HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Ya can't keep 'em down!
Date: 12 Sep 1992 05:35:56 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil)
NNTP-Posting-Host: thor.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, TJS107@psuvm.psu.edu (Sime) says:

>Whoops.  I posted something about the book Armor and comparison to Starship
>Troopers.  In this post I sorta put down RH.  Didn't mean to start anything,
>I was just disappointed in ST, and it was the first and only RH book I have
>read.
>Hope no one took that the wrong way, but I'd like to hear more discussion
>as to why ST is better than Armor (in RH's fans opinions;  I like Armor 'cuz
>its got action and adventure and excitement and etc.) or vice versa...

>Personally, I preferred Starship Troopers to Armor for somewhat the same
reason I prefer Tolkein to Dragonlance. Heinlein in ST created a world in
which he spent a fair amount of time philosophising and some time actually
having his characters doing things. The book is multi-leveled; you can read
it as straight adventure, or you can look at the philosophy. In Armor,
Steakley steals Heinlein's world (yes, steals...he gives no credit where
credit is due.) He hacks out all of what made Starship Troopers unique, and
rams a generic action-adventure plot in its place. Now, Armor is a fun read
if you like action books. (I do.) HOWEVER, it has no connection with ST
other than the fact that the world is stolen from it. For example, in ST
the State is benevolant & supportive of the troops. Not so in Armor. There
are many other cases like this.

Summary:
    Starship Troopers and Armor have NOTHING in common except the general
elements of the setting. It is possible to like both (I do), but you will
not like both for the same reasons.
-- 
+-------------+------------------+
| Damien Neil | dpn2@po.cwru.edu | 
+-------------+------------------+
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: bobm@Ingres.COM (Bob McQueer)
Subject: Re: Glen Cook's next Black Company Book
Date: 12 Sep 92 00:52:51 GMT

In <1992Sep10.181549.1@fnalo.fnal.gov>,
	dated Fri, 11 Sep 1992 00:15:49 GMT,
	morrow@fnalo.fnal.gov (An Elmo of Their Own) writes:

> 	Normally, I sneer at anything remotely grim'n'gritty, but the Black
> Company books are _good_.
> 	Violent?  They're not violent in the way that Bret Easton Ellis'
> American Psycho was violent.  There is a lot of death (unsurprising,
> considering the Company is a military unit), but it's mostly offscreen; the
> books are not a gorefest.
> 	Amoral?  Not really.  The characters like to pretend they're hard
> bastards, and some of them are, but the viewpoint characters have a soft core
> of morality, and actually dare to hope (which, I suppose, technically moves the
> book out of "grim'n'gritty").
> 	Overall, technically well written, good adventure, characters with
> depth.
> 	And for you hyperbolists, the books also have the most powerful,
> hardest to kill, evil wizards ever in my experience :-)

I pretty much second these opinions.  The article morrow was responding to
referred to the books as "dark" which is probably a fair assessment.  I find
that Cook has a fascinating approach to standard fantasy, which allows
his characters to be fully dimensional and very "real world" (their
attitudes change, they make mistakes and eventually realize it, and
sometimes do things they don't like doing for practical reasons).  What
makes it interesting is that his story line for the Black Company books is
classic good-vs-evil fantasy fare.  Seeing such a story line through such
well developed, realistic characters has quite an impact.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science,sci.bio,soc.culture.british
From: rsm58307@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Ron)
Subject: Re: Dreamer Fithp
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 17:27:20 GMT
Keywords: scientists, SF writers

markg@pdx804 (Mark Gonzales) writes:

>>They were, according to Pournell anyway, a major factor in starting a
>>certain low key space project the government is funding (*not* through
>>NASA either).  [And last I heard it was still active].

>I seem to remember that Niven claimed that Star Wars was his idea (in
>N-space). That was the point when I lost all respect for him and his
>sidekick. He should have realized that even if you suceeded in blowing
>up incoming missiles, the debris, including pounds of plutonium, doesn't
>just disappear. I'm sure that having millions of lethal doses of
>plutonium sprayed into the atmosphere is almost as bad an outcome as a
>bunch of nuclear explosions.

If I understand something about Star Wars works you're not vaporizing or
destroying the missile most of the time. You're probably screwing up its
ballistics though (a laser hole in the surface of a missile, if you could
get it to hit in the first place, would cause the missile to careen off
its target flight path). Even high KE rail guns are probably not going
to shatter a missile.

