From: potter@babbage.csus.edu (david potter)
Subject: pigs, plagiarism, Mammel boo-boo
Followup-To: alt.dev.null
Summary:  don't yell "Plagiarism!" in a crowded r.a.b. 
Keywords: dago pigs, gnurrs, tribbles, mini-engineers, lemmings, hurkles
Organization: California Society For Preservation of Six-Toed Gerbils, Inc.
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 22:47:47 GMT

Lew Mammel, Jr, writes:

> From csusac!charnel!olivea!spool.mu.edu!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!
> magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!
> pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnewse!cbnewsd!lew
> Wed Jan 20 10:23:20 PST 1993
>
> Ironically, 'Tribbles was a direct ripoff of Heinlein's
> "Flatcat Factorial" chapter in The_Rolling_Stones. ( Copyright 1952 )

  "Ironically," you're entirely wrong.   This type of plotline is 
  is called the "shaggy dog story," and has been used by many, many, 
  MANY writers over the years.  (My own personal favorite is Reginald
  Bretnor's version, "THE GNURRS COME FROM THE VOODVORK OUT," but 
  Holly Cantine's "DOUBLE, DOUBLE" and Theodore Sturgeon's "THE HURKLE
  IS A HAPPY BEAST" are also fun.)

  While "David Gerrold" is certainly not the most creative, original,
  or artistic writer in the field, the man is *not* a thief, nor even
  a plagiarist.

  When someone pointed out the similarity to "Gerrold" (David Gerrold
  Freidman, if I remember the spelling), he, aghast, wrote off to 
  Heinlein about it.   Heinlein responded with a note to the effect
  that he thought the script was funny, and that *HE* certainly 
  didn't own any of it; and added that as far as he was concerned,
  he and "Gerrold" both owed a debt to Ellis Parker Butler. 
  (For those of you, who, like Mr. Mammel, are not well-read, Mr. 
   Butler was the gentleman who wrote "PIGS IS PIGS."   Earnestly
   recommended, along with the rest of Mr. Butler's stuff.)

> I believe this is known to many, but it doesn't seem to be widely
> acknowledged.  To my mind, 'Tribbles is much closer to Flatcat
> than Terminator is to Ellison's Soldier, and I understand Ellison
> won some compensation for his contribution. I've never understood
> how 'Tribbles got a way with it, assuming no acknowledgment was
> in fact made.

  It's not "known to many," because it isn't true.
  This has a great deal to do with why it isn't "acknowledged."

  Ellison won compensation because "TERMINATOR" contained plot elements
  and scenes very similar to ones he'd written for "THE OUTER LIMITS"
  episodes "SOLDIER" and "DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND" and because ....as
  the story goes.. (REPORTEDLY!  I do *NOT* have verification on this,
  so do *not* repeat as fact without verification!)  John Cameron made
  a crack on the "TERMINATOR" set about having "ripped off a couple
  of old 'OUTER LIMITS' episodes."

  (You want to see a movie that comes a LOT closer, dig out a copy of
   an old Arthur C. Pierce script, "CYBORG: 2087," much closer to
   "TERMINATOR" in several places.  But this is still not proof of even
   unconscious plagiarism; the plotlines had been done to death in the
   pulp magazines by the forties, and are effectively public domain.)

> Re: mathematical gaffes in sf - the FF chapter contains the statement,
> "It's an exponential expansion, not geometric."

  Why is this a gaffe?   IN THE ORIGINAL CONTEXT, it's an assertion that
  the cats *APPEAR* to be violating natural law, and reproducing even
  faster than is realistically possible.  It's a JOKE, son... 
  If the version you have *literally* said that the population expansion
  was exponential, then you should take it up with RAH's Scribner editor,
  Alice Dalgleish, whose mathematical strengths rivalled her (equally 
  non-existent) knowledge of politics, history, ethics, and writing.

  Please remember that Heinlein had just done a flock of graduate 
  work in math at UCLA, and his wife, a graduate engineer and math
  nut, proofread the book...... "If you don't understand what a man is
  saying, don't call him an idiot.  He might know something you don't."
  Trust me, Bob and Ginny *both* knew the difference between "geometric"
  and "exponential."   Really.

> Lew Mammel, Jr.
 
  Please, in the future, when you feel called upon to accuse a writer you
  don't know of having committed plagiaristic theft, stop and check the 
  dates.   When "THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES" was written, Heinlein was at 
  his "THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS" peak..... he was financially solvent,
  in good health, and highly aware of what was going on around him; it is
  a matter of record that he watched many STAR TREK episodes.   Had he 
  felt that he'd been "ripped off," I can assure you that he'd have sued
  the socks off Roddenberry, Gerrold, Paramount, DesiLu, and NBC. 
  The fact that he did not, and *had* not, in the intervening quarter of 
  a century, should probably have tipped you off that RAH didn't feel 
  slighted.   
 
  For YOU to arbitrarily decide that a theft had taken place, and announce
  it in r.a.b., is more than somewhat gauche, wouldn't you say?
 
  End of sermon.

--
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