Thread: thinking outside of the box

Many years ago I learned the concept of antipodal points, which in one elliptic geometric model is two points on opposite sides of a sphere which are logically the same point. That night I dreamed of an event at my 'antipodal point', and something like that happened on the opposite side of the earth that same night, and was in the news the next morning. I don't think the 'antipodal point' concept had much to do with the dream aside from being the source of the idea of being two places at once. Most of my other weird experiences have been like this also, they follow the introduction of a new concept which sort of allows the experience to be described.

So my question is what other things might be possible for me if it occurred to me that they might be possible. Something outside of my existing New Age, pop-sci-fi paradigms. I'm asking for me, not for people in general, because I'm a narcissistic drama queen, and because personal identity seems to me to be important to answering the question. Where you contact that identity in your feeling is where the answer comes from, though the answer is also for more than just that other person, since more than just the other person is involved when you ask the question.

Can you simplify the question.

Originally Posted by TiredPhil

Can you simplify the question.

I can narrow it.

I remember people and periodically I dream about them, even though many years may go by since the last dream or the last time I thought about them, and even though they might not have been more than a relatively minor acquaintance. I'm pretty sure that there's a connection with this that actually involves the other person, at least subconsciously and in a minor way. So what can I do with this "ability" that's actually useful, and that's not creepy and inappropriate.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

I can narrow it.

I remember people and periodically I dream about them, even though many years may go by since the last dream or the last time I thought about them, and even though they might not have been more than a relatively minor acquaintance. I'm pretty sure that there's a connection with this that actually involves the other person, at least subconsciously and in a minor way. So what can I do with this "ability" that's actually useful, and that's not creepy and inappropriate.

How do you know that there is a connection? Is the feeling that they precognitive in nature? psychic?

I guess the main question is what sort of useful information have you managed to get in the past? I think most information received through dreams are highly unstable for several reasons. One of the biggest issues is that we are not computers and so there is always a large element of emotion involved, what we want highly influences what we think we perceive. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that anything which is related to what we want is influenced by our subconscious and so is unreliable. Only when we act like a 'receiver' switched off with nothing else going on do we receive the clearest information.

Shard dreaming is perhaps the best way to get information, but that needs to be agreed upon with the person you want to dream with though!

Originally Posted by floatinghead

How do you know that there is a connection? Is the feeling that they precognitive in nature? psychic?

When I meet a new person, I know there's a connection because of the precognitive element. Typically I get a dream the night before the first interaction. In every such dream, there's a feeling of what is "me", and a different kind of feeling for what is someone else. Everyone feels different, though I think how they feel to me is strongly influenced by comparison with 'similar' people who I already know, principally myself. I'm only assuming that since there's some kind of connection with the new person, there's probably also a connection with people I already know, because it feels similar. Off hand I can only think of one telepathetic kind of experience with someone I've known for a while though. I speculate that it usually only happens with new people because with a pre-existing acquaintance there's rarely anything recognizable to be shared that way that I don't already know.

Originally Posted by floatinghead

I guess the main question is what sort of useful information have you managed to get in the past?

None of practical use that I'm aware of, besides demonstrating to myself and a few other people that this sort of thing is possible.

One application that I can think of is a kind of preview of what the relationship can potentially be. For example, before you meet a prospective boss you dream of what getting that job would be like ultimately. A problem with this is that this picture is so badly distorted by some things being spun and other things hidden that I think its mostly useless to form a judgment by. Best case it makes you aware of what some of the issues might be.

Originally Posted by floatinghead

I guess the main question is what sort of useful information have you managed to get in the past? I think most information received through dreams are highly unstable for several reasons. One of the biggest issues is that we are not computers and so there is always a large element of emotion involved, what we want highly influences what we think we perceive. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that anything which is related to what we want is influenced by our subconscious and so is unreliable. Only when we act like a 'receiver' switched off with nothing else going on do we receive the clearest information.

