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SF-LIT  July 1997

SF-LIT July 1997

Subject:

Sorry, Talia, still miscellanea. :)

From:

Nicola Gebendinger <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Science Fiction and Fantasy Listserv <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 25 Jul 1997 07:59:26 -0400

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (205 lines)

From:    Debbie Halstead <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: What book is this?

> This part sounds like one of the Niven/Pournell (sp? again)
> collaborations -- although for the life of me I can�t
> remember which one.

        Pournelle. Another french-sounding name... Where does he come from?

########################

From:    Darin Higashiguchi <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Anchronism in SF

>     I would be interested in seeing what other people on
> this list have to say about SF anachronisms: what are your
> favorites?

        Hmmm, I�m sure that what I�m going to say will offend somebody. For this I
apologize in advance. But have been often amused on how on this list we
have judged a story, a novel or even the whole production of an author by
the standards of our times instead of trying to take in account the
standards of the period in which those pieces of fiction have been
published. (Me included, I think.) If this is not anachronism in reverse I
don�t know what it is. :)

########################

From:    Camille Bacon-Smith <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Brass Bras

> But Mike, when women take brass bras off, it is because
> their boobs itch. When men take brass bras off, it is
> because their fingers itch.

        This is probably the most concise summarization of the difference between
the sexes I�ve ever read. :::wry smile:::

########################

From:    Dennis Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Science fiction in 1851? Help!

> Gernsback originally coined the term �scientifiction,� and
> is best known for editing the first American (but not first
> ever) magazine devoted to science fiction.

        And what, I pray, are these pre-Gernsback magazines? :)

########################

From:    �Leslie A. Gallagher� <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Suggestions please

> Such as SRI and Remote Viewing.

        SRI? Remote Viewing?
        I thought I knew english fairly well, and now in two days I�m asking
language questions... :::add here your favourite foulest cuss:::

########################

From:    Tom Murphy <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Environmental Science Fiction

> In the spring I will be teaching a college course we have
> entitled �Environmental Science Fiction.� I am in the market
> for suggestions and comments.

        We will want the minutes of the course fairly soon. I have a good memory,
and I will be pestering you on your private mail and through the list to
get at least the bibliography of the course. (And the heck with the privacy
regulations of american schools and university. <G>)

> The interaction between �people� and the physical world is
> important in almost any science fiction, but I am interested
> in sf where that issue is in the foreground, works like Dune
> and The Sheep Look Up. I would be interested in observations
> about how to define the category. I am hoping that the
> course, in addition to introducing students to some great
> reading, will spark some serious thinking about the
> relationship between people and the natural world.

        That�s a though question, Tom. As you say, ecological interactions between
sophonts and their environment is important in much SF. So, to begin with:

        About all Poul Anderson�s SF production. Even in the worst case (the
ecological themes being secondary to the plot) they are well done, and
there�s always something to say about the details. Outstanding among them
are: �The Sharing of Flesh�, �Queen of Air and Darkness�, �Starfog�,
�Outpost of the Empire�, �Let the Spacemen Beware�. Also �Epilogue� can be
useful.
        �Mimic� By Don A. Wollheim, in The Great SF Stories 1, edited by Asimov.
        The Universe Makers cycle by Farmer, and also �Strange Relationships�, I
believe the title is.
        �Caught in the Organ Draft� edited by Asimov. I trust you can check the
single stories by yourself.
        �The Seedling Stars� and �A Case of Conscience� by James Blish.
        �Island of the Dead� by Zelazny.
        And obviously Wyndham. :)

        I�ll think it over and maybe I can come up with something else.

########################

From:    andy sawyer <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: John Wyndham

> There is a strange passage in either THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS
> or THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS (from context, probably the former)
> in which the narrator comments upon how women have easily
> latched upon the cossetted, protected, �helpless� role and
> how this is totally unfitted for the twentieth century.

        I also remember those passages. Or better their existence, as I read last
Wyndham a lifetime ago... DAY OF TRIFFIDS Wyndham is a good novel, and a
good example of what I meant, some time ago, now, when I said that some
stories and novels are best read when one�s at least in her/his late teens.
When I read it the first time (about 14-15) I thought it was heavy as a
brick, later - when I was over 20, I loved it.

########################

From:    andy sawyer <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Anchronism in SF

> The first is when someone presents a future gizmo which is
> something not really extrapolated from the present but is
> something well-known in the present in which the book was
> written. Your example of the computer in Alien was something
> similar - I think of all those films in which computers were
> built upon punch-card and tape - but then, who can really
> foresee the future?

> The second is where the extrapolation was pretty spot-on at
> the time of writing, according to the writer�s knowledge of
> what was happening and what COULD happen, but has been
> overtaken by events. Your example of Brunner�s Shockwave
> Rider could have been one of these.

        This is why Lyon Sprague de Camp (? and which I met at the 1995
NecronomiCon, is a wonderfully nice person and at ninety has a mind clear
as a high mountain pool) said it is easier to set a story in the five
millions years in the future than five years hence.

> in fact science fiction can be an example of self-fulfilling
> prophecy: someone reads about a neat idea in a sf story and
> works to put it into practice, thus adding all sorts of
> other bells and whistles as well. I happens more rarely than
> people think, but it does happen.

        Asimov and his Three Laws of Robotics.

########################

From:    Ed McKnight <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Anachronism in SF

> With regard to unintentional anachronisms, I always enjoyed
> Isaac Asimov�s slide rules myself, but then I believe myself
> to be the last human being on earth to have learned how to
> use one.  I taught myself in the mid-seventies with a copy
> of Asimov�s Introduction to the Slide Rule.  Can anyone beat
> that?

        I was shown how to use one, but then the calculators were already raging.
And then the computer was invented. :)

########################

From:    Duke Whedbee <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Anchronism in SF

> Darin,
>         I always liked the way Asimov�s early Foundation
> books handled the energy problem.  Seems like many of the
> cultures in the post Empire period were starfaring but did
> not have the atomics available to the Foundation. Always
> wondered if their ships ran on coal or fuel oil! lol

        If I remember correctly, their energy source came from hydrogen fusion.
(SF-nal Matter-antimatter annihilation wasn�t apparently conceived,
then...) It can easily be supposed that hydrogen power plants could produce
energy for a long time with a 100 or 1000 kg of atomic fuel. And it doesn�t
require much knowledge to refill the fuel thanks with water, if their
molecules are electrically split in hydrogen and oxygen before hydrogen is
conveyed to the actual converter. The helium can always drip away through
the converter bulks or be separated from the plasma and ejected in space, I
guess.

########################

From:    Mike Resnick <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Doom/Sci-Fi, Schmi-Fi

Mike> I have no copy of THE BEST ROOTIN� TOOTIN� SHOOTIN� GUNSLINGER IN THE
WHOLE DAMNED GALAXY, but from your short stories, I can confirm that you
are both a serious practitioner of your art *and* have your tongue in his
cheek, when it suits you. :::tongue in cheek:::

        Nicola
        [log in to unmask]

        Almost never killed a fly.

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