Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

I must read _The Vesuvius Club_, nevertheless. I've read the
other two Lucifer box books - which I understand are all different,
but probably with a common theme of Lucifer Box going to bed
with everyone. And rather silly names. Or extremely silly names.

David Johnston

2018-01-29 20:09:36 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

To be fair urban fantasy and paranormal romance are an evolution out of
the now pretty dead genre of horror novels. A lot of time UF werewolves
and vampires act like assholes because they're still monsters.

Lawrence Watt-Evans

2018-01-29 20:37:37 UTC

On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:09:36 -0700, David Johnston

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Horror isn't dead at the moment. It was, from the early 1990s into
the early years of this century, but it rose from the grave again, as
it always does. It's been a cycle ever since the 18th century.

It also keeps spinning off other genres. Gothic romances evolved out
of Gothic horror, for example, and arguably science fiction spun off
from horror via _Frankenstein_. Mystery has roots in horror via Poe.

--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Tom Derringer in the Tunnels of Terror.
See http://www.watt-evans.com/TomDerringerintheTunnelsofTerror.shtml

David Johnston

2018-01-29 21:02:32 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:09:36 -0700, David Johnston

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Horror isn't dead at the moment. It was, from the early 1990s into
the early years of this century, but it rose from the grave again, as
it always does. It's been a cycle ever since the 18th century.

...I'm not seeing a heck of a lot of it.

Lawrence Watt-Evans

2018-01-29 21:16:33 UTC

On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:02:32 -0700, David Johnston

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:09:36 -0700, David Johnston

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Horror isn't dead at the moment. It was, from the early 1990s into
the early years of this century, but it rose from the grave again, as
it always does. It's been a cycle ever since the 18th century.

...I'm not seeing a heck of a lot of it.

It's not huge right now, but it's out there.

I'm a member of HWA (and former president), so I'm reasonably aware of
the state of the market. It's much healthier than it was twenty years
ago, if still only a tiny fraction of what it was during the boom
years of the 1980s.

--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Tom Derringer in the Tunnels of Terror.
See http://www.watt-evans.com/TomDerringerintheTunnelsofTerror.shtml

Moriarty

2018-01-29 21:24:52 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:02:32 -0700, David Johnston

<snip>

Post by David Johnston
To be fair urban fantasy and paranormal romance are an evolution out of
the now pretty dead genre of horror novels. A lot of time UF werewolves
and vampires act like assholes because they're still monsters.

Horror isn't dead at the moment. It was, from the early 1990s into
the early years of this century, but it rose from the grave again, as
it always does. It's been a cycle ever since the 18th century.

...I'm not seeing a heck of a lot of it.

It's not huge right now, but it's out there.
I'm a member of HWA (and former president), so I'm reasonably aware of
the state of the market. It's much healthier than it was twenty years
ago, if still only a tiny fraction of what it was during the boom
years of the 1980s.

I used to be a bit of a fan of the genre back in the 70s and 80s but more or less gave up when splatterpunk and vampire shagging started to dominate.

So:

a) who are the big names now?

b) what sort of stuff do they write about?

TIA, Moriarty

Lawrence Watt-Evans

2018-01-29 22:02:56 UTC

On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:24:52 -0800 (PST), Moriarty

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:02:32 -0700, David Johnston

<snip>

Horror isn't dead at the moment. It was, from the early 1990s into
the early years of this century, but it rose from the grave again, as
it always does. It's been a cycle ever since the 18th century.

...I'm not seeing a heck of a lot of it.

It's not huge right now, but it's out there.
I'm a member of HWA (and former president), so I'm reasonably aware of
the state of the market. It's much healthier than it was twenty years
ago, if still only a tiny fraction of what it was during the boom
years of the 1980s.

I used to be a bit of a fan of the genre back in the 70s and 80s but more or less gave up when splatterpunk and vampire shagging started to dominate.
a) who are the big names now?
b) what sort of stuff do they write about?

Hey, I didn't say I READ the stuff.

I'm not seeing a lot of new big names, I admit. Seanan McGuire writes
horror under the name Mira Grant, and while some of that tends toward
the vampire-shagging end I've been hearing good stuff about her killer
mermaid stuff, starting with _Into the Drowning Deep_.

There seems to be a lot of post-traumatic stuff -- old violence
leaving scars and giving rise to new horrors. Scott Thomas and Paul
Cornell are names I've seen in that context.

Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) is probably THE big name now.

--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.watt-evans.com/TomDerringerintheTunnelsofTerror.shtml

Moriarty

2018-01-29 22:17:29 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:24:52 -0800 (PST), Moriarty

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:02:32 -0700, David Johnston

<snip>

Horror isn't dead at the moment. It was, from the early 1990s into
the early years of this century, but it rose from the grave again, as
it always does. It's been a cycle ever since the 18th century.

...I'm not seeing a heck of a lot of it.

It's not huge right now, but it's out there.
I'm a member of HWA (and former president), so I'm reasonably aware of
the state of the market. It's much healthier than it was twenty years
ago, if still only a tiny fraction of what it was during the boom
years of the 1980s.

Hey, I didn't say I READ the stuff.
I'm not seeing a lot of new big names, I admit. Seanan McGuire writes
horror under the name Mira Grant, and while some of that tends toward
the vampire-shagging end I've been hearing good stuff about her killer
mermaid stuff, starting with _Into the Drowning Deep_.
There seems to be a lot of post-traumatic stuff -- old violence
leaving scars and giving rise to new horrors. Scott Thomas and Paul
Cornell are names I've seen in that context.
Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) is probably THE big name now.

Thanks! I'm working my way through Seanan McGuire's Toby Daye series right now. I might look at the mermaid stuff next.

I'll also look into those other authors.

-Moriarty

Titus G

2018-01-30 04:24:35 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:24:52 -0800 (PST), Moriarty

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:02:32 -0700, David Johnston

<snip>

Horror isn't dead at the moment. It was, from the early 1990s into
the early years of this century, but it rose from the grave again, as
it always does. It's been a cycle ever since the 18th century.

...I'm not seeing a heck of a lot of it.

It's not huge right now, but it's out there.
I'm a member of HWA (and former president), so I'm reasonably aware of
the state of the market. It's much healthier than it was twenty years
ago, if still only a tiny fraction of what it was during the boom
years of the 1980s.

Hey, I didn't say I READ the stuff.
I'm not seeing a lot of new big names, I admit. Seanan McGuire writes
horror under the name Mira Grant, and while some of that tends toward
the vampire-shagging end I've been hearing good stuff about her killer
mermaid stuff, starting with _Into the Drowning Deep_.
There seems to be a lot of post-traumatic stuff -- old violence
leaving scars and giving rise to new horrors. Scott Thomas and Paul
Cornell are names I've seen in that context.
Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) is probably THE big name now.

Thanks! I'm working my way through Seanan McGuire's Toby Daye series right now. I might look at the mermaid stuff next.
I'll also look into those other authors.

As expressed in your posts, your tastes have been similar to mine but I
do not like horror, but did read Joe Hill's NOS4A2 and recommend it for
the action and suspense.

Moriarty

2018-01-30 05:32:51 UTC

Post by Titus G

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:24:52 -0800 (PST), Moriarty

<snip>

Post by Titus G

Post by Moriarty
a) who are the big names now?
b) what sort of stuff do they write about?

Hey, I didn't say I READ the stuff.
I'm not seeing a lot of new big names, I admit. Seanan McGuire writes
horror under the name Mira Grant, and while some of that tends toward
the vampire-shagging end I've been hearing good stuff about her killer
mermaid stuff, starting with _Into the Drowning Deep_.
There seems to be a lot of post-traumatic stuff -- old violence
leaving scars and giving rise to new horrors. Scott Thomas and Paul
Cornell are names I've seen in that context.
Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) is probably THE big name now.

Thanks! I'm working my way through Seanan McGuire's Toby Daye series right now. I might look at the mermaid stuff next.
I'll also look into those other authors.

As expressed in your posts, your tastes have been similar to mine but I
do not like horror, but did read Joe Hill's NOS4A2 and recommend it for
the action and suspense.