Shard dreaming is perhaps the best way to get information, but that needs to be agreed upon with the person you want to dream with though!

Originally Posted by floatinghead

Only when we act like a 'receiver' switched off with nothing else going on do we receive the clearest information.

A limitation of that is the information is still strongly affected by other people's beliefs, fears and desires. I think your mind needs to be actively involved to focus what's true, sort of like how if you engage with someone a little bit things usually get exposed that would have remained hidden better had you just listened.

Originally Posted by floatinghead

Shard dreaming is perhaps the best way to get information, but that needs to be agreed upon with the person you want to dream with though!

In my experience, any kind of interest or synergy of desire from the other person constitutes a limited kind of agreement. Its possible to do more by force or subterfuge, but its wrong, pretty much in the same way that forcing or seducing people into physical contact is wrong.

For me there's also an additional ingredient involved also, something like providence, its not just me and the other person.

Originally Posted by floatinghead

I would be very interested in hearing more about your viewpoint in regards to Demons: How would you describe a demon? Does it differ from the christian view? I also get why we should love all aspects of ourselves - but why demons?

I think that the idea of a 'demon' is an imperfect way of trying to describe something to ourselves and other people that we don't understand very well. But its a bit more than a description, our thought about it also at least in part creative, and has some interaction with what the thing is and becomes.

I think that if you think of it as a subconscious part of yourself, that captures a lot of the truth of it also. One reason I call it a demon is its clearly not contained within a single person's mind, and it can exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence and independent will. And I think it deserves some freedom to do that. I don't think of demons as having discrete, individual identities in quite the same way that they would if they had their own bodies though. Its more like a small branch on a much larger tree.

I think the Bible says remarkably little about things like angels, demons, or the afterlife. Most of what is commonly considered 'Christian' perspective on these topics was developed later. And there is an evolution of thought within the Bible also. So I don't want to draw a contrast with "The Christian View" where there doesn't necessarily have to be a contrast. I agree with the common Christian view that evil is real, but that with God all things nevertheless work together for good. I do take issue with what I see to be a totalitarian streak in Christian thinking, where the Christian God is presumed to be perfect and every other god is some kind of satanic deception. Granting the premise, that there is a perfect God that expresses itself centrally through Christianity, that gets distorted where it intersects with our human distortion. There's also a magical kind of thinking among some Christians that says that God enforces his holiness and prevents that distortion where his name is used. But I think it is objectively indisputable that there is no such enforcement, at least not in an absolute sense in the immediate term. Numerous, numerous examples abound in history and in the news, and you can confirm it in your own personal experience if you start asking those questions. So in a practical sense God, as experienced by humanity, is actually something like a large and complicated angel, with the 'real' God behind it somewhere, manipulating it, but meeting humans partway and allowing them some control over their own perception of divinity. So that god is also a fallen angel in some sense, because we are, even though it is often loathe to admit it, and in many times and places heads will roll if people question that publicly. I think that facing this becomes essential at some point, because who we are and our thoughts about God are deeply interrelated, and you can't progress very easily if you can't admit an error.

In principle, in the minds of many people, we can continue drawing the line between 'God' and our imperfect human understanding of God, without blurring the two. But that line breaks down at the boundary, and there are consequences of that breakdown. The Catholic church, with its recent history of enabling child molesters, is one example. Immediately when I say this, many people will perceive this as an attack on the Catholic church, that I'm against it or sullying its image for the purpose of undermining its positive work in the world. But I think that reaction is itself a symptom of the thought of service to a perfect being. God is perfect, so God's Word is perfect, and God's Word grants that what Peter bind's on earth will be bound in heaven. Theologians and individuals try to draw the line in the most practical and logical place, but there is never universal agreement. I think that this is in part because it never works ideally well for every time and vantage point. Always when we are "doing God's work" there is at least some arrogance and stupidity, where we are actually doing harm but can't allow ourselves to ask the questions we'd need to ask in order to see that. In the most extreme case, just to illustrate the principle, you can pick almost any demon and start calling it Jesus Christ, and it will start believing what you tell it, while growing stronger from the faith you put into it. If enough people participate it can get pretty strong. The Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda is one example of this. Ask any cult follower about this sort of thing, and they'll express well developed ideas about how to distinguish between what is "really" God and what is an imposter. But in reality its always a matter of degree. I think in the end it comes down to who you are and what you will or not choose to love. Whether you regard the Bible as literal and infallible for instance, or not, it is still you who choose how to interpret it, and it is you who choose how much faith to put into it. You and God, because I don't think you're wholly in control of who you are, a lot of that is up to God.