And since the warheads are not armed (at least in American missiles according
to what I've heard) until the target area is reached, you're going to have
a lot of missiles hitting Earth with only KE.  While you could argue for
some distribution, I don't think it would be anywhere near as horrific
as a nuclear explosion.

	- Ron

(7/9ths of earth is water too ...)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: hsr@physics.ucla.edu (Harisankar Ramishan)
Subject: Re: HUGO Awards?
Organization: UCLA Department of Physics
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 23:04:25 GMT

In <1992Sep14.172332.7725@hubcap.clemson.edu> elwin@gamma.phys.clemson.edu (Lawrence E. Brown) writes:

>Thank God!  At least this year I'm not going to be the lone
>voice in this electronic wilderness praising the wit, subtlety
>and charm of Bujold.  The depth and scope of emotion that build
>up as you read the whole series is simply amazing.  She writes
>with such a simplicity of style that it's damn near impossible
>to decide why her books delight the reader (well this reader
>anyway).

>	(And lots more deleted:)

I like Bujold's novels. Very enjoyable to read. However, I wouldn't say
any of them deserve the praise that her fans heap on her writing. 

I suppose that I have a double standard here. I classify SF books as 
'fluff' or as 'challenging'. And to me, a book should not win a serious
award unless it is in the latter category. Fluff sells. And _I_ buy fluff
by the gross. But I don't want Terry Pratchett getting hugos for his
books. I am sure that it is very hard to write fluff as well as Bujold
does, and even that her writing feels smoother than Gordon Dickson. But
all the same, I would feel happier seeing a mediocre book by Dickson 
getting the award rather than Bujold's best book.

I don't know if this made sense :^> I just like to feel that if I picked
up a Hugo or Nebula winner (of any year), I might not _enjoy_ the read,
but I will surely _think_ about what I read. Bujold doesn't qualify, in
my opinion. Caroline Cherryh _does_, again IMO. And for me the difference
between the two is basically that Cherryh uses SF as a vehicle to explore
ideas, while Bujold just tells a (very) good tale.

hari
hsr@uclaph.physics.ucla.edu

ps: I personally think that 'Ethan of Athos' is by far her best book.
From: murphy@npri6.npri.com (David P. Murphy)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Ya can't keep 'em down!
Date: 13 Sep 92 22:54:08 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: NPRI, Alexandria VA


 >In Armor, Steakley steals Heinlein's world (yes, steals...he gives
 >no credit where credit is due.)
 >
 >He hacks out all of what made Starship Troopers unique, . . .
 >
 >Starship Troopers and Armor have NOTHING in common except the general
 >elements of the setting.
 >
 >dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil)

damien, please reconcile these conflicting statements so that your article
will at least _appear_ to be logical.  thank you.

ok
dpm
-- 
murphy@npri6.npri.com 602 Cameron St. Alexandria, VA 22314 (703) 683-9090

              When every one is dead the Great Game is finished.  Not before.
                              --- Hurree Babu, "Kim"
From: afc@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Dreamer Fithp
Date: 9 Sep 92 11:42:11 -0500

In article <1992Sep7.202236.29238@u.washington.edu>, daynem@byron.u.washington.edu (Dayne Miller) writes:
> Niven and Pournelle, in FOOTFALL, mention a Threat Team (the "Dreamer Fithp")
> that's composed of several writers of SF that advise the federal gov't. in 
> times of unusual crisis. I believe Niven makes reference to a similar group 
> in one of his short stories (maybe in the LIMITS collection??).
> 
> Is there any evidence to suggest that such an organization may exist, either
> actively or in a contingency-based set-up?
> 
> If so, who is (or should be) on it? I'd guess Niven, Pournelle, David Brin, 
> Orson Scott Card, Asimov (were he still alive), Carl Sagan (maybe the only
> true scientist of the group), Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, and a few others
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

!!!???!!!

I know Brin personally, and he was (is?) a PhD physicist with degrees from
Caltech and UCSD.  I think Benford is also a working physicist.  Sagan, 
like Asimov, is a successful popularizer but hardly a great scientist 
(in my opinion, not his :-).

