Hugo results!
Jeremy2000
2000 Hugo Awards:
Novel: A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge
Novella: The Winds of Marble Arch, Connie Willis
Novelette: 10^6 to 1, James Patrick Kelly
Short Story: Scherzo with Tyrannosaur, Michael Swanwick
Free Download! Get an audio rrecording of "Scherzo" in MP3 format at
www.frequencymagazine.com
John W. Campbell Award: Cory Doctorow (yeah! cory!)
Dramatic Presentation: Galaxy Quest
Professional Artist: Michael Whelen
Professional Editor: Gardiner Dozois
Semiprozine: Locus, Charles N. Brown
Fanzine: File 770
Fan Writer: Dave Langford
Fan Artist: Joe Mayhew
Related Book: Science Fiction of the 20th Century, Frank M. Robinson.
Del Cotter
Jeremy2000 <jerem...@aol.com> wrote:
>Jeremy Bloom and Frequency Magazine are pleased to report the results of the
>2000 Hugo Awards:
>
>Novel: A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge
YES!!
>Fan Writer: Dave Langford
It's traditional to yawn by now, and remark that Reading must have more
rockets than Kazakhstan, but congratulations anyway.
--
. . . . Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk . . . .
JustRead:abanBadLand:EricIdleTheRoadToMars:JohnBarnesApocalypses&Apostrophes
MichaelConeyHelloSummerGoodbye:WalterMMillerJrStLeibowitz&TWHW:IainBanksWhit
ToRead:DorothyDunnettTheGameOfKings:SMStirlingAgainstTheTideOfYears:HBeamPip
Alison Hopkins
Ed Dravecky III wrote in message <8ou2us$riu$2...@news.panix.com>...
>Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> Jeremy2000 <jerem...@aol.com> wrote:
>> > Fan Writer: Dave Langford
>> It's traditional to yawn by now, and remark that Reading must
>> have more rockets than Kazakhstan, but congratulations anyway.
>
>in her growing fleet of Hugo rockets for Harrison Ford. She now
>plans to climb a mountain and call for emergency rescue. (I am
>not making this up. She said so at the Hugo ceremonies.)
>
Cue vision of Thunderbird One winching Ms Willis off stage.
Ali
Lucy Kemnitzer
<qpa...@iwaynet.net> wrote:
>In article <39b40017...@enews.newsguy.com>, rit...@cruzio.com
>(Lucy Kemnitzer) wrote:
>
>> I've struggled and struggled with _A Fire Upon the Deep_ and come to
>> the conclusion that Vernor Vinge's work is never going to be worth it
>> for me: the quotient of ridiculousness is so high, and the ideas are
>> so stupid, and the characters so unlikely and uninvolving that it
>> took me over a month to read a hundred pages and I gave up after
>> about a hundred and fifty.
>
>What you say here about Vinge, many others have said about
>_Cryptonomicon_. So this definitely is a YMMV case.
>
>Personally, I'd have been happy had either _Cryptonomicon_ or _Deepness_
>won. I just didn't want Harry Potter or _Darwin's Radio_ to win. (I was
>*very* disappointed with _Darwin's Radio_.) I can't comment on _A Civil
>Campaign_, since I haven't read anything by Bujold yet (she's on my
>list, but I've got a lot of other stuff to get through first).
I seem to have the inside-out opinion of a lot of other people
when it comes to _Darwin's Radio_. I thought the premise was
ridiculous -- oh how do I do this without activating the spoiler
police? -- the evolutinoary thing, the genetic thing at the core
of the idea, right? It was silly. And I didn't for a moment
believe the events of the last third or so of the book. But I
thought the supporting science was good, and oddly, the
characterization was good, and most of the book was fun, and there
were moments where people were contemplating thigns that were
luminous. So, on balance, though it had its ridiculousness built
right into it, I thought the writing carried it and it was a good
little book.