A rule of thumb that I use is that any god worthy of my devotion ought to be at least as honest and morally developed as I am, ideally in every area. By any name, the myriad interrelated gods don't satisfy that standard. Not because I'm better than the other people who helped make those gods what they are, but because like any other person I'm somewhat unique as an individual, and blind in slightly different areas than other people. I realize that to most people this sounds like a very strange way to describe gods, why conflate God with human ideas of God? Its because those lesser gods have actual power. Not only are they expressed though the actions of their followers, they influence the world indirectly also. It follows as a consequence of God's influence in the world, and that who we are as imperfect individuals affects what influence is called for. There isn't a firewall that makes our destiny heavenly despite our sinful nature. And our hope and our partaking of sacraments doesn't fix this completely either, at least not immediately. (Whosoever is born of god doth not sin. We sin, so by that definition we are not born of God, and are not freed from the consequences of our sin. Modern translations add qualifiers, but I think they're fudging it to try to make it fit with other flaws in their doctrine, and its literally true in the King James version.) External examples of this abound in my view, all kinds of bad things happen, what Catholics would call "natural evil". How does natural evil happen if providence isn't also at least in part evil? Who is in charge? Clearly our sinful nature has some kind of impact on external nature also, and on our destiny, or it wouldn't be as brutal as it is. And there are collective aspects to that, we are socially interrelated with each other. What is the expression of that? This is another way of describing what I was referring to as gods. And what I was referring to as demons are lesser extensions of that.

I'm at the office, and my rapid typing is annoying to one of my coworkers, so I'm going to break here and finish up in a couple of hours.

Suppose you were a relatively honest and compassionate person living in a poor and violent country. Suppose you couldn't leave, because other countries that are accessible to you are also like this, with the added challenge of being hostile to you as a foreigner. You wish to take care of your family. The corrupt nature of your environment obviously limits your ability to do that successfully. Your hard circumstances aren't solely a matter of who you are, there's a collective aspect to it also. No matter how well you do with your hard work and your personal spiritual development, a 'good life' may still stay largely out of reach for your spouse and kids, because there's no context for it. To succeed, you have to convince other people to make adjustments. Maybe they can't, so maybe you can't, but maybe there's something you can do that helps at least a little. In that case it seems to me you have to try.

I think the exclusive and absolutist nature of our gods is a lot like the exclusive and absolutist nature of the thinking in troubled countries, which is one reason the two often correlate. And as I experience it, our spiritual environment is difficult in a way that is closely analogous to the difficult physical conditions our thinking creates. So like everyone else, I'm challenged not just by injustice that's built into our social and economic environment, I'm challenged by injustice that pervades our human spiritual realm. To put this another way, our flawed collective ideas of God actually have some power to affect the fate of other people. They're intelligent to some degree, and they actually have some ability to punish their enemies. Again this follows from the partially shared nature of our minds.

