HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gdr11@phx.cam.ac.uk (G.D. Rees)
Subject: Re: Language and the New Sun
Keywords: Wolfe TBOTNS English Language
Reply-To: gdr11@phx.cam.ac.uk (G.D. Rees)
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 17:08:37 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.215728.22851@infodev.cam.ac.uk>,
cet1@cus.cam.ac.uk (C.E. Thompson) writes:
|> 1. In TSOTT, in Thecla's story, as retold by Severian to Agia in the 
|>    Botanic Gardens, Father Inire is made to say to Domnina: "Yet even
|>    though light is so weightless we have given its name to that
|>    condition...". This pun only makes sense in English or *very* closely
|>    related languages, as far as I can trace the derivation of the words 
|>    light (opposite of heavy) vs. light (opposite of dark).
|> 
|> 2. In TCOTC, Thea says to Severian: "The dawn-men ... renamed it [Mars]
|>    Present. That was a jest in their tongue for the same word meant both
|>    _Now_ and _The Gift_. Or so one of my tutors once explained the matter
|>    to my sister and me, though I do not see how any language could endure
|>    such a confusion."
|> 
|> So how is one to reconcile the two passages? With any other SF author than
|> Gene Wolfe, I would attribute one or other to a momentary carelessness,
|> but I would be quite reluctant to assume that here.

I don't know how much fiction you read that appears in translation;
probably not much if you're a confirmed sf junkie, sf being a primarily
English-language genre, but you should take a look at what _real_
translators can do.  Pick up a copy of _The Futurological Congress_ by
Stanislaw Lem and translated from Polish.  A large section of that novel
concerns the development of the language the characters speak (English
of course in the translated book) and how it has been influenced by the
developments in biochemical technology.  This section is full of very
clever neologisms and puns that only work in English and could not have
appeared in the Polish; the translator has made an excellent job of
coming up with ideas along the same lines as Lem but which work in
English.  There are other dazzling examples of the translator's art in
_The Cyberiad_ and _The Star Diaries_.

If you're interested in the problems of translating difficult
language-sepcific passages, you might like to consider the problems
facing David Boulos, who is most famous for translating Georges Perec's
monumental novel 'Life: A User's Manual' ('La Vie:  Mode D'Emploi') and
is now in the middle of translating another of Perec's novels, the one
which I cannot recall the title of, but which was written entirely
without the letter 'E' (a kind of French parallel to 'Gadsby').

In the afterward to TSOTT, Wolfe explains that he is 'translating'
TBOTNS from some original far-future language and that he has taken
liberties by replacing native words with ones he has derived from
pseudo-Classical roots to give a better flavour.  Under these
circumstances, the passages you quote seem entirely reasonable.  These
problems always occur in novels that purport to be 'translations' of
texts originally in a language that does not exist.

Gareth Rees <gdr11@phx.cam.ac.uk>
From: ajl@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Lewis AJ)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: CJ Cherryh
Date: 13 Oct 92 10:29:07 GMT

In <1992Oct9.221759.27476@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig) writes:

>I don't see much difference between Mallory and Yeager.  Both are
>typical soldiers the way Cherryh likes to paint them: fiercely loyal to
>whatever group they happen to belong to, and casual about killing off
>everybody else. Mallory's defection, which happened to be the Right
>Thing, only happened because Mazian wounded her pride and threatened to
>interfere with Norway's internal affairs. BTW, I think that "murderous
>outlaws" pretty much describes the Fleet in "Downbelow Station".

I can't see that Mallory's defection was purely a case of wounded pride.
She's far too intelligent to let that affect her actions to such a degree.
I do think that she'd had a lot of doubts about the ability of the Fleet
to survive, and she knew that they'd lost, which made what they were about
to do to Pell (in which she had a crucial role) pretty pointless. While she
is pretty cold-blooded (to put it mildly), I think she hates to kill without
good reason.
Murderous outlaws is about right though - Yeagers adopted bunch were tame
by comparison.


