Дуглас Адамс опять :)

[kibirov]

"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see ..."

"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"

"No," said Ford,[...] "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said Ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."

----
Эх, осталось сто страниц, точней, сто телефонных экранов, и что я потом буду читать - ума не приложу...

Comments

[bitty2002.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read Frank Herbert's Dune series? I don't know how difficult the language is, I personally have never read the books, but it is one of my favorite sci-fi movies and my dad's favorite books. The plot, however, is quite complex, so...

1984 by George Orwell is also a classic, again, never read it myself, sorry, so can't say for sure. I have heard mixed reviews, some hate it, some love it.

And while you could have done this yourself, lol, I found this link of some ranked Sci-fi classics. http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/Lists/ByRank.php
OR
http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/Lists/OtherLists.html

By the way, somewhat unrelated, because this book probably would not make good cell phone reading, but a semi-classic, in my opinion, is Lois Lowry's The Giver. Now this is for young adults, BUT it was the first novel I read that made me stop and think and analyze. It was full of meaning, which I think you might enjoy.

[kibirov.livejournal.com]

Oh, Orwell's "1984" impressed me very much, I read it in Russian, even in two different translations :) Good idea, thank you, it would be interesting to read it in English.
"Dune" by Frank Herbert was stronly recommended to me by some friends, but I had not read it even in Russian, I don't know why...
And thank you for these links, they reminded me a lot of authors and books I would like to read or re-read in English... But the question is - can I find any of these books as a file? If yes - how can I do that?
For example, we have a large online library www.lib.ru - lots of books in Russian... Classical literature, modern literature (only by author's permission), foreign - in translations, so on. Do you have some similar web-resources?

[bitty2002.livejournal.com]

I can look around for you. My university has some classics online that I can access with my student ID, and maybe I can surf the web to see if I can find anything. Any titles interest you specifically?

[bitty2002.livejournal.com]

Hmm, maybe that is harder than it looks to find. How did you find the file for Hitchhiker's Guide? Of course, you can get just about anything if you are willing to pay, lol.

[kibirov.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is quite hard, I know... I just hoped that there are some English resources unknown for me.
I found Hitchhiker's Guide several years ago at www.lib.ru, but now those links are dead: lib.ru has deleted lots of English texts recently - because of some copyright problems, I think.

Well, anyway, that's not so urgent: I forgot that I have some files with Kurt Vonnegut's books :) But if you find some English online recources similar with lib.ru - please tell me, it would be very interesting :)

[bitty2002.livejournal.com]

I have no idea if this link has anything of interest. I noticed it has some fairy tales, if that sort of cultural thing interests you... Supposedly this has sci-fi online books, can't say any are good or famous though.

http://www.hourwolf.com/sfbooks/

[kibirov.livejournal.com]

Wow!
So many links!!! :)
Thank you very much, very interesting and useful collection, that's what I tried to find for so long time :)

[kibirov.livejournal.com]

Oh, look, I found a very interesting link in this collection:
http://www.literature.org
Not a huge archive, but very useful, I think... Thank you again :)

[kibirov.livejournal.com]

Oops, another useful link:
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/library/classic_scifi.shtml
Herbert, Bester, Zelazny... and even "Hitchhiker's Guide" ;)

To collect all the links in one place

[kibirov.livejournal.com]

Funny library:
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/library/index.shtml
Lots of pdf books, mostly technical, but not only:
http://ebook.irdesigner.com/index.php?cat=1

[kibirov.livejournal.com]

Just to let you know: I sent 2 emails to you, long and short, they didn't bounce back yet, but who knows :)

And, well, I finally found the book I want to read in English RIGHT NOW :) It is "A Scanner Darkly" by Philip K. Dick, it was one of my favourite novels since the middle of 90-s when I read the translation in our literary magazine "Yunost'". Very strange and surreal (even for P.K.Dick!) novel about drug dependence, and very close to real life at the same time: I know a lot of similar people and stories, alas. I can give you the link if you need - I found it due to this your comment, so thank you very much again :)