HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: agc@bmdhh286.bnr.ca (Alan Carter)
Subject: Re: Questions about Pern, _Rescue_Flight_
Organization: BNR-Europe-Limited, Maidenhead, England
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:35:37 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.152621.20743@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu (Chris Meadows) writes:
|> 
|> First, in the latest Science-Fiction Book Club catalog/pamphlet, 
|> I noticed a new Pern novella, called _Rescue_Flight_, taking place
|> 49 years after _Dragonsdawn_.  Since it's only $7.00 and I'm a 
|> Pern fanatic, I'm ordering it.  I really hope it explains how Pern
|> could remain lost for thousands of years after colonization.  I 
|> really do hope Anne McCaffrey doesn't resort to a "quarantine."        
|> That idea is so OLD...

This appeared in magazine form a couple of years ago. I won't include
spoilers but the reason Pern remains lost will be permanent according 
to what Anne McCaffrey told me last summer.

|> A dragon's tissue is different from ours.  For example, they have
|> copper-based blood while we have iron-based blood.  Fire lizards, 
|> wherries, whers, and whersports presumably have the same blood types. 
|> So, how can dragons (with their copper-based blood) eat herdbeasts
|> (with their presumably iron-based blood), and how can humans eat
|> whersports and wherries?  'Twould seem to me to be a lot of incom-
|> patibility there.

Good questions. Is that chap who is a biologist at Aston (?) who does
the creatures on this group?

|> Another thing: It should be possible, by taking it in steps, to go
|> BETWEEN time thousands of years back, to when the colonists first
|> landed, etc.  After all, Jaxom went back several hundred years in  
|> _All_the_Weyrs_of_Pern_...why couldn't some other dragonrider do
|> it?  Be kind of interesting to see...

Don't forget Ruth's ability to know *when* he is, is a talent not shared
by other dragons. Lessa could only navigate with the help of the tapestry 
and the Question Song. Perhaps this intensity of dragon-ness is why the big
dragons are so fond of him. With Ruth navigating All The Weyrs Of Pern 
could do it, causing the Intervals. Perhaps this will be explored in 
other books but don't forget that Pern seems to be a single-timeline 
no-paradox reality like Heinlein's. We can't have fully developed 
dragons flying around Landing so blatantly that Benden and crew spot 
them, because they didn't.

   Alan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   Maidenhead itself is too snobby to be pleasant. It is the haunt of the
   river swell and his overdressed female companion. It is the town of showy
   hotels, patronized chiefly by dudes and ballet girls. 

   Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome, 1889
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: cstringe@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Chuck Stringer)
Subject: Re: Dan Simmons - Hyperion
Organization: Indiana University, University Computing Services
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 19:51:25 GMT

nicolas@stam.nl (Nico Veenkamp) writes:
| In <jvessey.726219452@husc.harvard.edu> jvessey@husc10.harvard.edu (Jonathan Vessey) writes:
| 
| >am looking for recommendations of other books by Simmons that are worth 
| >reading. I'm primarily interested in SF, though I know he writes horror, too,
| >and if a horror work were good enough, I'd consider reading it, too. Does   
| >anyone have any suggestions?
| 
| Yes. Although I am not a horror fan I liked his Song of Kali. Also
| his more mainstreamtype novel Faces of Gravity was very good.
| 
Summer of Night, IHMO, is excellent, though very much a horror novel.
It is a blend of macabre and nostalgia. It's comparable to Something
Wicked This Way Comes and Stand by me. Carrion Comfort was a big
disappointment, relying on shock value rather than character developement.

----
Chuck Stringer
E-mail cstringe@ucs.indiana.edu
From: w95_cook@wums.wustl.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: RE: THE GRIPPING HAND by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Date: 7 JAN 93 14:43:05 GMT
Organization: MIT PLASMA FUSION CENTER
NNTP-Posting-Host: msnews.wustl.edu

>My problem with Niven/Pournelle, as evidenced in LUCIFER'S HAMMER and MOTE IN
>GOD'S EYE, is that they always manage to torture or torture/murder women in
>these books with a little too much loving detail. I believe I will take a miss
>on THE GRIPPING HAND.
> 
Hmm.  Maybe my mind is really disintegrating these days, but I 
just read MOTE, and I don't recall any instance of torture or
torture/murder of women (or men for that matter).

