Post AhogDOeNHdSKKfCNCC by desafinado@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by desafinado@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AhodWk9zEc3SgRWDOC by ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social
2024-05-12T13:01:33Z
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So, after putting it down for many years, I'm back to trying to read HG Wells' corpus. Interesting thing: all of his famous, lasting, books were published between 1895-1899, when he was aged 29 to 33. There are other novels, lots of philosophical and political thought, but so far I would say none of it comes close to that first few years.Having read lots of it my feeling is that he was very smart but used up his original ideas quickly and his political thought verged on silly.
(DIR) Post #AhodhaufxGgzBqWzSa by ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social
2024-05-12T13:03:28Z
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As an example, at one point he proposes a Samurai class of government, which he understands to be a group of people who would forego privileges in exchange for power. He also has "philosophical" books which invariably feel like a sophomore college student paid by the word.
(DIR) Post #Ahoe8LVtJpcFFOh7ei by DrorBedrack@mastodon.social
2024-05-12T13:08:21Z
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@ZachWeinersmith that's an idea as old as Plato...
(DIR) Post #Ahoeq4hJCWZrprt1Ki by davefischer@hachyderm.io
2024-05-12T13:16:14Z
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@ZachWeinersmith I love When The Sleeper Awakes.
(DIR) Post #AhoezEM0fT2IOII1zc by samess@hachyderm.io
2024-05-12T13:17:54Z
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@ZachWeinersmith He also proposed that instead of fighting actual wars, people could just play a tabletop wargame that used a little spring loaded cannon. Honestly, there might be something to that one.
(DIR) Post #Ahof20VsaH88KiELFw by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2024-05-12T13:18:24Z
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@ZachWeinersmith In those few years (and maybe a few after that) you can sort of see him mapping out the territory of science fiction as we know it: there are all these basic types of science-fiction story that either nobody had ever done or nobody had ever done *well*, and he just wrote the first major one. Somebody had to be first.Other writers like Mary Shelley and Jules Verne had gotten to some of the categories before him, but they were more constrained in a way that kept them from doing quite what Wells was doing. Verne in particular was like the 19th-century version of a hard-science-fiction nerd, disparaging Wells for being too willing to just make stuff up.
(DIR) Post #AhofWgwDPkKcbBBEMy by nitpicking@mstdn.party
2024-05-12T13:23:56Z
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@ZachWeinersmith I find Wells to be hard to read, even his best stuff (according to others). I can read his contemporaries (e. g. Twain) with no problems, it must be some stylistic thing that bugs me, but I can't tell what.
(DIR) Post #AhogDOeNHdSKKfCNCC by desafinado@mastodon.social
2024-05-12T13:31:41Z
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@ZachWeinersmith Surely owning some cool swords is a privilege.
(DIR) Post #Ahok0tev58YCYYkTfk by HighlandLawyer@mastodon.social
2024-05-12T14:14:14Z
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@ZachWeinersmith Part of the zeitgeist at the time; at least he was imposing restrictions on his technocratic leader class.On a related topic, the 1936 film adaptation of The Shape of Things to Come... stylish AF but politically <ouch/>
(DIR) Post #AhooaCQ1j0SAgts6am by aharoni@wikis.world
2024-05-12T15:05:24Z
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@ZachWeinersmith In the Soviet times, this photo of Wells meeting Lenin in the Kremlin was very popular. I grew up in Moscow in the 1980s and that's the first thing I think of when I hear his name.I also read a few of his novels back then and found them not too interesting.