HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine)
Subject: Re: _Winds of Change_ by Mercedes Lackey (no spoilers)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 13:49:02 GMT

urban@sideshow.jpl.nasa.gov (Michael Urban) writes:

>In article <jcmorris.717434013@mwunix> jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris) writes:
>>dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:
>>>   ... characters drinking gatorade ... 
>>
>>Is that any worse than having Savil complain in _Magic's_Price_ (I think)
>>about problems with airline baggage handlers?  I strongly suspect that
>>a recent (real-world) problem was the origin of that particular aside...

>Mercedes Lackey can put out a good yarn, pace well, and
>come up with characters you care about, but it might
>do her (and the rest of us) a world of good if she would
>read Ursula LeGuin's essay `From Elfland to Poughkeepsie'.
>LeGuin takes a quote from an early Katherine Kurtz novel and
>changes a couple of character names and a word or two to show
>how the style is appropriate to a political thriller in Washington
>as much as it is to a fantasy world.  Lackey's characters may
>dress funny, live in castles, and do magic, but they are firmly,
>and often irritatingly, twentieth-century people talking
>twentieth-century English (with teeth-clenching malaprops like someone
>receiving `a kudo') and too often doing twentieth-century things.
>They may appear like Elfland, but every word they utter shouts
>Poughkeepsie. 

>	Mike

>PS. The odd thing is that even while my ear for style is screaming for
>mercy, I enjoy much of Lackey's work.  Her strengths that I mentioned
>at the beginning are not to be taken lightly, notwithstanding my
>gripes about her style.
>	Mike Urban

>	urban@cobra.jpl.nasa.gov
 

I think you're right. That a much better written book can be much
less enjoyable to read.

I was thinking about this too, after reading "Dreambuilder", by Tom
Deitz. IMHO mediocre, but very entertaining. And then reading "Rats and
Garogyles", by Mary Gentle. A very well written book, but I got
bored very quickly.  

What's the difference?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: rjk@iastate.edu (Russell J Kraemer)
Subject: Re: Heinlein reference in Sturgeons "The Golden Helix"
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 23:32:50 GMT

In article <1992Oct6.185405.3417@daimi.aau.dk> rorschak@daimi.aau.dk (Jesper Lauridsen) writes:
>
>  Some 22 pages into the short story "The Golden Helix" by
>Theodore Sturgeon I read the following lines: 
>
>  "Then an old, old tale tale flashed into his mind, an early thing
>from the ancient Amerenglish, by Hynlen (Henlyne, was it? no matter)
>about a man who tried to convey to humanity a description of the
>superbeings who had captured him, with only his body as a tablet and
>his nails as a stylus. Perhaps he was mad at the time he finished, 
>but his message was clear at least to him: 'Creation took eight 
>days'. ".
>
>  This clearly a Heinlein reference but where is it from?
> 
>-- 
>No News is Bad News


AH! I remember this one.  Its in one of his story anthologies....
but I can't remember off hand which one it was. I _think_
its in Expanded Universe.  To be honest, I thought it wasnt
a terribly good example of his writing.

-- 
rjk@iastate.edu                 

I think therefore I.......shoot, was I saying something?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: Any comments on  ENTROVERSE  by James Hogan?
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 12:41:55 GMT

In article <billd.717657838@cheetah> billd@informix.com (William Daul) writes:

  > Any comments on ENTROVERSE by James Hogan?

Bleauuugh (all over the carpet).

Ditto for the other 3 books in the series.  What a waste of trees.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
From: rene@iesd.auc.dk (Rene Boe Soerensen)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Looking for 2 books: help on author & title needed.
Date: 30 Sep 92 16:43:20 GMT
Organization: Mathematics and Computer Science, Aalborg University

>>>>> On 29 Sep 92 11:49:01
>>>>> "Rene" == Rene Boe Soerensen (rene@iesd.auc.dk) said:

Thanks for the help guys. I hadn't expected to get any replies as fast
as I did. I had received three replies by email less than 3-1/2 hour
after I posted my question to this newsgroups.

Rene> The first book was ...
As many of you probably has seen in the follow-ups the first book was
"Double Star" by Robert A. Heinlein.

Rene> The second book was ...
The second book was by a Norwegian SF-writer named Jon Bing and
probably titled something like "Alexandria".

