Neat little story by Dan Simmons

[VetLegion]

4) The story is a self fulfiling prophecy, as in it he writes that

You wrote something . . . will soon write something . . . that will put your name, and all your descendents’ names, on their list.

Which really happened, with the story itself he got on a list and now is trying his best to get off it. Should we expect a praise of Islam within the next few days?

[jdd2007]

Originally posted by monolith94
It's more like an opinion editorial than a short story.

I don't know. Maybe he's playing devil's advocate.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by VetLegion
4) The story is a self fulfiling prophecy, as in it he writes that

You wrote something . . . will soon write something . . . that will put your name, and all your descendents’ names, on their list.

Which really happened, with the story itself he got on a list and now is trying his best to get off it. Should we expect a praise of Islam within the next few days?

Seeing it that way, it does seem to now have a bit of the April Fools "Woosh!" about it, doesn't it?

Looking at the Google cache, I don't see a date on the story itself. It was retrieved on April 4th. However, the first post about it in his forum is dated April 1st.

[Sandman]

Great, now I know not to read any of his works.

Odd how China has escaped the wrath of 'Eurabia' in story.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Sandman
Great, now I know not to read any of his works.

Odd how China has escaped the wrath of 'Eurabia' in story.

Presumably China, being an authoritarian country, didn't "Tear at itself" Like America and Europe.

[Adrian Hon]

He's actually a pretty decent author whenever he's not banging on about the Arabs (which unfortunately he has been doing increasingly, of late) - the Hyperion Cantos is great space opera. Ilium and Olympos, on the other hand, grew incoherent towards the end and he engaged in rather too much nonsensical Arab-bashing in the latter.

[Sandman]

Seeing as how China's much closer to the Islamic world than America, you'd think there'd be some trouble.

Edit - x-posted.

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by Sandman
Seeing as how China's much closer to the Islamic world than America, you'd think there'd be some trouble.

Edit - x-posted.

But China doesn't have the image of itself that we have. They won't let themselves be attacked without reacting to the attack with the same ruthlessness, savagery, or whatever else you want to call it, that the attackers had.

As the author puts it, unlike us, they won't be:

"Athenian invertebrates with your love of your own exalted sensibilities and your willingness to enter into a global war for civilizational survival even while you are too timid, too fearful . . . too decent . . . to match the ruthlessness of your enemies.”

[Lonestar]

China already does have trouble...we just never hear about what's going on in Sinkang.

[pchang]

Yes. Because the Chinese are quite ruthless.

[Sandman]

So, to be successful, you must be ruthless.

If only the US would burn every Sunni insurgent town to ash, we wouldn't be in this mess. Damn meddling politicians

[pchang]

Brutal and effective

You would have to admit that Carthage never gave the Romans any trouble again....

[Sandman]

That was a trading city-state though.

[pchang]

Hey, when you have lots of people "longing to be part of their former homeland", the only real solution is to wipe that former homeland off the map. I find large mixed stacks backed up with move 2 pillagers to be very effective at this.

[Dr Strangelove]

I thought the Athenians lost their army in Sicilly because their aggression angered and united the islanders, who held them at bay. The arrogance of the Athenians gained allies for the Spartans who then completed the isolation of the Athenian army in Sicilly before finally moving in for the kill?

Perhaps there is another way to interpret history as well as current events?

If the muslims planted atomic bombs in Israel, Coalition bases in Iraq, and various places in Europe and the US the retaliation would probably be sufficient to eradicate any further response from the aggressors. I might add that not only does the US have the capability, so do the British and the French.

Why did Russia escape the muslim onslaught? Afterall, Russia owns land claimed by muslims. Of course, Russia also owns a couple thousand nuclear weapons..........as do we.