Thus the world of this story is a world in which no one ever saw movies like The Omen.

Aw…what a sad world.¹
Unless you mean the remake. Then…nevermind.

¹Author may be biased due to ownership of theatrical original poster for The Final Conflict: The Omen III, representing his love for Sam Neill as an actor, and mostly just the original movie with the fantastic Gregory Peck. Service providers displaying or hosting this post are not responsible for this content nor the questionable taste it implies. But, in the author’s defense, it’s Sam Neill as the Antichrist, as well as a sequel to an utterly fantastic movie and its passable sequel.

I cannot believe you forgot Barack Obama on your list of potential AntiChrists!  He’s the best candidate yet.

I cannot believe you forgot Barack Obama on your list of potential AntiChrists!

It’s true! Because numerology.

Great work reminding me of Omen III – the film with the greatest back-of-the-VHS-box text I’ve ever seen.

My best recollection:”… can the Antichrist (Sam Neill) bring about the end of the world before his archenemy (God) returns?”

Chloe finding a woman with an engagement ring in Buck’s apartment still works better than the thing with the flowers in TF the book.

…bogged down for hundreds of pages in the middle with Rayford and Buck
insisting for several chapters that they would never, ever, under any
circumstances accept a job working for Nicolae Carpathia…

“And Rayford’s like, ‘Nope, not gonna work for the Antichrist, not gonna do it, no way, no job with the Antichrist,’ and Bruce and Chloe are all, ‘You’re gonna work for the Antichrist,’ and Rayford’s like ‘No, no way, not going to do it,’ and then they cut away and cut back, [SOUND EFFECT], and Rayford’s working for the Antichrist.”

Well, it was funnier when Freakazoid explained it.

Wait, did movie!Rayford try to prosteralize to Hattie too? There was a scene in the first movie where she did her ‘let’s keep sinning’ spiel, but did Rayford go into full anti-anti-christ mode there like he did in the book? Because I’m a bit suprised that Hattie knows that Rayford is a Bible thumper of the kind that calls her boss/boytoy the antichrist. The book conversion attempt was so clear that it could make her realize Rayford’s new allegiance despite him never caring much about christianity in the years they knew each other, but I’m not sure if the movie was. I guess that’s prove that all heathens focus like a laser on anyone speaking up about anything christianity-related and marking them down for future persecution immediately.

One of the reviewers over at thatguywiththeglasses took on the first
left behind movie. I hadn’t seen other reviews from her, and she is a
bit overly crude for my tastes, but the review was still funny, if NSFW. For those who
want to give it a go: http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/diamanda-hagan/33991-left-behind

One line of Chloe’s does strike me as a lot more reasonable than anything else in the books or movies:

“What makes you think you’re even gonna get the job?”

Seriously! In the book L&J go to some effort to have the jobs of working for Nicolae Carpathia repeatedly shoved at Rayford and Buck, only for them to loudly, ostentatiously and repeatedly deny they would ever ever nope nope not EVER work for Carpathia. In real life, after the first couple of denials to what should be the world’s most efficient and fearsome Mafia Boss equivalent? He’d either give up, get other people, and decide to ignore Rayford’s and Buck’s overweening self-perception of themselves (what, they’re the only two people with alleged moral qualms about working for Nicolae?), or he’d suss out that they’re secretly his opponents (or maybe not so secretly when it comes to book!Rayford being a prize ass over his Bible) and decide to have them sidelined or gotten rid of.

However the GCAAT* would never dare put “And Rayford died from a bullet.” in the equivalent of Tribulation Force or Nicolae and switch to another POV character, unlike Harry Turtledove, who may write ponderous as hell books that are repetitive to the extreme** but at least he mixes it up every once in a while, and some characters do in fact die of stray bullets, or purposely aimed bullets.

Anyway, the point Chloe makes is a darn good one.

For two guys who’re confident they can mole their way into Carpathia’s organization, do they really have totally irreplaceable skill sets? While Buck is a fairly handsome-ish news reporter with an audience, I’m sure there are others. And as pointed out elsewhere, Rayford is technically not qualified to fly Air Force One or its equivalent because invariably the flier of a plane for the US President has been a military officer specifically vetted for the job.

Even if we grant that Nicolae does not have that restriction, there are still going to be a LOT of people who wouldn’t mind the prestige and ego boost that comes from flying for the World Peacemaker and Searcher For The Kids.

So I think the filmmakers unintentionally made Chloe rather a good devil’s advocate type person, even if she comes across as relatively ineffective and abrasive.

—

* Greatest Christian Author of All Time, coined over on Heathen Critique

** Every single World War II equivalent scene starring Leonard O’Doull has him using almost the exact same dialogue with his medical buddy, to the point where I could skip those scenes and lose none of the flow of the plot, since the scenes were so goddamn irrelevant — as an extreme example. Other characters in the Southern Victory as well as other books are not so cut and paste, by comparison. I recommend In the Presence of Mine Enemies as a fairly decent read with comparatively minor Turtledovian padding and repetitiveness.

Also, another addendum:

The romance-comedy subplot? (More like sub-tome, am I right?)

Remember how book!Rayford, despite all evidence to the contrary, cheers on Buck’s courtship of Chloe even though to all intents and purposes, Rayford and Chloe don’t know Buck THAT well and would reasonably HAVE to assume he might well be engaged? Well, movie!Rayford is doing a little of that too. That said, it could make for a nice twist – put on the soft soap over the phone – “Oh yeah, just come on over!” and then instead of Buck greeting Chloe, he is greeted by a very scowly Rayford, saying, “Now let’s get something straight. If you’re going to date my daughter you need to be very truthful. Are you already engaged or married?”

However the way they’re setting it up in the movie it seems like it’s going to be an almost carbon copy of the book’s version, only minus the fifty or a hundred goddamn pages Jenkins took in his own sweet time setting up what he thought was the most killer rom-com subplot EVAR.

Filmmakers! You ARE alllowed to deviate from the book’s plot! Heck, you want an extreme example? The Bourne movies deviate so substantially from the books they might as well be alternate versions altogether.

“The following day, we see a smallish plane at a desolate-looking regional airstrip and it takes a moment to realize this is the much-ballyhooed Global Community One that plays such a central role in the book. (I’m not an airplane expert, but this doesn’t look anything like the ginormous plane described in the book.)”

Oh, it’s not. That’s a Boeing 737, originally designed as a *short-to-medium-range* airliner. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737) At best, Nicolai could maybe get from NYC to Omaha if he had a decent tailwind. Hardly the plane that one would use for World-hopping.

P.S. Fred, the posted YouTube link seems to be dead. Just thought that you should know.

Waitabit, waitabit… Is that a pair of sensible shoes I just spotted on Chloe? Now I know that other people’s choice in footwear is up to them, but in this movie I can’t help noticing. Those babies look *comfy*.