Thanks! I'll give it a try.

-Moriarty

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-01-29 23:23:11 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
I'm not seeing a lot of new big names, I admit. Seanan McGuire writes
horror under the name Mira Grant, and while some of that tends toward
the vampire-shagging end I've been hearing good stuff about her killer
mermaid stuff, starting with _Into the Drowning Deep_.

I could ask my daughter, when she gets home, which of Seanan's
works (if any) she considers horror, and/or how she characterizes
Seanan's various opera. They're former co-workers and good
friends. Me, I just read the Incryptid books; I'm a sucker for
the Aeslin mice.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-01-29 23:20:17 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:02:32 -0700, David Johnston

<snip>

Horror isn't dead at the moment. It was, from the early 1990s into
the early years of this century, but it rose from the grave again, as
it always does. It's been a cycle ever since the 18th century.

...I'm not seeing a heck of a lot of it.

It's not huge right now, but it's out there.
I'm a member of HWA (and former president), so I'm reasonably aware of
the state of the market. It's much healthier than it was twenty years
ago, if still only a tiny fraction of what it was during the boom
years of the 1980s.

I used to be a bit of a fan of the genre back in the 70s and 80s but
more or less gave up when splatterpunk and vampire shagging started to
dominate.
a) who are the big names now?
b) what sort of stuff do they write about?

Well, a lot of what Seanan McGuire writes sounds like horror to
me. But maybe I'm biased. Horror readers, what do you say?

N.B. I consider vampires the opposite of sexy.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

-dsr-

2018-01-31 15:21:19 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:02:32 -0700, David Johnston

<snip>
a) who are the big names now?
b) what sort of stuff do they write about?

Well, a lot of what Seanan McGuire writes sounds like horror to
me. But maybe I'm biased. Horror readers, what do you say?

When she writes as Mira Grant, it's all horror-SF. When she writes as
Seanan McGuire, it's mostly fantasy. The Cryptid series is more urban
fantasy with some horrific elements, the October Daye series started out
as urban fantasy with faerie-horror elements and has become significantly
less urban over time.

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
N.B. I consider vampires the opposite of sexy.

Many authors agree with you.

-dsr-

D B Davis

2018-02-01 04:22:03 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:02:32 -0700, David Johnston

<snip>

Horror isn't dead at the moment. It was, from the early 1990s into
the early years of this century, but it rose from the grave again, as
it always does. It's been a cycle ever since the 18th century.

...I'm not seeing a heck of a lot of it.

It's not huge right now, but it's out there.
I'm a member of HWA (and former president), so I'm reasonably aware of
the state of the market. It's much healthier than it was twenty years
ago, if still only a tiny fraction of what it was during the boom
years of the 1980s.

I used to be a bit of a fan of the genre back in the 70s and 80s but
more or less gave up when splatterpunk and vampire shagging started to
dominate.
a) who are the big names now?
b) what sort of stuff do they write about?

Well, a lot of what Seanan McGuire writes sounds like horror to
me. But maybe I'm biased. Horror readers, what do you say?
N.B. I consider vampires the opposite of sexy.

Horror's not my favorite genre. That said, "The Lottery" (Jackson,
1950) and _The Haunting of Hill House_ (Jackson, 1959) are my favorite
horror stories. The Hollywood treatment of _Haunting_ still grabs me.
The _Event Horizon_ (1997) will soon be viewed by me. Then there's
_Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said_ (PKD, 1974), a story that was just
begun by me for the first time. It starts out with a horrific,
unsettling situation that sort of gets to me:

"Here you are," Marilyn said. She lifted up a plastic bag
from the drainboard, stood holding it a moment, her face still
bloodless and stark, her eyes jutting and unblinking, and then
she yanked the bag open, swung it, moved swiftly up to him.
It happened too fast. He backed away out of instinct, but
too slowly and too late. The gelatinlike Callisto cuddle
sponge with its fifty feeding tubes clung to him, anchored
itself to his chest. Already he felt the feeding tubes dig
into him, into his chest.
He leaped to the overhead kitchen cabinets, grabbed out a
half-filled bottle of scotch, unscrewed the lid with flying
fingers, and poured the scotch onto the gelatinlike creature.
His thoughts had become lucid, even brilliant; he did not
panic, but stood there pouring scotch onto the thing.
For a moment nothing happened. He still managed to hold
himself together and not flee into panic. And then the thing
bubbled, shriveled, fell from his chest onto the floor. It
had died.
Feeling weak, he seated himself at the kitchen table. Now
he found himself fighting off unconsciousness; some of the
feeding tubes remained inside him, and they were still alive.
"Not bad," he managed to say. "You almost got me you f*cking
little tramp."
"Not almost," Marilyn Mason said flatly, emotionlessly.
"Some of the feeding tubes are still in you and you know it;
I can see your face. And a bottle of scotch isn't going to
get them out. /Nothing/ is going to get them out."

Thank you,

--
Don

Juho Julkunen

2018-02-01 13:03:43 UTC

Post by D B Davis
Horror's not my favorite genre. That said, "The Lottery" (Jackson,
1950) and _The Haunting of Hill House_ (Jackson, 1959) are my favorite
horror stories. The Hollywood treatment of _Haunting_ still grabs me.

I assume you mean the Robert Wise movie, which is indeed darn good. I
have not read the novel.

Post by D B Davis
The _Event Horizon_ (1997) will soon be viewed by me. Then there's

That movie is onto something, but doesn't quite hold up. Appropriate
for this thread, really.

--
Juho Julkunen

William Hyde

2018-02-01 19:42:34 UTC

Post by D B Davis

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:02:32 -0700, David Johnston

<snip>

Horror isn't dead at the moment. It was, from the early 1990s into
the early years of this century, but it rose from the grave again, as
it always does. It's been a cycle ever since the 18th century.

...I'm not seeing a heck of a lot of it.

It's not huge right now, but it's out there.
I'm a member of HWA (and former president), so I'm reasonably aware of
the state of the market. It's much healthier than it was twenty years
ago, if still only a tiny fraction of what it was during the boom
years of the 1980s.

I used to be a bit of a fan of the genre back in the 70s and 80s but
more or less gave up when splatterpunk and vampire shagging started to
dominate.
a) who are the big names now?
b) what sort of stuff do they write about?

Well, a lot of what Seanan McGuire writes sounds like horror to
me. But maybe I'm biased. Horror readers, what do you say?
N.B. I consider vampires the opposite of sexy.

Listen to the music, by John Dowland:

I can't vouch for that particular performance (sound is out) but I can't find my preferred one.

William Hyde

David Johnston

2018-01-29 22:06:05 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:02:32 -0700, David Johnston

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:09:36 -0700, David Johnston

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Horror isn't dead at the moment. It was, from the early 1990s into
the early years of this century, but it rose from the grave again, as
it always does. It's been a cycle ever since the 18th century.

...I'm not seeing a heck of a lot of it.

It's not huge right now, but it's out there.

Pretty dead ain't the same thing as all dead.

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
I'm a member of HWA (and former president), so I'm reasonably aware of
the state of the market. It's much healthier than it was twenty years
ago, if still only a tiny fraction of what it was during the boom
years of the 1980s.

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-01-29 23:18:24 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:09:36 -0700, David Johnston

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Horror isn't dead at the moment. It was, from the early 1990s into
the early years of this century, but it rose from the grave again, as
it always does. It's been a cycle ever since the 18th century.

...I'm not seeing a heck of a lot of it.

Mind you, I don't like horror, so I don't read it. But I should
think that horror won't be dead as long as Stephen King is alive
and kicking.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-01-29 20:42:27 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/
To be fair urban fantasy and paranormal romance are an evolution out of
the now pretty dead genre of horror novels. A lot of time UF werewolves
and vampires act like assholes because they're still monsters.

Because they were assholes and monsters before they were
werewolves and vampires, right?

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Scott Lurndal

2018-01-29 21:04:38 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

Because they were assholes and monsters before they were
werewolves and vampires, right?

