HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Catching Up On My Bad Heinlein: _the Beast_
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 00:14:08 -0600

 JB> Suppose you're trying to start a semi-conductor company. [...]
 JB> Intel decides you're a threat what's to stop them from buying your
 JB> factory and forcing you to move? 

 DDB> If Intel DOES choose to do this, you've just made a
 DDB> HUGE profit on real-estate

 DS> But what if Intel forces you to raise your assessment, and then
 DS> pulls out?  "Oh, so sorry -- that's too much for us!".  Then
 DS> you're stuck with the inflated assessment value, and are saddled
 DS> with an enormous tax bill, probably just when you can afford it
 DS> least.  

Oh, it's a game, so of course you can lose.  But I never expected to
make the play of raising my assesment on offer to buy *in the
expectation of their buying at the new, high, price*.  I simply
expected to give myself a high assesment to begin with; one high
enough to show a profit after a forced move.  Intel comes in and
offers to buy, I smile and say yes, deposit the check and go to work
at the new address.  No problem.

The sanity of this strategy depends rather heavily on tax rates.  I'm
assuming very low tax rates.  The society under discussion was pretty
Libertarian and kept the government starved and inoffensive.

 * Origin: Fido's been a bad dog again (1:282/341.0)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: troly@redwood.math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly)
Subject: Re: "slow glass": story reference sought
Summary: The Light of Other Days, by Bob Shaw
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 23:27:44 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.012411.11114@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> 
stevena@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Steven Alexander) writes:
>The story I'm looking for concerns "slow glass" which transmits
>light orders of magnitude more slowly than ordinary glass (but
>light emerges at the ordinary rate).  

The story is _The Light of Other Days_ by Bob Shaw.  It's excellent!
I read it to my girlfriend for her bedtime reading.  (I select only
the best short fiction for that honor).  One place to find it is in
the anthology _Robert Silverberg's Worlds of Wonder_, which has an
uncommonly good selection.  I think Bob Shaw wrote some later stories
with this nifty gimmick, but I haven't seen them.
From: dant@techbook.com (Dan Tilque)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: origin of c-words (was Re: Gibson's _agrippa_: Not A Hoax
Date: 27 Jul 92 11:00:32 GMT
Article-I.D.: techbook.1992Jul27.110032.15028
Organization: Pseudopolis Yard

Joel.Rosenberg@f341.n282.z1.tdkt.kksys.com (Joel Rosenberg) writes:
>
>You're wrong; the term was invented by Bruce Bethke for the story of the 
>same name, which appeared in print before anybody applied it to Gibson and 
>his coterie -- a fact which irritates the cyberminorpunkies to no end.

Great.  Now can anyone tell me the origin of the word "cyberspace"?  Not
the origin of the concept which is aleady being discussed, but the first
use of the actual word.  Was it in Gibson or did someone else beat him
to it?  Also, what year did Bethke publish his story?

I'm making a list of words coined in sf&f works which I'll post as soon
as I can put it in a decent condition.  Ideally, I'd like the author,
story name and year of publication.  Generally, I've been concetrating
on words that have made it into dictionaries.  Cyberspace and
cyberpunk have not made it into any dictionary I know of, but I figure
it's only a matter of time that they do.

---
Dan Tilque    --     dant@techbook.com
From: mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at (Markus Stumptner)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: SUMMARY: Books From Alien Perspective.
Date: 22 Jul 92 10:49:33 GMT
Organization: DB and ES Subdivision, TU Vienna

From article <cicero.1aod@hotcity.COM>, by cicero@hotcity.COM (Andreas Locicero):
>                 _Cuckoo's Egg_ by C. J. Cherryh. (Is this one of the above
>           sequals?)

No, it's separate.  There's also Hunter of Worlds, an early work by
Cherryh, dealing with the same topic, though in that one, most of the
aliens that encounter the humans are humanoid.
-- 
Markus Stumptner                                mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at
University of Technology Vienna                 vexpert!mst@relay.eu.net
Paniglg. 16, A-1040 Vienna, Austria             ...mcsun!vexpert!mst
From: rclark@lpl.arizona.edu (Richard Clark x4971)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Mote background ???
Date: 21 Jul 92 07:25:58 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Lunar & Planetary Laboratory, Tucson AZ.


