HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: _Tigana_ question
Date: 19 Aug 92 09:01:31 GMT
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.

In article <darknite.714209402@camelot> darknite@camelot.bradley.edu (John S. Novak III) writes:
>I _hope_ he writes more, but not another Tigana novel.  The whole
>setting seemed to be set up (and beautifully at that) to tell
>this one story.  Using it in any other plot would be near
>criminal.
>Does anyone know what Mr. Kay is working on right now?

The proprieter at my bookstore (Future Fantasy, in Palo Alto) tells me that
he has a book out in England right now (or due out soon), that will be out
here by the end of the year.  She did not, however, know anything more, or
had forgotten.  Maybe next time I'm in to spend lots of money she'll
remember 8-).

So that's one of the books I'm eagerly awaiting for the winter.  (That, and
the Niven&Pournelle Mote sequel, and two Lackey books 8-).)

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "You can't get lost in in one room, no matter how
sef@kithrup.COM  |  little effort you make to learn your way around."
-----------------+    -- William E Davidsen (william@crd.GE.COM)
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.
From: db0s+@andrew.cmu.edu (David M. Bartlett)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Cover Artists on Cover Art
Date: 14 Aug 92 13:15:33 GMT
Organization: Computer Repair, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


I can't remember whether the following stories and comments can be
attributed to Frank Kelly Freas or Frank Frazetta.  I heard that when
Frazetta had Lancer books contract him to do twelve covers for the Conan
book series that they put out in the early 1970's, Frazetta made a point
of picking up earlier hardback collections of the Howard stories, as
well as getting galleys of the pastiche novels that would become part of
the collection.  He then proceeded to read all of them pretty
thoroughly, doing preliminary sketches for possible covers as he went. 
Even when he got down to painting, he kept the books close by, along
with his notes and sketches.  Because of this latter arrangement, the
art director at Lancer--a veteran in the paperback business--showed up
at Frank's studio one day, saw that Frazetta was actually USING the
books for inspiration, and had a complete hissy fit about how it was
completely AGAINST industry-wide policy for the cover artist to pay ANY
attention to the actual CONTENTS of the book he was illustrating.  The
art director was visiting Frank that day to tell him WHAT to draw for
EACH cover, and was appalled that Frank broke ANOTHER industry policy by
not letting the art director DICTATE cover content.  He then instructed
Frazetta to dump all his notes, sketches, and semi-finished art into the
nearest incinerator and get into line.  Frazetta called him a
candy-assed pencil-necked geek or something to that effect, and told him
if he wanted to continue breathing without mechanical aids to get the
hell out of his studio before he shoved an eisle down the man's throat; 
that Frank Frazetta would draw what he damn well pleased, and if the art
director had a problem with that, Frazetta would clean his clock, paint
his wagon, and make his toes point in the wrong direction.  (And he
could have done it:  though over 70 and afflicted with arthritis today,
Frazetta in his prime could have been the model for any of his
thud-and-blunder heroes).

Kelly Freas, who did mongo covers for ACE and DAW books in the 1960's
and 1970's, as well as Analog/Astounding magazine back to the 1940's,
once claimed in an interview that Art directors assumed that artists
were illiterate, and that actually reading the book you were going to
illustrate was punishable by death in the old days!
Xref: sparky rec.arts.sf.written:10947 rec.arts.sf.science:2444
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Subject: Are the Moties us?
Organization: Oracle Corporation
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 20:13:44 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

Has it occurred to anyone else out there that the Moties are really
not all that different from us?

Consider:

Up until quite recently the optimum genetic strategy for a human
female was to have a few kids and concentrate on them.  The optimum
strategy for a male was to have as many by-blows as possible but to
also have a small family that he concentrated his effort on.

This is no longer the case in most developed countries.  

In the US today, if you have a family of twenty kids you won't have
fun but you will probably bring all, or the fast majority of them, to
maturity.  That means you will have a larger share of the next
generation.  This is true for both men and women.

Countervailing pressures for smaller families won't be caused by
crowding.  They will be caused by changes in conditions that make it
impossible to have all or most of the children in a large family
survive.

If I am right, we would expect the following effects....

