“Harrison Bergeron” is a satirical dystopian science-fiction short story written in 1961 by American author Kurt Vonnegut.
In the year 2081, the Constitution dictates that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, and her agents enforce the equality laws by forcing citizens to wear “handicaps” such as ugly masks for those who are too beautiful, earpiece radios that broadcast irritating noises meant to disrupt thoughts for the intelligent, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic. Examples include things like ballerinas wear grotesque masks and heavy weights to them to make them clumsy and unattractive.
A lot of modern policy is based on the notion of equality – but I think Vonnegut’s story presents a valid discussion point to what equality really means. Living in the extremely liberal town of Portland, I have heard people promote the very ideas in this story as a vision of equality. Does equality mean that all people must be the same?
Traditionally, AI narrators and voices have limitations. Early generated voices were barely good enough for simple one phrase statements. For longer text, they tend to be very flat/monotone and have bad pacing to the point of being very painful to listen too for any extended period of time. While this is still somewhat the case, this version is much improved.
I personally love combining my workouts/hikes/drives with audiobooks – and having a new free source of good material is great.
The book selection obviously are works in the public domain, but that includes lots of classics – such as some of my favorites: Edwardian and Victorian ghost stories.
When I was a kid, I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books. At school book fairs, I was always on the lookout for a good deal. There were various copycats series – such as the really excellent Fighting Fantasy series that I discovered in middle school. Which Way Books, however, never really received the accolades of Choose your own Adventure. Most of them were very mediocre to downright terrible. One book from the series, however, really stood head and shoulders above the others.
Invasion of the Black Slime and Other Tales of Horror was honestly one of the best scary books I read as a kid. I always loved adventure mixed with a tinge of the scary or fantastic. The book consisted of 3 main story lines you could choose between. The first storyline was to continue on to the supposedly invaded mountain town of Silverlode. The second involves visiting a lonely doctor. The third was one of the best which involved spending 24 hours in Uncle Harry Crispen’s haunted house to earn a million dollars.
There were some really great illustrations as well:
It is hard to find copies of this book today. The series was never terribly popular, and used copies of this book can run you about $35 – if you can even find one. I have never seen this book online anywhere; so I decided to change that. I bought a copy and scanned the whole thing cover to cover. It’s now here available as a PDF to download and enjoy.
Personally, I found the haunted house path contained some of the most terrifying stuff I read as a kid. Even today as an adult it holds up really well. There’s even a warning that you need to give full attention to the pages you read as you go into Uncle Henry’s house. I remember taking it seriously and going to my room and laying on my bed to read it. It was downright terrifying to 10 year old me.
If you’d like to hear some the book, here’s an audiobook version:
If you read this book as a kid, share your experiences with it. It was definitely one of my favorites.
Which Way Books #10 The Invasion of the Black Slime and Other Tales of Horror Written by: R.G. Austin (pseudonym used by multiple people) – Gelman, Rita Golden (uncredited); Lamb, Nancy (uncredited) Illustrator: Smith, Joseph A. Format: Paperback Published: January 1, 1983 by Simon Pulse ISBN : 9780671460204 ISBN-10 : 067146020X ISBN-13 : 978-0671460204 ASIN : 067146020X Pages: 118
Tsundokuis the Japanese word for the stack(s) of books you’ve purchased but haven’t read. Its morphology combines tsunde-oku (letting things pile up) and dokusho (reading books).
I personally love that I have a pile of books I have bought but not yet read. Probably for the same reason that others have suggested – that it creates a sense of wonder and excitement there is so much more yet to learn:
These shelves of unexplored ideas propel us to continue reading, continue learning, and never be comfortable that we know enough. Jessica Stillman calls this realization intellectual humility.
People who lack this intellectual humility — those without a yearning to acquire new books or visit their local library — may enjoy a sense of pride at having conquered their personal collection, but such a library provides all the use of a wall-mounted trophy. It becomes an “ego-booting appendage” for decoration alone.
I think the 90’s were an amazing time for game books. This is one I’ve not seen before. It was a series of paired game books that have a first-person style play.
You play against another person who is playing at the same time with the companion book. Just like in a real first-person shooter, depending on how you (and your opponent) move around, you can come up behind, in front, or to the side of your enemy as you fight against each other in the dungeon.
Other notable authors such as Rob Adams, Paul Bonner, Gary Chalk, Melvyn Grant, Richard Hook, Peter Andrew Jones, Cyril Julien, Peter Lyon, Peter Parr, Graham Round, and Brian Williams have also generously offered similar permission for their contributions. This includes books from famous series like Lone Wolf, Freeway Warrior, Kai, Grand Master, Magnakai, and even some of the Lone Wolf PC games. Project Aon hosts the books on their free website and gives you free permission to use them.
Magic was outlawed in Ethiopia in the 15th century. Presented here and stored in the British Library, is an ancient Ethiopian manuscript with prayers to perform magical transformations (such as turning into a lion or other creatures). Curator Eyob Derillo describes what is in the text and how historians study it to understand ancient African magic beliefs.
Just looking at the text, it appears to be beautifully illustrated. I wonder if you can get downloaded scans…
NoEnd House is an amature creepy-pasta short story from a few years back. It tells of a haunted house that has 6 progressively scarier rooms. Supposedly nobody who has made it to room six has ever been seen again.
The short story has a great premise, but many argue that Channel Zero’s version is an even better telling of the story. The six part series starts with them finding out about the haunted house and taking a visit. What happens next is some good story telling, but I thought the final chapters were a bit weaker than the first ones. The first few episodes are definitely worth a watch.
On a tangent, I think this is what Hollywood should be doing these days: taking promising but flawed ideas and working them into great ones. I understand why studios rehash tried and true IP’s like Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvell, etc. They always sell. But it doesn’t demonstrate any real talent to try and reboot old classics with tropey time travel, alternate universe takes, harmful revisionist cannons, or even political/social agendas. Most of the time they only succeeded in ruining critical themes, diluting, damaging, and turning classics into distasteful cash grabs. Lets wake up here Hollywood – there’s lots of great ideas out there if you have the eyes to see them.
