HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk (G.D. Rees)
Subject: Re: "A Fire Upon The Deep" by Vernor Vinge
Reply-To: gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk (G.D. Rees)
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 18:19:11 GMT

I haven't been reading this group since June, so I may have missed a
thread or three on this, but I am surprised not to see
rec.arts.sf.written filling up with stuff about Vinge's galactic
network.  Here's what I said in a recent review of the novel (posted to
rec.arts.sf.reviews):
 
  The planets of the Beyond are connected by an
  information network that is so like a galactic 
  Usenet that Vinge must be a subscriber to the 
  Earthly version.  He has it all down pat:  the 
  meaningless message headers, the volume of 
  traffic, the arrogance of contributors ("Idiots 
  who don't follow all the threads in developing 
  news should not waste my precious ears with their 
  garbage") and the sheer weight of noise obscuring 
  a little signal ("It is not called the Net of a 
  Million Lies for nothing").  What a nightmare!  I 
  hope Vinge is wrong with this prediction, but fear 
  that he is correct.

The evidence is pretty convincing:  Vinge reads Usenet.  But does he
contribute?  Perhaps more knowledgable posters than myself can answer
this question.

Gareth Rees <gdr11@phx.cam.ac.uk>
From: dstein@amalthea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Subject: Re: Ian McDonald's _The Broken Land_: review
Reply-To: dstein@amalthea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 07:14:34 GMT

In article <1992Oct01.081600.22174@sco.COM>, charless@sco.COM (AutoPope)
writes:

|> Why do so many sf readers have a hang-up about `story'? Ian's work
|> is definitively _not_ about `story' -- it's about `experience'.
|> There is more to fiction than who does what and why, dammit. If
|> there wasn't, we'd all be reading newspapers instead. Before you
|> can understand The Broken Lands (published in the UK as Hearts,
|> Hands and Voices) you need to surrender to it. Like life itself,
|> it's plotless but full of feeling. 

   My comment referred to the short story "Fragments of an Analysis 
   of a Case of Hysteria".  Have you read it?

   As to the supposed distinction of a "story" from "experience"
   (are they not linked?), it is irrelevant.  My point was there
   was no point in writing the story, and you are welcomed to
   change my mind by addressing the story itself instead of giving
   a sermon.

|>                                      Do you insist on hanging
|> an artificial teleological construct on top of your sensory
|> input in real life? 

   You mean a dildo?  I'm sorry, my dictionary is not around.

|>                      If not, why do you feel the need for an 
|> explanation when you're reading a work of fiction?

   I did not say I do.  I said I would be "delighted" if someone 
   "tried" to explain the point of this particular short story.


 - 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) - ===
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: The Year's Best SCIENCE FICTION
Keywords: Dozoi's 9th collection
Date: 8 Oct 92 15:44:43 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA

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

>   First, Dozois repeats himself, year after year, without regard for 
>   the sanity of his regular readers.  How many times will I have to 
>   read the "...nobody can complain if I only say positive things about 
>   the competition..." paragraph? 

Every year, because it's an important disclaimer to beat into the heads of
the new users. You don't see auto companies put their disclaimers into only
the first showing of a commercial, do you? It's important for Gardner to
disclose both his conflicts of interest as editor of the volume and how it
affects the way he handles the book, and you can't depend on readers either
knowing it up front or having read previous volumes. Think of it as a
"lawyermademedoit-ism".

>   Second, Dozois tries to make the Summation all-inclusive, which leads
>   him to babble about areas of little SF interest (like movies), which 
>   in turn makes the Summation bloated and tiring to read. Since he admits 
>   he has little time to do anything else then read the short fiction, I 
>   would prefer he stuck to it. 
   
He'd probably prefer to do it, too, but not all of the readers agree, and
evidently neither do the people at St. Martin's. It's obviously of interest
to various aspects of the buyers or they wouldn't do it. (#include standard
comment about misinterpreting view of single person as being representative
of all readers).

>  Dispatches from Revolution

>  But the whole thing
>  is still hard to take in earnest.