1.  Women having children at a younger age

2.  More women having children without husbands - after all, the male
is no longer so important and you only have so many child bearing
years.

3.  More premature births - we can take better care of them now
outside the womb and if you pop them out early you can have another
kid sooner.

4.  Women having more kids

Seems to me like we have effects 1, 2, and 3 already.  I don't know
about 4.

Until something happens to forcibly restrain humn breeding I would
expect to see a continuing trend that brings us closer and closer to
the Motie model.

A race with a doubling period of 100 years that bumped into us even
today would see us as a plague that could take over the galaxy while
they are still stuck on a few dozen worlds.  They would be right.

Comments?






-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am not an official Oracle spokesman.  I speak for myself and no one else.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science,sci.bio
From: myboy@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Lewis Murtaugh)
Subject: Re: Are the Moties us?
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 15:34:07 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.092035.10907@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) 
writes:
>In article <1992Aug17.190857.15405@news.acns.nwu.edu> I wrote:
>
>>changes in human behavior in the past 200 years ..
>>Societies may evolve, but there is nothing happening on the genetic level.
>
>This is quite false.  Relative frequencies of existing alleles and
>simple allele combinations can change sharply over a few generations, as has 
>been well-demonstrated in animal breeding, in the wild, and in modern humans.

Nick is right, I misstated my point.  Changes in allele frequencies do occur
over relatively short periods of time.  When I said "there is nothing
happening on the genetic level," I meant that the evolution of societies is
not paralleling or being driven by evolution of the human species.

Even that is not entirely clear.  This thread seems to be dealing with *new*
alleles in human behavior (assuming, most likely incorrectly, that human
behavior can be analyzed on an allelic level) -- that is, that changes in the
way populations reproduce is the result of new alleles in the gene pool.  New
alleles like these, if they exist at all, would take hundreds of thousands of
years to show up in the population -- remember that a new allele is first
expressed in a single individual, and there are 5 billion people on this
planet.  Unless this allele is so strong that it lets this person produce
millions of offspring, it won't even be a drop in the genetic bucket.

--
Charles Murtaugh
From: whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Mote in God's Eye (Sequel)
Date: 14 Aug 92 23:32:49 GMT
Reply-To: whheydt@PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA

In article <1992Aug14.112227.3465@desire.wright.edu> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
>In article <1992Aug12.212457.17764@pbhya.PacBell.COM>, whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt) writes:
>> Could the Moties have slipped a ship out *before* the blockade was set
>> up--when jump shock wouldn't have left tehm sitting ducks for waiting
>> warships?
>
>	If I remember correctly, there was a task force at the Alderson point
>when the _MacArthur_ and _Lenin_ went in.

Are you sure it was a task force?  There were *tankers* waiting to
refuel the _Lenin_ for the return trip, and a courier arrived to ferry
Rod and Sally to New Cal, but I don't think there was a task force
present.

>	Presumably they would stay there until relieved by the blockading
>force.  (Or become part of it.)

Why?  No blockade had been set up yet--it wasn't decided on until at
least some weeks after the Motie 'embassy' arrived on New Scotland.
Prior to the failure of the effort to convince the Terrans that Moties
were harmless, the Terrans seemed convinced that the Moties didn't
have the Langston field or *current* knowledge of the Alderson Drive.
Remember that the *real* museums were unknown to those on the
Lenin--and thus the idea that Moties had access to their own, previous
Cycle, technologies.  The Terrans are still in awe of the
accomplishements of the First Empire.  It's hardly going to occur to
them that the situation is that different in the Motie Civilization.
Prior to the final revalations of the true nature of the Moties, a few
Terrans have vague misgivings, but no one *knows* what the  real
threat is.