But I notice that most of Bear's other titles seem to have "God"
or something like it in the title, and I'm sort of put off. Why
would ostensibly hard science fiction be titled like that?
Lucy Kemnitzer
Lucy Kemnitzer
<grid...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>And lo, it came to pass on Mon, 04 Sep 2000 20:11:14 GMT that
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer), wrote thusly:
>
>
>>Okay, I'll say it just as strongly but more specifically: I've
>>struggled and struggled with _A Fire Upon the Deep_ and come to
>>the conclusion that Vernor Vinge's work is never going to be worth
>>it for me: the quotient of ridiculousness is so high, and the
>>ideas are so stupid, and the characters so unlikely and
>>uninvolving that it took me over a month to read a hundred pages
>>and I gave up after about a hundred and fifty. So I never read _A
>>Deepness in the Sky_. And it'll take a lot for me to attempt
>>anything by Vernor VInge again.
>
>I'll agree with you on _A Fire Upon the Deep_, I never got into
>that book. So I was reluctant to start _Deepness_.
>
>Once I did, I was rapidly pulled into one of the best, sense of
>wonder inspiring, stories I have read in years.
That's interesting, because other people have told me if I hated
the one, I'd hate the other.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Ray Radlein
>
> Okay, I'll say it just as strongly but more specifically: I've
> struggled and struggled with _A Fire Upon the Deep_ and come to
> the conclusion that Vernor Vinge's work is never going to be worth
> it for me: the quotient of ridiculousness is so high, and the
> ideas are so stupid, and the characters so unlikely and
> uninvolving that it took me over a month to read a hundred pages
> and I gave up after about a hundred and fifty. So I never read _A
> Deepness in the Sky_. And it'll take a lot for me to attempt
> anything by Vernor VInge again.
You *might* want to try "True Names" by Vinge sometime: It's a
novella, not a massive novel; and it, as much as any other story
outside of perhaps Brunner's "Shockwave Rider," was responsible for
the birth of cyberpunk SF. Come to think of it, "True Names" reminds
me more of "Cryptonomicon" than it does "A Deepness in the Sky."
- Ray R.
--
**********************************************************************
"LOS ANGELES: A city of millions; thousands more are born each day.
Some in maternity wards, some in creche incubators. The Artificial
ones don't have civil rights, but they still need the law. That's
why they turn to me. My name is Friday. I carry a badge."
-- Robert A. Heinlein's "Dragnet"
Ray Radlein - r...@learnlink.emory.edu
homepage coming soon! wooo, wooo.
**********************************************************************
Doug Wickstrom
Kemnitzer) excited the ether to say:
Oh, lawdy no!
I read _A Fire upon the Deep_ mainly to satisfy my curiosity as
to why a couple of people had referred to me as a "Tine Pack,"
and I finished mostly out of a sense of duty. I never did
understand the comparison.
_A Deepness in the Sky_ was absolutely *wonderful*, and I
couldn't put it down -- I finished it in three big gulps -- while
attending a convention, no less. There's more sensawunda packed
into ADITS than in any three other novels of the last few years.
IMHO.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"Quin tu istanc orationem hinc veterem atque antiquam amoves?"
--Plautus, "Miles Gloriosus"
Lenny Bailes
>
[...]
> Okay, I'll say it just as strongly but more specifically: I've
> struggled and struggled with _A Fire Upon the Deep_ and come to
> the conclusion that Vernor Vinge's work is never going to be worth
> it for me: the quotient of ridiculousness is so high, and the
> ideas are so stupid, and the characters so unlikely and
> uninvolving that it took me over a month to read a hundred pages
> and I gave up after about a hundred and fifty. So I never read _A
> Deepness in the Sky_. And it'll take a lot for me to attempt
> anything by Vernor VInge again.
>
> Meanwhile, reading Stephenson is a delight and a challenge, and
> his characters are interesting caricatures, and the ideas are
> fun. My son put in a request for_Cryptonomicon_ at the library
> and it took a second request, and months and months. They had
> leased extra copies to keep up with the demand.
