HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Subject: Re: S.McCrumb: ZOMBIES OF THE GENE POOL
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 13:16:05 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.234843.1@fnalo.fnal.gov> morrow@fnalo.fnal.gov
(Jor-Elmo) writes:
> ObSF:  I have always regarded Asimov's robot mysteries (Caves of Steel, Naked
> Sun) as _bad_ mysteries.  _Caves_ in particular "solves" the crime based on
> evidence the reader does not have.  

Well, then many of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories are bad
mysteries for exactly the same reason.  They're still great stories.

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908 957 2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
--
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
					 -- Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Subject: Re: "Buffalo" is SF?  /Hugo nominated/ SF?!
Reply-To: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 15:33:27 GMT

In article <1992Jul26.193023.20522@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>,
dave@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Schaumann) writes:
|> I just finished reading "Buffalo", by John Kessel.  (Thanks to
|> Brad Templeton, btw).
|> 
|> I am left with two questions:
|> 
|> 1. What exactly about this story makes it SF?  Except for the use of
|>    H. G. Wells as a character, I saw no SFnal elements at all.

      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.
 
|> 2. I found this story disappointing.  Kessel does a reasonable job
|>    of portraying believable characters, but... what's the point?

      Number of them.  First, it gave me an insight into it's characters, 
      including Kessel the author.  Second, it brought an era 
      (the Depression) closer to my understanding when it was viewed 
      from the past (Wells), the present (Kessel's farther), and the 
      future (Kessel himself).  Third, it was a pretty well told story, 
      which used actual people (Wells, Kessels, even Ellington) in 
      imaginary situations meaningfully and with restraint.

      I think the story was the best of the seven nominated, though
      "Dog's Life" and "One Perfect Morning, With Jackals" were well
      written too.       
 
 - David     


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm not sure what I wrote.
Flames will be ignored unless you post them in perfect Czech.
================================ - David (the metamathician) - ===
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: tedk@jpl.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Ted Ko)
Subject: Re: awful fantasy
Organization: Bellcore
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 17:23:26 GMT

In article <9207301025.aa18802@FSAC3.PICA.ARMY.MIL>, phal@PICA.ARMY.MIL ("Patrick M. Phalen", FSAC-PMD) writes:
|> stas@soda.berkeley.edu 
|> writes:
|> >i'd just put down the grim creation of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
|> >called _Dragon Wing_ of the Death Gate Cycle series, after reading about 20
|> >pages.
|> 
|> Don't limit them to one bad book.  Anything in the _Dragonlance_ series
|> pretty much sucked.  Besides that, the premise of writing books so that
|> TSR could introduce a new world to D&D (new books, new modules, 'mo money,
|> 'mo money).  The whole premise just really bothered me.
|> 

Personally, I think they did a pretty good job for their target audience.  I
seriously doubt they were aiming for people over 16 or 17 when they wrote the
books and since I read them around 7th grade I enjoyed them quite a bit.  Of
course, once they Weiss and Hickman stopped writing them, the series went to
hell but the original Chronicles and Legends are very enjoyable.

Like the Belgariad, I'd put Dragonlance as one of those starter type series
for young people who haven't read all that much yet.

BTW, I was under the impression that the Dragonlance books started as D&D
modules and were developed from the campaign ideas rather than the other way
around....

-- 
<--The-Dark-Elf-<<<  		"Ask not for whom the bell tolls,
					just answer the f**ing door!"
ted@athena.mit.edu
tedk@ctt.bellcore.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: young@elec.uq.oz.au (Steven Young)
Subject: Re: Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon"
Organization: Prentice Centre, University of Queensland
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 01:59:44 GMT

rafem@gvlf7-e.gvl.unisys.com (Ralph Marrone) writes:
>In article <young.712301210@s1.elec.uq.oz.au> young@elec.uq.oz.au (Steven Young) writes:
>>Just re-read Daniel Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon" (1959?).
>>(Do you hate 'Just read ..., and thought it was brilliant' posts?  Sorry)

>>Real question is who is Daniel Keyes and what does/did he do
>>professionally apart from write sf? ... [I remember a book I ]
>>read ages ago on a multiple personality disorder case.  What was the
>>title???)

>This book's title is _The Minds of Billy Milligan_.

I remembered the title last night.  It was _The Fifth Sally_.
So this makes two books on multiple personality disorders(!?).