Again thanks for the help

Rene Boe
--
 | Rene Boe Sorensen              |    ////   | E-mail : rene@iesd.auc.dk     |
 | Department of Computer Science |   c-OO    |                               |
 | Aalborg University (AUC)       |       \   | contraria sunt complementa    |
 | Denmark                        |      -    |              Niels Bohr       |
From: beede@sctc.com (Mike Beede)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Man-Kzin Wars V (spoiler)
Date: 3 Oct 92 15:09:37 GMT
Organization: SCTC

Did anyone else think the movie tie-ins where a little tiresome?  I
don't mind a few schtick references, but when I can guess what's going
to happen because of it, it loses.

	Mike

-- 
Mike Beede         Secure Computing
beede@sctc.com     1210 W. County Rd E, Suite 100           
------------------ Arden Hills, MN  55112
                    (612) 482-7420
From: S.L.Fagg@bnr.co.uk
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: James Barrie & Kensington Gardens
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:56:56 GMT

In article <19spo9INNfcs@agate.berkeley.edu> cozzlab@garnet.berkeley.edu () writes:
> In article <Bv1to1.84F@news.cso.uiuc.edu> levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine) writes:
> >Wasn't James Barrie (author of Peter Pan) into a similar worldview?

... stuff deleted ...

> I do know where the Island of Lost Boys is, though--I read an essay of
> Barrie's about it once.  It's an island in the middle of a lake--and there
> are no boats, so you can't get there--in one those big fenced-in private
> parks in London, St. James's, I think.

The Island of Lost Boys is on the Serpentine in Kensington Gardens,
not far from the famous staute of Peter by Sir George Frampton. I
wouldn't have described it as a "private" park. While I don't know who
owns the land, it is open to the public. I was also under the
impression that one *could* go boating on the Serpentine, though
landing on the island was forbidden.  It's been a few years since I
was last there though, so I could be out of date! 

The statue was based on a photograph taken by Barrie in 1906 of the
then six year old Michael Llewelyn Davies (represented as Michael
Darling in the play, but actually the source of much of Peter's
personality) dressed as Peter but Barrie is reputed to have disliked
the finished statue, saying "it doesn't show the Devil in Peter".
Michael's death by drowning (in the Thames at Oxford in 1921, just
weeks before his twenty-first birthday - he could not swim) devastated
Barrie. Barrie's impact on the Davies family must also have been
considerable.

-- 
Regards

Steve Fagg      ( S.L.Fagg@bnr.co.uk +44-279-402437 )
BNR Europe Ltd., London Road, Harlow, Essex, CM17 9NA, UK

*** "Better drowned than duffers. If not duffers, won't drown". ***

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: mimir@stein.u.washington.edu (Al Billings)
Subject: Re: Apology for the Hinz "Paratwa" question's
Keywords: hinz
Organization: The Friends of Loki Society
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 04:39:34 GMT

In article <BvDy5K.9FK@research.canon.oz.au> andy@research.canon.oz.au (Andy Newman) writes:
>
>Its been out for a while, even in Oz (notorious for slow access to
>books thanks to monopolistic publishing/copyright laws). And in
>paperback. I read all three at least 9 months ago.

 In the U.S. the second and third book are ONLY out in hardcover and, in
fact, Ash Ock has been remaindered which means it isn't normally available
as a hardcover anymore. I had to buy the british paperback to even read it.

Wassail,
Al

                           mimir@u.washington.edu
    /\  /\       +----------------------------------------+
   /__\/__\      | "I know that I hung on the windy tree  |          |
  /\  /\  /\     |  all of nights nine, wounded by Gar,   |          |
 /__\/__\/__\    |   given to Odhinn, myself to myself,   |          |
    /\  /\       | upon that tree of which none can tell  |          |
   /__\/__\      |      from what root it rises."         |    ______|______
                 +----------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Name query
From: Joshua Kronengold <JOKHC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Date: Monday, 28 Sep 1992 05:15:04 EDT
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center

Can't remember everything about the book (like, f'rinstance, the author, or
much of the story) but could it have been a historical fantasy about a half-
elven(that is, sidhe) woman who is cursed by her father to have a fish's tail;
she bears a son (to a king?) and the story covers mabye 200 years.(I think it's
called melisande, but I'm not sure)
anyone else?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Female writers Re: Science Fiction Age
Organization: ClariNet Communications Corp.
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1992 08:31:06 GMT

I stand by the statement.   My statement, that 12 of 23 nominees were
by women (ie. a majority) is not misleading in the context given.

