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BEWARE! (SLIGHT) SPOILERS FOR OCTAVIA BUTLER'S XENOGENESIS/LILLITH'S BROOD SERIES WITHIN!
I finally got my fancy-shmancy portable GPS system completely set up. Loaded it with 10 hours of music, taught it a bunch of locations I need to get to, and bluetoothily paired it with my phone and my little Jane-like earpiece.
The only problem is that while before the phone and earpiece used to communicate directly, now they do so through the GPS. Which is useful in some ways, and annoying in others. So I would like to have them do so only sometimes . . . but when the GPS is there, it interferes with them talking directly. Sometimes.
I'm not looking for assistance; I think I've worked out the technical details. (Sync phone and earpiece before turning on GPS for two-pair; sync up earbud after turning on GPS for three-way.) I was mostly amused by the notion of my GPS being like an ooloi. Even to the interfering with separate pairing when it's not even there -- my phone needed to be prodded to sync with my earpiece while not even in the car at one point today.
So I decided to share. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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<just finished reading the Xenogenesis trilogy a few weeks ago>
I'm currently pouring through Octavia E. Butler's work. I just read Parable of the Sower in a day. I'm probably not going to be able to read anything else until I hunt down a copy of Parable of the Talents and then finish it.
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I so wish that she'd written the third Parable book.
You haven't read the Patternist series yet, have you? I love Wildseed, the prequel to the series, but I'm not so wild about the rest of it. I mean, it's good, but it's far from her best work.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I know. It's frustrating to not be able to continue a story that I find so engaging, but that's not going to stop me from finishing what is.
I haven't read the Patternist books yet, but I certainly plan to. I'm also going to hunt down her short story collection. I love short fiction.
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quote:I know. It's frustrating to not be able to continue a story that I find so engaging, but that's not going to stop me from finishing what is.
Oh, of course not. It wouldn't do so for me either. And honestly, Parable of the Talents wraps things up fairly well, I think. I still wish that I had the third book, though. Hm...maybe I should make that the second book that I'd take with me to Euripides' island.
quote: haven't read the Patternist books yet, but I certainly plan to. I'm also going to hunt down her short story collection. I love short fiction.
It's a pretty strong collection, if shorter than I'd like.
I envy you getting to read all of her stuff for the first time.
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Yeah, I agree Belle. I really need to get a new copy of it; I loaned mine out to someone some time ago, and it apparently decided that it liked them better.
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*grumble* Today the ooloi tendencies were more annoying than amusing. I need to email Garmin technical support after Shabbos -- this is ridiculous.
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I liked Parable of the Sower much more than Parable of the Talents, so I'm not all that dissapointed that there wasn't a third one.
Noemon -- I agree with you about the Patternist series. In general, they don't stand up well to Butler's better works.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I received Butler's complete works for Christmas. I made it through the Lilith's Brood series and one other book and then I had to stop.
They are wonderful, but there's only so much post-apocalyptic dealing with issues of reproduction that I could handle while nursing a baby. I put the rest away until John's older. Like, 30 maybe.
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I liked Parable of the Sower much more than Parable of the Talents, so I'm not all that dissapointed that there wasn't a third one.
The second one was pretty hard for me to read, and I'm not anxious to reread it, but I still liked it. I doubt that you'd have had to worry based on your dislike of the second book that the third book would be more of the same. I expect that it would have been as different from the second as the second was from the first. The books of the Xenogenesis trilogy are all pretty different from each other; it seems to be something of a pattern for her.
We may have talked about it before, Porter, but what did you think of Fledgling?
Noemon -- I agree with you about the Patternist series. In general, they don't stand up well to Butler's better works. [/QB][/QUOTE]
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Noemon: [QUOTE]Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: [qb] I liked Parable of the Sower much more than Parable of the Talents, so I'm not all that dissapointed that there wasn't a third one.
The second one was pretty hard for me to read, and I'm not anxious to reread it, but I still liked it. I doubt that you'd have had to worry based on your dislike of the second book that the third book would be more of the same. I expect that it would have been as different from the second as the second was from the first. The books of the Xenogenesis trilogy are all pretty different from each other; it seems to be something of a pattern for her.
We may have talked about it before, Porter, but what did you think of Fledgling?
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Yep. It's fairly standard Butler fare, exploring the same issues she always explores. The writing is quite good, as you might expect, though it could have used a little more basic editing; I remember that there were an unusual number of typos and misspellings. It would be possible to read the book as being positive toward pedophilia, though I came away from it thinking that that would be a misperception. I'll have to reread it before I'll be able to go into why, though; it's been a little while, and it didn't stick with me the way much of her stuff does.
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