YAHOO users are idiots

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
And unlike Heinlein, Asimov, or Clark, JKR is a really good writer.

Having read and owning all seven Potter books, saying JKR is a good writer is a stretch. She hasn't met an adjective she didn't love.

[Ben Kenobi]

That would be a good jab if it weren't for the fact that Hemingway is hated by an awful lot of people and considered lousy writing by a lot of his peers. (I love hemingway, myself, but that doesn't change this.)

Oh, I'm well aware of the controversy, hence the comment. If you like Hemingway, you'll like Heinlein, because they both see writing the same way.

Those who like them probably won't like Faulkner.

Hemingway is very much a realist who values economy of words.

[Jon Miller]

I like both Hemingway and Faulker, I don't like a lot of Heinlien.

JM

[Ben Kenobi]

Which books in particular?

His best is exceptional but as snoopy said, not everything he wrote is his best.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Krill

Yeah... well I feel like responding coz its one of my pet peeves. When I was fourteen I thought blowing up a planet was cool (before we knew to spell it "kewl"), but then I grew up.

One of the things that makes science fiction is a certain minimal contact with reality, and sense of scale is perhaps the foundation of reality. We like FTL because without it the massive scale of space is uncrossable (unless you want a story about people spending generations aboard an interstellar vessel).

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Millions of times smaller?

Yes. Our Sun is rough 300,000 times more massive than Earth. Earth is 80 times more massive than the Moon. The DS was originally 160 km, about 1/8000th the volume of the Moon. The DS was hollow, but for sake of argument, let's assume the density is 1.0, about 1/3 of the Moon's density.

300k×80×8000×3 = 576,000,000,000 times smaller than the Sun.

Oops, sorry. The DS is over half a trillion of times smaller than the Sun.

All you need is to store the entire output of the sun for a week.

If I could just "store" the entire economic output of the US for a week I could be the richest person in the world. See? It's easy. Don't work hard, work smart! Don't ask too many questions, like how I get all those people and companies to pay me instead of the merchants, vendors, employees and creditors. I just say that I can do it, and *poof*, it happens.

But no, the energy required is more like 7000 times the annual power output of the Sun, accumulated in its one day charging period. So now the DS needs to generate 7000×365 times the power of the Sun from a device one half-trillionth the size, for a net 1.47 quintillion times as powerful as the Sun (which is a self-sustaining, thermonuclear fusion explosion almost a million miles across).

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/death-star1.htm

...the Superlaser is like a series of large magnifying glasses focusing the entire power of the reactor (which is like a small sun) into one huge beam to destroy a planet, rather than a few rays of light to burn a leaf.

Ah, yes. Let's compare the burning of a 1g leaf (flammable material that ignites at a few hundred degrees in an atmosphere that provides the O2) to blowing up an inert planet... try focusing that hand-held magnifier on a 10m granite boulder and tell me when you get it to explode.

Edit: forgot linky to SW vs ST site that shows the absurd power of teh DS.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by GePap


Having read and owning all seven Potter books, saying JKR is a good writer is a stretch. She hasn't met an adjective she didn't love.

So you bought her books because she's a bad writer.

[Asher]

GePap is elite. He's allowed to do that.

[Kidlicious]

Gepap has to read things so that he can tell people what to think about them.

[MrFun]

For the record, I enjoyed reading the Harry Potter books.

But what GePap said didn't really make sense. If anyone else here has bought books from authors they think are bad writers, please explain this to me.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Asimov was a horrible writer for a good three decades. But his books were/are certainly worth buying. Bad writer != bad author or bad story.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Koyaanisqatsi
Bad writer != bad author or bad story.

Okay, "bad writer != bad story" - I might be able to buy into that.


But "bad writer != bad author."

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Writing in the technical sense, authorship in the sense of crafting a story.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Koyaanisqatsi
Asimov was a horrible writer for a good three decades. But his books were/are certainly worth buying. Bad writer != bad author or bad story.

I agree. He's still overrated.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

By the 80's he'd made it to the point of being decent. But like I said, that's just talking about his writing...many of his books and stories are still worth reading for other reasons.

[Addled Platypus]

dont forget

John Ringo
David Weber