From my odd
perspective, I've found these4 short stories to be useful for youngsters,
possibly.
Science fiction.
1--'What Was the
Name of That Town,' by R. A. Lafferty. By going through a series of questions
about seemingly unrelated cultural evidence, a man discovers that Chicago (it
wasn't in the encyclopedias anymore--there was a gap) had been destroyed by a
nuclear accident (the name of the young of a bear was no longer around either)
and that someone had also forgotten that he had invented a machine to do so.
[This is a small scale 'Man in the High
Castle
2--'Jerry Was A
Man,' by Heinlein. A very interesting lawyer orchestrates the court case
that shows that the enhanced intelligence chimpanzee is what thetitle says--he
sings 'Way Down Upon the Swanee River' as the climax of his appearance in
court.
3--'Gulf,' by
Heinlein. I think these may be in the same collection. Written in
1948, shows barcodes in standard use. I've seen no response to the
linguistic theories presented here, which purport to expand intelligence by
using phonemes for each of 500 Osgood and Osgood basic words in any language,
so a word is a sentence. Pitch, etc. expand communication possibilities.
Two secret agents vow while dying--true speech.
4--My favorite of
the 4. 'Brownshoes'. also known as 'The Man Who Learned Loving'.
A hippie discovers free energy. How does he get power to the
people, and what price does he pay?
Bonus: A novel,
based on the work that was voted the greatest trilogy in SF history. [You know
that the Golden Age of science fiction is 12, right?] This 'In the Country of
the Blind' is by Michael Flynn. Get a version that has his charts and
graphs in the back. A melanin-blessed woman real estate inventor tracks
down a secret group that uses mathematics to understand society, and finds
other groups who are secret also, but who are manipulating. In the end,
she finds love also, and the mathematicians are in a musical jam session.
Based on Asimov's (signed Humanist Manifesto) Foundation trilogy.
If there are enough humans, they are subject to sociological equations.
Deep discussion after this could get one into things such as ERH's
mathematics for Waters Under, words for Earth Beneath, names for Heavens above.
Another bonus:
You can get all of ERH's lectures in English in transcript for $30. Buy
the DVD that has his SPOKEN lectures at Dartmouth Israel , Greece
Love in King Jesus,
Charlie 'Chuck'
Hartman
PS: These are CHEAP
too!
PPS: A list of online resources might be useful to have
also. Twentyfive25WebsitesThatMakeYouLookLikeAGenius
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