Imagine HBO doing a similar profit-making film about the tragic Chilean rugby team

Dr. Kelvin Kemm

Late in 1972, Uruguayan Air Force flight 571 was taking a college rugby team and family members from Montevideo, Uruguay to Santiago, Chile. It carried five crew members and 40 passengers.

As the aircraft crossed the frozen Andes, the pilot made a tragic navigation error and descended towards what he thought was Pudahuel Airport. The aircraft struck a rocky mountain ridge. Both wings were sheared off, and the aircraft fuselage raced like a toboggan down the steep snow-covered slope, coming to rest on a glacier.

Only 33 survived the crash, and five more died during the freezing night that followed. Seventeen days after the crash, an avalanche struck the wrecked remains and killed eight more. The remaining starving and half-frozen survivors were devout Catholics – highly moral and responsible, but facing certain death, while the dead lay frozen outside in the snow.

After personal agonizing and prayer, they made the dramatic decision to eat their deceased fellow passengers. One team member was a medical student, who explained that brains and certain other organs contained valuable nutrients. So they ate those as well as the human flesh. Two of the strongest survivors set off on an incredible 38-mile (60-kilometer) trek to find rescuers.

After a staggering 72 days on the glacier, the remaining survivors were rescued, two days before Christmas. Despite initially reacting in horror, people worldwide ultimately sympathized deeply with the plight and decisions of those survivors, who prayed over their dead comrades and cut pieces from the bodies only with great sorrow, reverence and respect.

A television program portrayed their agonizing saga honestly, accurately and sympathetically.

However, imagine if decades later another producer decided to make a new “dramatized” version. It begins with the aircraft crash, fractured fuselage ride down the mountain and snowy desolation. But then it descends into “artistic license,” to ensure more horror, more viewers (more profits).

Imagine the new “inspired by true events” version showing callous survivors slashing bodies with axes and using machetes to tear out livers and hammers to smash skulls for the brains. After dinner they play a wild drumming rhapsody on the fuselage, using human bones as drumsticks as they sing.

How do you think TV audiences would respond? With sympathy and understanding for the survivors – or revulsion and disgust? Would they call for forgiveness – or demand prosecution?

If this sounds absurd, it has a very real recent counterpart that took similar liberties with the facts in order to make a more “dramatic” program and attract more viewers. I watched both the Chilean rugby team television program a few years ago and the recent HBO-produced TV series “Chernobyl.”

The Chernobyl tragedy is also an undeniable part of history. People died, though fewer than 60. Things went terribly wrong, for many reasons. But today tourists visit the Chernobyl area and wildlife thrives.

So what actually happened? Did reality come anywhere close to what HBO presented in its program?

The HBO production apparently recorded record viewership figures. That was undoubtedly good for the network’s bottom line. But was it honest income, to be proud of?

As a nuclear scientist, I can tell you the fundamental story of the sequence of events of the 1986 Chernobyl accident as portrayed by HBO was correct. Issues around governance and procedure as portrayed by HBO were essentially correct. But other important aspects were false or falsified.

The blood and skin peeling scenes, for example. Sadly, the producers lied – intentionally or incompetently, it seems, to gain box office income. They succeeded in that goal. But they insulted us nuclear scientists and insulted the intelligence of viewers who knew a bit more science than most of HBO’s audience. The HBO producers also led many viewers down a twisted path to further ignorance and confusion, which certainly should not be the objective of any honest history documentary.

The series tended to show the Soviet authorities of the day as uncaring and unskilled. That was not true. Yes, Chernobyl happened during the formality and rigidity of the Soviet communist system of the era. And yes, the military-type hierarchy of the time did play a role.

However Russian nuclear scientists had actually and for some time worried greatly about that particular Chernobyl reactor design and had voiced their concerns to senior authorities. Albeit slowly, those authorities were responding. Tests of failure systems were being conducted.

Chernobyl had been ordered to carry out one such test, to assess the speed of response to a failure. A test had been set up. Chernobyl staffers were instructed to create a deliberate failure mode situation, to see how the reactor responded. This was arranged and was supposed to have been done in the daytime, when the main skilled team was on duty.

However, high demands for electricity in the district caused them to delay the test until around midnight, when the lower calibre night shift team was on duty. In addition, the more senior decision makers in the line-of-command had gone home.

To clip all the technicalities very short: when the intentional test procedure started to go wrong, worried and inexperienced Chernobyl technicians made some wrong moves and rapidly compounded the unfolding drama. As the reactor spun out of control, the rapid communications line via local headquarters to Moscow did not function properly; the seniors had gone home and could not help.