Like other people, I'm naturally at odds to some extent with other people's gods. One somewhat superficial difference for me is I don't sail under the banner of a big theological god with lots of followers, and so I'm not protected by one in the same kind of way. I call the difference superficial, because everyone's gods are in some way at war with other people's gods, due to selfish competition for limited resources as much as from any ideological or values differences. Factions are allied and balanced off against other factions, with very small factions not necessarily in a safer position than much bigger ones with strong rivals. But my perception is, rightly or wrongly, that one challenge to my success in life is that the 'gods' that are related to my outlook in life are perceived as wrong or threatening by other people's gods. And if there's a bigger, meta God that manages the mess of smaller gods, that God requires me to try to do something to address this 'totalitarian god' issue a little bit. Earlier I suggested that I was motivated by empathy for demons. That's true, but there's this other way of looking at it also. In other words, the empathy is the felt side of it, and perceiving the responsibility, as taught by experience, is more the intellectual side of it.

As far as the empathy goes, that's pretty much like any compassion anyone has for anybody or anything. You can't nurture a child by locking them away in the closet because they're flawed, or calling them niggers or evil spirits and banishing them to a ghetto forever. I feel the suffering, I see it reflected in the world, I hear it inside myself. People, especially young people, need to be heard. Spirits are like that also. And hearing them is a part of hearing ourselves. So I say to the spirits that I experience in my dreams and in events and in art and in my intuition, "I hear you", and I try to make good on that by telling other people what I am aware of and understand. Like a child the things I do to be heard aren't always very constructive towards that end, but we must try.

Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

If you get why we should love all aspects of ourselves, I think that pretty much covers it. Though the demons are typically not contained within any particular individual, and in varying degrees they are able to manipulate events in ways that might be considered miraculous, in a very real way they are us.

I am a bit tired and didn´t read most of your posts - this time - last time in the thread next door I did - and I had to think of "Anathem" from Neil Stevenson when I read some ideas of yours - it is actually my most favourite book - playing with lots of concepts and containing some real mathematics as well.

I give you a link:

Wikipedia Anathem

It is about a parallel world to ours.
And - there are two types of powerful "Avout" (monks) - the Rhetors, who can change the past by instilling their narrative and the Incantors:

A Rhetor is a legendary figure able to "change the past" through the manipulation of records and human memory. Very little about them is known or concretely recorded, which of course may be a result of their ability. To most in the Mathic world, the Rhetors, along with the Incanters were figures from Saecular legends about the Avout who arose prior to the Third Sack.
As the novel develops, it is revealed that Fraa Jad is a real Incanter who has the ability to perform Polycosmic Manipulation and it is speculated that after the Third Sack, certain Millenarian Maths (most likely the three inviolates) were allowed to retain such skills.

Well - yeah - the intelligentsia is banned into cloister-like-"concents" - and later - a space-ship appears - well see Wikipedia.
It is also very funny.
Maybe it inspires you!

^^ Anathem is indeed a great book...

Thanks StephL. I have used science fiction short stories as food for thought. Few full-length novels can hold my attention though, I buy them occasionally thinking I should then I don't actually read them. So far Stephenson has fallen into that category for me. Two authors I have read full length novels by are Neal Asher and Alastair Reynolds. I find their books to be intelligent and imaginative, though also dark and violent.

To repeat a story I've told elsewhere....A few years ago I had an experience where I got the clothes out of the dryer and my driver's license fell out on the floor. I picked it up and went and sat on the floor for a few minutes fiddling with it while I thought about something else, stuffing it between my cell phone cover and pulling it out again. Then my attention wandered for a second and it was gone, as if it had never been there. I was like oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit, and I like to think that I don't scare easily. I found it in my wallet in my coat pocket across the room. I think this actually happened, I don't think I could have stood up, walked across the room, dug around in my long coat for the pocket, and put it away, and returned to my original spot without noticing. It takes some effort to stand up from the floor, and typically my muscles sort of remember that sort of thing even if I'm not paying attention. Also, I'd already had a large number of dream premonitions by then, and these had stood critical scrutiny quite well. This felt like the same kind of thing, and like the dreams it was in response to a question I'd asked my 'muse' a few hours before. Tentatively, I think that unlike the dream premonitions, this 'splicing of timelines' kind of experience is not a 'normal' way for things to work, that it amounts to a kind of lie in the universal thought of the world, so to speak. But I'd wanted to know if history could change, and the only way to prove that is to change it in an inconsistent way so that it contradicts a memory. I wouldn't have been thinking about this if I hadn't been thinking about this sort of thing after having read science fiction stories involving parallel worlds. I don't know if parallel worlds are actually real in some sense, or if the symptoms of those ideas are just similar enough to allow an opening for something like my experience to happen, even if it works in some totally different way. I've had a few more experiences like that since then, but I avoid them.

