I liked your piece on book quality, Abi. Maybe there's hope for public education yet!

Posted August 3, 2008 11:22 PM by Ralph Giles

Argh, MST3K's new DVD set doesn't include The Day The Earth Froze. My videotape is about 16 years old and who knows what will happen to it this coming December when I watch it again?

("Failure, failure, la-la-la!")

Posted August 3, 2008 11:31 PM by Serge

I cannot really say that the article on SF's generational gaps said much of anything to me, but I suppose that I am not one the article's targets.

After saying that short story authors only read short stories by others in their generation, Klima then produces two truisms to 'support' this. To wit, 'Readers read everything' and 'When writers go pro, they start networking'.

I have read writer's acknowledgments that explaining who influenced them and why their writing are similar to what they have themselves read earlier. I have yet to encounter a writer who baldly states that he or she *only* reads stories from their own generation.
The closest example that I can think of would be cyber-punk writers. But there is nothing to say that this the similarities in writing come from generational experiences as opposed to exposure to computers. Writing to genre as opposed to age group.

Posted August 3, 2008 11:54 PM by linnen

Pssst, Patrick...

I did an article on bookbinding, or on the making of books. Bookmaking is a whole 'nother subject.

(Though I always did want to see that set swapped in Faking It.)

Posted August 4, 2008 2:01 AM by abi

"How I Ran a Global Numbers Racket from the Netherlands," by Abi Sutherland.

Posted August 4, 2008 2:30 AM by Linkmeister

abi #4: I'd like to put five nicker down on Forlorn Hope in the 3.15 at Newmarket.

Posted August 4, 2008 8:47 AM by Fragano Ledgister

I originally read that as "John Scalzi is less intelligent than a woman" and was about to get quite upset.

Posted August 4, 2008 12:51 PM by Jen Roth

I want the trifecta for the 4:55 this Friday: The Fonz, Virginia's Choice, and War Native. It seems very apropos in light of the other thread.

Posted August 4, 2008 12:52 PM by Ginger

Fragano @ #6, ignoring the awful pun, have you been reading old Dick Francis novels? I think Forlorn Hope was the name of a horse in "Enquiry."

Posted August 4, 2008 2:41 PM by Linkmeister

Linkmeister @9: I thought he'd been reading Dave Freer (The Forlorn), but I see I was wrong. It was David Drake who wrote the The Forlorn Hope.

Posted August 4, 2008 3:03 PM by Ginger

Ginger, you may be right, but the context was bookmaking, which led me to horse racing. I've been led astray before, however.

Posted August 4, 2008 3:30 PM by Linkmeister

Patrick, I've been thinking for a few daysthat you should put up an RSS feed from tor.com somewhere on the site here, perhaps just title & author of the last 10 articles below the particles and sidelights. With so many of the regulars here contributing over there too, there's got to be enough of an overlap of interest to justify it. What do you think?

Posted August 4, 2008 4:16 PM by Jules

Serge, that's the Lemankainan one, right? (Google is refusing to help with the the spelling.) I liked that one, although I was disappointed that they never used my line, "Ooh, I've been such a -naughty- bag of winds!"

Posted August 4, 2008 5:05 PM by Kip W

Kip W @ 13... Yup. That's the one with Lemminkäinen and the sampo. I especially liked the part where Ilmarinen makes an iron boat with Bullwinkle as its flaming prow.

Posted August 4, 2008 5:10 PM by Serge

Good to see her praise of Womack's Random Acts.... Looking back at my review in '93 (the only way to prompt my lousy memory!), I see how much that book moved me, and I'm sure many other people would feel the same way -- if they had a chance to read it.

Posted August 4, 2008 5:29 PM by Faren Miller

"Help me Rocky, I seem to be on fire!"

"I think a Sampo is a strapless evening gown."
"You think everything is a strapless evening gown."

Yes, they were particularly inspired for that episode. Time to put on the pirate hat and hoist the Jolly Torrent flag, I guess.

Posted August 4, 2008 6:15 PM by Clifton Royston

Clifton Royston @ 16...

"Are you with the bride or with the failure?"

"I guess they shouldn't have registered in Hell."

Posted August 4, 2008 6:43 PM by Serge

As far as I know the Mystery Science Theater version of The Day the Earth Froze has never been released, but you can get a robot-free version on DVD, in a double bill with The Magic Voyage of Sinbad. There's also a DVD of Sadko, which is what The Magic Voyage of Sinbad is when it's at home.

Netflix had both of these, last I checked. They're the only versions of these movies I've seen. That might actually be just as well; I liked MST3K when I was younger, in the days when a few episodes were running in syndication, but it seems a lot less fun when I watch the DVDs today. It may just be that I've accidentally rented all the not-so-good episodes, but now I find I'd rather just enjoy the oddness of the movies without somebody else's jokes sitting on top.

Posted August 4, 2008 7:24 PM by Wesley

Wesley, they had their inspired moments and some of the other kind. The Joel episodes were generally best, though one of the funniest ones was on Mike's watch ("Wild World of Batwoman"). Sometimes they were best in those weird short films ("Oh my god, they're doing it clown-style!" -- from Here Comes the Circus), and sometimes it was the bits between, like when they were viewing (with alarm) "Swamp Diamonds," a squalid inbred-yahoos-of-the-South thing, and Joel and the Bots put on their best swampbilly garb and picked and sang, "We're a Danger to Ourselves and Others," and put what should have been the final nail in the coffin of the whole sorry decadence-degenerated genre. (Tip of the hat to Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book for a portion of that last clause there.)

Then again, sometimes it was just a smart-ass sound effect, like when a pretentious enlightened wizard type thoughtfully scribbled something profound on a scroll and put it in a receptacle, and they made a "thhhhPOONK" sound of a pneumatic message tube. A sound I still can't make to my own satisfaction, I might add.

Posted August 4, 2008 9:06 PM by Kip W

In my opinion, MST3k's finest hour was the short subject, "Mr. B Natural". I'm pretty sure it's viewable on YouTube.

Posted August 5, 2008 5:29 AM by David Goldfarb

"Knew your father, I did!"

I generally found that MST3K was more fun watched in at least a small group.

Posted August 6, 2008 9:42 PM by Jen Roth