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Date: 31 Jul 92 13:38:48 GMT

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SF-LOVERS Digest            Friday, 31 Jul 1992       Volume 17 : Issue 391

Today's Topics:

	   Books - Ashwell & Asprin (2 msgs) & Banks (2 msgs) &
                   Clarke & Dick (2 msgs) & Gentle &
                   Keyes (3 msgs) & McCrumb

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

Date: 29 Jul 92 22:52:34 GMT
From: phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Stephen Harker)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: Unwillingly To Earth (Pauline Ashwell)???

D. Jay Newman <dn5@apix.psu.edu> writes:
> I just read the book _Unwillingly to Earth_, and I *know* that I
> have read this before.
> 
> I have the feeling that it was in an early 1960's issue of Analog.  The
> version I read before was shorter, but with the same ending.  The
> characterization was also what I remember.
> 
> If anybody knows when this was first published, please respond!
> 
> ** Flame On **
> I really hate it when publishers do not mention in the publishing
> information that a book has been previously published (or was expanded
> from a shorter work which was)!
> ** Flame Off **

   The following were the stories that I was able to find in my database
which were published in Analog/Astounding about Lizzie Lee:-

   Unwillingly to School,  Jan 1958
   The Lost Kafoozalum,    Oct 1960
   Rats in the Moon,       Nov 1982

Whether any other related stories were published in other magazines I don't
know.  As I have not read the novel version I cannot say whether it is
expanded beyond these three or not.  Hope this is of some help.

Stephen Harker
Monash University               
phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au

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

Date: 29 Jul 92 23:36:05 GMT
From: michi@ptcburp.ptcbu.oz.au (Michael Henning)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Asprin's "Myth" books

I recently noticed the "Myth" book series by Robert Asprin in a book shop.
From the blurb on the cover and the presentation, it seems that they are
similar to Pratchett's Disc World series, if not a rip-off of these.

Can anyone tell me whether they are worth reading. Up to the same standard
as Pratchett?

Michael Henning
Pyramid Technology
Research Park, Bond University
Gold Coast, Q 4229, Australia
michi@ptcburp.ptcbu.oz.au
uunet!munnari!ptcburp.oz!michi

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

Date: 31 Jul 92 06:01:58 GMT
From: qvortrup@inf.ethz.ch (Michael Qvortrup)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: Asprin's "Myth" books

michi@ptcburp.ptcbu.oz.au (Michael Henning) writes:
>I recently noticed the "Myth" book series by Robert Asprin in a book shop.
>From the blurb on the cover and the presentation, it seems that they are
>similar to Pratchett's Disc World series, if not a rip-off of these.

Rip-off? I don't think so. The first Myth-book (Another Fine Myth) was
published in 1978, and the first of the Discworld-series (The Colour of
Magic) came out in 1983. Pratchett is a bit more prolific than Asprin (12
Discworld books against 9 Myth series in 2/3 the time).

>Can anyone tell me whether they are worth reading. Up to the same standard
>as Pratchett?

Worth reading? Well, the first couple of books are certainly very funny,
although they do fall down a bit after that. Both Discworld and Myth are
humorous fantasy with caricatures of familiar concepts, but the ways they
go about it are rather different. Discworld is situated in a fantasyverse
while Myth has a multiverse as its backdrop.

I'd recommend getting the first couple of books (Another Fine Myth, Myth
Conceptions, Myth Directions and perhaps Hit or Myth) and then judge for
yourself.

Asprin has claimed, I think, that the first Myth book is one of the first
light/caricature fantasy. Does anybody know if that is correct?

Michael Christian Heide Qvortrup
Inst. of Scientific Computation
ETH, Zuerich
Switzerland
qvortrup@inf.ethz.ch

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

Date: 30 Jul 92 17:32:21 GMT
From: dmf@aber.ac.uk (Darren Michael Forbes)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: Iain Banks

munnari!labtam!eyrie!prolix!dac writes:
>After reading Banks' three excellent books _Consider Phlebas_, _Use of
>Weapons_, _Player of Games_, I was overcome with the urge to buy anything
>with 'Iain Banks' on the cover.
>
>So I purchased _The Wasp Factory_, which was his first published novel.
>
>This is one sick book.  I think I secretly desire to like it, although I
>am quite nauseated by the level of detail that Banks' main character goes
>into, when killing, maiming, whatevering his ``opponents.''
>
>Not SF, not at all, but if you liked the twisted humour of his Culture
>books, I think you'll like _The Wasp Factory_.

_The Wasp Factory_ caused quite a split between book reviewers here in the
UK with roughy half calling it a sick and twisted work of depravity and the
other half thinking it was good to excellent.  In the UK edition several
review extracts were given at the front of the book; good and bad.
   His second book _Walking On Glass_ was received much better and many of
the reviewers who thought that Bank's had no writing ability outside of
horror reversed their opinions.
   _The Wasp Factory_ is fairly horrific, it is also very funny if you like
black (as tar) humour.  I thought it was an excellent book but you should
avoid it if you love rabbits (or just about any animal I suppose).

