HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: stets@stets.novalis.public.sub.org (Thomas Stets)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: What's that story?
Distribution: world
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 19:28:14 GMT
Organization: Just me.

I remember reading a story years ago, or rather a collection of
stories, telling the story of a city thru several centuries.

Some fragments I remember are:

  - people are being deep-frozen to be woken up in the future.
    A couple is called back to life by the computer (or the city?)
    for some reason. When they get back into their hibernation-machine
    her machine fails, but locks her in. When he finally wakes up
    he finds her in the machine, starved decades ago.

  - the big cities, isolated and in war with each other, are being
    guarded by men wearing a kind of motorized exoskeleton, enabling
    them to run a high speed over long distances etc.
    (probably something like the loading-robots in Alien II, but
    build for speed.)


I probably read this book when I still had the bad habit of reading
books from the public library instead of buying them. Now you can
see what happens, when you do that: You want to read it again and
can't find it.  :-)

  Thomas Stets

P.S. I'm sure it's not CITY by Simak, or SUPERCITY by Pohl(?).


--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Stets                                    Telephone: +49 (7031) 604957
stets@stets.novalis.public.sub.org              Address:   Wengertsteige 59
                                                           7038 Holzgerlingen
+++ Synthetic Signature. 100% virus-proof +++              Germany
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Michael Moorcock's Swords Trilogy
From: jjfink@skcla.monsanto.com
Date: 21 Jul 92 16:50:19 GMT
Organization: Searle, Skokie, IL
Nntp-Posting-User: jjfink

In article <1992Jul21.170355.28628@discus.technion.ac.il>, davidba@carmel.technion.ac.il (David Ben_Ami) writes:

>   I just finished reading Michael Moorcock's "The Swords' Trilogy".
>   Some Questions:
>   ---------------
>   1. How is Vadhagh and Nadhragh supposed to be pronounced? and how
>      does Kwll (the ultimate Deus Ex Machina IMHO :-)?
Probably the "dh" is like the "th" in "the", and "gh" is germanic (?)
At least that's how I pronounce it in my head.

>   2. What was "The land of Tall Stones"? I thought it reffered to 
>      modern-day skyscrapers. I wish Corum and Jhary would have their
>      antics in our society instead of 18th century Cornwall!
See below

>   3. Is our World one of the "Million Spheres" that are in conjunction
>      and there are therefore Millions like it? is every Sphere a
>      planet? a universe?
Uh, this is fiction.  I don't look at "our world" as being a part of a
fictional universe.  Look at them as dimensions/alternate universes.

>   4. Why are the "Chaos Deities" (The knight, queen and king) are
>      called "The Sword Rulers"? apart from being standard Fantasy
>      buzzword I can't see any relationship between them and a Sword.
The three rulers also are referred to in the Elric books.  However, the swords
there are powers of their own.

>   5. Any other books by M. Moorcock?
Oh boy, are you in for it now.
The 'lead' Eternal Champions are Elric (a whole bunch of books), Corum (two
sets of three:  The "Swords" and the "Chronicles"), and Hawkmoon (a set of
four, and a set of three called the "Castle Brass" series).

The Eternal Champion falls into almost all of Moorcock's fiction.  Sometimes
scenes will be reproduced in a different environment (read the Elric, then
Final Programme, one of the Jerry Cornelius books).

For the link up between them, try "The Dragon in the Sword", "The Silver
Warriors" and one other I've forgotten (and all in the reverse order).

Best of luck,
Joel Finkle

-- 
jjfink@skcla.monsanto.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Portions of the preceding were recorded.  As for the rest, I quite fear that
 it was all in your mind" -- Alfred Hitchcock
From: mch@sqwest.wimsey.bc.ca (Mark C. Henderson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Lovecraft Thread
Date: 21 Jul 92 23:57:02 GMT
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Surrey, British Columbia, CANADA

In article <9207211339.AA12850@rutgers.edu>:
...
>Clark Ashton Smith (no relation) who IMHO constantly out Lovecraft's
>Lovecraft, out Poe's Poe, out Hawthorne's Hawthorne, and is largely
>ignored by today's generation!
>I'm not even sure he's still in print.
>I'm holding on to my dog-eared volumes.

_A Rendezvous in Averoigne_ is probably still available from Arkham
House.  It contains a good selection of Clark Ashton Smith's stories 
(~20 of his best) and the price is right at about US$20.

