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Subject: SF-LOVERS Digest   V17 #513
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SF-LOVERS Digest            Tuesday, 6 Oct 1992       Volume 17 : Issue 513

Today's Topics:

       Books - Bisson (2 msgs) & Cherryh (4 msgs) & Duane (3 msgs) &
               The Book of Scrolls & Utopia/Dystopia Stories &
               Recommendations Requested,
       Magazines - DargonZine & Interzone

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 92 13:09:53 GMT
From: jjfink@skcla.monsanto.com
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Review: T Bisson: Voyage to the Red Planet

Here's a fun book: Terry Bisson's _Voyage to the Red Planet_ (1990?)  It's
light, humorous, full of running gags, and just plain a good read.  It's
not very socially significant, doesn't have a message, the characters
aren't too deep, but it's definitely worth a read as entertainment.

Basic summary: post-depression 21st century, Hollywood producer snatches up
a mothballed NASA Mars project.

The closest thing to this book would be Harry Harrison's _Technicolor Time
Machine_.

jjfink@skcla.monsanto.com

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 92 05:59:21 GMT
From: write@eff.org (Glen Cox)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: Review: T Bisson: Voyage to the Red Planet

jjfink@skcla.monsanto.com writes:
>Here's a fun book: Terry Bisson's _Voyage to the Red Planet_ (1990?)  It's
>light, humorous, full of running gags, and just plain a good read.  It's
>not very socially significant, doesn't have a message, the characters
>aren't too deep, but it's definitely worth a read as entertainment.

While I agree with you that VOYAGE TO THE RED PLANET is a fun book, I have
to disagree with your statement that it is "not very socially significant."
What you describe above sounds like a book by Craig Shaw Gardner or Alan
Dean Foster; VOYAGE TO THE RED PLANET, however, may seem light on the
surface, but is firmly entrenched in that literary device made famous by
Jonathan Swift, that is, satire.

Glen E. Cox
write@eff.org

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 92 16:27:42 GMT
From: mdl@phelixsalt (Michael Lynch)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Chanur Series

I just finished C.J. Cherryh's second book in the Chanur Series, "Chanur's
Venture."  The book ends abruptly, without a resolution of the "events"
(don't want to say too much for fear of spoilers).  In effect, the story
ends with the climax.  This is not a cliff-hanger, it's an unfinished
story.  In fact, the last line is an editorial note saying that the story
is continued in the third book, "The Kif Strike Back."  Fortunately I had
already bought the third book, and could continue reading without
interruption.

My question is, do you suppose that "Chanur's Venture" and "The Kif Strike
Back" were originally one book, and that someone (Cherryh?  An editor? DAW
Books?) decided it was too long, and had to be split?

There's another oddity here, one that may be a part of the mystery.  The
second book, "Chanur's Venture," has an "Appendix" that describes all the
member races of the Compact.  Seems to me this belonged in the first book,
"Pride of Chanur."  So between the second and third books we have an
appendix that probably should have been part of the first.  (Confused?  I
am.)

Any thoughts/comments/revelations?

BTW, I'm thoroughly enjoying these books.  They're good reads.

Mike Lynch
mdl@oscar.bellcore.com

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 92 23:17:49 GMT
From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: Chanur Series

mdl@phelixsalt (Michael Lynch) writes:
>My question is, do you suppose that "Chanur's Venture" and "The Kif Strike
>Back" were originally one book, and that someone (Cherryh?  An editor? DAW
>Books?) decided it was too long, and had to be split?

Chanur's Venture, The Kif Strike Back, *and* Chanur's Homecoming were all
three written as one long, continuous story, and split into three parts for
publication.  This is mentioned in the afterword to TKSB.  Compare this to
Cyteen, which *was* published as one book in HC, but split into three, like
the Chanur books, for PB release.

Note: just in case you missed it, there is a new (5th (or is that 3rd?  :->
)) Chanur book out, called Chanur's Legacy.  From the blurbs (my SFBC copy
hasn't arrived yet), it stars Hilfy.  Looks interesting.