I would also like to point out that the “oh let’s go work for the antichrist after all” scene Makes. No. Sense. It’s just a big stream of complete non-sequiturs. Like for example, what does Chris getting saved have to do with flying the aeroplane?

The link worked fine for me.

I like Southern cigarettes.  Southern tobacco is so much better than this horse manure we get from Canada.  Don’t you agree?

*Cut to Sam Carsten getting a sunburn*

But the story required one big difference from the actual, real-world city — in the story’s version of the city, no San Franciscan had ever heard of James T. Kirk or Mr. Spock or the Starship Enterprise.

One of the aspects of Anne Rices’s Vampire Chronicles books that I really enjoyed was that the story actually was part of the story.
In The Vampire Lestat, the sequel to Interview With the Vampire, we learn that Interview had been a real book (written under a pseudonym) in that world, and it was exactly the same as the book that was published in our world. Lestat and several of the later books were actually written by Lestat himself (his telepathy accounted for his ability to shift into a third-person omniscient narration).  Other books in the series were similarly written by other vampires.
So Lestat could actually introduce himself as such, and people would say, “Hey, like that vampire guy!”
Of course, there were still differences between our world and theirs, but I just thought that the books existing in the story in the same way that they existed in the real world was a nice touch.

I’ve read a lot of vampire stories that are disappointing specifically because of the problem Fred points out…the big “Wait, so, I’m a…*gasp*…vampire??”  revelation moment necessitates a world where the Twilight phenomenon never existed and nobody knows the first thing about vampires.

And since this revelatory moment never happens until about halfway through the story, it can make one’s protagonists seems really, really dense, because of course the reader (probably being at least passingly familiar with the reams of vampire fiction that exists now) knows exactly what’s going on and has since about page 5 or so.

It would be really awesome if someone wrote a convincing apocalypse story in a setting where the Apocalypse is as big a cultural phenomenon as it is now. Certainly if I ever write a vampire story, by golly I’m going to have it take place in a setting where the current pop culture fascination with vampires exists.

I just watched I, Monster starring Christopher Lee over the weekend. It’s a very, very faithful adaptation of Jekyll & Hyde, which is a big mistake as Jekyll & Hyde The Book is talky and shows very little of Hyde’s nefarious activities.

And Marvel and DC both have comic-book industries, though obviously not printing the same stories as in our universe (though the covers are often identical).

Yeah, and of course DC had Earth Prime - our Earth –  as part of its multiverse.  The writers and editors at DC were psychically attuned to the events transpiring on the other Earths, which is how they were able to write fictional accounts of what were real events in the lives of the DC heroes without realizing that Superman and the rest actually existed in another universe.
Thanks to some stories set on Earth Prime, though, certain people at DC were privy to the truth, and had adventures with the heroes.
There was actually a JSA story in which writer Cary Bates was transported to Earth 2 somehow, and in the process gained super powers and was turned evil.
The Marvel Comics that exists in the Marvel Universe has the licensing rights to publish comics that depict the actual adventures of the Marvel heroes, though they only present that information which is public knowledge (or which they’ve gained through consultations with the heroes).  So, for example, in the in-universe Spider-Man, the reader never gets to see under Spidey’s mask, since no one knows who he really is.

“…when the story in question is just an enjoyable diversion like those even-numbered Star Trek movies…”

Oh, snap!  Seriously, though, I didn’t think ST:III was all that bad — certainly not in the same bush league as I and V.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Star Trek IV: The Search for Whales
Star Trek V: The Search for a Plot
Star Trek VI: The Apology

I think Fred is being unfair to Chloe and her “whatever” comment. Chloe asks her father what makes him think he will even get the job and he says, “I have a connection”. The connection is Hattie. Chloe says, “Whatever”, flounces out and goes to look at a picture of her mother in the church directory. I think her reaction is quite understandable: her dad comes in bragging about how Chris got saved and he now knows God’s purpose for him and then brings Hattie, the stewardess he had an emotional affair with, into the conversation. Of course Chloe is going to think, “Same old Dad” and be upset.

*gigglesnorts* Oh, god. I’d forgotten all about that repetitive crap

The story requires this. For this story to play out the way it does, it’s necessary that Hattie and nearly everyone else on Earth has never heard the word “Antichrist.” Thus the world of this story is a world in which no one ever saw movies like The Omen. It’s a world in which Hal Lindsay’s The Late Great Planet Earth was not the best-selling book of the 1970s,. It’s a world in which “Bible prophecy” experts haven’t spent decades warning that John F. Kennedy, Nikita Kruschev, Pope Paul VI, Lyndon B. Johnson, Leonid Brezhnev, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, John Paul I, John Paul II, Jimmy Carter, Ruhollah Khomeini, Ronald Reagan, Yuri Andropov, Moammar Gadhafi, Prince Charles, Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev, George H.W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates each might be the Antichrist.

And yet after five decades of constantly changing warnings, you foolish fools still refuse to see the truth! Clearly, there need to be more movies; more novels; more Bible prophecy books; more indexed, cross-referenced, footnoted, super-exegesized Bibles; and more movies based on the novels based on the Bible prophecy books based on the 
indexed, cross-referenced, footnoted, super-exegesized Bibles! It is our Christian duty to spread the Word, and this we will do, no matter what, for nothing more (or less) than your cash money! In this the End of Days, can you afford to put a price on your immortal soul?

“I cannot believe you forgot Barack Obama on your list of potential AntiChrists!  He’s the best candidate yet.”

Yet, maybe, but the world of the movie is pre-Obama.

Chris first appears in Prequel #1 – like most of the other prequel characters, he remains in the same role without career advancement for ten years.  Prequel #3 goes into more detail about his story.
 

Christopher Smith saw himself as a good ‘ol boy, and that was the way he liked to portray himself to colleagues and passengers. He was no Rayford Steele; he knew that. Steele seemed to have his whole life together. Wonderful wife, beautiful family. 
… 
He’d grown up a nerd, had never been an athlete, not even close to being popular. So he buried himself in academics, had a scientific bent, and decided the shortest route to the kind of income and respect he wanted was in aviation. How could Chris know that with accomplishment and a uniform would come opportunities he had only dreamed of? 
… 
He had married another academic type and at least knew enough to never tell her that he assumed her romantic prospects were as limited as his. She had never been described as cute by anyone but her parents, and Christopher couldn’t imagine even they had called her that since she was about nine years old. Her name fit. Jane. Plain Jane. 
…
He had simply wanted more than he was capable of achieving, and it didn’t help to have other than a trophy wife. Chris knew he had no business even dreaming of one, but once he found that certain flight attendants and even some lonely passengers were impressed by his station and uniform, his wedding vows had flown out the window.
…
Those secret liaisons left him miserable and depressed, but not enough to get him to quit. In fact, he had made a huge mistake with the only one he thought really cared. He had married her too. Under a different name. Chris was living a double life.
 