> (mostly "hard SF" writers, in all likelihood).
> 
> Anyone know anything they want to share?
> 
>      -Dayne Miller
>         daynem@u.washington.edu

Andrew Cockburn
From: mwasson@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Michael Wasson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Terminology
Date: 5 Sep 92 00:45:17 GMT
Organization: University of Hawaii

>Hardware	Machinery
>Software	Programs
>Wetware	Biological Software

Wereware	Bio software geneered from various animal DNA
(Wah! Sorry!)
_______________________________________________________________________________
"There was nothing to be    |  Michael Wasson     | "'Dead-on balls accurate'?"
done; a circumstance that   |  U of Hawaii        | "It's an industry term."
happily suited our disin-   |     and             | (from My Cousin Vinny)
clination to do anything."  |  Fat Messiah Games, |____________________________
--Herman Melville           |  S. Pacific HQ      | [standard disclaimer]
_______________________________________________________________________________
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: ricardo@colombo.puug.pt (Ricardo Nuno Silva)
Subject: "Help: ever heard of 'Red Shift Rendez-Vous' ?"
Originator: ricardo@colombo
Organization: PUUG - Grupo Portugues de Utilizadores de Sistemas UNIX(tm)
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 08:43:08 GMT


I'm looking for any info on a sf short story called "Red Shift Rendez-Vous".
I'd like to know the author's name, publisher, maybe the ISBN or anything 
else.

Thanks in advance.
Ricardo.


========================================================================
Ricardo Nuno Silva                     | e-mail: ricardo@colombo.puug.pt
Fac. Ciencias da Univ. Lisboa          | 
Portugal                               | May the Net be with u ;-)
From: djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Who was Philip K. Dick ???
Date: 15 Sep 92 20:17:00 GMT
Reply-To: djdaneh@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA

In article <mcirvin.716520367@husc8> mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin) writes:
>wayne@sw.stratus.com (Wayne Newberry) writes:

>>One piece of trivia.....I think that Dick got some early notice for trashing
>>A.E. vanVogt's work.  He became much more "noticed" after he tore the man's
>>work to shreds.  I think his theme was that vanVogt's stuff was scientifically
>>impossible, and therefore not worth reading.

>Philip K. Dick criticized someone else's work for being scientifically
>impossible?  Is this the same Philip K. Dick who wrote some of the
>most scientifically ridiculous (though wonderful) SF of the century?

Ahem -- we'd better nip *THIS* one in the bud.

I have *no* idea how anyone confused the two, but it was Damon Knight who
demolished van Vogt, in a piece which can be found in his collection of
essays IN SEARCH OF WONDER -- it's called "Cosmic Jerrybuilder," and it
takes WORLD OF NULL-A apart piece by piece, and mails back all the pieces
via John Campbell.


		The Pavlov dog and the Schroedinger cat
		Side by side in my forebrain sat
		With Shakespeare's monkeys crowding in behind. . .
		. . . it's all in your mind.
			-- Visual Purple

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: etroup@robin.rp.csiro.au (Euan Troup, Australia Telescope - Parkes Observatory)
Subject: Re: PC Hodgell update
Summary: Get it published!!
Organization: CSIRO Division of Radiophysics/Australia Telescope National Facility
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 03:43:00 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.135404.1@iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu>, parmentier@iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu writes...
>
>       P.C. Hodgell still does not have a publisher for the third book
>in her series.  DAW has had the book, trying to decide whether to print
>it, for almost a year.  Anyone who wants to see Jame in print again might
>want to write to DAW and ask them to print the book.  As soon as I get
>the address I'll be sending of a note.
>
>--
>"I'm not a programmer, but I play one at work." _/_
> _, .__  _  _,  _,     _   _, .__  ____  _  __  / o _ .__
>(_)_/ (_(/_(_)_(_)_   |_)_(_|_/ (_/ / /_(/_/ /_/_/_(/_/ (__
> /|         /|  /|   /|      ___ Gregg  Parmentier ___
>|/         |/  |/    |/ parmentier@iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu

        Could you post the address to the net as well? I'd like to give them a
piece of my mind for taking so long, although as DAW aren't publishing for the
Australia/UK market, it probably won't matter.
BTW, do you have any more info about P. C. Hodgell, she seems to be more obscure
than she deserves to be. Thanks for this update.