Mark
-- 
Mark Henderson, SoftQuad Inc, 108-10070 King George Hwy, Surrey, B.C. V3T 2W4
Internet:   mch@west.sq.com, mch@sqwest.wimsey.bc.ca
UUCP: {van-bc,sq}!sqwest!mch Telephone: +1 604 585 8394  Fax: +1 604 585 1926
From: victor@gran-paradiso.tivoli.com (Brian Victor)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Clark Ashton Smith (was Re: Lovecraft Thread)
Date: 23 Jul 92 12:58:55 GMT
Reply-To: victor@tivoli.com
Organization: Tivoli Systems


In <9207211339.AA12850@rutgers.edu> WTS@harvarda.BITNET ("WADE T. SMITH") writes:
> This should be the time to mention my personal favorite among the great
> purveyors of scares and lurid prose- Clark Ashton Smith (no relation) who
> IMHO constantly out Lovecraft's Lovecraft, out Poe's Poe, out Hawthorne's
> Hawthorne, and is largely ignored by today's generation!  I'm not even sure
> he's still in print.  I'm holding on to my dog-eared volumes.

I'm not a great fan of Smith -- I suppose his style is a just a little too
baroque for me.  But Jack Vance, one of my favourite writers, reminds me of him
quite a bit.  I'd be curious to know if anyone has read Smith's poetry or
prose-poems, many of which are quite good (one, entitled something like `In the
Land of Cockaigne' sticks in my mind particularly).

I've never seen any of his books in stores or even in public libraries, though
my nearby university has just about everything he ever published!


bv
--
Brian Victor                 Tivoli Systems                 victor@tivoli.com
                   ...!cs.utexas.edu!tivoli!victor
From: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey)
Subject: Re: Melanin on Covers (was Re: Errors on Covers)
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 19:03:02 GMT

Laura Johnson suggests we TAKE ACTION as follows:

   Then I'd like to suggest that rec.arts.sf.* readers (and their friends,
   coworkers, etc.) boycott these books. If you want to read them, get them 
   from the library or borrow them from a friend; just don't pay money for 'em.

   Ideally, of course, such a boycott is accompanied by letters to the
   publisher, explaining "Why I Didn't Buy This Book" in short words and
   simple sentences.

   -Laura ("Not easily shocked") Johnson

Did you read the message to which you replied?

DISTRIBUTORS and BUYERS are very, very different from PUBLISHERS and
AUTHORS.

DISTRIBUTORS and BUYERS are the people who purchase huge, vast amounts
of books for distribution at airports, 7-11s, supermarkets,
Waldenbooks, and B. Dalton's chains, as well as for smaller outfits.
It does not take very many distributors and buyers, relative to the
numbers of books and outlets, to perform this middleman function, and
therefore when a book cover is created by Marketing Geniuses, the
really clever ones know that the person to whom they are really
selling the book is, in fact, a tired, jaded DISTRIBUTOR or BUYER.
*Not* Jane and John Nerd, legendary highly educated and well-read
consumers, but the fellows (I'd guess largely white, male, and
middle-class or blue-collar background) who see to it that the books
get to the stores for Jane and John to purchase.  The *really*
important guys are the ones who stock racks in supermarkets and
airports from cartons of miscellaneous books in their trucks.  For
them Marketing Geniuses have bazooms and bazookas, bright colors and
flashy foil, and who gives a damn about the contents.

Boycotting a book tells the PUBLISHER not to buy another book from
that AUTHOR.*

It does not tell the DISTRIBUTOR that he should expand his view of
acceptable cover art, and even with a letter to the PUBLISHER
explaining that you hate bad cover art, it will not communicate
anything whatever to the DISTRIBUTOR.

Posting the titles on sf-lovers or anywhere else will do absolutely
nothing but make lots of people say "Yeah, this really sucks, man, the
cover of a book is more important to me than what the author has
actually said," and "I can't visualize a character without accurate
cover art," and "We should boycott publishers and authors who don't
have characters with correct levels of melanin on their covers, even
if the characters are in the book or it's not even mentioned what the
characters look like."  We know this is what it will do because it is
done here regularly.