First of all - this makes me really happy now, Sageous, that you also find Anathem a great book - this attribute is really justified.
But he does have a tendency to not write less then 1000 pages.. I understand.

Strange story with your wallet, shadowofwind..
I have read my share of Neal Asher and Alaistar Reynolds myself - esp. the latter being a bit too much on the dark and violent side for my liking - but anyway - several books of both - they are very good..
Science fiction is one of the big inspirational sources for me - I might open a thread on it with some recommendations I have.
It is a shame, I didn´t note down somewhere what exactly I have all read and when and how I liked it - maybe I get somewhere recollecting things for this and get new tips on what to read.

It is so extremely rare to find an Anathem fan - looking forward to book-recommendations from you especially Sageous!

book.gif

Originally Posted by StephL

First of all - this makes me really happy now, Sageous, that you also find Anathem a great book - this attribute is really justified. But he does have a tendency to not write less then 1000 pages.. I understand.

It is so extremely rare to find an Anathem fan - looking forward to book-recommendations from you especially Sageous!

Aside from the rest of Stephenson's books (especially the Baroque Cycle books -- which are really just one 1,200-page book; 2,300 if you include Cryptonomicon, God help us), about the single best book I can recommend that you read is Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin. Aside from being a great book, Winter's Tale is categorically the best book I've ever read about nature and conscious experience of dreaming -- even though the word "dream," much less the concept itself, is rarely mentioned in the story.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Aside from the rest of Stephenson's books (especially the Baroque Cycle books -- which are really just one 1,200-page book; 2,300 if you include Cryptonomicon, God help us), about the single best book I can recommend that you read is Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin. Aside from being a great book, Winter's Tale is categorically the best book I've ever read about nature and conscious experience of dreaming -- even though the word "dream," much less the concept itself, is rarely mentioned in the story.

I am reading this book now - and I feel I can not find words to express how moved I am - I´m actually crying and smiling at the same time for a while now while reading - how can anybody write such a beautiful thing..?
I am about a quarter in and I don´t think, I will get much sleep tonight - listening to Brahms, who to my great joy I got reminded of, Beverly playing the allegro of his violin concerto in her fever.
Ah - I feel so inadequate posting words in here - just wanted to let you know.
I can´t thank you enough for this book!
This will not be the only time I read it.

Originally Posted by StephL

listening to Brahms, who to my great joy I got reminded of, Beverly playing the allegro of his violin concerto in her fever.

I like his third symphony. My favorite violin concerto is Sibelius.

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Very cool, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

I got a warm feeling just at the mention of Beverly (even though she was so fond of the cold). I do try to reread it every 5-10 years, just to be reminded about Peter Lake's world, and the definition of quality.

Oh, and the best thing about this book is that it keeps getting better; enjoy!

He is such a virtuoso - somehow he managed to take my tears away completely, just before she dies.
I´m not completely sure - but it felt as if he pulled the blow, somehow magically, before it happens - the morgue scene shortly before and the little things after that.
I´ll stop spoiling now, if somebody else wants to read it..

DO IT - SOMEONE ELSE!!

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

I like his third symphony. My favorite violin concerto is Sibelius.

Thank You!!

