#William Niven

[addictivecontradiction]

American Graffiti, 1973

#comedy #drama #american graffiti #george lucas #gloria katz #willard huyck #charles martin smith #william niven #excuses

[americaisthetrueoldworld]

The Naga-Maya Civilized the Egyptians

The Naga-Maya civilized the Egyptians is a necessary post to prove to Pan-Africans that it is not all about Africa. Hopefully, this post will help Pan-Africans to realize that the people that they love and worship as Egyptians learnt their science, tech, and way of life from the Naga-Maya of the Americas. In this post are some similarities between the Naga-Maya (Mayans) and the Egyptians. Who is…

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#america is the old world #Ancient Canaan #ancient Egyptians #Atlantis #Augustus Le Plongeon. #canaanites #Carthage #Kabah #Lost Continent of Mu #Maat #Mayans #Mayas #Naga-Maya #Phoenicians #Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx #Teotihuacan #The Kaaba #the Kaba #Thoth #William Niven #Yucatan Peninsula

[simon-roy]

The idea of logging on a colonized alien planet brings my mind back to the planet Lalonde from Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn books - a world that had very hard wood as its only meaningful export, and was also stuck developing its economy from agriculturalism (due to investment shortages, though).

All this is to say - Hey! What are some foundational inspirations for your sci fi verse? You gotta have some like recommendations of classic or older sci-fi for us, right? What are some of your suggestions of books and authors to read?

OK SO - My sci-fi tastes have sort of ended up in some very specific niches. Growing up, I was a Larry Niven +Jerry Pournelle man, in part because my dad amassed a huge collection of their books - then gave 90% of them away before i was old enough to read them. So one of my teenage missions was rebuilding that library, trash and all!

Stuff like Footfall, Ringworld, Gil "The Arm" Hamilton, Protector (yes i attempted to name a comic series similarly, and paid for it) "The Mote in God's Eye"... you name it, I read fuckloads of these books. And while they tend to land on a sort of human chauvinist "mankind will win based on his inherent adaptive human-ness, and the aliens will fail because of their rigid alien-ness", this shit was very foundational to me.

Their more collaborative series, The Man-Kzin Wars and War World, also loom large in my teenage mind. The Man-Kzin wars are super fun - humans meet a race of tiger-men, and go from being NWO peaceniks to roughneck cat-skinners in a generation! PEACE AND LOVE WONT DEFEAT TIGER MEN!

Similarly, war world (like lots of that 70s/80s military sci fi) was a sort of catch-all for western military nerds to play with their favorite factions - it was a planet where all the un-ruleable ethnic groups and nationalities had been deported by the authoritarian earth government, and left to rot... until a race of genetically engineered fascist super men land on the world, and start trying to rule the place. Pretty fun shit.

As I got older, I turned hard into William Gibson, and read the absolute shit out of both the Neuromancer trilogy and the Bridge trilogy, as well as his short stories. Bruce Sterling was part of that wave for me, too, and I religiously sought his old paperbacks out too. In terms of novels, "Distraction" is my favorite coherent Sterling Novel - though the short stories in the "Schismatrix" novel/collection of his remain my absolute favorite space opera pieces.

At this age, too, I found my top-top fave Sterling Stories - "Taklaman" and "Bicycle Repairman", both gritty pseudo-cyberpunk stories of the highest degree, in this collection:

This thousand-plus page collection of short stories and novellas was basically my bible for a few years - i put sticky notes on each story i loved and meant to return to, until the book was so festooned with sticky note bookmarks i abandoned the practice altogether. If you have the chance, just buy this book and chew on it for a few years.

As i got into my 20s, Charles Stross became my lode star - his books like Accelerando and Glasshouse were total game changers for me. They come with their own peculiarities, but I loved his transhuman/posthuman musings (or at least i was obsessed with his stuff for a good few years - the venn diagram of his obvious interests and my own overlapped enough that his books were great fodder for a growing sci-fi loving brain).

But since then, my main literary squeeze has been the great man, JACK VANCE. Working on Prophet, my friend @cmkosemen made a remark about how much the early issues of the series reminded him of a book series called "Planet of Adventure" or "the Tschai Cycle", by Jack Vance. The book has a beautifully simple setup - a man from an entirely undescribed spacefaring human civilization crash-lands onto a weird planet. But on that planet, he finds four separate civilizations, each who possess a population of enslaved humans, culturally and physically molded to the needs of their masters. And each book of this series covers our generic hero's interactions with each bizarre expoitative culture. I was extremely intrigued.