The good vampire with a soul is a mainstay of the genre,
likely predating Buffy.

David Johnston

2018-01-29 21:13:28 UTC

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

Because they were assholes and monsters before they were
werewolves and vampires, right?

The good vampire with a soul is a mainstay of the genre,
likely predating Buffy.

Note however that the vampire with a soul was an exception in Buffy.
Most good people who become vampires...become the absolute worst vampires.

Lawrence Watt-Evans

2018-01-29 21:21:31 UTC

On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:13:28 -0700, David Johnston

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

Because they were assholes and monsters before they were
werewolves and vampires, right?

The good vampire with a soul is a mainstay of the genre,
likely predating Buffy.

Note however that the vampire with a soul was an exception in Buffy.
Most good people who become vampires...become the absolute worst vampires.

The reformed vampire character goes back to the 1840s. In the serial
"Varney the Vampire," Varney starts out as an absolute heartless
monster, the villain of the piece. As the story continued, though,
the author needed some way to keep it interesting -- the serial had
been far more successful than anticipated and had run out of his
original plot long before sales dropped off enough to kill it -- so
Varney gradually reformed, and by 1847 was a good guy.

Whether he had a soul is not addressed, that I recall.

--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Tom Derringer in the Tunnels of Terror.
See http://www.watt-evans.com/TomDerringerintheTunnelsofTerror.shtml

David Johnston

2018-01-29 21:06:15 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

Because they were assholes and monsters before they were
werewolves and vampires, right?

Not really, although already being an asshole doesn't help. With a lot
of them turning into a vampire or werewolf gives them urges to kill and
bully they didn't previously have.

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-01-29 23:26:01 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Because they were assholes and monsters before they were
werewolves and vampires, right?

Not really, although already being an asshole doesn't help. With a lot
of them turning into a vampire or werewolf gives them urges to kill and
bully they didn't previously have.

I wrote a story once about a kid who turned into a werewolf at
puberty, and would go out into the boondocks on the night of the
full moon so he couldn't hurt anybody. (He did do in a few sheep
and deer.) This ended in 1969.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Kevrob

2018-01-30 00:36:07 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Because they were assholes and monsters before they were
werewolves and vampires, right?

Not really, although already being an asshole doesn't help. With a lot
of them turning into a vampire or werewolf gives them urges to kill and
bully they didn't previously have.

You are aware of "I Was A Teenage Werewolf," right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Was_a_Teenage_Werewolf

There are echoes of it in "Teen Wolf" and sequalia.

Kevin R

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-01-30 03:28:15 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Because they were assholes and monsters before they were
werewolves and vampires, right?

Not really, although already being an asshole doesn't help. With a lot
of them turning into a vampire or werewolf gives them urges to kill and
bully they didn't previously have.

You are aware of "I Was A Teenage Werewolf," right?

Heard of it, never saw it.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

David DeLaney

2018-02-05 09:56:04 UTC

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I wrote a story once about a kid who turned into a werewolf at
puberty, and would go out into the boondocks on the night of the
full moon so he couldn't hurt anybody. (He did do in a few sheep
and deer.) This ended in 1969.

... because the Moon landing opened the gates to Arcadia?

Dave, do not let your werewolf handle a moon rock. Bad Things happen.

--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
my gatekeeper archives are no longer accessible :( / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-05 14:21:16 UTC

... because the Moon landing opened the gates to Arcadia?

No, because the moon landing took the magic out of the moon.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Jaimie Vandenbergh

2018-02-09 13:36:47 UTC

... because the Moon landing opened the gates to Arcadia?

No, because the moon landing took the magic out of the moon.

Did Neil and Buzz get a massive grounding zap of were-ism as they
landed?

Cheers - Jaimie

--
L33t 5p3@|< 1s f0R R3t4rds

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-09 14:08:08 UTC

... because the Moon landing opened the gates to Arcadia?

No, because the moon landing took the magic out of the moon.

Did Neil and Buzz get a massive grounding zap of were-ism as they
landed?

Nope, they didn't notice anything of the kind. They didn't have
the lycanthropy gene.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

2018-02-09 15:06:37 UTC

... because the Moon landing opened the gates to Arcadia?

No, because the moon landing took the magic out of the moon.

Did Neil and Buzz get a massive grounding zap of were-ism as they
landed?

Nope, they didn't notice anything of the kind. They didn't have
the lycanthropy gene.
--

I kind of wish Niven had written a Warlock story set after the moon landings..

--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Greg Goss

2018-02-09 15:40:21 UTC

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh
Did Neil and Buzz get a massive grounding zap of were-ism as they
landed?

Nope, they didn't notice anything of the kind. They didn't have
the lycanthropy gene.

I kind of wish Niven had written a Warlock story set after the moon landings..

Toward the end, he was co-writing a parallel set of these stories set
in the US West. But he was writing them with Pournelle, who died last
year.

--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-09 17:09:28 UTC

... because the Moon landing opened the gates to Arcadia?

No, because the moon landing took the magic out of the moon.

Did Neil and Buzz get a massive grounding zap of were-ism as they
landed?

Nope, they didn't notice anything of the kind. They didn't have
the lycanthropy gene.

I kind of wish Niven had written a Warlock story set after the moon landings..

I don't know those stories (stopped reading Niven a while ago).
What would have happened?

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

2018-02-09 17:48:04 UTC

... because the Moon landing opened the gates to Arcadia?

No, because the moon landing took the magic out of the moon.

Did Neil and Buzz get a massive grounding zap of were-ism as they
landed?

Nope, they didn't notice anything of the kind. They didn't have
the lycanthropy gene.

I kind of wish Niven had written a Warlock story set after the moon landings..

I don't know those stories (stopped reading Niven a while ago).
What would have happened?

Well, these are from quite a while ago, starting I think with "What Good
is a Glass Dagger?"

Short take: every place on Earth is imbued with magical "mana", which
is consumable. Once it is consumed, "The Magic Goes Away". There was
a last ditch effort to bring down the Moon as a new source of mana, but
this failed. So presumably there is still mana on the Moon..

--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-09 19:25:28 UTC

... because the Moon landing opened the gates to Arcadia?

No, because the moon landing took the magic out of the moon.

Did Neil and Buzz get a massive grounding zap of were-ism as they
landed?

Nope, they didn't notice anything of the kind. They didn't have
the lycanthropy gene.

I kind of wish Niven had written a Warlock story set after the moon landings..

I don't know those stories (stopped reading Niven a while ago).
What would have happened?

Well, these are from quite a while ago, starting I think with "What Good
is a Glass Dagger?"
Short take: every place on Earth is imbued with magical "mana", which
is consumable. Once it is consumed, "The Magic Goes Away". There was
a last ditch effort to bring down the Moon as a new source of mana, but
this failed. So presumably there is still mana on the Moon..

Ah, thanks.

In the early stages of the online game Asheron's Call (launched
1998), there was a limited amount of mana in the world, and if
you were using magic in a given region you would tend to use it
up and your spells would be less effective. If a lot of people
were casting spells in the same region, it would accelerate the
process.

Therefore, there was no *instruction* in magic. You had to
observe other mages casting spells -- they would use two words,
which referred to (IIRC) the herbal and chemical components of
the spell -- and you had to determine the talisman component by
watching what gesture the mage made; and figure out the crystal
component by process of elimination. The NPC mage shops were
full of mages casting spells over and over till they figured out
what the require components were.

The idea was that mages would jealously hide their skills and you
had to snoop on them to figure them out. In fact, players would
share successful formulae with everybody they new, and put them
on fansites.

The limited-mana element of magecraft went away in, I think, the
second year of the game. It was an interesting concept but not
gamer-friendly.

Then, as magecraft advanced, you had to add a taper (a candle
with one of about a dozen colors) to the other components, and
what color taper you used for a given spell depended upon your
characters' identity, using an algorithm derived from your account
number (which you didn't know and couldn't find out). More mages
standing around casting spell after spell until you figured out
which taper wouldn't fizzle.

