(ReacTor) Five SFF Books About Idealistic Pursuits That Failed

Post by James Nicoll
Five SFF Books About Idealistic Pursuits That Failed
https://reactormag.com/five-sff-books-about-idealistic-pursuits-that-failed/

I'm confused. I'm pretty sure I read _The Mercenary_ in some form[1]
and I don't recognize the description. I don't remember any plot
set on Earth. The CoDominium was a poorly elaborated background
for soldiering on faraway planets, with military exploits more or
less explicitly based on historical events, Pournelle's personal
Korean War experience, and some other military memoirs.

[1] _The Mercenary_ was a fix-up novel of earlier stories. It and
_West of Honor_ were later combined into _Falkenberg's Legion_,
which in turn was later incorporated into _The Prince_. It's
hard to keep track.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber ***@mips.inka.de

James Nicoll

2024-04-01 22:20:37 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Five SFF Books About Idealistic Pursuits That Failed
https://reactormag.com/five-sff-books-about-idealistic-pursuits-that-failed/

I'm confused. I'm pretty sure I read _The Mercenary_ in some form[1]
and I don't recognize the description. I don't remember any plot
set on Earth. The CoDominium was a poorly elaborated background
for soldiering on faraway planets, with military exploits more or
less explicitly based on historical events, Pournelle's personal
Korean War experience, and some other military memoirs.
[1] _The Mercenary_ was a fix-up novel of earlier stories. It and
_West of Honor_ were later combined into _Falkenberg's Legion_,
which in turn was later incorporated into _The Prince_. It's
hard to keep track.

In my Pocket Books MMPB, the first section, Peace With Honor,
is about a senior politician staving off doomsday by, among other
things, exiling a sincere but misguided idealist off to ... Sparta,
I think. The planet, not the Greek city state. There's an unpleasant
complication in that the young man is the politician's daughter.
He exiles her too.

If ISFDB can be believed, Peace With Honor didn't make it
into Legion or Prince. However, for some reason ISFDB doesn't
show Peace as being in Mercenary unless I actually go look
spefically at Mercenary's entry so stuff may be missing.

Steve Coltrin

2024-04-01 23:42:48 UTC

begin fnord

Post by James Nicoll
In my Pocket Books MMPB, the first section, Peace With Honor,
is about a senior politician staving off doomsday by, among other
things, exiling a sincere but misguided idealist off to ... Sparta,
I think. The planet, not the Greek city state. There's an unpleasant
complication in that the young man is the politician's daughter.
He exiles her too.

By removing three words, you made the story much more interesting than
anything Pournelle ever wrote in his life.

--
Steve Coltrin ***@omcl.org
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press

James Nicoll

2024-04-01 23:57:36 UTC

Post by Steve Coltrin
begin fnord

By removing three words, you made the story much more interesting than
anything Pournelle ever wrote in his life.

AUGH fiance! The idealist is the daughter's fiance!

I think the source of the confusion is that JEP wrote two different things
with the same title. The Mercenary can refer to the fix up as a whole
or the novelette it includes and from which the fix up took its title.

Robert Woodward

2024-04-02 05:01:10 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Five SFF Books About Idealistic Pursuits That Failed
https://reactormag.com/five-sff-books-about-idealistic-pursuits-that-failed
/

I'm confused. I'm pretty sure I read _The Mercenary_ in some form[1]
and I don't recognize the description. I don't remember any plot
set on Earth. The CoDominium was a poorly elaborated background
for soldiering on faraway planets, with military exploits more or
less explicitly based on historical events, Pournelle's personal
Korean War experience, and some other military memoirs.
[1] _The Mercenary_ was a fix-up novel of earlier stories. It and
_West of Honor_ were later combined into _Falkenberg's Legion_,
which in turn was later incorporated into _The Prince_. It's
hard to keep track.

In my Pocket Books MMPB, the first section, Peace With Honor,
is about a senior politician staving off doomsday by, among other
things, exiling a sincere but misguided idealist off to ... Sparta,
I think. The planet, not the Greek city state. There's an unpleasant
complication in that the young man is the politician's daughter.
He exiles her too.
If ISFDB can be believed, Peace With Honor didn't make it
into Legion or Prince. However, for some reason ISFDB doesn't
show Peace as being in Mercenary unless I actually go look
spefically at Mercenary's entry so stuff may be missing.

I don't have a copy of _Falkenberg's Legion_, but the text of "Peace
with Honor" (though perhaps lightly revised) is present in the initial
chapters of the omnibus _The Prince_. BTW, the copyright and table of
contents give not hint of this.