It really sounds like you just don't like alternate history fiction. I do,
and Dispatches really blew me away.


>  The Gallery of his Dreams
>  Kristine Kathryn Rusch
>  I- E- W- C-

>    Technically science-fiction,

Like I noted, not a big alternate history buff... (which is okay. Tastes
differ. that's why there's such a wide variety of fiction out there. If we
could all agree on what's good, there'd be a lot fewer books and stories
published).

>  Angels In Love
>  Kathe Koja

>  This story has no place in this collection, 
>  nor in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror collection by the 
>  same publisher.  These two related anthologies should not 
>  print the same stories, in my humble opinion.  That they 
>  did do so with _this_ story is either a sign of the editors' 
>  insanity, or of humor.  You choose.

Actually, Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow (editors of the other anthology)
and Gardner (editor of this one) don't compare notes. That the three of them
all agree on a story is rather notable, actually. 

Interesting critique.

-- 
Chuq "IMHO" Von Rospach, ESD Support & Training (DAL/AUX) =+= Member, SFWA
  chuq@apple.com | GEnie: MAC.BIGOT | ALink:CHUQ =+= Editor, OtherRealms


Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: higgins@fnala.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
Subject: Re: In defense of Vonnegut (was Re: "VENUS ON THE HALF SHELL")
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 02:22:24 GMT
X-Posted-From: fnala.fnal.gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <7245@transfer.stratus.com>, jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann) writes:
> In article <z#2zt#p@rpi.edu> kasprj@jec321.its.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak)  
> writes:
>> In article <1992Oct13.223004.1803@csus.edu>,  
> gharlane@nextnet.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore) writes some things > I  
> don't see any pettiness there. Both parties were acting mature and  
> respectful.
>> Unlike some people I could name who tried to set the followup line  
> to 
>> "alt.dev.null".
> 
> Aargh. I didn't notice this, so my post went to the bit
> bucket.  Jeez, Gharlane of Eddore (or whatever the hell his
> real name is) really was sure of his opinions, wasn't he. Sounds
> like he was afraid of anyone disagreeing with him.  

If he's really Gharlane of Eddore, you won't catch *me* disagreeing
with him in public.

Engineer of Hijacked Train:      Bill Higgins
"Is this a holdup?"              (not speaking for Boskone)   
                                 Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Masked Gunman:                      
(Hesitates, looks at partner,    Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET
looks at engineer again)         SPAN/Hepnet/Physnet: 43011::HIGGINS
"It's a science experiment!"     Internet: HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV
From: seanodon@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Aragorn)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Author/Name of this story...
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:40:52 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network

In article <jpesonen.88@viikki.Helsinki.FI> jpesonen@viikki.Helsinki.FI (JORMA JUHANI PESONEN (EKT)) writes:
>
>I recently remembered this story which I have read about three to five years 
>ago. I remember that it was written around 1950-1970 and the author was 
>American.

Not quite.

>The Story: A art thief meets a man with a job: to gather all the most 
>valuable art pieces to the man (or was it only one piece?!). The man tells 
>that he is from the future of another race, and gives the thief a device, 
>which slows the time to other people. So the thief can act freely, as no-one 
>can see him.
>At the end all is revealed: the scientists have experimented with a bomb (M-
>bomb or smthng like that) and the explosion will destroy the world. Thh 
>thief is left to the scene with all the time in the world (as I remember the 
>name of the story to be...)
>So if this rings any bells, please help...;-)
>

The story is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke (he was British last time
I checked :-) and is available in _More than One Universe_, an anthology
of his short stories.  Unfortunately I don't remember the title (the
book is at home), but you have it pretty close to the actual story line.