Moreover, that reactor type had been built to an out-of-date design that contained a large amount of highly combustible graphite. It caught fire. Someone correctly called the fire brigade – which responded quickly, but mistakenly attacked the fire as if it were a burning woodworking factory.

The firemen bravely attacked the flames – without fully realizing that the smoke carried radioactive dust and other harmful material. Lumps of burning graphite that lay scattered around contained radioactive debris from the initial gas blast that blew the reactor to pieces.

Other first responders were also brought in: police, military, helicopter pilots. All did their duty, as they would have in any other major fire. But radioactive dust and smoke were swirling around.

Human bodies do not become radioactive in a situation like that. What can happen is that someone, like a fireman, leaves the scene with radioactive dust on his clothes and maybe in his hair. Any radiation protection officer present would then make him take all his clothes off and take a good shower, before going home.

Firemen were not radioactively contagious, as HBO portrayed. A fireman could not have irradiated his pregnant wife at home, as HBO claimed. Her baby could not have died of heart and liver disease as a result; that too is pure HBO bunk. Something like playing music on the aircraft fuselage in the Andes, using human bones as drumsticks. Very good for viewer horror, but very far from the truth.

A very large dose of nuclear radiation will undoubtedly kill a person. But skin will not peel off one’s face. In fact a human can pick up a fatal dose of radiation in under an hour and not even know it. The person would go home in apparently perfect condition, but then start to feel as if he had eaten rotten fish for lunch. Vomiting would result and flu-like symptoms would set in. Over a couple of hours this would lead to shaky hands and wobbly legs, bad vision and a general breakdown of body functions. Death would come quite quickly, within days. But in reality no viewer-riveting skin peeling off the face, or blood dripping from anywhere would occur.

After the real Chernobyl incident, 29 fire-fighters died – from what medics call “synchronous injuries.” In other words “a combination of factors.” Undoubtedly radiation exposure played a major role. But those brave men also attacked high-temperature flames, breathed in dense toxic smoke and physically exerted themselves under terrible conditions. There were numerous other errors, as well.

It seems HBO producers did not consult any nuclear physics specialists, or medical people knowledgeable in the field. They relied on more dramatic emotional advice.

HBO must have made a lot of money with the series. Their shareholders are no doubt very pleased. But HBO has not done any service to the truth or to the education and enlightenment of viewers.

The series was “fiction inspired by real events” – not a “documentary.” HBO should issue apologies.

Dr Kelvin Kemm is a nuclear physicist and CEO of Nuclear Africa Ltd, a project management company based in Pretoria, South Africa. He does international consultancy work in strategic development.

Without the overwhelming support of Donald Trump by evangelical Christians, Trump would not be President today. Some 83% of self-professed evangelical Christians voted for Trump in 2016. Jerry Falwell Jr. predicts that the percentage of evangelicals who vote for Trump in 2020 will be even higher. He is probably right.

I can understand why evangelicals would vote against Hillary Clinton by voting for her opponent, Donald Trump. Who in their right mind wanted Hillary in the White House? But now we are not talking about voting against someone; we are talking about a gargantuan lovefest between evangelicals and Trump. WHY do evangelicals love Trump so much? Most evangelicals will not admit it, but their support for Trump borders on idolatry. They practically worship this man. WHY?

Donald Trump is a man totally devoid of character and honor. He is a man who has never respected any oath he has ever taken or any contract he has ever made. He is a pathological liar. He is a for real sexist. He is a sexual deviant. He is a textbook narcissist. He is a braggart, a bully, a belligerent and a buffoon. He is a career criminal and gangster. He survives by threats, bribery and intimidation. He uses power and money to ruin and destroy anyone who gets in his way—friend or foe. He is an undisciplined hothead. His use of vulgarity, profanity and the Lord’s name in vain rivals or surpasses the filthiest mouth coming out of the filthiest hellhole in the world. Richard Nixon and Harry Truman wouldn’t be able to keep up with Trump’s filthy blasphemous mouth. (The Scripture says God’s enemies take His name in vain, Psalm 139:20. Of course, in order to continue idolizing Trump, evangelicals will continue ignoring that verse too.) Donald Trump is the quintessential spoiled rich brat that never grew up. In other words, Donald Trump’s entire adult life is the personification of everything the Bible abhors. Yet, evangelicals who claim to love the Bible love Donald Trump. WHY?