That context is the presence of awards which are closed to writers without
a vagina.   If a majority -- ANY majority, slight or overwhelming -- of
the winners or nominees of a general award have a vagina, then all other
things being equal, a claim that there is a need for a reverse discrimination
award is dubious, at least in the year in question.

I don't care what sex the writers have, I just want good fiction.  I
don't think that award voters care either.   If there is discrimination
it resides with publishers and chain book buyers, but not, I think, in
awards, and any majority, even 12/23, is evidence for that.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Sunnyvale, CA 408/296-0366
From: melchar@west.darkside.com (Melchar)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: author'n'title...
Date: 29 Sep 92 19:09:59 GMT
Organization: The Dark Side of the Moon +1 408 245 SPAM

hughes@dogwood.botany.uga.edu (Wayne Hughes) writes:

> In article <1992Sep28.183203.14991@kth.se> TordM@VanA.PhySto.SE writes:
> >
> > hello! I remember reading a book a long time ago about some dude going to
> >another planet keeping contact with earth. during his going over the surface
> >he heard a voice saying something like "my brains for yours!", and this slim
> >mold thing did something to him. back on earth he was able to transform to
> >some kind of wolf-like creature, and he was hunted. this is all I remember.
> > does any of this ring a bell? does anybody know what book this is??
> >any replies appreciated!
> >
>     Clifford Simak _The Werewolf Principle_  "Hey pal!  Let's trade
>     minds!" or something like that.
> 
>     Wayne

      The phrase was:  "I trade with you my mind".
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: whit@milton.u.washington.edu (John Whitmore)
Subject: Re: Books I Love to Hate (e.g., Orbital Resonance)
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 01:45:23 GMT

In article <MATT.92Oct1011457@physics.berkeley.edu> matt@physics.berkeley.edu writes:

>To me, _Podkayne_ was a very heavy-handed sermon on the evils of
>uppity girls aspiring to anything more than traditional female roles.
>In the published version, the main character recognized the errors of
>her ways and (presumably) lived happily every after by producing
>babies; in the original version, she comes to a Bad End because of her
>misbehavior.

	Huh?  Poddy being 'uppity' had NOTHING to do with the evils
that befell her.  Her uncle was being pressured by some political
heavies, as I recall, and Poddy just happened to be nearby.

	While it's true that her uncle thought her to be in need
of some new perspectives, he ALSO clearly thought this of Charles,
who certainly fit into a traditional male role (the cynical
moneygrubber).  Uncle was a humanist at heart, and wasn't 
terribly impressed with either engineering or money as a principal
life focus.  The reader, of course, can decide for himself.

	It wasn't clear that anything more complex than a teenage
crush (entirely normal, IMHO) was implied at the end.  If that
sort of thing didn't happen, the sequels would all turn on the
depopulation problem...  My mother decided to have children,
and I for one am glad of it.  Thanks, Mom!

>Heinlein wrote some very good and thought-provoking books, but this
>wasn't one of them. 

	Should I read this as "I didn't bother thinking while
reading this book"?    :-)  Sorry, just CAN'T pass up such a
great straight line.

	John Whitmore



Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: duzan@buster.cis.udel.edu (Gary D. Duzan)
Subject: The Dragon Reborn / The Shadow Rising
Organization: Your Organization Could Be Here!
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 02:31:33 GMT

   I just finished reading _The Dragon Reborn_, so I thought I'd throw
in a few comments. The majority of the book lacks the excitement of the
previous two, but it still builds tremendously towards the end like the
previous two.  Much of the book seemed to have little purpose beyond
herding all the main characters to one place for the big bang at the
end.  I think the title should have said something about "Dreams"
rather than the Dragon; it seemed to have a greater impact throughout
the book.
   Nevertheless, I am anxious to get started on the next book, _The
Shadow Rising_. I called my usual bookstore, Encore Books, but they
won't be able to get it until November. I then called Waldenbooks
because I had read on the net that others have found it there, and they
had a copy on the shelf that they are reserving for me. My guess is
that there is some deal between Tor and Waldenbooks for the latter to
have first shot at releases of books published by the former.

