Hopefulness in the Qur’an
by Harun Yahya
2010 Smashwords
The best part of this book is the introduction, in which Harun Yahya extols the virtue of his own work. Basically he’s telling us his books will save the world.
Immune to objections, these works are characterized by their features of rapid effectiveness, definite results, and irrefutability . . . All contemporary movements of denial are now ideologically defeated, thanks to the collection of books written by Harun Yahya. p 4
Moreover,
. . . it would be just a waste of time and energy to propagate other books . . . p 5
And finally,
By the will of Allah, these books will be a means through which people in the twentyfirst (sic) century will attain the peace, justice and happiness promised in the Qur’an. p 5
Strange to say, Allah seems to have led Mr Yahya into a factual error –
. . . Malcolm Muggeridge, an atheist philosopher and supporter of evolution . . . p 67
I assume Mr Yahya is thinking of Bertrand Russell instead. But of course, if you don’t happen to agree with him, it doesn’t matter who you are. Mr Yahya has refuted you!
However, for the sake of real, rather than sacred truth, Malcolm Muggeridge was a journalist not a philosopher. Nor did he support evolution. In his autobiographical masterpiece, The Chronicles of Wasted Time, he states unambiguously that he believed in God from an early age. In The Thirties he summarizes that decade brilliantly – from a traditional Christian point of view, deriding the folly and vanity of a world careering headlong towards another global war.
Mr Muggeridge did not promote himself as vigorously as Mr Yahya, with whom he shared a remarkably similar and stupid opinion of evolution (see here), nevertheless, his are still the books I would recommend.
Friday, 24 June 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Living Dead Prose
Haven: Life Goes On (Book 2)
by Jeff Ping
2011 Smashwords
When human beings evolve, or what’s more likely, regress, then literature will become obsolete and there will be an End of Days in which all the fictional characters that have ever existed will be duly consigned to everlasting oblivion. Truly, it is a fate that zombies will deserve.
Didn’t zombies start off as a purely cinematic creation? Aren’t they a way of creating roles for actors who are irredeemably wooden? Even the updated ones are really cheap – a bit of green make up and speeded-up film, and there you are. It is really difficult to understand the attraction for writers of anything so literally dumb . When characters exist almost solely to get wasted can there be anything new and interesting to write about them?
However, quite brilliantly, Mr Ping sidesteps this problem. Like the method actor, he’s totally immersed himself in the mentality of the zombie. Nominally, his narrator is the typical gung ho gun lover – and his zombies duly provide plenty of easy, yet satisfying target practice. However, there’s more. The author has asked himself, how would a zombie write this tale, given the opportunity? and and here is the answer:
. . . I had been fortunate enough to stumble upon an 8 x 10 foot container. I could use this container as a home base while searching the surrounding area. The container was of the type called land/sea containers and was located near a small pond . . . I thought to myself that I would miss this container . . . p. 3
I stopped at the gas station, opened the filter cap on the underground diesel tank. I fed the hose of my electric pump down into the storage tank and connected the pump outlet to my spare fuel barrel. I switched on the pump. I kept lowering the hose until I heard fuel splashing into the barrel. When the fuel neared the top of the my barrel, I switched off the pump, and I pulled up the hose. I closed the cap to the storage tank and coiled up my hose and tossed it in my storage box. I replaced the cap on my spare fuel barrel. p. 19
Makes all other zombie stories redundant. Recommended.
by Jeff Ping
2011 Smashwords
When human beings evolve, or what’s more likely, regress, then literature will become obsolete and there will be an End of Days in which all the fictional characters that have ever existed will be duly consigned to everlasting oblivion. Truly, it is a fate that zombies will deserve.
Didn’t zombies start off as a purely cinematic creation? Aren’t they a way of creating roles for actors who are irredeemably wooden? Even the updated ones are really cheap – a bit of green make up and speeded-up film, and there you are. It is really difficult to understand the attraction for writers of anything so literally dumb . When characters exist almost solely to get wasted can there be anything new and interesting to write about them?
