I’m not talking about Sir Isaac Newton. I’m referring to Newton Minow, an American who was Director of the FCC during the Kennedy Era. In 1961, he declared television to be a vast wasteland. This irritated many within the industry, to the point that, the SS Minnow that washed up on Gilligan’s Island was named after him.
The cost of accessing this wasteland by cable continued to increase. About 12 years ago, we dumped cable, and went with satellite TV. Satellite rates soon followed Cable rates. Two years ago, when the wife’s mobility problems meant that she had trouble going down to the basement rec room to watch TV, we cut the satellite cable also.
Almost 50 years of marriage means that we have little new to talk about, so we relied on books to fill the excess time. OH! WOW! Last year’s list of 51 books, has increased this year to 57.
Jim Wheeler’s question about rereading books had me going back to reread some old Sci-Fi. I have quite an interest in time travel and temporal paradoxes. Note toward the bottom of the reread section, the time travel group.
Continuing with the time travel theme, I recently bought and read
I also purchased Book II, and will read it this year.
And a couple from an up and coming author – not published yet, but look forward to them.
He’s Will Greany.
Blue On Blue
Domestic
This one came highly recommended by BrainRants.
Not what was promised. Quite disappointing!
Now that you’ve spent all that time lookin’ at the pretty pitchurs, you won’t have time fer yer own readin’. Sorry!
You have quite the collection of books, Archon! I also enjoy sci-fi. Time travel is very interesting to me. One day I want to read Carl Sagan’s Contact. It doesn’t deal with time travel so much as it deals with travelling via wormholes to get to another galaxy and planet. I am sure you and your wife are very well occupied.
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I’ve watched the movie, ‘Contact,’ but never read the book. I just checked, and my local library system only has a DVD copy of the movie, not the book. Perhaps I should try for another inter-library loan. Some city in Ontario should still have a copy. 🙂
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One would hope. I have also heard good things about The Martian by Andy Weir.
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Again, with Netflix installed, I’ve seen the Martian movie, but with 20 unread books in front of me, I just don’t feel the urge to pursue that one. I have 4 EBooks I need the wife to help me download, to add to the print versions on my shelf. 😛 🌯
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[…] via It’s All Newton’s Fault — Archon’s Den […]
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Thanx! 😎
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Quite an impressive collection, Archon. I’d recommend Arthur C. Clarke’s body of work, if you haven’t consumed those already, and of course all of Heinlein’s stuff.
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These are merely a few in one particular storage box I opened. I’ll finish off a few more Heinlein. before moving on to the box with several of Clarke’s books in it. 😀
….and you thought I didn’t read/like Sci-Fi. 😉
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The Golden Age of science fiction grew out of science reality. Einstein’s discoveries, airplanes, radio, the automobile, electricity, astronomy, the submarine. I find it interesting that these authors pretty-much swept up most of the possibilities in a few decades and that S-F has now declined as a genre.
I loved the cover art. It was truly great stuff. Out of curiosity, I just googled images for Galaxy magazine and up popped all the covers! Marvelous!
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Maybe it’s just our age, but I also agree that, while the 40s/50s/60s art was hokey, it held more soul and hope than modern covers. 😳
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A great list. I’ve read several, but not all by any means. I’m sure you have plenty more to get to, but just in case, give R.E Mcdermott a look.
He write’s contemporary thrillers that deserve the name but more than that you feel like you’re being exposed to new subjects you hadn’t given thought to. His research is amazing.
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Canada’s biggest – Hell, only – major bookstore chain, Chapters/Indigo, has no idea who R. E. McDermott is. 😯 Not one title in their catalog. I’ll have to wait till the next time the son is ordering books from Amazon, and slip a couple of requests in.
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[…] team-player/rules-follower, the results are not impressive. The covers are all shown back at ‘It’s All Newton’s Fault’, if you want another […]
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[…] her that I was also fascinated with time travel stories. I showed a bunch of them in my post of books read in 2016. I remembered a somewhat different time-travel book, and suggested it to her. Later, I went back in […]
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[…] is no paradox that I like to read stories about paradoxes. In my list of books read in 2016, I included several time-travel novels. More recently, my Book Review #16 – The Whenabouts of […]
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