Euan Troup,     etroup@atnf.csiro.au
..mostly harmless                      Disclaimer: I frame no hypotheses.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: clc@kepler.unh.edu (Christian L Claiborn)
Subject: Re: Ya can't keep 'em down!
Keywords: Heinlein, Conspiracies, JFK, Armenians, Atlantis
Organization: University of New Hampshire  -  Durham, NH
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 16:50:52 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.125952.25282@lambda.msfc.nasa.gov> puckett@lambda.msfc.nasa.gov (Jim Puckett) writes:
>now wait just a doggone minute! 8-)
>You mean the story written in the early forties, where the heroine has a 
>PhD in Biology and walks around the lab naked, making coffee in a Erlenmeyer
>flask that minutes before was full of snake venom? "I rinsed it out!" she
>said...
Pretty pink 'n fuzzy by my standards, Mr. Puckett.  Heinlein talks about her 
'dragging her feet, but not too hard' on the way into the marriage building.
Yeah, she's smart, but so what?  She spends more of the story comforting the
guy scientist than she does actually doing any work.  She provides a few 
ideas at the beginning, but all the 'work' done in progress in the story is his
instead of hers.
And she wasn't naked, as I recall.  Wearing a housecoat or something to that
effect.  

				clc


-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| "I like the girls I go out with to have a head on their shoulders." | Wasted|
| "I hate necks."        -- Steve Martin                              | Space |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Christian Claiborn, proud owner of over 4,000 individual Amy Grant albums.  |
| Maintainer of Snake for kepler@unh.edu, brilliant BNF parser, fun dude.     |
|        clc@kepler.unh.edu/clc@gloin.unh.edu/C_CLAIBORN@unhh.unh.edu         |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Subject: Re: Piers Anthony
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 07:23:54 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In <1992Sep14.035830.18164@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca> aaron@space.ualberta.ca (Aaron Humphrey) writes:

>Dammit!  I >like< Piers Anthony!

Hmm, I'd have a hard time claiming to like him.  OTOH, I do *read* him. 
The life of a confirmed wordaholic *is* rough sometimes.  :-)

>I don't consider him the best writer out
>there, but he's far from the worst.

Definitely far from the worst.  Besides (and this is one thing that a
lot of people seem to ignore), he's writing juveniles!  One has to wear
different filters when processing...er....reading juveniles. 
Admittedly, writing juveniles is no excuse for bad writing (especially
not when people like Andre Norton--still my favorite juvenile author--
exist).  But Anthony is merely quirky.  He may churn out dreck, but at
least it tends to be his *own* dreck, not clones of all the other
third-rate juveniles out there (although it may be hard to tell these
days, what with the number of people who are cloning Anthony's style
these days....)

>  I personally don't think that many people who read Anthony are really
>prepared to read more "worthy" books, because it's not their type of book.

Well, except for us true wordaholics, who end up reading Anthony because
we already finished reading the Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area
Phone Book.  :-) :-) :-)

(We, OC, finished, reread, and REreread all the "worthy" books long ago...)
:-)
-- 
Chris Waters    | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: rice@ttd.teradyne.com
Subject: Re: All the Weyrs of Pern
Organization: Teradyne Inc., Telecommunications Division
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 92 02:39:42 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.041033.10024@serval.net.wsu.edu>, msmith@beta.tricity.wsu.edu (Mark Smith) writes:
> In article <d7nny2h.dani@netcom.com> dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:
>>jml12@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Jonathan M Lennox):
>>>>As weak an understanding of science as McCaffrey's own is also an
>>>>advantage. [...]  Her computers, for example,
>>>>are either artificial superintelligences or pc's running DOS.
>>
>>>  I think it was decided on alt.fan.pern that the AIVAS was a VMS
>>>machine...not even DOS requires you to explicitly say "RUN".
>>>
>>>  This explains a lot about the AIVAS, of course.  :-)
>>
>>But do VMS programs have .EXE extensions?  (Of course, the starships
>>were built a number of centuries in our future, and VMS may have 
>>evolved... :)
> 
> AHH, but we have to keep backwards compatability!!!  They may be running
> on 1 megabit hardware (1 megabit words) but the software is still 32
> bit!!  IF it's VMS.
> 

And Yes, VMS executable programs have .EXE extensions.


