Very interesting, thinketh both Host and Indweller

[mesila]

The choronzon.org/involution.org mailservers seem to be on crack right now. Overheated and positive-ion atmosphere today, yuck.

Memo to choronzon333 - since I can't mail you with this information, I thought you as well might find this interesting, in regards to both Panic Pandemic and New World Chaos and their various yet connected themata:

"Lethal Text"

Comments

[hurricanecarol]

I have tried to make it through Atlas Shrugged at least twice and my dad was a big fan of Rand who kept trying to get me to read the thing. I am a voracious reader, but alas, these books defied my ability to get past the first 100 pages. Not knocking her philosophy - there are some concepts there that have merit - but I much prefer someone like Orwell who gets his message across in well...less words. Efficiency in words is a very desirable quality as far as I am concerned and while Ayn could think, she couldn't write. Period. Maybe I'll give her a whirl again when I am 60, but for now, should I ever run into her in some parallel universe, I will have to scold her soundly... "Less words, Ayn. Less words!"

[paulkienitz]

Why didn't Atlas Shrugged get made into a movie? Because Rand insisted that not one word of the 150 page speech where whatsisname addresses the nation be cut.

I haven't read that, but I have read The Fountainhead (and it was my dad who gave it to me) and she struck me very much like one of those tiresome S&M people who thinks that S&M-ness is the truth of everything and everyone who doesn't see life in those terms is just kidding themselves.

[hurricanecarol]

Glad I never read it then. I have only had her thoughts and ideas explained to me by the "true believers" and fans. The idea of personal responsibility is a good one (which, as I understand it, was part of her ideal), but it needs to be balanced by the concept of mutual aid. I have no idea where she stood on that part of it because the excruciating nature of her prose was prohibitive of actually accessing her point. I even tried skip-reading to other parts of the book to see if it was just one of those "slow starters." It wasn't..it was a slow start, a slow middle, and for all I know, a slow end. 150 page speech? Holy crap! Where is a hard-nosed editor when you need one?

[mesila]

I think C-East is testing my will by recommending the Ayn Rand. Also as some kind of general counter balancer. It's hard to explain...

re: Jack Womack

[anonymous]

(by way of introduction I found your journal through agent139)

I'm a big fan of Womack as well, even though generally when I drop his name no one ever catches it, so it's wonderful to find someone equally admiring. I read the Ambient series out of sequence as well, beginning with Terraplane. The book that is not part of the series, Let's Put The Future Behind Us, never fails to crack me up with its' social satire.

But if I had to recommend just one of his works, it would be his short story "That Old School Tie," which appears in Ellen Datlow's anthology Little Deaths. It's incredibly subversive in that it doesn't wear its' heart of true kink on its' sleeve, but rather, subtly and skillfully chronicles the complete immersion, obsession, sacrifice and devotion a fetish requires for true fulfillment. The (literal) clinical detachment of the ending is especially chilling, I find.

- J (from San Diego)

Re: Jack Womack

[mesila]

But if I had to recommend just one of his works, it would be his short story "That Old School Tie," which appears in Ellen Datlow's anthology Little Deaths. It's incredibly subversive in that it doesn't wear its' heart of true kink on its' sleeve, but rather, subtly and skillfully chronicles the complete immersion, obsession, sacrifice and devotion a fetish requires for true fulfillment. The (literal) clinical detachment of the ending is especially chilling, I find.

Holy Hannah, something by Womack yet-unread-by-me. Thank you for the tip; I'll have to start digging for this anthology. I've read all the "Dryco World" books I mentioned plus the twisted collapsed-Soviet-Union story, Let's Put The Future Behind Us. I note Womack tends to be net-shy, has no site of his own, and actually seems shy of attention in general; in addition, all of his books seem to have low print runs, so finding them is something like winning a prize.