Category Archives: BI - Reading 2013

READING – NOVEMBER 2013

Posted by on November 30, 2013 No comments

21350. [2] (Fred­erik Pohl) The Midas Plague
21351. [3] (Aris­to­tle) Nichomachean Ethics
21352. (Joan McCarter) What the 1 Per­cent Thinks About You [arti­cle]
21353. (Ian Reifowitz) How Are the Rich Get­ting Rich­er? The More They Make, the Low­er the
. . . . . Income Tax Rates They Pay. Face Palm [arti­cle]
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Thursday, September 5, 2013 — Frederik Pohl, 1919–2013

Posted by on September 5, 2013 No comments
Frederik Pohl (middle) in 1938

Fred­erik Pohl (mid­dle) in 1938

Frederik Pohl in 1968

Fred­erik Pohl in 1968

To remain cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant for sev­en­ty-six years is a rare accom­plish­ment for any writer. Fred­erik Pohl’s career as a pro­fes­sion­al writer began in 1937, and end­ed this last Mon­day with his death. His last pub­lished nov­el was in 2011, and he was work­ing on a sec­ond vol­ume of auto­bi­og­ra­phy when he died. His blog, The Way the Future Blogs, was one of my favourites on the web in recent years — and his sto­ries and nov­els were among my favourites when I was grow­ing up. He found new read­ers with each decade of his long career. His influ­ence as an edi­tor was equal­ly sig­nif­i­cant. The field of Sci­ence Fic­tion owes much to him, though he was nev­er a flashy atten­tion-get­ter, nev­er the sub­ject of a per­son­al­i­ty cult. At SF con­ven­tions, he remained just a fan, some­one to chat with ami­ably at a par­ty, who did not care whether you were a big shot or a pim­ply teenag­er. I can vouch for that from per­son­al expe­ri­ence. Ascer­bic wit co-exist­ed with gen­tle­ness and human­i­ty in his demeanor. He was, as they used to say on the stage, “a class act.”

13-09-05 BLOG Frederik Pohl recent

READING – AUGUST 2013

Posted by on August 31, 2013 No comments

21138. (Robert Graves) Count Belisarius
21139. (Adam Nicky) Trea­sure Hunters Ruin­ing Jordan’s Arti­facts [arti­cle]
21140. (Olav Eike­land) Why Should Main­stream Social Researchers Be Inter­est­ed in Action
. . . . . Research? [arti­cle]
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READING – JULY 2013

Posted by on July 31, 2013 No comments

21036. The Saga of Gis­li the Out­law [Gís­la saga Súrssonar] [tr. G.W. daSent] [see var. 7526]
21037. (Wal­ter Scott) Ivanhoe
21038. (Joshua Keat­ing) Can a Coup Ever Be Demo­c­ra­t­ic? [arti­cle]
21039. (Juan Per­ote-Peña & Ash­ley Pig­gins) A Mod­el of Delib­er­a­tive and Aggregative
. . . . . Democ­ra­cy [arti­cle]
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Image of the month: The Space Willies

Posted by on July 1, 2013 No comments

13-07-01 BLOG The Space WilliesAn Ace Dou­ble cov­er from 1971, a typ­i­cal­ly imp­ish one by artist Kel­ly Freas. This is ACE DOUBLE 77785, a reprint with new cov­er art of D‑315 pub­lished in 1958. By this time, ACE Dou­bles had switched to the “tall” for­mat to con­form to stan­dard paper­back racks. ACE Dou­bles had two books bound togeth­er, each upside down in rela­tion to the oth­er. In this case, both sides were books by Eric Frank Rus­sell (the oth­er one was a short sto­ry col­lec­tion called Six Worlds Yon­der). Rus­sell was British, but his style was con­vinc­ing­ly Amer­i­can, and few read­ers of Amer­i­can SF mag­a­zines knew this. In some ways, he was sim­i­lar to Clif­ford Simak, but with a more satir­ic tone. As ear­ly as 1941, Rus­sell was crew­ing his future space ships with mul­ti-racial char­ac­ters. One of the ear­li­est Sci­ence Fic­tion sto­ries that had an intense emo­tion­al affect on me was his Dear Dev­il, which I read as a small child.

READING – JUNE 2013

Posted by on June 30, 2013 No comments

13-06-30 READING Cory Doctorow - Pirate Cinema

20973. (Erik R. Kan­del) In Search of Mem­o­ry: The Emer­gence of a New Sci­ence of Mind
20974. (Steve Muhlberg­er) [in blog Muhlberg­ers’ World His­to­ry] George R. R. Mar­tin, Master
. . . . . Sto­ry­teller [arti­cle]
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“The Hunters Who Owned Themselves” Translated into Japanese

Posted by on June 30, 2013 No comments

13-06-30 BLOG The Hunters Who Owned Themselves Translated into JapaneseThere is now a Japan­ese edi­tion of The Secret His­to­ry of Democ­ra­cy. I am most curi­ous to know, but will prob­a­bly nev­er know, how my prose in “The Hunters Who Owned Them­selves” reads in Japan­ese trans­la­tion, or how the mix­ture of Eng­lish, French, Michif and Cree ter­mi­nol­o­gy was han­dled. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I do not yet pos­sess the pub­li­ca­tion data… only that a Japan­ese edi­tion has exist­ed for sev­er­al months. Per­haps some Japan­ese read­er who is flu­ent in Eng­lish will report to me on this mat­ter. Read more »

READING – MAY 2013

Posted by on May 31, 2013 No comments

(Fritz Leiber) The Best of Fritz Leiber:
. . . . 20919. [2] (Poul Ander­son) The Wiz­ard of Nehwon [pref­ace]
. . . . 20920. [5] (Fritz Leiber) Gonna Roll the Bones [sto­ry]
. . . . 20921. [2] (Fritz Leiber) San­i­ty [sto­ry]
. . . . 20922. [2] (Fritz Leiber) Want­ed – An Ene­my [sto­ry]
. . . . 20923. [2] (Fritz Leiber) The Man Who Nev­er Grew Young [sto­ry]
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READING – APRIL 2013

Posted by on April 30, 2013 No comments

20889. (Jaiya & John Hanauer) Sex Posi­tions You Nev­er Thought Possible
20890. (Eric Chris­tiansen) The Norse­men in the Viking Age
20891. (D. Radice & L. Rez­zol­la) Uni­ver­sal­i­ty and Inter­mit­ten­cy in Rel­a­tivis­tic Turbulent 
. . . . . Flows of a Hot Plas­ma [arti­cle]
20892. (Ran­di Foxx) The Posi­tion Sex Bible
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READING – MARCH 2013

Posted by on March 31, 2013 No comments

(Stephen C. Cun­nane & Kath­lyn M. Stew­art ̶ed.) Human Brain Evo­lu­tion — The Influ­ence of 
. . Fresh­wa­ter and Marine Food Sources:
. . . . 20827. (Phillip V. Tobias) Fore­ward: Evo­lu­tion, Encephal­iza­tion, Envi­ron­ment [pref­ace]
. . . . 20828. (Kath­lyn M. Stew­art & Stephen C. Cun­nane) Intro­duc­tion [pref­ace]
. . . . 20829. (Ian Tat­ter­sall) Macroevo­lu­tion­ary Pat­terns, Exap­ta­tion, and Emer­gence in the 
. . . . . . . . . Evo­lu­tion of the Human Brain and Cog­ni­tion [arti­cle]
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