What should have been complicated he had found easy. His second wife thought he was an international cargo pilot, gone for days and weeks at a time.
From The Rapture

The following day, we see a smallish plane at a desolate-looking regional airstrip and it takes a moment to realize this is the much-ballyhooed Global Community One that plays such a central role in the book.

I’m sure the budget doesn’t stretch to decent CGI*, but have they never heard of stock footage?  Once there were giants in the filmmaking world, who could put together an entire movie using nothing but stock footage and fifteen minutes of extra work with three actors in pith helmets standing in front of a dieffenbachia.

* I’m sure the lack of a budget for decent CGI will not preclude the appearance of horrible CGI, if these films ever get to the later books.

Is that a pair of sensible shoes I just spotted on Chloe?

Speaking of sensible shoes…

I was watching a lab safety video for one of my classes and the narrator said, I kid you not, “wear sensible shoes in the lab.”  Now we know what Meta-Verna does when she’s not picking up an extra paycheck as a character in a bad book.  She works in some sort of research laboratory.  No wonder she has no patience with the likes of Buck. 

Star Trek III is the best of the odd-numbered films.

Wow, they do their best to make Chris look like a loser, don’t they? Including the totally hillarious method of saying he married an ugly wife. That’s funny, isn’t it? Only morons marry ugly chicks, amiright? Not like good Christian men who don’t give in to passions of the flesh and care only about virtuous spirit, they all marry beautifull wifes. 

The same question could be asked here as in Soon: If he doesn’t like his wife and is married to another woman, why doesn’t he do the evil atheist thing and get a divorce from his first wife? Also, which is the one that got killed in the Rapture, triggering his suicide there?

I wonder what L&J think of the fact that a lot of chemistry labs often have a rule that you may not wear sandal type shoes in the lab. This puts high heels into a bit of a grey area, since they expose more of the foot than a sneaker does, but they also don’t constitute an outright hazard. Ish.

Also, given that high heels can give people balance problems it may be that they could constitute more of a tripping hazard than a sneaker does.

Again, grey area though.

Jane is killed and their teenage RTC children are raptured.

Does The Motion Picture count as an odd-numbered film? That’s actually still my favorite one of the movies.

What?  The one where the entire crew spends half the episode staring in awe?

I like First Contact – despite its many flaws – and that’s an odd-numbered one.  Of course, it’s an even-numbered TNG movie, so I guess there’s that technicality.

 
Christopher Smith saw himself as a good ‘ol boy, and that was the way he liked to portray himself to colleagues and passengers. He was no Rayford Steele; he knew that. Steele seemed to have his whole life together. Wonderful wife, beautiful family. 

… 
He’d grown up a nerd, had never been an athlete, not even close to being popular. So he buried himself in academics, had a scientific bent, and decided the shortest route to the kind of income and respect he wanted was in aviation. How could Chris know that with accomplishment and a uniform would come opportunities he had only dreamed of?  

 
Holy shit. I can’t even. 

I’d rather they were staring in awe for half a movie than than bumbling through action scenes that are clearly beyond their actual physical abilities.

I believe First Contact is the 8th movie … Undiscovered Country is VI, Generations is VII, so, yea, pretty sure is even on both counts.

Really, that movie could have been condensed down to a one-hour TV show.

And Generations kinda sucked. That said it did have more action sequences than ST: TMP did. Even so the reasonable question would be, “Why in blazes didn’t he just use a *shuttlecraft*?” Oh well.

Back to the Tribbles. And not the Trek kind, anyway.

No, First Contact is the eighth movie.

I’ve read a lot of vampire stories that are disappointing specifically because of the problem Fred points out…the big “Wait, so, I’m a…*gasp*…vampire??”  revelation moment necessitates a world where the Twilight phenomenon never existed and nobody knows the first thing about vampires.

Or zombie stories set in the present day, where everyone spends the first third going “But the dead can’t come back to life!” and another third before some genius hits on the shoot-the-brain tactic.  Vampires, zombies, and the Antichrist are three topics about which everyone knows at least the Hollywood basics, and that rule should apply to the characters in those stories as well.  Now there are a lot of ways in which an effective storyteller can play with or bypass this rule.  But in general, if it’s a vampire story and you have a character born in the 20th century and not raised by timber wolves asking “Wait, a vam… what?“, credibility is strained.

It’s especially straining in Left Behind, because LaHaye and Jenkins also have to claim that the truth of their theology is right there in a “plain, literal” reading of the Bible.  You know, a plain reading of the most popular book in the world, and nobody seems to have heard of it.

I wonder what L&J think of the fact that a lot of chemistry labs often have a rule that you may not wear sandal type shoes in the lab.

They probably think it’s irrelevant, because what would a woman be doing in a science lab anyway?  Doing science?  That’s ridiculous.

I don’t dispute that, but I liked it more than III, VI, V, VII, IX, and X. II, VI, and VIII were enjoyable enough, and better executed movies than TMP, but TMP was more interesting to me science fiction-wise than those others, which were heavier on the Trek-mythos than the SF. (I’m more of an SF fan than a Trek fan, I guess. I like Trek best when it’s less Trek and more SF outerspace weirdness*.)

You’re right – I completely blanked out on V.  I went straight from Voyage Home to Undiscovered Country.  Though honestly, can you blame me?

My guess, based solely on the LB books, is that their opinion would be that women don’t belong in a chem lab or, indeed, any other type of lab.  After all, the only education a proper woman needs is nightly Bible study.  Any woman who would work in a lab is likely the type to wear only “sensible shoes” and thus her femininity is suspect.

The lab for which I had to watch the video wouldn’t allow heels or athletic shoes for that matter.  It’s leather work boots all the way.  We’re going to learn casting and welding and machining and tensile testing and hardness testing…can you tell I’m excited?  It’s going to be so cool. *squee*

Yeah, “Final Frontier” only makes sense if you imagine that it’s the inciting incident that leads to the Continuum making contact with humanity. “Can you believe this guy on Sha Ka Ree calling himself God? Q, go show these naked apes what a real god looks like…” “Sure thing, Q, but can it wait still I’ve finished pulling the wings off of these Xindi-Avians?”

Not only a woman with an engagement ring in Buck’s apartment–but one in a bathrobe who still has that “stay away from my man” attitude.

The writing and thinking and…everything…in that prequel excerpt is just. so. bad!!!

I watched V exactly once, and I can’t say I really got much out of it. II, III, IV and VI are the most memorable mainly because they kept the plot moving, and tried to at least include some action sequences as well as human drama (the inevitability of aging and old ghosts coming back in II – IV, and the effect of sudden political changes large and small in VI).

As for the TNG movies I thought Generations sucked, but the other three were not too bad.

Waitabit, waitabit… Is that a pair of sensible shoes I just spotted on Chloe? Now I know that other people’s choice in footwear is up to them, but in this movie I can’t help noticing. Those babies look *comfy*.

(Trying the blockquote tag instead of italics)

Maybe this is one of the ways Kirk Cameron and wife knew they were the only “Christians” on the set?

