Comments on: Is there a writer that’s cranked your head open?

By: Elroy Day

Elroy Day — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 21:40:17 +0000

BLIND NAVY VETERAN ACCOMPLISHES THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
The Navy has a tradition of helping their own. Elroy day, a former bubble head has an incredible story to tell. He was blinded in a home invasion in North Carolina in 1995. He recently applied for and was accepted into the Purple Heart Service Foundations job training program to teach him how to become an at home call center agent. Against all odds, working with a disability that would stop most everyone else, he graduated. He completed 600 hours of hard training and now he is reaching out to other blind and vision disabled veterans to tell them about the opportunity that he had. He wants other blind veterans to come and join him. You see, he has a dream of opening a blinded veterans call center. Staffed by former members of the US military who are now blind, for what ever reason. You can help with his dream, just spreading the word. If you know of any veteran who is vision disabled, have them contact Elroy Day immediately . They can email him at eday@carolina.rr.com or call Ms. Thompson at 703 835 3531.
And remember, the Navy has a tradition of helping their own.

By: john

john — Fri, 25 May 2007 06:04:04 +0000

When I was a kid, the Asimov books did it for me, beginning with the Foundation series, and continuing on through the Robot stories. In my late teens, William Gibson was it. These days, I’m enjoying the Liz Williams books quite a bit.

Completely looking forward to the Palahniuk SF, whenever it arrives.

By: Mark A. Rayner

Mark A. Rayner — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:00:31 +0000

I’d have to put Kurt Vonnegut at the top of my list. When I first read Slaughterhouse 5, it seriously blew my mind. Not only the satire and the ideas, but the storytelling. I remember thinking, “ah, so you CAN do whatever you want.”

By: A.R.Yngve

A.R.Yngve — Sun, 13 May 2007 13:44:43 +0000

Fredric Brown, Robert Sheckley, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, James Tiptree Jr.(Alice Sheldon)… all of them cranked open my head at some point and made me look at the world from a new, mind-bending perspective.

But I look out for that kind of literature. For me there’s no such thing as “comfort reading” Science Fiction. (I hear that Chuck “Fight Club” Palahniuk has started to write SF. Now that ought to be mind-blowing and then some…)

By: Mike Martin

Mike Martin — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 15:05:16 +0000

James Tiptree Jr. woke me to gender politics, Dune to psychic machivellian nuns, and Charles Stross, in “Accelerando” and “Glasshouse,” to just how may can-opening bits of extrapolation can exist in one paragraph.

By: Lou Anders

Lou Anders — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 21:56:57 +0000

Thank god you guys are back!
For me, it was Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock and Fritz Leiber as a child. Then later Robert Anton Wilson, and much later, Greg Egan.

By: ajay

ajay — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 18:22:27 +0000

When I picked up Gene Wolfe’s books in the Book of the New Sun series. After this mind blowing experience, I dropped all pretense that I might one day become a writer. I will never be able to write like that, and therefore, see no point in writing at all. I wish writers like Eddings and Fiest (among MANY others) would read Gene Wolfe and see just how much they suck, and stop flooding bookstores with their crap.

Oh, and Dhalgren by Sam Delaney. I read that years ago, and I am still confused as to whether it was piece of crap, or an awesome masterpiece.

By: SCG

SCG — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:24:31 +0000

Welcome back, Meme Therapy!

At the age of 11, Frank Herbert’s Dune burst into my home, levelled a shotgun at my head and blew that fucker away.