Chris Waters
xtifr@netcom.COM

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 92 22:11:11 GMT
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: CJ Cherryh

billw@REGAL.CISCO.COM (William Westfield) writes:
>>Oh, I agree, she is definitely a solid, even realistic character.  The
>>problem is, I *don't* *like* *her*.  I think she is a scuzbucket, so I
>>find it difficult to *care* what happens to her.
>
>A capsule analysis of CJC characters - They are deep.  Well defined.  You
>get to know all their faults as well as their good points.  They are
>frequently not "likeable".  It is frequently difficult to tell whether
>they are good guys or bad guys.  They are frequently pushed into
>situations that stress them to the very edge of sanity, or slightly
>beyond.

I agree.  I do not even terribly mind 'unlikeable' characters, up to a
point.

>(Consider, if you read Downbelow Station first, there is very heavy

Which I did.

>insinuation that "union" are the "bad guys", except for maybe miltary
>rogues who are worse.  Yet in Cyteen, we cheer on the very creators of
>this corrupt society.)

True, it is all very excellently done.  But part of this change of view is
accomplished by making the worst extremes of what Cyteen did in the war be
considered excessive by most of the citizens of Cyteen.  That is the least
acceptible activities, far from being the norm of the culture, are
desperation moves brought on by the war situation.

>I think that one of CJC's strongest advantages is her ability to paint the
>stage in many shades of gray, instead of the black and white so common in
>(inferior) SF works...  But if you are looking for heros, you should
>probably find another author.

It is all rather complex.  I didn't really mind Capt. Mallory, at least she
had *some* redeeming qualities.  And in "Downbelow Station" there was at
least an *issue* to *care* about - the effect of the war on those
Downbelow, especially the innocent (of this, at least) natives.

In "Rimrunner" we have a main character who goes *far* beyond what I
consider reasonable behavior, even in the extreme position she was in, and
there seems to be nothing at stake except the survival of a few murderous
outlaws.  [As far as I'm concerned she had several opportunities to take a
less violent path, and thus her behavior is *not* justified by the extreme
situation].

sarima@teradata.com
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 92 20:56:34 GMT
From: mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at (Markus Stumptner)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: Chanur Series

mdl@phelixsalt (Michael Lynch):
> My question is, do you suppose that "Chanur's Venture" and "The Kif
> Strike Back" were originally one book, and that someone (Cherryh?  An
> editor? DAW Books?) decided it was too long, and had to be split?

I do not remember who is responsible, but the two and the fourth Chanur
book (Chanur's Homecoming?) were indeed conceived as one book and then
separated, i.e. there are two books, the second of which is thinly
disguised as a trilogy (seems similar to Cyteen, but I'm just reading the
first volume of that, so I can't tell for sure).

> Seems to me this belonged in the first book, "Pride of Chanur."

The point is that the first book stood on its own and predates the others.
Obviously, when she decided to go on, she thought it would be a good idea
to provide background material on the Compact.  So when the book was split
up, the first part was the natural place to put the appendix, since
otherwise people would read it only after two volumes.

> BTW, I'm thoroughly enjoying these books.  They're good reads.

I agree.

Markus Stumptner
University of Technology Vienna
Paniglg. 16, A-1040 Vienna, Austria
mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at
vexpert!mst@relay.eu.net
...mcsun!vexpert!mst

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 92 14:26:59 GMT
From: ciar04@vaxa.strath.ac.uk
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: Diane Duane, _Door Into Fire_

st1rk@rosie.uh.edu (Darin Maxwell) writes:
> Anyone interested in the scenario?  The world is set up such that members
> of the same sex often are lovers, with the caveat that you must produce
> at least one child. The plot is heavily mythological and, at least for
> me, the outcome is totally irrelevant. The mood of the books is enough to
> satisfy me.  Definitely one of the top ten series for me.

Regarding the idea of members of the same sex being lovers, Mercedes
Lackey's The Last Herald Mage series contains the same idea (called shay
a'chern).  Wonder who got the inspiration from whom.

