I know. We're not living with jetpacks, flying cars, starships, anti-gravity, or any of that other cool stuff they promised us. And it sucks. But it turns out that at least some of the groovy future is with us at last. Check this article:
http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2009/may/Blind_stemcells.html
No shit! Fine work from an Australian university -- and more importantly, a huge forkin' stride in The Right Direction for stem cell research, human health and well-being, and me not needing to get glasses any time soon. (Full disclosure: I seem to have inherited my eyesight from my father. So far, I'm still 20/20 or better.)
It's nice to get some good news once in a while, eh?
Then there's this:
Vale David Eddings
What can I say? I never liked the man's work. From the outset, I found it terribly derivative, heavily manufactured, and clumsy. But I know that he made a lot of people very happy with his fiction -- and so, I'll make a liar of Marc Antony here. Let the evil be interr'd with the man's bones, and the good live after. Eddings seemed to be a decent bloke, and didn't have any pretensions about the quality of his writing. He had a good innings.
Hamburgers, the superfood.
9 hours ago
I'm terribly glad that literature is so subjective. I for one Loved the Belgariad, as did all my kids. In many respects I found it superior LOTR and much, much more readable.
ReplyDeleteSome of his later works weren't much though, but the Belgariad shone. Actually Flinty, I think you are the first person I have come across who didn't like it. Fair enough.
I was sad to hear of his passing.
RIP
Another fantasy writer bites the dust. it's sad to thin that so many writers i grew up reading will proably start popping their clogs about now.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed his first three series but they never really held me, just light reading.
Yes RIP old boy
The Belgariad was good, but some of the later stuff was so bad it hurts just to look at the books on the shelves. Still, kept me reading.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the Belgariad series as well, so RIP Mr Eddings.
ReplyDeleteNever got into Eddings but had a lot of mates who did. At least he (to nick a line from Wayne Bennett of all people) didn't die with the music still in him, like Robert Jordan - again not my thing but knew lots who lived for new Waste of Time books coming out and are profoundly upset the series isn't going to be finished by him.
ReplyDeleteNew South, my alma mater - good to see them reprasenting. Of course my old department Biochem never seems to achieve anything other than knocking Micro over in the inter-school cricket, cos they're a bit shit, but anyhoo.
Doc Yobbo: regarding Jordan and the Waste of Time... I think your friends should be grateful that it will actually BE finished. I'm not convinced Jordan had any intention of killing the goose that laid so many golden eggs for him.
ReplyDeleteI think you're absolutely right Flinty - he'd already dragged what I believe was supposed to be a 5 or 6 book series out to eleven books plus. Even Douglas Adams' HHGTG "trilogy in five parts" (which he still considered not entirely finished - not sure how, he'd obliterated the Earth in every dimension) doesn't come close to it!
ReplyDelete