HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: wimcdaid@nmsu.edu (Liam McDaid)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: That Perfect Book...
Date: 23 Jul 92 17:30:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: nmsu.1992Jul23.173023.26397
Distribution: na
Organization: New Mexico State University


	Concerning getting books with good bindings....

I find that if a paperback has many creases in the binding, it
becomes almost impossible to read.  Several times, I'd see a book
on my bookshelf and say 'What the hell is that?'  until I pull it
down and read the cover.  So there is a pragmatic reason, albeit
a weak one.

						-Liam McDaid
------------------------------------------------------------------
Liam McDaid		"Life seems fullest when you think that		
NMSU Physics		 you may soon lose it.  Or so they say."
							-Maclir
From: kipper@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Kip Ingram)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Dune group or mailing list
Date: 22 Jul 92 13:53:52 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

Hi.  Several days ago I posted a message soliciting _Dune_ fans who would like
to carry on email discussions of the series.  Well, the response was, to say
the least, overwhelming.  More than I can respond to by far.  I began to wonder
if we should try to set up a _Dune_ newsgroup or mailing list.  I don't know
how to do either, and I'm sure someone out there will have some insight on the
pros and cons of each format.  I could imagine either alt.dune or (harder to
set up) rec.arts.sf.written.dune.

Comments?

Kip Ingram
kipper@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
From: loos@amber.mgh.harvard.edu (William D.B. Loos)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Brain size (was Re: the "cause" of homosexuality)
Date: 24 Jul 92 06:07:00 GMT
Organization: Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <BruJxx.Cqo@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (James Davis Nicoll) writes...
> 
>	*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.
> 
>* Wilson in his last years was rather infirm, for example.

Yeah, "rather".  After his stroke he was totally incapacitated for practical 
intents and purposes, at least as far as being President was concerned.  He 
was also totally isolated -- his wife wouldn't let anyone else see him.  She
would transmit orders purportedly from the President, but no one knew whether
they were really coming from him or from her.  [No one else in government 
could summon the crassness necessary to find out what was really going on -- 
it was considered to simply be too impolite to bring up such matters.]

The closest we've come to this in recent times was Nixon's last 10 months.


William D.B. Loos
loos@frodo.mgh.harvard.edu
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: The Moat around God's Eye
Date: 23 Jul 92 01:54:48 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Jul22.080741.12412@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu> rob@watney.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere) writes:
|In article <691@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
|writes: 
|>The point is that it is the *crashes* that *make* it a bad individual
|>strategy.  K-strategy species do quite well ate establishing stable
|>population sizes.
|
|This is all very well, but what does it demonstrate?  Evolution is basically a
|hill-climbing optimizer with randomly chosen steps.  You can't even _hope_ to
|show anything better than convergence to local optima for such a thing, and
|considering that the `hill' you're climbing is changing as fast as you're
|climbing it (the other species evolve too) even local optimality seems a
|rather strong assumption.

My point was actually fairly simple.  The Moties combination of large body
size, long life, and r-strategy reproduction is boucoup unlikely, given
the success of K-strategists in the same situation, and the instability
of r-strategy populations. We call r-strategy plants "weeds", and they
tend to die out when the K-strategist plants get around to invading.
Ecologically r-strategists are mostly restricted to disturbed habitats
(even in nature there are disturbed habitats - fallen trees, sand dunes,
avalanches, and even point bars). 

In the Mote system we get the rather absurd combination of an r-strategist
that has become the dominant species, wiping out all of the K-strategists.
Not likely!!  If this were really possible, it would have happened sometime
in the last 600 million years here on Earth.

|Similarly, while their high fecundity is clearly not good for the Moties,
|there is no evolutionary path out of it, as changing the fecundity would
|effectively require a complete overhaul.  So they're stuck.

Yeah, but how did they *get* *here*.

Also, I am unconvinced there is no way out.  With proper genetic engineering,
combined with proper planning, a K-strategy race or variant of the Moties
would eventually win out over the r-strategists.