Soon thereafter, I found my current absolute favorite book - "THE DRAGON MASTERS". A book about an isolated medieval world... which gets visited, once every few generations, by a black pyramid starship, flown by a reptilian race known as the Greph. The greph capture humans to (surprise surprise) breed them into hyper specific slaves... who in turn become Greph-like in their thinking and demeanours. But the last time the BLACK PYRAMID landed, a bunch of angry medieval dudes stormed the thing, blew it up, and captured a bunch of greph... who became the breeding stock for a whole new human world of slave labour. By the time we meet this planet, the two rival lords of the human-populated regions have been breeding greph slave warriors, or "dragons", for generations, for combat against one another. But soon, the black pyramid will return...

I love this book I even spent a good few months during covid talking with the Vance Estate and several publishers about developing it into a graphic novel, but nobody could quite agree on how it could get made with old Simon getting a paycheque... so sadly it fell apart. There are concept drawings floating around my patreon and other corners of the internet. But one day I'll use 'em...

My other favorite books of his, to name a couple of the MANY books of his I love:

THE BLUE WORLD: A caste system of humans, descended from a crashed prison ship, live on floating settlements on an ocean planet, paying protection to a giant long-lived intelligent crustacean. But one man is tired of giving up all his crops to this tyrannical megafauna...

THE MIRACLE WORKERS: Rival lords on a planet descended to medieval tech (surprise surprise) fight using armies... and rival SORCERORS who employ the powers of suggestion to voodoo each others' warriors... but when facing non-human intelligences, these sorceror's skills fall short.

But there are heaps more, and I love most (thought not all) of the ones i've read. They're generally short, concise, and full of all sorts of bizarre bullshit.

THere are more books i've read and enjoyed in my life, of course, but these are the core ones that I think of when I think of my career as a sci-fi reader... let me know what your top recs are!

#sciencefiction #science fiction #book recommendations #jack vance #larry niven #jerry pournelle #simon roy #griz grobus #charles stross #dragon masters #william gibson #bruce sterling

[dynamitekansai]

WWE NXT HALLOWEEN HAVOC WEEK 2 (October 31, 2023)

#wrestling #wwe #wwe nxt #nxt #nxt halloween havoc #carmelo hayes #trick williams #ilja dragunov #akira tozawa #creed brothers #ivy nile #meta four #rhea ripley #dominik mysterio #the judgement day #wes lee #chelsea green #piper niven #isla dawn #alba fyre #chase u #jacy jayne #thea hail #long post

[citizenscreen]

During rehearsal of the “Lux Radio Theatre” presentation of "My Man Godfrey” in 1938, David Niven, Carole Lombard, William Powell, Gail Patrick and program host Cecil B. DeMille.

#david niven #carole lombard #william powell #gail patrick #cecil b demille

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

#Casino Royale #Peter Sellers #Ursula Andress #David Niven #Woody Allen #Ronnie Corbett #Joanna Pettet #Orson Welles #Daliah Lavi #Deborah Kerr #William Holden #Charles Boyer #Jean-Paul Belmondo #George Raft #John Huston #Terence Cooper #Barbara Bouchet #Gabriella Licudi #Graham Stark #Tracy Reed #Tracey Crisp #Kurt Kasznar #Elaine Taylor #Angela Scoular #Ken Hughes #Robert Parrish #Joe McGrath #Val Guest #1967

[streetsofdublin]

A QUICK VISIT TO IVEAGH GARDENS

Designed by Ninian Niven in 1865, but with a history dating back over three hundred years, the Iveagh Gardens are located close to St Stephen’s Green Park in Dublin city centre.

A LITTLE KNOWN PUBLIC PARK JUNE 2023 Iveagh Gardens has been awarded a Green flag 2022-2023 which is an international bench marking standard for parks and green spaces. Designed by Ninian Niven in 1865, but with a history dating back over three hundred years, the Iveagh Gardens are located close to St Stephen’s Green Park in Dublin city centre.From modest beginnings as an earl’s lawn, the…

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#Canon 5DIII #close to St Stephen’s Green Park #Dublin Exhibition Palace in 1865 #Fotonique #fountains #Infomatique #Iveagh Gardens #Ninian Niven #Public Park #rosarium #William Murphy #yew maze

[sasa-chan]

Casino Royale (1967)

Starring:

David Niven, Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, Woody Allen, Joanna Pettet, Orson Welles, Daliah Lavi, George Raft, Deborah Kerr, William Holden, Charles Boyer, Jean-Paul Belmondo, John Huston, Terence Cooper, Barbara Bouchet, Gabriella Licudi, Graham Stark, Tracy Reed, Tracey Crisp, Kurt Kasznar, Elaine Taylor, Angela Scoular

Directed By:

John Huston, Ken Hughes, Robert Parrish, Joe McGrath, Val Guest

Genre:

Comedy

Rating:

Not Rated

Run Time:

2 Hours 17 Minutes

Release Date:

13 April 1967 (London)

28 April 1967 (United States)

Synopsis:

This wacky send-up of James Bond films stars David Niven as the iconic debonair spy, now retired and living a peaceful existence. Bond is called back into duty when the mysterious organization SMERSH begins assassinating British secret agents. Ridiculous circumstances lead to the involvement of a colorful cast of characters, including the villainous Le Chiffre (Orson Welles), seasoned gambler Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers) and Bond's bumbling nephew, Jimmy Bond (Woody Allen).

#27 days of james bond #007 #27 days of 007 #james bond #james bond 007 #day 06 #casino royale #david niven #peter sellers #ursula andress #woody allen #joanna pettet #orson welles #daliah lavi #george raft #deborah kerr #william holden #charles boyer #jean paul belmondo #john huston #terence cooper #barbara bouchet #gabriella licudi #graham stark #tracy reed #kurt kasznar #ken hughes #val guest #joe mcgrath #robert parrish

[hallmark-movie-fanatics]

Chesapeake Shores

Season 6, Episode 10 ‘All or Nothing at All’ - Series Finale

photo preview 5 of 5

#chesapeake shores #s6 e10 all or nothing at all #hallmark channel #photo preview #barbara niven #treat williams #meghan ory #robert buckley #laci j mailey #carlo marks #emilie ullerup #stephen huszar #andrew francis #brendan penny #jessica sipos #hallmark original series #season 6

[hotvintagepoll]

Congrats to the ultimate winner of the Hot & Vintage Movie Men Tournament, Mr. Toshiro Mifune! May he live happily and well where the sun always shines, enjoying the glories of a battle hard fought.

A loving farewell to all of our previous contestants, who are now banished to the shadow realm and all its dark joys and whispered horrors—I hear there's a picnic on the village green today. If you want to remember the fallen heroes, you can find them all beneath the cut.

What happens next? I'll be taking a break of two weeks to rest from this and prep for the Hot & Vintage Ladies Tournament. I'll still be around but only minimally, posting a few last odes to the hot men before transitioning into a little early ladies content, just like I did with this last tournament. The submission form for the Hot & Vintage Ladies tournament will remain up for one more week (closing February 21st), so get your submissions in for that asap! Once the form closes, there will be one more week of break. The first round of the Hot & Vintage Ladies Tournament will be posted on February 29th, as Leap Year Day seems like a fitting allusion to leaping into these ladies' arms.

Thanks for being here! Enjoy the two weeks off, and send me some great propaganda.

In order of the last round they survived—

ROUND ONE HOTTIES:

Richard Burton

Tony Curtis

Red Skelton

Keir Dullea

Jack Lemmon

Kirk Douglas

Marcello Mastroianni

Jean-Pierre Cassel

Robert Wagner

James Garner

James Coburn

Rex Harrison

George Chakiris

Dean Martin

Sean Connery

Tab Hunter

Howard Keel

James Mason

Steve McQueen

George Peppard

Elvis Presley

Rudolph Valentino

Joseph Schildkraut

Ray Milland

Claude Rains

John Wayne

William Holden

Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

Harold Lloyd

Charlie Chaplin

John Gilbert

Ramon Novarro

Slim Thompson

John Barrymore

Edward G. Robinson

William Powell

Leslie Howard

Peter Lawford

Mel Ferrer

Joseph Cotten

Keye Luke

Ivan Mosjoukine

Spencer Tracy

Felix Bressart

Ronald Reagan (here to be dunked on)

Peter Lorre

Bob Hope

Paul Muni

Cornel Wilde

John Garfield

Cantinflas

Henry Fonda

Robert Mitchum

Van Johnson

José Ferrer

Robert Preston

Jack Benny

Fredric March

Gene Autry

Alec Guinness

Fayard Nicholas

Ray Bolger

Orson Welles

Mickey Rooney

Glenn Ford

James Cagney

ROUND TWO SWOONERS:

Dick Van Dyke

James Edwards

Sammy Davis Jr.

