From: gharlane@nextnet.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Tom Godwin / THE SURVIVORS / SPACE PRISON / Sigyn, Fenris
Summary: Great yarn, highly recommended, potential good movie....
Keywords: prowlers & unicorns & Gerns, Oh My!   crossbows vs blasters
Date: 27 Dec 92 17:25:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: csus.1992Dec27.172512.23047
Followup-To: alt.dev.null
Distribution: usa
Organization: Evil Beings From Planet Eddore, Inc.

Diane Niazy asked:

> From: AANO05@sakacs00.BITNET (ADNAN NIAZY)
> Subject: Tom Godwin
> Date: 27 Dec 92 14:55:00 GMT
> 
> I have really enjoyed the discussion of youth and teen reading material.
> It brought back to mind so many books I had read and forgotten over the
> years.  However, my all-time favorite book when I was young was a fairly
> thin book (by today's standards) called _Space Prison_ by Tom Godwin.  I
> read it first when I was about 12 years old, and at least once a year
> for the next 10 years or so.  As an adult, I searched bookstores and the
> public library for any listings by this author and have come up with a
> complete blank.  In fact, in 30 years I have never heard of or seen
> another copy of this book.  It's a wonderful story, and I still go back
> every once in a while and reread it, but my copy, published in 1962 by
> Pyramid Books, has become brittle and is crumbling away.  Has anyone
> else ever heard of this book or author?  Was it a  one-time shot or is
> Tom Godwin a pseudonym for someone else?  I recently saw a game called
> Ragnarok listed in a software collection.  Now Ragnarok was the name of
> the prison planet in Godwin's book, and it is very difficult for me to
> believe that two independent people would come up with such an
> imaginative name.  Can anyone shed any light?
> Diane Niazy


Diane....  according to my index, the hardback (title: "THE SURVIVORS")
           was printed in 1958, by Gnome/Fantasy Press,
 
  The first paperback edition was a thirty-five-center from Pyramid, 
number G408; the first print run is listed in February, 1960...
(I've been told the first packaging of that print run was sold for
twenty-five cents, and then overprinted with the higher price tag
later on.  Never seen one.)  This print run is most easily identifiable
by the pulp-style, but well-done, Emsh cover painting.
  The book was actually a sequence of shorter pieces which Godwin had
written with "ASTOUNDING" in mind, but the editor, John Campbell, had
not bought them.   Going by my memory, the stories appeared in various 
places prior to the hardback release, but I can't recall details.

Godwin wrote a sequel, "THE SPACE BARBARIANS," which appeared from 
Pyramid in paperback (Pyramid book #R-993, 50 cents, April, 1964) 
with a rather expensive Schoenherr cover painting, and as far as I 
know has never been reprinted.  (but don't quote me!) 
T.S.B. would be a pretty decent SF yarn, if you weren't comparing 
it against "THE SURVIVORS."   As it is, it's worth a few bucks to
read, and always made me wish Godwin had been able to think of 
some more plots to add to the series.  (Godwin appears to be an 
honest craftsman, one who's not willing to scurrilously generate
93 sequels to a book to milk the last possible cent out of it, 
unlike some I could name but won't, whose initials are P.A.D.J.)
 
Pyramid has had several subsequent reprintings of "SPACE PRISON," 
so it shouldn't be hard to find.   It's a minor classic in the 
field, and why Campbell didn't buy it is beyond me, since the style
and mood of the story was very much in line with his preferences,
and he liked Godwin's work well enough to buy a good deal of it.
(If your school library has a copy of ASTOUNDING/ANALOG on microfiche,
 check the index for Godwin stories.   His most famous story *is* a
 classic in the field: "THE COLD EQUATIONS," ASTOUNDING, Aug, 1954;
 adapted for radio and TV scripts, notably for the new "TWILIGHT ZONE."
 << You might also, *after* reading "THE COLD EQUATIONS," enjoy 
    the slightly macabre solution proposed by Don Sakers in ANALOG
    in his "THE COLD SOLUTION," July 1991. >> )
 
Much of Harry Harrison's "DEATHWORLD," serialized in ASTOUNDING/ANALOG
in 1960, was inspired by "THE SURVIVORS," and I've heard both Marion
Zimmer Bradley and Anne McCaffrey refer to "THE SURVIVORS" as a book
they liked and took minor pointers from.
 Of course, a rough, tough planet generating rough, tough people wasn't
new in SF;  E.E. Smith's "Valeria," and J.H. Schmitz' "Mark Wieri IV"
are two examples that spring instantly to mind.
  Frank Herbert wrote a set of short pieces about the evolution of the
Sardaukar (on Salusa Secundis? I've forgotten) in the late fifties, 
although they weren't good enough to publish . (This is hearsay! I've
never seen the ms's, only heard about them from folks who read them
and rejected them!)  Of course, Herbert's Fremen *did* get into print.

  The strengths in Godwin's work are his characterizations, much better
done than was the norm for the field at the time, and his ability to 
make alien life forms believeable. 
 
  I'd like to add that, to the best of my knowledge, none of Godwin's
stuff was ever written as "juvenile" work, but was aimed at publication
in "adult" magazines.   If you think of the number of people who get 
bloodily shredded during the first night on Ragnarok, it's not something
you'd hand to a kid.  (At least, not in the fifties.  Now kids under
ten are so jaded by TV that they think of death as something that just
happens to actors all the time...) 
 
  Your comment on the name "Ragnarok" popping up in a game is worthy of
comment; "Ragnarok" is the final battle between the Aesir, the Vanir, 
the Giants, the Midgard Serpent, the Fire Wolf Fenris, and so on, at the
end of the Norse mythos cycle.   Look under "Ragnarok," "Fimbulwinter," 
and "Twilight Of The Gods," and you'll find some great stuff.
The idea of naming the planet "Ragnarok" was to imply that it was 
a real hell-hole, the end of the line, the final, unwinnable battle.
 
"Now to the Bridge at Bifrost/ Hasten the Sons of Musphel; / Thither to
meet the Serpent, / Monster  of Fearsome Visage..../  ....great stuff.

  In other words, "Ragnarok" is *not* a name Godwin invented, and you
can expect to see it in a number of other places........ *grin*
 
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