P.S. the terms I am using are standard population biology terms:
r-strategy refers to a reproductive strategy that optimizes for lots
of really cheap offspring and relatively long range dispersal ('weeds');

K-strategy refers to a reproductive strategy that optimizes for raising
a few maximally fit, healthy offspring, often with considerable parental
input in each one ('dominants').

Examples of K-strategists include humans, albatross, sugar maples, beeches.

Example of r-strategists include most garden weeds, as well as most
cultivated plants (which is why cultivated fields are so prone to weeds,
to get the cultivars to grow we must establish conditions beneficial to
r-strategists), also most insects, particularly mayflies.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: pmoloney@maths.tcd.ie (Paul Moloney)
Subject: Errors in Covers (was Re: Hyperion covers)
Organization: Somewhere in the Twentieth Century
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 11:21:01 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...

On the UK cover for Pratchett's "Light Fantastic", Twoflower the tourist,
who Rincewind notices has "four eyes" (i.e., wears glasses) is actually
depicted with four eyes!

Josh Kirby must have had a late night or something.

P.
-- 
moorcockheathersiainbankshamandcornpizzapjorourkebluesbrothersspikeleepratchett
clive P a u l  M o l o n e y "Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the  rem
james Trinity College,Dublin PMOLONEY%MATHS.TCD.IE@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU mind." vr
brownbladerunnerorsonscottcardprincewatchmenkatebushbatmanthekillingjoketolkien
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: brad@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Errors in Covers (was Re: Hyperion covers)
Organization: ClariNet Communications Corp.
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 19:56:02 GMT

In article <5119@transfer.stratus.com> jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com writes:
>I don't see the point of such a boycott. You are punishing
>an author for something that is completely out of his/her control.
>Most authors don't get much of a say in cover art.  And as for the
>publisher: what would you like them to do?  Remember that the
>purpose of the cover is to help sell the book.  Should they say
>to hell with sales and put on a cover that will hurt sales?  Should
>they perhaps not have any cover illustration at all?

In many cases, this would be true, but not in the case of Friday.
RAH could have had complete control over almost any aspect of the
publishing of his latter books.  (Some would argue that he used too much
control and let bad stuff get out, but that's another ancient flamewar.)

However, it's entirely possible he trusted the publisher and didn't bother
asking for cover control or even a chance to see the cover and alter it
before putting it to print.

Of course Friday may not have lilly-white skin, but she isn't of any
existing race, she's a genetic construct.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Sunnyvale, CA 408/296-0366
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Have Niven&Pournelle described Alderson drive anywhere?
From: jgreen@zeus.calpoly.edu (James T. Green)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 00:08:45 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

tegan@cup.portal.com (Terry Michael Egan) speakith unto us:
>
>	I recall overhearing somewhere ( a con maybe ?? ) that the
>authors of 'A Mote in Gods Eye' figured out the so-called
>Alderson Drive and wrote it down in one of their books. Does anybody
>know the title of this book? Has rec.arts.sf.written analyzed this drive?

It's described in Niven's N-space.

/~~~(-: James T. Green :-)~~~~~(-: jgreen@eros.calpoly.edu :-)~~~\ 
| "Once you can accept the universe as being something expanding | 
| into an infinite nothing which is something, wearing stripes   | 
| with plaid is easy."                                           |
|                               <Albert Einstein>                |

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: chris@MorningStar.Com (Chris Miller)
Subject: Re: BOOKS BY DAVID EDDINGS
Organization: Morning Star Technologies
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 19:13:51 GMT

In article <NICKH.92Jul21112621@VOILA.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU> nickh@CS.CMU.EDU (Nick Haines) writes:
>In article <1992Jul21.130813.16021@walter.bellcore.com> tedk@jpl.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Ted Ko) writes:
>
>   In article <10726446.78.711694821@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au>, 10726446@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au (LAU WAI KUEN) writes:
>   |>     Very good.  I find that sums up all the books Mr Eddings has written 
>   |> extremely well.  Do you want to comment on the crap he vomits up too?
>
>   Let's put an IMO on that there statement, eh?  Eddings original
>   Belgariad (IMHO) is one of the all time classics of fantasy.  True
>   that everything since then has been much weaker, but that's due in
>   a large part to his style repetition which can get old after a
>   series or two.
>
>IMHO (since you insist), the Belgariad is ghastly. So bad that I
>didn't even bother with the others.
>
>What would you say are the interesting, original, or worthwhile points
>to the Belgariad?
>

Strong character developlent.  
Strong appeal to the readers emotions (if any)
Good development of universe. (geography, customs, etc.)
Fast paced, attention grabbing storyline.
VERY escapist... (this is, after all, a FANATASY series....)