>Regards,

>Ralph

Steven.
--
Steven Young, (young@s2.elec.uq.oz.au) 
Dept of Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland. AUSTRALIA  4072.
Ph: 61+7 365 3564       FAX: 61+7 365 4999
All the electrons used in this message have been recycled.
From: djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: awful Delaney
Date: 31 Jul 92 20:43:26 GMT
Reply-To: djdaneh@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA

In article <92213.124815JMH131@psuvm.psu.edu> <JMH131@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:

> In my opinion, Delaney's _Neveryon_ series is more of a textbook of some sort
> for intelligent individuals with large vocabularies.  Alas, I fail there.

You said it, not me, mate. . .

It's not a textbook, it's a fictional construct (which is a metacategory that 
includes stories, novels, series, etc.) whose speculative content is based on
the structuralist and poststructuralist movements in philosophy/criticism/
anthropology/psychology/etc.  If you'd started at the beginning of the series,
you'd have been introduced to those ideas somewhat more gently; this might be
considered a flaw, in that the series really *does* require more-or-less 
sequential reading by someone who's not familiar with these ideas.

Nonetheless, for someone willing to struggle with difficult ideas, it's an
absolutely stunning series.  (I've read it several times myself.)


> While I'm talking about awful fantasies, I might
> as well mention Harry Harrison's _Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers_.

Excuse me -- do you in fact have any knowledge of the SF/F field at all, or are
you utterly clueless? STAR SMASHERS is not fantasy; it's a parody of bad space
opera.  As parody, it's quite funny.  If you don't realize that it's parody,
well, then, I guess it'll read as one of the worst space operas ever written --
but you'd have to be either totally ignorant of space opera (including STAR
WARS, "Doc" Smith, TOM CORBETT:SPACE CADET, and the original STAR TREK) or 
denser than osmium to miss that point.

Sigh.

>--John, whose favorite fantasies are P.J. Farmer's _Riverworld_ and _World of
> Tiers_ series, S. King's _Dark Tower_ series, and the _Thieves' World_ series.
> I never finished P.J. Farmer's _The Dungeon_ series, but I liked what I read.

Hmmm.  Riverworld is SF too. . .


		He's got a mask that's black and white
		  Mine's just black but that's all right
		In silence and cunning he plies his trade
		  I ply mine in silence and shade
		[. . .]
		In the heart of the city it's murder time
		  It ain't no crime to kill a mime
			-- "Killing a Mime" by Visual Purple

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.
From: burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Brain size (was Re: the "cause" of homosexuality)
Date: 22 Jul 92 19:49:26 GMT

>In article <doom.711461436@elaine36.Stanford.EDU> doom@leland.Stanford.EDU (Jo
seph Brenner) writes:
>>ojvind@renoir.cns.caltech.edu (Ojvind Bernander) writes:
>>
>>>There _are_ many anatomical differences between races and between sexes,
>>>if you take an average.  For example,  men are bigger than women.
>>
>>Are you sure about this one?  In _the Jewell-Hinged Jaw_,
>>Samuel R. Delany claims that this is essentially a myth.
>>The harder you work at avoiding selection biases, the closer
>>the average height of men and women get.  You have the
>>impression that women are shorter for various reasons...
>>couples tend to pair up with men taller than women, so you
>>always *see* them this way...

>Mr. Delaney is wrong.  Statistical analyses and tables of physical
>anthropologic measures are not made by watching couples pass in front of
>one's table at a restaurant.  One cannot deny physical reality simply
>because it is politically incorrect.


>Bill Oliver

 >As long as we're being politically incorrect but statistically
accurate, let's consider gender differences in math ability.  Seems
to hold up statistically.  If we make the not too crazy assumption
that there are gender differences in cognitive skills in general which
are biologically based then what shows up as differences in math
skills can be attributed to a bias in mathematics introduced by the
fact of history that math was developed almost entirely by men (for
various socio-cultural reasons) and hence should be expected to
rely more on those cognitive skills at which men statistically tend
to excel.  That raises an interesting question: are there forms of
mathematics which have never been developed because they rely more
on cognitive skills at which women tend to excel?
  Of course there are other areas where this same kind of thinking
might well apply.

Burt Voorhees
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Subject: Re: "Buffalo" is SF? /Hugo nominated/ SF?!
Reply-To: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 02:25:10 GMT

In article <70546@apple.Apple.COM>, chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
|> 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.

   The assertion was "if it [*this particular story*]  was published 
   in the New Yorker, no way would it make it to the Nebula ballot."

   [ That is, this *type* of story wouldn't be noticed if published
     by a non-SF writter in a non-SF market.]

