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

[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