From: cgregory@ziggy.cs.uiuc.edu (Christine Gregory)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv
Subject: Re: QL: Sam's body leaping/Novel spoilers
Date: 15 Oct 92 19:20:15 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

In article <1992Oct13.212850.2273@vax1.mankato.msus.edu> kickstart@vax1.mankato.msus.edu writes:
" article <1992Oct9.231953.12651@netcom.com>, sallylb@netcom.com (Sally Smith) writes:
" > It's his entire body, folks. Always has been. To clear up the
" > confusion for you new folks who haven't read this a million times
" > (hope the old hands will bear with me), I quote from the FAQL:
" 
" Unfortunately, I purchased the novel which completely messed up the body/mind
" rule, which really surprised me.  I would have thought Belisario would have
" really looked the book over before finally okaying it.  

Okay, I got the novel as a gift (or I probably wouldn't have bought it
after what I've heard about it), and I fully expected to hate it.
And I started out grumbling as I read it -- but after the first couple
of chapters, I ended up really *liking* it -- in fact, I read it straight
through (except for a 1/2-hour Red Dwarf break :-).

" I'll admit there were some good parts to the novel, but I think the writer was
" taking too much into her hands by developing the characters back at the
" mountain.  I don't think Tina can be brilliant, but a ditz at the same time,
" and what the heck happened to Donna? (Sam's wife?)

Well, considering all the references in the book, I imagine it was written
(or mostly done) between Shock Theatre and The Leap Back.  So no one knew
about Donna yet.

Possible Spoilers:

To quote Tibby -- "I *love* this future stuff!"
I liked all the development at the project.  I'm not sure I can believe
Tina's *that* brilliant, but then, I don't believe that she's as ditzy
as she appeared in ST, either.  So she's got a Phd -- I know lots
of people with PhD's who could be described as flightly, ditzy, spacey...
(whoops, better watch it :-).  And although I hardly consider myself
"brilliant", -- at least back when I was in school, I was one of those
"smarter than average when it came to books & computers" but "rather
ditzy when it came to everyday stuff" type people.  Maybe I still am.
(Oh, I know somebody is going to comment on this, aren't you, Mary? :-)

As for the "body" question:  I think you may have misunderstood -- I did
at first, and had to reread parts:  The first thing Sam did after leaping
in was FALL DOWN AND PULL MOST OF THE BOOTH DOWN ON TOP OF HIM.  He
*injured* his arm & leg on what also happened to be Bob's "bad" side.
OK, so it's another coincidence like the flashbulb in "Blind Faith",
but it works for me...

And someone else, I think, mentioned that Sam seemed to be "aware" of
his between-leap time, and of whoever controlled him -- referring,
apparently, to the prologue and epilogue.  I didn't interpret it that
way.  It seemed as if this was more of a "dream".  Or that this (whatever
you want to call it) was to the between-leap time as dreaming is to sleep.
That it didn't necessarily *really* happen -- it could just be Sam's
subconcious -- expecially since there was no evidence that Sam
remembered any of it when he was "awake".

I'd have to say this book is at least as good as an average episode --
maybe even in the top 1/3.

Just my $.02 :-)
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