   Also, of course, I meant to say *Hugo*, not Nebula.

   Anyway...

   As for the data, Omni and Playboy are well-known SF markets while
   New Yorker is not, and books are a different matter from short 
   stories (shorts stay much more ghetoized, in my opinion).

   So... *which* stories from the New Yorker made it on the Nebula ballot?

   Not an argument, I'm just interested. 
   [ But I bet none made it to the *Hugo* ballot.]

 - David

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm not sure what I wrote.
Flames will be ignored unless you post them in perfect Czech.
================================ - David (the metamathician) - ===
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: write@eff.org (Glen Cox)
Subject: Re: Iain Banks "State of the Art": where can I find it?
Originator: write@eff.org
Keywords: Iain Banks novella
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 00:07:01 GMT

I originally wrote:

>>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.

David Levine replied:

>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.

I reply:

I actually agree with you, David, although I waded through the book.
For those of you familiar with the Macintosh (or Windows), the font
used is Avant-Garde.  Avant-Garde is a fine headline font (that is,
used at 24-points or larger), but at 10-point size in THE STATE OF THE
ART, it is indeed a monster to read.

The reasoning behind using Avant-Garde is that Andy Watson, Ziesing's
layout designer for TSotA and the other Ziesing publications around
1989 and 1990, is that Watson felt that the "art noveau" style of the
font complimented the idea of the story (minor spoiler below for what
story idea it was supposed to compliment).  I told him in 1989 it
sucked.

>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?!

Well I must be a fool twice over, because I paid $40 for the limited,
slip-cased edition signed by both Banks and Arnie Fenner, the artist.
The book, in both editions, is a collectors item, as are most of 
Ziesing's publications.  Given the production values used (especially
in comparison with Dark Harvest, Pulphouse, and many other of the
small presses), I felt that it was worth it.  As for its "collectibility,"
only time will tell.

>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.

I'm also in the market for that particular short story collection--not
for "The State of the Art," but for the other stories collected there.

glen

-- 
/== Glen E. Cox ==============================================================\
|  write@eff.org  | "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity."       |
|  GEnie: G.COX3  |                                --George Orwell            |
| DELPHI: MRWRITE |                                                           |
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld)
Subject: Re: What happened to Hogan? (Re: SF writers with consistent themes)
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 19:02:40 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.010812.10062@panix.com> gbs@panix.com (Eric Braun) writes:
>
>Hogan just came out about 6 months ago with a hardcover called ENTOVERSE,
>which is the fourth book in what was formerly "the Giants' Trilogy."  Go
>figure.  It's good.  The paperback should be out in a few months.
>
   I checked the local SF bookstore and the paperback is supposed to be
out in October of '92, at least here in Canada.


-- 
 Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student  | Talk sense to a fool
 neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto.ca    Ad astra  | and he calls you
 cneufeld@terranet.cts.com                       | foolish.
 "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" |       - Euripides
From: barring@fiji.cs.umass.edu (David Mix Barrington)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Dealing with Jump shock (Re: The Moat around God's Eye)
Date: 22 Jul 92 15:06:17 GMT
Reply-To: barring@fiji.cs.umass.edu (David Mix Barrington)
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

I think the Mote's situation as a node of degree one is very
unusual.  Most stars have lots of tramlines to lots of 
neighboring stars, so to defend the system you'd need
lots of ships to cover each point, which a single secessionist
planet is unlikely to get.  A fission of the Navy into two
sizable pieces could lead to a permanent split, however, which
is what the Empire most feared (until the possibility arose of 
total destruction at the hand of the Moties).

Rank speculation, of course,
Dave MB

(you'd think N&P would package a lot of their background stuff
and sell it!  "Mote" was good enough that I might buy it though
I'm not generally into their writing).
From: stong@ariel.its.unimelb.EDU.AU (Simon Tong)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Paratwa Saga
Date: 24 Jul 92 00:29:06 GMT
Organization: University of Melbourne

In article <1992Jul23.125951.24684@walter.bellcore.com> tedk@jpl.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Ted Ko) writes:
>Does anyone know the story on Christopher Hinz's Paratwa Saga?  I read the 
>first book Liege_Killer 5 or 6 years back and since then was checking for a
>sequel every time I entered a book store.  I only recently discovered that there
>was a sequel and when I ordered the book from Encore books, I find out that
>the one I ordered was the THIRD book.  The second one, Ash_Ock isn't even
>in print anymore I think.  For such an awesome beginning the series died
>incredibly fast...any clue why?
>
><--The-Dark-Elf-<<<


I have read the entire series and you are right, it is awesome.
The first book is very much action oriented, but the series gets 
more and more cerebral towards the end.

