| Author | Message | ||
     Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
I've just invented something! It's sure to be useful to civilisation! Here are the details: http://mantoucan.blogspot.com/ Not only that, but I'm running a competition. Entry is free and the prize is tatty. Alluring, huh? Click on the following link for information: http://postmodernmariner.blogspot.com/ | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.27.152 |
I don't need that, Rhys. My cup already runneth over/overfloweth. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.0.131 |
I think I figured it out, Rhys, the prog-rock thing, but I won't spoil it.... One title on that bookshelf leaped out at me, and tickled something. I googled it and seemed to have found the answer?... By an author I keep meaning to read more of, actually - read two of his books back in college, and they blew my mind. I actually picked up - I think it's his first novel, just a few weeks ago, sincerely intending to read it... but it's over 800 pages of microscopic type, which is so daunting to me, I can't start it.... Hey, a new comp - you guess which author I'm talking about!  | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
> ...you guess which author I'm talking about... It has to be Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon? The first novels of all the other authors in that photo tend to be quite short. It can't be John Barth, because his first novel is just over 200 pages long, not much more than that, though his fourth, fifth and seventh novels are giants... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.241.79 |
Oh... well, I guess I got the first novel part wrong, then....  Yes, on closer inspection, though - it was his THIRD novel I picked up, which is also gigantic. (And for the record, I've only ever read his 5th and 6th published books.) | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've had 'Last And First Men' & 'Star Maker' in my to-be-read pile for some years now... must make an effort with them. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
What I've read of Olaf Stapledon I've thoroughly enjoyed - 'Last & First Men' is an amazing, ambitious piece of science fiction, 'Star Maker' is the only book I've ever read that I could truly describe as 'mindblowing' - it even gets a reference in Phil Kaufman's 1978 remake of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. And 'Sirius' - the one about the dog -isn't half bad either! | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Craig: I was the one who got it wrong. John Barth's third book (The Sot-Weed Factor) is one of my favourite novels ever. I said it was his fourth novel... Oops! It was John Barth you were referring to? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.251.39 |
Yes. So I should take the time to sit down and read it, then? Egad, it's just so so long.... What was it Samuel Johnson said about Paradise Lost, that everyone admired it and no one ever wished it longer? I'm probably mangling that quote, somewhere, or everywhere.... | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Craig: yes. It is a long book. But it just sort of flows along. The prose is very rhythmical and the characters and situations are engrossing. It didn't feel long-winded to me! As for the prog-rock comp, were you thinking of 'The Soft Weed Factor' by Soft Machine, by any chance? Last night it suddenly occured to me that you might have been thinking that! That's not the answer, by the way, but if your mind was running along those lines, give yourself a round of applause anyway! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.1.167 |
Actually, I was thinking "The Floating Opera," which rang a bell, but which ended up being by a band I never heard of, BUT, a band which is listed as prog-rock... so I thought I might have discovered it, but only by accident... didn't know about a Soft Machine album called "Sot-Weed Factor" - ha! Must be a title based on the novel, right? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Craig: 'The Soft Weed Factor' is the first track on the studio disc of the double album Six that the Soft Machine released in 1973. It's a complex jazz-rock track, and as far as I can tell has little or nothing to do with the John Barth novel, other than the punning title. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Last day of my little competition today... My statcounter records a lot of people viewing the competition page -- but I've had very few entries so far. Either the prize is considered too paltry or else the comp is too hard! The answers I have had are ingenious -- but none are right... | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
PROG-ROCK COMP RESULTS NOW IN: http://postmodernmariner.blogspot.com/ I thank you! |