   Some quick notes on the other books:

   _Walking On Glass_ : Three inter-woven stories; one of a day in the life
of a paranoid, one about a man in love going to see his lover and the third
about two people trapped in a strange castle playing impossible games.
Shades of SF in the third story.

   _The Bridge_ : "Kafkaesque" (What a horrible word).  A man trapped in
his own dream of an endless bridge.  What is reality and what isn't?  The
sections with the Scotish Barbarian are very funny.  Possibly his best.

   _Espidaire Street_ : Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll.  The story of a bass
gutarist and his group.  Regret, loss, humour and possible redemption.  I
can't remember how to spell the title correctly.  This is the simplest of
the books.

   _Canal Dreams_ : It's near the turn of the century and there's trouble
in Panama.  Revolution and counter-revolution are waged in the distance
while ships are trapped in the Panama Canal.  We are told the life story of
a Japanese Cello player and how she came to be here.  Quiet and slow with a
fairly horrific last third.

   _The Crow Road_ : Another Scottish tale, this time spanning a couple of
generations.  Mysteries, love, God and a mention of NewsNet, perhaps Bank's
has access?  Did you know that, in the Dewey Decimal catalogue system,
glass manufacture comes under 666?

   I think that all of the books listed above are excellent but some of
them are not for the easily disturbed, when Bank's turns nasty he turns
_really_ nasty.

Darren Forbes
dmf@uk.ac.aber
dmf@aber.ac.uk

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

Date: 30 Jul 92 03:58:49 GMT
From: comrade@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Peter Cooper)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: Iain Banks

eesshlgb@gdr.bath.ac.uk (S H L G Bisson) writes:
>and Iain does have something of a mischievous sense of what can loosely
>be described as "humour".
>
>His slipstream work is well worth digging out, especially
>_Espedair_Street_ and _The_Crow_Road_. Avoid _Canal_Dreams_, it reads like
>an obligation...

But I *really* liked the protagonist in _Canal_Dreams_, as her personality
always offered surprises, but was always consistent. The book itself was a
"fantasy that was exceptionally mundane" (a coworker was also really
impressed) and in places very reminiscent of one of those South American
magic-realist writers.

Peter Cooper
Box 22 
Guild of Undergraduates
University of Western Australia
+61 9 380 3929
comrade@uniwa.uwa.edu.au

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

Date: 31 Jul 92 01:54:17 GMT
From: FWEAVER@bigvax.alfred.edu
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: Beyond the Fall of Night

Chris Miller asked for reactions to the Clarke/Benford After the Fall of
Night.

The responses suggest that the Benford sequel to Clarke's Against the Fall
of Night was not well received.  This agrees with my reaction when I read
the book a year or so ago.  The original Clarke novel has been a favorite
of mine for 30+ years.  It is somewhat dated but still filled with vivid
imagery.  Like most of Clarke's work, the conflicts are intellectual
battles between rational beings and the more terrible aspects of life are
off-stage, long ago or far away.  I found Benford's gritty style grating by
contrast.  (Since I began volunteering as an EMT with our local
fire/ambulance company, I find that I don't need much blood and guts in my
entertainment.) I was particularly annoyed to find that the main purpose of
the "sequel" was to attack the premises of the Clarke work.  As I mentioned
in an earlier post on this topic, I am well aware of the gaps in the
science but am quite happy to allow Clarke to write his novel within the
assumptions commonly used in the 1940's.

Ironically, I have just noticed a scientific lapse in Benford's story,
Matter's End.  The story involves a proton decay experiment.  It is stated
that a detector surrounding a 5000 ton water sample in a house-sized
chamber observes 65 proton decays leading to a proton half-life of 10**34
years.
 
When I first read this, I wondered about the large number of events.
Calculations show that the numbers are unreasonable.  A 5000 ton sample of
water is roughly house sized (it would be a cube 54 feet on a side) and
would contain roughly 3x10**32 protons as hydrogen nuclei.  If the
half-life of the proton is 10**34 years, a sample of this size should
produce 0.02 decays/year.  Thus, it would take 3300 years to observe 65
decays, not the few years implied in the story. (This assumes that the
detector is 100% efficient.  Real detectors will miss some events and need
more time to get the same data.)  If the protons and neutrons in the oxygen
nuclei are assumed to decay like single protons, the time needed is reduced
to only 370 years. Thus either the proton half-life quoted is too large, or
the experiment needed a lot more water, or the experiment only detected 1
or 2 decays.

The problem noted above really has nothing to do with the point of Matter's
End and I would not mention it if Benford had not done the same at length
to Clarke.  Clarke was well aware that AtFoN failed to include several
future developments and examined some of the possibilities in The City and
the Stars. Benford spends his sequel pointing out some other missed
factors, but ends up destroying the charm of the original.

The sad thing about all of this is that I now find myself approaching
Benford's work with an excessively critical attitude which detracts from my
enjoyment of him.  Unfortunately, since there has been a recent trend
towards rewriting perfectly satisfactory works (e.g. Nightfall) or fixing
up the science (AftertFoN; All the Weyrs of Pern).  However, I will save
those gripes for later.