W.H.Watt
Dept. of Accounting & Finance
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow
United Kingdom
w.h.watt@vaxa.strath.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 92 17:22:05 GMT
From: betsyp@apollo.hp.com (Betsy Perry)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: Diane Duane, _Door Into Fire_

dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:
>Duane, like most fantasy authors, designs the sexual politics of her world
>to accord with her own, but those politics are hardly what the books are
>about.  I'd say a better characterization of the Door series is that it
>deals with the same themes as the Wizard series, for an older target
>audience.

Well, Duane's themes are Duane's themes (you know, Love, Death, Sacrifice),
but I think the most interesting theme in the Door series is that it's the
only fantasy world I know of that's unabashedly bourgeois.  *EVERYBODY*
works for a living.  The Queen is married to a wine merchant.  Most of the
noble characters have professions as well as lands.  Where you get your
money and what you do with it are important issues (withess Segnbora's
parents' frustration with her failure to focus - "those magic lessons were
expensive, sweetheart!")

Most other fantasy worlds are based on daydreams of medieval culture, with
the nobility preeminent, peasants available as servants, and the
bourgeoisie present only as the owners of innumerable inns.  Everybody is
above money, because everybody that matters to the tale either has an
invisible income, presumably coming from land, or is the servant of
somebody with an invisible income.  Think about our old friend JRRT: Who's
been feeding and clothing Aragorn for all those years?  The Hobbits, who
are essentially bourgeois, are primarily comic relief; the exception,
Frodo, the Hobbit-hero, is living on inherited income.  Sam Gamgee is the
only professional in the book, and he's a gardener.  (Or is that just a
hobby?)

Another writer who's obviously done a good deal of thinking about the
economic underpinnings of his fantasy world is Steven Brust.  I especially
enjoyed the impoverished nobility in *The Phoenix Guards*.  If you reread
*The Three Musketeers*, you'll find that Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are
nearly always one step ahead of their duns.

Betsy Hanes Perry
Hewlett-Packard Company
betsyp@apollo.hp.com

------------------------------

Date: 5 Oct 92 22:24:04 GMT
From: tdober@llnl.gov (TDO)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: Diane Duane, _Door Into Fire_

cpf@alchemy.TN.Cornell.EDU (Courtenay Footman) wrote:
> My copy of "Door into Fire" is the first (Dell) edition.  Diane Duane
> revised DiF when it was reissued.  How extensive, important, and good are
> the revisions?

Extensive - not very.

Important - fairly.

Good - very.

To be more specific, the changes I noticed between the two versions were:

   Freelorn got quite a bit more character development. In the original
   version, he came across to me as pretty feckless and irresponsible; he
   looked like he would make a bad ruler. The revised version gives him a
   lot more political awareness and concern for his subjects-to-be.

   Sunspark got a bit less "human". Since he/she/it was one of my favorite
   characters, I regret this change somewhat, but it brings the character
   more in synch with the portrayal through the rest of the series.

I solved my "liked this bit, didn't like that bit" problem by keeping
copies of both versions around; I read whichever one suits my mood.

TDO

------------------------------

Date: 1 Oct 92 02:04:09 GMT
From: nb2b+@andrew.cmu.edu (Nathanel J. Barlow)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: THE BOOK OF SCROLLS

Someone recently told me (without any details) that there was a book by
George Lucas called "The Book of Scrolls".  Could someone please tell me
what this is?

Nate
nb2b+@andrew.cmu.edu

------------------------------

Date: 4 Oct 92 20:59:38 GMT
From: mab@buphy.bu.edu (Michael Burstein)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Utopia/Dystopia stories -- searching for

A friend of mine is teaching an sf class to high school students and needs
short stories (or novelettes and novellas) about so-called perfect
societies or societies of this sort in which things go wrong. Any
suggestions? (Think 1984, Brave New World, Farenheit 451, etc.)