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward ***@drizzle.com

James Nicoll

2024-04-02 14:05:08 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Five SFF Books About Idealistic Pursuits That Failed

https://reactormag.com/five-sff-books-about-idealistic-pursuits-that-failed

Post by James Nicoll
/

I'm confused. I'm pretty sure I read _The Mercenary_ in some form[1]
and I don't recognize the description. I don't remember any plot
set on Earth. The CoDominium was a poorly elaborated background
for soldiering on faraway planets, with military exploits more or
less explicitly based on historical events, Pournelle's personal
Korean War experience, and some other military memoirs.
[1] _The Mercenary_ was a fix-up novel of earlier stories. It and
_West of Honor_ were later combined into _Falkenberg's Legion_,
which in turn was later incorporated into _The Prince_. It's
hard to keep track.

In my Pocket Books MMPB, the first section, Peace With Honor,
is about a senior politician staving off doomsday by, among other
things, exiling a sincere but misguided idealist off to ... Sparta,
I think. The planet, not the Greek city state. There's an unpleasant
complication in that the young man is the politician's daughter.
He exiles her too.
If ISFDB can be believed, Peace With Honor didn't make it
into Legion or Prince. However, for some reason ISFDB doesn't
show Peace as being in Mercenary unless I actually go look
spefically at Mercenary's entry so stuff may be missing.

I don't think ISFDB links stories to fix-ups that incorporate those
stories. They just mention the connection in the fix-ups entry. That
would explain some of the gaps.

It's weird, the ReacTor poster who accused me of not reading The
Mercenary hasn't acknowledged his error yet. Must be terribly busy.
Hope they don't overwork themselves.

Oh, speaking of ReacTor: I tried to include two links in my reply and
it would not let me post. No explanation, just no action. Took both
links out and it was OK.

Lynn McGuire

2024-04-02 21:50:47 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Five SFF Books About Idealistic Pursuits That Failed

https://reactormag.com/five-sff-books-about-idealistic-pursuits-that-failed

Post by James Nicoll
/

I'm confused. I'm pretty sure I read _The Mercenary_ in some form[1]
and I don't recognize the description. I don't remember any plot
set on Earth. The CoDominium was a poorly elaborated background
for soldiering on faraway planets, with military exploits more or
less explicitly based on historical events, Pournelle's personal
Korean War experience, and some other military memoirs.
[1] _The Mercenary_ was a fix-up novel of earlier stories. It and
_West of Honor_ were later combined into _Falkenberg's Legion_,
which in turn was later incorporated into _The Prince_. It's
hard to keep track.

In my Pocket Books MMPB, the first section, Peace With Honor,
is about a senior politician staving off doomsday by, among other
things, exiling a sincere but misguided idealist off to ... Sparta,
I think. The planet, not the Greek city state. There's an unpleasant
complication in that the young man is the politician's daughter.
He exiles her too.
If ISFDB can be believed, Peace With Honor didn't make it
into Legion or Prince. However, for some reason ISFDB doesn't
show Peace as being in Mercenary unless I actually go look
spefically at Mercenary's entry so stuff may be missing.

I don't think ISFDB links stories to fix-ups that incorporate those
stories. They just mention the connection in the fix-ups entry. That
would explain some of the gaps.
It's weird, the ReacTor poster who accused me of not reading The
Mercenary hasn't acknowledged his error yet. Must be terribly busy.
Hope they don't overwork themselves.
Oh, speaking of ReacTor: I tried to include two links in my reply and
it would not let me post. No explanation, just no action. Took both
links out and it was OK.

Huh, nobody has accused me of not reading the book on reddit. But, they
continuously accuse me of being an AI. The funny thing is that I would
think that an AI review would be much better than mine.

Lynn

Christian Weisgerber

2024-04-03 19:48:33 UTC

Okay, taking _Falkenberg's Legion_ from the bookshelf and leafing
through it, I see that the first four chapters of "Part Two: Mercenary"
indeed seem to match that description.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber ***@mips.inka.de

Lynn McGuire

2024-04-01 22:18:23 UTC

Post by James Nicoll
Five SFF Books About Idealistic Pursuits That Failed
True believers can change society--though not always in a positive way,
according to these SFF stories...
https://reactormag.com/five-sff-books-about-idealistic-pursuits-that-failed/

I have read one of the five, "The Mercenary". Which, was a prequel for
"King David's Spaceship".

Lynn

WolfFan

2024-04-01 23:34:28 UTC

I have read one of the five, "The Mercenary". Which, was a prequel for
"King David's Spaceship".
Lynn

err.. the mercenary is set in the co-dominum/early first empire. King david
is in second empire, several centuries later.

James Nicoll

2024-04-01 23:58:22 UTC