Message from a Time Traveler

Dan Simmons - Official Web Site ^ | April 1, 2006 | Dan Simmons

[null and void]

Beslan is to ??? as

The 1993 WTC bombing is to 9/11...

[Paradox]

Simmons may be a liberal but he seems to get it. Ultimately it is about the West's survival in the face of fanaticism.

I have been a long time fan of Mr. Simmons, and from what I have read on his website and interviews, I assumed he was liberal, at least in the social way. He is pretty much an athiest (although he has developed some lovely Cosmologies), and is at least against "stupid conservativism", as am I. He recently wrote something which caused me to believe that he might be a Dennis Miller or Ron Silver kind of person, in which he lightly criticized the absolute lunatic trashing of Bush and the WOT. Made me go hmmmmm, but this short pretty much confirms it for me.

[Slip18]

Exactamento! Bravo to both of you.

For some strange reason I don't have fear of what those three words are. LOL!

[schu]

Islam is Satan.... or vise versa. ;-)

[Young Scholar]

You're saying EXACTLY what the time traveler said you would say... can't blame the whole religion for a few bad apples. Sound familiar?

The time traveler is, of course, a prophet from the future, and not a fictional character created to espouse the ideological message of one auther. /s

[archy]

Danes used to have stones. So did Swedes. Sweden is tanking on the muslim problem. the Dane appears to be waking up.

"Ten thousand Swedes cut through the weeds, being chased by one Norwegian...."

--The Battle of København

[archy]

fully understand how you would see it that way, but the Nazis were largely Christian

Upper management was heavily into nature worship/pagan/witchcraft.

More accurately: heavily into the Norse-Germanic panoply of the Æsir and the Vanir, the Norse Eddas, and Æsatruism.

[null and void]

Islam is Satan.... or vise versa. ;-)

allah is Satan.

Think about it. REAL Prophets climb mountains to be closer to God. mohammad crawled into a hole to hear allah's hissings.

møøslimbs pray with their faces to the dirt, and their arses pointed at Heaven.

They pray with their heads pointed towards a meteor in mecca, compare to: Luke 10:18 He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

[King Prout]

pfft!

tell it to Gustav II Adolph

[Night Hides Not]

Three words:

Helen Thomas rocks!

[dfwgator]

Three words:

Air Supply Reunion.

[archy]

What's a dudtbin?

It's a sort of dustbin into which you throw unwanted Milk Duds. And typos.

[Paradox]

Dan Simmons may never let us know the three words, nor may he even "know for sure" what they are, although he might have an idea.

Why do I say this? Study the man like a fan would!

He recently wrote an essay on what he called Negative Capability. While this isn't exactly what he meant, I get the feeling that he would rather leave the "3 words" up in the air, forever. In this essay. I read it several months ago, it had to do with the genius of NOT giving out too many details. He says that too many writers give (and readers want) too many details. Its a guy thing perhaps. However, sometimes the lack of such detail can enhance a story. He says that Shakespeare(s) did much of this.

I think Dan would rather just let this slide :)

Another interesting essay. (where he shows some anti-MSM and anti-european sentiment).

[archy]

pfft!

tell it to Gustav II Adolph

....He's dead, Jim.

[Ancesthntr]

But that doesn't line up with 'nor ever plan to share, at least until everyone on Earth knows them'

Like everyone knows 'katrina' or '9/11' etc...?

It's as if he expects the world to learn these words before these words have any shocking emotional meaning.

What if the phrase "The Message" or something similar becomes the emotional watchword of the day, like "Pearl Harbor" did in 1941? IOW, Pearl Harbor is the thing that woke us up then, and The Message "will" in x number of years. I think that a known writer (which the writer of the story clearly is in the story itself ) with foreknowledge of the future could write a story that would wake up the world as soon as those events occurred.

[CharlieOK1]

read later

[Vintage1]

"Wash, Rinse...Repeat"

[cgbg]

The story said this was something the whole world needed to know, so presumably a specific terrorist act would not qualify--unless somehow the Muzzies had managed to keep it secret.

The visitor also hinted that while two of the grandchildren had died abroad that he was from "surprisingly near".

As one who has read too many post-apocolyptic SF novels I can tell you that many of them show a future America living in underground tunnels.

Presumably that would be necessary in a hundred year war with no victory for either side where both sides had nuclear weapons and were prepared to use them.

So my take is that the visitor lives in those tunnels--that fits with the description of his clothing at the beginning of the story. In such a total war everyone is part of the war effort (like WWII) and there are only two endings possible--total victory or total surrender.

My second choice for "the three words", btw, is "The Fourth Reich".

[archy]

5)For those who are talking about eradication If the most ruthless blood thirsty dictator Stalin using the most evil repressive police force the NKVD and OGBU and the most repressive measures could not eradicate religion from the Soviet Union, Christian as well as Islamic, how can we.

The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy and drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather to your bosom his wives and his daughters.

-- Temujen Genghis Khan, Son of Yisugei, circa 1206

[Slip18]

I have a brother-in-law from India. He's a Muslim and prays to the East every day. He's been married to my sister for almost 20 years. He wanted to send their one child, a son, to an Arabic school. My sister refused. The son will be going to Catholic School in one more year for high school.

Brown (that's what we call my sis's husband) also drinks a little and smokes. I don't think he's even read the Koran. But he has been to Mecca. He does not go to the Mosque.

That's why I can't put all Muslims into one basket. Just get the terrorists out of here!!!

Brown was on his way to India a couple of years ago with two other Indian friends and an Irish guy who wanted to see India. They were all pretty much afraid to fly because the three of them were not checked. They all thought they should have had their luggage and bodies checked. Guess it's true about profiling.