They were correct. There "was probably not going to be" an earthquake within any time frame people would be interested in (i.e.: "During the period of my vacation?" or "During the period in which 60% of our yearly profit is generated?" ). Which way do you phrase it? Most likely first (probably not gonna happen), or least likely (yeah, it could happen this weekend)? Are meteorologsts jailed when they predict thunderstorms without appending "...AND YOU MAY BE STRUCK BY IT AND KILLED IF YOU DO NOT TAKE PROPER PRECAUTIONS WHICH I AM NOT LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR PROVIDING!!!"??

It doesn't matter how it was phrased, or if the non-prediction suited some business interests or government functionaries...it was. still. true. , for any given short term period.

Now, whenever the "Coming up next, your Weekend Geological Activity Forecast!" segment comes up, they HAVE to say "There is indeed a chance of geological activity in the following areas...we'd tell you what the odds are, but you're clearly not interested in the actual numbers, nor what they mean. And if I'm to be held criminally liable for not warning you when there's a chance of earthquake or vulcanic activity, I'M WARNIN' YA NOW!!!"

Geologists need to come up with a euphemism for the activity of trying to figure out when this shit will happen. Something that implies "predicting" but means more ""prediction", but NOT in the sense the panicky, innumerate and litigious public thinks of it.".

Hey! I have an idea. Why don't the publishers try and sell books directly to the public at reasonable, (i.e.: much less than paper versions) prices!!

Crazy, I know, but I'll bet they'd have more success than they've had desperately (and apparently illegally) trying to keep the ridiculously inflated price points they cherish for the digital product.

Bester's "The Stars My Destination" was voted (rightly enough) Best Sci-Fi Novel EVER in a poll a few years ago.

Can't argue with that, really. I could make other suggestions, personal favorites, but it's a fair cop.

Is there such a word as "snarkasm"??

There should be.

Many others as well...The charming "SIx Fingers of Time". "The 7-Day Terror". with its formidable urchins and laugh-out-loud punchline. The well-structured "Primary Education of the Camiroi" with its graceful and hilarious reveal. Stories so good you can recite them at parties to appreciative audiences.

A teller of tall tales, and American as HELL.

I'd almost forgotten Lafferty, so yeah, underappreciated.

Yes. (I suggested Vance waaaaay up at the top of the thread somewhere...) MUCH under-appreciated.

The Demon Princes was so well-appreciated by my wife, that had my daughter been a boy, he'd have been named Kirth. A fine, fine writer.

And his approach to "deep themes" was that there really aren't any "deep themes", just human lives with their tragedies and joys, aspirations and failures, grand vision and pettiness and always, always, from the meanest hamlets of Earth to the Grand Concourse, the innkeeper will try to shortchange you, water your drinks and pilfer your valuables.

Did I mention charming, too?

Nova.

More 'traditional' than many of his others (even the early stuff like Jewels of Aptor, Babel-17 and The Einstein Intersection), a wildly creative novel, full of themes, memes and memorably fine writing.

My brother found me some porn he'd written for a friend who was in jail (reprinted in some LA alt-weekly IIRC) and it was pretty damn awesome too.

Coming from someone who likes to be pandered to by the likes of Atwood, Stephenson will just have to take this as a compliment.

Amen.

Zelazny was...audacious. And audaciousness, as a writerly virtue, covers a multitude of writerly sins.

"Imagine a feather falling down an unlit well.
Now take away the feather.
Now take away the well.
Now take away the falling."

Never forgot that chapter opening...

Raspail?? I thought Camp of the Saints was not only out-of-print but really deliberately, just short of burning the remaining copies out-of-print. My old copy suffered severely from a long-ago poolside reading but I still have it. A shocking book, probably moreso today than when written.

Huh. I actually liked that.

Must be at a certain level of appreciation, certainly below the sophisticated understanding of modern MFAs, but I liked that.

Anyway, the most under-appreciated sci-fi author, bar none, is Jack Vance. If any deem this underappreciation deserved because he didn't seem to undertake the addressing of Big Themes, said "any" merely show they just. don't. get it.

Also, he was the best at creating names, like, evar!! He could outname Tolkein on Tolkein's best day even if he let Tolkein use the CERN High-Velocity Namer and spotted him half the alphabet.

Umm...where are my mod points plz? I think some AC deserves a "+1, strained sarcastococcix" rating.

Well, when I look at them; queasiness, contempt and the unshakable conviction that I'll be staying up longer than they will.

"...political bias is like a fucking terminal disease on this site."

Sadly, no it isn't, or there would be a lot less of it. Nor is it like fucking, or there would be a lot more of it.

Are you truly convinced that, vast conspiracies aside, government actions designed purportedly for one noble purpose or another, never result in exactly that ("...shake good ol' hardworking folk out of their hard-earned money and give it to others")?

I do like your point that our concern for the environment should be informed, first and first, 1A and 1B, by the goal of maintiining its suitability for HUMAN habitation. Not to restore it to some perfect natural state.

All this Gaia crap and talk of "Nature's dynamic harmony" give me the creeps. Nature's "harmony" and "stability" are achieved through cataclysm, catastrophe, extinction and savage competition. The "harmony" is only observed because the result of this upheaval...is a result. It all ends up somewhere, with one species or another occupying one ecological niche or another or none. And it looks like harmonic dynamism or beneficial stability only because the geological, meteorological, and biological time frames are so much greater than our human-life-span-scaled perspective.

ps) you didn't change your .sig this time.