	--Hal

-- 
Hal Heydt                    |    "Boycott Time-Warner"
Analyst, Pacific*Bell        |         --J. Danforth Quayle
510-823-5447                 |    "... kill all the lawyers."
whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.COM    |         --William Shakespeare
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: jefft@athena.mit.edu (Jeff Tang)
Subject: Re: What are the best fantasy books involving dragons?
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 04:27:22 GMT


Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly

There's also Ann McCafrey's dragon books, but I've always felt that they
were mostly romance novels.
--
Jeff Tang
jefft@athena.mit.edu
From: bjgaed@bb1t.monsanto.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Yet Another Misleading Cover
Date: 17 Aug 92 07:53:30 CST
Organization: Monsanto Company, St. Louis, MO

In article <713850560@sheol.UUCP>, throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:
> 
> Hmmmmm.  Statistics don't lie, I suppose, but let me add a cautionary
> note to the "buyers in gratifyingly large numbers" bit.  I noted that
> Kilian had written it, and having enjoyed Kilian in the past, picked
> it up.  The cover was so off-putting that I almost put it back unopened.
> But I persisnted, read the blurbs, scanned at random here and there
> in the book as is my wont, and finally decided to give it a try.
> It was OK.
> 
> But the sale to *this* particular buyer was very nearly *lost*
> due to distaste for that cover.  It's a good thing I'm not forced
> to look at the cover when the book's open to read.  :-)
> 
> Just a single data point, I suppose.

Wayne raises an interesting issue here.  Are the majority of sf sales 
to people who are at least somewhat knowledgeable about sf, and 
probably buy at a bookstore that at least partly specializes in sf if 
one is available (as I do), or are the majority of sf sales to the 
"mass market" via mall "bookstores", airport racks, grocery stores, 
etc.?  It seems that the kind of covers chosen might be different 
depending on which audience you are trying to reach.  Gaudy covers 
featuring large tracts of female epidermis in the anterior thoracic 
region and avoiding humans with dark skins or non-european features 
do not seem to give an advantage in the sf specialty market, from the 
comments I've read in this thread.  On the other hand, if you are 
trying to sell books by eye-catching covers alone and don't care about 
content because you probably aren't going to get any followup sales 
of other titles by the same author or publisher anyway, maybe 
misleading covers are just what the sf publishing industry wants.

Is this really a plot by the evil galactic publishing empire, or is it 
just ignorance?


-- 
--Electric Monk            (Bruce Gaede); 
                            e-mail: bjgaed@ccmail.monsanto.com

"...and then time started seriously to pass."
--Douglas Adams, _Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency_
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: Marge@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Marge)
Subject: Looking for title/author/location of some stories
Organization: Western Michigan Univ. Comp. Sci. Dept.
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 16:43:50 GMT

I'm looking to find some stories/books, and all I have are plot descriptions.

Any pointers you can give me as far as titles, authors, anthologies or whatever
will be greatly appreciated.  


Story 1:
      In this story all people are both sexes.  The story centres on two
      young people who are in love and regularly change sex (not always a
      boy/girl partnership, sure gets rid of homophobia) until one day 
      one of them turns into a completely different sex all together.  It
      turns out that there are not just two sexes but many different sexes
      and the couple are off on a voyage of discovery.


Story 2:
      A man and a woman, previously unacquainted, encounter each other in a
      subway car and suddenly find themselves mind-linked.  Since they come
      from completely different backgrounds and basically hate each other
      at first sight, neither of them is delighted with the situation. 


Story 3:
      A male agent is dispatched to a planet of women (I believe his
      mission was to find and disable the device that had caused the men to
      disappear and/or the women to become severe androphobes).  He
      disguises himself as a woman, using advanced technology that amounts
      to putting on a "magic" skin.  The (overnight?) transformation is
      complete, including voice. 


adTHANKSvance,

*** Marge
From: S4BIASI@imerj.BITNET ("R.S. de Biasi")
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Willis
Date: 21 Aug 92 10:57:08 GMT

>I'm looking for a Connie Willis story that appeared in Isaac Asimov's

The title of the story is Time-out and it appeared in the
July 1989 issue.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: Sarek@world.std.com (Garrett Fitzgerald)
Subject: Re: Diane Duane-Door into Sunset
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 15:49:37 GMT

In article <1992Aug17.122230.1@vaxa.strath.ac.uk> ciar04@vaxa.strath.ac.uk writes:
>> And the good news is that at the end she says there will be more of them.  It's
>> not just a triology anymore, folks!!

Never was one--it's always been a tetralogy. :-) 

>Does Door into Sunset comes immediately after Door Into Shadow, or are there
>any books between the two?  I noticed that Door Into Shadow was (c) 1983, so
>there must be some books that I missed out.

