No, they were tedious after a while....I always thought the first Amber book was the best, and the first three Amber books were the best of the series.
I also liked the first one best... as with King's Dark Tower series, the story starts to seem more mundane once the ground rules are fully established. While we're talking Zelazny, I should also credit Creatures of Light and Darkness as a big influence...
Dick's ideas themselves aren't that striking or noteworthy -- you have precogs, androids (robots), empaths, visions -- it's what he does with them that's extraordinary.
Exactly. They're all stock genre devices, but he used them to make broader points. Comics writer Grant Morrison, and Joss Whedon when he's on top of his game, have a similar knack for imbuing familiar gimmicks with deeper significance. These folks aren't as original and creative as some of their peers, but they have a knack for making good use of the props on hand.
American cinema at this point is great at making technically marvelous movies that LOOK neat, but SAY nothing (and THINK less).
Generally true, but it seems like we've been seeing some improvement of late. I'm not going to try and sell you on the philosophical nuances of Terminator 3 - I thought it was pretty interesting, but maybe I'm imagining things - and Lord knows things like Eternal Sunshine are hardly indicative of a broader trend, but even mainstream multiplex bait like the Spider-Man and Lord of the Rings movies seem smarter and more thoughtful than they would have been five or ten years ago.
Or am I just on crack? Your call. :-)
Hm... Good observations on Do Androids Dream Of Etc., which you clearly remember better than I do, and on Brimstone & Treacle. I'm tickled by this bit...
We've all heard the saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions -- how much of that is really true?
Or in this case, is the road to heaven paved with bad ones?
This gets me wondering again about ends and means and morality. Should people by judged by their intentions, or their actions, or the results of these actions? Hookles tells me that Catholicism is pretty clear that you'll be judged by your intentions - what's in your heart, as they say - but as mere mortals, we have neither the ability to see other peoples' motives or to judge the ultimate outcome of their actions. Rather to my surprise, our story in progress seems to be leading to the conclusion that ethical behavior isn't so much about making the right decision, as taking responsibility for the results. Huh.
I'm reminded of Steven King's analysis in DM that the horror story exists to rip apart and then re-establish a status quo
Yeah, that was pretty astute. It's hard to think of cases where the monster is the status quo and the heroes are the disruptors thereof.
It's like that question in the last season of Angel: can you do good better by working within the system and to some extent preserving it or just saying "Fuck it" and pulling down the pillars of the temple?
Yeah, that would have been an interesting subject. Do you have any idea what conclusion they reached? I really couldn't tell.
Actually, Buffy as a hero figure is interesting, because in the conclusion of her series she doesn't either preserve the status quo or totally break it -- she changes it, profoundly and permanently.
True. In theory, it's a pretty clever solution to the inherent paradox of being a subversive agent of patriarchal orthodoxy. But it might have worked better if the final season had depicted Buffy's abilities as an empowering gift, rather than a horrible burden rooted in some kind of demonic gang rape. Sigh.
Re: whittled down because of stupid lj comment restrictions
I also liked the first one best... as with King's Dark Tower series, the story starts to seem more mundane once the ground rules are fully established. While we're talking Zelazny, I should also credit Creatures of Light and Darkness as a big influence...
Dick's ideas themselves aren't that striking or noteworthy -- you have precogs, androids (robots), empaths, visions -- it's what he does with them that's extraordinary.
Exactly. They're all stock genre devices, but he used them to make broader points. Comics writer Grant Morrison, and Joss Whedon when he's on top of his game, have a similar knack for imbuing familiar gimmicks with deeper significance. These folks aren't as original and creative as some of their peers, but they have a knack for making good use of the props on hand.
American cinema at this point is great at making technically marvelous movies that LOOK neat, but SAY nothing (and THINK less).
Generally true, but it seems like we've been seeing some improvement of late. I'm not going to try and sell you on the philosophical nuances of Terminator 3 - I thought it was pretty interesting, but maybe I'm imagining things - and Lord knows things like Eternal Sunshine are hardly indicative of a broader trend, but even mainstream multiplex bait like the Spider-Man and Lord of the Rings movies seem smarter and more thoughtful than they would have been five or ten years ago.
Or am I just on crack? Your call. :-)
Hm... Good observations on Do Androids Dream Of Etc., which you clearly remember better than I do, and on Brimstone & Treacle. I'm tickled by this bit...
We've all heard the saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions -- how much of that is really true?
Or in this case, is the road to heaven paved with bad ones?
This gets me wondering again about ends and means and morality. Should people by judged by their intentions, or their actions, or the results of these actions? Hookles tells me that Catholicism is pretty clear that you'll be judged by your intentions - what's in your heart, as they say - but as mere mortals, we have neither the ability to see other peoples' motives or to judge the ultimate outcome of their actions. Rather to my surprise, our story in progress seems to be leading to the conclusion that ethical behavior isn't so much about making the right decision, as taking responsibility for the results. Huh.
I'm reminded of Steven King's analysis in DM that the horror story exists to rip apart and then re-establish a status quo
Yeah, that was pretty astute. It's hard to think of cases where the monster is the status quo and the heroes are the disruptors thereof.
It's like that question in the last season of Angel: can you do good better by working within the system and to some extent preserving it or just saying "Fuck it" and pulling down the pillars of the temple?
Yeah, that would have been an interesting subject. Do you have any idea what conclusion they reached? I really couldn't tell.
Actually, Buffy as a hero figure is interesting, because in the conclusion of her series she doesn't either preserve the status quo or totally break it -- she changes it, profoundly and permanently.
True. In theory, it's a pretty clever solution to the inherent paradox of being a subversive agent of patriarchal orthodoxy. But it might have worked better if the final season had depicted Buffy's abilities as an empowering gift, rather than a horrible burden rooted in some kind of demonic gang rape. Sigh.