-- 
Andy Lewis  (ajl@ecs.soton.ac.uk)
Department of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton
From: jvessey@husc8.harvard.edu (Jonathan Vessey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Forward the Foundation
Date: 11 Oct 92 05:39:42 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Oct11.013943.16265
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

Despite having read science fiction and fantasy for somewhere near half of
my twenty year old life, I just got around to reading The Foundation Trilogy
this summer (actually my first Asimov I'd ever read). I liked the books alot,
though I I liked the trilogy and Prelude (my favorite) more than the last
two when he started with the Gaea stuff. In the back of the more recent
books, I saw an advertisment for Forward the Foundation, supposed to fit 
in between Prelude and the Trilogy. It was supposed to be out in early 1991
and the books actually had sample chapters from the book. Was it ever released?
What I read of it was quite good, so I hope so. Or was it never released
because of Isaac's death? Will they ever release what was done? Basically,
I'm looking for any news since Prelude was my favorite book and I liked what
I read of Forward the Foundation. Thanks for any information

Jon.
-- 
						Jon Vessey
                                                jvessey@husc.harvard.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: leifmk@Lise.Unit.NO (Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y)
Subject: Re: Dragonlance
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 17:34:10 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.134659.10546@cs.few.eur.nl>, bidelen@cs.few.eur.nl (Otto Delen) writes:
 > 
 > I've just finished the Legends trilogy (Dragonlance), and I was
 > wandering does anybody know if there is an order in those books. 
 > Which trilogy should I read first, the Cronicles, Preludes, Preludes II, 
 > Legends, Heroes etc..
 > 
 > Thanks Otto. 
 > -- 
 > 
 > " The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. "

Well, let's see....I seem to remember that the first trilogy was the Chronicles
(Dragons of Autumn Twilight/Winter Night/Spring Dawning), and that should be
read first.  The Legends (unless I remember wrong...that's the Test of the Twins
etc.) is the next trilogy, so that should be read next.  As for the rest, you
would be better off not reading them at all.

Leif Kjnny
Norwegian Institute of Technology
leifmk@lise.unit.no
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: pciszek@nyx.cs.du.edu (Paul Ciszek)
Subject: Heinlein's "Goldfish Bowl" timeless?
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 03:28:38 GMT

All this talk of Heinlein's story "Goldfish Bowl" has reminded me of the
fact that I can't think of any glaring anachronisms in this story.  How
about it?  If this story were published as "new" today, would there be
any givaways?  And how many SF authors can make similar claims?
--
Paul Ciszek, pciszek@nyx.cs.du.edu | No nation was ever drunk when wine was
                                   | cheap.   -- Thomas Jefferson
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris)
Subject: Re: The Shadow Rising (no spoilers)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 20:15:31 GMT

mforget@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Michel Forget) writes:

>dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:

>- 1. A sprinkling of the names used have a heavy freight of association
>-    from our own culture, and I think it was a mistake on Jordan's part
>-    to use them here.  The most blatant examples are Artur Paendrag,
>-    Shai'tan, Sammael, Shayol Ghul.  It could be argued that this is
>-    the author's way of showing the persistence of the greatest legends
>-    or influences from one age, or even turn of the wheel, to the next,
>-    but to me it came across as a distracting lack of originality.

>I have to wonder about this.  Most of the names seem to be corruptions of
>names we are familliar with.  Could the world Jordan is writing about be our
>own, but far into the future (or past)?  I would think the future because Thom
>(the Bard) makes a number of references to the Age before the Age Of Legends
>(to a modern-seeming world, it would appear).  Even the names Thom gives the
>heroes sound a little like names we know.  Or perhaps not...:)

I agree that the use of cognate proper names is a little jarring, but it's
also explicitly recognized in the text.  If memory serves back when Mat
blew the Horn in the second book the text has Rand seeing some of Artur's
host and recognizing each of them by multiple names, most of which were
obviously derived from here-and-now Western culture.  As Michel Forget
notes, there are repeated references to cycles of ages past and future,
and the closeness of proper names "then" to ones in the culture of "now"
isn't unreasonable.  I suppose the thing that irritates me most about it
is that there's nothing in the plot which makes use of this.