However, quite brilliantly, Mr Ping sidesteps this problem. Like the method actor, he’s totally immersed himself in the mentality of the zombie. Nominally, his narrator is the typical gung ho gun lover – and his zombies duly provide plenty of easy, yet satisfying target practice. However, there’s more. The author has asked himself, how would a zombie write this tale, given the opportunity? and and here is the answer:
. . . I had been fortunate enough to stumble upon an 8 x 10 foot container. I could use this container as a home base while searching the surrounding area. The container was of the type called land/sea containers and was located near a small pond . . . I thought to myself that I would miss this container . . . p. 3
I stopped at the gas station, opened the filter cap on the underground diesel tank. I fed the hose of my electric pump down into the storage tank and connected the pump outlet to my spare fuel barrel. I switched on the pump. I kept lowering the hose until I heard fuel splashing into the barrel. When the fuel neared the top of the my barrel, I switched off the pump, and I pulled up the hose. I closed the cap to the storage tank and coiled up my hose and tossed it in my storage box. I replaced the cap on my spare fuel barrel. p. 19
Makes all other zombie stories redundant. Recommended.
Saturday, 11 June 2011
"How" Missing from Title
I Will Teach You to be Slavery Rich
By Kevin Richardson
2011 Smashwords
This satire of management philosophy pin points what has to be the unstated promise of the management guru – that they will show the bosses how they can make the workers work harder for less. It’s not an objective that will go down well with the employees – or associates, as they often called today. Thus the guru’s love of bizarre terminology with which he can disguise the true agenda.
What intellectual weight do management gurus actually have? This comes from one of the more benign and thoughtful.
"The chimney, for instance, may have caused more social change than any war. Without a chimney, everyone had to huddle together in one central place around a fire, with a hole in the roof above. The chimney, with its separate flues, made it possible for one dwelling to heat a variety of rooms. Small units could huddle together independently. The cohesion of the tribe in winter slipped away." Charles Handy The Age of Unreason.
Sounds insightful, doesn’t it? But think about it for a moment, even in colder climates, couldn’t thinkers get the solitude they wanted away from the hearth during the summer months? Didn’t candles have a greater impact by allowing people to read after dark? Hasn’t reading itself had a bigger impact on social change than war? But for that matter, how many intellectuals have been killed in wars whose ideas would have had tremendous impact on social change had they lived? We don’t know, nor does Charles Handy, but we might miss that "may" in the above sentence and believe he does. Gurus in general, of course, are better had suggesting that they have knowledge, rather than actually possessing it.
The problem Mr Richardson has in satirising stuff like this and worse, (and a lot of it is worse) is that it does a pretty good job of satirising itself. The best bit, I think, is the title, which captures the semi literate portentiousness of power management speak. I've always thought In Search of Excellence sounds like incorrect English. Shouldn't it be Seeking to Attain Excellence? Or In Search of Examples of Excellence? Not snappy enough, I suppose.
By Kevin Richardson
2011 Smashwords
This satire of management philosophy pin points what has to be the unstated promise of the management guru – that they will show the bosses how they can make the workers work harder for less. It’s not an objective that will go down well with the employees – or associates, as they often called today. Thus the guru’s love of bizarre terminology with which he can disguise the true agenda.
What intellectual weight do management gurus actually have? This comes from one of the more benign and thoughtful.
"The chimney, for instance, may have caused more social change than any war. Without a chimney, everyone had to huddle together in one central place around a fire, with a hole in the roof above. The chimney, with its separate flues, made it possible for one dwelling to heat a variety of rooms. Small units could huddle together independently. The cohesion of the tribe in winter slipped away." Charles Handy The Age of Unreason.
Sounds insightful, doesn’t it? But think about it for a moment, even in colder climates, couldn’t thinkers get the solitude they wanted away from the hearth during the summer months? Didn’t candles have a greater impact by allowing people to read after dark? Hasn’t reading itself had a bigger impact on social change than war? But for that matter, how many intellectuals have been killed in wars whose ideas would have had tremendous impact on social change had they lived? We don’t know, nor does Charles Handy, but we might miss that "may" in the above sentence and believe he does. Gurus in general, of course, are better had suggesting that they have knowledge, rather than actually possessing it.