Whereupon the people running the fansites reverse-engineered the
algorithm and published long lists, e.g., if you already know
that THIS spell requires a red taper, the tapers for all the rest
of your spells are in THIS table.

It was a cool system, though, once we figured out how to make it
not so bloody difficult.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Greg Goss

2018-02-11 01:04:15 UTC

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
I kind of wish Niven had written a Warlock story set after the moon landings..

I don't know those stories (stopped reading Niven a while ago).
What would have happened?

Well, these are from quite a while ago, starting I think with "What Good
is a Glass Dagger?"
Short take: every place on Earth is imbued with magical "mana", which
is consumable. Once it is consumed, "The Magic Goes Away". There was
a last ditch effort to bring down the Moon as a new source of mana, but
this failed. So presumably there is still mana on the Moon..

The later books, written with Pournelle were set in the US, still in
12K ago. One was fairly tightly focussed on a magical LA, and the
other spread wider across the southwest.

I also vaguely (and probably mis-) remember an attempt to re-awaken
Orobouros, but don't remember enough of it to tell if it was with
Pournelle, with Barnes, or solo.

--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

2018-02-11 04:43:56 UTC

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
I kind of wish Niven had written a Warlock story set after the moon

landings..

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I don't know those stories (stopped reading Niven a while ago).
What would have happened?

Well, these are from quite a while ago, starting I think with "What Good
is a Glass Dagger?"
Short take: every place on Earth is imbued with magical "mana", which
is consumable. Once it is consumed, "The Magic Goes Away". There was
a last ditch effort to bring down the Moon as a new source of mana, but
this failed. So presumably there is still mana on the Moon..

The later books, written with Pournelle were set in the US, still in
12K ago. One was fairly tightly focussed on a magical LA, and the
other spread wider across the southwest.
I also vaguely (and probably mis-) remember an attempt to re-awaken
Orobouros, but don't remember enough of it to tell if it was with
Pournelle, with Barnes, or solo.

I actually did not know that. Seeing that those books were colabs, I
just assumed they were unrelated to any previous Niven setting.

My memory is that Orobouros was pretty decisively killed to harvest enough
energy for the attempt on the Moon.

--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Kevrob

2018-02-06 05:58:42 UTC

... because the Moon landing opened the gates to Arcadia?
Dave, do not let your werewolf handle a moon rock. Bad Things happen.
--

...Like Man-Wolf comics from Marvel.

https://www.comics.org/issue/32863/cover/4/

Kevin R

Quadibloc

2018-02-06 11:01:32 UTC

Post by David DeLaney
Dave, do not let your werewolf handle a moon rock. Bad Things happen.

...Like Man-Wolf comics from Marvel.

I had to look up what his connection to moon rocks was... and so I
learned that he was J. Jonah Jameson's astronaut son... who developed
lycanthropic tendencies after returning from an Apollo mission, and
having a moon rock to wear as a souvenir around his neck!

Of course, in the Marvel Universe, before Neil Armstrong and before
John Jameson, the Fantastic Four reached the Moon and battled Ivan
Kragoff, the Red Ghost, there.

John Savard

Robert Carnegie

2018-01-29 21:57:04 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

Because they were assholes and monsters before they were
werewolves and vampires, right?

Not necessarily. I want to mention alcoholism or other
substance dependence as real-world examples where a reasonably
nice person can turn into a stinker. anyway, a monster is,
by definition - or by convention anyway - monstrous.
The monster which isn't, though - Frankenstein's construct
is eloquent, emotionally needy, and if he doesn't get
his way then oh boy. I don't know if I count him or not.

Default User

2018-01-29 23:38:46 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

I've mentioned before that the effort that I think went astray was Peter F. Hamilton's Nights Dawn series.

I thought it was a great space-opera background. The Adamist/Edenist divide, some living some mechanical ships. All good stuff. Then we got this brutal horror story of people being possessed by ghosts.

Brian

Johnny1A

2018-01-30 05:19:26 UTC

In the case of the Foundation novels, the unified galaxy was a part of the background intentionally, as a natural stage of the progress of colonization. Though there were plenty of room for other powers...in other galaxies.

The nature of FTL travel in the Foundation universe means that other galaxies were accessible to the expanding colonial wave from an early date. It might be dangerous, because of the lack of accurate navigational data, but I always figured that the other galaxies around the Milky Way probably had human worlds for centuries before Seldon's time, made up of particularly daring colonists and refugees and escapees from the earlier eras of the Empire.

Asimov touched on that idea in later 'sequels' many decades later, but those sequels never did fit with the original stories..

Anthony Nance

2018-01-30 18:40:32 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Interesting essay, both topic and content - thanks.

Before I read the essay, Anderson's Boat of a Million Years[1]
and Brust's To Reign in Hell[2] both leapt to mind.

This isn't a knock on the authors - I like tons of works by
both, and I feel both are demonstrably very highly skilled.
My problem is more that I wish the authors had made different
choices in where to take the plots and resolutions, and I found
their choices disappointing.

Tony
[1] Seven naturally-occurring immortals try to stay off
normal radar through the centuries. Really intriguing
(to me) idea, build-up, and cast of characters, all
frittered away in the last 1/3 of the book, roughly
starting when the seven are forced into the public eye.

[2] The inside story of Satan's fall from heaven, told
lightly and in a pretty decent Zelazny-esque voice.
However, it's all hung on a Three's Company-style
plot-frame, complete with strange leaps of logic,
partial (dis)informations, intermediaries mangling
messages, convenient occurrences, etc.

Joseph Nebus

2018-02-02 08:21:11 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Bit surprised it's gone this long without mention of James Blish's
spindizzy stories. Galaxy populated by successive waves of intelligent
species, currently dominated by a loose conglomeration of crazypants lost
Earth colonies, fed by whole cities lifted off planets and fluttering
around galaxies, against a setting of economic collapse and the threat of
replacement by the next big intelligent species-empire? Even if you don't
want to do a Spenglerian Death Of Empires story, the room for stuff to
happen, and variety of people the stuff can happen to, is great.

Also, the setting Asimov cooked up for _Robots and Empire_ is
a great one. Earth, big but impoverished, surrounded by a network of
four dozen worlds, rich but underpopulated and not as strong as everyone
thinks they are, itself surrounded by a second wave of colony worlds,
tiny but culturally vigorous? Lots of room for good galactic history-
making stories there, even before you add in the nearly universal
robots who're nominally serving their owners but are really thinking
about how to best serve All Humanity as they calculate it.

--
Joseph Nebus
Math: Reading the Comics: Working Through the Week https://wp.me/p1RYhY-1l7
Humor: Interestingly, I Need Help https://wp.me/p37lb5-1XL
--------------------------------------------------------+---------------------

Dan Tilque

2018-02-03 04:32:33 UTC

Post by Joseph Nebus
Lots of room for good galactic history-
making stories there, even before you add in the nearly universal
robots who're nominally serving their owners but are really thinking
about how to best serve All Humanity as they calculate it.

Ths robots lost the cookbook, though.

--
Dan Tilque

Dimensional Traveler

2018-02-03 07:00:50 UTC

Post by Dan Tilque

Lots of room for good galactic history-
making stories there, even before you add in the nearly universal
robots who're nominally serving their owners but are really thinking
about how to best serve All Humanity as they calculate it.

Ths robots lost the cookbook, though.

Not so much lost it as someone failed to update it to the latest ebook
standard three standards ago.

--
Inquiring minds want to know while minds with a self-preservation
instinct are running screaming.

Johnny1A

2018-02-05 05:02:37 UTC

Post by Joseph Nebus

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Bit surprised it's gone this long without mention of James Blish's
spindizzy stories. Galaxy populated by successive waves of intelligent
species, currently dominated by a loose conglomeration of crazypants lost
Earth colonies, fed by whole cities lifted off planets and fluttering
around galaxies, against a setting of economic collapse and the threat of
replacement by the next big intelligent species-empire? Even if you don't
want to do a Spenglerian Death Of Empires story, the room for stuff to
happen, and variety of people the stuff can happen to, is great.
Also, the setting Asimov cooked up for _Robots and Empire_ is
a great one. Earth, big but impoverished, surrounded by a network of
four dozen worlds, rich but underpopulated and not as strong as everyone
thinks they are, itself surrounded by a second wave of colony worlds,
tiny but culturally vigorous? Lots of room for good galactic history-
making stories there, even before you add in the nearly universal
robots who're nominally serving their owners but are really thinking
about how to best serve All Humanity as they calculate it.