Actual Story line - Spoiler alert


Actual Story line 

A specialized art thief (expensive and rare books) meets beautiful lady
who offers to pay a large sum of money (very large) for some artifacts.
To do it, she gives him the time-slowing device.  After he gets the
artifacts, he decides the braclet is more valuable than the money and
asks to keep it in exchange.  The lady then decides to tell him the
truth.  She is an alien from the far future and is just 'borrowing' the
woman's body. They are gathering artifacts so humanity will be
remembered, as since a new bomb being tested would do something to the
earth's crust and kill everything.  They were frozen at the instant
before the explosion.  The aliens allowed hom to keep the braclet so he
could either live his full natural life alone, or take it off and watch
the end of the world.  

Great story, classic Clarke

Aragorn
-- 
***seanodon@ecn.purdue.edu***********************************************
*  Man-in-Black: "You mean you'll put down your rock and I'll put 	*
*		  down my sword, and we'll try to kill each other 	*
*		  like civilized people."	_The Princess Bride_	*
From: x92qba@ESSEX.STFX.CA (HAL)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: RE: SF-LOVERS Digest   V17 #534
Date: 13 Oct 92 17:15:29 GMT

WELL, I've tried everything...now I'm just gonna have to post to the list.
I have been trying for two days to sign off. However, every SFLOVERS \
distribution node insists that I am not subscribed to SFLOVERS! I know 
better, since I keep getting digests. I like the SFLOVERS digest, but I
have other endeavours on the go and cannot presently afford the memory space
(my university has a limit on memory usage). Please HELP!

HAL
X92QBA@ESSEX.STFX.CA
feeling VERY stupid about having to send this to the list, but out of options.
From: uprao@mcl.ucsb.edu (Parik Rao)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: The Shadow Rising - Robert Jordan **SPOILERS**
Date: 9 Oct 92 00:49:25 GMT
Reply-To: uprao@mcl.ucsb.edu
Organization: U.C. Santa Barbara

In <1992Oct8.111930.4628@desire.wright.edu> cse0080@desire.wright.edu (John C. Hansen) writes:

>The Shadow Rising is a great read!

>Spoilers below!  


>

>3. What will Siuan, Min, and Logain do?  

Siuan will probably use Logain to raise an army and defeat the White Tower...

>4. Is Elaida black Ajah?  I was almost certain she wasn't but I can't say
>anymore.  Who killed the girl and the lady at the farm?  

I don't think so.  In TSR, at some time, it shows Elaida thinking.  Basically,
she will do ANYTHING to keep the world from breaking apart and keep 
Morgase on the throne/Camlyn (sic) together.  She had a vision of Rand
breaking Camilyn (Morgase's land, whatever its called) and when The Amrylin
said Rand was the Dragon Reborn and the White Tower would throw its support
behind him, she decided "thats a bad thing".  I really doubt she's black
ajah.  She probably wasted the girl and the lady, she seems to be very
... purposeful.

>7. I still wonder about Ordeith (Padain Fain)?  Who or what is he?

From what I've read, he is part Ba'alzamon (i.e., Ishmael) and part Mordeth.
Both of these characters infused their spirits into him.  When Ishmael died,
he became "free" and has a few purposes in mind; get the dagger, the horn,
and kill Rand and those he loves.  Other forsaken send their pets to hunt
him. 

>9. Will the land return to its modern jo-car, ho-wing (?) state?

I doubt it, no one can make them anymore...

>10. Where is Moghedien, did bale fire get her? (Probably not)  What about
>Samael, and the rest?

Sammael rules Illian, and one other basically rules Morgase.

--
parik rao				        prao@cs.ucsb.edu or rao@cmc.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books
From: zgilbert@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Zvi Gilbert)
Subject: Re: Ian McDonald's _The Broken Land_: review
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 14:41:21 GMT

mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:>
>>[...]  and I don't like
>>fiction without a plot.  And I've noticed that people who are ideologically
>>attached to plotless fiction usually aren't very good at making their own
>>choices, either.
>
>Examples, please?

Well, I'm a big fan of Delany's DHALGREN, Joyce's ULYSSES, Michael Moorcock,
JG Ballard, John Cage, Borges, and Barry Malzberg.

And I can NEVER decide whether to have toast and peanut butter or eggs and
bacon for breakfast.

