191–200 of 215 posts
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It’s a reference to a biblical passage. 1 Corinthians 13:12, "For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then we shall see face to face". There wasn’t any clear glass back in Paul’s day. Looking through glass meant that your vision was obscured.
It's the "scanner" that I had a problem with. A device to turn printed media into PDFs... but darkly?
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I did not know that. And running scalpels makes a lot more sense for that title. Because as cool as the title sounds, it doesn't make any sense for the movie. Nobody is running blades there.
Cops aren't made of copper either (nor do they belong to the Sus domesticus species), but still...
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I agree that the book title is great, but I've never understood the fawning over the movie. The art design is great, but the movie script turned a contemplative story into a generic thriller with a unique aesthetic.
Its mostly hailed as a great artsy movie, that general audiences find super boring. I think its asethetic & art design is what its hailed for. Nobody hails bladerunner for its pacing. Its hard to be good at everything. Being really good at one aspect is enough to get people to fawn. I disagree on the contemplative bit. I think both are quite contemplative but in very different ways.
I've re-watched it quite a few times and find new things to enjoy each time. The aesthetic is hugely influential, but it also has a fantastic cast and superb acting. The soundtrack is also perfect.
The love story between Deckard and Rachel is ham-fisted, I will grant that, and if I were giving notes I'd say we need to see more of the backstory for the replicants. But IMO it succeeds far better than the book.
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Isn't the point of a title to get someone to read the book (and not be disappointed by it's contents)? I get you don't want to name a crime novel like a self help book but the title of the book is really just going to get me to pick it up off the shelf and read the back, not assume the narrative style and complete plot of the book. Book titles are click bait and always have been.
> Isn't the point of a title to get someone to read the book (and not be disappointed by it's contents)? For marketing departments maybe. For authors it's supposed to be a fitting name for their novel.
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Most of the above are his titles. Some which were published in serialized form before being published in a single volume ( Martian Time-Slip and We Can Build You ) had different titles. Letters, manuscripts, and publication notes are helpful to shed some light on this matter; e.g. The Transmigration of Timothy Archer was regularly referred to as the "Archer novel" or "Bishop Timothy Archer".
Most of them aren't. I gave some examples here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43676737
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What I'm saying that writers were clearly forbidden by the communist powers to look towards west. Those were cancelled subjects, and cancel would be the least punishment there available. That's why everything that was written against the censorship bureau, would be covered by an allegory blanket, and writers were often asked to remove parts of they could be deciphered by the censor officials. Of course later on the i…
In the "west" currently, you are not allowed to publish anything looking favorably "east" in a serious way on mainstream networks. You have to call everything a "dictatorship". You are (maybe not anymore soon?) allowed to publish things at the margins of society that few will read or watch, hence the claim of free speech within a wider propaganda system. Sometimes they allow things to rise and present themselves as a…
"Not allowed" by whom? There is a big difference between silencing journalists and a branch of the entertainment industry self-selecting for some current "meta-consensus" (dependent on their target consumers).
Personally, I think calling Putin a dictator is stretching it a bit, but I have come to realize that honest, independent media is an absolutely essential cornerstone of an "actual" democracy: As soon as political leaders can prevent their mistakes from being reported to their voters, the whole thing becomes a farce.
You see a similar facet of this problem in the US, but not because governments have secured media control, but because the media landscape has completeley stratified (with a very strong partisan bias), and a lot of voters are basically never exposed to reporting "from the other side" at all (and are saturated with appropriate "outrage-bait" all day instead).
If you are talking about Russia, then I'd say that highly critical/adversarial reporting in the west is to be expected; this is basically "play imperialist games, win imperialist prices". Just compare WW2 era US messaging/reporting on axis power (before it even got involved itself).
But I'm curious about your perspective. What do you think should the US press say about the "east" that it does not?
> Dick’s evidence for this denouncement was that ‘[Lem] writes in several styles and sometimes reads foreign, to him, languages and sometimes does not’. Man reads some translations, suspects it might have been written by multiple people? But that's what translation is... It's often misunderstood that translation is done by surgically deconstructing original texts and selecting accurate meanings of words to fit into g…
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Ton_beau_de_Marot [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach
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Most of them aren't. I gave some examples here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43676737
I think my definition of "most" (11 of 14) and your definition of "most" (4 of 14) differs here...which is fine. We live in the "days of Perky Pat" anyway.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dr. Bloodmoney
The Simulacrum
Ubik
We Can Build You
Martian Time-Slip
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
The Divine Invasion
A Maze of Death
Counterclock World
Radio Free Albemuth
Solar Lottery
The Zap Gun [1]
The World Jones Made
So. Yes, most.
Editors changed his shorts, too. I love the title "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon", but PKD wanted to call it "Frozen Journey".
[1] This one was unusual in that the editor gave PKD the title and asked him to write a plot around it.
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I think my definition of "most" (11 of 14) and your definition of "most" (4 of 14) differs here...which is fine. We live in the "days of Perky Pat" anyway.
In total, I count 14 books with titles chosen by the publisher/editor: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Dr. Bloodmoney The Simulacrum Ubik We Can Build You Martian Time-Slip The Transmigration of Timothy Archer The Divine Invasion A Maze of Death Counterclock World Radio Free Albemuth Solar Lottery The Zap Gun [1] The World Jones Made Among his notable works, the only titles PKD came up with were The Man in the H…
Back to original list from the parent comment that is the "above" in my comment. X denotes PKD title, O denotes otherwise:
X Time Out of Joint
X The Man in the High Castle
O Martian Time-Slip
X The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
X Clans of the Alphane Moon
X The Simulacra
X Now Wait for Last Year
O Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)/Blade Runner (1982)
O Ubik
O We Can Build You
X Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
X A Scanner Darkly
O The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
O Radio Free Albemuth
So..."most" of what exactly?
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In total, I count 14 books with titles chosen by the publisher/editor: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Dr. Bloodmoney The Simulacrum Ubik We Can Build You Martian Time-Slip The Transmigration of Timothy Archer The Divine Invasion A Maze of Death Counterclock World Radio Free Albemuth Solar Lottery The Zap Gun [1] The World Jones Made Among his notable works, the only titles PKD came up with were The Man in the H…
> Most of the above are his titles Back to original list from the parent comment that is the "above" in my comment. X denotes PKD title, O denotes otherwise: X Time Out of Joint X The Man in the High Castle O Martian Time-Slip X The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch X Clans of the Alphane Moon X The Simulacra X Now Wait for Last Year O Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)/Blade Runner (1982) O Ubik O We Can Bu…
But in the name of pedantry, you also have The Simulacra wrong. PKD's manuscript for The Simulacra was called "First Lady of Earth".