HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Stephen Harker)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Fantasy winning Hugos
Date: 27 Jul 92 13:54:53 +1000
Organization: Physics Department, Monash University, Australia

In article <711701461.F00002@tdkt.kksys.com>, ddb@tdkt.kksys.com (David Dyer-Bennet) writes:
> 
>  BT> The Hugos, of course, allow fantasy, even though they are the World SF
>  BT> Award and there is a World Fantasy award.   On the other hand, I doubt
>  BT> high fantasy would ever win, though it might qualify.
> 
> The World Fantasy award isn't nearly as old as the Hugos, though.
> 
> Off the top of my head (but verified), Poul Anderson won for "The
> Queen of Air and Darkness" (novella) in 1972, I'd consider that High
> Fantasy.

	Read it again then.  I don't know how anyone could consider this
fantasy whether high or low.
 
> Nearby on the list is Fritz Leiber's "Ill Met in Lankhmar", novella,
> 1971.  Then back in 1968 there's Fritz Leiber's "Gonna Roll the
> Bones", novelet.  Jack Vance's "The Last Castle" in 1967, Poul
> Anderson's "No Truce with Kings" in 1964.  Robert Bloch's "The
> Hellbound Train" in 1959.  Jack Vance's "The Dragon Masters" in 1963.
> I vaguely recall that both Vances on that list may have
> behind-the-scenes SF explanations, maybe they shouldn't count if
> that's true.  

	Yes, both have explicit SF backgrounds which are directly stated. 
The same is true for "No Truce with Kings".  I don't remember the others
well enough to offer an opinion except for "Ill Met in Lankhmar" which is
fantasy of course.

> For that matter,  McCaffrey's "Weyr Search" won as a
> novella (tie) in 1968, and the SF underpinnings of that universe
> hadn't been revealed yet back then.

	Read the story again.  The SF underpinnings were implied though the
details were not worked out.  I think the SF background was given in a
short paragraph introduction.

-- 
Stephen Harker			phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Monash University		Baloney baffles brains: Eric Frank Russell
From: agapow@latcs1.lat.oz.au (paul-michael agapow)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: State of the Art
Date: 29 Jul 92 00:23:39 GMT
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia


i've been asked to post the details of _State of the Art_, so here goes :

The US edition (just the novella, small press edition) :

pub. Mark Ziesing : Limited edition ISBN 0 929480 07 4
                    Trade edition   ISBN 0 929480 06 6

British edition (collection)

pub Orbit (McDonald & Co), London : Hardback ISBN 0 356 19669 0

Prices are (respectively) US$40, $16, UK(pound)12.95


Good luck!

p-m

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
paul-michael agapow (agapow@latcs1.oz.au) Machine Intelligence Lab, LaTrobe Uni

        "Teenage sex, nuclear winter, Junior Miss fashion 
               & the mechanics of emotional capitalism ..."
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Dealing with Jump shock (Re: The Moat around God's Eye)
Date: 23 Jul 92 19:36:19 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <EePMixK00asVQ7sklH@andrew.cmu.edu> ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew C. Plotkin) writes:
| (How much of your DNA did you say you were using? :-)

Don't know, nobodies figured it out yet.

Seriously, though there is much 'noncoding' DNA, saying it is unused is
premature, at the very least.

Now, my personal bias is that there is some significant fraction of DNA
with no particular function, but that is still awaiting 'proof'.

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: julie@eddie.jpl.nasa.gov (Julie Kangas)
Subject: Re: Jack the Bodiless -- Spoilers
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 20:15:37 GMT

(spoilers)

In article <14hpobINNpni@seven-up.East.Sun.COM> cbrunson@vermont.East.Sun.COM writes:
>I think Fury may be the reincarnation of Felice (She was sort of killed
>by Elizabeth and Marc at the end of the Nonborn King, its mentioned at
>the beginning of The Adversary also). Before Fury came along I had suspected
>that she might also have something to do with the great carbuncle on Rogi's
>keyring, since she was conatined in a red crystal. I guess that at this point
>I really don't know but thats a Good Thing.

