The politics of time travel

A brief exchange over in camwyn’s LJ reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about for a bit — time travel as political metaphor.

( Poul Anderson’s Time Patrol )

( John Kessel’s Corrupting Dr. Nice )

( Back to the Future )

Starting the Book of the Long Sun

bigscary has had me meaning to go back and reread all of Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos books. Last time I read the early ones was when I did a full reread as preparation for Phoenix, which was published in 1990. But reading A Case of Conscience (which struck me as annoyingly arbitrary) has me wanting to reread the Long Sun books. Here we go again:

( Observations on the first few pages of The Book of the Long Sun (with spoilers for that series and New Sun) )

More Long Sun

( Spoilers for Long Sun, New Sun, Short Sun, Blue Sun )

Ten Ads America Won’t See

Ten Ads America Won’t See, from AdAge.com. Some are just JPEGs, like the cover of a Filipino skin magazine that admits it doesn’t know why it bothers putting any text in. Others are videos, like the amusing beer ad about a man explaining sex to a four-year-old using a sausage, or a woman who’s been reincarnated as a cockroach, or the world’s worst Nativity play.

The videos are ASF files; my old copy of VLC media player didn’t play the sound, but the latest version works pretty well.