Ha! Tensile strength testing! I remember doing that in my 2-year diploma school where I did some chemical engineering. We got to measure the UTS and UCS of concrete (teerrrrrrible for UTS of course, but amazingly good for UCS, and the concrete cured for 28 days in water was the strongest for both).

And don’t forget your Charpy and Izod tests.

(PS. Yes, LB seems to really hit heavy on the pat-the-wimmins’-on-the-head kind of thing. Chloe gets relegated to restudying the Bible over and over and over while the menz go out and… um, get amazingly highly paid jobs working for Nicky Natural Erection.)

I like to imagine that the ring is from her female ‘roommate’ and that Chloe caught her as she was going to telephone her fiancée (or long term girlfriend for which it’s a promise ring).

Never in a million years, would I imagine Rayford talking a guy out of suicide.  Book Ray would be “Just let me get out of the house so you don’t get any splatter on me.”  I’m liking this version a lot more.  Still his speech sounds stilted and forced… “gotta get the 4 spiritual laws bit in”

When someone is threatening suicide in front of you, your job is to get them off the ledge… to put down the gun.  It is not the time to evangelize.  

Did you notice how Ray was out of breath when he came into the church… as if he had just run a marathon?  This comes up a lot… converting people takes a lot of physical effort… “Jim just came to the Lord…’  (again that instant use of fundie jargon)  “due to my mad evangelizing skillz.”

Learned a new word today, thanks, Fred.  Casuistry -  had to look that one up.

At this point in the movie, are Chloe and Buck actually dating?  He seems totally oblivious to her interest.  Which I think makes her not as grating to me.  We’ve all been there;  when we see that the one we’re pining after is in a relationship with someone else.  Even more terrible is if they find out about our interest… and mock it.  Hey, Ivy.  Who died and made you the groupie bouncer?

“Buck go out with you, you little creep?  He’s not that hard up yet!”  Even if that’s what Chloe was… you’re not helping Buck’s career by telling his fans to wank off.

Long tracking shots caressing lovingly across the plane.  Yep this is a LB movie all right.

Chelsea Noble does icy bitch a little too well.  I hope that’s just acting.  Otherwise I might find myself (horrors) sympathizing with Kirk Cameron.

I rather thought she did the sarcasm fairly well. And I’m sure she’s a nice person IRL.

I think having Ivy being very rude to Chloe was their way of trying to show non-Christians as being big jerks until they get the Find The Lord powerup and win the game.

JSYK, folks?

Kirk and Chelsea have been married for over 20 years. *a little boggled*

I work in a bio lab – I’ve worked in various bio labs for over a decade - and heels are Right Out.  Not just from the foot coverage and balance-so-you-don’t-drop-stuff angle, but because walking around in heels all day is utterly uncomfortable.  I have a pair of shoes I keep at work, just for work – they’re nursing shoes.

Which makes me think – nursing is one of the few professions RTCs think women should be allowed to pursue.  They really think nurses should walk around all day (and a short day, it isn’t) in heels?  Feh.

Something like this is true of many stories that include famous figures from popular culture.

As soon as you said that, I immediately started thinking of how Sherlock Holmes is integrated into popular culture – “No shit, Sherlock,” etc. – and, yet, Sherlock.  (Deerstalker pleasingly lampshaded.)

> Vampires, zombies, and the Antichrist are three topics about which
everyone knows at least the Hollywood basics, and that rule should apply
to the characters in those stories as well.

Buffy won my heart by subverting this trope with Oz… his band was performing, vampires attack, the Scoobies say something about vampires, and there’s an exchange along the lines of:

Oz: “Vampires?”
Xander: “Yes, yes. Sunnydale’s the Hellmouth, vampires are real, Willow will fill you in.”
Willow: “I know this is hard to believe, but –”
Oz: (unfazed) “No, actually, that explains a lot.”

There’s a rather good if somewhat slow-paced modern vampire movie called “Count Yorga, Vampire” in the States and “The Loves of Count Iorga” elsewhere in the world. At one point, the heroes’ plan is to crash Yorga’s party and keep him talking until dawn, presuming that he won’t be rude enough to throw a guest out of his house. It doesn’t work, but in a low-key early 70s way that’s brilliant.

Did you see the new show with Dana Delaney as a medical examiner? The first thing they emphasized was her getting out of her car with the stilettos. At a crime scene. Lost me right there.

As has CSI Miami. White clothing and heels at a crime scene? Really? No old people ever end up being investigated … in Florida? Really, really? Not to mention Horatio’s penchant for beating up suspects … in the police station.

At least the original CSI had people wearing blue jumpsuits and sensible shoes when they had to get into the field.

I’m surprised that they even make that “mistake”. I mean, my daughter’s middle school lab permission form / syllabus thing specifically prohibits tall heels. For a middle school science lab.

I’ve read a lot of vampire stories that are disappointing specifically because of the problem Fred points out…the big “Wait, so, I’m a…*gasp*…vampire??”  revelation moment 

Steven Brust did the reverse of that — he wrote a book in which the word “vampire” didn’t need to be used because everyone recognized what was going on. 

I’m actually dealing with that in a novel I’ve been trying to write.  The modern-world protagonist has been running into members of this reclusive clan who are tall, thin, pale, appear to be able to do illusions and work other magic, are really good at music, and might have pointed ears.  As he is relating his experiences so far to another character, she simple says, “They’re elves.  What?  It’s obvious!”

The following day, we see a smallish plane at a
desolate-looking regional airstrip and it takes a moment to realize this is the
much-ballyhooed Global Community One that plays such a central role in the
book. (I’m not an airplane expert, but this doesn’t look anything like the
ginormous plane described in the book.)

Well, all LJ had to do was describe the ginormous plane – the producers had to find a way to pay for renting one (and someone qualified to fly it, and the fuel for it).

Seriously! In the book L&J go to some effort to have the
jobs of working for Nicolae Carpathia repeatedly shoved at Rayford and Buck, only
for them to loudly, ostentatiously and repeatedly deny they would ever ever
nope nope not EVER work for Carpathia. In real life, after the first couple of
denials to what should be the world’s most efficient and fearsome Mafia Boss
equivalent? He’d either give up, get other people, and decide to ignore
Rayford’s and Buck’s overweening self-perception of themselves (what, they’re
the only two people with alleged moral qualms about working for Nicolae?), or
he’d suss out that they’re secretly his opponents (or maybe not so secretly
when it comes to book!Rayford being a prize ass over his Bible) and decide to
have them sidelined or gotten rid of.

Wouldn’t someone *that* evil have them killed just for the disrespect of not falling over in their joy to work for him?

Wow,
they do their best to make Chris look like a loser, don’t they? Including the
totally hillarious method of saying he married an ugly wife. That’s funny,
isn’t it? Only morons marry ugly chicks, amiright? Not like good Christian men
who don’t give in to passions of the flesh and care only about virtuous spirit,
they all marry beautifull wifes.

