'Underneath'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
So I remember reading a sci-fi book many years ago where the plot was that an alien race planned to exterminate human beings, but refrained because "there's only one of [them]" -- all human consciousness was connected into one, like in a jellyfish or slime mold but on a larger scale.
Does anyone have any idea what this was? I mentioned it to my husband recently, and he thinks I'm insane. Thanks.
Does anyone have any idea what this was?
Ummmm . . . . By the end of the Forever saga by Haldeman, they were, but, um, nope.
Does anyone have any idea what this was?
Rings a bell, but it's kind of the plot of the Alpha Centauri computer game, so I may be confused.
It sounds like a cross between The Puppet Masters and Childhood's End.
Move it along...nothing to see here (thanks Steph!)
Sophia, I think you meant that for a different thread.
Hmmm. I did read Childhood's End. How close is that to the scenario I'm describing, Jess?
Well, humankind does evolve into a singular consciousness, but there are no plans to exterminate us (the aliens are there mostly to watch, and make sure we evolve like we're supposed to), and the quote doesn't ring a bell.
(And people who've read it more recently than I have, please correct me if my details are fuzzy. I found the book too disturbing to read more than once.)
I'm reading Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945. by Field Marshall Viscount Slim. (He was Governor-General of Australia in the 50s). It's one of the assigned readings for my husband's Masters program, but it's really pretty good! It's not a brave-men-standing-tall sort of war book; it's more about leadership. It's the analysis, written shortly after the fact, by FM Slim of what he did well, what he did poorly, what mistakes he made, and how the British army fared strategically. Very readable.
This amused me: Following a battle, there's about 600 dead Japanese that they have to bury. Ghurkas are assigned to body detail. As one Ghurka is dragging a body, the body moves! The Japanese soldier is still alive. the Ghurka draws his knife, but the British officer on the scene says, "Hey now, Johnny - we can't kill him!"
The Ghurka replies, "But sir - we can't bury him alive."
Field Marshall Viscount Slim
What an awesome name! That dude needs to have a rap album immediately.