I mean, certainly the culture of the novel was very male-centered,
but a reason is given for the regression of society in this
fashion.  Namely, the protection of the fertile woman in a 
society where there are merely several thousand individuals
on an entire planet!  Personally, I find this to be a very
likely shift in culture given the circumstances.

JC



_______________________________________________________________

Jim Cook
W95_COOK@wums.wustl.edu

_______________________________________________________________
From: kasprj@operators.its.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: The Illuminatus trilogy
Date: 10 Jan 93 18:50:01 GMT
Article-I.D.: rpi.l6_3=2_
Reply-To: kasprj@rpi.edu
Organization: The Big Wedge

In article <user-100193184721@hf-mac16.uio.no>, user@computer.uio.no (PC Jorgensen) writes:
|> IMHO, _The Illuminatus Trilogy_    i s   a more coherent and successfully
|> written conspiracy story than _Foucault's Pendulum_.
 
 Well, I suppose if you're reading _Focault's Pendulum_ looking for the same
things that you were looking for in _Illuminatus_, then you'd probably reach
that conclusion.

|> I found the "final showdown" in FP much less exciting than the one in TIT.

 DARN that Umberto Eco! Why can't he write EXCITING stuff, like Steven King?

|> We had been promised so much,
 
 Are you sure these weren't just your expectations, rather than the author's
promises?

|> and then Eco just gives us a "freak show" as the big circle of 
|> magicians and occultists [I'm willing to concede a point here: maybe
|> there's some underlying meaning here - a "message" from Eco about occultists, 
|> -ism etc.]

 I'll try to say this without sounding like too much of a literary snob.
 
 _Focault's Pendulum_ was not, in and of itself, a novel about conspiracy
theories. Certainly the conspiracies played a central part in the presentation
of the ideas which the book was trying to bring across, but if you read it as
a straight conspiracy novel, you're bound to be disappointed, because that's
not what Eco was writing.

|> Concerning the conspiracy itself, the one in TIT is also much wider in
|> scope and crazier than the one in FP.

 Personally, I thought the conspiracy in FP was about as crazy as they come.

|> And IMHO, these books are really not that similar as to be held up against 
|> each other for measurement - Eco's set of values etc. is different from the
|> one RS and RAW profess.
 
 Bingo.
------------------------------------------------------------------
     __  Live from Capitaland, heart of the Empire State...
 ___/  | Jim Kasprzak, computer operator @ RPI, Troy, NY, USA
/____ *|          he who refuses to do nonsense  
     \_|          is doomed to talk arithmetic.
      ====  e-mail: kasprj@rpi.edu or kasprzak@mts.rpi.edu 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: gamiddle@math.uwaterloo.ca (Guy Middleton)
Subject: Re: Who killed SF???
Organization: University of Waterloo Software Liberation Army
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 18:24:56 GMT

In article <76225@apple.apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Crow's Friend Timmy) writes:
> 
> Publishers publish what readers buy. 

And readers buy what publishers publish.

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

 -Guy Middleton, University of Waterloo		gamiddleton@math.waterloo.edu
		(+1 519 885 1211 x3472)		gamiddleton@math.uwaterloo.ca
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: al@iris.claremont.edu (ere i am, jh)
Subject: Re: KSRobinson _Red Mars_... When?
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Date:  7 Jan 93 21:41:56 GMT

mkr@fid.morgan.com (Mike Rosenberg) writes:

>In article <C0G9L3.MwM@panix.com> pnh@panix.com (Patrick Nielsen-Hayden) writes:
>>However, I don't mind saying that it's out from Bantam this very month, in
>>simultaneous hardcover & trade pb.....