We’re probably supposed to think that Chris noticed and regretted his wife’s lack of (physical) beauty because neither of them were RTCs.  If they were both RTCs, he’d have loved her for her devotion and RTCishness.  If she was RTC but he wasn’t, he’d have noticed her inner beauty even if he didn’t understand why.  If he was RTC and she wasn’t – well, he’d have demeaned her failure to understand Truth and her refusal to accept The Word, and he’d have been justified in making her life miserable, right?  But he wouldn’t have cheated on her, oh no…   

Speaking of Chris cheating – are we ever told what became of the secret. other. wife. after his suicide?  Did she learn of his suicide?  Think he must have been taken?  Find out that he lied to her?  Inherit whatever was left of his estate?  (She might have been the secret.other.wife, but hey, she’s the one that outlived him, right?)

The LB writers have to try desperately to pretend that The Omen ~ yes, the original NOT the remake *rude noise* ~ never happened, since Nicolae Whatshisface and all his works cannot compare with one single smile from a sweet-faced four-year-old boy. I remember watching it at the cinema and that smile in the last scene must have made the temperature drop by about 20 degrees.

P.S. My mother said to me, “Please don’t buy the film score,” but I did, bwahaha.

are we ever told what became of the secret. other. wife. after his suicide?

No.  The authors don’t care.

Strange, Christopher barely thought of wife number two in this moment of crisis, but he found himself frantic to know how his real family was.
…
Chris found himself desperately wanting to talk with his wife … Christopher was actually shaking and wondered if it showed. What would he do if something had happened to Jane? And the boys? 
…
Christopher Smith was frantic [aunursa: thesaurus is our friend] by the time he finally realized the Pan-Continental 747 was within satellite communication range of the United States.
…
Christopher Smith felt as alone as he had ever been in his life… “Cap,” Chris said, “I hate to ask, but do you think we could get somebody in the Chicago tower to try to connect me–us–to our home phones?”
Rayford shrugged. “Worth a try.”
…
Chris didn’t know what he would do if he could not somehow reach them soon.
…
Chris was unable to reach Jane or the boys, so he called everywhere he could think of.
…
That everybody at the church had disappeared told him everything he needed to know. God was behind this. His boys had somehow qualified, and he and Jane hadn’t. In some absurd way, that made sense.  He deserved this.  But he couldn’t imagine life without them. He wouldn’t even consider it. Christopher Smith was not about to go home to an empty house, to be the object of concern and pity by his elderly relatives.

From The Rapture

So… they put book!Chris in basically the exact same position as Rayford (unfaithfull, family gone, knows why), but Rayford had one living relative left so he stuck around while God left Chris with nothing. Chris dies and burns forever, Rayford gets saved. It scares me to think the writers probably aprove of that arrangement.

Funny you should notice that…

“Don’t know how reliable this is, but the rumor is he found out his boys had disappeared and his wife was killed in a wreck!”

For the first time the enormity of the situation became personal for Rayford. Hedidn’t know Smith well. He vaguely remembered Chris had two sons. Seemed theywere young teenagers, very close in age. He had never met the wife. But suicide!Was that an option for Rayford? No, not with Chloe still there. But what if he haddiscovered that Irene and young Ray were gone and Chloe had been killed? Whatwould he have to live for?From Left Behind,

I was skimming the thread and saw Steven Brust and immediately gasped and scrolled back up. I have that book sitting on my shelf in hardcover, I really need to read it. And a handful of others of his that aren’t Taltos books. Including the super-tangential Taltos ones…

I *love* Brust like nobody’s business though. He kindly responded to me when I accidentally found him on facebook, too.

I like Star Trek I-VIII inclusive. I think that’s supposed to make me a terrible person…

No, I think At that point Q was still stuck in his stone imprisonment in Canterlot Gardens….

I think First Contact was pretty good, Generations was barely tolerable and the last two total unwatchable jokes.

The only problem I have with First Contact is that the title is stolen from my favorite TNG episode.

First Contact the episode was a good one. I think scale was Karmiclly balanced by Star Trek Nemesis, a ridiculous movie that shares a title with an even more ridiculous Voyager episode. (okay, the idea behind that episode was okay, but did they have to have the human-looking aliens talk so ridiculously? “I have cast my glimpses upon our Sisters and Mothers!” )

Yeah, I, Monster is kind of an interesting failure in that respect. I have a feeling that the media best suited to the original Strange Case besides print might be radio/spoken word.

Can you believe the studio wanted to release I, Monster in 3D?

 
Kirk and Chelsea have been married for over 20 years. 

Good grief. That’s going on my “how is that even mathematically possible?” list, along with Frances Bean Cobain being legally able to vote. 

Another entry into the “what if our hero was at all heroic” file:

Christopher Smith felt as alone as he had ever been in his life… “Cap,” Chris said, “I hate to ask, but do you think we could get somebody in the Chicago tower to try to connect me–us–to our home phones?”

“We can’t.”  His copilot’s crestfallen look nearly broke his resolve, but Rayford pressed on, “If this thing is as big as it sounds, every pilot in the sky wants exactly what we do right now.  We need to know our loved ones are safe down there.  It feels like nothing could be more important right now, but there is something.  Chris?  Look at me.  There’s something more important.  There’s hundreds of birds in the air right now, and God only know how many of them still have pilots.”  He winced at hearing his own words.  “The towers need every line they’ve got to get us all down.  I’m sorry.  I truly am, but we have to wait.”

I was skimming the thread and saw Steven Brust and immediately gasped and scrolled back up. I have that book sitting on my shelf in hardcover, I really need to read it.

Totally agree on the glory that is Brust. The Parfiad books are a really different style but they totally work. And there are moments when you see things from “the other point of view” that make you rethink everything so far in the series. And then there the some of the totally unrelated books……..

Good grief. That’s going on my “how is that
even mathematically possible?” list, along with Frances Bean Cobain
being legally able to vote.

Well, Kirk’d be about 20 back then, so at least he wasn’t getting married SUPER early. That said, couple interesting things about that clip.

1. Kirk and Chelsea were CONSTANTLY holding each other’s hands, or the one not doing the talking would have their hand on the other’s leg while the other was talking. I wonder if they were still in the “schmoopy young couple” phase I’ve seen before, or if they were acting that way because they thought that was how newlyweds were supposed to act.

2. Regis seemed to forget a couple times and reached out for Noble’s hand or arm, and at one point reached across to gesture at Kirk letting his arm get rather near Chelsea’s chest. I wonder if Regis ever got in trouble for inappropriate behavior around women on his shows. And ding ding ding, he’s been called on the carpet for inappropriate behavior. Took “Regis sexual harrassment” as a google search and about ten seconds to check the first page results.

ST IV: A Whale of a Movie
(I thought they should have stopped with that one. Go out from the top, so to speak.)

Snark incoming!

