Now we know where Obama got the idea!
Do I have to see Logan's Run as deep now?
Do I have to see Logan's Run as deep now?
No, you can write it off as derivative.
To be honest, all I remember is the closet where the girls appear when you want teh sexy.
Now we know where Obama got the idea!
No shit. Dude was born in the South Pacific. Coincidence?
4: There's also that moment where Michal York and Jenny Argutter decide that since their clothes have gotten wet in the ice cave, they have to take them off.
For those of us (like me) who know Trollope mainly through the Barsetshire and Palliser novels, it's often surprising how un-Trollope like some of his lesser known works are.
Everything I've read of his that was un-Trollope-like was also kind of terrible, and this is no exception. It's probably the dullest satirical dystopia I've ever read, with a lengthily described futuristic-cricket-with-bicycles-catapults-and-body-armor match for extra dullness.
a lengthily described futuristic-cricket-with-bicycles-catapults-and-body-armor match for extra dullness.
Done right that could be hilarious.
Done right that could be hilarious.
Patrick McGoohan, thou art avenged.
Everything I've read of his that was un-Trollope-like was also kind of terrible
I hear that his Fitzwilliam Darcy/Nicholas Nickleby slash fiction was just dreadful.
9: Wouldn't you think it would almost be hard to make it not hilarious? But no -- not a glimmer of entertainment value.
10 was the high spot of the series. I'd have watched as much Sixties Celebrity Kosho as they cared to produce.
("In tonight's mens' quarter-final, Peter O'Toole of Great Britain face off against the defending champion, the United States' Gore Vidal.")
It's like people who are desperately serious about playing Quidditch.
You who amongst the deepest stacks lurks,
Searching for great authors' more obscure works,
Will quite often find, to your certain dismay,
A book by a writer who has gone astray.
Though intrigued a little, hey what the heck,
You can't look away from this awful train wreck.
In for a penny -- in for a dollop
Of bad minor novels by Anthony Trollope
One of these days I'm going to search the archives for all of those and collect links to them in a post. Ideally, a slim volume bound in limp leather would follow.
Yeah, my editor at the free literary magazine is the big man on campus for chap-books and poetry stuff in general around here. Someday I should get them all collected.
Speaking of doggerel, I just learned a couple of days ago that the original world headquarters of Burma Shave is just down the street from my work, and I walk past it all the time. Weird.
14: That's so bizarre. Quidditch is basically an adaptation of existing sports to a world with flying brooms. I'm too lazy to read the rules, but I'm having a hard time imagining the purpose when you can't fly and there are no flying balls to catch.
It's an extremely bad adaptation of existing sports. It's also the most boring part of her books.
Ideally, a slim volume bound in limp leather would follow.
Printed on deckle-edged, hand-made paper tinted a delicate shade of mauve, and titled something like "Whorls". Or "Darkling: A Threnody".
It's often interesting going through the lesser-known works of famous authors. Who knew that Thomas Hardy had written an early murder mystery (Desperate Remedies, 1871), an astronomy-themed tragedy (Two on a Tower, 1882) and the frankly rather creepy The Well-Beloved (1897) about a man under the impression that his ideal woman is the grand-daughter of his first love?
Douglas Adams's book about visiting the habitats of endangered species was pretty excellent.
23: there's a rather good Michael Frayn (I think) piece riffing off a remark that "every great author has at least one children's book in them" and coming up with Five Go Off To Elsinore, The Pooh Also Rises, The Noddies Karamazov and other things along those lines.
Martin Amis' "Invasion of the Space Invaders", a tactics guide to various early 1980s arcade games, and Salman Rushdie's awful first novel, a soft-SF thing called "Grimus".
Not a novel but I liked "The Supremacy of Uruguay" - I think by E. B. White but I'm too lazy to look up for sure.
You know what's a really wacky dystopia? The Secret of the League. It's from just before WWI, and it's about a horrific future where a proletarian party democratically institutes high taxation on investment income. Our intrepid rentier heroes, maddened by this insane oppression, organize themselves to bring the impudent masses to their knees by refusing to buy coal (they import oil from the US instead). This works.
Also, people get around by flying with strap-on wings. This has nothing to do with the rest of the plot, it's just how transportation works.
23: there's a rather good Michael Frayn (I think) piece riffing off a remark that "every great author has at least one children's book in them" and coming up with Five Go Off To Elsinore, The Pooh Also Rises, The Noddies Karamazov and other things along those lines.
The Old Man And The See Spot Run
My Side of the Magic Mountain
The Phantom Tollbooth of the Opera
Gone with the Wind in the Willows
The Jungle Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Bleak House of the Seven Gables
Mother Courage and her Boxcar Children
Henderson, the Rain King of the Golden River
What Katy Did as I Lay Dying
Midnight in the Secret Garden of Good and Evil
The Handmaid's Tale of Peter Rabbit
Awww, what's the matter? Nobody wants to come out and play?
31 - I'm quasifond of Jack London's terrible The Scarlet Plague, which is one of two dystopian works I know he wrote. (I guess it's more a postapocalpytic work. Does that count as dystopian?)