>but just try to find it in hardcover...i have been to 6 major bookstores in
>new york city. not one had the hardcover. only one admitted that a hardcover
>even existed. i'm afraid that the increasing practice of releasing simultaneous
>hardcover & trade pb editions is flawed. bookstores seem to have the opinion
>that they may as well only order the pb, since no one wants to pay up for
>a hardcover science fiction novel. i would be interested to here what our friends
>in publishing think about this.

>mike rosenberg
>mkr@fid.morgan.com

This is interesting.  I had the same problem with MacDonald's _The Broken
Land_, but was able to order the hardback quite easily as the trade
paperback had the ISBN number for both "versions".  I am assuming the
same will hold true for the KSR book, as it is a Bantam Spectra,
but I'm not sure, as I have seen neither version.
-- 
Michael L. Medlin	al@iris.claremont.edu
"The poem I write is a colorful affair within the body of a man playing dead
 -- a man whose fingers secretly twitch just enough to work the typewriter,
 who, when it is dark enough will hitchhike from the scene of his death."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: dstein@oak.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Subject: Re: John Woods Campbell
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 09:54:44 GMT

In article <1k1xBw#9ZnLNX47mK9d9VRl0YB5Fjg2=esr@snark.thyrsus.com> esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
>In <1993Jan2.135330.12000@math.ucla.edu> David Stein wrote:
>>    Well, will you again refer to "good scholarship" or will you 
>>    bother to support your statements with your own arguments?
>
>In this one case, no.  I don't believe I can argue *this* matter better than
>my sources, I don't believe I stand to learn anything significant from
>debating it with you, and I have many more urgent claims on my attention.

  As you wish.

  Let it be clear though that in the post you quote I already explicitely
decided to drop my challenge of your view of Campbell and instead to
concentrate on the soundness of the specific definition of Campbellian SF 
you gave.

  I did so in the hope that you can't possibly hide behind scholarship.
For me to read Panshin first before you can explain why a one-sentence
definition of Campbell SF does not fit Verne's SF, well, that's absurd.

  I will not try to second-guess your reasons for the evasion.  After all,
I can simply watch your exchange with Brett Jolly, whose reading experience
is wide in both pre-Campbell pulp SF and in "good scholarship".  Good luck.

 - 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
From: darknite@camelot.bradley.edu (John S. Novak III)
Subject: Re: Review of the Gripping Hand
Organization: Bradley University
Date:  7 Jan 93 07:40:45 GMT

In <1ifm9gINNq8n@transfer.stratus.com> dswartz@sw.stratus.com (Dan Swartzendruber) writes:

>My only quibble with Evelyn's review is that (at least as written), she seems to
>have fallen into the trap many of the Heinlein bashers have in years gone by.
>Example: author X writes about a society in which slavery is practiced, without
>soapboxing about how evil it is; so he is accused of being a closet slaveowner,
>nazi or worse.

Bearing in mind that I have read _Mote_ but not the sequel (I
know someone who will buy it-- I'll read his copy...) I agree
with the sentiment.  Niven, in particular, has never impressed me
as a stupid writer.  Bad, at times (Integral Trees, Smoke Ring,
IMHO) but never stupid.

>                As I recall, the original book explained why women's rights had
>taken such a beating in the second Empire - namely that regression to a more primitive
>soeciety made this inevitable, as women were relegated to the role of child-bearing.

And the reason why it may have been preserved into the second
book?  Continuity of culture, perhaps.

Just speculation.

--
"Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than
Christianity has made them good."
		-- H. L. Mencken
John S. Novak, III		darknite@camelot.bradley.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey)
Subject: Re: Who Killed Sf???
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 21:51:40 GMT

David.Dyer-bennet writes:

   >I think it's rather worse than you describe.  Because of the great
   >success of lots of SF and fantasy, *the expectations of the publishers
   >have gone up*.  They're less willing than they used to be to continue
   >to publish people who only sell 20,000 copies.  They have, in fact,
   >contracted the same "bestseller syndrome" which has dogged mainstream
   >publishing for years.  All the editors are off on a fantastical quest
   >for the holy grail of publishing, a New York Times bestseller, and
   >nothing else is of much importance.

pnh@panix.com (Patrick Nielsen-Hayden) responds:

   Absolutely; that's why I _never_ buy anything by writers like, say, Pamela
   Dean.  Wouldn't dream of it.  Probably get fired on the spot if I tried.