Elizabeth Willey

*Boycotting a book by borrowing it means only that you have passed the
conscience-weight of the purchase on to some other person, whom you
may then, if you wish, excoriate for Feeding the System.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: doom@leland.Stanford.EDU (Joseph Brenner)
Subject: Rating the Hugo Nominees
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 04:13:02 GMT


I just finished rating the Hugo nominated stories.  After
mulling it over a bit, I decided to give Geoffrey Landis' 
"A Walk in the Sun" the number one rating.  It's not
perfect, but I thought it was a really good job of doing a
traditional hard SF story, somewhere between Hal Clement and
the early Heinlein.  I don't see any where near enough work
like this, and I'd say it deserves to be encouraged.  

Some of the things that aren't quite right with it: the main
character's histrionics/hallucinations get a little tiresome
about midway through the story.  Why does everyone always
*overdo* things?  For instance, take the ending: wouldn't it
be better if the guy said "I'm sure you will" *just once*
and then CURTAIN?  Saying it twice is corny, and the last
paragraph is even worse.

Second best I gave to John Kessel's "Buffalo".  It's true
that it's not strictly SF, but it addresses things of
interest to people with a science fictional mind-set, and
what the hell, why be rigid with these things.  

What bothered me about it most probably was that it was so
strongly influenced by Bruce Sterling's "Dori Bangs".  (When
you come right down to it, most of the stories on the ballot
were a bit lacking in originality.)

But I did get into the biographical sketch of the later
Welles.  I've been reading his _Outline of History_ lately,
and I think I'm turning into a fan of his, so this is a
story I wanted to like a lot. 

Kessel had me with him, right up to the point where he
decided to state his thesis baldly, then I felt like arguing
with him.  His moral is that stories don't need morals?
That Kessel isn't going to feel guilty for doing whatever
pandering needs to be done to sell the stories?

Kessel is taking pot shots at a man who was far greater than
he'll ever be.  I wonder how accurate his autobiographical
sketch is?  If you read the _Outline_, I think you'll be
surprised at Well's depth.  Don't immediately write him off
with some stereotype of a naive socialist one-worlder.

At a fairly distant third, I placed Mike Resnick's "One
Perfect Morning, With Jackals".  I'm not impressed much with
what it is, but it was fairly well done.  Fourth place I
gave to "No Award".  Most SF "humor" strikes me as (a) not
funny and (b) pointless fluff, and that's what I thought of
"Press Ann", "Dog's Life", and "In the Late Cretaceous" (if
you're going to complain about "Buffalo" not being SF, what
are you going to do with this one?).  And "Winter Solstice"
struck me as an odd attempt at capturing the feel of going
senile, translated into fantasy for no apparent reason.  The
whole business about Merlin and King Arthur and so on struck
me as little more than name dropping.
From: tkogoma@triton.unm.edu (Gym Z. Quirk)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Errors in Covers (was Re: Hyperion covers)
Date: 23 Jul 92 03:36:25 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <rdippold.711835806@cancun> rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>Has anyone ever caught Michael Whelan in a cover error?  It seems like
>he actually reads the book, as the covers are filled with details from
>the books, but it can happen to anyone...

Well, his cover for _Dragonquest_ has, according to Anne McCaffrey,
the wrong image of thread on it.  Actually, all of his Pern covers
have minor scale problems with the size of dragons as compared to
their riders.  (Dragons are 25-40 meters in length.  Whelan's dragons
look about half that size.)

Still, artistic liscence and all that. ;-)

-- 
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk  (Known to some as Taki Kogoma)  tkogoma@triton.unm.edu
  I'll get a life when someone demonstrates that it would be superior to
                           what I have now...
From: rob@watney.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere)
Subject: Re: Dealing with Jump shock (Re: The Moat around God's Eye)
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Electrical Engineering
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 08:17:52 GMT

In article <14911@suns6.crosfield.co.uk> jc@crosfield.co.uk (jerry
cullingford) writes: 
>And possibly (4) by coming in with a high inherent velocity, if that's
>preserved across jumps (can't remember offhand). That way you get away
>from the opposition fast enough to make sure you don't take too much of a
>pounding before you come round.