35 - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Crying of Lot 49, or possibly (this is for Heebie) Gravity's Rainbow Fish.
O Captain Underpants, My Captain Underpants
The Secret Life of Walter the Farting Dog
Mixing media, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Velvet.
Oogieloves in the Time of Cholera
Mixing media again: Taran Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.
btw, KR, thanks for the Hirschman recommendation, that looks really interesting.
Yay, Cryptic ned and essear!
The Princess Diary of a Young Girl
Just So Story of O.
Caspar, the Friendly Ghost at Noon
Harriet, the Spy who Came in from the Cold
The Last Temptation of the Really Great Whangdoodles
Hamlet: or, There and Back Again
Anna Karenina, the Girl from Mars
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Pale Fire
An Occurrence at the Owl Creek Bridge to Terabithia
Updike's Runaway Rabbit
41 is awesome. Someone was shooting for "Anne of the Seven Gables" above, no? I may or may not have mentioned here that a high school friend's family dog was named Tess ("of the Baskervilles"). It was presented to me as an error, but I'm not sure: the idea of a hound had to get in there somewhere.
The Red and the Black Beauty
Childe Harold and the Purple Crayon
Goodnight Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
37: Alternatively, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry the Beloved Country
Slaughterhouse Five Children and It
I would totally read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Pale Fire.
Watership Down And Out in Paris and London
I think we should collectively write Harry Potter and the Goblet of Pale Fire.
There is a very loud quidditch rules conference just outside my window.
Cold Comfort Animal Farm*
*I know, that doesn't exactly fit the rubric we've established, but it is still funny.
Arms and the Man With the Yellow Hat
Man and Superfudge
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Profession
all by Curious George Bernard Shaw
Also
Childe Harold and the Purple Crayon
Before writing novels for adults, Willa Cather debuted with Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Bridge .
Well if mixed media is allowed:
The Lord of the Rings On Her Fingers
The Fire Next Time We Love
50.last and 53.last rule.
The Railway Children of Men
Frog and Toad are Mutual Friends
Tender is the Night Kitchen
The Trumpet of Black Swan Green
The Long Winter of our Discontent
The Red Badge of Courage of Sarah Noble
Madame Bovary and her Incredible Edibles
Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great Gatsby
Hooboy, this could go on all day.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman from Cracow
The Bungalow Mysteries of Pittsburgh
The House of Mirth with a Clock in its Walls
Their Tiger Eyes Were Watching God
How Green Was My Sweet Valley High
Fifty Shades of Grey's Anatomy of a Murder in the Cathedral
How about literary titles that sound like they could be for kids, e.g.:
Joseph and his Brothers or Magic Mountain
78: Oh, good. I was trying to do something with John Bellairs but couldn't figure out anything I was satisfied with.
Empire of the Sun Also Rises
The Good Soldier Svejk works all on its own.
Bleak House at Pooh Corner
A Death in the Finn Family Moomintroll
Pierre (Sendak/Melville mash-up)
The Leopard, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Go Ask Alice in Wonderland
Somewhat-OT: Has anyone read 23 Shades of Black or Wishnia's other works? I got it in the mail from PM Press a little while ago and found it extraordinarily engrossing. Not perfect, but really good. Will definitely go on my list for recommended mysteries.
A Wrinkle in Time and the River
The Way We Live Now We Are Six
Alexander and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day of the Jackal
The Unbearable Lightness of Being Free To Be You and Me
A Death in the Finn Family Moomintroll
I love this so much.
Are You My Mother Courage and Her Children?
Harry, the Dirty Hound of Baskervilles
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, The Sea
Moby Dick
Not a children's book pun, but it ties into one of our commenters.
One who hasn't had any ideas about this one.
Heather Has Two Brothers Karamazov
Love in the Time of Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: A Life Without Limits:A World Champion's Journey to the Center of the Earth
Merriam-Webster's Student Atlas Shrugged
You guys are so awesome.
Semi-relevant bleg: For the final paper assignment I'm giving my undergrads, I need a list of science fiction novels in which humans interact with aliens. I think I've got most of the obvious ones, but I could use suggestions.
Wait. Not making them up, but real novels?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Time
The Twelve Hobbits of Highly Effective People
The Celery Stalks at Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
(Maybe useful?)
Blish, A Case of Conscience
Kellogg, Rumour of Angels
Roberts, Snow (awkwardly)
Ramona Quimby, Aged of Innocence
Great God Encyclopedia Brown
I Am the Green Eggs and Cheese
Huckleberry Finn, the Irish Member
A Wrinkle in Being In Time
A Day No Pigs Would Die Leiden des jungen Werthers
The Trolley to Only Yesterday
(Also I wrote 126)
For Whom the Phantom Booth Tolls
113:
I've bolded the ones where I think the aliens are actually interesting and, well, alien (as opposed to just people with green skin or something).