   >Okay, so maybe I exagerate some.

   Yeah, just a touch.

Tea splats on the screen.
If I wrote like Anthony,
Could I yet be rich?

Surely it's clear that
Marketplace and publisher
Nourish each other.


Elizabeth Willey

Xref: sparky rec.arts.sf.written:17424 rec.arts.sf.movies:9744
From: mcsweinberg@memstvx1.memst.edu (*R*A*I*)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.movies
Subject: The Next Star Wars Movies
Date: 11 Jan 93 11:01:34 -0600
Followup-To: poster
Distribution: world
Organization: Memphis State University

> An obvious plot for the next Star Wars movie - Leya (sp?) goes over to
> the dark side !! Now THAT could be interesting. She'd look a lot better in
> black too!

NO NO NO  Although this would be good... The next installments in the Movies
are Supposed to be Pre-Quels as in parts 1 2 & 3 I gather this to follow along
Anikin (sp?) Skywalker and Obi-Wan during the "Clone Wars."

Rai
.  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There's things that you guess, And things              R A I
that you know. There's boys you can trust,           Raina Weinberg
and girls that you don't, there's little       Memphis State University
things you hide, And little things that            Memphis,Tenn. USA
you show, Sometimes you think you're gonna 
get it, But you don't and that's just the
way it goes."  _George Michael_              MCSWEINBERG@MSUVX1.MEMST.EDU
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Xref: sparky rec.arts.sf.written:17528 rec.arts.sf.science:4095 sci.physics:22602 sci.skeptic:22358
From: matt@physics2.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science,sci.physics,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Davis Mechanics (was Re: John Woods Campbell)
Date: 12 Jan 93 19:35:12 GMT
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics2.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: jasonr@syma.sussex.ac.uk's message of Tue, 12 Jan 1993 10:02:00 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.100200.14250@syma.sussex.ac.uk> jasonr@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Jason F Ralph) writes:

> I really DO hate to spoil the party, but if you want to argue the toss
> about black holes I thought that you might like to know that according
> to Einstein's Theory of General Relativity... they don't exist. 

Not true; there's been a lot of work on the question of whether or not
black holes can form.  It can be rigorously proved (by Penrose and
Hawking, among others) that certain initial conditions will lead to
black hole formation.  In the case of more realistic initial
conditions, the situation is somewhat less certain, but the general
consensus is that black holes can form.

Chandrasekhar said "People who are skeptical about black holes think
they're being conservative, but they really aren't.  They're being
radical."
--
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: jmc@moose.uvm.edu (John M. Connors)
Subject: Re: Who killed SF???
Originator: jmc@moose.uvm.edu
Organization: University of Vermont -- Division of EMBA Computer Facility
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 02:00:40 GMT

From article <76306@apple.apple.COM>, by chuq@Apple.COM (Crow's Friend Timmy):
> frank@fnbc.com (Frank Mitchell) writes:
> 
>>And I don't fault the chain stores for being mainly profit machines.
> 
> I do, because they're the folks making it tough for the independent stores
> to survive. Of course, it's the readers who are in the chain stores buying
> TSR books and Conan instead of in the real bookstores buying decent books,
> but that's clearly not the reader's fault...
>
For the most part I agree, however, if you live in a small rural state 
like Vermont, things are rather different.  We have been 'graced' by a 
Barnes & Noble 'Baby' SuperStore.  Barnes & Noble have brought a huge
variety of books to Vermont that *would not* have found their way to 
the shelves.  It is truly a pleasure to browse a bookstore with a 
*huge* variety of titles which *would not* happen here otherwise.  
While there SF section is large in terms of linear shelf space, the selection
of titles is poor.  There are no deep discounts on SF trade paperbacks.
I still purchase from a locally owned and operated bookseller because of the
little services they provide to me because of my steady patronage.  
(giving free sf gallies to review, very quick and easy ordering, etc)
While I may detest Barnes&Noble's effect on my favorite bookseller, I 
*love* wondering around the store.  They are even talking about putting
in a cappacino bar in the store. (Yeech!)  