Michael A. Burstein
Physics Department
Boston University
590 Commonwealth Ave.
Boston, MA 02215
mab@buphy.bu.edu

------------------------------

From: cpeckham@nyx.cs.du.edu (Chris Peckham)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Recommendations??
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:15:20 GMT

Can anyone out there recommend some good sf/f stories and authors which
investigate any of the following:

1) Unusual/questioning relationships between _good_ and _evil_

2) Loss of innocence/corruption by _evil_

3) Mysticism and ambiguity

I am particularly interested in the fantasy genre, and in both human and
non-human characterisation.

Thanks for your help - you can never get this information from the typical
book blurb.

Chris

[Moderator's Note: Please send all responses directly to the poster who
(hopefully) will summarize.]

------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 92 18:33:54 GMT
From: khaytsus@alumni.cs.colorado.edu (Aspen)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: DargonZine


                                DargonZine
                    The Magazine of the Dargon Project
                       Editor:  Dafydd <White@DUVM>

   DargonZine is an electronic magazine printing stories written for the
Dargon Project, a shared-world anthology similar to (and inspired by)
Robert Asprin's Thieves' World anthologies, created by David "Orny" Liscomb
in his now retired magazine, FSFNet. The Dargon Project centers around a
medieval-style duchy called Dargon in the far reaches of the Kingdom of
Baranur on the world named Makdiar, and as such contains stories with a
fantasy fiction/sword and sorcery flavor. At this time, DargonZine has no
plans to publish anything other than Dargon Project stories, but there are
several other magazines out there to satisfy this need.

Subscription Information:

   Subscribers to DargonZine will have each new issue sent to their userid
as it comes out. A subscription may be obtained by sending a request via
MAIL to the editor, Dafydd, at the userid WHITE@DUVM.Bitnet.  This request
should contain your full userid (logonid and node, or a valid internet
address) as well as your full name and the file transfer format you prefer
(either DISK DUMP, PUNCH/MAIL, or SENDFILE/NETDATA (non-BitNet subscribers
only have one option - Mail)).  After that, you will receive all issues as
they are sent out.
   All electronic subscriptions to DargonZine are free and are valid until
either the user requests that they be removed from the distribution list,
or when the user's account is no longer active. It is requested that
readers inform the editor in the event that their account becomes inactive,
deleted, or assigned to a different user.

Back Issues:
   We once again have a back issue archive. It is at 192.88.144.4
(ftp.eff.org or kragar.eff.org). Use anonymous FTP to get into this site,
and then go to the directory pub/journals/DargonZine. For those of you who
do not have FTP, there is a BitNet site - BitFTP - that will do it for you.
Send it a message saying 'help' for how to use it.  (I will try to produce
a small file of the proper BitFTP commands to get you the issues, so that
if you have trouble, you can just ask me.)  I will personally have
available only the first and the latest issues of the 'zine, due to disk
constraints.

Submissions Policies:
   As mentioned above, the Dargon Project is a shared-world 'anthology',
and as such it requires a *great* deal of commitment from its writers.
Readers wishing to write for the Project should contact the editor for more
detailed instructions about the background of the Project as well as
plotlines currently in development. Of course, the first requirement for
joining the project is to read all of the Project's output to date to get
to know the characters and world being written about.  Back issues of
FSFNet, the Project's first home, are available from the Listserv@TCSVM
(and FTPable from vm.tcs.tulane.edu (in numbers, 129.81.128.1)).  See above
for back issue information about DargonZine.

White@DUVM.Bitnet

------------------------------

Date: 6 Oct 92 09:24:20 GMT
From: jdng90@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Gorsuch JDN)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Interzone

   In several of my paperbacks I can see a reference to a magazine called
'Interzone', which I believe is published in Brighton(UK).  Does anyone out
there subscribe to this magazine, and, if so, could you send me current
details, as mine are several years old.
   Plus send details of the magazine, if you can recommend it.

Jon
jdng90@uk.ac.soton.ecs

------------------------------

End of SF-LOVERS Digest
***********************
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written