Subject: Well now, there was one exciting thing to happen this week.
Author:
Posted on: 2017-09-08 12:34:00 UTC
Kitty Eden posted this in the chat last night.
The Voynich Manuscripts?
Solved.
—doctorlit
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Songs which are inexplicably perfect fits for scifi stories. by
on 2017-09-08 11:44:00 UTC
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(No news this week; Mandos take the news, it's all miserable.)
Essentially what it says on the tin: songs which weren't written with a scifi story in mind, but are clearly perfect fits. Here are the ones that spring to my mind:
To The Moon and Back, by Savage Garden
Sample lyrics:
Mama never loved her much and
Daddy never keeps in touch
That's why she shies away from human affection, but
Somewhere in a private place
She packs her bags for outer space
And now she's waiting for the right kind of pilot to come
And she'll say to him...
I would fly you to the moon and back
If you'll be, if you'll be my baby
I've got a ticket for a world where we belong
So would you be my baby?
I heard this on the radio yesterday morning and immediately had the idea for this thread. It connected itself instantly to Anne McCaffrey's Ship Who Sang/Brain & Brawn series (which are about spaceships with two 'crew' - a human captain, and a severely physically disabled 'shell person' acting as the ship's computer). In particular, my mind got hung up on The Ship Who Searched, and Tia/AH-1033, who very much fits the 'abandoned child' motif of the song, as well as literally hunting for the right human partner to fly to the stars with.
Carried by Honor, by Heather Dale
Sample lyrics:
When I was a child I thought about nothing
But valour and glory and victory's might
I started with little and built from it something
I thought I would need when the time came to fight
I forged my sword from the steel of my kingdom
I crafted my shield from the love of my kin
I'm carried by honour and dreams of a future
Made real with each battle I win.
Okay, it was sort of inevitable that this would jump straight to the Honor Harrington books, given the title... but it fits alarmingly well with the theme of the books - family, friendship, fighting to secure the future. The connection really clicked for me when I remembered thatQueenEmpress Elizabeth of the Star Empire of Manticore was given the name 'Soul of Steel' by the treecats... 'from the steel of my kingdom', indeed.
(This song was an exclusive reward for backers of the Queens of Avalon musical; it's mighty hard to find anything about it online.)
Say Something, by A Great Big World/Christina Aguilera
Sample lyrics:
And I am feeling so small
It was over my head
I know nothing at all
And I will stumble and fall
I'm still learning to love
Just starting to crawl
Say something, I'm giving up on you
I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you
Anywhere, I would've followed you
Say something, I'm giving up on you
From the first time I heard it, this was a perfect fit for a very specific scifi story that as far as I know doesn't exist. It's essentially the Downer Ending version of The Martian - a desperate scramble to rescue a stranded crew/ship, where all of humanity's efforts just... aren't enough.
Even more specifically, I'm imagining an AU film where NASA noticed the damage to the space shuttle Columbia... once it was already in orbit. There is an article about how, through sheer fluke, it would have been just possible to save the crew - provided everything went right. Well, in my film, it didn't, because space is actually hard.
(I mean, in theory you could use it if they managed to save most of the crew but not the one we've been focussing on - a la Armageddon. Maybe that's more viable?)
Hello, by Adele
Sample lyrics:
Hello, can you hear me?
I'm in California dreaming about who we used to be
When we were younger and free
I've forgotten how it felt before the world fell at our feet
There's such a difference between us
And a million miles
Hello from the other side
I must've called a thousand times
To tell you I'm sorry
For everything that I've done
But when I call you never
Seem to be home
Hello from the outside...
"A million miles". That's about three times the distance from the Earth to the Moon - or just about exactly the distance to Lagrange points 1 and 2, the points on the line between the sun and earth where satellites can be placed 'stationary' in space.
This is very clearly a song from someone who's living on orbit, at one of the Lagrange points, and radioing back to Earth (from their California-themed holodeck or something, or maybe they're on California Orbital). "The world fell at our feet". "Hello from the outside." And that's clearly the plot of one of those classic SF novels - a Heinlein, maybe? Or a Bradbury? I'm not sure which story it is, but I'm positive there's a story which fits this song perfectly.
