletters/2004-03/scifi.html - Steve I have never heard of him, Tory, lord help me. The second most widely read author in the UK and the seventh most widely read non-US author here. I wonder who compiled that statistic. But there's glory for you nonetheless. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The Best 10 Fictional Works
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In reply to this post by Stephen Guerin
Stephen,
I missed this the first time. Steve S. called it to my attention. Are they available for cheap somehow? N -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Stephen Guerin Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2010 1:01 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works On Oct 9, 2010, at 5:34 PM, Leigh Fanning wrote: > Likewise, I am keenly aware as well that we are largely reading only > in Western European and American works. Can any folks on this list > who were raised outside this tradition, weigh in? Additionally, I > appreciated the > sci-fi variant, and would be interested in a fairy tale variant. > I've read > wonderful tales in the German and Norse traditions, and once found a > delightful book of Tolstoy fairy tales. I know nothing of Eastern > ones, among others, and would like to remedy this if someone has > suggestions along these lines. Three novels that would probably be on a Chinese top 10 list: "Dream of the Red Chamber" "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" "Journey to the West" -S ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Robert J. Cordingley
Everyone should read David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Stephenson's Anathema is also a must read, much better than Cyptonomicon IMO. On Oct 8, 2010, at 12:44 PM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote: > Ok, so I've decided my literary education is somewhat lacking and would like to know this group's recommendations for the "10 Best Literary Works" I should read. They have to be works of fiction and available in English and not just say of 2009 but of all time. Google searches tend to list the best of a year or be listed by one particular publisher. This is a good group to poll since you all (most) have at least some kind of scientific/technical bent. So I know the suggestions will be good ones for me! > > Once I have a list of all suggestions maybe I'll ask you all to vote on them. > > My list currently starts with Frank's recommendation today: > > "Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West" by Cormac McCarthy > > Thanks! > Robert C. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The Best 10 Fictional Works
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Robert,
Isn't that three new ones! 120!? Nick -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Miles Parker Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2010 1:26 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works Everyone should read David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Stephenson's Anathema is also a must read, much better than Cyptonomicon IMO. On Oct 8, 2010, at 12:44 PM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote: > Ok, so I've decided my literary education is somewhat lacking and would like to know this group's recommendations for the "10 Best Literary Works" I should read. They have to be works of fiction and available in English and not just say of 2009 but of all time. Google searches tend to list the best of a year or be listed by one particular publisher. This is a good group to poll since you all (most) have at least some kind of scientific/technical bent. So I know the suggestions will be good ones for me! > > Once I have a list of all suggestions maybe I'll ask you all to vote on them. > > My list currently starts with Frank's recommendation today: > > "Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West" by Cormac > McCarthy > > Thanks! > Robert C. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe > at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at > http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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