HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Musical SF and F
Date: 28 Sep 92 22:04:44 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Sep21.164814.29603@wixer.cactus.org> plusrich@wixer.cactus.org (+Rich) writes:
|arthurc@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Arthur Chandler) writes:
|+> I'm trying to put together a list of fantasy and science fiction in
|+> which music figures as a major (not just occasional) thematic or plot device. 
|The Lark & the Wren; Book I, Bardic Voices -- Mercedes Lackey

Actually, many of M. Lackey's books involve music to one degree or another.
Any of the Heralds of Valdemar books have *some* music in them, though not
usually as a major plot element.  (Though they are unusual in having the words
to all of the songs on appendices, and most of the songs have been recorded,
and are available from a small specialty recording studio).
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth)
Subject: Re: Piers Plowman
Organization: Software Engineering Institute
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 13:03:52 GMT

In article <1992Sep23.165435.7719@ac.dal.ca> hyde@ac.dal.ca writes:

>       "Rings of Ice" also dates from this time.  As a novel
>	it beats his current stuff, though the science in it is of
>	a drivelous level to put Velikovsky to shame.

True, but that's part of the joke.  The story is set in a universe
based on the Welteislehre of Hans Hoerbiger.  The immediate precursor
of the novel (there, I said it without uttering the ugly word
"plagiarism") seems to be "Moons, Myths and Man", by Bellamy.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (James Davis Nicoll)
Subject: Re: BOOK SEARCH - NEED HELP
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 15:33:04 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.162418.5442@honte.uleth.ca> std_wilson@hg.uleth.ca writes:
>
>	I just recently finished CRUSADE by David Weber and Steve White
>and I found it to pretty good military SF.  Since finishing it I have
>come across another book by the same two authors which seems to 
>preceed it (both in date published and in the events of the story).
>This one is called INSURRECTION.  I have also come across a book by
>David Weber alone which is called MUTINEER'S MOON, however it does not appear   to be connected to the other two.
>	I have two questions, first are there other books in the series 
>CRUSADE and INSURRECTION appear to belong in? 
>	Secondly have these two, Weber and 
>White written anything else alone or together?

	You may want to hunt down a  copy of a boardgame called 'Starfire'.
One or the other of Weber or White  helped playtest it, and their books appear
to  be set in  the  same universe.

	I *think*  it is out of print, alas.
								James Nicoll
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: yshah@lucpul.it.luc.edu (Guessing)
Subject: Hinz's "Paratwa"
Keywords: hinz
Organization: Loyola University Chicago
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 21:38:50 GMT

   I just finished "Paratwa" and didn't like the ending.   Too many questions
remain.

1)  Is there going to be another book?

2)  Are the humans going to be able to survive with Paratwa?
    (Couldn't the Paratwa just eventually kill the humans and wait for
     their masters to come back?)

3)  Would Theophrastus be able to make a faster than light drive in a
    thousand years? (I think so)

4)  It seems to me that the Os/Ka/Loq haven't really given up on earth
    just set a different time table

5)  or is Hinz just jerking us around?
From: agapow@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Paul Michael Agapow)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Female writers Re: Science Fiction Age
Date: 29 Sep 92 02:33:38 GMT
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia

In article <72816@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
>agapow@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Paul Michael Agapow) writes:
>
>>i would have difficulty referring to "12 of 23" as a majority.
>
>I don't understand this statement. A majority is 50% of the votes +1.
>12 of 23 is about 52%, therefore it's greater than 50%, therefore it's a
>majority. Unless, of course, someone redefined math when I wasn't looking.

Jeez. <waits for moment to gather patience>

Technically it's correct. But as a statement it implies something that is
not true : that there was a clear majority. 52% is not by anyones terms a
clear and obvious majority. Or to put it another way, if there had been
one less female winner, they would be a minority. 

This was not intended to criticize or flame Brad (whom i trust understands
my point) - merely to point out that to me at least something he wrote
carried a conetation that was incorrect. (To spell it out - i never said
that Brad had written anything incorrect, merely that what it implied was
incorrect.)

