"Harry Harrison hasn't written anything worthwhile since The Stainless Steel Rat."
Well since the first Stainless Steel Rat novel he has hardly written anything but Stainless Steel rat novels.
I haven't read his Stars and Stripes trilogy or Eden series so I don't know if they are any good. But I always did love his Deathworld series, but I suspect that if I reread them I would be less intrigued by some of the philosophical sophism in them.
Dale - is this post medicinally induced? If not, you deserve a job writing for Family Guy. (Yes, it was that random.)
As an aside, I think I had a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Stainless Steel Rat Book as a teenager...
I still can't believe how little I've gotten sick this winter. Yay, flu shots!
And St. Blaise, this year you da man!
(I guess you actually have to show up to get blessed, rather than just dedicate your blog. Sacramentals -- they're not just for pretty!)
Dale,
Nancy sez: Electrolytes are your friend. So say the others we know who've gotten The Flu Bug From Hell™. Make sure to wash down that Theraflu with lots of Gatorade (or Pedialyte, since you probably have that available...)
peace,
Manga novels? Holy crap, son--might as well tattoo "Girls Have Cooties" on your forehead.
Worse. Anime/manga is part of Perpetual Adolesence Syndrome. See: So you want to learn Japanese:
The Anime Freak is probably the most common, and one of the most annoying. You can usually spot a few warning signs to let you identify them before it's too late: they wear the same exact Evangelion shirt every day, they have more than one anime key chain on their person, they wear glasses, they say phrases in Japanese that hey obviously don't understand (such as "Yes! I will never forgive you!"), they refer to you as "-chan", make obscure Japanese culture references during class, and usually fail class. You have to be extremely careful not to let them smell pity or fear on you, because if they do they will immeadiately latch onto you and suck up both your time and patience, leaving only a lifeless husk. Desperate for human companionship, they will invite you to club meetings, anime showings, conventions, and all other sorts of various things you don't care about.
Scott,
Despite the humor of the site you linked to, I take a wee bit of issue with this one.
In my experience, I've found that Anime is often a well-crafted artform that tells stories better than much of what you get here in American TV and Cinema. Particularly as a sci-fi fan, some of the story lines (Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex comes to mind) are pretty intense, and make the stuff we get here feel pretty lightweight in comparison.
I'll admit that I have a lesser version of the Otaku gene. I was offered a job teaching English in Japan; I wound up not going (didn't want to rough that culture alone as a solitary Catholic); I met my Chinese wife instead (Asian theme continues); I enjoy video games, am fascinated by Japanese culture, and yes, I watch some Anime.
The people you're talking about are, in fact, part of the culture of perpetual adolescence, but I just wouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water.
As a former anime fan I say with all due respect, bullocks. It's Japan dumping it's pop-culture sewage into America and Americans with more money than sense lapping it up.
Japan gets its pop culture sewage from us in the first place. They just recycle it and give it their own twist.
And I'll continue to argue that some (not all) of the better anime series are far superior in concept and character development than any but the best stories we have here.
Steve:
Japanese movie culture is so much more (and better) than anime. I haven't seen much of it and I never even had much of a jones for American comic books either, but I can truthfully say that no non-Miyazaki anime has done anything for me.
But start with the Most Holy Trinity of Kurosawa, Mizoguchi and Ozu, of course. Their acolytes Kore-eda, Naruse, Iwai, Teshigahara, Oshima, and the recently-passed Ichikawa. Even Japanese adolescence is better live -- Miike and Fukasaku, say.
Victor,
I hate to say it, but Kurosawa is the only one of those directors I know.
As for anime, I find that it usually works better in series rather than as a standalone film, with the notable exception of Miyazaki. My cousin's husband owned a video store when we were kids, and we got a box of VHS tapes from him. One of them was the bastardized version of Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind known as "Warriors of the Wind". Apparently it's quite rare, and Miyazaki wishes all copies could be destroyed.That was one of my earlier experiences of anime.
Of course, growing up in the eighties, many of my favorite shows were anime imports. Voltron, Robotech (Macross), Tranzor-Z, even Transformers. Anything with big robots in it was my cup of tea.
In college I discovered Ruroni Kenshin, a series that starts off very light but grows increasingly dark as it tells the tale of a repentent samurai who was a prodigious assasin in the Bakumatsu period that ended Japan's isolation and medieval culture. I also stumbled upon Cowboy Bebop, which was a fun series about bounty hunters in space, set to the jazz-infused soundtrack put together by the brilliant Yoko Kanno.
And finale, Masamune Shirow's Ghost in The Shell is my favorite. I'm not a big fan of the original film, but GITS: Innocence and the Standalone Complex series are about as authentic as cyberpunk gets on the silver screen. Since I'm a big William Gibson fan, this is a natural fit for me.
And now I've proved I'm a nerd.
Ok, I guess I'll quit trying to save the world from what-was-I-thinking? disease.
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