With all the recent discussion about the Mote I just reread it and started
looking around for other stuff about that universe.
(well, I didn't bother with King David's
Spaceship:-). I recall that in 76 or so N/P did a 'how we got together
and wrote it' piece which apeared with a short story set on New Scotland
back during the Wars covering the time the Crazy Eddie Probe was being
launched. They were in some issue of Galaxy around late 75 or 76. You
guessed it... my copy of this got loaned out once too often (or perhapse
merely misplaced--although that is seeming more and more unlikely as I
turn my apartment into a chaotic rubble pile.) Does anybody remember what
issue this was in?

Or, perhapse more realisticly... where has this material been reprinted?
In the Moat thread there has been mention of other background information
that Niven or Pournelle have published. Could anyone give references for
tracking down some of these as well?

Richard Clark
rclark@lpl.arizona.edu
From: kevin@sherman.pas.rochester.edu (kevin mcfadden)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: BOOKS BY DAVID EDDINGS
Date: 27 Jul 92 02:29:25 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester

>A laconic response; but (as would have been so anyway) I'm not convinced.
>
>I'm puzzled most by your defense of Tolkien; he has his merits, but few
>would place characterization among them.  Tolkien's characters have few
>human drives; where he actually tries to humanize them (the hobbits,
>Boromir), the result is plastic and unreal, or simply unconvincing.  For
>the most part they're thin and melodramatic, so cardboard as to inflate
>the term.  Would you really call Aragorn, Gandalf, Theoden, Saruman, even
>Legolas and Gimli, credible and well-filled characters?

	I would say that Theoden, Aragorn, and Saruman were some of the 
characters that actually were somewhat developed.  Theoden and Saruman
were not major characters and therefore were not required to be well
filled, although Tolkien did give them something to extend them to 
3 dimensions.


>
>I've always viewed Tolkien's great talent as a natural style which turned
>weak characters and simple worlds into advantages: few have surpassed him
		     ^^^^^^

Are you trying to start one of the world's worst flame war?  His world
was anything but simple.  I advise you to do one of two things: 

	1)	Read one of the biographies about him and his world, 

and	2) 	Read every other fiction book that has been written and try
		to find one that has had as much effort and creativity
		(even if some of it had been borrowed from myth/religion)
		put into it.

I'll leave this alone now and put this header in my kill file because 
this could go on for weeks ;)

>at the art of high fantasy.  His imitators - like Eddings - have tried to
>shift the genre toward low fantasy, an art which demands characterization
>and invention.  They're better at it than Tolkien, but lack the skills
>to really succeed; the result is, of course, tripe.  But if Tolkien
>putted the same hole, his score'd be even more intestinal.
>
	While I enjoyed the Belgariad, his characters were entertaining
and that was all.  After reading his Mallorean and that other series of his,
All his characters are basically sarcastic risk takers, or sarcastic, naive
risk takers.

Kevin
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: rcharbon@athena.mit.edu (Ray Charbonneau)
Subject: Re: Just read _Hyperion_/_Fall of...
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 13:15:19 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.102601.1@skcla.monsanto.com>, jjfink@skcla.monsanto.com writes:
|> In article <694@tdat.teradata.COM>, swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
|> Regarding Hyperion/Fall of...
|> 
|> > How one writer could manage all of those different styles so well ...
|> 
|> That's nothing.  Simmons seems to take on writing styles and genres like I do
|> shoes.  Summer of Night is VERY Stephen King.  Carrion Comfort is much like a
|> Dean Koontz horror/thriller.
|> 

If I were Dan Simmons, I'd be very insulted by the preceding comment.

-- 
Ray Charbonneau              | The fifth dentist makes all the money.
rcharbon@athena.mit.edu      |             -- me
MIT and the Library Systems Office are glad that I'm posting my opinions
here so that they don't have to listen to them anymore.
Organization: Graduate School of Industrial Administr., Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 10:03:54 -0400 
From: Bill Thomas <bt16+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Errors in Covers (was Re: Hyperion covers)

Chuq Von Rospach writes:

>According to the person who ordered that cover from Whelan (Tappan
>King), that's not an error. It's a marketing decision, because darker
>skin colors on covers don't sell as well, and have trouble getting into
>bookstores in certain parts of the country. They lightened the skin
>tone on purpose.