This is an interesting point.  In the article in _Playgrounds of the Mind_,
Niven claims that a requirement of the Alderson Drive is that you enter and
emerge with zero kinetic energy relative to some reference frame he doesn't
specify further.  This makes sense, as it avoids time paradoxes.  However, in
the Mote, it is stated that some of the Motie ships emerge with velocities in
the Mm/s range...  Go figure, I guess :)

>Another thought on the Moties and the blockade: If the moties come up with
>a version of the field that reflects energy instead of absorbing it (not too
>far fetched if watchmakers can improve the field just on instinct), then I
>can't see how you'd ever stop them short of ramming...

Overload the momentary capacity of the field (which would be much harder).  Now
a _really_ interesting defense device would be a field that worked as a
phase-reversing mirror...

SR
---
From: murphy@CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: andrew j. offutt
Date: 22 Jul 92 18:06:46 GMT


	Folks,
	Many moons ago, while still an undergraduate at Morehead St.
	University (Ky.) I fell in love with some of the works of
	Andrew J. Offutt ..._Ardor On Aros_, the _Thieve's World_ stuff
	and everything else I could get my hands on that he (or he and
	his wofe Jodi) had written.  Is there anything that he has done 
	lately???  Since _ShadowSpawn_?????
			Thanks, Keith Murphy   
				Department of Communication
				Indiana Purdue U. Fort Wayne
From: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: That Perfect Book...
Date: 22 Jul 92 20:00:18 GMT
Reply-To: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com
Distribution: na

In article <1992Jul22.162803.9849@pbhyc.PacBell.COM>  
djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes:
> 
> Perfect binding (tm) is a very cruddy form of binding, which is best
> used for manuals not intended to be used for a very long time, etc.
> 

Perfedt binding technology is getting much better. Some of the newer
books and manuals coming out in perfect bound format are very
nicely done. You can even open them up and lay them flat (useful
for manuals) without all the pages falling out.

--
Jim Mann       jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com  Stratus Computer
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: yarvin@highlite.uucp (Curtis Yarvin)
Subject: Re: BOOKS BY DAVID EDDINGS
Organization: Gotham Communications Research
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 21:46:06 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.191351.25963@MorningStar.Com> chris@MorningStar.Com (Chris Miller) writes:
>>IMHO (since you insist), the Belgariad is ghastly. So bad that I
>>didn't even bother with the others.
>>
>>What would you say are the interesting, original, or worthwhile points
>>to the Belgariad?
>
>Strong character developlent.  

Before everyone smirks, I should point out that Eddings does do
characters better (IMHO) than many of the "greats" of old-time sf.
Can you honestly call Eddings' characters weaker than Tolkien's?
E.E. "Doc" Smith's?  Asimov's?  Even (heresy) Heinlein's?

Eddings' success is in stagnation, not degeneration.  Loathe him
for it if you will; but ware the tarpits of hypocrisy.

c
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: doom@leland.Stanford.EDU (Joseph Brenner)
Subject: Re: Author Polls -- Sturgeon Results
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: 27 Jul 92 05:01:49 GMT

xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters) writes:

>Well, actually, in my case, I thought about all the excellent books that
>Sturgeon has written, realized that there's no way I could rank them
>relative to each other, since so many of them are so different, and good
>for different reasons, that I decided to give the Sturgeon poll a pass. 
>I couldn't formulate an answer that matched the ballot format.  :-)

I thought I might actually vote for once just because it was
a Sturgeon poll, but when I actually tried to do it I
couldn't figure out how.  How do you pick out the best
"book" of a man who excelled at short stories?  _More Than
Human_ and _Some of Your Blood_ are probably in the top
three, but then I'd have to pick a collection.  Maybe
_Sturgeon is Alive and Well_?

I was having trouble remembering what stories were in what
collection, so I tried consulting that ftp archive, and
found it was just a bibliography of books, not stories.
Useless.
From: rice@ttd.teradyne.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Heinlein's "Let There be Light"
Date: 23 Jul 92 12:33:50 GMT
Organization: Teradyne Inc., Telecommunications Division

In article <1992Jul20.152820.22519@athena.mit.edu>, rcharbon@athena.mit.edu (Ray Charbonneau) writes:
> (disclaimer: If I remember correctly...)
> 

> Let There be Light is the story of the developement of the Douglas-Martin
> sunpower screens.  I got it in the paperback of "The Man Who Sold the Moon". 
> It is the only story in the book not available elsewhere.
 

