{"id":145,"date":"2011-07-19T01:42:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-19T01:42:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2016-01-01T19:57:20","modified_gmt":"2016-01-01T19:57:20","slug":"reaching-into-the-discards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/2011\/07\/19\/reaching-into-the-discards\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaching into the discards"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was but a wee lad – I think 4th or 5th grade… probably 4th, I read this book: Trillions, by Nicholas Fisk.<\/p>\n

\"Trillions\"<\/div>\n

Years later I would think about this book as the first science fiction I’d read with a sense of wonder and I recall that I was impressed with myself for having read it.<\/p>\n

\"CheckoutSlip\"
\nA couple months ago I got the idea to find the book and read it to my kids who were finishing 1st and 4th grades at the time.\u00a0 I found it used – on Amazon, I think it was – an old library discard that had the ever classic checkout slip in a pocket in back that each person would sign when checking out of the library.<\/p>\n

The book was still exciting for a kid to hear, but I found it an extremely vague and unsatisfying to read as an adult.\u00a0 And even my kids felt like it was super unclear what was going on at the end.\u00a0\u00a0 The concept at the heart of the story was good – sand sized creatures from another planet that could combine with each other to form any shape – but the execution was choppy and felt really unfinished.\u00a0 I give it a thumbs down as a story overall.\u00a0 In retrospect, it was an awkward intro to SF, and I get now that I couldn’t recall the complete story because the story didn’t hold together very well.<\/p>\n

The redeeming thing for me was holding and revisiting a memory and recalling the Silver Springs elementary school classroom in Northville where I headed into the SF story realm.\u00a0 And, as I just re-listened to the Douglas Adams, Restaurant at the End of the Universe audiobook, I think the Trillian character had extra resonance because of this book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was but a wee lad – I think 4th or 5th grade… probably 4th, I read this book: Trillions, by Nicholas Fisk. Years later I would think about this book as the first science fiction I’d read with a sense of wonder and I recall that I was impressed with myself for having… Continue reading Reaching into the discards<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75BYE-2l","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16,"url":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/2009\/04\/17\/thinking-differently-about-books\/","url_meta":{"origin":145,"position":0},"title":"thinking differently about books","date":"April 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In the past few years, I've noticed I had been considering books a burden of promises.Though books by themselves don't make any promises, I have been using them as a sort of lifeline to the future: that I'll read that book, and some magic will happen, like I'll know some\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":99,"url":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/2006\/03\/17\/the-coaxed-emergence-of-the-internet-of-things\/","url_meta":{"origin":145,"position":1},"title":"the coaxed emergence of the Internet of Things","date":"March 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"interesting read over at WorldChanging. RFID Viruses: A WC PerspectiveIf your refrigerator is on the Internet, somebody's going to try to write a virus for it.And I'm in the middle of enjoying Bruce Sterling's perspective-inducing speech at South by Southwest.(and last night I read the speech he gave at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":73,"url":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/2007\/06\/14\/can-has-quik-reference\/","url_meta":{"origin":145,"position":2},"title":"Can Has Quik Reference?","date":"June 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The O'RLY book made me cry with laughter.KTHXBYE","rel":"","context":"In "lolcat lolcode"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":118,"url":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/2005\/02\/19\/for-sale-from-a-shelf-in-my-house\/","url_meta":{"origin":145,"position":3},"title":"for sale, from a shelf in my house","date":"February 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"a new pattern - to have a location on my bookshelf for items that are up for sale on amazon.com. Instead of packing books into a bag to take to a used book shop, they wait on my shelf to be sold...","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":162,"url":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/2009\/12\/18\/partially-designable-society\/","url_meta":{"origin":145,"position":4},"title":"partially designable society","date":"December 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Partially designable society. Partially designable systems. Embodied and practiced culture tends to resist design. I'm sure there are philosophers and social scientists that say this quite eloquently.But opportunities are always presenting themselves for partial modifications.I still need to read Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":64,"url":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/2007\/11\/11\/status\/","url_meta":{"origin":145,"position":5},"title":"status","date":"November 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"13hrs of billable work to do before tomorrowonly 703 steps on my pedometer so far today (it's 11:55am)40 emails in inbox (dating to Aug 7th 2007)89 written to do items (very mixed granularity)1\/2 ft of paper in paper inbox28 people in my \"to write to\" email folder707 entries in my\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210,"href":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heartwoodcollective.com\/infolantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}