>>What bothers me is that many specialty stores (like SF & Fantasy) and  
>>independent, "literary" stores -- the ones who are in it more for love than for  
>>money -- are struggling to stay alive.

No SF stores in Vermont.  No SF used-book stores.  No used-book stores with
large SF collections.  SF browsing is definitely difficult here.  I must
the reviews and opinions of Chuq and others on the Net for new SF selections.
I make a phone call to my bookseller who orders them for me.  Once Vermont 
becomes cosmopolitian, then things will be different.  Unfortunately, along
with the good comes the bad...


Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: kasprj@isaac.its.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak)
Subject: Re: THE GRIPPING HAND by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Reply-To: kasprj@rpi.edu
Organization: The Big Wedge 
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 17:43:23 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.222832.11694@cbnewsj.cb.att.com>, ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:
|> In article <7JAN93.14430598@wums.wustl.edu> w95_cook@wums.wustl.edu writes:
|> > I mean, certainly the culture of the novel was very male-centered,
|> > but a reason is given for the regression of society in this
|> > fashion.  Namely, the protection of the fertile woman in a 
|> > society where there are merely several thousand individuals
|> > on an entire planet!  Personally, I find this to be a very
|> > likely shift in culture given the circumstances.
|> 
|> A couple of people have mentioned this.  Maybe this is spelled out in
|> MOTE, but if it was in TGH I missed it.  Had it been spelled out, some
|> of my objections would have been withdrawn.
 
 In Niven's _N-Space_ collection, there's an essay entitled "The Making
of _The Mote in God's Eye_" which details most of the assumptions that
Niven and Pournelle used to set up the background to the stories. If you
want justifications (or lack thereof depending on your PCness), that's 
the place to look.

|> One of the things I look for
|> in a novel is some indication of what came before--why the society, the
|> characters, and the philosophies are what they are.  I didn't find that
|> here, and if one must read the previous novel to find it, then this
|> should have been issued as part of a set and not a stand-alone.
 
 Sounds like a matter of personal taste to me.
 
 I haven't read _The Gripping Hand_ yet, but I re-read _Mote_ this summer
to warm up. I think they did a very good job of explaining the background 
of Empire society. There was no real mystery as to why the society acted 
the way it did, and for those who are curious about more details, as I said,
you can read the essay in _N-Space_. 
 
 As for TGH, I think that Niven and Pournelle were deliberately aiming at
a restricted audience of fans of theirs who'd read the first book and would
jump at the sequel. This guarantees a certain minimum number of sales -- but
it also guarantees a certain maximum number of sales. Niven, at least, is 
well aware of this concept, having written about it in his essays on the 
"Science Fiction Country Club", so I would assume that they knew exactly 
what they were doing by setting up the book so that _Mote_ is a necessary 
prelude. Is this a bad thing, in and of itself? Perhaps. But it's their book.
If you don't like it, you don't have to read it. Certainly no one would ever
accuse Niven and Pournelle of trying to please everyone.
------------------------------------------------------------------
     __  Live from Capitaland, heart of the Empire State...
 ___/  | Jim Kasprzak, computer operator @ RPI, Troy, NY, USA
/____ *|          he who refuses to do nonsense  
     \_|          is doomed to talk arithmetic.
      ====  e-mail: kasprj@rpi.edu or kasprzak@mts.rpi.edu
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Crow's Friend Timmy)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Start alt.fantasy-- was Who killed SF?
Date: 8 Jan 93 20:31:08 GMT
Organization: Next Thursday A.D.

chuq@Apple.COM (Crow's Friend Timmy) writes:

>No, I suggest we just enjoy life, and if they can't handle it, they can go
>create their own monastery where they can be miserable together. 

Dropped a line while editing. Oops. If they're looking for naming
suggestions, I suggest "alt.science.fiction.elitist.puritanism".

(I not only read Fantasy, I WRITE it. And I'm proud of the fact. So there)

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

          I'm history! No! I'm mythology! Whatever, I'm outta here!