Theophylact

Recent Actions

• Commented on Roe v Wade v Sanity
  "I dont know /why/ the 1st gen. hispanic immigrants holds those political standpoints, but it has come through that way in opinion polls for more than two decades." Perhaps you're being disingenuous about the reason, but those Hispanic immigrants are...
• Commented on An update on the revolutionary experiment
  US police unions aren't allowed to strike, either. But they practice "blue flu" sickouts and they have a level of legal impunity that's scarcely imaginable....
• Commented on An update on the revolutionary experiment
  Yes, we Americans need a new Constitution. But given the current state of political division, what we'd get would be far more likely to be worse than what we have now....
• Commented on PSA: Publishing supply chain shortages
  I generally buy fiction in Kindle format for the reasons LAvery gives. But there are annoyances,especially when the fiction (as is so often the case with fantasy) includes maps. These are inevitably too small to be legible or are spread...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Dead Lies Dreaming
  Philip Kerr wrote a nasty post-Soviet-era thriller called Dead Meat. Out of print, alas....
• Commented on Ask me anything!
  Can't argue with Talisker. Writers' Tears? Meh. (I much prefer Knappogue Castle or Lord Lieutenant Kinahan's.)...
• Commented on Dread of Heinleinism
  Dunno if you consider this an implant, but "Baslim the Cripple" (Citizen of the Galaxy)has a false eye that's actually a camera....
• Commented on Trapped in the wrong trouser-leg of time
  Trump wouldn't be drunk; he only takes the (very infrequent) sip of communion wine. But he's no vegan: his preferred dinner is well-done (that is, overcooked) steak with ketchup....
• Commented on The internet of decay
  See, for example, John Varley's "Press Enter"....
• Commented on The internet of decay
  There's already been a successful attempt to cause an epileptic attack over the internet. Kurt Eichenwald, a reporter for Newsweek and someone with publicly acknowledged epilepsy, was hit by a flashing gif embedded in a tweet. (He's since disabled autoplay...
• Commented on I can't keep up
  Ron Goulart's still extant. If he's scripting this fiasco he's still got his mojo....
• Commented on Theme, Fiction, and Empire Games
  Run the exhaust back across the timeline....
• Commented on Theme, Fiction, and Empire Games
  You don't generally build a stronghold that it takes a nuke to crack open and give it a back door that can be put through with an axeA classic reason to despise Star Wars....
• Commented on Empire Games
  I'm about 2/3 through, and so far I've caught only one deviation from American English usage: "bogie" (Rita in the switchyard). It's "truck" here....
• Commented on Empire Games
  Will the typo hunt involve the ebook version?...
• Commented on Suspense is the key
  A good in medias res beginning? Try Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, which begins with the assassination of Hitler in 1930, before jumping back to the death (at birth) of the heroine in 1910....
• Commented on Suspense is the key
  "'Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'" Useful advice for testimony; not always useful for a novel....
• Commented on Sometimes I don't know why I bother!
  Kelley is a major and disturbing figure in both John Banville's Kepler and John Crowley's Ægypt. I'd also like to nominate Patrick Leigh Fermor, who has been described as "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene."...
• Commented on Cytological Utopia and the rapture of the eukaryotes
  This discussion reminds me of a passage from James Branch Cabell's Jurgen:"About these matters I do not know. How should 1? But I think that all of us take part in a moving and a shifting and a reasoned using...
• Commented on Competition Time!
  Just a minor correction: US runs on 60 Hz....
• Commented on The unavoidable discussion
  Oh really? With Alaska, North Dakota, Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana having ten Senators for their combined 4 million population, while California has two for its 40 million, rural America has an effective veto on appointments to the Supreme Court....
• Commented on Some notes on world building
  Not just food; agricultural production for non-food purposes. Germany's V2 deployment was dependent upon its potato crop for ethanol fuel. Chaim Weizmann's microbial fermentation of sugar to acetone/butanol/ethanol was essential for cordite production in WWI....
• Commented on Defining space opera
  This reminds me of my observation about Cherryh's science fiction, that a lot of it is built around losing your family and getting a new one.A lot of writers have dominant themes: Sturgeon (love), Dick (what is reality?), Budrys (who...
• Commented on Defining space opera
  Inversions is a Culture novel only if you already know about the Culture, and then pretty much only by implication. (I did love it.)...
• Commented on Defining space opera
  Well, hell. Isn't Iain Banks's Culture space opera par excellence? Galactic scope, fabulous aliens/monsters, ginormous space ships with planet-busting weapons, and lots of pulled-it-out-of-my-ass technology? In a good way, of course....
• Commented on Announcing UK Audiobook Titles
  Would an American voice be a negative on the UK audiobook?...
• Commented on The paranoid style in 2016
  As far as I can tell, the Koch brothers aren't sitting this one out. They're spending a lot, and are pissed off that it isn't buying them the influence they expected. Their pet candidate, Scott Walker, bombed out and withdrew...
• Commented on Science-fictional shibboleths
  When a thread gets this long, it becomes too hard to read all the preceding comments to make sure that yours isn't duplicative of an earlier one. Just sayin'....
• Commented on Science-fictional shibboleths
  Underwater metallurgy: electroplating/electroforming. And let's not forget that gold nuggets (and probably native copper) are the result of hydrothermal processing....
• Commented on Science-fictional shibboleths
  Hydroxyapatite and silica are also available. The first is usually strengthened/cushioned by chitosan or proteins, but diatoms turn out pretty pure silica glass....