HUGO Winning Author Daniel Keyes Has Died 66
camperdave writes Author Daniel Keyes has died at 86. Keyes is best known for his Hugo Award winning classic SF story Flowers for Algernon and the film version Charly. Keyes was born August 9, 1927 in New York. He worked variously as an editor, comics writer, fashion photographer, and teacher before joining the faculty of Ohio University in 1966, where he taught as a professor of English and creative writing, becoming professor emeritus in 2000. He married Aurea Georgina Vaquez in 1952, who predeceased him in 2013; they had two daughters.
Sad, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Sad, but he was 86. I am just not sure of the "News for Nerds" angle here...
Re:Sad, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Its perhaps not as newsworthy as the passing of Asimov, but its in the same general category.
Flowers for Algernon is easily one of the best and most influential short SF stories I've ever read.
The movie on the other hand, is pretty forgettable... its very much a 70s movie.
Re:Sad, but... (Score:5, Funny)
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I only read the short story in an anthology sometime in early 70s, didn't know there was a novel nor any other work by Keyes.
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Yeah that (19)70s movie (VHS tape) was awful as a teen(ager) during my high school days. I don't remember it being science fiction?
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Wow. I mean...wow. What makes something science fiction, antdude?
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lasers and 'splosions. maybe some time travel. whoa.
Re:Sad, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
The movie on the other hand, is pretty forgettable... its very much a 70s movie.
It's all taste, I suppose, but the '70s was a fantastic film era IMO. It was the era where Hollywood embraced subversion to government and corporations, encapsulated by such films as Network, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Godfather, The Deer Hunter, A Clockwork Orange, MASH, Dog Day Afternoon, and, of course, The Life Of Brian.
I haven't seen Charly, but calling it "very much a 70s movie" is high praise indeed!
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I was going to reply to try and explain what I meant, but I started by looking up the movie and found it was released in 68, so by calling it a 70s movie I've inadvertently credited it with being ahead of its time.
I guess it was a bad 60s movie. :)
-sigh-
But I still maintain it was bad movie, it doesn't follow the novel well at all, and they crowbar in scenes that just don't fit, and it all seems very cliche... its like a director read the script and said its too boring, add a motorcycle ride, and some sex s
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He was a Hugo Award winner, whose fiction reflected technology, the effects of technology on human lives, and the nature of the human heart and human mind. I think it fits very well into Slashdot's stated goals.
Re:Sad, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Many nerds were forced to read his book in grade school before going on to a non-English-lit major and making several times the salaries of the teachers who forced them to read it.
And arguably are the better for it. (I remember the book fondly.)
Just about everything you read in High School is "forced" on you. I still appreciate the teachers who taught me, who knew full-well the majority of their students would out-earn them.
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Clarification: I grew up in a country where High School started at grade 9 (not 10) and that was the grade in which this book was taught. The book did have somewhat mature content, but it was teachable at the upper-grade-school level (e.g., grade 8.)
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In the mid 80s, my school forced us to read The Hobbit. It bored the shit out of me and my 12yo classmates.
15-20 years later and Peter Jackson becomes a zillionaire. After wading through Tolkien as a pre-teen, I had no curiosity for any of the movies.
My loss, I guess. *Hands in geek card*
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I discovered 'The Hobbit' on my Speccy in 1984. The first adventure game I ever played. I then tried to solve it with a cousin of mine who had the book.
In order to stay on topic, I read the story when I was 11 yrs old in another book (for Dutch and Belgian Slashdotters: Het Bonte Boeketboek), a kind of single-topic book, but with the topic seen from different angles. This one was about the human body, and this story was part of the chapters about the brain and the nervous system. I must say that it did mad
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"There is nothing that can make a nerd "better". A nerd cannot be anything but a nerd. The only improvement would be feeding it to a woodchipper."
The Billy-Bob Fargo version is without the woodchipper and way more fun.
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Don't worry. No one will post on Slashdot when YOU die.
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It's really been that way from the start.
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I do think it's news for nerds, but I'm more saddened by the death of Jay Lake this month, just before his 50th birthday.
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"Sad, but he was 86. I am just not sure of the "News for Nerds" angle here..."
It means we're still waiting for the Immortality 0.86 Beta version.
oops (Score:1)
Great Author (Score:5, Interesting)
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I remember it because I've never read anything published that needed an editor more than it..
The same as your one sentence post.
