I was pleased with this result.

[richardf8]

I am: Robert A. Heinlein Beginning with technological action stories and progressing to epics with religious overtones, this take-no-prisoners writer racked up some huge sales numbers.

Which science fiction writer are you?

I think I've read more Heinlein than any other SciFi writer.

Comments

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Crud. I'm Philip K. Dick, and if you've seen certain LJ entries of mine, you know why that bothers me.

[richardf8]

No, I don't. I've never read Dick.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Let's just say his books tend to start out smart and riveting, reveal a couple flaws halfway thru, and then do something ridiculous to ruin the last quarter. Not always so, but I've given up on him.

I should be diversifying my SF reading anyway. I've seen no Heinlein, no Clarke in writing, one Lovecraft short story, and one Asimov novel.

[visservoldemort.livejournal.com]

Dick and Heinlein remind me of each other sometimes in their bizarre plot points, but Dick is more inclined towards distopianism, I think. A few years ago, I would've said he was Orwellian, but that was when I was a young idiot and all I knew of Orwell was 1984.

Incidentally, what do you think of Christopher Hitchens? He's rapidly becoming one of my favorite intellectuals.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Horselover Fat, hmm?

Do you get the feeling that his works'd be better romps if they weren't so ... autobiographical?

===|==============/ Level Head

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

You lost me in both sentences.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Ah. My apologies. In "VALIS" and some other related works Phillip K. Dick translates his own name to "Horselover Fat" -- that's the name of the main character. The description of the religious quests, divorce, drugs and jail time make you expect that these are events of Dick's own life.

===|==============/ Level Head

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Apologies accepted. Some things are just hard to research by Google. :)

My personal experience with Dick's writings (as opposed to movies based on them) comprises The Man in the High Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Penultimate Truth, and a short story called "Colony." Of those, only the first was basically good the whole way thru. I was going to give him a last shot with Now Wait for Last Year, but an LJ Friend told me it's the worst case of Dick losing interest in his own story near the end.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

This will give you a feel for Horselover Fat and VALIS -- it's a bizarre sort of fan-fiction, but quite close to the original in tone.

"Hussein’s restoration teams triggered a time dysfunction," Fat said. "Something they did there allowed the city to enter our time in its true form." (http://www.philipkdickfans.com/pkdweb/ReturnFat.htm)

===|==============/ Level Head

[athelind.livejournal.com]

I took this or a similar quiz a few years back, and scored as Hal Clement. This pleased me.

I'll retake this one when I get home.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

As have I.

I wonder who the test-creator thought that Heinlein would have voted for.

===|==============/ Level Head

[richardf8]

Well, LH, where do we overlap politically? When it comes right down to it, we both oppose nanny government/big brother approaches to controlling citizen behavior. We have stark differences on what that MEANS, but that's why we both got Heinlein.

Who would he have voted for? I think I can say with confidence it would not have been Bush or Kerry. Probably, he would have voted for the libertarian candidate.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

You can say a variety of things with confidence, sir. ];-)

"Libertarian" is a fair description (as it is of me, in fact), but that doesn't mean a vote for Badnarik.

Here's something Heinlein said, with a fair dose of humor: "Ayn Rand is a bloody socialist compared to me."

I do need to read Ayn Rand.

===|==============/ Level Head

[visservoldemort.livejournal.com]

Start with The Fountainhead. It's genius. I'm planning on moving on to some of her nonfiction philosophical works (just bought "The Virtue of Selfishness" as a birthday gift for a friend) and then read Atlas Shrugged when I have some more time, of which is sparse with college applications coming up.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I've got a set of cassettes of "Atlas Shrugged" which were given to me as soon as I had a car that could play everything but cassettes. ];-)

I see that you, too, are a fan of iambic pentameter. And since you're that, and also interested in science fiction, you may find this a bit amusing (http://www.livejournal.com/community/iambic_5meter/23727.html).

===|==============/ Level Head

[richardf8]

Atlas Shrugged is a delightfully surreal work. Basically a group of innovators establish this utopian capitalist, er, commune in an alternate dimension.

[visservoldemort.livejournal.com]

I'm a fan of iambic pentameter? Really? I suddenly feel justified in my (as of yet unsuccesful) attempts to pressure my theatre friends to award me the Public Relations Coordinator spot on the Shakespeare Club as patronage position! My life is not a lie!

No, seriously, what is iambic pentameter? I'm afraid my most recent art related experience was seeing the 12th Night performance my friends directed and put on over at the local theater earlier this afternoon.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

You said "seriously", and I shall take you at your word.

Iambic pentameter is a poetic form in which each line is made of five pairs of syllables. The stresses are on alternate syllables, producing an effect like "da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM".

Each of those paired syllables is called an "iamb" -- and the "pentameter" part means that there are five of these iambs per line.

This is what William Shakespeare wrote "Twelfth Night" in, along with his other works including his sonnets. He cheated a bit, from time to time, inserting an extra syllable or two at the end or dropping one.

"If MU-sic BE the FOOD of LOVE, play ON" is perfect iambic pentameter. But the next line gets in trouble:
"give ME exCESS of IT, that SURfeiTING"

The last word is ... rough-edged. It's possible to offset this by one, and that works better though it's a form of cheating:
"GIVE me EXcess OF it THAT surFEIting"
flows better.

And once you've started thinking of the style
You find yourself then thinking in it, too.
I dabble in this, once in a great while
And rhyming it is easier to do.

It doesn't have to rhyme in any way
And most of Shakespeare's work, indeed, does not.
(Because of differences since Shakespeare's day
We miss some rhymes with new sounds we've been taught.)

So I had played a bit in Bardish style
And wrote the S-F story in that link.
Perhaps it made you frown, or made you smile,
By writing such, it forces me to think. ];-)

Our host is schooled in this and many things
We met discussing Chaucer in LJ
But comments such as this have their own wings
And travel far from things I ought to say.

===|==============/ Level Head

[childings.livejournal.com]

Which science fiction writer are you? (http://paulkienitz.net/skiffy.html)

I have no idea who this guy is. Apparently he took this quiz and it told him he was Arthur C. Clarke.

[visservoldemort.livejournal.com]

And Hm. How fascinating. I should buy more of him.

Which science fiction writer are you? (http://paulkienitz.net/skiffy.html)