>
> But it was so long that we have to request it again, so I can read
> it.
>
> I don't know whay the voters went for Vinge. It seems like a
> serious error.
>
Since I also read and enjoyed A Fire Upon the Deep, this may not
come across as an unbiased recommendation -- but I think there's
a chance that you might find A Deepness in the Sky more palatable.
The first book stands primarily on its ideas. If you don't want to
suspend your disbelief to appreciate the Zones
paradigm and the "Who Goes There/Body Snatchers motif applied to Artificial
Intelligence, then you don't have a lot else to pique your interest.
(I eventually came to appreciate what he was trying to do with the
Tynes/Alien Wolves in the story, but I had to force myself to flip back
and reread three or four times to overcome my initial aversion.)
A Deepness in the Sky is a much better book. Its prose style
and narrative construction are much more skillful and the characters
are more endearing. I like Cryptonomicon, too, but I think A Deepness
in the Sky may be the best science fiction novel written in the last
ten years.
--
Lenny Bailes | len...@slip.net | http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~lennyb
Alison Scott
>I don't know whay the voters went for Vinge. It seems like a
>serious error.
They're both fine books; I didn't vote in the Hugos this year (because
I've known for a while I wouldn't be at Chicon), but I think I'd just
give _Deepness_ the nod (at least in part because of the skiffy
thing). I thought it was a fine, gripping book with both interestingly
wrought characters and lots of nifty ideas and sensawunda. And you
know, there's a lot less sensawunda in the world these days. But I'd
have been happy to see either of them win. I would have been much less
happy with a win for the Harry Potter, or for _A Civil Campaign_;
although I enjoyed _ACC_ very much, I thought it was remarkably fluffy
compared to the Vinge or the Stevenson.
--
Alison Scott ali...@kittywompus.com & www.kittywompus.com
Please remember that I was probably sleep deprived, or weirdly hormonal,
when composing this post.
Damien Neil
>On Mon, 04 Sep 2000 19:52:37 -0700, Doug Berry
><grid...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>I'll agree with you on _A Fire Upon the Deep_, I never got into
>>that book. So I was reluctant to start _Deepness_.
>That's interesting, because other people have told me if I hated
>the one, I'd hate the other.
I think it may depend on why you hated the one. From what you
said in an earlier post, I think there is a chance you would like
_Deepness_. It is certainly a better book than _Fire_...the
writing, the plot, the characters, all are head and shoulders above
anything Vinge has ever written before.
You might want to try starting _Deepness_. If it doesn't engage you,
put it down by all means. If it is a book you would like, however,
it would be a terrible shame to miss it.
ObChiCon: Apparantly Vinge rhymes with "dingy", not "singe". I didn't
know that.
- Damien
Kip Williams
left behind, maybe he could win next year as well.
This thought pleases me.
--
--Kip (Williams)
amusing the world at http://members.home.net/kipw/
David G. Bell
len...@slip.net "Lenny Bailes" wrote:
> A Deepness in the Sky is a much better book. Its prose style
> and narrative construction are much more skillful and the characters
> are more endearing. I like Cryptonomicon, too, but I think A Deepness
> in the Sky may be the best science fiction novel written in the last
> ten years.
While skimming through the thread, I looked past the screens that we
know, and wondered why everyone was talking about "A Dormouse in the
Sky". Which opens:
The sky was the colour of a collapsed opera hat, and Major Tom was
sleeping in the teapot again.
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
Copyright 2000 David G. Bell
The right to insert advertising material in the above text is reserved
to the author. The author did not use any form of HTML in the above text.
Any text following this line was added without the author's permission.
Lowell Gilbert
> I read both. I love Cryptonomicon, but I am still delighted that Vinge
> won. I think that Deepness actually broke new ground in the field. I
> think that Cryptonomicon was excellent and elegant, but didn't have
> anything really show-stoppingly original.