I’m not a fan of George Will, but he said something on a New York Times Book Review podcast that every evangelical needs to hear. Will said of Trump:

I believe that what this president has done to our culture, to our civic discourse … you cannot unring these bells and you cannot unsay what he has said, and you cannot change that he has now in a very short time made it seem normal for schoolboy taunts and obvious lies to be spun out in a constant stream. I think this will do more lasting damage than Richard Nixon’s surreptitious burglaries did.

The report goes on to say:

Will’s broader argument is that Nixon’s coordinated burglaries at the Democratic National Committee were secret and, once revealed, broadly condemned by the public and the two political parties. What Trump is doing is happening right in front of our faces — and with the tacit assent of the Republican Party that Will left in 2016.

“What Donald Trump’s revolutionary effect has been [is] to make things acceptable that were unthinkable until recently,” Will said on the Times podcast, asking host Pamela Paul if she could even conceive of past presidents like John Kennedy or Dwight Eisenhower uttering any of the many things Trump has said in office.

The words of Will that run truest to me were these: “You cannot unring these bells.” I think he is 100% right on that. The idea that once Trump leaves the White House — whether involuntarily in January 2021 or voluntarily-ish in January 2025 — the impacts and reverberations of what he has done to the presidency (and to the way in which the presidency is covered) will disappear is a fallacy.

Politics is a copycat game. Always has been. What Trump has taught politicians is that telling the truth isn’t all that important — especially if you have your own bullhorn (in Trump’s case Twitter + Fox News) to make your own “alternative facts.” And that presidential norms and the idea of “being presidential” is a meaningless construct. And a lot more “lessons” that will be destructive to the way in which people run for president and act once they get elected.

Everything said in this report is true; and nothing said in this report will matter to a hill of beans to Trump’s evangelical supporters. WHY NOT?

One Democratic candidate for President that you probably haven’t even heard of is Massachusetts congressman and former U.S. Marine Seth Moulton:

In an interview published on Friday, Democratic presidential candidate Seth Moulton said that Trump voters “know” that the president is an [expletive], The Hill reports.

Moulton suggested that other Democrats running for president appear to believe that they can persuade Trump voters to vote against the president in 2020 by convincing them that he is not a moral person.

“I think a lot of Democrats think, ‘You know, these Trump voters, what we need to do is we just need to educate them, and we’re going to get it through their heads that this guy is a bad guy,’” he opined, proceeding to suggest that Trump supporters understand what the commander-in-chief is like, but simply don’t mind.

You better know they don’t mind. But WHY NOT?

The superficial answer to this question is that evangelicals have been hoodwinked into believing that Trump actually means what he says when he talks about being pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, anti-LGBT agenda, anti-establishment, anti-illegal immigration, anti-globalism, etc. Again, Trump is a pathological liar. He doesn’t mean a word he says; but evangelicals are convinced he tells the truth. And it wouldn’t do any good to spend the rest of this column documenting the facts that prove he doesn’t tell the truth, because I have been documenting these facts for over two years in this column, and evangelicals won’t even examine the evidence. Their minds are made up, and they refuse to be confused with facts. They believe what Trump says, because they WANT to believe what Trump says. It’s as simple as that.

Of course, a large part of this deception is due to the way Jerry Falwell Jr., Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, et al. have been gushing over Trump like he’s another John the Baptist who’s paving the way for the Messiah. These “Christian leaders” have the ear of millions of evangelicals. If these “great men of God” say it, it must be true.

But, again, that’s the superficial reason why evangelicals love Donald Trump. The real reason lies much deeper. Are you ready for this? The real reason evangelicals love Donald Trump is because they are just like him.

Thankfully, there are wonderful exceptions to what I am saying. Over my 44 years of Gospel ministry, I have come to know some of the sweetest, kindest, most loving, humble, godly, giving, honest and honorable Christian evangelists, pastors and people in the world: wonderful, precious souls. But without reservation or hesitation I can say that these terrific people are a small percentage of the whole. In word and deed, most evangelicals have a track record of being little more than miniature reflections of Donald Trump. Evangelicals love Donald Trump because in character and conduct he is truly one of them.

Liberal blogger Kevin Drum nailed it:

If you want to think of evangelicals as hypocrites, that’s fine. But don’t think of them that way because of Donald Trump. He is practically the apotheosis of conservative Christianity in America, not some weird, blustering outlier. No one should be either surprised or shocked that they love him.