0:30 – Oh, look, it’s the ever-convincing argument from ignorance. Actually, if someone is suicidal and they’ve called out for help, they’re really looking for just about any reason to believe, so I can’t be too critical of…

1:08 – Aaaand Pascal’s Wager makes an appearance. This is looking less like theology and more like hostage negotiation. “If you ever want to see your wife and kids again, you’ll ‘get right with the Lord’, see?”

2:18 – If the writing/theology was better, the next logical step for Chris’ conversion would be to invite him to join the “Tribulation Force”, helping him find meaning and purpose in this brave new world. And if a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his ass a-hoppin’.

2:33 – “A news piece on an act of violence in the Middle East, tied to religious views? What an idea!”

2:55 – Nice security you have for your secret Tribulation Force. True, it was just Rayford stumbling in, but it could have been jack-booted thugs.

2:57 – “Chris just got saved!” could have had some fun double-meanings in the “Who’s on First” sense of things. (“I just saved Chris!” “So he’s no longer in danger?” “Well, all new Christians are in great danger from the Anti-Christ.” “Oh, you mean he found God, but is he still suicidal?” “No, he’s saved.” “Saved what? Bullets for his gun?”) Sadly, this does not happen.

3:ish – “There’s no halfway with the AntiChrist. Either you’re in 100%…” Nice to see Rayford/Nicolae is present in the films.

3:43 – I like Chloe’s reaction to “I’ve got a connection”. It practically screams Oh yeah, Dad’s quasi-mistress… just in case working for the Anti-Christ wasn’t enough sin for you…

5:59 – “Come on Hattie, I’m a pilot. I deal in facts.” What? Wha-what?

7:24 – “You know, romantic relationships. Like between a man and a woman.” Try not to look so relieved there Bruce. Evidently, Bruce/Rayford is also in the films.

Also Arnold Schwartznager

He had simply wanted more than he was capable of achieving, and it
didn’t help to have other than a trophy wife. Chris knew he had no
business even dreaming of one,

BRrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Creepy!

Chloe: You two are both crazy!  You want to work for the Antichrist!  And you want to have lunch with him?!

For the record, this is one of my favorite movie lines ever.  At least one of the writers must have realized how ridiculous this whole thing is.

Nightfall finds Chloe at home, disappointed, heart-broken and wearing what appears to be Ivy’s bathrobe.

Wait.  Did Ivy cheat on her fiancee/roommate with Chloe?

If the writing/theology was better, the next logical step for Chris’ conversion would be to invite him to join the “Tribulation Force”, helping him find meaning and purpose in this brave new world.

Unless I’m mistaken, at the beginning of the third movie we find out that Chris is a member of the Trib Force, at least long enough for him to die for Jesus and have all the main characters go, “Oh no! Chris is dead!”  So … I guess we’re just supposed to assume that he’s been there the whole time throughout the second movie?

Still going through comments, so someone may have mentioned this already — but that’s an element in Mira Grant’s zombie novels “Feed and Deadline,” set some years after the viral-based zombie uprising.  In the backstory, it’s noted that the devastation would have been much worse had people not been familiar with how to dispatch zombies due to … George Romero movies.  Romero is revered as a global hero in-universe.  (Not a spoiler, since this is essentially backstory.)

Isn’t Buck a magazine writer? So maybe, broadcast news is still a little foreign to him?

Don’t you wonder how romances work when the protagonists are instantly and constantly hostile to each other … until they acknowledge their eternal love?  How does that even work?

I always figured the hostility -> true love was a Hollywood thing, born of their usual deficiencies. An actual, sincere romance, especially when it’s a subplot, so time is limited? That’s HARD. Hard to write, hard to act. Bickering dialogue? Any hack can churn that out by the metric ton, and even a crummy actor can bicker passably. And then when they realize they’re in love, you just have them mash lips. Again, something even a bad actor can do.

It also establishes conflict in a light movie intended to centre around the prospective relationship. “Oh, you fool, he/she’s right under your nose!” is easier to pull audiences in with, and it also establishes a simplistic arc: go from dislike to the end goal of “love.” “We kind of like each other/who is this interesting person” to “love” isn’t much of a conflict, nor does it give the audience the satisfaction of feeling they were the good friend of the protagonists nudging them the right way.

I say this as someone who has *always* been a sucker for even the lame romances in fiction.

[blockquote]In the backstory, it’s noted that the devastation would have been much
worse had people not been familiar with how to dispatch zombies due to
… George Romero movies.  Romero is revered as a global hero
in-universe.[/blockquote]

That is a beautiful, beautiful thing – it sounds very, very well-handled, and makes me want to read the book. So I shall, if I get the opportunity.

In wonderful survival-horror tabletop RPG “All Flesh Must Be Eaten” (which I’d thought for [i]years[/i] had a comic tone, entirely due to that over-the-topness), there’s a whole modular table-thing to choose or modify the basic zomtropes. I suspect this was largely thrown in to put in a shock for precisely this moment: “Oh, you shot that zombie in the head? Yes, yes, destroy the brain… well, he’s certainly not seeing as well any more, but now he’s just coming after you blind. Have you tried the spinal cord?” But even without trying to screw one’s players (a sacred GM responsibility, especially in horror games) I just love the collection of zombie myths we’ve got here. You can make slow zombies or fast zombies! You can make slow zombies AND fast zombies! You can make rotten slow zombies with barely functioning brains! You can make zombies that spread with a single bite and zombies that need to be buried! Which just goes to prove, if one or two myths are true, then we can adapt and we’re doing okay; if EVERY myth is true, we’re probably not prepared for that.

Though speaking of drawing strength from pop culture, it’s a Unisystem game, which means it’s compatible with [i]Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the RPG[/i]. I have to say that I have a strong desire to run a hopeless, desperate All Flesh Must Be Eaten game where the players run and run and only seem to be keeping one step ahead of the flood of death, right up until the Slayer and her friends show up in a van. [i]Suddenly the tone lightens[/i].

Off-topic? Yes, but this comment was [i]going[/i] to be about Discord, based solely on someone else mentioning Q, until I saw that someone had already mentioned Discord. I choose to state that since our host is a Buffy fan it’s allowable. To make it tangentially related to the post, I have to say that if my choices are Left Behind Nicolae or Left Behind God, I pick Discord. He might break my Element, turn me grey, and make what used to be my greatest strength the very thing that turns me from my friends, but at least he’s personable, and there’s chocolate rain.

(Though what I do notice is that if I had to pick Left Behind the book or Left Behind the movies, and I couldn’t say I’d pick Friendship is Magic, it seems that Left Behind the movies are far more enjoyable both from outside and inside. At least people in the movies are human. Well… more human. Humanoid. Humanish. Rayford isn’t the bank manager from an 80s teen comedy.)

A bunch of messed up formatting.

Boo, squarey brackets not working. Boo. I disdain you, spiky brackets.

