The entire world ran without the internet until a few years ago.

London had something like ten mail deliveries a day before the telephone was invented.

“The Man In The Iron Mask” talks about the French semaphore towers.

I remember a trailer where they show you the elevator doors and a narrator talks about Stephen King and the genius of Kubrick and then the doors open. Nothing else.

[off topic?]

Ever seen ‘Time Bandits?’ The original, not the one with Kudrow

There’s nothing particularly nsfw in it, but I think a couple of young girls would find it very cool.

The situation today is nowhere near as bad as the Cold War.

Think of it this way. All of the 0.01%ers in china, USA and Russia share the same tastes and values. Think any of them are really hot to blow up their nice places on the Rivera?

[off topic]

There’s at least one store I know of in New York City that’s been making money off of doing VCR repairs for decades. A lot of companies invested in big video displays back in the day and it would cost far more to replace everything than it does to keep the antique tech going.

Some people are still learning Cobol.

https://www.cio.com/article/240709/why-its-time-to-learn-cobol.html

If you can find a niche tech like that it would make sense.

I’d put ‘The Expanse’ at the head of the line

Poul did a throwaway story that I’d love to see expanded into a series.

A group of time travelers from 4,000 AD travel back to Renaissance Italy. They run into an evil baron and his henchmen, including one very learned monk. A little torture and the Italians have their own time machine. They set up a base in 10,000 BC and raid across time. They know that the Time Patrol can only use things in the historical record, so as long as they keep a low profile they’ll never get caught.

I always try to go by publication.

Someone put it this way [they were talking specifically about the Conan stories]. If you meet someone and get to chatting you don’t tell your story in chronological order. Maybe the first story you tell is about what happened at work, or your most recent vacation. After you’ve known them a while you talk about grade school.

That’s my opinion.

Here are some old school paperback writers you might not have heard of. I present them in no particular order, just off the top of my head. I found them all on wire racks in drug stores, lo these many years ago…

Robert Beck aka Iceberg Slim. If you ever wondered why there were so many rappers with ‘Ice’ in their name, it’s because Iceberg Slim was the author most widely read in the US prison system. I particularly liked ‘Trick Baby’ the story of a Black conman who could pass for White.

Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark. The other most widely read prion writer. Stark’s ‘The Hunter’ has been filmed about a dozen times. His crooks are unemotional professionals.

Tanith Lee. The Goddess-empress of the hot read. ‘Night’s Master’ has Satan as the hero. Every night he flies from his palace to seduce and/or terrorize mankind.

Enjoy.

‘War Of The Wing-Men’ is a good one to start with.

You say that like it’s a bad thing.

iirc, it was in "War Of The Wing Men’ where a princess has been traveling through the galaxy looking for a human male to sire her child. She ends up picking a fat, boorish space trader over the hero-type because the trader actually knows how to get things done.

I think Dick was writing to be read in a particular time and place. Take Dashiell Hammett. ‘Red Harvest’ works a century later. there are some references that are dated [wearing a red tie] but overall you can give the novel to a modern person without a great deal of explanation needed. ‘The Thin Man’ requires a ton of annotation to be understood.

imho.

What boggles my mind is that there have been about fifty movies based on Philip K. Dick and zero based on Poul Anderson.

Anderson has galactic empires, roguish heroes, dozens of alien species, strong females, etc etc.

William Gibson pointed out that during the Depression someone could buy a workshirt for about 35 cents and wear it every day to the coal mine, until it was time to pass it on to their kid.

I kind of think that lloyd’s of London starting as a coffee shop sort of proves that argument.

Nice story. Thank you for posting it

Years ago I picked up the book ‘Gone Girl.’ I got about twenty pages into it and put it down because I couldn’t stand the smug, entitled yuppie narrator.

Later, I watched and enjoyed the movie, and read some of the author’s other books.

It made me realize what a good writer she is; she made me hate a character so much that I couldn’t read the book.

Older than you are and worth looking at. [available on Youtube]

The Prisoner. Imagine if Ian Fleming and Franz Kafka got together to do a TV show. A government official resigns and is immediately kidnapped. He wakes up in The Village; a lovely little place with nice views, great food, plenty of fun things to do, and no possible escape.

I, Claudius. A very young Patrick Stewart is the least reason to watch this reenactment of the first five Roman emperors.

Connections. Non-fiction. Wonderfully entertaining and informative. The creator’s premise is that scientific progress is almost never straight forward. Coffee houses open in London = coffee houses become popular places to do business = coffee house customers join together to invest in ships to the New World = the new ‘companies’ begin looking for ways to make their ships safer = they start to invest in making pine tar to protect the ships = add two hundred years and you have insurance companies and the chemical industry

It was amazing, then got weak after Dalton left. mho

As long as Asimov’s Three Laws are built in, I’m okay with it.