Alain Delon

Peter O'Toole

Robert Redford

Charlton Heston

Cesar Romero

Noble Johnson

Lex Barker

David Niven

Robert Earl Jones

Turhan Bey

Bela Lugosi

Donald O'Connor

Carman Newsome

Oscar Micheaux

Benson Fong

Clint Eastwood

Sabu Dastagir

Rex Ingram

Burt Lancaster

Paul Newman

Montgomery Clift

Fred Astaire

Boris Karloff

Gilbert Roland

Peter Cushing

Frank Sinatra

Harold Nicholas

Guy Madison

Danny Kaye

John Carradine

Ricardo Montalbán

Bing Crosby

ROUND THREE SMOKESHOWS:

Marlon Brando

Anthony Perkins

Michael Redgrave

Gary Cooper

Conrad Veidt

Ronald Colman

Rock Hudson

Basil Rathbone

Laurence Olivier

Christopher Plummer

Johnny Weismuller

Clark Gable

Fernando Lamas

Errol Flynn

Tyrone Power

Humphrey Bogart

ROUND 4 STUNGUNS:

James Dean

Cary Grant

Gregory Peck

Sessue Hayakawa

Harry Belafonte

James Stewart

Gene Kelly

Peter Falk

QUARTERFINALIST VOLCANIC TOWERS OF LUST:

Jeremy Brett

Vincent Price

James Shigeta

Buster Keaton

SEMIFINALIST SUPERMEN:

Omar Sharif

Paul Robeson

FINALIST FANTASIES:

Sidney Poitier

Toshiro Mifune

and ok, sure, here's the shadow-bracket-style winner's portrait of Toshiro Mifune.

#hotvintagepoll #hot men finals #a winner crowned! #fuck that old man (requiem) #shadow bracket #toshiro mifune

[pagingdrmusic]

Went to a used bookstore today and got me these wonderful gems!

#books #new books #book update #fiction #horror #science fiction #dean koontz #william peter blatty #clive barker #larry niven #used book store

[thebrownees]

“Dodsworth”: William Wyler's masterpiece, the best movie ever made about the fear of growing old. It was Wyler's first Oscar nomination.

#william wyler #samuel goldwyn #sinclair lewis #ruth chatterton #mary astor #walter huston #maria ouspenskaya #david niven #rudolph maté #sidney howard

[jesslovesboats]

I guess it's time to start moving some content from twt over here! For those who don't know me, I'm a public librarian with a special interest in polar and nautical history, and I love nothing more than connecting readers with good books. I've managed to convert some friends to my way of thinking, and one of them coined the phrase "sad boat books" to describe the types of books that I'm always reading and recommending. Here is my first list of sad boat books-- I can personally vouch for all of them!

New to sad boat? Start here to see if it’s for you!

Endurance by Alfred Lansing

Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton

The Worst Journey in the World- The Graphic Novel Volume 1: Making Our Easting Down adapted by Sarah Airriess from the book by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by Owen Beattie and John Geiger

Terra Nova, A GREAT first expedition!

The Worst Journey in the World- The Graphic Novel Volume 1: Making Our Easting Down adapted by Sarah Airriess from the book by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

A First Rate Tragedy by Diana Preston

Robert Falcon Scott Journals- Captain Scott’s Last Expedition by Robert Falcon Scott

“I Love Ernest Shackleton” starter pack

Endurance by Alfred Lansing

Shackleton’s Boat Journey by Frank Worsley

The Endurance by Caroline Alexander

“I Hate Ernest Shackleton” starter pack

The Lost Men by Kelly Tyler-Lewis

Polar Castaways by Richard McElrea and David Harrowfield

Roald Roald Roald!

The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen by Stephen Bown

The South Pole by Roald Amundsen

The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntford*

*DISCLAIMER: this guy hates Captain Scott and gets most of the Scott details wrong, read for Roald only!

The Franklin Expedition

Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by Owen Beattie and John Geiger

Erebus by Michael Palin

May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Expedition edited by Russell A. Potter, Regina Koellner, Peter Carney, and Mary Williamson

Non-polar sad boats

The Bounty by Caroline Alexander

Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger

In The Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

Sometimes a sad balloon can be a sad boat

The Expedition by Bea Uusma

The Ice Balloon by Alec Wilkinson

Karluk/Wrangel Island, the expeditions of my heart

Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk by Buddy Levy

The Ice Master by Jennifer Niven

The Karluk’s Last Voyage by Robert A. Bartlett

The Last Voyage of the Karluk: A Survivor’s Memoir of Arctic Disaster by William Laird McKinlay

Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic by Jennifer Niven

Miscellaneous sad boat books that are well worth your time

The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Endurance by Mensun Bound

In The Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides

Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton

Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration by David Roberts

Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition by Buddy Levy

If you read and enjoy any of these, please let me know!