As an aside,  I often re-read books that I previously liked a third or 
even a fourth time.  One (trans: the only) nice thing I found about 
Edding's later stories is that I needn't reread the Belgariad, Because Eddings
anticipated this need by rewriting the same story with (very) slightly different
characters and storyline. :-)

Chris Miller
Chris@MorningStar.Com
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Errors in Covers (was Re: Hyperion covers)
Date: 23 Jul 92 17:16:30 GMT
Organization: I is a writur

seanodon@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Aragorn) writes:

>I have a minor error, but an error nonetheless.  On Heinlein's _Friday_,
>he pictures Friday as a very shapely athletic woman with unkempt hair,
>which is correct.  What he got wrong is that she had somewhat dark skin
>(about equivilant to American Indian) but he drew her with very white
>skin.  A minor detail, but there anyway.

According to the person who ordered that cover from Whelan (Tappan
King), that's not an error. It's a marketing decision, because darker
skin colors on covers don't sell as well, and have trouble getting into
bookstores in certain parts of the country. They lightened the skin
tone on purpose.

Remember, a cover's primary purpose is not accuracy, but marketing. It's job
is to convince you to pick up the book so the book can convince you to take
it home. This doesn't excuse blatant screwups (which happen) but a cover
that sells more copies by being honest to the book without being strictly
accurate is a better cover because it's doing it's job: selling books.

Covers are advertising. When they can be advertising and art, great. But
strict representation and art aren't the primary purposes.

-- 
Chuq "IMHO" Von Rospach, ESD Support & Training (DAL/AUX) =+= Member, SFWA
  chuq@apple.com | GEnie: MAC.BIGOT | ALink:CHUQ =+= Editor, OtherRealms
	A real SF writur with stories in ALTERNATE KENNEDYS and THE 
	  FURTHER ADVENTURES OF BATMAN, in better bookstores now!

          Painted emblems of a race, all accurst in days of yore,
       Each from his accustomed place steps into the world once more.
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Bearer of bad tidings...
Date: 25 Jul 92 18:11:23 GMT
Organization: I is a writur

According to Dean Wesley Smith, Reginold Bretnor died last week, evidently
of heart failure in his sleep. 

He's also just heard that Dr. Alan Nourse died as well.

Sigh.

-- 
Chuq "IMHO" Von Rospach, ESD Support & Training (DAL/AUX) =+= Member, SFWA
  chuq@apple.com | GEnie: MAC.BIGOT | ALink:CHUQ =+= Editor, OtherRealms
	A real SF writur with stories in ALTERNATE KENNEDYS and THE 
	  FURTHER ADVENTURES OF BATMAN, in better bookstores now!

          Painted emblems of a race, all accurst in days of yore,
       Each from his accustomed place steps into the world once more.
From: jjfink@skcla.monsanto.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Hard Voting for Hugos
Date: 31 Jul 92 11:56:08 GMT
Organization: Searle, Skokie, IL
Nntp-Posting-User: julien

I found voting for the Hugos difficult this year.
I tried to read everything, my exceptions being:

	Bone Dance	Couldn't find it
	All the Weyrs	Didn't read the rest of the series
	Fin de Cycle	My wife read it and said to skip, and I was running
			out of time

I was lucky that the Chicago suburban library system has a 'central series
services', which will obtain periodicals, making some items available that I
otherwise didn't get to (Beggars In Spain arrived Thursday).