Now that I think about it, maybe the fiancee was there and Chloe interrupted them in a moment of intimacy. Note that Ivy doesn’t answer the door right away, and when she does, she’s in a bathroom and attempting to get rid of Chloe as soon as possible.

Hey, is that the “I’ve always wanted to make love to an alien” episode?

Christopher Smith saw himself as a good ‘ol boy… He’d grown up a nerd, had never been an athlete, not even close to being popular.

Either they don’t understand what “good ol’ boy” means, or I don’t.

But apart from that, I can’t help but think that if Neil Gaiman had wrote this, it would be a touching character portrait.
In the hands of Ellenjay, it turns into, “You know what nerds get? Ugly wives, is what! Suck it, fatties!” 

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but seeing as how Chris and his wife are, according to canon, being tortured in Hell forever, I’m not feeling super charitable.

As for the TNG movies I thought Generations sucked, but the other three were not too bad.

Here’s how Star Trek: Insurrection felt to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1yFS3bBCJY

Which are the Parfiad books?  I’m a fan of his Elves by way of Dumas books and have read some of the Vlad Taltos books in the shared universe but I’m a big fan of the revelatory reveal so it would be cool to read that.

Also, if you find the ‘other point of view’ type of tale interesting I can’t recommend Jacqueline Carey’s Banewreaker/Godslayer duo enough.  They take the cliche Lord of the Rings journey to destroy the evil story and tell it from the rather sympathetic ‘Evil’ guys perspective which completely changes how you view the stories from that point on.

WRT Harry Turtledove (and what an interesting mental image that name has always brought to my mind!), at WorldCon (I think it was in Chicago in 2000), he once said that people don’t write to him to critique his characterization and plot development, people write to him to critique how the firing pin (or whatever it was) doesn’t work exactly the way he said it does.

I actually picked up one of his books in hopes of being able to oblige him, but never got far enough into it to do so.

Seems you could write that letter to him, though.  I’d love to read it, if you do.

I’ve got it! 

Jane died in the car crash, and the trophy wife got raptured!

Does everyone call her “Frances Bean Cobain,” or just the two of us?

Which are the Parfiad books?  I’m a fan of his Elves by way of Dumas books and have read some of the Vlad Taltos books in the shared universe but I’m a big fan of the revelatory reveal so it would be cool to read that.

Whoops, that should have be “Paarfiad” — the Brust fans I hang out with refer to the Khaavren Romances as the Paarfiad as opposed to the Vladiad. 

 I heard of Brust because of excitement over (then) newly published The Lord of Castle Black I accidentally readJhereg (the first book set in that universe) first. 

Does everyone call her “Frances Bean Cobain,” or just the two of us?
For some reason everyone I know who ever refers to her at all uses all three names.

Chris’s “real family.”  Ugghhh!!!

Where’s the “secret other wife” flashfic?

If musical theatre is any guide, a secret.other.child will grow up to be…the LB equivalent of Evita?  Do we have that?

It just occurred to me that another key difference between our world and the world of LB is that clearly The “History” Channel of the LBverse isn’t constantly airing shows about Revelation and the Antichrist and the End Times the way it does in our world.
Which means that the inhabitants of the LBverse never have to deal with seeing Tim LaHaye and his bad rug/dye job staring out at them through the TV screen.
I have to assume that the LBverse “History” Channel does still run MonsterQuest and Ancient Astronauts and that Larry the Cable Guy show, however…

Peripherally related to the marriage of Kirk and Chelsea, I remember when I was in college working my student job as a janitor and I found some former employee’s stash of Playboys in a supply closet.  They were several years old, and one of the issues featured Playmate Julie McCulough, who had appeared on Growing Pains as Mike Seaver’s girlfriend until Kirk found out about her appearance in Playboy and had her fired (or so the story goes).
Chelsea was then brought on the show to become Mike’s new love interest.  I don’t recall if they were already involved IRL, of if their relationship developed on the set.

Ah, yeah, I was going to ask if Good Ole Boys could be nerds, because I never got that memo.  Which isn’t to say there aren’t Good Ole Boy types who are into geeky stuff, but I didn’t think it was really an acceptable part of the performative culture.

Ah apparently I’m just not knowledgeable enough about the series to know that it is refered to as such.  Thanks for the info.

Ah apparently I’m just not knowledgeable enough about the series to know that it is refered to as such.  Thanks for the info.

Oh, I’m sorry if I came across as speaking with some type of authority — I just belong to a group who enjoys talking about the books. There are probably dozens of groups out there who have coined their own terms.

Yep. He got her fired ’cause his ~new faith~ was more important than her job. Jesus, what a douchebag.

It says he apologized later, but I can see why she didn’t take it very well. An apology does not undo the harm done in the first place.

And so what did you think of Tiassa?

Rot13′d as it’s a fairly recent publication:

V urne gung gurer ner gubfr jub sbhaq vg qvfpbapregvat gb urne n Iynq fgbel gbyq Cnnesv-fglyr, ohg vg znqr zr ynhtu. Naq vg thrff vg freirf nf na nafjre gb gubfr avgcvpxref jub bowrpgrq gung ynathntr naq hfntr jbhyqa’g unir punatrq nyy gung zhpu bire Xunniera’f yvsr, n abg-hahfhny Qentnrena fcna. (Jnfa’g gung n gbhpuvat zbzrag jura Xentne ernyvmrf gung Iynq unf tbggra abgvprnoyl byqre qhevat jung jnf gb uvz na vafvtavsvpnag crevbq bs gvzr?) Vg’f whfg yvgrenel fglyr! Ab nhgube, ab znggre ubj “ernyvfgvp,” ercebqhprf fcrrpu rknpgyl. Naq Cnnesv, oyrff uvf synzoblnag yvggyr urneg, pna pubbfr nal fglyr gung fhvgf uvz.

Also, every time you finally get some questions answered, new questions arise!

I never read Agyar, though; even for Brust, I can’t make myself care about vampires.

One of the ways (in my opinion) that Brust undermines the dread “single culture per planet” way of approaching science fantasy is by not just having a few “walk on” characters from another class or culture but rather by having entire books written from the perspective of different classes. And by, as much as possible, having the books written in “the voice” of a person from that class / culture. 

This moves one step past the concept of the unreliable narrator — Brust expects his readers (and Brust has a healthy respect for his readers) to realize that the characters perceive, interpret and respond to the world from their own particular cultural moment / place. This is especially noticeable when one reads a scene from the point of view of one participant and then later from the point of view of another — and one realizes that the event was utterly different to each person relating it and yet neither of them is being, in the usually understood sense, unreliable. They are simply reflecting fundamentally different understandings / perceptions of reality.

It will be interesting to see how Brust explores how each side of the “age divide” experiences the difference in the rate of aging between between Dragaerans and Easterners. Perhaps he will suggest that one of the reasons that Dragaerans so distance and separate themselves from Easterners (emotionally as well as physically) is to prevent the emotional backwash from watching people one knows suffer from what must seem to them to be a sickness — premature and rapid aging.

