[FRIAM] OK. That's funny.
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Wed Aug 5 11:24:51 EDT 2020
Frank -
Heinlein was up there with the likes of Clark and Asimov, leading the
Science Fiction community out of the Golden Age into the Modern Age in
the 50's and 60's and beyond. He also coined the term "Speculative
Fiction" to try to distinguish hard, science-based
speculation/extrapolatin in fiction from the all-too-common loosey
goosey style of the Golden Age. He also pioneered injecting
contemporary social issues into science fiction, specifically with
Stranger in a Strange Land. I'm not surprised if you don't recognize
his later works (e.g. Number of the Beast 1980), but I'd have thunk that
if you read Science Fiction at all Heinlein would be a very familiar name.
I have not read "La Biblioteca de Babel" in Spanish, but I have read the
translation... given the theme, I'm curious how many languages it has
been translated into. Give it a whirl if you might?
It would appear that someone has built a "virtual" Biblioteca de Babel
online... I have not explored it in any way. I suppose there are
analyses somewhere of the signal/noise ratio which must be diminishingly
low, as it would seem most/many of the universii to be explored by
Heinlein's protaganists. With the Looking Glass/Rabbit Hole side of
the multiverse verging itself on madness to anyone who might visit?
https://libraryofbabel.info/
- Steve
On 8/4/20 9:55 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> I am unfamiliar with almost all your allusions with the exception of
> "El Jardín de los Senderos que se Bifurcan" which I read in Spanish
> class many years ago.
>
> Are the rest of you readers familiar with NotP, etc.?
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Tue, Aug 4, 2020, 9:25 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com
> <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote:
>
> This discussion of alternate skinning and in particular the Mad
> Hatter's Tea Party triggers:
>
> I am just now (re)visiting Robert Heinlein by reading his
> posthumous "fork" of his classic Number of the Beast, Pursuit of
> the Pankera
> <https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/49241808-the-pursuit-of-the-pankera>.
> The PotP was apparently pulled together with funding from a
> Kickstarter
> <https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/612713154/robert-heinleins-unpublished-novel>!
> In fact it is more likely that NotB is the "fork" since the PotP
> material was apparently complete by 1977 and NOTB was published in
> 1980. As appropriate (maybe even somehow intended?) the NotB and
> PotP diverge about 20% into the material which is armatured around
> the conceit of the protaganist having invented a "continua" device
> capable of "sideslipping" across the (6^6)^6{\displaystyle
> (6^{6})^{6}(6^6jjjor ~10^27 members of the multiverse (not 6^6^6
> or ~10 followed by 1M 0s {\displaystyle 6^{6^{6}}})
>
> It is suggested that this represents somehow the countable but
> huge continua of possible worlds that the human imagination is
> capable of creating, and *therefore* includes myriad variants on
> those described in various bits of classic literature... including
> notable "worlds" such as Barsoom, Oz, and the Red Queen's domain
> other-side of the looking glass. A dual, perhaps, of Borges'
> "Library of Babel", related to his "Garden of Forking Paths", each
> applying an allegorical treatment to the "many worlds"
> interpretation of QM. This also is nicely alluded to with Jasper
> Fforde's protaganist Thursday Next
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thursday_Next> who is a "literary
> detective" pursuing crimes in the interstices of the literary
> multiverse where all of the characters (and settings) from
> literature live and go about "normal lives" while they are not
> busy appearing in their various novels.
>
> I'm finding Heinlein's preachy characters and prose excruciatingly
> painful... something I had a hint of in my youth when he was
> inspiring me toward his human-chauvanist (and confoundingly
> misogynistic, in spite of some very inspired female protaganists)
> Libertarian views... but I'm slogging through it anyway, a bit
> of a visit to my misspent youth and perhaps some stubborn attempt
> to be sure I've read all of his published works. It is somewhat
> useful for me as I try to make sense of the current (and
> all-time?) Right continuum (whackadoodle to centrist)... a
> revisiting to my own roots in such I suppose. I am left to
> wonder if Heinlein in his relative (or disturbed?) genius might
> tell entirely different stories if he understood the
> (unintended/unexpected) consequences of the manifest hubris of our
> human-chauvanist culture/industry/economy as it unfolded toward
> the end of his life into the present?
>
> ramble,
>
> - Steve
>
>
> On 8/4/20 4:57 PM, cody dooderson wrote:
>> Could one level be a tea party level? Maybe Glenn Beck could be
>> the Mad Hatter?
>>
>> Cody Smith
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 4, 2020 at 3:19 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com
>> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Could each "shot" be a penny given to the Biden campaign?
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>> Clark University
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com
>> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of jon zingale
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 4, 2020 12:46 PM
>> To: friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] OK. That's funny.
>>
>> Nick, you have just outlined the dream. The hope was to sell
>> these at 99
>> cents per download. The market for such disposable
>> distractions appears to
>> be firmly established, and potentially profitable. Further,
>> to pull a
>> variant of a Moby, redirecting the profits to one campaign or
>> another could
>> potentially make a change.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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