Bringing the house down with Sibelius just now - and seems I am still built a bit close to the water, as we say in Germany..
This is a wonderful piece of music, shadowofwind - somehow I managed to almost completely forget him, too.
I love Brahms concerto for violins and piano G-Dur Opus 7 as well - to my shame the only work of his, which made it on my computer hard-drive.
This will be helped - I feel a classical music phase taking root!
I wonder what the "what are you listening to" crowd next door will think of that .. hehe

Bach never completely left me - but he is - don´t get me wrong here anybody - I love him with a passion - but he is sort of "easy listening" with his crystal-clear mathematical pieces in comparison. He gives me a sense of elation, and grips my heart with his music - but he doesn´t stir the yearning and inner emotional uproar - the problematic side of feeling (damn English sometimes.. I want my German..), as these two do.
Got to dig out good old Beethoven as well..

A shame, I stopped playing the violin after school, because I had been playing on one, which I got lent by the school, and had other things on my mind than saving money for my own one and go on learning.

Riiight - shame over - thank you two so much once more!

grouphug.gif

Originally Posted by StephL

I have read my share of Neal Asher and Alaistar Reynolds myself - esp. the latter being a bit too much on the dark and violent side for my liking - but anyway - several books of both - they are very good..

Vandana Singh is another writer that has themes from higher mathematics. She has some nice novellas.

Reynolds' more recent books haven't been as violent or as dark. I liked House of Suns a lot for instance, and it even had a cheery ending. Asher's stuff has remained brutally violent though, and I think he's run out of new ideas also. I didn't buy the latest Asher novel, which is the first one I passed on. I bought Reynolds' recent Dr. Who book, but haven't looked at it. Maybe I'll give it to my oldest son to read at some point if I feel comfortable with that.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Aside from the rest of Stephenson's books (especially the Baroque Cycle books -- which are really just one 1,200-page book; 2,300 if you include Cryptonomicon, God help us), about the single best book I can recommend that you read is Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin. Aside from being a great book, Winter's Tale is categorically the best book I've ever read about nature and conscious experience of dreaming -- even though the word "dream," much less the concept itself, is rarely mentioned in the story.

Oh - I have read them all - I love the Baroque cycle - esp. Quicksilver.
I even read his short book on operating systems.
I will definitively get Winter´s Tale - thank you so much!

I am such a picture-freak - can´t help it:


Well - and completely free to do what I want time.. for a while.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Vandana Singh is another writer that has themes from higher mathematics. She has some nice novellas.

Reynolds' more recent books haven't been as violent or as dark. I liked House of Suns a lot for instance, and it even had a cheery ending. Asher's stuff has remained brutally violent though, and I think he's run out of new ideas also. I didn't buy the latest Asher novel, which is the first one I passed on. I bought Reynolds' recent Dr. Who book, but haven't looked at it. Maybe I'll give it to my oldest son to read at some point if I feel comfortable with that.

And thank you so much as well!
Would 'Distances' be maybe something, you would recommend?

Distances, a story of science, art, and deception, is fascinating far-future science fiction, set in a far-future desert city. When mathematicians from the planet Tirana, 18-light-years-distant, ask Anasuya's help in solving a series of equations, she finds the new geometrical space they present her with intriguing. But as she explores the new space, she soon comes to suspect that it represents an actual physical system, and that the equations she is being asked to solve have a significance the Tiranis are concealing.

Sounds and looks enticing!
I will try to get the above - I have a kindle - or maybe you have another favourite of her´s?



You might like Greg Egan Homepage

I read Quarantine, Diaspora and a short story collection named "Axiomatic" and other books - good that I think of him now - will read more..

He has created his own algorithms for tiling systems - just was looking for cover-art, actually - but here we go:
5-fold quasisymmetry:


8-fold quasisymmetry:





Small list of other science fiction authors I really like - there´s much more - got to think about it longer:

John Scalzi: Old Men´s War Cycle and others

Ian M. Banks - for example The Algebraist, but all of the Culture Series, and actually all others - I think, I read them all, and I´m afraid the Scott is dead now...He did write "normal" fiction as well, as Ian Banks.

