At 10:02 AM 6/25/01 -0700 Joshua Bell wrote:
>Or perhaps that John does such a good job of defending himself he doesn't
>need help?
Well, I wouldn't go that far. I greatly appreciate having Gautam to
provide the greater philosophical context for my ideas - and more
importantly greatly appreciate all those who actually seem to enjoy having
me around - all things considered. :)
>Sheez, everyone - John's stuck in perpetual debate-club mode. Why did it
>apparently take everyone this long to notice? He as much said this himself a
>week or so ago. That's not a bad thing, it a personality *feature*. I'm sure
>that, if he wanted to, that John could pretend to be a bleeding-heart
>liberal and drive even Kristin insane with his left-wing posturing,
>rhetoric, and nitpicking.
Well, I think that I could make a convincing "lefty" if I tried hard enough
- but it would probably be too tempting for me to avoid turning it into
satire, and then I wouldn't be convincing anymore. ;-)
*SERIOUSLY*, though, I have to take exception with "John's stuck in
perpetual debate-club mode." And I'm going to say this here, in response
to a post that was pretty much trying to defend me, because I think in this
context no one will take it personally. (o.k. Josh? :-)
I'd like to think that I'm a bit more than here for the political debates.
After all, when the discussion of _The Practice Effect_ began to fizzle
out, I jumped in to ensure that the project wouldn't die. In fact, I even
came back later and compiled every post made in that discussion into a
single format, so that some day, some enterprising Brineller could produce
a "Lurker's Guide to _The Practice Effect_" Web Page for the benefit of
posterity. And, I am currently, admittiedly with fits and false starts,
currently organizing a group-read of _Glory Season._ Now, I'm not asking
for self-congratulation here, I'd just like it if people could take two
moments to think twice before criticizing me as being "solely political" on
this List, and consider the Bigger Picture.
Of course, the funny thing is - over the five year history of the Brin
List, it has been the discussions of the Brin novels themselves that have
been some of the biggest non-starters on this List. For whatever reason,
we just don't seem to be nearly as good at discussing books as we are at
discussing politics. (In fact, I'll be the first to admit that I am much
better at political criticism than I am at literary criticism, and that is
why I really wish that Gord Sellar was around for this.....)
Nevertheless, despite my limitations, I am doing my best to try and make
discussion of novels as interesting as possible, whenever they come out.
Anyhow, it has recently become clear that there is definitely a sizable
minority on this List that would prefer to see some non-political
discussions. Well, the single easiest way to do that is to dust off your
copy of _Glory Season_ and start finding interesting things to say about
it. According to my copy, the Washington Post called it "One of the Most
Important SF Novels of the Year." If its that important, then there
*must* be some pretty interesting ideas in there, eh? So let's go find
them!
And if _Glory Season_ just doesn't work for you, there is absolutely
nothing to prevent you from dusting off one of Brin's 14 other books and
getting things going with that! Do you realize that in the nearly Five
Years that I have been here, we have never seriously discussed _Startide
Rising_, outside of how to transfer it to a movie? Likewise, Brin and
Benford's collaboration, _Heart of the Comet_ has probably received only a
mere mention or two in that time. There is *lots* of potential out there,
in my humble opinion - we just need to tap into it.
This is the Brin-List after all, and if you want this community to be
everything that you think it should be - it will take a little bit of
effort from everyone. A civilization does not just happen - it is built.
The same goes for communities.
JDG
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
We are products of the same history, reaching from Jerusalem and
Athens to Warsaw and Washington. We share more than an alliance.
We share a civilization. - George W. Bush, Warsaw, 06/15/01
