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Author
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Comment
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Otherworld
Registered User
(10/4/05 6:49 pm)
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Re: Also...
Cortez managed to overthrow the aztecs for many reasons but one of the main ones was that he came out of the east on a date that was ment to mark the end of the/their world
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(10/4/05 9:28 pm)
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Re: Also...
Eh, he also brought some serious new illnesses with him as well as superior firepower. I'd put more emphasis on those.
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bluevelvetfaerie
Unregistered User
(10/4/05 11:52 pm)
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the end...
IMO, while containing no humor, one of the best end-of-the-world films is The Last Wave. Here's a little piece of the blurb from a review:
"...an odyssey involving strange natural occurrences in downtown Sydney, the Aboriginal concept of "dream time," and what seems to the end of the world as we know it."
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(10/5/05 7:30 pm)
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Flayed princess
One of the big reasons the Aztecs lost was they had pissed off so many of the peoples they had conquered. There's a story about how a Toltec king (imperial predecessors and oh-so-much more civilized, the barbarian Aztecs having just recently come out of the desert) sent his daughter to the Aztec king presuming the latter would marry her and feel most honored. When the Toltec king went to visit his daughter, he was greeted by the priest of one of the Aztec gods, dancing in the princess' flayed skin. Papa not happy.
There's a somewhat magical-realist short story by a Mexican woman writer whose name has escaped me called "It's The Fault of The Tlaxcaltecas." The title refers to one of the indigenous groups crucial to Cortez' conquest of Mexico.
Oh, and end-of-the-world stories: Sherman Alexei has one in THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO FISTFIGHT IN HEAVEN. I think it's called "Distances"?? It's definitely influenced by sf-nal post-apocalyptic tropes: everyone dies except the Indians left on reservations. Even the Indians who had moved to town come back only to die.
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PWCatanese
Registered User
(10/6/05 8:21 am)
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Re: A strange request: Looking for a particular type of stor
I recall reading an old but good sci-fi story involving an astrophysicist who has a theory about the existence of a 'central sun' in the center of the universe, billions of light-years away. Basically it's a mega-star so enormous that its light will bake anything it touches...and according to his calculations, the light will arrive...let's see...Oh. Tomorrow. Darn.
Can't recall the title but I could find it if anyone's desperate to know.
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Eien
Unregistered User
(10/6/05 1:56 pm)
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Sure.
Why not, I'd like to know the name.
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PWCatanese
Registered User
(10/13/05 7:08 am)
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Re: Sure.
I found that story title:
finis, by Frank Lillie Pollock
It's an early end-of-the-world story, from 1906. Dated but effective. I have it in an old collection of sci-fi stories. It's in these anthologies:
Great Tales of Science Fiction, ed. Robert Silverberg & Martin H. Greenberg, A&W/Galahad 1985
The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories, ed. Tom Shippey, Oxford University Press 1992
But after a quick search, I found the story itself on the web! You can read it here -- it's not very long:
www.geocities.com/athens/.../finis.htm
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