The problem Mr Richardson has in satirising stuff like this and worse, (and a lot of it is worse) is that it does a pretty good job of satirising itself. The best bit, I think, is the title, which captures the semi literate portentiousness of power management speak. I've always thought In Search of Excellence sounds like incorrect English. Shouldn't it be Seeking to Attain Excellence? Or In Search of Examples of Excellence? Not snappy enough, I suppose.
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Sanity is Not an Option
Professor Garcia-Gonzalez for President
by Garcia-Gonzalez
2011 At Smashwords, for a time.
This is a first. An ebook that's gone out of print, so to speak, before the review could be published. I'm hoping my copy will become a collector's item.
THE REVIEW
Exercised about the future of the country?
Professor Garcia-Gonzalez is the solution.
His proposed presidency will last 100 days, after which he will resign and "a transitional president approved by a majority of US Governors" will take his place. Or will they? Ominously, the Professor will be spending his first 100 days of office in "a Military Installation", or a bunker as we who possess a coarser vocabulary might term it. Furthermore, he’s going to suspend the Constitution, so, if you’re going to ask him to depart the office on legal grounds there’s a chance he’ll decide the People don’t have a case.
His flagship policy is the imposition of US import duties in order to "lead the world to decrease its population to a reasonable size".
Is there much danger of the Professor getting into power? Well, he does admit that he’s not a US citizen, and that he’s not actually going to campaign, and in fact if you even want to know what he looks like you’ll have to rely on a drawing. He’s not mad, I don’t think, because he does point out that you’ll have to lose your mind before you pick him for the Presidency.
In his closing remarks, he makes himself even more unelectable by saying he’s not religious. But then, he makes himself a little less unelectable by saying he believes in Intelligent Design. But then he makes himself a lot more unelectable by saying he has his own "metaphysical persuasion", which he calls Absolute Realization.
On the other hand, NOT being a US citizen, NOT campaigning for the Presidency, and NOT having one’s mug in the press – aren’t these boxes ticked by billions of people around the world? Don’t these contenders fit the bill just as well as Professor Garcia-Gonzalez?
Yes.
by Garcia-Gonzalez
2011 At Smashwords, for a time.
This is a first. An ebook that's gone out of print, so to speak, before the review could be published. I'm hoping my copy will become a collector's item.
THE REVIEW
Exercised about the future of the country?
Professor Garcia-Gonzalez is the solution.
His proposed presidency will last 100 days, after which he will resign and "a transitional president approved by a majority of US Governors" will take his place. Or will they? Ominously, the Professor will be spending his first 100 days of office in "a Military Installation", or a bunker as we who possess a coarser vocabulary might term it. Furthermore, he’s going to suspend the Constitution, so, if you’re going to ask him to depart the office on legal grounds there’s a chance he’ll decide the People don’t have a case.
His flagship policy is the imposition of US import duties in order to "lead the world to decrease its population to a reasonable size".
Is there much danger of the Professor getting into power? Well, he does admit that he’s not a US citizen, and that he’s not actually going to campaign, and in fact if you even want to know what he looks like you’ll have to rely on a drawing. He’s not mad, I don’t think, because he does point out that you’ll have to lose your mind before you pick him for the Presidency.
In his closing remarks, he makes himself even more unelectable by saying he’s not religious. But then, he makes himself a little less unelectable by saying he believes in Intelligent Design. But then he makes himself a lot more unelectable by saying he has his own "metaphysical persuasion", which he calls Absolute Realization.
On the other hand, NOT being a US citizen, NOT campaigning for the Presidency, and NOT having one’s mug in the press – aren’t these boxes ticked by billions of people around the world? Don’t these contenders fit the bill just as well as Professor Garcia-Gonzalez?
Yes.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
sic
The illiterate's guide to writing eBooks
by Jestin Lightner
March 2011 Smashwords
"Now I would like to take time to address writers (sic) block. Actually, I would but I can't think of anything to say about it." (p. 5)
Recommended.
by Jestin Lightner
March 2011 Smashwords
"Now I would like to take time to address writers (sic) block. Actually, I would but I can't think of anything to say about it." (p. 5)
Recommended.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)