Of course, if you want a textbook example of cognate names taken to an
insane extreme, look at the "Dray Prescott" series of potboilers.  Or
better yet, don't.

Joe Morris
From: naam@cecer.army.mil (Ramez Naam)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Prince of Chaos the conclusion??
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:26:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: lorax.naam.719169983
Organization: US Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Labs


In article <1992Oct14.190324.725@skitzo.dseg.ti.com> dittman@skitzo.dseg.
i.com (Eric Dittman) writes:
>I was in the bookstore yesterday to pick up _Mostly Harmless_ when
>I noticed the paperback version of _Price of Chaos_ was out.  I read
>this when it was first released in hardback, so I was surprised that
>the cover of the paperback said PoC was the conclusion of the Amber
>series.  Did the publisher add this by mistake, or is Zelazny just
>going to leave the loose bits loose?
>-- 

Zelazny has said that he expects that _Prince of Chaos_ will wrap the
series up for most readers, but that he plans to write another book (or
two or three) to wrap it up to his satisfaction.
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Saber and Shadow:  A Reprint of the Fifth Millenium
Date: 11 Oct 92 21:42:35 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

"Saber and Shadow", by Stirling and Meier, is out.  As is typical of Baen,
it does *not* have a little warning along the lines of "a substantively
identical version of this book was published as The Sharpest Edge, back
when sales weren't as good."

What a disapoointment; I was looking forward to a new Fifth Millenium
novel.  As near as I could tell from a short inspection, this version
differs from the original primarily in that it has an extra introductory
chapter at the beginning and a pile of appendices at the end.  (The
Sharpest Edge begins with Megan, who has been in the swamp, coming into
an inn looking for a bath.  The new chapter tells us how she got *into*
the swamp.  I suspect that chapter got edited out the first time.)

I don't understand why Baen keeps pulling this stunt.  It's not as though
many of the sales are likely to come from unwary buyers who have already
read the book in its previous incarnation.  And it's not as though there's
any percentage in incurring the ill will of those who *wouldn't* buy the
book if it were more honestly packaged.  Ironically, I've heard Baen
complaining about the fact that readers don't pay attention to publishers
names any more, and hence won't buy a book just because they trust the
publisher.  

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

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
 Are full of passionate intensity." -- W.B. Yeats
From: slp66@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: CJ Cherryh
Date: 16 Oct 92 11:35:14 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

I just found this group today, so I've only seen the last two or three posts on 
Cherryh.  What a great author.  I wish she'd publish more books about Mallory
and the characters in Merchanter's Luck.  I really enjoy reading about the
company side of the war and seeing the fall of the Company.  

I've also sure enjoyed her "Book of Morgaine" series.  I believe the first
book in the series indicates that the 100 men/women who were sent to destroy
the gates were from Union space.  

Cherryh has a really good plot in all these books.  I just wish she'd quit
writing her hard fantasy stuff.


Matt


Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: st1rk@rosie.uh.edu (Maxwell, Darin)
Subject: Re: Sexual Politics and Diane Duane (was re Diane Duane, _D into Fire_)
Summary:  point of view
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords:  viewpoint
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 01:31:00 GMT

In article <15567@suns7.crosfield.co.uk>, jc@crosfield.co.uk 
(jerry cullingford)) writes...

>That's what I see as the flaw in Duane's first book; It takes a world in
>which same sex pairs are unremarkable, and then spends a lot of effort in
>justifying it, which gave me the impression of preachiness, rather than
>just accepting it as implicit - somewhat irritating, a flavour rather like

Hmm. You are coming at this from a point of view I hadn't considered. But 
it is also possible to say that without these justifications to the reader
there would be no reader. These books are pointing out things about society,
but I think the major topic in the books is interpersonal relationships and
relationships with the God/dess/universe. That is my personal first reaction.
You could say all the literary gobbledygook about reading the text as text,etc.
but please don't.:-)

>stories that just happen to include same-sex pairs; TDIF struck me as suffering
>a bit from being 'here's a book about a how you could have a world in which
>same sex pairs are common - and by the way there's also a good story going on
>as well'.

