pebbles

just finished 'pebble in the sky'. its quite amazing the amount of reading one can accomplish if one is working on long ended simulations. to paraphrase douglas adams, reading an early asimov is somewhat like watching buckets of paint being ferried in and out of the sistine chapel. asimov's early short stories are quaint in a way that the writers of today seem to have given up. where else would you find 'green jabra water, cooled beneath the deserts of mars'? (gotta get a sip of that) but yes, the cynicism that seems to pervade todays writers, this knowitall attitude that they all pull.. it stinks. but then again, the barrel chested heroes(again, borrowing from isaac) who seem to conquer galaxies single handed are always to be despised. something to think about: asimov's early protagonists were captains of spaceships, about to explore the universe. his later protagonists came to include one middle aged detective who got into trouble for what he did not do with this pretty murder suspect and had a habit of saying 'jehoshapat!'. read le carre. poetry disguised as spy literature. safe houses and departmental memos mixed up in descriptions of characters as characters. they talk about getting under the skin of the characters one reads about. le caree make you one of them. so we get drenched with smiley as he trudges home and God has removed all the taxis from the face of London.