And xxxxx adds:

>2) Col. Campbell's race was not caucasian.  Possibly not an error;
>   I don't recall the details of his disguise at the time Hazel
>   did the geisha bit.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who's a bit troubled by this apparent
trend. As Billy Crystal would say, "This is not '90s behavior!" I
understand that marketing is crucial to selling a book, and that a
cover's purpose is to sell it. But it seems to me we've crossed over a
line here.

Chuq seems to have a pipeline to people who make marketing decisions at
publishing houses. I'm sure that light skin/dark skin covers were
test-marketed at some point. Publishers came to the conclusion that
there is a significant group of people -- in fact, if Chuq is to be
believed, entire REGIONS of the country -- where people won't buy books
if they think they include dark-skinned people. I suppose this is
possible, but it's really a bunch of shit.

I wonder if science fiction/fantasy novels went through the skin-color
test. I'd like to think that the readers of those books are open-minded
enough that the skin color question has no impact on sales.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: davidl@ssd.intel.com (David Levine)
Subject: Re: Iain Banks "State of the Art": where can I find it?
Keywords: Iain Banks novella
Organization: Supercomputer Systems Division, Intel Corp.
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 18:40:19 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.033551.18733@eff.org> write@eff.org (Glen Cox) writes:
>THE STATE OF THE ART (the novella) is still in print in its original 
>hardback edition from the publisher, Mark V. Ziesing Books.  The price
>is $16.00 and you can contact them at P.O. Box 76, Shingletown, CA,
>96088, phone and fax (916) 474-1580.

I have to point out that the Ziesing edition of THE STATE OF THE ART is
the one and only book I have ever been unable to read because of its
typography and layout.  Small presses are great because they are not
afraid to take risks.  Unfortunately, in my eyes this particular risk
was a big failure.

The entire book is set in a faux-OCR font (something like those
	machine-readable numbers on the bottoms of checks), and every
	paragraph is "outdented" like this paragraph here.  I cannot
	imagine Zeising's motivation for this bizarre layout.

This book truly must be seen to be disbelieved.  I literally could not
read more than a few pages.  It's also wildly overpriced.  $16.00 for a
novella?!

Although I'm a great fan of both small presses and Iain Banks, this is
one book I CANNOT recommend.  "The State of the Art" is the one hole in
my Banks collection, and I hope one day to track down the British
collection that contains it, so I can actually read it.

- David D. Levine, Intel Supercomputer Systems Division == davidl@ssd.intel.com
  "It was a good fight, and they nearly won."
From: branwen@cerebus.ccc.amdahl.com (Karen Williams)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Errors in Covers (was Re: Hyperion covers)
Date: 24 Jul 92 23:47:48 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <70381@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:

>Covers are advertising. When they can be advertising and art, great. But
>strict representation and art aren't the primary purposes.

You mean...you can't judge a book by its cover?


--
                                          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: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: SF (was Re: Trundling along)
Date: 24 Jul 92 16:35:26 GMT
Article-I.D.: corpus-c.ELIZ.92Jul24113526
	<1b602aa2.ARN21b8@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au>
	<NICKH.92Jul21090740@VOILA.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU>
	<1992Jul23.175956.28886@highlite.uucp>
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

Curtis Yarvin writes, about _London Fields_:
   [...]
   I liked the book (though a less-obvious ending might have
   paid better), but I don't buy this approach.  Shifting
   timeframe for a novel is a big step; it seems wasteful to
   take it, then refuse to milk the investment for all it's
   worth.  An idea once conceived should be properly raised,
   or promptly aborted; I'll have no bastard compromises on
   my shelves.
   [...]

Time for me to again recommend Peter Ackroyd and Peter Carey (one's a
pom and the other's Australian now reportedly living in NYC).  I have
actually seen Peter Carey's books in convention dealers' rooms, but
never Ackroyd's, who is more difficult in many ways but who more
thoroughly skids back and forth through time.  Ackroyd's _Hawksmoor_
and _Chatterton_ are possibly most notable for this and easiest to
find; _First Light_ is most recent and the temporal slippage is done
by having archaic characters (characters who are "frozen in time" by
not having changed).

