Book: Holy Fire
Nov. 25th, 2003 05:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livAuthor: Bruce Sterling
Details: (c) Bruce Sterling 1996; pub Phoenix 1997; ISBN 1-85799-884-7
Verdict: Holy Fire is an enjoyable read, recommended.
Reasons for reading it:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lethargic_man wanted me to read HF so that he could refer to something in it. Yes, we do take the whole bacterial sex thing to extremes. What can I say? Anyway, I'm not at all sorry I read HF, cos I got on very well with it.
How it came into my hands:lethargic_man lent it to me.
Holy Fire struck me as a kind of Brave New World for the 21st century. It's very well crafted; the dystopian society seems plausible (even if the underlying science sometimes degenerates into technobabble), and there are strong characters and a good storyline. This is definitely a book I found hard to put down.
Parts of HF are exceedingly funny. The scene where the newly rejuvenated Maya picks up a bloke in Munich is delightful. And there's some lovely satire on things like shareware, childish 'anarchist' politics, fluffy tree-hugging 'spirituality' and so on. I also loved the animated loo brush which attacks Maya and her junkie associates in the squat. And interesting discussions on the nature of art and happiness and things, which however are never intrusive.
I'm not entirely sure I agreed with the view HF seems to be pushing. It didn't quite convince me that giving up all possible privacy in exchange for virtually unlimited resources and healthful longevity was entirely a bad deal. And yes, society is polarized, but basically the have-nots are so much better off than any have-nots in any real society that I found it hard to accept that they were opressed. I found myself in sympathy with the Widow, who is the voice of the status quo that the protagonists are in rebellion against. In other words, dystopian future portrayed in HF struck me as considerably less dystopian than Huxley's version.
But on the whole, HF is well-written, and thought-provoking, and moving, and a thoroughly good read.
Details: (c) Bruce Sterling 1996; pub Phoenix 1997; ISBN 1-85799-884-7
Verdict: Holy Fire is an enjoyable read, recommended.
Reasons for reading it:
lethargic_man wanted me to read HF so that he could refer to something in it. Yes, we do take the whole bacterial sex thing to extremes. What can I say? Anyway, I'm not at all sorry I read HF, cos I got on very well with it.How it came into my hands:
lethargic_man lent it to me.Holy Fire struck me as a kind of Brave New World for the 21st century. It's very well crafted; the dystopian society seems plausible (even if the underlying science sometimes degenerates into technobabble), and there are strong characters and a good storyline. This is definitely a book I found hard to put down.
Parts of HF are exceedingly funny. The scene where the newly rejuvenated Maya picks up a bloke in Munich is delightful. And there's some lovely satire on things like shareware, childish 'anarchist' politics, fluffy tree-hugging 'spirituality' and so on. I also loved the animated loo brush which attacks Maya and her junkie associates in the squat. And interesting discussions on the nature of art and happiness and things, which however are never intrusive.
I'm not entirely sure I agreed with the view HF seems to be pushing. It didn't quite convince me that giving up all possible privacy in exchange for virtually unlimited resources and healthful longevity was entirely a bad deal. And yes, society is polarized, but basically the have-nots are so much better off than any have-nots in any real society that I found it hard to accept that they were opressed. I found myself in sympathy with the Widow, who is the voice of the status quo that the protagonists are in rebellion against. In other words, dystopian future portrayed in HF struck me as considerably less dystopian than Huxley's version.
But on the whole, HF is well-written, and thought-provoking, and moving, and a thoroughly good read.
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Uses of Hebrew and English
Date: 2004-01-29 07:40 pm (UTC)There's a reasonable consensus for doing it in English in the Orthodox as well; it wasn't until I came to London that I heard it done in Hebrew.
I type Hebrew in the orbvious order in Word (such that it appears wrong), and when I paste it into the comment box, it automatically gets reversed, while leaving the English letters following it
left-to-right. Clever, no?
That's part of the Unicode standard. It should type right-to-left in Word too; sounds like you've got an out-of-date version of Word.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-31 06:10 pm (UTC)There's a reasonable consensus for doing it in English in the Orthodox as well; it wasn't until I came to London that I heard it done in Hebrew.
Oh yes, I have heard it done in English in Orthodox services, I'd forgotten that. And The Supreme King above the King of Kings is a cooler epithet for God (cos, yay random ancient culture references!) than Whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. But the Orthodox version goes downhill from there I think; there's a lot of stuff that's unnecessarily monarchistic, ours is much more neutral in that respect.
Prayer for the Royal Family
Date: 2004-02-01 12:27 pm (UTC)מלך מלכי המלכים, yes? It's true, it is cooler (and mistranslated "the Supreme King of kings" in the Singer's), and I never understood it until I was in my late twenties and discovered that "King of kings" meant High King.
But the Orthodox version goes downhill from there I think; there's a lot of stuff that's unnecessarily monarchistic, ours is much more neutral in that respect.
You mean your one is a prayer for the government rather than the Royal Family? I can sympathise with that; the government only gets the briefest of mentions in the Orthodox wording ("and all her counsellors"). That's due to the text dating from the monarchism of Victorian times, but also, I suspect, looking back to a more distant time when the Jews were at the whim of the monarch, rather than their government ("G-d keep the Czar... far away from us!").