                                        Gary Duzan
                                        Time  Lord
                                    Third Regeneration
                                         Aielman




--
Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared,
screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder's eye
on the last day.

                   -- The Aiel Warriors, "The Great Hunt", Robert Jordan

-- 
                             duzan@cis.udel.edu
   _o_                       ------------------                         _o_
 [|o o|]       Virtual Reality? No thanks, I've already got one.      [|o o|]
  |_O_|       Disclaimer: I have no idea what I am talking about.      |_O_|
From: cozzlab@garnet.berkeley.edu ()
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Books I Hate to Love
Date: 30 Sep 1992 22:04:11 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu

In article <1ad5nsINNqrj@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> sdh5@po.CWRU.Edu (Scott D. Hurley) writes:
>
>This train of thought reminds me of an observation I've made
>lately--is it just my imagination, or does there seem to be
>a shifting trend towards protagonistic villains, antagonists so
>wonderfully shaped that one ends up rooting for them instead of
>the 'Good Guys'?

It's your imagination that it's a recent trend--it's an ongoing
problem of literature that the villains tend to be more interesting
as characters than the good guys.  (E.g. off the top of his head,
Milton's Satan is much more interesting than his Christ.)

Maybe it's just that they can have more varied character traits.
Nobody is _all_ bad, and to give your villain good as well as bad
traits gives him more breadth as well as more realism.  Similarly,
a flawed, hard-working, fail-and-try-again good guy is more interesting
than a plaster saint.

Or, as one of Jean Kerr's kids put it, "Adam is the lead in this play--
but the _snake_ has all the lines!"

>Classic examples are Kahn Noonion Soong ....
                      Khan Noonien Singh.  He was supposed to be a Sikh.
>


Dorothy J. Heydt
UC Berkeley
Disclaimer: This is the Cozzarelli Lab's account, not mine--but I don't
think anybody else ever reads it.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: steyn@cs.rochester.edu (Gavin Steyn)
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe's New Sun stuff
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 20:22:15 GMT

>	Here's a question in return: At least one of the stories which
>Severian relates from his little brown book is recognizable - that of
>Theseus returning without changing his sails.  Can the other stories be
>matched up with tales we already know?

Except that the sources are more complicated than that...

  I don't remember that much of that sequence, but one thing I do
remember (partly because Wolfe confirmed it when I talked to him)
was that the battle between the giant and the scholar is not straight
out of the mionotaur legend--it also comes from the battle of the
Monitor and the Merrimack.  There are other sources in there too,
but that's the main one I recall.

  One of the stories comes from Kipling, I think, (_The Jungle
Book_), but I don't remember where it is.

  Someone should annotate these books one of these days...

Gavin Steyn
steyn@cs.rochester.edu
"So he's had the lifelong ambition of reversing the polarity of the earth?"

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: lindsay+@cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay)
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe's New Sun stuff
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 00:56:36 GMT

rabin-dan@cs.yale.edu writes:
>woman who ran away from `some order of monials', and that she was
>taken by the torturers and bore a child.  At the beginning of _The
>Shadow of the Torturer_ we learn that torturers are taken exclusively
>from children born to their `clients'.

We also learn that sometimes, the Seekers For Truth and Penitence are
instructed to rape a client. Wasn't this a clue that Severian's
father is the torturer who told him this?
-- 
Don		D.C.Lindsay 	Carnegie Mellon Computer Science
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: novak@wri.com (John M. Novak)
Subject: Re: _Winds of Change_ by Mercedes Lackey (no spoilers)
Organization: Wolfram Research, Inc.
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 15:37:41 GMT

In article <1992Sep25.212853.27437@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>
urban@sideshow.jpl.nasa.gov (Michael Urban) writes:
>In article <jcmorris.717434013@mwunix> jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris)
writes:
>>dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:
>>>   ... characters drinking gatorade ... 
>>
>>Is that any worse than having Savil complain in _Magic's_Price_ (I think)
>>about problems with airline baggage handlers?  I strongly suspect that
>>a recent (real-world) problem was the origin of that particular aside...
>
>...
>read Ursula LeGuin's essay `From Elfland to Poughkeepsie'.
>LeGuin takes a quote from an early Katherine Kurtz novel and
>changes a couple of character names and a word or two to show
>how the style is appropriate to a political thriller in Washington
>as much as it is to a fantasy world.  Lackey's characters may
>dress funny, live in castles, and do magic, but they are firmly,
>and often irritatingly, twentieth-century people talking
>twentieth-century English (with teeth-clenching malaprops like someone
>receiving `a kudo') and too often doing twentieth-century things.
>...
>	Mike
>...