Moving on to important matters bandwidth is far better spent on, i've just
finished Dozois' "Years Best SF". i await with interest Davids review of
it but overall it left me with the impression of a very quiet year in SF.
Points that stick in mind :

i didn't share Davids vehemence for Ian MacDonalds story, although it was
somewhat tainted with self-consciousness. Greg Egan contributes two very
strong stories. Kress ("Beggars in Spain") was a deserved winner, even if
the story is not perfect. Aldiss and Silverberg contribute typical if not
outstanding stories. Gibson's entry is well written, evocative and
mercifully short. Gregory Benford gets to wave his physics under
everyones nose again, although his characterisation is stronger than many
recent efforts. Pat Cadigan weighs in with a nice piece ("Dispatches from
the Revolution").

After all that, it seems that the anthology is full of borderline fantasy
and romance stories. Not that this is a bad thing, but interesting after
the Hugos seemed (to me at least) to indicate the leanings amongst the
public are still for "science" in their SF. 

Next on the list are "Best of Pulphouse" and "Full Spectrum 3". Perhaps my
impression will change after them

p-m

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
paul-michael agapow (agapow@latcs1.oz.au) Machine Intelligence Lab, LaTrobe Uni

   This signature was originally recorded on analog equipment. While we 
   have attempted to preserve the meaning of the original, the high 
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Xref: sparky rec.arts.sf.written:13168 sci.lang:7411
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Science Fiction books with linguistic content
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:47:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: oracle.1992Sep29.184708.5409
Organization: Oracle Corporation
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

How come nobody has yet mentioned The Languages of Pao (Vance)?

Other books/stories that are noticeably missing include 

Ocean on Top (Hal Clement)
Omnilingual (H. Beam Piper)
A Poul Anderson story whose name I can't remember about Roan Tom
	landing on a planet that has new meaning for words like
	friend, slave, and business.
Heinlein's book w/ Kettle Belly Baldwin
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am not an official Oracle spokesman.  I speak for myself and no one else.
From: garvey@skybridge.SCL.CWRU.Edu (Heather Garvey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: _Winds of Change_ by Mercedes Lackey (spoilers now)
Date: 29 Sep 1992 04:14:35 GMT
Organization: Smith Undergrad Lab, CWRU, Cleve. OH
NNTP-Posting-Host: marina.scl.cwru.edu
X-Post-Machine: marina.scl.cwru.edu

lhb6v@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Laura Hayes Burchard) writes:
>In article <3-0nw0d.dani@netcom.com> dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:
>>On another topic, did you notice some of the throwaway lines that got
>>snuck in?  Among the things we learn in passing:
>>-- Sayvil == Savil (confirmed)
>I caught this one (hard to miss)...

	The question is...what does this mean that Savil is back
and that she is *Kerowyn's* Companion? :-) <wonders if Kero's a
mage, too. :)>

>>-- Tarma has a new job, giving lessons to new Kal'enedral (expected)
>
>Right, that was the Kal'enedral that recognized them, I should have 
>figured it out :)

	I hadn't realized she was *dead*! Did I just miss this 
somewhere (likely) or was it never really mentioned? [Before anyone
asks why she'd have to be dead, she was a Veiled One....]

--
	" ...dealing with Free-Net makes me very angry  | Heather "Moose"
and gives me thoughts of breaking things and torturing  | Garvey, Biochem 93'
small animals. "   --  Bruce Ikenaga <bxi@po.cwru.edu>  | <hlg@po.cwru.edu>
From: sdh5@po.CWRU.Edu (Scott D. Hurley)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Books I Hate to Love
Date: 30 Sep 1992 21:21:00 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc12.ins.cwru.edu


This train of thought reminds me of an observation I've made
lately--is it just my imagination, or does there seem to be
a shifting trend towards protagonistic villains, antagonists so
wonderfully shaped that one ends up rooting for them instead of
the 'Good Guys'?