Scott

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

Date: 30 Jul 92 14:18:45 GMT
From: davidba@carmel.technion.ac.il (David Ben_Ami)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: The Man in the High Castle / I-Ching

   I just finished reading PK Dick's "The Man in the High Castle".  it was
a fascinating and strange book. I still don't understand exactly what does
the end mean. Maybe because this was my first encounter with the I-Ching.

  Can anybody enlighten me with their interpretation of the end and on the
question: "Is the I-Ching remotely as influential on Oriental Culture as is
implied in the book?".

  Please do so by email, since it might contain spoilers.
  
David Ben-Ami
s2780369@Techst02.Technion.Ac.Il
davidba@Carmel.Technion.Ac.Il
davidba@Moav.Techniona.Ac.Il

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

Date: 30 Jul 92 16:26:24 GMT
From: elwin@gamma.phys.clemson.edu (Lawrence E. Brown)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: Dick bio

rafem@gvlf7-e.gvl.unisys.com (Ralph Marrone) writes:
u9161910@cs.uow.edu.au (Gareth William Omeara) writes:
>>Can anybody recommend a good biography of Philip K. Dick.I read in the
>>afterword to my copy of Clans of the Alphane Moon that he believed in
>>later years there was a cosmic force centred on his apartment guiding his
>>career and I would like to know more about the life of this obviously
>>totally fucked up guy who wrote such great novels.
>
>_Divine Invasions_.  Sorry, I can't remember the author's name.

Lawrence Sutin.  It should still be available in trade paperback from
Citadel Press.  It's an excellent book and the bibliography of Dick's
published, unpublished, and lost works in the back is invaluable (assuming,
of course, that you care about him in the first place).

Larry Brown
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Clemson University                  
elwin@gamma.phys.clemson.edu

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

Date: 30 Jul 92 08:20:30 GMT
From: charless@sco.com (charles stross)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: _Grunts!_

eesshlgb@gdr.bath.ac.uk (S H L G Bisson) writes:
>Mary Gentle is perhaps better known for her science fiction and `hard'
>fantasy (_Golden_Witchbreed_,_Rats_and_Gargoyles_) than as a writer of
>humorous fantasy. However, if you've ever spoken to Mary, you'll not be
>surprised by the contents of her new novel, _Grunts!_. Yes, the "Pass me
>another elf, Sarge, this one's split!" book has finally been published.

Yeah, seconded. I've just finished reading it, and it's everything it was
hyped up to be! As Alex Stewart said: ``_Grunts_ combines the satirical
humor of David Drake with the military know-how of Terry Pratchett.''

Mary has a lot to answer for.  I just can't get this bloody book out of my
head, dammit! Politically correct orcs, the Strategic Air Command elephant,
and a Dark Lord who gets bored trying to conquer the world and decides to
do something even more alarming instead ...

Charlie Stross
charless@scol.sco.com

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

Date: 30 Jul 92 15:13:05 GMT
From: schrey@oak.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Timothy M. Schreyer)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

cumming@PICA.ARMY.MIL ("Robert C. Cumming", PEO) writes:
> Now my point is this: AWAKENINGS was based upon a real series of events
> which occurred, I believe, in the 1950's.  Is it possible that the idea
> for FFA/CHARLIE came from reading an account of the original experiment
> and just substituting an intelligence-increasing drug for the L-Dopa?
> There's probably no way to know but it is an interesting speculation.

The main difference I see between FFA and Awakenings is that the subject in
Awakenings is still mentally active within his body but his body and brain
won't allow him to express anything.  You may remember all the references
to the caged panther.

The beginning and end state in FFA, on the other hand, are much different
mentally.  Charlie returning to a state of retardation from brilliance is
different from the shutting off of expression no deteriorated mental
ability as in Awakenings.  The mental decline of Charlie, however, is no
less horrible, and possibly even more.

Timothy M. Schreyer
Center for Advanced Information Technology
Paramax Systems Corporation
PO Box 517, Paoli, PA 19301
(215) 648-2475 
schrey@prc.unisys.com

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

Date: 30 Jul 92 16:01:40 GMT
From: murphy@cvax.ipfw.indiana.edu (Keith Murphy)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Keyes

Folks, as of 1989 Daniel Keyes was teaching at Ohio University In Athens
OH.  I believe he was tenured, so I would assume he is still there.  BTW
Athens was also the home of Billy Milligan the subject of _The Minds of
Billy Milligan_.

Keith Murphy
Department of Communication
Indiana Purdue U. Ft. Wayne

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

Date: 30 Jul 92 19:46:22 GMT
From: mwiz@mpd.tandem.com (Marc Wiz)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

Wasn't there a rumor a while back here on the net about a sequel to Charlie
that Cliff Roberston was involved with?  Was the rumor true?  If so what is
the status of the sequel?

Marc Wiz
(512)244-8780
mwiz@mpd.tandem.com

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

Date: 31 Jul 92 05:48:43 GMT
From: morrow@fnalo.fnal.gov (Jor-Elmo)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: S.McCrumb: ZOMBIES OF THE GENE POOL

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 disagree.  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 'amateur-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.

Elmo
morrow@fnal.fnal.gov
morrow@physics.rice.edu

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

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