You use the concept of bastardy in an unusual* way.


Elizabeth Willey



*a very nice way of saying "inaccurate"
From: rclark@lpl.arizona.edu (Richard Clark x4971)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Have Niven&Pournelle described Alderson drive anywhere?
Date: 28 Jul 92 10:11:17 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Lunar & Planetary Laboratory, Tucson AZ.

In article <62674@cup.portal.com> tegan@cup.portal.com (Terry Michael Egan) writes:
>>
>>	I recall overhearing somewhere ( a con maybe ?? ) that the
>>authors of 'A Mote in Gods Eye' figured out the so-called
>>Alderson Drive and wrote it down in one of their books. Does anybody
>>know the title of this book? Has rec.arts.sf.written analyzed this drive?
>>Thanks.
>>
There is a piece called Building_The_Mote_in_God's_Eye which contains the
background on the Alderson Drive that you may be looking for. It also
contains a prologue set on New Scotland during the rebelion when the
Crazy Eddie Probe was launched.

And no, it doesn't really give that much background about the rules for hte
drive and if/where/how many jump points a system should have. Just patronizing
comments about how technical and complicated it is in the places where one
would have hoped for some actual details.

This is reprinted in Pournelle's A_Step_Further_out (a collection of his
aritcles in Galaxy during the mid-late 70s) 
and in Niven's N-Space.

If there are other articles or details, such as in the earlier books by
Pournelle set in this universe (A Spaceship for the King is the only one I
know of) I would be interested in hearing about them too.

And thanks to those who replied when I recently asked much the same question
after realizing I had lost my copy of Galaxy (Jan 76) in which it originally
appeared.

Richard Clark
rclark@lpl.arizona.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Tim Powers: The Last Call
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 00:39:04 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

"The Last Call" is a great improvement over the other books Tim Powers
has written since "The Anubis Gates".  Really, it resembles nothing
so much as a more ambitious "Drawing of the Dark."  In this case, the
book revolves not around beer, but around one of the other foundations
of western civilization, poker.  At least, poker as a use of cards,
cards as a manifestation of the tarot, and the tarot as a set of guide-
posts to underlying archetypes.

Cutting out the intermediate steps, we are left with a greatly updated
version of the Fisher King, who rules Las Vegas, and uses a poker deck
to maintain his throne.

Two decades earlier, professional poker player Scott Crane made the serious
mistake of getting into a game with the King, and now his only hope of
survival lies in somehow taking over that throne.  As in DotD, the
power which this throne represents draws other aspirants the way blood
in water draws sharks.

Maintaining the playfulness of "The Drawing of the Dark" without 
sacrificing the added depths which have characterized his more recent
works is quite a balancing act, but Powers pulls it off.  I enjoyed
DotD more, but "The Last Call" is the better book.

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

   'T is with our judgements as our watches, none
   Go alike, yet each believes his own
		--Alexander Pope
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: "Buffalo" is SF? /Hugo nominated/ SF?!
Date: 28 Jul 92 15:25:11 GMT
Organization: I is a writur

dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein) writes:


>      There's very little sf in the story.  It was published by an SF
>      writer in an SF magazine; if it was published in the New Yorker,
>      no way would it make it to the Nebula ballot.

I wouldn't make that generalization. "wouldn't make the Hugo", probably.
We've had works in both Omni and Playboy make the ballot (for the latter,
THE ALL-CONSUMING by Shepard and Frazier). There have also been mainstream
published books on the ballot, and I expect SARAH CANARY will be there next
year (which is a book I consider to be non-genre, but they didn't ask me.
Hell of a book, but it's mainstream). Members HAVE nominated New Yorker
works in the past, among other mainstream publications.

So there are data that disprove the assertion.

-- 
Chuq "IMHO" Von Rospach, ESD Support & Training (DAL/AUX) =+= Member, SFWA
  chuq@apple.com | GEnie: MAC.BIGOT | ALink:CHUQ =+= Editor, OtherRealms
	A real SF writur with stories in ALTERNATE KENNEDYS and THE 
	  FURTHER ADVENTURES OF BATMAN, in better bookstores now!