Classic examples are Kahn Noonion Soong (I think that's how it is
spelled), of Star Trek:  The Saurons of Pournelle's Co-Dominion
universe: and The Lady of Glen Cook's _Annals_of_The_Black_
Company_ series.

Of course they're have been others in literature, most notably
Dracula, Frankenstein, Nemo, and Professor Moriarty, but it
seems to me that now we have adversaries that are preferable
to the so-called protagonists.

Any comments?
-- 
He who fights with monsters might take care,
Lest he thereby become the monster.
And if you gaze for long into an abyss,
The Abyss gazes also into you. - - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzche
From: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Diane Duane, _Door Into Fire_
Date: 6 Oct 92 14:59:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: corpus-c.ELIZ.92Oct6095917
	<1992Oct5.142659.1@vaxa.strath.ac.uk>
	<1992Oct5.172400.26437@netcom.com>
	<tdober-051092145913@toberkamper.llnl.gov>
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

tdober@llnl.gov (TDO) writes:

   ciar04@vaxa.strath.ac.uk:
   >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.

   ...since we *all* *know* there are *never* *any* same-sex lovers in Real
   Life, they *must* have just made the notion up out of thin air!

Wow!  Should we be looking for hidden Psychic Bonds between Ellen
Kushner, Mercedes Lackey, Diane Duane, and J. F. Rivkin (both of her)?
Could it be a secret cult founded by Anne Rice/Rampling trying to
prepare Young Impressionable Readers to cope with Delany in later
life??  Is it Significant that I listed a majority of female authors
above???  Did anyone else in Netland blow Diet Coke through his or her
nose whilst laughing after reading the original comment from
"ciar04"????

   (Where *do* these people come from? And can we send them back?)

Obviously they're here because somebody else already got rid of them.
The problem is one of passing them on.


Elizabeth Willey
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books
From: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Subject: Re: Ian McDonald's _The Broken Land_: review
Reply-To: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 21:56:40 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.153316.14827@wam.umd.edu>, sheilah@wam.umd.edu
(Sheila Herndon) writes:
|> dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein) writes:
|> [about Ian Mcdonald]
|> > ... and, most of all, makes absolutely no sense.
|> 
|> I'm sorry. What didn't you understand?
|> -- 
|> stark raving sane  sheilah@wam.umd.edu

   Does asserting that something makes no sense mean that
   one does not understand it?

   In any case, I would be delighted if you tried to explain
   why did the author throw in all the disparate elements
   (Freud, sex, Judas-like Wandering Jew character, Ann Frank
   type story, Holocaust, mice, and so on and so on) without
   having hardly any story to tell?  What was the point of it?

 - 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) - ===
From: CMH114@psuvm.psu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Barrayar
Date: 29 Sep 92 00:52:50 GMT
Organization: Penn State University

Any Bujold fans beside me mildly upset at that one? It felt so much like a
paler rehash of Shards of Honor. It wasn't a *bad* book, she hasn't written a
bad book yet, and it isn't as subpar as Anthan of Anthos(or whatever that title
was) or Falling Free, but still, I was waiting for something better. Has she
written any novellas lately? Her novellas seem to be much more fleshed out than
 the books. Weird, because her stuff isn't the kind that would translate well
into a visual medium, like animation or film. People are always citing novellas
as the media that should translate into film. Funny, the only novella I can
think of that was filmed was Barry Longyear's Enemy Mine, and GAwd, that was
one rotten movie. I ought ta know, I had to show the #$@! thing six times on a
cruddy 16mm projector. I was ready to trash the print.

Eliptically,
Mitch Hagmaier         Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
Quest Laboratories     To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Dispair:
Terraforming Division   Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
State College, Pa      Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
cmh114@psuvm.psu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Science Fiction books with linguistic content
Date: 29 Sep 1992 22:39:06 GMT
Organization: CS Dept. Snakepit - Do Not Feed.
NNTP-Posting-Host: boa.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <29SEP199215002061@venus.tamu.edu> spb0457@venus.tamu.edu (SubGenius) writes:
>
>So, the dream-dialect in _Finnegan's Wake_ existed before Joyce set it down?
>
>Quite facinating.  Do tell where it is that folks speak this dialect;  I'd like
>to spend a holiday there.

