I'm just curious if Ray Bradbury is still living. I heard him on audio tape a while back and it seemed like a recent recording. Also, has anyone heard of Usable Justice? I found it at: http://outskirtspress.com/usable_justice. I've been told that it's excellent sci-fi. I'll find out soon as Barnes & Noble just got some in.
Cheers.
Katja

Sheesh!
Still living???
Youngest octogenarian on the planet, that's all!
Get over to the new site: www.raybradbury.com
for the latest news!

Dude, you can't write. You're awful. How could you attempt to pass off such a piece of poo to people who obviously have high standards. Now scram! And take your spam with you!

But first lets sample some of this guy's fine work:

"Attired in prison orange, he was then transferred by penitentiary officials from his cell to the death chambers. During the brief trip he requested to meet with his family. He looked up into the starkly inky, early morning sky. The sharpness of the stars pulled his gaze their way. All the while his penitentiary companions guide him by the arm from building to building. Tonasket�s attorneys had been racing around the clock in the past three days after losing two consecutive appeals to stave off the execution of their client. During this battle for his life, Guy exhibited an odd bearing of affability. Both his attorneys and his family were nonplused at such a position in his predicament."

AWFUL!!!

Those last two sentences... LOL! Hideous and humorous. How does he do it?

I wish MY uncle ran a publishing house.

Does your uncle publish children's books? Maybe you could take a stab at that.

[This message has been edited by grasstains (edited 12-31-2005).]

I thought this sentence said it all...that promise of total boredom:

During this battle for his life, Guy exhibited an odd bearing of affability.

Perhaps a candidate for this contest? http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/

Katja Dakota is probably the name of one of his characters. Any good, knowledgable, or serious SF author would never refer to the genre as "Sci-Fi". You watch Sci-Fi, you read SF (speculative/science fiction). Dude's a real piece of work. This anonymous/ambiguous self promotion is a new trend on the internet. We've seen it quite often at the asimovs.com discussion board. A geek named Kenneth Eng has become quite notorious for constantly spamming and recommending his own book while posing as someone else.

Here's a link to amazon.com where you can see Kenneth Eng reviewing his own book while posing as several different people. I hope the link works. These links to the amazon reviews always give me trouble. I should add that I HAVE read this book, at least some of it. It's awful. Mercinary gun-toting cyborg dragons with zen-like idealism. Bleh. I shudder at the thought of it. His prose is the most self-important and pompous I've ever read.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097487650X/qid=1136 074205/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9044314-8241723?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

[This message has been edited by grasstains (edited 12-31-2005).]

The link worked fine. I wonder if dna press, the listed publisher, is a vanity press. Always amazes me how so much "stuff" (I'll be kind) gets into print, while promising work sinks under rejection letters.

Ah, well, sayonara 2005. LSMFT--last seen making for Toledo.

This Kenneth Eng character is a fascinating study in megalomania. Here http://scars.tv/dirt/dirt012.htm he rants about being unjustly singled out and reprimanded at NYU merely because of his race, then proceeds to bash afro-americans, white chicks, and just about any other race, creed, color or whatever you can think of. He also reveals his history of being accused of doing certain things and claiming it wasn't him or that he was set-up. The guy is intelligent, but his personality/mental disorder will prevent him from ever fulfilling any great expectations because he will always alienate and infuriate those people who it is necessary to get along with in this game of life. And he just doesn't have the talent to do it on his own. Not to mention his parents can only do so much for him. He's a rich, spoiled brat... and the youngest two-time published novelist in the USA, or so he claims.


[This message has been edited by grasstains (edited 01-01-2006).]

�Look, [grasstains]. I can see you�re really upset about this. I honestly think you aught to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over.��grasstains?

Mr. Langley was wondering if anyone has ever noticed how much HAL-9000�s eye looks like the alien eyes in �It Came From Outer Space�?

Pertaining to Vanity Presses ...as mentioned in an above posting:

Currently still work part time at a newspaper/publishing house in Chicago that has something resembling in some aspects a vanity-type book department. Most books are published in the Lithuanian language , and a sizable printing for such books, done by a large book publisher, is often out of the question. So well meaning authors come to the place I'm at.

The books are beautifully printed and bound, and the author pays the costs for all the production work, typesetting, proofs, more typeset, and then design, color keys, printing (which includes buying the paper if its special, and book binding if necessary, unless there is a soft cover, w/ or w/o a dust jacket). Okay, fine!

But then, say he publishes 2,500 copies of his 200 plus + page book. Well, he takes 50 copies, sends them to all his friends, and expects us to sell his book in the small bookstore upfront of the company. Well and good. But what mostly happens is 2,200+ copies wind-up remaining unsold and in card-board boxes... languishing on the metal shelves in the warehouse into the next century perhaps, if the paper or the building its in can last that long.

I say all this to denote the fact that publishing a book is not that difficult. Not at all... Same can be said for programming on radio./. Some places sell anything you want to put on their radio station as passed as advertising in some instances, for 1/2 hr. to an hour as well as multiple broadcasts. TV programs, on Cable, have a long line of people readied with their special 1/2 to 1 hr. program of whatever the mind can come up with, to be aired at a first come first served basis. In my area, Chicago, we have CAN.TV. I forgot off hand what the letters stand for... Community something something something).
And... Blopgs...
ands postings
...
Good Grief !! It's endless...

Where is then the old Randolph Hayden's 'Manners in Terms of Composition'?
or Robert Rudledges': Outlines for Practical Demonstration of Ideas in Print'

Where also, Pankerhurts' 'Handbook of Concise Meaning'.

Somewhere I must have a copy of Clifford Langdon's 'Judgments in Expressing Oneself in Writing'

Ah...all but pebbles in the sea of churning talk...

_______________________________


[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 01-01-2006).]

See? Now he's posing as Chapter 31!

I'm not really upset with these people. I just think it's very unprofessional to enter a board and start a topic under false pretences and sneak in spam. I'm calling attention to it in order to expose them for what they are. Sneaky little twerps.

Happy New Year.

Nard, I never knew all that about vanity presses. That would explain why Eng's book is so beautiful. It really is. It's better quality than most of the other hardbacks I have.

I agree with you, grasstains. Just givin� you the business.

Happy New Year!

Katja,
RB is 77 years old

newgirl2

Oops! Years ago Ray was 77 years old.
You'll have to add a few years to that...

Ray will be 86 (Eighty-Six) years old this year, on August 22, 2006