Oh, no, you didn't miss anything. :-( I don't know what the holdup
was, but DED told us about _TDiSunset_ at a convention back in '86--I
was under the impression it was ready to come out at any time.
<*sigh*> I want that book!!!!!!! :-)
--------------------
"He's pregnant."

Sarek of Vulcan
a.k.a. Garrett Fitzgerald `:-)
Official Diver of the RFA, 'Chelle's TwinSib, and Donna's OneTrueLove

Sarek@world.std.com

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: u920065@postoffice.utas.edu.au (Dean Bailey)
Subject: Re: Recommandation on Fantasy Novels
Organization: University of Tasmania (Australia)
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 23:15:48 GMT

In article <2662@nlsun1.oracle.nl>, rgasch@nl.oracle.com (Robert Gasch) writes:
> 
> One author nobody has mentioned yet is Stephen R. Donaldson. I
> really enjoyed his Cronicles of the Unbeliever. He manages to
> create a complex world, relatively real characters and conjurs
> up the strangest places without it seeming ridiculus. I
> would recommend this one. The only drawback is that the series
> is rather long (I found it worth my time).
> 
> Any other opinions?
> ---> Rob
> 
> 

I have to agree with you Rob, Donaldson's writing creates a world that is
highly believable.  If you wish to read any other of his work, I recommend
the Mordant Need series (Mirror of her Dreams, A man rides through).  The 
First in this series seemes a bit long but the second book move along nicely.
If you have not already read them, the I suggest that you do.  

Dean :-)
From: brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: David Brin - What is he up to?
Organization: ClariNet Communications Corp.
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 06:07:41 GMT
Keywords: Brin, Dolphins, Sundiver, Startide Rising, Uplift War

David Brin does go to some cons but he has a new small human to uplift and
is keeping his schedule light.

As much as fans love it, writers would rather be diverse than write all
in the same series.  So you can't always expect to see series books as soon
as you would like them.  He does plan to finish the Uplift books, but his
current novel is about a planet where, for 3 seasons of the year, children
are produced with genetic techniques (I believe cloned but I am not sure)
while normal sexual genetic mixing is done for babies conceived in the
summer.     (This is from memory of him describing it, no doubt he will
change some things.)

-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Sunnyvale, CA 408/296-0366
From: duke@cupid.uucp (Duke Robillard)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Esther Friesner
Date: 12 Aug 92 19:54:31 GMT
Reply-To: duke@cupid.UUCP (Duke Robillard)
Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ

In article <70851@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:

>bjgaed@bb1t.monsanto.com writes:
>>Can anyone explain the attraction of Esther Friesener?

>Well, she's amazingly funny (at least as funny to talk to as read...
>Chalk it up to "tastes differ".

Boy they sure do.  I've found her even more annoying in person than in
print.  She's the stereotypical fan:  loud, pompous, self-important,
and given to telling long, dull stories whilst on panels, that are
intended to be funny, but literally drive people from the room.

And she's short too.  :->

On the other hand, I can read Bruce Sterling's rants for hours, so
go figure.

Duke Robillard           DoD #0130
duke@cc.bellcore.com     {backbone}!bcr!cupid!duke
From: jsa5+@andrew.cmu.edu (Joshua M. Sabloff)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: What are the best fantasy books involving dragons?
Date: 13 Aug 92 13:45:33 GMT
Organization: Information Networking Institute, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

If you want dragons, there is no better series than Anne McCaffery's
Pern books (Dragonflight, Dragonquest etc.).

In all, while the rest of the books might not be of the highest quality,
her portrayal of dragons is certainly one of the best!