However, there are four specific things about Donald Trump that make him achieve this almost god-like status with evangelicals.

No, it’s not his pro-life verbiage. Like Trump, most evangelicals only provide lip service to the pro-life cause. Evangelicals will look you in the eye and tell you that the GOP is a pro-life party. What a joke! Roe v Wade was passed by a GOP-dominated Supreme Court. The GOP has controlled the Supreme Court ever since 1973. The GOP controlled the entire federal government for 4.6 of G.W. Bush’s eight years in office. And they controlled the entire federal government for the first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency. Nothing was done to overturn Roe. Plus, know this: Nearly 50% of the women and girls seeking abortions are regular attenders of evangelical churches.

No, it’s not Trump’s anti-LGBT agenda verbiage. Most evangelicals are fine with the fact that homosexuality permeates their churches. Homosexuality is rampant in many Christian colleges and universities. It’s mostly hushed up; but almost everyone knows it’s there.

No, it’s not Trump’s pro-Second Amendment verbiage. First, Trump has already handed America more gun control than Barack Obama, and second, most evangelicals are as mushy on the Second Amendment as a bowl of hot grits. Tell me, when is the last time you heard the likes of Robert Jeffress and Franklin Graham say one word about the God-ordained right and duty to keep and bear arms?

No, it’s not Trump’s pro-limited government verbiage. Donald Trump has exploded the spending, size and scope of the federal government equal to or surpassing any of his predecessors.

No, it’s none of those things that make evangelicals love Donald Trump. Here are the four things that evangelicals absolutely love about Donald Trump.

Donald Trump loves money and so do evangelicals.

From their idolatrous love affair with the 501c3 tax-exempt, non-profit organization status of their “churches” to their opulent buildings to their success-driven “ministries” to their prosperity “gospel” to their golf club memberships to their all-expense paid luxury vacations, evangelical pastors and congregations love money. Even though he made his fortune via corrupt business practices, immoral bankruptcies, theft, Jewish mafia-backed criminal activity, tax evasion, etc., billionaire Trump is what many evangelicals wish they were.

Donald Trump hates Muslims and so do evangelicals.

One thing I have found to be consistent with evangelicals is their intense hatred toward the Muslim people—and the Palestinians as well. The evangelical sermons, seminars, rallies, community meetings, books, DVDs, periodicals, radio broadcasts, television broadcasts, etc., all spewing vitriol against the Muslim people are ubiquitous. Donald Trump gives these Muslim-haters justification for their hatred.

Donald Trump is a rabid Zionist and so are evangelicals.

The vast, vast majority of evangelicals are Christian Zionists. They worship all things Israel. Their misinterpretation of Genesis 12:3 (and the rest of Scripture relating to Israel) has turned our evangelical churches into little more than one big Zionist cult. Donald Trump could disappoint them on almost every other issue, but as long as he remains the rabid Zionist he is, evangelicals will continue to love him.

Donald Trump is a warmonger and so are evangelicals.

Support for Zionist Israel and support for foreign wars go hand in hand. In fact, take away the former, and it would automatically remove the latter. Evangelicals love war. They love the military. They love killing. They love dropping bombs. They love war.

I am not talking as an outsider. For decades, I’ve listened to evangelicals demand war, promote war, applaud war, wish for war and even pray for war. I know what I’m talking about. I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard evangelical “Christians” say things to the effect, “If it was up to me, I would bomb Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Syria off the map. If I could, I would kill every Muslim in the world.” Don’t tell me I’m exaggerating. I’ve heard it over and over and over. The hearts of evangelicals are filled with war. Donald Trump’s war fever literally makes evangelicals stand up and cheer.

This is why evangelicals love Donald Trump: In thought, word and deed, they are just like him. And his love for money, his hatred for Muslims, his maniacal devotion to Zionism and his lust for war make him more than a President; he is a god-like figure to them. Which brings us to this: If Trump wins a second term and is able to bully, berate, browbeat and batter his way into suspending the Constitution in order to make himself President for life, these same evangelicals will love that too.

