Recent content by Gist_Engine

Yeah, I probably should have went back farther to Britons or Romans dealing with "painted" people five centuries earlier, but hopefully the point was made.

I have to agree with Strom, who quoted REH exactly. The Picts are a white race, although swarthy (enter your ethnic stereotypes here, Native American, Aboriginal, or otherwise), though the bordermen never thought of them as such (enter your mature understanding that racism is not based on color...

Well, looking at your own situation and generalizing is not always the best way to go about ethnographic research. College educated minorities are exposed to other cultures, roommates, and ways of living, which might be more of the impetus than simply being intellectual or educated. There are...

Yeah, and that sounds so weird to me. I got into gaming with TMNT and Other Strangeness, which followed the Heroes Unlimited d20 rules, which I think Palladium put out. I was 10 and had one book. Never needed another with the dozen or so players we had over the years. I started D&D and had one...

That's a bummer. Yes, a great foe indeed. It reminded me of that "Beep Beep" song where the guy driving his Cadillac gets passed by the Rambler in second gear. I have to say, though, a little more suspense would have been nice. Still, some of Howard's best prose in my opinion. I especially...

A level head. Thank you.

The Cowboys are in Dallas, the Spurs are in San Antonio, the concrete is in Houston, and a world-class university is in Austin. I root for the Detroit Tigers, so I have no idea who "Jerry" is. And, no, I have no idea, nor do I care, who this Fred is who seems to make a living selling the ideas...

Well, the map Howard himself "OK'ed" was printed in the Del Ray books, I believe. And, from what I've read, his version was available for quite some time in less popular forms. And, yes, I agree that someone has authority to dictate Conan canon (yeesh, typo waiting to happen!), but I can still...

I've read "The Man-Eaters of Zamboula" which I believe is the same thing. It must have been some time ago, but I thought the Howardian appropriation of Hanuman had been called "Haruman" just as Semitic people are so artfully rendered "Shemites" and so on through all the races and deities. For...

I see this title in the "Upcoming Publications" of Conan in PDF. Why is Hanuman retaining the actual spelling of a South Asian deity? I realize "Haruman" is hardly a sneaky derivative, but the character of Haruman, a malevolent gorilla-god, is very different from the benevolent, though...

I have to totally disagree. Strom is right. If you own some legal rights that were passed along the capitalist byway, then you can decide what is canon "officially." Canon as far as fans of the spirit are concerned, however, would be a totally different matter, and the original author is the...

I'm not going to be the one to jump on that, but let me say two things: Yes, for Euro-American peoples, the history of Europe and the heroes of Europe cannot help but be the centers of fantasies we inherited from Europe. Yes, it is easier to see diversity among our own. Changing the...

Thank you much. I'll definitely try those out! I had almost giving up wading through humanist sci-fi for the nuggets. I still have Snow Crash and Carbon something or other to read (the last recommendations I got). They should be in the mail now.

I haven't read much cyberpunk of the early 1980s beyond Gibson, which I found dull, but Dick's 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' came out in 1968! I started graduate research in Artificial Intelligence a few years ago (too many!) and read all I could find with strong AI characters, through...

I'd agree with calling Gibson and Scott contemporaries within emerging trends, but I would not say Bladerunner looks anything like Dick's novel. Of course, I read it before seeing the movie, but I had a very different feel. They wore codpieces, walked through streets littered with kibble, lived...