I can't help but think something is being missed here; this is *fantasy*.  The
society in question is not, in fact, a typical medieval society (witness that
religious and ethnic tolerance is pushed.)  Naturally, it will be anachronistic
when compared to an historical medieval culture.  So, the
'twentieth-centuryisms' become a matter of taste.  Personally, they don't
bother me; but then again, I like urban fantasy :-) (Emma Bull's _War for the
Oaks_, etc.)

--John Novak
novak@wri.com


Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: mcconnel@Nimitz.mcs.kent.edu (Mike McConnell)
Subject: Re: ubiquitous Arthurian mythos
Organization: Kent State University
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 19:26:24 GMT

Who was it who said, and I'm afraid I must paraphrase:
	There's nothing new under the sun, so if we must copy, we may as 
	well copy the best.
?

Mike McConnell
Dept. of Mathematics
Kent State University
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: morrow@fnalo.fnal.gov (Lake Elmo, MN)
Subject: Re: WELCOME TO REC.ARTS.SF.REVIEWS
Organization: Calm Blue Water...and a Muskie the Size of Boise
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 00:40:09 GMT
X-Posted-From: fnalo.fnal.gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <1992Sep28.192435.4312@pbhyc.PacBell.COM>, djdaneh@pbhyc.pacbell.com writes:
> 4. Spoilers
> The control-L is preferable; however, we realize some primitive text 
> editors still in use won't handle them.

	I would hardly call my newsreader primitive.  It may run on a Vax, but
it's able to do just about anything I've heard the "trn" people crow about, and
it's certainly got all the bells and whistles _I_ need to read news in an
efficient manner.
	BUT, it strips control-L's.
	So: control-L's work some of the time.  A screen full of blanks works
_all_ the time.  Which is the preferable alternative?

	Personally, I don't mind spoilers, but some people get bent out of 
shape by them.	
-- 
"My obstetrician was so dumb that when I gave birth he forgot to cut the cord. 
For a year that kid followed me everywhere.  It was like having a dog on a     
leash."--Joan Rivers                                                           
  
elmo (morrow@physics.rice.edu,morrow@fnal.fnal.gov)
From: pv02@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (PETER VOROBIEFF)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Shock wave rider (More about Lev Termen)
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:43:10 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

Hi! 

In article <irrelevant>, <name censored> writes:
 
>
>># >  >>That dance where the dancers generate the music themselves (supposedly
>># >  >>via a computer controlling the noise equipment). As far as I know, no
>># >  >>such thing exists by mid-1992. 
>
>>Sorry, guys. There's been an instrument around since at least the sixties,
>>whose name I canNOT remember, that you play by, I believe, moving your
>>hand either in its (electrical?magnetic?) field, or over a charged plate.
>
>	It's called a Theremin (after its inventor, Leon Theremin).
>It is an old instrument, dates back to the twenties,  and uses
>oscillators tuned by body capacitance, usually played with two
>spheres for electrodes.  The principle would work with any body motion,
>to some extent.

I want to put some clarity into the question. The instrument was invented
around 1916 by Lev Termen (Maybe, his a.k.a. is Leon Theremin), a Russian
engineer and adventurer. If somebody decides to make a movie about this
old guy, the movie will be much more exciting than the whole Indiana Jones
series. The name of the instrument was TERMENVOX. In 1918 it was demonstrated
to Lenin. Shortly after that Termen was sent to the United States with some
economical mission from the Soviet government. It America he somehow managed
to make quite a few million bucks for himself (absolutely legally) while
successfully fulfilling his mission. Later he was kidnapped by the NKVD
and transported to a death camp in Siberia, escaped from there etc.

The funniest thing is that Termen's still alive. In Moscow in 1989 I've been
to his lecture in the Moscow University where he demonstrated TERMENVOX.

That's it.


-- 
Thus spake Kalmoth the Vile, Slayer of the Seven Pigs of the North.