I found that the shorter the works, the easier the choices.
The novels were the last I decided on, and I still am ambivalent.
Of the four I read, the only one I thought _didn't_ rank as #1 was
Xenocide.  Darn good book, but not up to the merits of the other 3.
Now that I've mailed it, I'm not even sure how I ranked them. ;^)

Joel
-- 
jjfink@skcla.monsanto.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Portions of the preceding were recorded.  As for the rest, I quite fear that
 it was all in your mind" -- Alfred Hitchcock
From: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: BOOKS BY DAVID EDDINGS
Date: 24 Jul 92 12:54:56 GMT
Reply-To: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com

In article <1992Jul23.214606.272@highlite.uucp> yarvin@highlite.uucp  
(Curtis Yarvin) writes:
> 
> Before everyone smirks, I should point out that Eddings does do
> characters better (IMHO) than many of the "greats" of old-time sf.
> Can you honestly call Eddings' characters weaker than Tolkien's?
> E.E. "Doc" Smith's?  Asimov's?  Even (heresy) Heinlein's?

Yes.  No. Probably. Yes.


--
Jim Mann       jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com  Stratus Computer
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: lga@sandman.stanford.edu(Laurent Amon)
Subject: Re: List of voters in ESF award so far
Reply-To: amon@cs.stanford.edu
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 00:40:36 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.223540.1282@hsv3.lsil.com> mvp@hsv3.lsil.com (Mike Van  
Pelt) writes:
>  I just sent in my vote.
>  
>  I mentioned on the writers mailing list that some of these would really
>  gotten 'the treatment' if someone on the list had sent them in.
>  
>  In roughly worst-to-best order:
>  
>  (Possible spoilers for some of these stories)
[...]
>  
>  "In the Late Cretaceous" was a mainstream Academic Tenure Wars story.
>  Nice sense of humor. There didn't seem to be much point, though.
>  

	Come on. There _is_ a point to that story, or didn't even the name 
remind you of something? It was humorously written, but still, I couldn't
repress a shudder...

[...]
>  Other than that, I thought "A Walk.." was a great story, and the only
>  *REAL* SF on the ballot.  My only quibble would be why a lunar mission
>  not intending to land in a world in which there was no lunar presence
>  would carry such a nifty suit.
>  
>  My reaction to the whole list is a sad suspicion that SF is taking
>  off in a direction that I have no interest in following.

	All in all I found these good stories, but there have been 
better selections. I found "Perfect Morning" and "A Walk" To be the two 
best. But I wouldn't say that the others are not SF. "Buffalo" is,
IMHO definitely not. I didn't really see the point (and didn't enjoy 
much) "Press Ann" and "Dog's Life". But for the others, they are good, 
they are SF stories, although it depends on your definition of SF. 

	And yes, I voted.

Lga.
---
                                       |"I don't know what it's called, but
Laurent Amon                           | we're doing one about going to see 
       e-mail: amon@cs.stanford.edu    | a wizard. Something about following
           lga@sandman.stanford.edu    | a yellow sick toad. (Moving Pictures)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: doom@leland.Stanford.EDU (Joseph Brenner)
Subject: Re: Author Polls -- Sturgeon Results
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: 30 Jul 92 00:41:39 GMT

katie@physics.Berkeley.EDU (Katie Schwarz) writes:

>_Sturgeon is Alive and Well_ contains Slow Sculpture, which I think
>is the quintessential Sturgeon story, but I don't think the rest of
>the collection is quite as good.

Sure, "Slow Sculpture" is one reason that was one of my
picks.  The other, though, was "To Here and The Easel",
which I think is one of Sturgeon's best.  

I've been re-reading _Alive and Well_ lately, and it's true
that some of the stories aren't that great, but they're not
bad either. 

Anyway, there's clearly a problem shoe-horning a writer like
Sturgeon into the poll format.
From: PANDERSON@OAVAX.CSUCHICO.EDU
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon"
Date: 29 Jul 92 14:56:46 GMT
Organization: California State University, Chico

The MIT index to science fiction magazines confirms the April '59 
publication in FSF. I agree with those who preferred the short story. 
"Good things short are twice as good." 

Peter Anderson
panderson@oavax.csuchico.edu
From: rsa@arrc.salf.ac.uk (Ruth Aylett)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: ISBN for paperback of Jack the Bodiless?
Date: 29 Jul 92 09:06:19 GMT
Reply-To: rsa@arrc.salf.ac.uk (Ruth Aylett)
Organization: Advanced Robotics Research Centre, Salford, UK.