Felice and Culluket form a sort of duality (in Nonborn King?).
May mentions something about the duality burning darkly or
something like that.  Elizabeth finds them (it?) and no where
does she suggest that they have any sort of human form.  I think
it's reasonable to conclude that Felice and Culluket are 
Rogi's carbuncle.  

As for Fury, well, it could be a subconscious portion
of Denis that has been taken over by Victor.  It might also be Victor.
He might have become an 'evil Lylmik' at the moment of his
death.  After all, Marc figured out how to become one.

Julie

#include "std_disclaimer.h"
From: WTS@harvarda.BITNET ("WADE T. SMITH")
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Lovecraft Thread
Date: 21 Jul 92 14:30:16 GMT

Hi guys and gals-
Loved to see the H.P.Lovecraft discussions, and keep 'em comin'.
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.

________________________________________________________________________
   WADE T. SMITH           "O.K. I'VE REVERSED THE POLARITY OF THE
WTS@HARVARDA.BITNET                NEUTRON FLOW. NOW WHAT?"
########################################################################
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: "Understand" by Ted Chiang  (available again for the first time)
Organization: ClariNet Communications Corp.
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 19:52:50 GMT

As I noted, the version of Ted Chiang's novelette Understand is once again
available in the file sf/understand.Z on ftp.clarinet.com.  It should
also shortly be available on gatekeeper.dec.com in pub/sf/understand.

I apologize for the original truncation.  This one has "The End" at the
end of it!

Hugo voting closes in 3 days.  Read this and the other stories and send
in your Hugo and ESF award ballots.  (Both ballots are in the FTP libraries
described above.)
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Sunnyvale, CA 408/296-0366
From: seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: space opera:  definition
Date: 22 Jul 92 23:40:56 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh
Originator: seawasp@pmax1.cis.pitt.edu

In article <1992Jul22.163554.21575@u.washington.edu> kellmer@u.washington.edu writes:
>I've seen references to the term "SPACE OPERA"  as opposed to such things
>as hard sf, and even other types of sf.  What exactly defines something as
>"Space Opera?"  Obviously there isn't a hard and fast rule, but I'd like
>to see what other people consider space opera.  Examples would help as
>well.  Thanks a lot.


	Here's MY definition (IMNSHO, and your mileage WILL vary)

	Space Opera is the Science-Fictional equivalent of the Heroic
Fantasy. While there ARE exceptions, in general Space Opera fits the
following criteria:

	1) Good is GOOD, Evil is EEEEVIL, and there is NO doubt about who's
the Good Guys. 
	2) The Heroes are the Best around, and generally have some kind of
special abilities that put them way ahead of their competition (except of
course for their main adversary)
	3) Science may have lots of buzzwords but is WAY beyond anything 
credible (in general the "science" goes far beyond the standard SF
handwaving and edges close to fantasy)
	4) Strange psychic powers are common.
	5) The SCALE of everything is just gigantic. Ships are big,
fleets are monstrous, planets explode, stars explode, galaxies or even
universes explode. People aren't fighting for one small planet or even
a small system, but for The Universe As We Know It.

	Some good examples:

	E.E. "Doc" Smith's _Lensman_ and _Skylark_ series.

	_Star Wars_

	A.E. Van Vogt's _The Silkie_

	John Campbell's Arcot, Wade, and Morey series

	In the modern era, the strict and simple form of Space Opera has
become less common (Star Wars being the only obvious modern example to
come to mind), but there are still quite a few works which MOSTLY fit
the criteria, or at least have a Space Opera feel to them:

	the _GUNDAM_ series, especially _Char's Counterattack_
	_Crusher Joe_
	_Dirty Pair: Project EDEN_
		(All Anime)

	Brian Daley's Hobart Floyt/Alacrity Fitzhugh series (Requiem for
a Ruler of Worlds, Jinx on a Terran Inheritance, Fall of the White 
Ship Avatar)

	Alan Dean Foster's Pip/Flinx series (The Tar-Aiym Krang, Orphan
Star, The End of the Matter, For Love of Mother-Not, Bloodhype, 
Flinx in Flux)