My original post said something about appreciating the books for their 
mythological character. I had to go back to the books to understand what I
meant by that. The universe's mythology(or theology) was well developed in
my opinion. Maybe appreciating neo-pagan philosophies allows me to connect
better to the Goddess figure, because I got a strong feeling I knew where
Duane was coming from on that, though I am not pagan. It is the same feeling
I got when I saw my first SCA Coronation. I could imagine how people could
be compelled to consider a monarch as divine. If I had come away
from these books with no other sense of them, this would have been enough.
But I wouldn't have gotten the chance to read them because the loaner
liked the books less for my reason and more for the acceptance of same-sex
pairs.  The topic we are currently discussing is not the reason I loved
the books enough to make my best friend read them.  It was the 'feeling'
I got from reading them, and I wanted to share those feelings.

What I am trying to say is, these books are not, for me, books about a gay
couple. They are so much more than that that I can't begin to explain it,
even to myself. 

>(I can highly recommend Misty's books as well :-) )

I sense a personal relationship here?

-- Darin

st1rk@jetson.uh.edu                                              
Xref: sparky rec.arts.sf.written:13759 rec.arts.books:18326
From: esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Ian McDonald's _The Broken Land_: review
Date: 13 Oct 92 18:47:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Back-References: <7131@transfer.stratus.com>

In <1992Oct01.081600.22174@sco.COM> AutoPope wrote:
>                                                Like life itself,
> it's plotless but full of feeling.

Oh, bullshit.  *My* life has a plot.  I'm writing it as I go along.

>                                    Do you insist on hanging
> an artificial teleological construct on top of your sensory
> input in real life?

There is nothing `artificial' about my ability to make behavioral choices from
my intentions.

I wouldn't like my life without the plot I'm creating into it, and I don't like
fiction without a plot.  And I've noticed that people who are ideologically
attached to plotless fiction usually aren't very good at making their own
choices, either.
-- 
					Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.movies
From: digdug@iastate.edu (Doug V Tran)
Subject: Re: SF Novels That Would Make Great Films
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Distribution: rec
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 18:58:47 GMT

In <pqppc6c@lynx.unm.edu> xoanon@triton.unm.edu (timothy k istian soholt) writes:

>digdug@iastate.edu (Doug V Tran) writes:

>>I would love to see the "Ellenium" series by David Eddings(sp) put to the
>>playscreen.  It's your basic fantasy adventure mix in with lots of humor.

>And lots of gore. That's a point in favor of it selling but against it
>making a good movie. And it's _bloody long_! It would take a movie the
>length of _Dances With Wolves_ to do justice to each one of the books.
>(I'm not even going to respond to the person who suggested the _Bel-
>gariad_ as a series of films!) I have to admit, though, it would be
>great to see a well-done screen version of any Eddings Epic Fantasy
>Megaseries (tm).


C'mon, it wouldn't be like rated PG(for my taste anyways).  There are
plenty of movie that have detailed graphic violence.

Like you have stated, the problem is lenght(chuckle).  It took me about 6 hours
to read each of the book.  Total of 18 hours.  It would be great if 
it could be squeeze into 2-3 hours of movie time.  Another way is to make
a separate movie for each of the book.  But, it would have to be adapted to
make the ending of each book climatic, like the Star Wars trilogy.

Oh well, the likely hood of some producer wanted to do this is next to zelch.

later,
doug

BTW: has Edding released any follow up books to the "Ellenium" yet?



Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: ellisk@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Michael K. Ellis)
Subject: Re: Sexual Politics and Diane Duane (was re Diane Duane, _D into Fire_)
Keywords: viewpoint
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 23:31:45 GMT

jc@crosfield.co.uk (jerry cullingford) writes:

>[Minor spoilers for "The Door Into Fire" ahead..]
>In article <9OCT199218414808@elroy.uh.edu> st1rk@elroy.uh.edu (Maxwell, Darin) writes:
>>In article <15583@suns7.crosfield.co.uk>, jc@crosfield.co.uk (jerry cullingford)
>>writes...
>>As a matter of absolute fact, the books by Duane were given to me by my 
>>very good friend with one hand and he was taking the Last Herald mage series
>>from me with the other hand. I like Lackey's books much more than Duane's,
>>but that may be because I lived with them more. I waited for books to appear.