Oh, dear me; I thought you were talking of Irish dialect.  As for dream
dialects, I would think it obvious to anyone of spherical skull and
convolute brain how different that is from Hoban's misspelled English,
but apparently I've underestimated your disingenuity.

>Conversely, it's interesting to learn that Burgess created the Russian tongue
>along with a large parcel of Polish.  Wait 'till my grandfolks hear about this.

Uh, new to English.  A 'droog' isn't exactly what we think of when we say
'friend.'  I'm not sure if it's what a Russian thinks of when he says
'droozhny,' but I don't speak Russian.  Neither do most of Burgess' readers.

>This might qualify me for the 1,000 metre conclusion-jump, but that sounds
>like yer implying that you haven't even bothered to read the novel that
>you're criticising.

Well, you might beat out Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards.  But I think you'd
do better with the deja-vu vault; I started this discussion with a
quite-explicit question about whether the book was good or not,
and how Hoban's literary techniques worked.

>If that is indeed the case, I think I'll just stop wasting my time
>discussing it with you.

Right gracious of you, eh?

c
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: merritt@milton.u.washington.edu (Ethan Merritt)
Subject: Re: Gene Wolfe's New Sun stuff
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 04:37:23 GMT

In article <1ai570INNkli@agate.berkeley.edu> joak@ocf.berkeley.edu (Jonathan A. Kung) writes:
>  Don't understand the question?  No problem; neither do I.  I guess
>  I thought that the Hierogrammates (is that them, the trio with names
>  like Ossiforous or whatever) were from the next universe, come back
>  to help Severian because of something he did in his "first", original
>  non-NewSun incarnation that passed Zak's test and asked that an alternate
>  Severian be created that would become the New Sun.  (Ow.  Sharp pains
>  in my head.)  If they are indeed from Severian's birth-universe (what's
>  the name, Briah? or is that the other one?), then I was in error.
>
	I haven't read the Sun books for a while, so I may misremeber, but...
I believe that Ossipago, Familulus, & Bar???  were busy living backwards in
time (like Merlin in TH White's Once and Future King?).  I.e. their future
was Severian's past.  Now as I recall the explanation for the heirogrammates'
interest in humanity it goes something like this:  humanity created and/or
evolved into the heirogrammates. The heirogrammates in turn, so as to ensure
their own future existence, wish to evolve/create humanity so that humanity
is in a position to return the favor again.  As usual the tenses and time
directions are all messed up.  Wolfe does not, that I picked up anyway,
develop the backwards-in-time notion very well.  One possible vision is
of a univerese shared by humanity evolving in one time/direction towards
the heirogrammates; with the heirogrammates working backwards through the
same events to the the beginnings of humanity.

	Anyone want to take a stab at explaining this better?

>19.  Was the jungle area in the Garden with the three people, one woman,
>     a man, and a naked man, in the hut an instance of time-travel?  I
>     remember reading that Severian noticed that those people seemed to
>     be ignoring or at least trying not to notice himself and Agia.

	I could never tie up the loose threads in this one.  I half suspect
that Wolfe was originally heading in another direction in his conception of
the panoramas, but changed his mind.  For what it's worth I think that the
reason that the inhabitants were semi-oblivious to Severian & Co. was that
(1) each panorama sort of exuded a proper mind-set for its setting (2)
susceptible passers by were taken up by this and became effectively part
of the stage set. I.e. I don't think the people were true originals seen
via time travel, I think they were contemporaries of Severian who had 
gotten caught up in an Ernest Hemmingway look-alike contest imposed by the
stage set.

	Here's a question in return: At least one of the stories which
Severian relates from his little brown book is recognizable - that of
Theseus returning without changing his sails.  Can the other stories be
matched up with tales we already know?