Lois McMaster Bujold and her Vorkosigan Saga, read it all, and can´t wait for a new book of hers - very unique and funny

Paolo Bacigalupi - he wrote very good short stories, didn´t read a novel of his, though

Kim Stanley Robinson - Mars Trilogy - this is something with "real" scientists - in the sense, that they and other´s personalities and the story are compellingly realistic and seeming possible.

StephL,

Distances is one that I bought, but I gave it away before I read it. The lists of short stories on her web site and also on wikipedia both seem incomplete to me, I've read several of her stories but am not seeing the ones I read. I realize that's pretty weak given that she's an author I recommended. Her stories are not very exciting relative to stories by someone like Asher, but they are intelligent, and the character development is relatively good, and I enjoyed the ones I read. Maybe Distances wouldn't be a bad one to try.

I've read a few Ian M. Banks books, since I liked Asher and Reynolds so much, and it was pretty clear that both of them borrowed a lot of ideas from him. I didn't find them very entertaining though. For me his stories seemed morally and emotionally empty somehow. Asher strikes me as a fascist and sadist, but he has a theme of redemption that I think he does well, such as in The Technician or Brass Man, and I found his imagination compelling. The first story I read was Alien Archeology, and it seemed real to me somehow, as if I could feel the spirits that inspired his alien creatures. I didn't care for the Splatterjay stuff as much. Reynolds is similar for me. Some of his sort stories like Beyond the Aquila Rift feel to me to be narrowly veiled documentaries of my spiritual journey. Absolution Gap was a novel that spoke to me like that, even though on its face it was long and boring. I still haven't read Revelation Space, but I've read most of his novels and all of his short stories. I think Diamond Dogs was the only short story or novella of his that I didn't finish, it was just too brutal for me, but I still think it was a good story.

Larry Niven is another author who Asher and Reynolds obviously owe a lot to. I find the quality of his stuff to be mixed. Some of it he obviously just dashed off for the money. I think Mote in God's Eye is one of the best stories I've ever read though, even though I got bored with the political drama part and skipped half of it.

I have read most of Greg Egan's short stories, and maybe half of his novels. I liked them, and think he's very intelligent and imaginative, but they lacked some ingredient that would have been needed to make them as compelling to me than Asher or Reynolds.

Greg Bear is another writer that I've read a bit of, both short stories and novels. The philosophical part of his Judgment Engine short story could almost be a biography of my early 20's, though I didn't read it until much later.

Kij Johnson has a decent book of short stories. Likewise for Elizabeth Bear.

Gene Wolfe is another author that has connected strongly to me. I haven't read any of his novels because I don't care for fantasy, but in my early 20's his Fifth Head of Cerberus novella was my favorite story ever. I can't say that it was technically really that great, but it mirrored my own struggles. It doesn't have any answers, but I didn't have any answers either then. Blade Runner was by far my favorite movie at that time for the same reason, and is the only movie I've ever bought for myself, though don't think I've watched it more than two or three times.

I read a lot of science fiction when I was about 14, then I mostly stopped. I read a lot of metaphysical books in my mid 20's, and that's where a lot of my ideas have come from. It took me about three years to recognize that it was largely fiction also. Then I spent about ten years trying to clear my head and find what I really know for myself, then I read science fiction again for ideas for about five years. Now I've mostly stopped again. If I can find work where my family is I won't have time anyway.

Originally Posted by StephL

I will definitively get Winter´s Tale - thank you so much!

I am such a picture-freak - can´t help it:


Well - and completely free to do what I want time.. for a while.

Just read there's going to be a movie next year. Unless it's about 12 hours long it'll likely suck, but seemed worth mentioning. I'll be obliged to see it regardless of quality, for sure.

Look Sageous: Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin

Now I just need somebody with mod-power to correct my title mistake...redface.gif

^^ Very cool, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

I got a warm feeling just at the mention of Beverly (even though she was so fond of the cold). I do try to reread it every 5-10 years, just to be reminded about Peter Lake's world, and the definition of quality.

Oh, and the best thing about this book is that it keeps getting better; enjoy!