Monks Jazz Club
Heinlein Book Should Have Been Left Behind
RECEIVED Fri., March 12, 2004
Howdy Y'all,
Re: Dan Yoder's response ["Postmarks," March 5] to the Chronicle article about more funding for the Austin Public Libraries ["Reading the Riot Act," News, Feb. 27]. Mr. Yoder agrees, "A hearty amen" and "Dismissing libraries as irrelevant is a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Recently at the downtown APL, I found on the "new books" shelf a book labeled as science fiction titled Armageddon. This is the 11th book in the Left Behind series. This bad-fiction/bad-faith series is filling an entire sci-fi shelf at the APL. A religious publishing house produces these books. As stated in the first book, people with "faith" in God begin to "disappear" from the Earth because "the Rapture had taken place. Jesus Christ had returned for his people." There are numerous referenced scripture quotations in the series from the New King James Bible and New American Standard Bible.
If the Left Behind books are sci-fi, then the Grand Canyon in Arizona was formed just 10,000 years ago by the runoff from the Great Flood (Noah's Ark).
Classic science fiction books are disappearing from the main library shelves; due to budget cuts they are not being replaced. Yet, there is funding to buy god-awful extremist religious-right publications that are not sci-fi. People from Austin to Australia are wondering why film producer Steven Spielberg has not made a movie based on Have Space Suit, Will Travel. Yet that classic sci-fi book is no longer on the shelf at the main library.
City Hall does not have to strike a single match or sponsor a single book-burning party to empty shelves of classic publications. They just cut the APL funding and make books – like Robert Heinlein's Have Space Suit, Will Travel," poof – just disappear from sight. This is not prophecy, it's a crass act.
Re: Dan Yoder's response ["Postmarks," March 5] to the Chronicle article about more funding for the Austin Public Libraries ["Reading the Riot Act," News, Feb. 27]. Mr. Yoder agrees, "A hearty amen" and "Dismissing libraries as irrelevant is a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Recently at the downtown APL, I found on the "new books" shelf a book labeled as science fiction titled Armageddon. This is the 11th book in the Left Behind series. This bad-fiction/bad-faith series is filling an entire sci-fi shelf at the APL. A religious publishing house produces these books. As stated in the first book, people with "faith" in God begin to "disappear" from the Earth because "the Rapture had taken place. Jesus Christ had returned for his people." There are numerous referenced scripture quotations in the series from the New King James Bible and New American Standard Bible.
If the Left Behind books are sci-fi, then the Grand Canyon in Arizona was formed just 10,000 years ago by the runoff from the Great Flood (Noah's Ark).
Classic science fiction books are disappearing from the main library shelves; due to budget cuts they are not being replaced. Yet, there is funding to buy god-awful extremist religious-right publications that are not sci-fi. People from Austin to Australia are wondering why film producer Steven Spielberg has not made a movie based on Have Space Suit, Will Travel. Yet that classic sci-fi book is no longer on the shelf at the main library.
City Hall does not have to strike a single match or sponsor a single book-burning party to empty shelves of classic publications. They just cut the APL funding and make books – like Robert Heinlein's Have Space Suit, Will Travel," poof – just disappear from sight. This is not prophecy, it's a crass act.
Former APL employee,
Rick Hall
Rick Hall