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A perfect short story became a padded novel. News at 11.
Sometimes one story is enough... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to admit that I haven't read any of his other stories, but Flowers was certainly an important one.
When I first read it, I was a smart/nerdy kid, and I thought that being smart was the most important thing in the world; naturally, something that could make you smarter would be the best thing imaginable, and then having that blessing taken back would be the worst. Flowers planted a seed of the idea that increased intelligence (whatever that means, really) wouldn't necessarily be an unalloyed blessing.
Re:Sometimes one story is enough... (Score:4, Interesting)
I got much the same out of Flowers when I first read it in middle school, and also learned a little about what sorts of things can make a good book. It was the first book I ever enjoyed in which the protagonist made questionable decisions, experienced things that never got explained, and didn't save the world. Charlie was the first character I encountered that I can recall who acted like a person and had nuances. It really broadened my horizons.
Nice novel (Score:2)
Still have it on my shelves
RIP (Score:2)
Ironic (Score:1)
It's a little ironic; this post:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/06/17/1746223/century-old-drug-reverses-signs-of-autism-in-mice
describes a drug that might produce just the sort of short-term brain boost that he described.
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More like serendipitous, but yeah, nice catch.
I think the story affected me most as Charlie was on the downhill side, after his intelligence peaked. He could recognize what was happening to him, struggling desperately to find an answer that would stop the degradation. It was profoundly upsetting.
Placing flowers on Algernon's grave (Score:4, Interesting)
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Flowers for Algernon (Score:4, Interesting)
That has been my all time favorite story from the first reading.
Other variants (Score:2)
I had a mini project looking for other variants of the same idea because Keyes got there first and hit an important theme.
Some other entries:
The Six Million Dollar Man - Burning Bright (1974) William Shatner ... Josh Lang
Phenomenon (1996) - George Malley - John Travolta
And a couple of newer movies that I am out of energy to track down.
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And a couple of newer movies that I am out of energy to track down.
Limitless would likely be one.
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Hey may have hit it best, but he was far from first. Poul Anderson's Brain Wave [wikipedia.org], for example, came out in 1953-54. I think there were a lot of even earlier examples, but I don't have them at my fingertips.
Re: far from first (Score:2)
"Hey may have hit it best, but he was far from first. Poul Anderson's Brain Wave [wikipedia.org], for example, came out in 1953-54. I think there were a lot of even earlier examples, but I don't have them at my fingertips."
Okay, fair. I might have slipped up on my wording.
It's been decades since my old days as a young'un reading all the old Pre/Gold/Silver age stuff. I certainly know who Poul Anderson is, but that exact story is the kind of thing that used to be really tough to find. It's still a little tri
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Really hated Brain Wave.
As I recall, the novel centers around a group of scientists who are supposed to be unusually intelligent to begin with-- at one point Anderson proudly declares that their average IQ is about 165, or something-- and who become freakishly intelligent as the novel progresses. The problem is that we have a not-terribly-intelligent author trying to portray characters who are freakishly intelligent, and he fails spectacularly. He has them engage in witty repartee which isn't even as witt
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Yep, that's the great barrier to intelligence-enhancement stories -- it's nearly impossible for an author to write a convincing character who's smarter than the author. Vernor Vinge quoted a rejection letter from John W. Campbell on the topic: "You can't write this story. Neither can anyone else."
Having said that, I'll admit that as a child I enjoyed Brain Wave. But, yes, it was full of holes. It's nearly impossible to retain your willing suspension of disbelief when the super-intelligent protagonists are
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The 1992 Lawnmower Man film is about increasing intelligence (but not the short story it shares a title with)
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That novel was nothing but a gimmick, with the stupid writing style changing as he got smarter. The plot was lame and predictable. Glad to see he won't be producing anymore shitty novels in this world.
Hello, flamebait. When you die, your comments will not be missed. This reply is the most use your life has ever served. Give to the poor now while you still can.
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Go in peace my friend. (Score:1)
For your life has enriched mine.
That that is (Score:2)
Perhaps one of the more important works in the geek lexicon of art. The book and the film were very inspirational for me. For the first time as a child, I understood and could relate to that thing we have called pattern recognition. The moment in the film at the chalkboard was etched into my mind -- that that is is that that that is not is not is that it it is. Understanding the differences between people, and understanding them in their depths without glorification, is such a positive thing.
We are lucky