                                 Sea Wasp
                                   /^\
                                   ;;;
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (James Davis Nicoll)
Subject: Re: Brain size (was Re: the "cause" of homosexuality)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 14:51:32 GMT

In article <1992Jul23.112546.22947@walter.bellcore.com> mdl@phelixsalt (Michael Lynch) writes:
>|> 
>|> Fully recognizing the irony in the original post, it should be noted that
>|> while Carter was not a very good President, he was by no means a moron.  The
>|> Navy is not in the habit of handing nuclear submarines over to morons.
>|> 
>|> David Hungerford  AUDMH@ASUACAD.BITNET  Opinions?  Mine, all mine!!!
>
>Yeah, but if he HAD been a moron, what would the Navy have done?  Tell him
>he couldn't have them?   Our system is entirely capable of allowing a
>moron to sit in the Oval Office.  In fact, it could be argued that it's
>already happened several times, and is about to again.
>
>I wonder how many jelly beans would fit in some skulls.

	I think they were referring to Carter's navy career prior tp
becoming President.

	*Ford* was much less on-the-ball than Carter. The USA has had (and so 
far survived) several Presidents who were not particularly bright, or who were
incapable of performing at the usual level expected of a President*
or who were astoundingly corrupt (Or their friends were, in the case of 
Harding). It appears within the realm of possiblity that the USA does not
depend on the abilities of a single person which is probably a damn good
thing: I still get chills thinking about Ford having access to several
thousand nuclear weapons.

							James Nicoll

* Wilson in his last years was rather infirm, for example.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: troly@redwood.math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly)
Subject: Re: List of voters in ESF award so far
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 02:54:27 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.223540.1282@hsv3.lsil.com> mvp@hsv3.lsil.com 
(Mike Van Pelt) writes:

$ My instant reaction to "A Walk in the Sun" was shock, horror, rage,
$ and depression.  Dan'l and I started collaborating on a short story
$ a couple of years ago, which had as one of its main gimmicks the
$ protagonist's circumnavi[g]ation of the moon to keep his solar cells lit.
$ (In our case, the protagonist was a robot.)  

   I liked your story better than the Landis one.

$ Other than that, I thought "A Walk.." was a great story, and the only
$ *REAL* SF on the ballot. 

   It was, sadly, the only real saifai on the ballot, but it was not
believable for a minute.  To quote from the Debil-Troly review:

           The astronaut has to go on this trek because her
        spacesuit is powered by solar cells, so it is no good
        if she lets the sun go down on her.  I don't believe
        this design.  I also don't believe from the description
        that the spacesuit would not overheat during a month in
        the sunlight on the moon.  I don't believe she could
        travel 11000 km in a month, on foot, in a spacesuit,
        lugging her food and gear along.  (Her trek roughly
        follows the lunar equator.)  The Moon has low surface
        gravity, but this does not make things easier except in
        the mares.  The angle of repose is damn near vertical,
        so the mountains are much steeper than on earth. There
        are other things I don't believe, but this list should
        suffice.

   What we need and aren't getting is real saifai which is also
well done.
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Card Update
Date: 21 Jul 92 20:00:05 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <70246@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
|Following that will be the next Alvin Maker book.

Hmmph, I am not sure I like the idea of another one of these.
I mean, what's to be *done* in it?  Actually narrate the building
of that blessed utupia of his?  That is *bound* to be disappointing,
such things are better left to the readers' imagination rather than
spelled out in detail.

Or does he have some other 'preliminary' action to do?

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: aaron@space.ualberta.ca (Aaron Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Hyperion covers
Reply-To: aaron@space.ualberta.ca
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 21:46:06 GMT

ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis) writes:
: Bill> == Bill Thomas <bt16+@andrew.cmu.edu>
: 
:  Bill> It seems strange that the artist read enough of the book to give
:  Bill> a fair representation of the Shrike in every respect except this
:  Bill> one -- and it's a pretty obvious one.
: 
: Yeah?  Check out the cover of Lawrence Watt-Evans's _With a Single
: Spell_.  Note that one of the two people has to be Peren the White, who
: is an albino.  Note that neither of them looks albino. :-)
: 
: This stuff happens...

