Revelations? You must mean suppositions. This is a work of speculative fiction.

Revelations? You must mean suppositions. This is a work of speculative fiction.

I know of no reason why the word 'revelation' or 'revelations' cannot be used in this context. Perhaps you should consult a dictionary before posting comments that seem deliberately offensive. For the record, any work, print or visual, fiction or non-fiction can incorporate a structure in which ideas (or even 'suppositions') are 'revealed'. Referring to those as 'revelations' is perfectly valid within the modern english language. Seriously. It's not as if the article's author employed the conceit of referring to this books big idea as a 'Revelation' with-a-capital-R. One can only hope that you don't have issues with the use of the words 'genesis' or 'kings' or 'numbers' as well. Then again, for the sake of avoiding hypocrisy, maybe you should.

Good job, Malquidis. In short Manos, of course all fiction is arguably "speculative". But once you get past that conceit, non-dunderheads grant that one can suppose a revelation within a fictional world, allowing an author to "speculate" on the impact of that revelation.

I mean, by your logic, fans of the Star Wars saga were blown away by the "speculation" that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father. As the great Gob of Arrested Development would say, come on!

Maybe there should be a basic intelligence test to allow comments on this site.

Get a life, people! Manos simply suggested that a word was used incorrectly. Why does something as simple as that open him up to the vehement, insulting comments that followed? How is Manos's post "deliberately offensive?" Why call the writer a "dunderhead" and question his intelligence?

Or perhaps I'm mistaken in believing these posts are provided for people to offer their opinions and have discussions on the topics provided. Perhaps instead of a "basic intelligence test to allow comments on this site", someone should institute a basic maturity and civility test for people who insult anyone who does not agree with their viewpoint.

Thanks for discussing a new book I had not heard of. I would love to see Scifiwire do A LOT more book commentaries/reviews - or simply suggested readings. I love to read scifi, but I seem to have trouble discovering good books on my own. I have ended up with many duds lately.

Perhaps Manos would be willing to clarify his (or her) statement. If I misread his (or her)implication, than I am willing to apologize to him (or her). Whether I misread the implication or not, I DO apologize for being insulting. I too, am a hypocrite.

Hamberleigh- if that was all that was suggested, there would be no problem, but the third sentence in the post by Manos is indicitive that there is more to it than that.

Had Manos commented on the concept of Nancy Kress's book, even from the point of view of a specific belief system, even to the point of claiming the premise is invalid from the point of view of that belief system, I would not have taken offense. Whether I agreed with the comments or not, my own personal beliefs teach me that Manos is enititled to an opinion,and to speak it.

However, what I took from Manos's post was the implication that the only valid use of the word 'revelation' is in reference to the book in the Christian Bible. I actually was offended by the apparent suggestion that somehow the word was off limits to use in reference to anything other than that book, or at least to anything fictional. My own religious beliefs aside, I found that attitude presumptuous and insulting. Especially considering that Manos was nitpicking the choice of words used by the reviewer, and not the author or the book being reviewed.

While I believe in a person's right to an opinion, and their right to speak it, I cannot accept such attempts to impose one's dogma upon others.

Malquidis: To what third post are you referring? There are only 2 posts made by Manos on this message board, and they are both replicas of the same single line comment. Was there a 3rd post removed by Sci Fi Wire?
If so, they need to replace it to clarify any misunderstandings. But I would like to point out that someone stating their opinion is not an "attempt to impose one's dogma upon others." If it is, then are you not, by criticizing someone's beliefs, attempting to impose YOUR dogma on them?
Again, as of 9:52 Central time, there is no 3rd post on this message board by Manos.

Caps used for clarification only. Not yelling :)

>>"Hamberleigh- if that was all that was suggested, there would be no problem, but the third SENTENCE in the post by Manos is indicitive that there is more to it than that.
"

As to the question of whether I am trying to impose my dogma on others, I suppose that's relative. From my point of view, I am attempting to defend my right to not have words, terms, and modes of expression dictated or limited by others. I am not trying to tell anyone that they must do or not do a particular thing, I am just trying to defend the rights of myself and others to do something that outside of a particular belief system (or dogma), causes no harm, and requires no correction.

Still, I should take my own advice. Manos- you are, of course, entitled to your opinion (not that you needed me to tell you that, or even to acknowledge it for it to be true). I offer a full and unqualified contraction of my statements, and I apologize.

I wish you all Peace, Happiness, Liberty and Life.

On a completely separate note, does anyone else have problems posting, where after you have written your post, you are told to try again because the captcha text you entered was wrong, even though it should have matched?