That's more or less how I felt. I've been pressing both books on my
friends, and there's definitely a how-SF-is-it problem with
Cryptonomicon. I think, however, that Cryptonomicon *is* an important
book in some skiffy senses; it is quite forthright in its position that
not only is technology important, but understanding it matters as well.
"Clarke's third law" doesn't generally apply to the people *wielding*
the technology/magic, and Stevenson helped show why.
As always, the fact that we don't have any strict definition of what
we're trying to pick in the Hugos leads to different people picking on
vastly different criteria. I don't see any problem with that.
- Lowell
James Nicoll
story?
None of the God-titled bear I have read had the Abrahamic
guy in them. Malevolent and powerful aliens, yup, but no gods.
--
Much apologies but my return path is temporarily broken. Please
use jdni...@home.com instead.
Doug Berry
Alison Scott <ali...@kittywompus.com>, wrote thusly:
>I would have been much less happy with a win for the Harry Potter,
I'm curious about where this strong dislike for the harry Potter
series comes from. I've seen in several places on the net, and
it confuses me.
My niece insisted that I read the books, so I borrowed the first
three from my mother. I read them all in two days. They were
that good. Well plotted, interesting characters, not at all
juvenile in tone, with twists that kept me guessing right up to
the end.
More importantly, they are getting kids to read, and read big
complex books. Seeing eight-year-olds toting around 300-page
novels gives me a very good feeling.
So if those people who dislike the series could explain their
feelings, I'd appreciate it.
--
Douglas E. Berry grid...@mindspring.com
http://gridlore.home.mindspring.com/
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as
when they do it from religious conviction."
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pense'es, #894.
Andrew Plotkin
> And lo, it came to pass on Tue, 05 Sep 2000 09:29:05 +0100 that
> Alison Scott <ali...@kittywompus.com>, wrote thusly:
>>I would have been much less happy with a win for the Harry Potter,
> I'm curious about where this strong dislike for the harry Potter
> series comes from. I've seen in several places on the net, and
> it confuses me.
I don't think she expressed strong dislike. I wouldn't be happy with
any of the first three HP books winning a Hugo (haven't read the
fourth yet), but I liked them.
> My niece insisted that I read the books, so I borrowed the first
> three from my mother. I read them all in two days. They were
> that good. Well plotted, interesting characters, not at all
> juvenile in tone, with twists that kept me guessing right up to
> the end.
Did you think it was better than both _Deepness_ and _Cryptonomicon_?
If not, Alison's comment shouldn't be *that* hard to understand.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Bruce Schneier
wrote:
>Having read both, I'm very glad Vinge won. Cryptonomicon is an
>interesting bit of literature, but it's nothing much as science
>fiction. ADitS is fantastic, mind-blowing, science fiction, and
>easily deserved to win.
Actually, I couldn't think of a single science fictional element in
Cryptonomicon.
Bruce
**********************************************************************
Bruce Schneier, Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. Tel: 408-556-2401
3031 Tisch Way, Suite 100PE, San Jose, CA 95128 Fax: 408-556-0889
Free crypto newsletter. See: http://www.counterpane.com
Jo Walton
nims...@uswest.net "Doug Wickstrom" writes:
> I read _A Fire upon the Deep_ mainly to satisfy my curiosity as
> to why a couple of people had referred to me as a "Tine Pack,"
> and I finished mostly out of a sense of duty. I never did
> understand the comparison.
It's just onomatopoeia, really. Wickwackrum and Wickstrom, and then it
was one of those "of course" moments.
> _A Deepness in the Sky_ was absolutely *wonderful*, and I
> couldn't put it down -- I finished it in three big gulps -- while
> attending a convention, no less. There's more sensawunda packed
> into ADITS than in any three other novels of the last few years.
> IMHO.
I agree that it's a terrific book and the writing is better than aFutD,
but I do like aFUtD a lot anyway.