The one I always remember is the cover of one of Lin Carter's World's End books
(the specific title escapes me).  The main character is Ganelon Silvermane, who
is a giant of a man with silver hair--hence the name.  The character on the
cover is a muscular barbarian with black hair...

I'm often impressed with covers of books, though...when I look at it and find
it highly improbably that the scene will ever occur in the book, and then a
few hundred pages later it does...

--
---Alfvaen(a.k.a. Aaron V. Humphrey, Page of Newts)
Canadian Network For Space Research, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
"And now only one things remains--the brute will to survive."
Current Album--The Waterboys:A Pagan Place
Current Read--Eileen Kernaghan:Journey To Aprilioth
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: chandra@cs.cornell.edu (Tushar D Chandra)
Subject: "Bugs" in walk in the sun [SPOILERS] (Was: List of voters in ESF award so far)
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 17:34:23 GMT

Ok, I'll admit I liked walk in the sun a great deal: I think it was 2 on
my list. However, I could not help noticing what seems to be a better
solution.

The first error is about the pick-up point. She would have asked to be picked
up at a pole (actually the lit pole, as you will see) since they are the only
points she can navigate to without equipment (using stars for precision. Oh
she could say pick me up under Betelguese, but I suspect one can be more
precise about the pole by watching a star on the horizon. And the sun can
get awfully close to Betelguese!) Even if she didn't mention it, the folks
picking her up should check the poles for exactly that reason.

Ok, Trish had 5 minutes of radio time and she was shaken so she made a
non-optimal decision (the folks at NASA have all the time to
realize that they should look at the poles and she should realize that. But
lets ignore it). Even in this case, Trish should not have circumrun
the moon. She had all the time in the world to realize that a much safer
and better path is to head to the pole that is lit at the time and come back
running along the "sunrise" line. Since she was near the equator, this
distance is not that much: certainly less than half the circumference of the
moon (at a reasonable spiral). And coming back would be a quarter!
Even if she doesn't have the time to make it to the pole, she would be running
on a smaller circle and so could take it easy.

Of course this assumes that she knows which pole is lit. But figuring that
out is not too hard. I imagine that the moon's NS axis is almost parallel
to the Earth's (something she would certainly know). Since she knows
which pole is lit on the earth, she knows which pole is lit on the moon.

Now lets suppose that she lands on the wrong hemisphere and is "far" from the
equator. In this case, she should have headed towards the wrong pole. True
the days are short, but at least the circle is smaller than the equator! She
can start spiraling back to the crash point after she has attained sunrise.

Finally suppose that the moon's axis is NOT parallel to the earth's and
she knows that. In this case, she might not be able to determine which pole
is lit. She should head towards the nearer pole since she gains either way.

Of course, given her decision to be picked-up near her space-craft, the
finish would still be dramatic since she would have to be picked up at sunset.

Cheers

-Tushar
Cheers
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: mouser@athena.mit.edu (Christopher B Siren)
Subject: Re: Michael Moorcock's Swords Trilogy
Summary: LONG
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 21:43:40 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.170355.28628@discus.technion.ac.il> davidba@carmel.technion.ac.il (David Ben_Ami) writes:
>Hello Netters,
>
>  I just finished reading Michael Moorcock's "The Swords' Trilogy".
   ...

>  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?

     It sure looks like our world is one of the "Million Spheres", as
many of Moorcock's other "Eternal Champion" stories take place in 
(alternate?) Earth futures (eg. Hawkmoon, Dancers at the End of Time, 
Jerrimiah Cornellius).  Now that I think about it, in his John Dakar/
Erekose stories, the main character is originally from our time and world.

>  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.

     I think this may be a hold over from the Elric stories, in which
Arioch, the Knight of the Swords, is much more potent with blade and 
magic.

>  5. Any other books by M. Moorcock?

