From: EvMick@aol.com
Date: Tue Jun 30 1998 - 23:30:41 MDT
Today I was traveling eastbound on Interstate thirty in Texas and I passed a
"Books a Million" on the right hand side of the interstate near the state line
in Texarkana. Cursory examination at sixty miles per hour revealed that it
was eighteen wheeler accessable so I pulled in.
I was running low on books.
Immediately acquiring a cup of overpriced coffee (hazelnut from the yuppie
coffe salon)...I begin to browse the stacks. Since I was time limited I only
looked into the Science Fiction and The Science and Technology shelves. Which
didn't take very long.
Happily this was one of the few stores that I've seen that seperates the
Science Fiction from the Trekkie stuff AND from the blatant fantasy (elves,
swords, dragons and such drivel) Unhappily the drivel outnumbered the Science
Fiction by probably two to one.
Still...I managed to find a couple of books...including one by Peter Hamilton.
I looked for Banks but to no avail
It took quiet a search to find the Science section...it was so tiny. I doubt
there were fifty books all told. Even so I managed to acquire on that looks
interesting. "Visions" by Michio Kaku.
But I also got angry. (not an uncommon occurance for me...my "contempt"
runneth over all too often.
There...sitting next to the Feynman lectures on Physics....was the
"Quickening" by Art Bell.
I couldn't let this slide and after some reflection I went and complained to
the manager. I told him that it would be no less insulting to put say...the
Bible in his Girlie Book section (I dunno if he even had one...but I was
digging for a comparison)...I told him that "The Quickening" had no more to do
with Science than Tinkerbell had to do with astrophysics.
He was somewhat taken aback and seemed suprised that I should be upset. I
further told him that there were probably five or six stacks devoted to such
nonsense and only one or two SHELVES devoted to Science...so I'd appreciate it
if it were kept "pure"...and not contaminated with such nonsense.
He told me the classification came from "corporate".
It figures. A college degree can do wonders.
EvMick
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