By the way, one of the things I like about Tiassa (and this is not a spoiler) is that it gives one more sense of what Vlad does when he is not embarked on one of his adventures.

You never know. One day I was in a secondhand bookshop and struck up a conversation with the gentleman beside me in the checkout line. He was wearing work clothes because he had been relining his brakes. While we were talking he looked out the window and noticed his son drive by in the man’s other truck. Anyway, I asked what he was buying and it turned out he came in to look for a biography of Vita Sackville West.

 
For some reason everyone I know who ever refers to her at all uses all three names.  

Me too and I’m not sure why. Frances Cobain lacks rhythm, but it’s not egregious enough to account for everyone using both names. Did Kurt refer to her as Frances Bean in interviews and things? If so I’d assume that’s how it became a widespread norm. 

Isn’t Buck a magazine writer? So maybe, broadcast news is still a little foreign to him?Book: magazine writer
Movie: TV reporter

[sheepishly] Yes.

It’s my favorite episode in spite of that scene.  Because of Mirasta Yale, who captures the thrill of space exploration.

Mirasta: Is this a joke? Did Lupo and the others from the lab put you up to this? Picard: It’s certainly no joke. As you can see, we are physically quite different from Malcorians. And, with your permission, I’m prepared to prove it to you. Mirasta: [pauses] I would like that. <<- [aunursa's favorite line]
Picard: Picard to Enterprise. Three to beam up.
…
…
…
Mirasta: Captain Picard, I have one last request. Take me with you. …
Picard: I have to believe that you cannot be fully prepared for the realities of space travel.
Mirasta: I have been prepared for the realities of space since I was nine years old, and sitting in a planetarium. …
Picard: Escort Chancellor Durken to the transporter room, Lieutenant Worf. And assign quarters to Minister Yale. She will be remaining on board.

Ah apparently I’m just not knowledgeable enough about the series to know
that it is refered to as such.  Thanks for the info

as mmy mentions, it’s a personal term. Most people tend to refer to them as “The Khaavren Romances,” which is what Steve himself calls them.

And so what did you think of Tiassa?

The most obvious element was a bit surprising and left me a bit distant. I’d been saving that thing up, as Vlad books were kind of my salve for an unpleasant and rocky period of life. So svaqvat vg jnf jevggra cnegyl ol Cnnesv jnf xvaq bs qvfnccbvagvat. V unq svavfurq gur Xunniera Ebznaprf, ohg Iynq jnf zber pbzsbegnoyr gb zr. V qvqa’g gnxr vffhr jvgu vg ernyyl, ohg vg jnf xvaq bs n yrg qbja va gung erfcrpg.

OK Chris, if you’re so smart, then tell me: If the Bible isn’t 100% true and the Rapture didn’t happen, then WHERE ARE THE CROCODUCKS, Chris, WHERE ARE THE CROCODUCKS, huh? HUH?

OT question for any other Brust fans:

Do you every rearrange the books and read them by internal chronological order. And when you do that how do you deal with a book like Dragon which has portions set in different times?

Oh god, I hope Kirk Cameron doesn’t try getting the crocoduck thing put into any of his movies.

Really? I think the inclusion of crockaducks might be the only thing that could get me to pay to see one of his movies. I mean come on, that would be hilarious. 

Unless I’m mistaken, at the beginning of the third movie we
find out that Chris is a member of the Trib Force, at least long enough for him
to die for Jesus and have all the main characters go, “Oh no! Chris is
dead!”  So … I guess we’re just supposed to assume that he’s been
there the whole time throughout the second movie?

Perhaps another budget-driven decision?  Pay the guy by the line, minimize his lines, but call him a member of the team to make the team seem larger and more impressive? 

Still
going through comments, so someone may have mentioned this already — but
that’s an element in Mira Grant’s zombie novels “Feed and Deadline,”
set some years after the viral-based zombie uprising.  In the backstory,
it’s noted that the devastation would have been much worse had people not been
familiar with how to dispatch zombies due to … George Romero movies.
 Romero is revered as a global hero in-universe.  (Not a spoiler,
since this is essentially backstory.)

Hmmm…  Now I find myself wanting to read a book where the “common knowledge” of how to kill a “zombie” turns out to be absolutely and fatally wrong.  Maybe, for instance, what sure looks like zombieism is related to mad cow disease, and the “proper” way to deal with it is to cremate the body (or at least the entire head) and make sure that *all* brain tissue is destroyed.  Shooting the zombie in the head with a shotgun, on the other hand, spreads the very, very contagious infection all over the place, endangering everybody.  But the general public just doesn’t buy that, or at least, not fast enough to keep what should have been a containable outbreak from turning into a massive one.

From her Wikipedia entry:

He [Kirk Carmeron] thinks if I read science books that I’m going to hell. [I would]
rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints … the sinners
are much more fun. And a lot more interesting than some book-burner who
is still having growing pains. I am at peace with God. Kirk thinks
people like me are going to Hell, if I do then at least I’ll go well
informed and well read.

I like the lady.

Do you every rearrange the books and read them by internal chronological
order. And when you do that how do you deal with a book like Dragon which has portions set in different times?

Once I finished Tiassa, I intended to do exactly that. I didn’t get around to it. If I did, I’d chop up Dragon (not literally) and read it in the right places, personally. As ridiculous and annoying as it would be to do so.

If I did, I’d chop up Dragon (not literally) and read it in the right places, personally. As ridiculous and annoying as it would be to do so.

*Looks around to see who is listening* Yup, that is what I did

If I did, I’d chop up Dragon (not literally) and read it in the right places, personally. As ridiculous and annoying as it would be to do so.

*Looks around to see who is listening* Yup, that is what I did

I’m waiting until all 18 books of the Vladiad (I like that!) are out, and then I intend to read them in Cycle order. Starting with Taltos, then Jhereg, then around the wheel from there. Just because.

I’m waiting until all 18 books of the Vladiad (I like that!) are out, and then I intend to read them in Cycle order. Starting with Taltos, then Jhereg, then around the wheel from there. Just because.

19! There’s also The Last Contract, which Brust intends to write last as the final one, to bookend the houses.
Also, damn you for giving me yet ANOTHER reading order I need to get through -.-

I’m waiting until all 18 books of the Vladiad (I like that!) are out, and then I intend to read them in Cycle order. Starting with Taltos, then Jhereg, then around the wheel from there. Just because.

Right with you there

There’s only one appropriate reponse to the crocoduck argument:

http://doodoodoodoodoo.ytmnd.com/

(Yeah, YTMND is ancient, but I couldn’t find this anywhere else.)

on the other hand, Dana Delaney in stilettos. That is all.

*googles*

I dunno, I don’t see the significance of that, I guess?

In Body of Proof, Dana Delaney plays a medical examiner with an … interesting but unrealistic … tendency to show up at crime scenes in killer stilettos.