					Ethan A Merritt


Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: st1rk@rosie.uh.edu (Maxwell, Darin)
Subject: Diane Duane, _Door Into Fire_
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords: where can i get it?
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 10:19:00 GMT

I've got a friend who loaned me his copy of _Door Into Fire_ and
_Door Into Shadow_. Another friend of mine read them and found 
he had to own copies.  I understand people have waited a full 
year to get copies in.  Does anyone know if these books are
available any other way? Thanx in advance.

On another note, is anyone interested in discussing the works? 
Since they are hard to find and many people may not have heard
of them, let alone read them, maybe any discussion should be
carried out over E-mail.(I'm new to the system so maybe I'm
mistaken.)

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.


-- Darin                

Internet:      st1rk@jetson.uh.edu  
"The limits of my language stand for the limits of my world." 
                                    - Ludwig Wittgenstein 
P.S - Not to mention the limits of my EDT editor.                
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: rob@hoster.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere)
Subject: Re: Characters I Hate to Love
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Electrical Engineering
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 04:45:49 GMT

A person who's identity has been lost in the fog of argument wrote:
>Remember, evil is *supposed* to be more tempting than good [...]

I answered, rather too briefly,
> Indeed?

And the Electric Monk (is that an emacs editing mode? ;) wrote:
>Indeed!
>
>If good were more tempting than evil, then humans would choose good
>over evil most of the time, a situation which does not pertain.
>
>q.e.d.

That being falsely wrapped in the accoutrements of mathematical argument, I
couldn't resist:
>You presuppose that the notions of good and evil as well as the degree of
>temptation felt for any given act, are constants accross the species.  I don't
>believe your presupposition is universaly true.

To which the Monk electrified:
>I don't believe that such a presupposition is universally true,
>either, and I never made such.  I base my statement solely on
>empirical observation.
>
>Are you arguing that when I observe another member (or members)
>of the species making a choice which I perceive to be the choice of
>evil over good, that that (those) member(s) do *not* perceive that
>choice as evil, and thus in their mind(s) they are really choosing
>good?

This is _way_ off the point I was trying to make originally, but anyhow:
   No, I'm arguing that you _don't know_...

   >I can't get into someone else's mind, [...]

   ... like you said here.

   Yet without that insight, you are speculating, not deducing.

The long lost original point, you ask?  Here it is:
   If evil is *supposed* to be more tempting than good, who's doing the
   *supposing*?

SR
---
From: sane@cs.uiuc.edu (Aamod Sane)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Any comments on ENTROVERSE by James Hogan?
Date: 30 Sep 92 21:35:31 GMT
Article-I.D.: m.1992Sep30.213531.13611
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL

dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:

>Hogan's been on my "do not buy" list for a long time, and is
>now firmly, if belatedly, on my "do not bother to read" list.

Try "The Genesis Machine" - superb science.(Terrible plot and characters,
but IMO the physics makes up for it).

Anything else by Hogan can be safely ignored.
(Actually, "Two Faces of Tomorrow" is passing good AI stuff, but the
bad plot and characters manages to ruin that book.)

I had a very different impression about Hogan, till I happened across
the dreck about Giant's stars and what not.



QOTD:

"But let me - I better switch over here for some time - and may I - a
 question - and I don't mean to offend with regard to the follow-up -
 and I understand why you had them, but we've been reduced to the number
 of questions we get to ask when everybody has a follow-up.  So ask
 them both at once."  --- Reagan
-- 
sane@cs.uiuc.edu
         ==         / \  
-----    ==    *    \_/     -|||- 
         ==
From: cozzlab@garnet.berkeley.edu ()
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Novella and other lengths (was Re: Barrayar)
Date: 30 Sep 1992 16:05:56 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Sep30.070201.14761@amd.com> karen@angelo.amd.com (Karen Black) writes:
>
>Was "Do Androids Dream on Electric Sheep?" a short story, novellette,
>or novella? 

Shortish novel--70,000 or so words.  

How about Arthur C. Clarke's original story that became
>_2001_? 

"The Sentinel," a short story.

Or "Flowers for Algernon"? 

Short story, later expanded into a novel.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,aus.sf