The Gods Themselves
Starship Troopers
A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky
Childhood's End
Blindsight
Consider Phlebas
Permutation City
Martian Chronicles (not really a novel)
Animorphs (a series, for younger readers)
My Teacher is an Alien (first in a series for younger readers)
The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Where's My Car
The Boy Who Reversed the Thing-in-Itself
The Dark Secret of Wuthering Heights
The Call of the Wildfell Hall
Olive Kitteridge Saves the Circus
Clan of the Berenstain Bears
The Baron in the Giving Tree
Midnight's Children and It
Goldilocks and the Three Musketeers
124 finally gives me the clue necessary to construct:
The Mouse and His Men.
Sister Carrie of the Traveling Pants
The Miserable Mill on the Floss
Rosemary's Baby-sitters Club
Escape from Cold Mountain
Are You There God? It's The Master And Margarita
The Devil in Velveteen
The Lexus and the Giving Tree
113: Is Walter Jon Williams' Voice of the Whirlwind too obvious? It's always been one of my favorites.
142: I don't know of it; will investigate.
I need a list of science fiction novels in which humans interact with aliens. I think I've got most of the obvious ones, but I could use suggestions.
This is a huge topic: see the SF Encyclopedia for the briefest of introductions. Aliens can be reflections of ourselves (Banks' The Player of Games); they can be used to explore biological constraints on culture (much of Cherryh's œuvre); human--alien relations can be a metaphor for imperialism (either way round: Le Guin's The Word for World Is Forest for aliens as colonized or Brin's Startide Rising for aliens as colonizers); alien contact can represent spiritual transcendence (Sagan's Contact) or evolutionary change (Butler's Xenogenesis); aliens can be completely unknowable (Lem's Fiasco), and much else.
113: Voyage to Arcturus, as Gareth says Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis and all the Le Guin books about the Ekumen of Known Worlds, the one with housedeer that I read because AWB half-recommended it here, Mary Doria Russell's two books about the Vatican inquiry into a trip to another planet. I'll think about this and come back when I can think of titles and anything else useful. (Oh, I think the first of the Russell books is The Sparrow, but you probably know that.) I don't tend to read a lot of general-audience YA with alien themes but I know there is a bit. I don't think William Sleator's Into the Dream quite goes there, though it's awesome for kids.
The Cricket in Hard Times Square
Treasure Island of Lost Souls
Doctor Dolittle's Perfumed Garden
The Yellow Brick Road to Wigan Pier.
If you like The Secret of the League, you'll love the works of E. Phillips Oppenheim!
150: How sad that would be, to enthusiastically follow follow follow follow follow the yellow brick road and then BAM! You're in Wigan.
Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour in "The Road to Wigan Pier".
Other possible Hope/Crosby Road movies that were never, alas, made:
The Road to Stalingrad
The Road to Berlin
Street Without Joy
On the Road
The Road
The Berenstain Berlin Alexanderplätze Learn About Strangers
And let's not forget Philip Roth's novel of interspecies prejudice in the academy, The Human Berenstain.
The Little Engine that Coulda been a Contender?
The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
The Little Princess Casamassima
Naughty Amelia Jane Eyre!
Henry V Huggins
Emil and the Savage Detectives
A Hunger-Games Artist
Through the Looking-Glass Bead Game
The Cat in the Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat
The Secret Seven Types of Ambiguity
Pygmalion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Green Eggs and Hamlet
essear-style:
The Railway Children of A Lesser God
The Secret Garden of Earthly Delights
The Seven Hungry Hungry Caterpillars of Wisdom
Alexander and the 120 Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days of Sodom.
Fun with Moby Dick and Jane
Janet and Prester John
Ant and Being and Time
Shooting Babar the Elephant
Of Two Bad Mice and Men
The Tale of Mr Tod und Verklärung
Danny, A Champion of the Floating World
Berkeley's alumni magazine used to have part of the letters section devoted to titles of novels, movies, etc. which had had one letter changed to amusing effect. Submitters were allowed to accompany their altered title with, I think, at most one line by way of synopsis of the contents to fit the new title. In that spirit, I will leave this here:
In the Renal Colony
Journey to the End of the Night Garden
177: I think that was more recently a Twitter hashtag game.
I can't keep up with this modern age.
Wandering outside the rules: Jude the Obscure Object of Desire.
The Story of the Eye and the Pattypan
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Against Thebes
To the Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge
We Didn't Mean to Go to The Sea, The Sea!
Pierre Menard, Author of the Don Quixote
Gulliver's Travels with Charley
189.2 s/b Gulliver's Travels with Charley's Aunt
Raggedy Ann and Blood Meridiandy
How Green Was My Valley of The Dolls
Alice's Adventures in Underworld
Uncle Remus's Cabin
Stuart Little Women
The Reluctant Dragon of the 'Narcissus'
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodial M for Murder
The Witch of Walden Pond
In the Night Kitchen God's Wife
147 & 148: Thanks! Some of those I've already assigned for the course or as options for the final paper, but I'll check out the rest.
Charlie and the Wasp Factory
*applause*
My Side of the Magic Mountain
The Sorrows of Young Werther's Originals