In one sense, combining the 'robot' and 'foundation' universes was a clever idea, necessitated when he decided to right sequels to the Foundation stories decades later. Unfortunately, I don't think he did the sequels well, and I think the specific _way_ that Asimov did the combining ended up working very poorly.

As the sequels unfolded, it started to look as if R. Daneel was the secret puppetmaster behind everything, to a degree that hurt the story enormously.

Joy Beeson

2018-02-06 20:27:32 UTC

On Sun, 4 Feb 2018 21:02:37 -0800 (PST), Johnny1A

Post by Johnny1A
In one sense, combining the 'robot' and 'foundation' universes was a clever idea, necessitated when he decided to right sequels to the Foundation stories decades later. Unfortunately, I don't think he did the sequels well, and I think the specific _way_ that Asimov did the combining ended up working very poorly.
As the sequels unfolded, it started to look as if R. Daneel was the secret puppetmaster behind everything, to a degree that hurt the story enormously.

The chief charm of the Foundation trilogy is its youthful exuberance.
The sequels read as though the older Asimov considered it juvenile,
and was doing his best to un-write it.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

Ahasuerus

2018-02-09 16:04:52 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Granted, sometimes you read a book and say "What a great idea! I just
wish it was better executed."

On the flip side, there are times when you admire the central idea
and/or the setting, but it's not clear whether a better implementation
would be feasible. For example, I have read a number of stories about
superhumans which were intriguing but the execution felt underwhelming.
However, a convincing in-depth description of a superhuman is
notoriously difficult to pull off. It would take a superhuman mind to
do it justice and, last I checked, there weren't many superhumans among
SF writers.

Or take Harry Turtledove' _Worldwar_ series. The idea was lovely, but
the writing often felt bestsellerish and certain characters did not
convince me. However, to be fair, I don't know if anyone could have done
it convincingly without a prohibitive amount of research and a great deal
of polishing. Still, it may have been better if Turtledove's schedule
had been less ambitious: he published 4 new novels in 1994, 3 in 1995,
and 4 in 1996 (2 of them with co-authors.) The shortest one was over
350 pages long.

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-09 17:12:08 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/
Granted, sometimes you read a book and say "What a great idea! I just
wish it was better executed."
On the flip side, there are times when you admire the central idea
and/or the setting, but it's not clear whether a better implementation
would be feasible. For example, I have read a number of stories about
superhumans which were intriguing but the execution felt underwhelming.
However, a convincing in-depth description of a superhuman is
notoriously difficult to pull off. It would take a superhuman mind to
do it justice and, last I checked, there weren't many superhumans among
SF writers.
Or take Harry Turtledove' _Worldwar_ series. The idea was lovely, but
the writing often felt bestsellerish and certain characters did not
convince me. However, to be fair, I don't know if anyone could have done
it convincingly without a prohibitive amount of research and a great deal
of polishing. Still, it may have been better if Turtledove's schedule
had been less ambitious: he published 4 new novels in 1994, 3 in 1995,
and 4 in 1996 (2 of them with co-authors.) The shortest one was over
350 pages long.

Well, he had the same problem as Zelazny: kids to support. I
remember hearing him speak once, at some con or other, in which
he explained how he had (several, I think) kids in college.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Ahasuerus

2018-02-09 17:42:12 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

Well, he had the same problem as Zelazny: kids to support. I
remember hearing him speak once, at some con or other, in which
he explained how he had (several, I think) kids in college.

https://us.macmillan.com/author/harryturtledove/ says that:

"Harry Turtledove lives in Los Angeles with his wife, novelist
Laura Frankos, and their four daughters."

Anthony Nance

2018-02-09 17:56:58 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

In Jim C Hines' Libriomancer series, with some restrictions, libriomancers
can take the written word and turn it into reality, so maybe that's close?

Tony

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

2018-02-09 18:10:10 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Post by Ahasuerus
Granted, sometimes you read a book and say "What a great idea! I just
wish it was better executed."
On the flip side, there are times when you admire the central idea
and/or the setting, but it's not clear whether a better implementation
would be feasible. For example, I have read a number of stories about
superhumans which were intriguing but the execution felt underwhelming.
However, a convincing in-depth description of a superhuman is
notoriously difficult to pull off. It would take a superhuman mind to
do it justice and, last I checked, there weren't many superhumans among
SF writers.

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

In one "Hoppity Hooper" episode, everything Filmore The Bear wrote started
coming true. There are numerous stories about being able to "enter"
books. And, Prophets: Descriptive or Prescriptive?

--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-09 19:38:47 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

In one "Hoppity Hooper" episode, everything Filmore The Bear wrote started
coming true. There are numerous stories about being able to "enter"
books. And, Prophets: Descriptive or Prescriptive?

I have the vague feeling that there's a story-- possibly by Fredric
Brown, since a linotype was involved and linotypes were his thing--*
about a small-town newspaper whose linotype was enchanted so that
everything it printed came true. But I can't put a finger on it.
The title "We Print the News" came to mind, but ISFDB has never
heard of that title. So I can't get any further.

____
*He'd started out as a compositor for a newspaper, and learned the
linotype keyboard, which begins with ETAOINSHRDLU. He never
learned the QUERTY keyboard, so he got his own linotype, composed
his stories on that, pulled galleys, and gave them to somebody
else to type in MS. format.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Ahasuerus

2018-02-09 20:19:43 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

In one "Hoppity Hooper" episode, everything Filmore The Bear wrote started
coming true. There are numerous stories about being able to "enter"
books. And, Prophets: Descriptive or Prescriptive?

There are two Golden Age stories along those lines. The one about
newspaper articles changing reality is Boucher's "We Print the
Truth" (1943) -- http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?46750 .
The one about an intelligent Linotype machine is Brown's "Etaoin
Shrdlu" (1942) -- http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41652 .

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-09 21:29:10 UTC

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I have the vague feeling that there's a story-- possibly by Fredric
Brown, since a linotype was involved and linotypes were his thing--*
about a small-town newspaper whose linotype was enchanted so that
everything it printed came true. But I can't put a finger on it.
The title "We Print the News" came to mind, but ISFDB has never
heard of that title. So I can't get any further. [snip]

There are two Golden Age stories along those lines. The one about
newspaper articles changing reality is Boucher's "We Print the
Truth" (1943) -- http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?46750 .

Ah! That's the one!

Post by Ahasuerus
The one about an intelligent Linotype machine is Brown's "Etaoin
Shrdlu" (1942) -- http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41652 .

Yes, I know that one, but that linotype wasn't altering reality;
rather, it was absorbing and signing on to whatever it typeset.
Kind of like the Hokas, really.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

2018-02-09 23:53:20 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

In one "Hoppity Hooper" episode, everything Filmore The Bear wrote started
coming true. There are numerous stories about being able to "enter"
books. And, Prophets: Descriptive or Prescriptive?

I believe the celestial Linotype (and a flaw therein) also figures in
Brown's "The Angelical Angleworm". It's not that things written came
true, but that there were misprints in reality..

--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-10 01:14:40 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

In one "Hoppity Hooper" episode, everything Filmore The Bear wrote started
coming true. There are numerous stories about being able to "enter"
books. And, Prophets: Descriptive or Prescriptive?

I believe the celestial Linotype (and a flaw therein) also figures in
Brown's "The Angelical Angleworm". It's not that things written came
true, but that there were misprints in reality..

