Re: Smoking. Was: Clarke Award Finalists 2001

On Wed, 18 Jun 2025 08:33:50 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
<michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:

On 17/06/2025 10.09, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

 
 
On 6/16/25 22:45, Titus G wrote:

On 17/06/25 07:00, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
snip

but all that I can remember about them is: more smoking than in Doc Smith.
>

>
I was surprised at characters spending more time smoking cigarettes that
sticking to the plot in some recent reads.
Meet the Tiger. Leslie Charteris.
The Ministry of Time. Kaliane Bradley.
Hardwired. Walter Jon Williams.
The worst was non SF, Vengeance by Benjamin Black.

 
     Books I read in the 1960s and thoughly enjoyed were recently
reopened and closed for the very same reason as I found the smoking
scenes too objectionable.

>
Well, I don't find them objectionable, just disconcerting.
>
Somewhat timely:
<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57246206>

Ah ... the French!

I wasn't aware that Mathieu Kassovitz was the "the ... star of
/Amelie/". I always that that Audrey Toutou was the star. But then, I
am not French and so do not automatically assign top billing to the
male, particularly when the female is clearly the person that the film
is about.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"