-- 
   John Rice        K9IJ     |  "Did I say that ?" I must have, but It was
                             |   MY opinion only, no one else's...Especially
                             |   Not my Employer's....
   rice@ttd.teradyne.com     |   Purveyor of Miracles,Magic and Sleight-of-hand
From: dave@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Schaumann)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Ya can't keep 'em down!
Keywords: Heinlein, Conspiracies, JFK, Armenians, Atlantis
Date: 13 Sep 92 03:38:38 GMT
Reply-To: dave@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Schaumann)
Organization: University of Arizona

In article <1992Sep11.180129.15008@nmsu.edu>, wimcdaid@nmsu (Liam McDaid) writes:
>	I would like to know what the opinions are on 
>Heinlein's (oh, Jesus, not again!) short stories.  To preempt the
>Heinlein (is God/is scum) flamefest, I'd like to attempt to lay 
>down some ground rules:
>
>	I'm only interested in his stuff BEFORE Stranger. [...]
>	An emphasis on his "Future History" stuff would be
>appreciated.

Get _The Past Through Tomorrow_.

-- 
Dave Schaumann			dave@cs.arizona.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Tuesday, 8 Sep 1992 16:47:14 CDT
From: <U19807@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: RIP Fritz Leiber

In article <1992Sep7.042428.18330@galileo.physics.arizona.edu>,
lnh@soliton.physics.arizona.edu (sometimes a Wombat) says:
>
>   Fritz Leiber
>Requiescat in pace

Oh,no.


If this is true,does anybody have an obituary handy that they can post?
Thank you.

      ** Chris Krolczyk,esq.  * DISCLAIMER: My opinions are in **
      ** Maniac-at-Large      * no way endorsed by the Univer- **
      ** U19807@UICVM.BITNET  * sity of Illinois at Chicago.   **
      ** u19807@uicvm.uic.edu * So there. Nyaah.               **
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Subject: Re: The Doomsday Book
Reply-To: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 06:57:00 GMT

In article <18o9ckINNn6a@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>,
ca572@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mark L. Stackpole) writes:
|> 
|> Connie Willis has had only only collection published: _Fire 
|> Watch_ (Bluejay 1985). This contains one of the nastiest feminist
|> stories ever written "All My Darling Daughters". It also has her
|> two nebula award winners "A Letter for the Clearys" & th
|> title story. She is way overdue for another collection!

   "All My Darling Daughters" is quite powerfull for several reasons,
   but I fail to see what makes it `feminist', though it sure might
   be of interest to feminists.

   [If you post an answer, please do not forget a SPOILER warning.]

 - David
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm not sure what I wrote.
Flames will be ignored unless you post them in perfect Czech.
================================ - David (the metamathician) - ===
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine)
Subject: Re: Joan Aiken
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 14:39:43 GMT

mgates@entiat.boeing.com (Michael Gates) writes:


>Neil> In a previous article, levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine) says:

>>Does anyone else like her Dido Twite books? 

>Neil> I read one or two of those many years ago. I remember them being
>Neil> very good.  Do you by any chance have a list of her books? I
>Neil> wouldn't mind reading them again, to see if I still like them.

>"...not looking at it. And then... *looking at it*, 
>to see if I still liked it."

>The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
>Black Hearts in Battersea
>Nightbirds On Nantucket
>The Stolen Lake
>The Cuckoo Tree
>--
>et tu mgates?

Also Dido and Pa.

Lenore Levine
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: Glen Cook's next Black Company Book
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 06:35:16 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

news@massey.ac.nz (USENET News System):
>I just was looking at the first 2 of the Black Company Books, are they any 
>good?

That's the wrong question with these books.  The relevant question isn't
whether they're well written (they are) but whether they're to your taste.
(Some readers find them overly violent, amoral, and dark.)  Read "The
Black Company" and decide whether you want to read the rest.

-----
Dani Zweig
dani@netcom.com

   Aphorism is better than none.
From: dddawson@lpl.arizona.edu (Doug Dawson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Heinlein stories ?
Date: 11 Sep 92 00:45:25 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Lunar & Planetary Laboratory, Tucson AZ.

In article <1992Sep11.004336.19970@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> dave@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Schaumann) writes:
>What about that story with the TP twin brothers; one goes out in space
>& the other stays home?  The name escapes me, but I /think/ it was
>something like that (just discussed on the net, too :-/  ).

 'Time For The Stars', I think, or very close to it.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written