Yes, it does. I have that one in a collection of Brown's
stories. The crucial line is "There is a worn e-matrix that--"

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Scott Lurndal

2018-02-09 20:21:52 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

In one "Hoppity Hooper" episode, everything Filmore The Bear wrote started
coming true. There are numerous stories about being able to "enter"
books. And, Prophets: Descriptive or Prescriptive?

What appears to be a fairly complete bib here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredric_Brown_bibliography

Which lead me, indirectly to here:

http://devernay.free.fr/paradoxlost/html/solipsist.html

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-09 19:26:58 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.
In Jim C Hines' Libriomancer series, with some restrictions, libriomancers
can take the written word and turn it into reality, so maybe that's close?

I think I've read some stories with mages who could write a
description of something and turn it into reality, but I can't
put my finger on any of them. More common are artists who can
paint or draw something and turn those into reality.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Michael F. Stemper

2018-02-10 00:10:04 UTC

Post by Ahasuerus
On the flip side, there are times when you admire the central idea
and/or the setting, but it's not clear whether a better implementation
would be feasible. For example, I have read a number of stories about
superhumans which were intriguing but the execution felt underwhelming.
However, a convincing in-depth description of a superhuman is
notoriously difficult to pull off. It would take a superhuman mind to
do it justice and, last I checked, there weren't many superhumans among
SF writers.

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

I think I've read some stories with mages who could write a
description of something and turn it into reality, but I can't
put my finger on any of them.

There's "Author! Author!" by The Good Doctor:

An author (romance, IIRC) finds that his best-known protagonist has
suddenly popped off the pages and into real life. The character's
a broad stereotype, and fairly obnoxious to boot. Manages to mess up
the titular author's life, in part by hitting on his girlfriend/fiancee.
Successfully.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Life's too important to take seriously.

Kevrob

2018-02-10 00:54:09 UTC

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

The comics scripters have that super-power, and some have
been sucked into the stories through the "fourth wall,"
to interact with the characters.

"The Day I Saved The Life Of The Flash!" THE FLASH, V1 #228
written by, and guest-starring Cary Bates, for one.

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I think I've read some stories with mages who could write a
description of something and turn it into reality, but I can't
put my finger on any of them.

Rick Cook's "Wiz" novels feature a computer "coding wizard,"
who, spirited to a world where magic is part of the "natural
law," figures out how to cast spells in the form of programs.

Post by Michael F. Stemper
An author (romance, IIRC) finds that his best-known protagonist has
suddenly popped off the pages and into real life. The character's
a broad stereotype, and fairly obnoxious to boot. Manages to mess up
the titular author's life, in part by hitting on his girlfriend/fiancee.
Successfully.
--

It's SF, not fantasy. but there is always....

.....WE EXSALIVATE ON YOUR PROFERRED BRIBES EXPLOITIVE AGGRESSIVE NONCHERODERMATOID BIPED.....

..."Selectra Six-Ten" by Avram Davidson, with a very interesting
typewriter.

Kevin R

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-10 01:21:30 UTC

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

The comics scripters have that super-power, and some have
been sucked into the stories through the "fourth wall,"
to interact with the characters.
"The Day I Saved The Life Of The Flash!" THE FLASH, V1 #228
written by, and guest-starring Cary Bates, for one.

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I think I've read some stories with mages who could write a
description of something and turn it into reality, but I can't
put my finger on any of them.

Rick Cook's "Wiz" novels feature a computer "coding wizard,"
who, spirited to a world where magic is part of the "natural
law," figures out how to cast spells in the form of programs.

It's SF, not fantasy. but there is always....
.....WE EXSALIVATE ON YOUR PROFERRED BRIBES EXPLOITIVE AGGRESSIVE
NONCHERODERMATOID BIPED.....
..."Selectra Six-Ten" by Avram Davidson, with a very interesting
typewriter.

I shall have to look that up sometime. My (late, lamented)
dual-pitch Selectra was 10 and 12 pitch.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Quadibloc

2018-02-10 08:47:47 UTC

Post by Kevrob
..."Selectra Six-Ten" by Avram Davidson, with a very interesting
typewriter.

I shall have to look that up sometime. My (late, lamented)
dual-pitch Selectra was 10 and 12 pitch.

Ah, you are playing along with the title; thus I need not interject
to the effect that the typewriter in question was more likely a
Selectric II than a Selectra.

IBM made a rather obscure machine - I think they sold one to the
President of the United States or to his office - called the Mag Card
Executive. It typed with proportional spacing, based on a unit of
1/60 of an inch which allowed it to also type in normal Pica and
Elite - since 10 characters per inch would be 6 units per character,
and 12 characters per inch would be 5 units per character.

Later, when IBM went to the 96 character typeball as used in the
Selectric III typewriter, the Model 50, 65, and 85 electronic
typewriters also used the proportionally-spaced typestyles originally
developed for the Mag Card Executive.

There was a special Symbol Proportional element for the Mag Card
Executive of which a 96 character version was not made; the reason
for this was that the Mag Card Executive used a slightly increased
vertical spacing for lines which was close to that used with typebar
Executive typewriters (not identical due to the platen having a 4
1/2" circumference on a Selectric, as opposed to a 5 1/2"
circumference on a typebar electric from IBM).

This is in addition to IBM's even more daring foray into proportional
spacing, also using the 88 character Selectric element, the famed
Selectric Composer, used as typesetting equipment, not as a
typewriter.

It could not use typewriter elements or type fixed-pitch material. It
could be switched between three unit sizes, 1/72" (red), 1/84"
(yellow), and 1/96" (blue) so that it could set different sizes of
type while always using the same arrangement of so many units for the
different letters like 9 units for M and 3 units for i. (Particularly
on a later electronic model, there was provision for altering the
spacing for Copperplate Gothic elements that had small caps instead
of lowercase, and classified ad typestyles where the ten digits were
narrower than their normal spacing.)

No doubt Avram Davidson's "Selectra Six-Ten" was interesting in some
fantastic and possibly menacing way that made for an interesting
science-fiction story... but I have often wistfully wished that IBM
would have made a typewriter that could handle *both* Composer
elements *and* typewriter elements, including the 60-unit
proportional ones. Such a typewriter would have been ideal for
typesetting a book about computer programming with fixed-pitch code
samples.

John Savard

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-10 13:31:34 UTC

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Kevrob
..."Selectra Six-Ten" by Avram Davidson, with a very interesting
typewriter.

I shall have to look that up sometime. My (late, lamented)
dual-pitch Selectra was 10 and 12 pitch.

I used one of those once. It worked in conjunction with the
MT/ST, the Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter, which had neither
variable pitch nor variable character width, but did have a tape
cassette on which characters could be recorded. The Magnetic Tape
Selectric Composer took an encoded tape from the MT/ST and
printed the output on high-quality paper that could be used as a
photo-ready master for book printing. It never got off the
ground, though; IIRC the typesetters' union that represented
typesetters who worked for the US Government boycotted it.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Quadibloc

2018-02-10 16:55:09 UTC

There was a special Courier element with the Composer character set on a
typewriter ball for that. I don't know which machine translated the
characters - the binary code related to the tilt and rotate arrangement of
characters on the element.

John Savard

Quadibloc

2018-02-10 17:27:27 UTC

Post by Quadibloc
There was a special Courier element with the Composer character set on a
typewriter ball for that. I don't know which machine translated the
characters - the binary code related to the tilt and rotate arrangement of
characters on the element.

...incidentally, if you've ever wondered why the : ; key is in the
wrong place on a Selectric Composer keyboard... it's so that A O
and U with umlauts, for the German element, can be in their usual
keyboard positions. The Selectric Composer didn't change its
spacing for different languages (until the electronic one came
along and got a Cyrillic element).

John Savard

Carl Fink

2018-02-10 04:35:12 UTC

Post by Kevrob
The comics scripters have that super-power, and some have
been sucked into the stories through the "fourth wall,"
to interact with the characters.

Grant Morrison once wrote himself into a story to exposit at his
protagonist. Fellow scripter John Ostrander then took as a premise that
once in the DC Universe, Morrison would be unable to get out, so he "kindly"
wrote a story in which Morrison became the super-hero "The Writer", who
could literally (literarily?) make things happen by typing out a description
on his portable typewriter.