Scifiwire- if I'm not the only one experiencing this, maybe the timeout on the Captcha image needs to be extended a little.

Malquidis-

Yep, I just hade the same problem with Captcha.

Wall of text. Did not read.

Anybody read the book yet?

hemberleigh, you're way off the mark. Manos's objection to the use of "revelation" in this discussion can only stem from the his or her "understanding" that that the review author was claiming some sort of theological or otherwise "reality" based revelation was being made. Please, how is that _not_ stupid? I'd love to hear you explain how there's room in a SCIENCE FICTION forum for "tolerance" of the belief that the word "revelation" is somehow inappropriate when discussion the plot of a work of "speculative fiction".

You may have some ground to claim for respect for religious differences; but manos did not claim he or she was troubled by any theological implications of the novel. But the writer did not say, "the implications of this work are theological troubling, but my faith assures me this is nothing but fiction far removed from the revealed truth of my lord and savior" or whatever. Rather he or she simply, and wrongly, corrected the author's word usage.

When you introduce a comment into an online venue, you are tacitly inviting dialogue. Manos did so without really comprehending the review, if you ask me. I apologize for expecting basic reading comprehension skills to also be tacitly assumed when commenting in an online venue. I would love to see you, hemberleigh, explain to me why the good faith I assume in my interlocutors violates the social contract of public discourse.

I've also had problems with the captcha text.

Oh, my God! Whoever wrote this article, you have abruptly won my respect. I thought I was the only person around (Besides Paul Murphy and my friend Sarah) who have actually sat down and read The Man who fell to Earth by Walter Tevis. I LOVE that novel. The film... eh... not so much (Though David Bowie played Newton perfectly). But I adore that book.

Okay, after reading the other comments here...

1. The word revelation was not misused. We were told very clearly that this is a work of fiction so it's a revelation in regard to the story and has nothing to do with any 'real revelation.' I don't see why the writer of this article would have had to put in brackets 'The shocking revelation (within the FICTION of this story)' to be non-offensive. That's quibbling.

2. 'On a completely separate note, does anyone else have problems posting, where after you have written your post, you are told to try again because the captcha text you entered was wrong, even though it should have matched'

Yes. This seems to happen if you take more than five minutes to write your post. It's some sort of bug in the system. I just copy my post to clip board, re-open scifiwire's main page, go back to the article and re-paste my comment and it's fine.

PS, I am still impressed this critic referenced The Man who fell to Earth by Walter Tevis. I thought I was relatively alone in loving that novel. Besides a few of my select friends, most of which I had to persuade to read it...

This, strangely, was probably the most intriguing thing posted on Scifi wire's new format, thus far. Well done!

Thanks for this review. I love her writing and hadn't realized she had a new book out.

Well...ahem...this thing went off the rails rather quickly...

Of course, I'm not really contributing anything to the on top discussion or the digression discussion in my comment. Just chiming in five days after the last comment which brought the thread on topic. One may wonder why I would bother digging up this thread since there's plenty of spite going back and forth to mock in more recent entries ... the only possible conclusion of course is recognizing I am a weirdo of high tool caliber.

Thanks for the review of "Steal across the sky", I'm very interested in reading that book now.

I thought STEAL... was tremendous. (But maybe I'm prejudiced--Nancy was my writing teacher in Brockport.)

A =killer= last sentence!

I actually disliked this book quite a bit. I found the plot to be clumsy and full of gaping holes. The characters were boring and unlikeable. I distrusted the narrartor because I often felt at times that the author was using the narrator and trying too hard to tell her readers her thoughts about crap when she should have been telling a story. And I'm not talking about interesting ruminations either. Random silly ones that made the narrator come off as a catty woman.

I felt that there was a blatant attack on attractive sexual women in this book. Before anyone makes any assumptions, I am a woman of average looks with feminist tendencies. The one character that I could relate to in this book happened to be described as being attractive and sexual. To me, she was the only one whose emotions and motivations made any sense - everyone else seemed so contrived, pompous and generally ridiculous. Throughout the book, every character dislikes this attractive sexual woman for various ridiculous reasons. It's been a little while since I read it but if I remember correctly, one character looks at her for the first time and immediately assumes that she's stupid. I didn't like that. At times, I even felt that the narrator disliked her. Sorry, I like my narrators to stay neutral, thanks very much.

I'd have no problem with this if there was a purpose to the narrator playing favorites. But if this was intentional, then Kress did a poor job of illuminating that.

All in all, I think it's a pretty poor book. The "twist" at the end, to me, was not good. It made me feel like I had wasted time. And I'm pretty sure it made me say, "Really...? That's it?" outloud at the end.