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I was just talking with a collegue, and she was explaining that when she was 12, she read a short story by Asimov. (Now, some of these details may be unreliable, but I'm passing on here what she told me!) The general idea seems to be that dinosaurs made themselves extinct in wars in which they used weapons - dinos with guns, missiles, etc - and that while the bones of the dinosaurs were fossilised, the remains of the weapons that they used simply rusted away, and there remains no evidence that the dinos had technology at all. That all sounds a bit  for Asimov, and she's never found the story since. What do you think, BB Goons - does it exist or is it a fever dream?
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May 16, 2013 06:26
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22 minutes. Unbelievable. You're all better than the goons identifying porn actresses in PYF. Thanks a lot!
Teach fucked around with this message at 07:24 on May 16, 2013 |
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May 16, 2013 07:19
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I think that this might be the best place to ask this. I need help finding a quotation about novels or writing, and it's something like "the definition of a novel is an imperfect thing sent out into the world". Does that sound familiar to any of you?
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Dec 11, 2013 11:53
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Thanks for the help, Zola, but that's not it! Like your quote, though!
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Dec 12, 2013 06:39
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I'm on a bit of a nostalgia trip, and I've just bought Conrad's War, bu Andrew Davies, which I remember being a very odd anti-war story about a boy obsessed with WW2 until he finds the war leaking into his real life. Can't wait to see how it stands up to adult me and my expectations. I'm now trying to remember a book I read as a kid, so it would have had to have been whatever passed as Young Adult fiction in 1984. I remember nothing about it except the climactic fight between the protagonist and antagonist. They are looking for something buried in the mud in a river/estuary/canal, and have sunk metal (?) sheets, corrugated iron, maybe, into the water to make a kind of lift shaft in which they can work, pumping the water out and digging in the mud. They're working below the water level, of course, and the pumps are fighting against the leaks, and the scene ends with the fight, and someone gets beheaded (?) by the sharp edges of the well-worn spade they've been digging with. Does that help anyone at all, with anything? Thanks!
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Dec 10, 2018 05:47
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Runcible Cat posted:That's The Borribles by Michael de Larrabeiti, about gangs of immortal feral street kids declaring war on the Wombles. It's great fun even as an adult. Well, that took three and a half hours, when I've been mithering about that book for years. Thank you!
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Dec 10, 2018 10:54
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yaffle posted:This is one of the Borribles books by Michael De Larrabeiti, the second one I think. Everyone should read them they are awesome. Also let me know how Conrads war stands up, I really liked it as a kid. Thank you for all the comments about The Borribles, have ordered the one-volume trilogy. Quotin' this post as I'll pick up Conrad's War in a week or two, and will report back after the New Year. Thanks again, BB.
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Dec 12, 2018 06:02
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yaffle posted:Also let me know how Conrads war stands up, I really liked it as a kid. Alright, which of you goons wrote this?  Just finished Conrad's War. Also, just started Conrad's War - it's only 144 pages.  I enjoyed it, and this is not just the nostalgia speaking. From a 2019 perspective, I guess it's about a boy trying to deal with a world of toxic masculinity, but in 1978 it's about the maturation of a young boy as he moves past his childish obsession with war and killing, and about his growing understanding of his family. It was published only 33 years after the end of WW2. 33 years ago was 1986, and that's when Challenger blew up, when Chernobyl blew up, when Crocodile Dundee blew up. No wonder Conrad is obsessed by the war - every one of his father's generation lived through it. Or didn't live through it. From early on.  From midway through.  Some big thoughts for pre-teens. It was good. It drags a little (in so much as a 144-page book can drag) when Conrad escapes from Colditz (spoiler), but I'm glad I've revisited it. I read it and re-read it over and over as a kid. Now for the Borribles. MOD EDIT: use [timg] people! (also neat post thanks) Somebody fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Feb 7, 2019 |
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Feb 5, 2019 07:29
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Hello, thread - you've come through for me before, so how about this? Read at least 40 years ago, it was a Sci-Fi, probably young adult, or whatever that was called, 40 years ago. A novel rather than a short story. There was a "feeling cube", or a "feeling block", and my friend can't remember whether the cube/block was something that was physically felt, or something that responded to emotions. The protagonist was a young person, the ending was ambivalent, rather than a happy ending, and there was a threat to the world from (possibly) outside the Earth. It wasn't on a school's reading list, so it would have been from a local library in the USA. Not a lot to go on, of course! But do it, goons.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:52
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taco show posted:Maybe pieces of A Wrinkle in Time? Definitely an ambivalent-ish ending and maybe the cube is the IT in the last world. Thank you, but no. However, I really appreciate the help - thank you!
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Aug 25, 2022 10:20
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