Writer's block struck during a fight and The Writer was killed, which
Ostrander explained as a plot device he used to release Morrison from the
fictional universe.

--
Carl Fink ***@nitpicking.com

Read my blog at blog.nitpicking.com. Reviews! Observations!
Stupid mistakes you can correct!

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-10 01:19:52 UTC

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

I think I've read some stories with mages who could write a
description of something and turn it into reality, but I can't
put my finger on any of them.

An author (romance, IIRC) finds that his best-known protagonist has
suddenly popped off the pages and into real life. The character's
a broad stereotype, and fairly obnoxious to boot. Manages to mess up
the titular author's life, in part by hitting on his girlfriend/fiancee.
Successfully.

And Bertram Chandler's main character, whose name escapes me, in
one story goes through a probability hole and lands on board a
(water) ship where Chandler is in his cabin, writing a story
about the charcter....

And in H. Allen Smith's _Son of Rhubarb_, a court hearing is in
session to determine whether a cat is the son of the original
Rhubarb (and thus heir to a hell of a lot of money and a baseball
team). H. Allen Smith himself takes the stand -- he is described
as being of godlike beauty and majesty -- and testifies that the
cat is indeed the son and heir of Rhubarb. Everybody takes his
word for it, well, because.

And there are probably a lot more that I can't think of at the
moment.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Kevrob

2018-02-10 04:18:07 UTC

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
And Bertram Chandler's main character, whose name escapes me,

{Get back here when Dorothy is posting about you, you fugitive
name, you!}

John Grimes, I believe?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Bertram_Chandler#John_Grimes_novels

Aha! Baen has the tale online as a sample chapter!

http://www.baen.com/Chapters/0441137830/0441137830.htm

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
in
one story goes through a probability hole and lands on board a
(water) ship where Chandler is in his cabin, writing a story
about the character....

Kevin R

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-10 04:52:38 UTC

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
And Bertram Chandler's main character, whose name escapes me,

{Get back here when Dorothy is posting about you, you fugitive
name, you!}
John Grimes, I believe?

Yes, that sounds right.

Post by Kevrob
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Bertram_Chandler#John_Grimes_novels
Aha! Baen has the tale online as a sample chapter!
http://www.baen.com/Chapters/0441137830/0441137830.htm

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
in
one story goes through a probability hole and lands on board a
(water) ship where Chandler is in his cabin, writing a story
about the character....

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Dimensional Traveler

2018-02-10 05:57:04 UTC

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

I think I've read some stories with mages who could write a
description of something and turn it into reality, but I can't
put my finger on any of them.

John Grimes. I have vague memories of reading that particular story. I
got the entire series when the SFBC collected them together.

--
Inquiring minds want to know while minds with a self-preservation
instinct are running screaming.

Bernard Peek

2018-02-10 15:25:41 UTC

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
I think I've read some stories with mages who could write a
description of something and turn it into reality, but I can't
put my finger on any of them. More common are artists who can
paint or draw something and turn those into reality.

About 60 years ago I read a childrens' book about a boy who was given
some magic scissors. Whenever he used them to cut out a picture it came
to life,

--
Bernard Peek
***@shrdlu.com

Ahasuerus

2018-02-10 15:52:54 UTC

About 60 years ago I read a childrens' book about a boy who was given
some magic scissors. Whenever he used them to cut out a picture it came
to life,

Most likely http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?652382

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

2018-02-10 17:08:45 UTC

About 60 years ago I read a childrens' book about a boy who was given
some magic scissors. Whenever he used them to cut out a picture it came
to life,

Are you sure it wasn't a purple crayon? If so, that would be Crockett
Johnson's "Harold" stories. (And of course his strip "Barnaby" had
fantasy elements as well: Cushlamochree!)

--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-10 19:28:17 UTC

About 60 years ago I read a childrens' book about a boy who was given
some magic scissors. Whenever he used them to cut out a picture it came
to life,

My daughter gave me a pair of socks recently (which I can't wear,
they're too tight, so I hung them up where I can see them), with
illustrations of a Chinese story about a boy who loved to draw
cats. He wound up in a monastery, where he painted beautiful
cats all over the walls. When an infestation of rats hit the
monastery, the cats all came off the walls and got rid of the
rats.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Peter Trei

2018-02-12 14:44:30 UTC

About 60 years ago I read a childrens' book about a boy who was given
some magic scissors. Whenever he used them to cut out a picture it came
to life,

ObGenre: Alan Garner: The Owl Service.

pt

David DeLaney

2018-02-18 15:39:19 UTC

About 60 years ago I read a childrens' book about a boy who was given
some magic scissors. Whenever he used them to cut out a picture it came
to life,

And one ultimate-ish extension of that was Joan Aiken's story about the
Brekkfast Brikks cereal boxes' diorama.

Dave, not sure whether it was the Armitages or not

Robert Carnegie

2018-02-09 22:05:16 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

Uh, Clark Kent, journalist? I don't recall if he /did/ set
paper on fire typing, but he could. For a while, he typed
because electronics around him misbehaved for some reason,
so, no word processor.

I think there's an episode of _The Goon Show_ where the characters
get hold of the script typewriter - oh, that's it, "Six Charlies In
Search of an Author". 1956.

Post by Anthony Nance
In Jim C Hines' Libriomancer series, with some restrictions, libriomancers
can take the written word and turn it into reality, so maybe that's close?
Tony

Lawrence Watt-Evans

2018-02-09 22:37:55 UTC

On Fri, 9 Feb 2018 14:05:16 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

Uh, Clark Kent, journalist? I don't recall if he /did/ set
paper on fire typing, but he could. For a while, he typed
because electronics around him misbehaved for some reason,
so, no word processor.

Huh. I don't remember that. He uses computers now.

Anyway, Kent has now written a novel and won a Pulitzer, if I remember
correctly. I think the novel was an excuse for a leave of absence
when he was off doing something superheroic. I don't remember how he
got the Pulitzer.

--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.ethshar.com/StoneUnturned.shtml

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

2018-02-09 23:57:51 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 9 Feb 2018 14:05:16 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

Uh, Clark Kent, journalist? I don't recall if he /did/ set
paper on fire typing, but he could. For a while, he typed
because electronics around him misbehaved for some reason,
so, no word processor.

Huh. I don't remember that. He uses computers now.
Anyway, Kent has now written a novel and won a Pulitzer, if I remember
correctly. I think the novel was an excuse for a leave of absence
when he was off doing something superheroic. I don't remember how he
got the Pulitzer.

Probably inoperant now. At this point in the DC Rebirth, he's
Superman II, known to be Kent (I think..) from an alternate world,
he's married to Lois and has a son. At least that's what I've
gathered from the Justice League title, I'm not actually following
the Superman titles currently.

--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Lawrence Watt-Evans

2018-02-10 08:18:58 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 9 Feb 2018 14:05:16 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

Uh, Clark Kent, journalist? I don't recall if he /did/ set
paper on fire typing, but he could. For a while, he typed
because electronics around him misbehaved for some reason,
so, no word processor.

Huh. I don't remember that. He uses computers now.
Anyway, Kent has now written a novel and won a Pulitzer, if I remember
correctly. I think the novel was an excuse for a leave of absence
when he was off doing something superheroic. I don't remember how he
got the Pulitzer.

Yeah, you're right. I'd forgotten that.

--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.ethshar.com/StoneUnturned.shtml

Robert Carnegie

2018-02-10 15:16:25 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 9 Feb 2018 14:05:16 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

Uh, Clark Kent, journalist? I don't recall if he /did/ set
paper on fire typing, but he could. For a while, he typed
because electronics around him misbehaved for some reason,
so, no word processor.

Huh. I don't remember that. He uses computers now.
Anyway, Kent has now written a novel and won a Pulitzer, if I remember
correctly. I think the novel was an excuse for a leave of absence
when he was off doing something superheroic. I don't remember how he
got the Pulitzer.

Yeah, you're right. I'd forgotten that.