I guess Eric is right!  Good call, laddie!

--Zvi
From: cet1@cus.cam.ac.uk (C.E. Thompson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Language (was: Time) and the New Sun
Keywords: Wolfe TBOTNS English Language
Date: 13 Oct 92 21:57:28 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England

In article <1992Oct7.030800.11485@netcom.com>, dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
writes, apropos of TBOTNS:
|>                                                           We also
|> note that it was reasonable to expect a coin from Ymar's time to
|> survive -- badly corroded -- in Severian's:  There is reason to suspect
|> that common words such as 'copper', 'stone', 'wood', often refer to
|> far more durable materials than we associate with them.

which gives me a peg to hang the following question on: What relationship
does the language spoken by Severian bear to English?

I offer the following two contrasting passages for your delectation:

1. In TSOTT, in Thecla's story, as retold by Severian to Agia in the 
   Botanic Gardens, Father Inire is made to say to Domnina: "Yet even
   though light is so weightless we have given its name to that
   condition...". This pun only makes sense in English or *very* closely
   related languages, as far as I can trace the derivation of the words 
   light (opposite of heavy) vs. light (opposite of dark).

2. In TCOTC, Thea says to Severian: "The dawn-men ... renamed it [Mars]
   Present. That was a jest in their tongue for the same word meant both
   _Now_ and _The Gift_. Or so one of my tutors once explained the matter
   to my sister and me, though I do not see how any language could endure
   such a confusion."

So how is one to reconcile the two passages? With any other SF author than
Gene Wolfe, I would attribute one or other to a momentary carelessness,
but I would be quite reluctant to assume that here.

Chris Thompson
JANET:    cet1@uk.ac.cam.phx
Internet: cet1@phx.cam.ac.uk
From: matt@physics2.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Time and the New Sun
Date: 7 Oct 92 13:53:52
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics2.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: dani@netcom.com's message of Wed, 7 Oct 1992 03:08:00 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.030800.11485@netcom.com> dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:

> Trying a simpler question, as a means of getting a handle on the
> harder one, how much time passed between Ymar's day and Severian's?
> The clues conflict.  Ymar lived in the first days of the dying of
> the sun, in the last days of Earth's diastrophism, and in the last
> days of Earth's interstellar empire.  (It may have even been in
> his day that the Autarchy lost most of Earth outside South America.)
> On the other hand, he lived in a world little different from
> Severian's, where even the small villages were the same.

There's another clue worth paying attention to: the way that Ymar is
remembered in Severian's day.  Severian read one story about Ymar, and
felt that he was reading about a person infinitely removed from the
world he lived in, about whom it was possible to know almost nothing.
The impression I got is that almost no records about Ymar, or writings
of his, had survived, only a few fragments like the one Severian read.

The way that Ymar was remembered seemed more similar to the way that
we remember Alexander the Great than to the way that we remember
Napolean.
--
Matthew Austern                   Just keep yelling until you attract a
(510) 644-2618                    crowd, then a constituency, a movement, a
austern@lbl.bitnet                faction, an army!  If you don't have any
matt@physics.berkeley.edu         solutions, become a part of the problem!
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: dkl@xcluud.sccsi.com (David Leikam)
Subject: Re: Vance
Organization: Greater Montrose UFO Appreciation Society & Data Haven
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 19:37:52 GMT

In article <ELIZ.92Oct13215214@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu> eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) writes:
>
>Vance isn't *that* hard to find.  Regular sweeps in urban bookstores
>and at the occasional con dealer's table will round up all the Alastor
>books, the Pnume books, and anything else you care to think of by
>Vance.
>
 
   Well, not quite everything. Or maybe it was never written? There's at
least one volume of "The Demon Princes" that I've never been able to find.
I don't know the title (not at home right now), and I'm not sure I ever
did, but there ought to be at least one more than I have. OTTOMH I have
"The Killing Machine", "The Face", and at least one other. But shouldn't
there be five in all? Anyone know?