-Josh Sabloff (jsa5@andrew.cmu.edu)
"Research physicists need Porsches too!" -- Oliver Wendell Jones
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: mprc@troi.cc.rochester.edu (M. Price)
Subject: John Wyndham Question
Organization: University of Rochester (Rochester, NY)
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 19:52:11 GMT

     Help! I'm trying to locate a short story (?) by John Wyndham which
deals with the narrator waking up as a massively pregnant woman in a
society in which certain women are breeding slaves for the rest of the
population. Can anyone point me to a collection where I may be able to
find it? Any other references to similar fictions (or realities!) would
also be appreciated. If you'd like to e-mail me, you can reach me at
mprc@troi.cc.rochester.edu.
     Much 'ppreciated,
                                                        MP
From: eeipwah@eeiud.ericsson.se (Patrick Walsh)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: SIGNOFF SF-LOVERS-WRITTEN
Date: 18 Aug 92 08:24:30 GMT

SIGNOFF SF-LOVERS-WRITTEN
Xref: sparky rec.arts.sf.written:11154 rec.arts.sf.science:2525
From: jevans@ius.indiana.EDU (JEVANS)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Doctor Who
Date: 20 Aug 92 16:38:11 GMT


          Does anyone out there have news on the Doctor Who movie or
          email/bitnet/internet lists devoted to The Doctor? I know
          there's rec.arts.drwho for newsfeeds, but we can't get
          newsfeeds here. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.


        ""
       "Z?"
 ZDDDDDDAADDDDDD?
 @BBDDDDBDDDDDBBY
  33    3     33     THE DOCTOR -
  33    3     33       "Oh well, why not? We live in an
  33    3     33       imperfect universe: But why can't
  33    3     33       people just be nice to each
  33    3     33       other, for a change?"
  33    3     33
  33    3     33
 ZAADDDDADDDDDAA?       JEVANS@IUS.INDIANA.EDU
 @DDDDDDDDDDDDDDY
From: jwtlai@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Jim W Lai)
Subject: Re: Are the Moties us?
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 00:40:46 GMT

In article <rwallace.713710067@unix1.tcd.ie> rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace) writes:
>Again, this is true - but I think the original poster's point was that
>genes for wanting to have as many children as possible are likely to
>become more and more prevalent as time goes on, simply because people
>who choose to have more children are going to have more surviving
>offspring in the next generation.

Genes don't tell us that though.  They just tell us to have sex, tricking us
into reproducing.  So we'll end up with a planet full of sex maniacs.  :)

>Are there any effects that would counteract the genetic trend towards
>wanting to have more children? (In the very long term.) Or is there some
>flaw in the reasoning?

How about birth control?
From: tittle@ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle Moore)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Go to alt.fan...we don't want you(was Re: rec.arts.sf.written FAQ)
Date: 20 Aug 92 03:50:28 GMT
Reply-To: tittle@ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle Moore)
Organization: ICS Dept., UC Irvine

In <4978@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:

>In article <57285@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> blumb@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bill Blum) writes:
>>In article <Bt8voI.Dz0@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> ericg@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Eric Chris Garrison) writes:
>>>In article <1992Aug19.181500.545@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca> aaron@space.ualberta.ca writes:
[aaron@space's tongue-in-cheek-parody]
[Eric Garrison's I-completely-missed-it-flame]
[Bill Blum's equally-blind-agreement-to-flame]

[and Sea Wasp sez:]
>	WHAT? Are the readers of this newsgroup THAT dense, that they
>can't see a JOKE when it's posted? Aaron, my deepest sympathies for the
>unwarranted flames you're drawing from the humor-blind philistines out
>here...

Yeah, and on a LIT'rary group, too!  You'd think people on a newsgroup
talking about BOOKS could at least READ...

--Cindy, who expects entirely too much from the net, sometimes
--
Cindy Tittle Moore

Internet: tittle@ics.uci.edu       | BITNET: cltittle@uci.bitnet
UUCP:     ...!ucbvax!ucivax!tittle | Usnail: PO Box 4188, Irvine CA, 92716
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Katherine Kerr's Polar City Blues
From: ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig)
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 07:00:37 GMT
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.

lgs57@cas.org (Linda Siemsen) writes:

>I recently read Katherine Kerr's Polar City Blues.  I enjoyed it very much.  I
>especially liked the treatment of aliens and psychics.  Did anyone else read
>it and what did you think?  Would you call it a suspense SF novel?

I think it is quite a nice book, but nothing really special. To be really
good, it lacks impact. The main characters are just a shade too nice to
be entirely believable.
-- 
Thomas Koenig, ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz, ib09@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
diagram.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written