IIRC, he was rescued from the before-Rebirth universe,
and then was /both/ Rebirth Superman - who dated Wonder Woman -
/and/ Secret Superman. Then I think Rebirth reality got
rewritten to include his before-Rebirth life. And the
same for Lois.

I think therefore that he's still, or again, the journalist
Clark Kent who got a Pulitzer prize, either in the last
universe or in this one. And this too goes for Lois
as well.

Dimensional Traveler

2018-02-10 17:09:19 UTC

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 9 Feb 2018 14:05:16 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

Uh, Clark Kent, journalist? I don't recall if he /did/ set
paper on fire typing, but he could. For a while, he typed
because electronics around him misbehaved for some reason,
so, no word processor.

Huh. I don't remember that. He uses computers now.
Anyway, Kent has now written a novel and won a Pulitzer, if I remember
correctly. I think the novel was an excuse for a leave of absence
when he was off doing something superheroic. I don't remember how he
got the Pulitzer.

Yeah, you're right. I'd forgotten that.

IIRC, he was rescued from the before-Rebirth universe,
and then was /both/ Rebirth Superman - who dated Wonder Woman -
/and/ Secret Superman. Then I think Rebirth reality got
rewritten to include his before-Rebirth life. And the
same for Lois.
I think therefore that he's still, or again, the journalist
Clark Kent who got a Pulitzer prize, either in the last
universe or in this one. And this too goes for Lois
as well.

Always nice to see writers pay such close attention to continuity.

--
Inquiring minds want to know while minds with a self-preservation
instinct are running screaming.

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

2018-02-10 17:23:09 UTC

In article

Post by Lawrence Watt-Evans
On Fri, 9 Feb 2018 14:05:16 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

Uh, Clark Kent, journalist? I don't recall if he /did/ set
paper on fire typing, but he could. For a while, he typed
because electronics around him misbehaved for some reason,
so, no word processor.

Huh. I don't remember that. He uses computers now.
Anyway, Kent has now written a novel and won a Pulitzer, if I remember
correctly. I think the novel was an excuse for a leave of absence
when he was off doing something superheroic. I don't remember how he
got the Pulitzer.

Yeah, you're right. I'd forgotten that.

IIRC, he was rescued from the before-Rebirth universe,
and then was /both/ Rebirth Superman - who dated Wonder Woman -
/and/ Secret Superman. Then I think Rebirth reality got
rewritten to include his before-Rebirth life. And the
same for Lois.
I think therefore that he's still, or again, the journalist
Clark Kent who got a Pulitzer prize, either in the last
universe or in this one. And this too goes for Lois
as well.

Always nice to see writers pay such close attention to continuity.

They do as well as anyone could.

R.A. Lafferty described the problem:

And Read The Flesh Between The Lines

* * *

"How about the count of the years and their present total?"
Harry O'Donovan asked. "Are they right or are they not? Is
this really the year that it says it is on that calendar
on the wall? And, if it is, doesn't that make nonsense about
leaving out recent decades?"

"The count of the years is true, in that it is one aspect
of the truth," Barnaby said a little bit fumblingly. "But
there are other aspects. They call into question the whole
nature of simultaneity."

"What doesn't?" Harry O'Donovan said.

"There are taboos in mathematics," Barnaby tried to explain.
"The idea of the involuted number series is taboo, and yet
we live in a time that is counted by such a series. And
when time is fleshed, when it puts on History for its
clothes, it follows even more the involuted series in which
there are very, very many numbers between one and ten."

"Just what do you have in mind, Barney?" Cris Benedetti
asked him.

"I have never discovered any historical event happening for
the first time," Barnaby said. "Either life imitates anecdote,
or very much more has happened than the bursting records
are allowed to show as happening. As far back as one can
track it, there is history: and I do not mean prehistory.
I doubt if there was ever such a time as prehistory. I doubt
that there was ever an uncivilized man. I also doubt that
there was ever any manlike creature who was not full man,
however unconventional the suit of hide that he wore.

"But when you try to compress a hundred thousand years of
history into six thousand years, something has to give.
When you try to compress a million years, it becomes
dangerous. An involuted number series, particularly when
applied to the spate of years, becomes a tightly coiled
spring of primordial spring-steel. When it recoils, look
out! There comes the revenge of things left out.

"Were there eight kings of the name of Henry in England,
or were there eighty? Never mind: someday it will be recorded
that there was only one, and the attributes of all of them
will be combined into his compressed and consensus story.

"There is a deep texture of art and literature (no matter
whether it is rock scratching or machine duplication) that
goes back over horizon after horizon. There is a deeper
texture to life itself that is tremendous in its material
and mental and psychic treasures. There are dialects now
that were once full vernaculars, towns now that were once
great cities, provinces that were nations. The foundations
and the lower stories of a culture or a building are commonly
broader than its upper stories. A structure does not balance
upside-down, standing on a point.

"A torch was once lighted and given to a man, not to a
beast. And it has been passed on from hand to hand while
the hills melted and rose again. What matter that some of
the hands were more hairy than others? It was always a man's
hand."

"It may be that you are balancing upside-down on your pointed
head, Barney," Harry O'Donovan told him.

--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Dorothy J Heydt

2018-02-10 01:23:54 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

Uh, Clark Kent, journalist? I don't recall if he /did/ set
paper on fire typing, but he could. For a while, he typed
because electronics around him misbehaved for some reason,
so, no word processor.
I think there's an episode of _The Goon Show_ where the characters
get hold of the script typewriter - oh, that's it, "Six Charlies In
Search of an Author". 1956.

And in _The Muppet Movie_, Kermit and Fozzie have just met Dr.
Teeth and the band, and Fozzie starts explaining, and the
following dialogue ensues:

"Fozzie! You can't tell them the whole story! You'll bore the
audience!"

"Well, but they want to know!"

"Let 'em read the screenplay."

The fourth wall get broken in that movie too many times to count.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

2018-02-10 04:23:56 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

Uh, Clark Kent, journalist? I don't recall if he /did/ set
paper on fire typing, but he could. For a while, he typed
because electronics around him misbehaved for some reason,
so, no word processor.
I think there's an episode of _The Goon Show_ where the characters
get hold of the script typewriter - oh, that's it, "Six Charlies In
Search of an Author". 1956.

And in _The Muppet Movie_, Kermit and Fozzie have just met Dr.
Teeth and the band, and Fozzie starts explaining, and the
"Fozzie! You can't tell them the whole story! You'll bore the
audience!"
"Well, but they want to know!"
"Let 'em read the screenplay."
The fourth wall get broken in that movie too many times to count.

"King Size Canary" (Tex Avery MGM):

Mouse to cat: Listen, don't eat me! I've seen this picture before,
and I save your life! (approx quote)

--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Greg Goss

2018-02-11 06:19:44 UTC

Post by Dorothy J Heydt
And in _The Muppet Movie_, Kermit and Fozzie have just met Dr.
Teeth and the band, and Fozzie starts explaining, and the
"Fozzie! You can't tell them the whole story! You'll bore the
audience!"
"Well, but they want to know!"
"Let 'em read the screenplay."
The fourth wall get broken in that movie too many times to count.

Mouse to cat: Listen, don't eat me! I've seen this picture before,
and I save your life! (approx quote)

We've drifted pretty far from the thread's intent. In this context, I
liked it when Spaceballs rented the movie (It's taking less and less
time for the video to come out after the film) to find out where the
good guys had gone.

--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

David Johnston

2018-02-10 03:46:55 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.

There was one in Carrie Vaughn's Golden Age series, I think.

Ahasuerus

2018-02-10 14:55:21 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/almost-classics-sf-concepts-and-settings-that-deserve-better-execution/

Hmmm...have there ever been any superheroes/superhumans whose superpower
was writing? It seems likely, but I am not well-versed in this.
In Jim C Hines' Libriomancer series, with some restrictions,
libriomancers can take the written word and turn it into reality,
so maybe that's close?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RewritingReality

Greg Goss

2018-02-11 01:06:58 UTC