          Painted emblems of a race, all accurst in days of yore,
       Each from his accustomed place steps into the world once more.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Michael Feld)
Subject: Unquenchable Fire, by Rachel Pollock
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 16:43:48 GMT

Ordinarily, I don't much care for fantasy, unless it's funny (as in
_Compleat Enchanter_, say); and conversely, my wife, who loves
fantasy, doesn't get off on the scifi that appeals to me.
So I was delighted to find how much I enjoyed Pollock's _U.F._ --
here, at last, I thought, a fantasy we would both enjoy, and at the
same time dissolve a gender-barrier cliche.
Nope; my wife just doesn't care for it, whereas I find wonderful
writing on almost every page.
Any reactions to the book, or the gender-barrier? 


-- 
Michael Feld                         | E-mail:  <feld@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Dept. of Philosophy                  | FAX:     (204) 261-0021
University of Manitoba               | Voice:   (204) 474-9136
Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2M8, Canada
From: aldis@kralizec.zeta.org.au (Aldis Ozols)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Iain Banks (was: (none))
Date: 24 Jul 92 04:38:32 GMT
Organization: Kralizec Dialup Unix Sydney: +61-2-837-1183 V.32

smoot@roger-rabbit.cs.berkeley.edu (Stephen [Steve] Smoot) writes:

>[lots of Iain Banks discussion deleted]

>So, what is the order to read these books (Culture)?
>I'd never heard of them until this recent discussion....

Boy, have you got a treat in store!  These are some of my all-time favourites.

In chronological order:

"Consider Phlebas"  (I thought it was depressing the first time I read it,
                     but on the second reading I found it upbeat)
"The Player of Games"
"Use of Weapons"

? "State of the Art" - collection of short stories, including some about
                     the Culture.  I haven't read this yet, but will do
                     so tonight. :-)

Aldis Ozols
Sydney, Australia

SIG ERROR  152: WIT FAILURE AT LINE 7

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: evans-ron@CS.YALE.EDU (Ronald Hale-Evans)
Subject: Re: "slow glass": story reference sought
Organization: (S)ingularity Magazine
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 13:54:59 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.053205.891@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> stevena@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Steven Alexander) writes:
>Thanks to all who helped.  As I was informed, the particular story
>is "Light of Other Days", by Bob Shaw, originally published in
>Analog (copyright 1966)....
>Also, it is one of several stories by Shaw using slow glass.

He also wrote a novel with slow glass. "Light of Other Days" forms
the first part of the book, and maybe some of his other stories do too,
but the bulk of the book is about the inventor of slow glass and his
relationship with his blind wife. It really develops the slow glass
technology, and winds up with kind of a neat transcendent ending.
Sorry I don't have the title to hand. IMHO, the book is not as good
as the story in terms of character, but still worth reading.

-- 
I don't want to die!  Existence is one of my strong points!
Ronald Hale-Evans... evans-ron@cs.yale.edu, evans@brandeis.bitnet
                     tinfoil@world.std.com, GEnie: R.HALE-EVANS
From: mwiz@mpd.tandem.com (Marc Wiz)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON
Date: 30 Jul 92 19:46:22 GMT
Organization: Tandem Computers (MPD) Austin, TX

Wasn't there a rumor a while back here on the net about a sequel to Charlie
that Cliff Roberston was involved with?  Was the rumor true?  If so
what is the status of the sequel?

Marc

-- 
Marc Wiz			Yes that really is my last name.
MaBell:				(512)244-8780
Internet:			mwiz@mpd.tandem.com
The views expressed are my own.  Mine all mine!
From: IOR@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Thomas Hyer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: My view of the ESF stories(Spoilers, perhaps)
Date: 31 Jul 92 00:01:06 GMT
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

`Winter Solstice' is actually ripped off from Lieber's
`The Man Who Never Grew Young', an excellent story.

Character is a weak point of all these stories (except
`Buffalo' and arguably `Cretaceous').  I think that might
be inherent in the form; more background must be supplied
in an SF story, and characterization gets crowded out.
There are exceptions, but they're rare.  And is it just
me, or are these stories _short_?  Does the novelette
category eat up larger short stories, so that these runts
are all that's left?

Thomas Hyer                   _____________________
                             /Half the time, even  \     words
-S---L------A---------C-----< _I_ don't share my  / \     support
                             \  opinions.        /          like
                              -------------------          bone...
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written