Mongolia: Road to Conquest (NHK) _1

There are a few concerns that I’d like to mention for the people that follow my channel and my blog. The first is that not that long ago all of my videos on Dailymotion were deleted. That’s hundreds of videos that I managed to upload over several years. I’m almost certain that this was done by the people that run Dailymotion in order to censor me. The reason why I think so is because this happened at the same time and on all three of my channels on Dailymotion. Even the videos on my smallest channel that I hardly ever used got deleted. It’s worth pointing out that all three of my channels featured a link to my VK blog. It wouldn’t be surprising for me to know that the people that run Dailymotion read my blog. Can it be a coincidence that all of my videos were deleted right after I made a post on my blog about censorship on video-sharing websites such as Dailymotion? I think not. The thing about websites such as Dailymotion, YouTube, or IMDb is that the people that own them and run them keep track of what people post. They listen to and read everything that people say and write. I’ve known this for years because I’ve been using the websites for years. So, the act by Dailymotion to censor me came as no big surprise to me. I’ve always known that Dailymotion is a crooked website that’s involved in censorship. But having several hundred of my videos get deleted all of a sudden still isn’t a pleasant thing. In one of my blog posts, I pointed out that the video-sharing website that has given me the most trouble over the years is YouTube. I’ve had many problems on YouTube because of copyright claims and censorship. Well, now I can say that the spot occupied by YouTube has been taken by Dailymotion. At least YouTube hasn’t outright deleted all of my videos. By the way, this isn’t the first time that something like this has happened to me. The first video-sharing website that deleted all of my videos because of political reasons was Metacafe. Therefore, it seems that internet censorship in Western countries is in full swing, and it has existed for at least a decade already.

Another concern that I can mention is that when I post links on my blog to other websites this doesn’t mean that I support everything on those websites. This just means that the chosen article has some good information. I think that I made a mistake many months ago when I posted links to a few websites that are run by people that I now call… psychotic anti-Semites. Back then, I didn’t realize that these people are… crazy. These are people who believe that Jews are responsible for every problem in society and that there’s a communist behind every corner and under every bed. Funnily enough, some of them claim to be Christians, and they say that what’s needed is a firm establishment of Christianity again. Well, I don’t think that Jesus Christ would have approved of their behavior. I can just imagine Jesus sitting and telling his followers that they should practice hatred and irrationality, and him also arguing in favor of low taxes and unquestioning servitude to the rich and powerful. Obviously, these right-wingers and nationalists are irrational and badly educated. I noticed that they’re not interested in history, or in the sciences, or in other societies. What seems to matter to them is coming up with irrational conspiracy theories and using their bigotry and limited knowledge to attack certain groups or objects that they choose to blame for all of the ills in society. I think that I wouldn’t want to be in the same room with these lunatics. But such people, and similar minded people, have been used by American imperialism. They also feel emboldened by all of the anti-leftist propaganda coming out of Western states. With American aid, such people have been brought to power in countries around the world, most recently in Ukraine. And, naturally, they have no respect for democracy, and they have no problem with American imperialism. Anyway, I just wanted to point this out because such people do read my blog and reply to my posts. Well, they can make as many nasty replies as they want, but I’m here to tell them that I don’t read their blogs or websites, and it was probably a mistake for me to post links to their websites in the past. One thing about me is that I believe that other people should have the right to speak and voice their opinions. Maybe I’m like this because I grew up in Canada. But there’s a limit to the craziness and the lying that even I can tolerate. Therefore, they can yell all they want about “the Jews”, or “Bolshevism”, or some “world communist government”. This doesn’t mean that I’m listening. There is no world government. There’s Anglo-American capitalist imperialism and hegemony. This is why the USA has so many military bases around the world. And what these lunatics call communism isn’t communism. It’s capitalism. They should at least pick up and read a dictionary once in a while.

Originally posted on May 5, 2018:

Well, it’s not surprising that Avengers: Infinity War is going to become one of the biggest box office successes in cinema history. This film has been out for less than a week and already pretty much everyone who goes to the cinema has seen it, except for me. I haven’t seen it yet because I don’t get the urge to do what everyone else is doing. So, I’ll probably wait until I can borrow it from some library. I actually like the films that Marvel makes, but I don’t jump up and down every time one of those films is released. My favorite MCU films are Thor (2011), Ant-Man (2015), Iron Man (2008), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Doctor Strange (2016), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), and Thor: Ragnarok (2017). Pretty much all the Marvel films are enjoyable, but the ones that I’ve listed are my favorites. The recently released Black Panther isn’t one of my favorites. It’s not a bad film by any means. It’s good. It’s more serious that the usual Marvel flick. It’s just that only a few characters in the film appeal to me. The film also doesn’t quite have the emotional weight that it should have. When it comes to the characters, it lacks the appeal of Thor or of Iron Man, for example. Since Marvel films contain some Anglo-American propaganda, it can also be interesting to see them because of what they’re about. Some of the information in these films actually surprised me. For example, in Captain America: The First Avenger, the fictional terrorist organization Hydra uses some odd weapons and technology. Steve Rogers (Captain America) doesn’t fight against regular German troops in the film but against Hydra troops armed with extraordinary weapons. Such weapons are usually the stuff of science-fiction, but I later learned that the Nazis did actually have some of those extraordinary weapons. Some of this technology and weaponry wasn’t intended for mass production and some of it wasn’t fully developed when Nazi Germany was defeated. So, for example, the Germans did have plans to create the Amerikabomber, which was a long-range strategic bomber for the Luftwaffe that would be capable of striking the USA from Germany. In the film, the Red Skull attempts to use a similar bomber to strike the USA. At one time, Adolf Hitler considered the creation a giant tank not so different from the one that the Red Skull uses in the film. So, if the Germans hadn’t been defeated in World War II, such “miracle weapons” would have become a reality already in the 1940s or the 1950s. In the sequel, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we find out that some members of Hydra were recruited by the American espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D after World War II. Something similar happened in real life too because the Americans did bring German and other European scientists, psychiatrists, and agents to the United States after World War II. Some of these people, like Ukrainian nationalists, were so-called war criminals because they were engaged in mass killings in Europe.

When it comes to what I’ve been reading lately, I can recommend Paul Kennedy’s book ‘The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers’ (1987). It’s a history book with some good information that was recommended by the historian Andrei Fursov. I finally finished listening to The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky a few months ago. It’s a thick book, and I had to listen to it for about 25 hours. I’m now listening to the Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes (in 3 volumes) by Arthur Conan Doyle. The narration is by Charlton Griffin, and I’ve got to say that I’m really enjoying listening to these releases. It’s not only that the narration is very good, it’s that I haven’t yet read any of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Therefore, this is something that’s new for me. Since Doyle was a Mason and a member of the British establishment, his novels contain some interesting information about British intentions in the second half of the 19th century. Another book that I’m almost finished listening to is Dispatches by Michael Herr. Dispatches was one of the first pieces of American literature that portrayed the experiences of soldiers in the Vietnam War for American readers. Herr’s book is surprisingly funny at times, though he mostly describes the behavior of American soldiers and their actions. Carl Sagan’s The Dragons Of Eden, which is another book that Fursov recommended, is an interesting read. I got The Dragons Of Eden right after I’ve read Sagan’s well-known 1985 novel Contact, which is one of the more memorable hard science fiction novels that I’ve read. I personally prefer to read books on my tablet, by using the app Play Books. Other times, when I feel like it, I buy books at second hand book stores. But, for the most part, I read books on Play Books or I listen to them on the Audible app.

By the way, here’s a good list of some of the best Western science fiction novels of the 1950s (titled The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1950s):

The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1950s

This American, James Harris, conveniently listed novels from the 1950s to the 1990s. I’ve found other good lists on the internet, but I mostly look at Harris’s lists when I’m thinking about what I should read next. Some of the novels that I’ve already read are Inherit The Stars (1977), which is a personal favorite, Blood Music (1985), The Visitors (1980), The Robots Of Dawn (1983), Titan (1979), Beyond The Blue Event Horizon (1977), Mission Of Gravity (1954), The Godwhale (1974), Triton (1976), In The Ocean Of Night (1977), Ender’s Game (1985), and Dune (1965). When it comes to Dune by Frank Herbert, I’d recommend getting the unabridged audiobook narrated by Scott Brick and Orlagh Cassidy, among others. I’m not at all a fan of Frank Herbert’s work, and his science fiction novels aren’t among my favorites, but the audiobook is a compelling listen that includes music and sound effects. Although I’m still reading the manga Berserk by Kentaro Miura (I’m now reading the 16th volume), I’ve finished reading Battle Angel Alita by Yukito Kishiro a few months ago. I’ve already read famous manga like Rurouni Kenshin, Death Note, Maison Ikkoku, Akira, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind, and Fullmetal Alchemist, but Battle Angel Alita is hard to get because it has been out of print for years. Therefore, you can read it only on the internet or on an app for now. I’ve thought about reading it for several years, way before I knew that there was talk of adapting it into a film. Sure, the artwork is the biggest draw, but there’s also a pretty good story that includes the theme of social control. Battle Angel Alita: Last Order is the continuation of the story that features more of Kishiro’s fantastic artwork.