(Alternately, 'a million miles is the difference between failure and a new chance', but the song doesn't fit that story. It's still a charming expression, though.)
So that's mine. What're yours?
hS -
I want to tell you a story... by
on 2017-09-12 11:14:00 UTC
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Picture this... A great city stands besieged, it's outer defences lie broken and it's few defenders are tired after so long fighting. Everything to the east of this city has been either captured or destroyed by the great army that has come from even further east, sparing no one. The city has called for allies and yet none have arrived. Today the enemy are so close to breaching your final layer of defences and destroying all that you hold dear when, to your surprise a loud horn echoes across the plains. From the north comes a great army of allies, all united in their quest to help defend your city and defeat this great army from the east.
If you stood with these allies to the north you would see that numerous though they were, they were still not numerous enough to outnumber your foes. But still they march towards them, utterly fearless. The enemy from the east turns some of their forces to meet your allies while the rest try to break your defences one last time. You stand strong, emboldened by the sight of your allies arriving. Whilst your allies infantry push against the enemies, you notice on a hill a large gathering of cavalry forces, the largest gathering of cavalry forces ever known to man. Led by their king the cavalry force charge into the enemy breaking their positions and making them run for their lives. You sally forth to meet your allies and succeed in utterly routing your foe and saving the West.
Almost sounds like the Battle of Pelennor Fields does it not? Except it is not. The year is not 3019 of the Third Age it is 1683, and the city? Vienna not Minas Tirith. For on this day 334 years ago the Polish Winged Hussars lead the largest cavalry charge of all time (18,000 men) to break the Ottoman Empire's forces and relieve Vienna from the two month siege it had found itself in. That is not to say the Holy Roman Empire did nothing, their infantry were vital to push the Ottomans back and their cavalry charged alongside the Winged Hussars.
But overall the battle of Vienna, and indeed the entire centre of Europe and possibly beyond could have been lost to the Ottoman Empire. Then the Winged Hussars arrived.
Novastorme -
... by
on 2017-09-12 14:16:00 UTC
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Nova, you do realize that it's not inexplicable that Sabaton songs match up with SF/F, right? It's perfectly explicable.
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It's a great story, though. ^_~ by
on 2017-09-12 14:41:00 UTC
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And in a writing community like ours, great storytelling covers a multitude of sins.
hS -
I'll forgive anything. Just let me poke fun at it first ^_^ (nm) by
on 2017-09-12 15:26:00 UTC
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More Songs by
on 2017-09-10 03:29:00 UTC
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I'm convinced that How Far We've Come by Matchbox Twenty is a description of Nightfall by Isaac Asimov. (I've only read the short story and not the extended novel, admittedly.)
Sample lyrics:
I believe the world is burning to the ground
Oh well I guess we're gonna find out
Let's see how far we've come
Let's see how far we've come
Well I believe it all is coming to an end
Oh well, I guess, we're gonna pretend,
Let's see how far we've come
Let's see how far we've come
The song, interpreted a little darkly to match Nightfall, is like, well, it's the end of the world, and let's see how far we've come. And in Nightfall, they've made it exactly as far as society did several times when it collapsed the previous times.
Also, World by Five for Fighting for Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey.
Sample lyrics:
Got a package full of Wishes
A Time machine, a Magic Wand
A Globe made out of Gold
No Instructions or Commandments
Laws of Gravity or
Indecisions to uphold
What kind of world do you want?
Think Anything
Let's start at the start
Build a masterpiece
Be careful what you wish for
History starts now...
The song is asking that if you could start anew on an empty world, what would you do with it? I think it describes the settlement of Pern pretty well, at least until Thread starts falling.
Back to my lurking; I don't plan on becoming a regular poster at this time; I've just been dying to share this somewhere for awhile now.
A. Lurker -
Obligatory message by
on 2017-09-10 03:54:00 UTC
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You can still lurk! Introduce yourself, and maybe join the discord if you haven't! You can just read, no pressure to interact.