Has the paperback version of 'Jack the Bodiless' by Julian May come out
in the US yet? My bookshop here in Manchester, UK, says IF it has, and
IF I can supply the ISBN, they will get it for me. Could somebody help
me here? If anyone has the ISBN of a paperback version, assuming it is
now available, please email it to me. Email is essential as my access to
this group has just been cut off for space reasons (Boo!).
From: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Errors in Covers (was Re: Hyperion covers)
Date: 24 Jul 92 17:40:05 GMT
Reply-To: jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com

In article <1992Jul24.161156.29118@col.hp.com> lpj@col.hp.com (Laura  
Johnson) writes:
> 
> Good God. This is appalling. I'd like to suggest that, as rec.arts.sf.*
> posters discover such books, they prominently post the titles.  
(_Friday_
> and _The_Cat_Who_Walked_Through_Walls_ have been mentioned so far, I
> believe.)
> 
> Then I'd like to suggest that rec.arts.sf.* readers (and their friends,
> coworkers, etc.) boycott these books. If you want to read them, get  
them 
> from the library or borrow them from a friend; just don't pay money for  
'em.
> 
I don't see the point of such a boycott. You are punishing
an author for something that is completely out of his/her control.
Most authors don't get much of a say in cover art.  And as for the
publisher: what would you like them to do?  Remember that the
purpose of the cover is to help sell the book.  Should they say
to hell with sales and put on a cover that will hurt sales?  Should
they perhaps not have any cover illustration at all?

>Ideally, of course, such a boycott is accompanied by letters to the
>publisher, explaining "Why I Didn't Buy This Book" in short words and
> simple sentences.

You implied insult at publishers ("short words and simple sentences")
is rather silly.  Most publishers are in fact better read and more
literate than 80-90% of their readers.  
--
Jim Mann       jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com  Stratus Computer
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: yarvin@highlite.uucp (Curtis Yarvin)
Subject: Re: "Buffalo" is SF? /Hugo nominated/ SF?!
Organization: Gotham Communications Research
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 02:24:02 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.023403.28014@math.ucla.edu> dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein) writes:
>
>   What puzzles me is why would you prefer "In the Late Cretaceous" to
>   "Dog's Life"; neither was very demanding, but "Dog's Life" at least
>   had a character I cared for, and sustained a momentum all the way
>   to the end.

"In the Late Cretaceous" was funny.

"Dog's Life" dripped.  A ringing endorsement of Safe-Skin(tm),
Tyvek-capable printers, and slobberproof scanners.  I'd call it
'fulsome,' but my attorneys have advised me against incurring
linguistic-inflation liability.

True, "In the Late Cretaceous" was about nothing at all.  Total
fluff.  Empty rubbish.  I should be tarred & feathered for
preferring it to a meaningful if jovial look at one of the pressing
issues of the day.  What an insolent bastard am i.

c
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: beede@sctc.com (Mike Beede)
Subject: Re: Dealing with Jump shock (Re: The Moat around God's Eye)
Organization: SCTC
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 17:44:56 GMT


So, if you can emerge from a Jump with large velocity, and if the
Alderson point is small (we have indications it is, pretty much, since
you can watch the whole thing from a small amount of ships inside a
red giant), then is a logical defense to this to distribute
finely-divided asteroids around the Alderson point?  (I'd say
caltrops, but that sounds too cute). If we're talking fast enough
speeds, wouldn't the kinetic whammo be pretty likely to polish off the
smart (i.e., high-velocity) ones?

BTW, I should mention I'm talking about _other systems_ than the Mote,
here -- someone was asking what you do to get into an enemy-controled
system in general.

In some other stuff I've read set in the MIGE universe, a standard
ploy is to chug a bunch of mechanically-fused bombs through ahead of
the attacking ships.  The argument is if they're close enough to take
immediate action, they're close enough to take immediate damage.

	Mike

-- 
Mike Beede         Secure Computing
beede@sctc.com     1210 W. County Rd E, Suite 100           
------------------ Arden Hills, MN  55112
                       (612) 482-7420