{"id":3793,"date":"2010-03-01T21:30:12","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T02:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3793"},"modified":"2010-03-01T16:50:05","modified_gmt":"2010-03-01T21:50:05","slug":"whats-in-the-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3793","title":{"rendered":"What’s in the box?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m a big fan of Keith Phipps’ Big Box of Paperbacks<\/a> project. Here are two reasons why.<\/font><\/p>\n

On The Metal Monster<\/em> by A. Merritt<\/a>:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Beneath the pulp frills, Merritt animates the book with a real\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand justified\u00e2\u20ac\u201d anxiety about the potential for humanity and nature to get ground down by machines, a future that applied no conscience in eliminating lives because they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fit into some overarching agenda. The term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153megadeath,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d used to measure human casualties by the millions, wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be coined until after Hiroshima, but Merritt offers a glimpse of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to come here. Godwin never learns the origins of the Metal Things\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe novel ends with the working theory that they come from the stars. I think they ultimately come from the same place as the Elder Things envisioned by Merritt fan H.P. Lovecraft: the dark heart of a new century still being born.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On Naked to the Stars<\/em> by Gordon R. Dickson<\/a>:<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

For starters, I think originality gets mislabeled and a bit overvalued. Whether storytellers mean to or not, they usually end up offering another of the infinite variations on a finite number of stories, and with good reason. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a thought exercise: Would you rather watch a well-done movie about a cop investigating a crime that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t what it seems, or one about a super-intelligent muskrat who translates Homeric verse, communicates with the ghost of Abe Lincoln, and can teleport to the moon? One has been done many times and lends itself to repetition because of its persistent resonance. The other not at all, and with good reason: It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a new idea, but it stinks. Often, creators accused of unoriginality have just hung clich\u00c3\u00a9d elements off a reliable structure.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m a big fan of Keith Phipps’ Big Box of Paperbacks project. Here are two reasons why. On The Metal Monster by A. Merritt: Beneath the pulp frills, Merritt animates the book with a real\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand justified\u00e2\u20ac\u201d anxiety about the potential for humanity and nature to get ground down by machines, a future that applied no … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-3793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}