Warning :  Don't read the third book without reading the second one,
           you won't understand it.  The third book continues
           straight after where the second one finishes.


Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: morrow@fnalo.fnal.gov (Jor-Elmo)
Subject: Re: S.McCrumb: ZOMBIES OF THE GENE POOL
Organization: Lara's Kandorian Take-Out
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 05:48:43 GMT
X-Posted-From: fnalo.fnal.gov
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

Irene Harrison IRH%UTRC@UTCGW.UTC.COM writes:
> Dani Zweig on: Sharon McCrumb:  ZOMBIES OF THE GENE POOL; writes
>>Give this one a miss!
> 
> Well I dissagree.  I liked this book. A light mystery.  I enjoy the
> author's style and presentation.  I'm not sorry that I spent $20 or so to
> buy the book though I would have prefered the cost of a paperback.
> 
> Everything that Zweig says about the plot is true, except that, other than
> the 'amature-doing-police-work' TRADITION of mystery fiction, the plot
> plays true.  Perhaps the real problem is that this book is a mystery with
> slight references to SF and not a science fiction book with a mystery.
> 
	I have read two McCrumb books, _Bimbos of the Death Sun_, which is a
murder mystery set at an SF con, and _If I Return Pretty Peggy-O_ [title
wording?], which is a straight mystery set in a small Tennessee town.
	In the first, she _tells_ us flat out who the murderer is at the time
of the murder.  I thought, good ghu, she must be setting us up for a fall, but
no.  In the second, based on her style from the first book, I identified the
murderer upon his second appearance in the story.
	Obviously, then, I say she's _not_ a good mystery writer.
	_Bimbos_ is neither particularly funny nor interesting on top of that. 
However, _Peggy-o_ is full of good, solid characterization, and can be
recommended on that basis.

ObSF:  I have always regarded Asimov's robot mysteries (Caves of Steel, Naked
Sun) as _bad_ mysteries.  _Caves_ in particular "solves" the crime based on
evidence the reader does not have.  
-- 
"I'd like to interject a comment here: eeeeeekkkkkkkkk.  That's it." 
--Hatchetman

elmo (morrow@fnal.fnal.gov,morrow@physics.rice.edu)
From: IRH@utrc.utc.COM
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: S.McCrumb: ZOMBIES OF THE GENE POOL
Date: 28 Jul 92 11:44:00 GMT

From:    Irene R. Harrison ( IRH )               Postmark: 28-Jul-1992 07:44am
Dept:    Computer Applications                   Tel No:   8-446-7415

TO:  Remote Internet User                 ( _in%dani@netcom.com )

CC:  Remote Internet User                 ( _in%sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu )

Subject: S.McCrumb: ZOMBIES OF THE GENE POOL

Dani Zweig on: Sharon McCrumb:  ZOMBIES OF THE GENE POOL; writes
>Thank goodness for libraries!  I'd hate to have actually spent money for
>this book.  "Zombies of the Gene Pool" continues the fannish adventures of
>Jay "Bimboes of the Death Sun" Omega, now at a reunion of once-young
>science fiction authors - some of whom have gone on to success and some of
>whom have not.
>...
>Give this one a miss!

Well I dissagree.  I liked this book. A light mystery.  I enjoy the
author's style and presentation.  I'm not sorry that I spent $20 or so to
buy the book though I would have prefered the cost of a paperback.

Everything that Zweig says about the plot is true, except that, other than
the 'amature-doing-police-work' TRADITION of mystery fiction, the plot
plays true.  Perhaps the real problem is that this book is a mystery with
slight references to SF and not a science fiction book with a mystery.

This is the second 'panned' review that Zweig has done on a book that I
have read and liked. One more and I will read only the books panned by
Zweig and avoid the books that Dani liked.

Irene Harrison
IRH%UTRC@UTCGW.UTC.COM
From: MPalandri.SD@XEROX.COM
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Redwall by Brian Jacques
Date: 23 Jul 92 21:46:16 GMT


I'm getting to a point in my life where I won't waste time reading
a book unless I've heard good things about it from others.

I just came across the book "Redwall" by Brian Jacques, and the back
cover makes it sound vaguely interesting. Has anyone out there read
the book, and if so could they let me know what they thought about
it without too many spoilers.

Thanks, 

Mark.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written