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Well... by
on 2017-09-09 17:21:00 UTC
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I kinda feel like the entirety of Fall Out Boy's album "Save Rock and Roll" works as a soundtrack for a story about supervillains, especially if you make The Phoenix the opening track and Young Volcanoes the end credits theme.
Also Rob Zombie. Most of his stuff obviously works for horror stories. Living Dead Girl is actually pretty great for a Vampire the Masquerade story about a Samedi lady. Or a Sabbat lady. -
Erm... Stuff? by
on 2017-09-09 02:24:00 UTC
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I always thought The Offspring's "You're Gonna Go Far Kid" matched the first Mistborn novel pretty well. I may be crazy.
In news for Twistey and any programmers in the audience, Fabien Sanglard has just released his Black Book of Wolf3D. So if you ever wanted to peer into the guts of Wolfie, you at least have a flashlight to do it with now. Given, this was not a book written for The Rest of Us by any means. I would suggest downloading the preview first to see if you can read it. I, for one, am very intimidated and doubt I will be able to...
Article here -
78 years on we still remember. by
on 2017-09-08 20:22:00 UTC
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Today marks the 78th anniversary of the Battle of Wizna where the Polish Army held out against the might of the Wehrmarcht for three days in what is sometimes called the Polish Thermopylae.
The Polish soldiers were outnumbered well over 40:1 and they held on until they ran out of ammunition.
Always remember a fallen soldier. Always remember fathers and sons at war.
Novastorme -
Well now, there was one exciting thing to happen this week. by
on 2017-09-08 12:34:00 UTC
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Kitty Eden posted this in the chat last night.
The Voynich Manuscripts?
Solved.
—doctorlit -
Unconvinced. by
on 2017-09-08 14:31:00 UTC
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Reading the article, there's a lot of 'obviously's, and no evidence. This is the picture that accompanies the article, which purports to interpret two (uncited!) lines of Voynich script. In order to do so, he's separated out the lines, and then freely interpreted the imagined letters as Latin shorthand.
He's also interpreting the same symbol as multiple different words. Check out the one that looks like a swirly comma (last character in the first row on the image); in the first two words of the last line, that is interpreted as both 'cum' and 'con', interpreted as cum and confundo. Remarkable!
Furthermore, he interprets ~80 characters as representing ~54 Latin words; he's extrapolating 'Aromaticus' from 'AR' (which doesn't look a thing like 'AR'); and his numbers would make the entire manuscript well over a hundred thousand words, all written in illegible shorthand. A shorthand that uses a mere 25 characters to convey... well, according to the sample, the same words over and over. I suppose that's fair. De radicus seminis ana J, indeed.
Nah. Call me again when it's peer-reviewed rather than appearing in the Times Literary Supplement.
hS -
There's still hope it could be interesting! (nm) by
on 2017-09-08 14:59:00 UTC
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Ah, would you look at that? by
on 2017-09-11 06:49:00 UTC
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Apparently the people who actually have the Voynich don't think his translation is worth the pixels it's written on either.
hS -
As somebody pointed out to me... by
on 2017-09-08 13:29:00 UTC
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-My Immortal is a complex, layered and meta work of art with a sentimental backstory.
-The Voynich Manuscript is a...plagiarized medieval gynecology book, pretty much.
Welcome to 2017, folks. -
It gets better! by
on 2017-09-09 17:12:00 UTC
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Apparently the real author of My Immortal, Rose Christo, is a pretty great author now. I recommend looking her up on Amazon, and especially checking out her books, especially Why the Star Stands Still and her memoir Under the Same Stars. I would recommend the Suddenly Space Pirates series as well, but I just looked and it seems to be out of print sadly.
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Oops by
on 2017-09-09 17:13:00 UTC
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Uh. Is there someone who can edit my post to fix the italics? Apparently I used forward slash instead of backslash
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Well, depending on who you believe regarding the former... (nm) by
on 2017-09-08 13:59:00 UTC
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disappointing... by
on 2017-09-08 13:21:00 UTC
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Yeah, it was really more fun not knowing. I mean, I am all for the pursuit of knowledge, but the mystery was far more engaging than the solution.
Anyone up for playing a game of Voynich, as proposed by hS?