> It is a fairly trivial
> boy-scientist-meets-girl-scientist-and-join-to-battle-evil-industrialists-
> while-falling-in-love-with-snappy-patter.  Could be called a forshadowing 
> of all those late Heinlein books that so much of the net seems to abhor.
                                        ---------------------------------
But they all have read. 

-- 
   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: cumming@PICA.ARMY.MIL ("Robert C. Cumming", PEO)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON
Date: 29 Jul 92 19:45:44 GMT

Greetings,

	While reading the various postings concerning the Daniel Keyes short
story (later novel) FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON, which eventually served as the basis
for the film CHARLIE, a thought occurred to me.  

POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR FFA, CHARLIE AND AWAKENINGS FOLLOW:

	The basic gist of FFA/CHARLIE was the pathos of a retarded man who
becomes brilliant through the agency of an experimental drug and then, with
the full awareness imparted by his new high I.Q. must face the fact that the
effect is only temporary and suffer the agony of feeling himself slip into
retardation again.  If anyone saw the film AWAKENINGS, it told the story of
former encephalitis patients who had been comatose/zombielike for years
and, as subjects of an experimental treatment with the drug L-Dopa, were
temporarily brought back to full conciousness.  The film contains a
particularly moving performance by Robert DeNiro as a patient who feels himself
slipping back into incoherence and coma as the drugs effects become less
and less potent over time.

	Now my point is this: AWAKENINGS was based upon a real series of events
which occurred, I believe, in the 1950's.  Is it possible that the idea
for FFA/CHARLIE came from reading an account of the original experiment and
just substituting an intelligence-increasing drug for the L-Dopa?  There's
probably no way to know but it is an interesting speculation.

Bob
From: branwen@cerebus.ccc.amdahl.com (Karen Williams)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: List of voters in ESF award so far
Date: 29 Jul 92 18:58:06 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <1992Jul27.213845.3706@clarinet.com> brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton) writes:

>The list follows below.  It's pretty small (around 130) so it seems the
>chances of this becoming a major award this year are slim.  20 times as
>many people grabbed the stories, so either voter participation is low or
>people are waiting to read them and vote.  Voting closes Aug 10.

I got the stories, read them, and didn't vote. Many of the stories didn't
seem to me to be science fiction, and none of them jumped out and grabbed
me as being worthy of a Hugo. They were all *good* stories, but none of them
were great. I suppose I could vote "No Award" and have done with it.



--
                                          Karen Williams
                                          branwen@cerebus.ras.amdahl.com
"Don't whine. Warrior women speak in a husky whisper."
  -- Brat Pack #3
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: mab@wdl39.wdl.loral.com (Mark A Biggar)
Subject: Re: Have Niven&Pournelle described Alderson drive anywhere?
Organization: Loral Western Development Labs
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 17:28:32 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.230310.12082@wdl.loral.com> mab@wdl39.wdl.loral.com (Mark A Biggar) writes:
>There is a lot of vague details in "The bear went over the mountian" a short
>story set in the early CoDominium found in the Pournelle edited anthology
>"Black Holes".  In the story a Black Hole perodically ocults a Alderson
>tram line between two stars geting ships lost.

Sorry I miss remembered.  The real title is "He fell into a Dark Hole".  My
only excuse is that the real title IS a line from the song "the Bear..."

--
Mark Biggar
mab@wdl1.wdl.loral.com

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: D. Jay Newman <dn5@apix.psu.edu>
Subject: Unwillingly To Earth (Pauline Ashwell)???
Organization: Penn State
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 17:11:48 GMT

Hi:

I just read the book _Unwillingly to Earth_, and I *know* that I
have read this before.

I have the feeling that it was in an early 1960's issue of Analog.
The version I read before was shorter, but with the same ending.
The characterization was also what I remember.

If anybody knows when this was first published, please respond!

** Flame On **
I really hate it when publishers do not mention in the publishing
information that a book has been previously published (or was
expanded from a shorter work which was)!
** Flame Off **

I'm really much better now, thank you.

()()()()()()()()()()()()() CBEL--Teaching & Learning Technologies ()()()
D. Jay Newman     !  Cautious, careful people always casting about to
dn5@psuvm.psu.edu !  preserve their reputation and social standing never
dn5@apix.psu.edu  !  can bring about a reform.  -- Susan B. Anthony