He's got a horde: at least 30 that connect to the Eternal Champion theme:

John Daker/Erekose:			Elric:
     The Eternal Champion		   Elric of Melnibone
     Phoenix in Obsidian		   The Fortress in the Pearl
  or The Silver Warriors		   The Sailor on the Seas of Fate
     The Dragon in the Sword		   The Weird of the White Wolf
					   The Vanishing Tower
Dorian Hawkmoon von Koln		   The Bane of the Black Sword
     The Jewel in the Skull		   Stormbringer
     The Mad God's Amulet
     The Sword of the Dawn		Corum
     The Runestaff			   The Knight of Swords
     Count Brass			   The Queen of Swords
     The Champion of Garathorm		   The King of Swords
     The Quest for Tanelorn		   The Bull and the Spear
					   The Oak and the Ram
Jherek Carnelian			   The Sword and the Stallion
    An Alien Heat			 (these last three have been
    The Hollow Lands			  packaged as _The Chronicles of
    The End of all Songs		  Corum_)
    Legends from the End of Time
    A Messiah at the End of Time	Jerry Cornelius
					   The Final Programme
Michael Kane				   A Cure for Cancer
    The City of the Beast		   The English Assassin
    The Lord of the Spiders		   The Condition of Muzak
    The Masters of the (Rift?)		   The Peking Junction

>Thanks for any information and ilumination,
>  
>    David Ben-Ami

You're Welcome,

Chris Siren, The Gray (Mouser@athena.mit.edu)
From: matt@physics16.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: space opera:  definition
Date: 24 Jul 92 15:44:13 GMT
	<1992Jul22.192142.12644@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> <725@tdat.teradata.COM>
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics16.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: swf@teradata.com's message of 23 Jul 92 19:48:35 GMT

In article <725@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:

> Does it though?  All you get out of the SF element is fast travel.
> In a Western that comes from trains and stage coaches.  What major
> plot elements *rely* on technology in these stories?

It depends on what you mean by "rely".  Admittedly, the good v. evil
plot could easily have taken place in the Wild West, but the book pays
an extraordinary amount of attention to technology.  There are many
occasions where the actions just stops dead while the characters stand
around talking for pages about the details of the gobbledygook
science.  Without that, it wouldn't be at all the same book.
--
Matthew Austern              I dreamt I was being followed by a roving band of
(510) 644-2618               of young Republicans, all wearing the same suit,
matt@physics.berkeley.edu    taunting me and shouting, "Politically correct
austern@theorm.lbl.gov       multiculturist scum!"... They were going to make
austern@lbl.bitnet	     me kiss Jesse Helms's picture when I woke up.
From: barring@fiji.cs.umass.edu (David Mix Barrington)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: What happened to Hogan? (Re: SF writers with consistent themes)
Date: 24 Jul 92 14:03:18 GMT
Reply-To: barring@fiji.cs.umass.edu (David Mix Barrington)
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

My opinion based on a few Hogan books is that he has no
ability whatsoever to design interesting characters.  His
plots have been pretty good, and his most successful book,
IMHO, was _Proteus Operation_ where he could borrow the
characters of Churchill, Hitler, and Einstein, three of the
more interesting people of the century.  In _Code of the
Lifemaker_ he borrowed James Randi for the skeptic, and
probably someone in particular for the charlatan -- the 
similarities to the charlatan in Michener's _Space_ suggest
to me a fixed common model or a borrowing of on eby the other.
A good example of an excellent plot with hideously boring
people is _The Two Faces of Tomorrow_.

Dave MB

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Subject: Re: List of voters in ESF award so far
Reply-To: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 16:14:15 GMT

Brad Templeton writes:

>I have received requests for an ACK on voting in the ESF Short Story award.
>(Best Short Story of 1991 as picked from the Hugo nominees available for
>FTP from sf.clarinet.com.)

>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.

 20 times?!?  It's hard to believe so few people voted then...

 Either they do not like the stories or they dislike the voting system.
 In terms of the # of readers who bothered to ftp the stories, I would
 call your experiment a certified success.  But so few votes... any other 
 ideas why the readers/voters ration is so small?

 - 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