-- 
dkl@xcluud.sccsi.com | My company doesn't know Usenet exists, and my boss
and other places,    | would have kittens if he thought I spoke for them.
even more unsavory.  | My opinions are better than theirs anyway.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: Mike.Hoffmann@ap.mchp.sni.de (Mike Hoffmann)
Subject: *Where* is the Tolkien mailing-list? (was: Re: tolkien ?)
Organization: Siemens-Nixdorf AG, AP 712
Distribution: rec
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 13:58:43 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.181628.2917@odin.diku.dk> damm@diku.dk (Kristian Damm Jensen) writes:
>I believe the story went something like this:

>The Tolkien mailing list was started about a year before The Big
>Split. This drained the original rec.arts.sf.lovers of Tolkien-related
>postings, so when the split arrived, very few could see the need for a
>special tolkien group.

>Also in general people was opposed to special-groups like Heinlein or
>Tolkien.

So what is the address of this Tolkien list? How do I join?

As explanation: I was once in a Tolkien mailing list, but after a while the
administrator wrote that he was having problems handling the load. After 
another while I dint't receive anything anymore... so I had suspected that 
the list had died.

So if the admin happens to reading this: *please* tell me the mail-list's
address or better yet, just sign me up! :-)

Thanks
Mike
-- 
Mike Hoffmann, Siemens-Nixdorf AG, SNI AP 712  
INTERNET: Mike.Hoffmann@ap.mchp.sni.de
It would be easy to dismiss the Americans who are fascinated with British 
royalty as nothing but a bunch of brain-dead, no-life celebrity moonies, but 
we must not do this, because one of them is my wife. (Dave Barry)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: vonnegut
From: gharlane@nextnet.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore)
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 05:21:52 GMT
Followup-To: alt.dev.null
Distribution: usa
Organization: Evil Beings from the Planet Eddore, Inc.
Keywords: Ploor, Eddore, Bennett, re-incarnation
Summary: ....that's the only thing he could find to object to?

To: kaufman@eecs.nwu.edu

In article <1992Oct16.022349.27366@eecs.nwu.edu> you write:
> I was not going to get involved, this is just too silly. I would like to 
> point out one small inconsistency:
>
> gharlane@nextnet.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore) writes about Vonnegut:
> >   (He called it that, once, in a lecture I attended.)
>
> And later he said:
> >   Sorry to disabuse you, but the only direct contact I've had with 
> >   either of the gentlemen is their printed work.

 And that, sir, is precisely why I chose to employ the adjectival 
modifier "direct" in the sentence you quote.  I've never shaken 
hands with either of them, or spoken to them.   One must presume
that the closest contact one can achieve with a professional writer,
in the absence of conversational interface, is his work itself.
(I'd love to spend some time quizzing P.J. Farmer at an SF convention
some day, but would probably not go out of my way to discuss anything
with Vonnegut.)

 I regard a panel discussion at an SF con as being less "direct" than
a considered, edited, published work, due to the fact that verbal 
statements made in a convention environment can be the result of 
crowds, fatigue, misunderstanding, and extreme hangover.  I did feel,
however, that Vonnegut's statement that particular day was probably
precisely what he meant.

 Incidentally, I *can* report "directly" on a bit of Troutiana/Sturgeona;
in spring of 1971 Sturgeon told me (in answer to a specific question) 
that he wasn't aware of any purposeful connection between his name and
that of Vonnegut's character; and added that, if such a connection 
became overtly obvious, it would be necessary for him to write a book
about Vonnegut.   He had quite a list of pun-transposition analogs for
Vonnegut's name readily to hand, which led me to believe he'd encountered
the question before.


Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.movies
From: cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu (Chris Meadows)
Subject: Re: SF Novels That Would Make Great Films
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Distribution: rec
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 19:17:59 GMT


Roger Zelazny's JACK OF SHADOWS would make a great movie, and the
AMBER series would also be an awesome choice.  Though there are so
many of them, it would probably be better as a high-budget TV series.

---Chris Meadows

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written