Thursday, March 28, 2013

1/180 ???


At the bottom of the page, it says: "1/180"... 180 pages of dense legalese.  Aside from the sheer humor value, does this constitute an unenforceable shrink-wrap agreement?

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Rereading "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" by Cordwainer Smith.

Rereading "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" by Cordwainer Smith.  

Smith didn't write many stories, but they linger in my mind far more than most. The first one I remember reading was "No, No, Not Rogov!" -- I remembered the story intensely, but forgot where I read it, or who the author was.  "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons" was the same -- the story burned itself into my memory, but I couldn't remember where I read it or who it was by.

A couple of years ago the mystery resolved:  there's a book that reprints his complete short works.  Some of the titles have an amazing poetic liveness:  "The Dead Lady of Clown Town",  "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard", "Scanners Live in Vain", "The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-At-All".
http://www.amazon.com/Rediscovery-Man-Complete-Science-Cordwainer/dp/0915368560/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362700388&sr=1-1&keywords=cordwainer+smith