#reader's advisory #sad boat #sad boat books #polar exploration #nautical history #read this

[markwatnae]

Masterpost of Hot Old Man Round 1 Polls

Paul Newman v Richard Burton

Omar Sharif v Tony Curtis

Red Skelton v Burt Lancaster

Christopher Plummer v Keir Dullea

Anthony Perkins vJack Lemmon

Kirk Douglas v Alain Delon

James Dean v Marcello Mastroianni

Harry Belafonte v Jean-Pierre Cassel

Marlon Brando v Robert Wagner

Sammy Davis Jr. v James Garner

James Coburn v Rock Hudson

Peter Cushing v Rex Harrison

George Chakiris v Sidney Poitier

Dean Martin v Sean Connery v Jeremy Brett

Tab Hunter v Toshiro Mifune

Howard Keel v Peter O'Toole

Robert Redford v James Mason

Steve McQueen v Charlton Heston

Dick Van Dyke v George Peppard

Elvis Presley v Peter Falk

Oscar Micheaux v Rudolph Valentino

Joseph Schildkraut v Buster Keaton

Jimmy Stewart v Ray Milland

Cary Grant v Claude Rains

John Wayne v Errol Flynn

Clint Eastwood v William Holden

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. v Sessue Hayakawa

Carman Newsome v Harold Lloyd

Noble Johnson v Charlie Chaplin

John Gilbert v Conrad Veidt

Ramon Novarro v Robert Earl Jones

Slim Thompson v Gary Cooper

John Barrymore v Paul Robeson

Edward G. Robinson v Clark Gable

Humphrey Bogart v William Powell

Leslie Howard v Ronald Colman

Peter Lawford v Vincent Price

Harold Nicholas v Mel Ferrer

Joseph Cotten v Danny Kaye

John Carradine v Keye Luke

Ivan Mosjoukine v Gilbert Roland

Benson Fong v Spencer Tracy

Guy Madison v Felix Bressart

James Shigeta v Ronald Reagan

Montgomery Clift v Ricardo Montalbon

Peter Lorre v Frank Sinatra

Bob Hope v Gregory Peck

Fred Astaire v Paul Muni

Bela Lugosi v Cornel Wilde

Cesar Romero v John Garfield

Basil Rathbone v Cantinflas

Henry Fonda v Turhan Bey

Boris Karloff v Robert Mitchum

David Niven v Van Johnson

Gene Kelly v José Ferrer

Robert Preston v Tyrone Power

Jack Benny v Donald O'Connor

Fredric March v Lex Barker

Michael Redgrave v Gene Autry

James Edwards v Alec Guinness

Fayard Nicholas v Fernando Lamas

Ray Bolger v Johnny Weismuller

Orson Welles v Sabu Dastigir

Mickey Rooney v Laurence Olivier

Rex Ingram v Glenn Ford

Bing Crosby v James Cagney

@hotvintagepoll

#hotvintagepoll #fuck that old man #round 1

[captainfantasticalright]

Random yet ineffable fun fact of the day:

A scene from the film, The Bishop’s Wife, inspired a cut scene from Good Omens.

The basic premise of The Bishop's Wife (1947) is about an angel who helps a bishop with his problems.

The film was adapted by Leonardo Bercovici and Robert E. Sherwood from the 1928 novel of the same name by Robert Nathan.

Link to the post.

I compiled both scenes in this video so you can see the comparison. I do recommend watching the entire film though!

And some more interesting trivia:

Originally Cary Grant played the bishop and David Niven the angel. When original director William A. Seiter left the film, Henry Koster replaced him and viewed what had been shot so far. He realized that the two were in the wrong roles. It took some convincing because Grant wanted the title role of the Bishop. He eventually accepted the change and his role as the angel was one of the most widely praised of his career.

Does that remind you of anything related to the casting roles in Good Omens? 🤓 History repeats itself.

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #good omens fun facts #easter eggs #good omens deleted scene #good omens edit #deleted scene #the bishops wife #cary grant #michael sheen

[citizenscreen]

During rehearsal of Lux Radio Theatre’s presentation of "My Man Godfrey," in 1938: David Niven, Carole Lombard, William Powell, Gail Patrick, and program host Cecil B. DeMille.

#david niven #carole lombard #william powell #gail patrick #cecil b demille #lux radio theatre