That's not really the point I'm getting at. Here's the dialogue the reviewer was talking about: Her reaction here, the reviewer is saying, is coming off less like a woman being offended by Dresden saying that women are malicious lunatics and that being an inaccurate as well as awful thing to say, but being offended that he acknowledged a thing that in-'verse is true, and it's treated as unusual that it was a guy who did the 'sploding. I'm not sure how fair that is because it's been years since I read Dresden, but that's what the reviewer meant.
I can see that interpretation, but I think that Jim Butcher, while having a background level of misogyny, is less chauvinist than Harry, and I think it was meant to be an illogical assumption. He did slowly get better on the chauvinism thing. Slowly. Then much worse, then better again. I mostly point it out to rib on Harry being an idiot sometimes.
I... really don't read it that way. It strikes me more as Murphy brushing past Dresden's theories about female psychology to get clear info on what kind of suspect she's looking for. (Also, Murphy's a Chicago cop from a family of same, she's probably learned to be tactical about when and how she accuses colleagues of sexism.)
Yeah, as I said, I don't know how fair that is as a reading of the scene. Just kind of bringing that in to illustrate my point about the other one, more than anything else.
Yeah that makes sense. This is fairly early, she could be trying to confirm that Harry isn't actually saying that it is magically impossible for a man to have done it.
Dresden aside, I think that is what's going on in the Kindle book I screencapped and I want to kick that character in the head repeatedly.
this is about a CW series based on a book series, but Jenny Nicholson posted a 2 1/2 hour long video about the vampire diaries and I Am Living. i didnt watch the show but my mom watched it and the sequel and the prequel. i had to listen to it in the background while doing other things along with many other shows that were bad, or started good but got bad, like OUAT
Oh, just to prove I wasn't making it up, here is the "slipping in dog shit while fighting zombies naked is sexy" scene.
I'm testing out some hard sci-fi to see if it's interesting, and I found an obvious hole in one I'm reading. The book's about humanity observing someone else's artificial structures built in the photosphere of the sun (hardness on the sci-fi scale of this idea is debatable but whatevs). In the scientific presentation about this where they're discussing investigating it more closely, the lead scientist says on one page that the construction is too small to observe from Earth and was almost invisible and easily mistaken for a glitch from the satellite film, then on the next page says "we couldn't have failed to notice someone building this". Which is it?
It could be that the construction would be obvious, but once built, it's harder to see. Consider the observability of, say, an underground bunker in the woods, versus the excavation crew digging out that bunker. It's really obvious that something is happening with a vast array of machines cutting up the ground, pouring concrete, etc, but once built... there's just a little entrance hole, everything else is covered. In this case, for instance, someone would need to at least get to the sun via ship, depending on how big the structure is it'd take multiple trips to gather materials, and (hardish) starship engines tend to be extremely noticable. Presumably they'd also need some kind of shield while setting up, there might be more sudden and noticeable changes (in the same way it's easier to spot a moving animal than one sitting still), etc, etc. So it may be saying that while the construct is now well hidden, it's building should have been obvious, which suggests that it was built before humanity could readily observe such things.
Isn't the photosphere opaque? This would be more like something buried than something orbiting. And an object left inside the photosphere would come to the same temperature as it, and so it will glow pretty much the same way. (Any material we know about wouldn't remain solid at that temperature, but presumably the aliens have solved that problem somehow.) It would definitely be much harder to spot the finished object than it would be to spot active construction of it. That said, part of the job of sci-fi is to explain this sort of thing so that a lay reader doesn't see contradictions, whether those contradictions are real or not. The fact that we can figure out explanations for the science doesn't excuse the writing.
I haven't got far enough into the book to find the explanations for that, it just stood out that those two sentences were so close together. Also, wouldn't the things building the thing be even smaller than the thing itself and so even less likely to be noticed?
Nope. Large objects are often built in bigger structures, so that there's a stable platform for workers and tools on every side. Buildings often have scaffolds around them during construction, for example. Also, the construction process would hopefully not be literally inside the sun, or at least not inside it the entire time, which would also make it easier to spot.
Soooorrta. The photosphere is opaque in the same way that molten glass is opaque - it's actually transparent, but is itself a source of light that tends to drown out anything passing through it. In fact, the photosphere is defined as 'the portion of a star that is transparent to visible light'.
I'm not entirely sure on the distinction, but do aliens living on the sun count as "hard sci-fi" at all? I was under the impression that term referred to fiction about things extracted from legitimate current scientific theories.
Okay, the book has possibly failed to understand how the sun works at all. I think radiation is a somewhat larger problem than convection here.
Possibly. You're generally permitted one or two big digressions from real-world science... and in any event, you might be able to pull of something with magnets (so the plasma doesn't actually touch your base), ultra-high temperature ceramics, and a really good cooling system. I'm not actually sure, but the quoted bit is entirely true. I'm not actually sure about the second bit, but I suspect radiated heat would be a bigger long-term problem but convection a greater short term problem.
Psst can't find the game of thrones thread, where's a good place to pirate them safely? I want to wait to buy them when the last book comes out and I can save a smidge by getting the set. Hopefully if he dies first they'll publish what he has posthumously :P
Most jarring world-building ever: a sex scene in the first chapter containing the line "Make me explode like a monk lost in the Haunted Uplands getting surprised by a ghost." ... What?
Now I’m just imagining a whole book where every bit of worldbuilding is done that way. Hang on lemme try: “Her breasts were like the burial mounds of the ancient Lemurians—larger than strictly necessary for their purpose, but aesthetically pleasing.” ...nailed it.
