Message from a Time Traveler

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

[calljack]

Yea, well in SF it is pretty tough to be entirely original. It was enjoyable, it is hard to find something REAL good anymore. Maybe I'm jaded I read several if not many every month and have been doing so for 20-30 years. have ya read "The madness season"
Some stuff in there got ripped off and put into "Chronicles of Riddick"

[CurlyBill]

Besides, the Muslim threat comes from the right, not the left. In the Middle East, they are called Conservative hard liners.

Except for the simple fact that Conservatives are advocates of freedom... which is diametrically in opposition to the ideals of Islam. As far as Democrats are concerned, I beg to differ. While there are many weak Republicans, it is the left in this country who try to tie our hands in every conflict. It is they who weaken us, and it is they who have taken over the Democrat Party.

[stands2reason]

And which posts suggest the story is nonfiction?

[Nowhere Man]

I come from the following stock - my Gran told me about how she and her friends and neighbours were prepared to beat Germans with broomhandles if need be, surrender was not an option. I'll be out there with everything I have before I ever surrender to these goat shagging bastards. They will have to kill me, because I won't accept their rule.

Agreed. I've heard that many in the UK would meet the Germans with crowbars, tire irons, baseball bats, you name it. I might as well put it up my response to them hving dhimmitude over us:





Well I don't have a Garand yet so my .22LR rifle will have to do until then.

[Cold Heat]

I agree that much leftist thinking is certainly dangerous to all, but your assessment of Conservatives always being for freedom is problematic.

The farther to the right you go with conservatism, seems to lead to less freedom, as they tend to become authoritarian or Theocratic and hamper freedom in the name of Conservatism.

The left has similar problem with freedom on the left end, with Communism and anti Capitalist controls that stifle freedom and innovation as do the exorbitant taxes.

So, both ends have bad results. As with most things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle and that is what our two party system is designed to achieve. You would not like the world that would be created when one party managed to destroy the other, and that is the simple truth of the matter.

I wish more people understood this, and realized that every variation of political thought has a place and a reason to exist.

It is a question of balance and when it tips to far either way, freedom is the first casualty.

[Malsua]

Maybe I'm jaded I read several if not many every month and have been doing so for 20-30 years. have ya read "The madness season"

I read that one a while back. Enjoyed it too.

You'd probably go nutz to see my library. The wife and I both read like locusts on a cornfield. She worked for Bantam Doubleday Dell as an Executive editor for 15 years, and I worked for John Wiley and Sons for a number of years. We have so many books we could open a library :).

As an aside, when I met George Soros while he was writing "Soros on Soros" in an office in my building I was entirely non-plussed. I had no idea who he was...I was going up to fix a computer, I walked in...he stood up "I'm George Soros" I sorta nodded and went to work on the computer. My first thought "who is this ass" lol. After I got back to the IT area, I got questioned "you met Soros!" and I'm like "yeah, so, who is that?"

I'm currently in an Orson Scott Card phase. I just finished the entire Shadow series. I read the homecoming series before that and was disappointed, but the Alvin maker series is pretty good.

[Brett66]

Ping for later

[higgmeister]

I would think it could be a sensitive subject these days.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for the ping to this interesting discussion!

[Master of Orion]

I remember when Ayatollah Khomeini went back to Iran
And wasn't it France who gave him assylum, just like the US is giving to an ex-Taliban at Yale?

[higgmeister]

, but no one on this thread implied that it might be nonfiction. Apart from you, that is.

Huh?? There are 638 posts... you might want to look at them again.

It was written by a Hugo Award winning Science Fiction author.

I haven't seen any previous post suggest that anyone else
thought a time traveler from a hundred years in the future
actually visited a man that wrote about it as nonfiction.

[Actually_in_Tokyo]

I'll be back.

[hocndoc]

After the news the last few days, I thought of another - "No more Burqas!" Or, "Search the burqas!"

But, I'm sure it's the "Write this story," "Warn the world," "Tell my Dad," etc.

[hocndoc]

I still take Analog, pretty much ever since back in 1981 or 82, when one of my college professors was moving and gave me a whole box full of old issues. (Thanks, Neil)

One of the best SF short stories ever was actually "Blued Moon," by Connie Willis.

[hocndoc]

Do either of you remember when, in 1985, Analog (the editor, really,I think it was Stanley Schmidt) told us to be ready to speak in defense of the space project and technology when the inevitable shuttle crash happened?

[cgbg]

(comments on the domestic front)

I agree with Simmons that Bush made a category error of historical proportions by declaring "A War On Terror" after 911.

I think his PR folks didn't think a "War On Islamic Extremists" sounded sexy enough.

It is my view that the Islamic War began in the Clinton administration but they could not figure out a way to present the bad news to the American public so they chose to pretend that Oklahoma City was a domestic event and TWA 800 was an exploding fuel tank.

So, looking to the future, how do you tell a poorly educated (in the area of history), fat, lazy, pampered public that they are about to enter a long war of attrition with an implacable (if somewhat disorganized) enemy for the rest of their lives?

This is a message most folks don't want to hear and won't take seriously until it has progressed to the point where everyday life has been altered.

From a propaganda standpoint I believe history will show Bush made a tactical error by being too "moderate". He should have chosen Xenophobia even if his intelligence told him it was not justified.

Why?--Because Xenophobia unites a country behind a cause. (Translation--we are going to have to close the mosques and expel the Muzzies and try a bunch for treason eventually, so why not unite the country and do it before all the intelligence is in. Yes, this is in conflict with the American view of civil liberties--but this was the course chosen with the Japanese in WWII, not because there was overwhelming evidence of massive collaboration, but because the "other" had to be defined for propaganda purposes.)

The Leftist historians will claim that Bush chose this moderate course because he was too cozy with his Saudi friends, but if Simmons is right all US historians will be using W as a punching bag (from their underground bunker).

[cgbg]

the message is lost in the presentation...which is that of a kook

Many of the greatest works of literature in history have been written in code--or were "kooky", because they had to be or the author would have been executed, exiled, or ostracized in their time.

Simmon's message is very politically incorrect in our time--we have to get them before they get us (what I call "xenophobia").

It falls squarely within the framework of great literature imho.

[Shaun_MD]

April Fools Day.

[Thumper1960]

He makes good points about the importance of knowing history, and about the "war on terrorism" being like a "war on aviation".

But our enemy is not all of Islam, but a small part of it.

That small part would like nothing better than to make this a war on all of Islam. So they agitate Muslims against us, and us against Muslims.

Fortunately, our current leaders are too smart to fall for that.

You got nothing from this essay. Keep living in your ignorance. You won't last long.