>I know the feeling.. I'm still waiting for the second Magewinds book to arrive
>over here :-) OTOH, I wasn't too upset by the several years it took between
>the first and second "door" books.. The acid test is that I'd probably buy
>Misty's books in hardback and wait for the paperbacks of Duane's.. (Books,
>especially hardbacks, are very expensive over here compared to the US).

In almost complete opposite to this, I'd take a Diane Duane book over a
Misty Lackey book any day of the week.  I've enjoyed Lackey's books
quite a bit, but I still think Duane's a better writer.  The 'Tale of
the Five' series, when I first picked it up, 'hit' me like very few
other series I've read (Guy Gavriel Kay does the same thing, but
moreso), while Lackey's books tend to be 'pleasant' but nothing
earthshaking.  Even that has pretty much disappered by now with Lackey's
tendency to release almost a book a month, mostly collaborated.  The
quality that was in the 'Arrows' and 'Oathbound' series is much
diminished.  I can't blame her for wanting the money, but it makes me
much, much less inclined to buy even her paperbacks, much less hardback
editions.

By contrast, I've actively searched out Duane's hardbacks, and treasured
them.  Her mythologies ring as true as anything in fiction I've read,
and her characters have a way of making themselves noticed.  Given a
choice between the two, I'll take Duane anytime.

On the third hand, however, I'll take Emma Bull over both of them
combined, even if it does mean I only get to read one book a year. :)

--
Michael K. Ellis
ellisk@fido.colorado.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: markb@cimage.com (Mark Bernstein)
Subject: Re: Orson Scott Card, Clarion, and RAH
Organization: Cimage Corp, Ann Arbor, MI
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 12:31:07 GMT

John Kim (kim@LCLARK.EDU) wrote:
: 
: 	Anyone out there familiar with Orson Scott Card's fiction? I loved
: his Tales of Alvin Maker series and was wondering when his next book in
: that series was. 

	Alvin Maker was planned as a six or seven book series, of which
the first three are out.  Last I heard, Card was so caught up in other
books (Xenocide and it's sequel, the Memory of Earth series) that he
won't even get to writing the next AM book until next year, meaning at
best a 1994 publication date.  Too bad, it's my favorite series of his.

:I thought I saw a hardcover of his called Hatrack River
: in a used bookstore. Could this be the newest book in the series? 

	Others have answered this.  It's a book club edition collecting
the first three AM books.

: 	On the subject of the Clarion writer's workshop, is there anyone
: who attended it? Was it worth the large amount of time, effort, and money
: to participate in it?

	I know one Clarion grad personally, and have "met" one or two
others electronically.  What I hear is almost entirely positive.  If I
could afford to take six weeks off of work, I'd apply.

: 	My last question is this. Will there be any posthumously published
: Robert Anson Heinlein novels in the near future? He's one of my favorite
: authors.

	I wish.  While there have been three *non*-fiction books published
posthumously (Grumbles From the Grave, Tramp Royale, and one I've heard of
but not yet seen on politics called, I think, Take Back Your Country), 
the most I think we'll see in fiction are "restored" (i.e., without the
original editorial changes and cuts) versions of earlier books.  Since
he was so popular, I doubt there was any fiction he wasn't able to sell.

Mark Bernstein
markb@cimage.com
 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: rebekah@netcom.com (Rebekah J. Jensen)
Subject: Paul Hazel (Correction)
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 04:51:56 GMT

Hullo all,

I posted a couple of days ago asking if anyone had heard of Paul Hazel and
of his forthcoming book, _Wealdwife's Tale_.  In that post, however, I had
the names of his previous books wrong.  His trilogy is called - The
Finnbranch Trilogy - and contains _Yearwood_, _Undersea_, and _Winterking_.
The last one was published in '87.  Has anyone read these?  Are they any
good?

Thanks!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|   Becky Jensen, Private Citizen           |   "Curiouser and curiouser..."  |
|        rebekah@netcom.com                 |   --Lewis, AIW                  |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~