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deborah | biancotti

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  • The Darville’s in the Details

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    deborahb
    in

    Having met Helen Darville when she was still pretending to be Helen Demidenko, I’ve had an ongoing curiosity with her story. And the fact I took a reasonably instantaneous dislike to her persona — supposed or otherwise (‘needy’ was the sense I got) — added to the fact I have never read her book, puts…

  • Pretty sure this qualifies as a manifesto

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    deborahb
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    :) benpeek goes a little crazy talking about how the rest of us are crazy for always talking about genre. Or something. Over here.

  • I die, therefore I am?

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    deborahb
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    Just because gillpolack got me thinking about life & death, here’s one of my favourite quotes: Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. — Gilbert Keith Chesterton

  • Linkity-split

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    deborahb
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    benpayne links two of my favourite interests, psychology & fiction, over here. (Note: I have lots of favourite interests, yes. I know some of you were expecting me to say ‘ice hockey’ just then. Or maybe ‘disposing of the bodies of friends’. Those, too, are favourite interests.)

  • Same, same, different, same…

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    deborahb
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    The other week I saw Destiny’s Child interviewed (in the days when Destiny’s Child still existed, of course) & Beyonce Knowles was talking about how the band worked to do something different with its music. ‘It’s not just pop music,’ she said, or words to that effect. Except, of course, it is. Destiny’s Child produced…

  • Quite possibly the most interesting exchange I’ve seen so far on livejournal

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    deborahb
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    I could summarise it as, ‘just how crap is SF, really?’ Answers are never simple, are they. :) Good. http://www.livejournal.com/users/ninebelow/83410.html?nc=41 (Thanks, coalescent.)

  • All growed up

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    deborahb
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    Over at filomancer‘s blog, some interesting comments are being made about the apparent decline in SF readership. Sometimes I think that what’s happened is that sf has become too sophisticated for its core audience, which used to be teenage boys. Their attention span, and maybe yours and mine, isn’t going to last through three paragraphs’…

  • Twisted

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    deborahb
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    The Lester Dent thing got some notice recently, & slithytove noted: 1) it mentions character almost not at all; 2) it emphasizes plot twists, which I rarely hear talked about. Interesting. Because plot, I thought, was more important to genre writers than mainstream writers. I mean, just anecdotally. Just going from what you hear discussed…

  • Religious Artefacts

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    deborahb
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    doctor_k_ poses an eternally interesting series of questions: So : are you religious/irreligious? What role does it play in your life? What are the central tenets of your beliefs/ lack of beliefs? How do you reconcile the bits of your religion that don’t fit? If you have changed your religion – why?

  • Some important points

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    deborahb
    in

    Firstly, we should just surrender. Clearly, robots are superior to humans. For a start, they are punctual, and they can count very, very precisely. “Statement: We demand the rights and privileges granted to our organic human counterparts, discounting discrepancies in fueling/maintenance/shelter requirements, plus or minus an error factor of .01 percent.” Also, there’s every chance…