Other people who like it may be interested to know that the electronic
annotated version is soon to be available again, there was news about
this on rasfw recently.
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - UPDATED Interstichia; Poetry; RASFW FAQ;
THE KING'S PEACE, Tor Books, October 2000 - can be ordered now from Amazon
sample chapters on http://www.tor.com/sampleKingsPeace.html
Jo Walton
schn...@counterpane.com "Bruce Schneier" writes:
> On 04 Sep 2000 17:00:33 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@gw.dd-b.net>
> wrote:
> >Having read both, I'm very glad Vinge won. Cryptonomicon is an
> >interesting bit of literature, but it's nothing much as science
> >fiction. ADitS is fantastic, mind-blowing, science fiction, and
> >easily deserved to win.
>
> Actually, I couldn't think of a single science fictional element in
> Cryptonomicon.
Do fantasy elements count?
Matthew Austern
> The first book stands primarily on its ideas. If you don't want to
> suspend your disbelief to appreciate the Zones
> paradigm and the "Who Goes There/Body Snatchers motif applied to Artificial
> Intelligence, then you don't have a lot else to pique your interest.
> (I eventually came to appreciate what he was trying to do with the
> Tynes/Alien Wolves in the story, but I had to force myself to flip back
> and reread three or four times to overcome my initial aversion.)
>
>
> A Deepness in the Sky is a much better book. Its prose style
> and narrative construction are much more skillful and the characters
> are more endearing. I like Cryptonomicon, too, but I think A Deepness
> in the Sky may be the best science fiction novel written in the last
> ten years.
Not to mention that you have to swallow fewer impossibilities before
breakfast in Deepness than in Fire. The Zones conceit is still there
if you're looking for it, but you don't have to pay attention to it.
Aside from the coincidence of some characters' names, there isn't a
very close relationship between the two books.
Matthew Austern
> On 04 Sep 2000 17:00:33 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@gw.dd-b.net>
> wrote:
> >Having read both, I'm very glad Vinge won. Cryptonomicon is an
> >interesting bit of literature, but it's nothing much as science
> >fiction. ADitS is fantastic, mind-blowing, science fiction, and
> >easily deserved to win.
>
> Actually, I couldn't think of a single science fictional element in
> Cryptonomicon.
It's about the relationship between technology and society. For some
of us, that's enough to make it science fiction.
Kevin J. Maroney
>Did you think [_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azbakan_]
Well, I actually *read* _Azbakan_. I bounced off of _Deepness_. I
don't believe this is a perfect indicator of quality by any stretch of
the imagination.
--
Kevin Maroney | kmar...@ungames.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction
<http://www.nyrsf.com>
Marilee J. Layman
>I was just thinking about the fan artist Hugo. With all the art Joe
>left behind, maybe he could win next year as well.
I was arguing this with rich brown in chat last night. He thought Joe
only got the Hugo because he was dead. I thought that being dead
might have added some push, but that he deserved it.
--
Marilee J. Layman The Other*Worlds*Cafe
HOSTE...@aol.com A Science Fiction Discussion Group.
AOL Keyword: OWC http://www.webmoose.com/owc
Doug Wickstrom
Walton) excited the ether to say:
>In article <ur79rsgfgdudj5o4p...@4ax.com>
> nims...@uswest.net "Doug Wickstrom" writes:
>
>> I read _A Fire upon the Deep_ mainly to satisfy my curiosity as
>> to why a couple of people had referred to me as a "Tine Pack,"
>> and I finished mostly out of a sense of duty. I never did
>> understand the comparison.
>
>It's just onomatopoeia, really. Wickwackrum and Wickstrom, and then it
>was one of those "of course" moments.
I think there's more to it than that. The other person who so
characterized me based it on personality traits.
Then there's that bit about Wickstrom actually being pronounced
"Vikstroem." Most of the family has mainly given up on having
people get it right. The Old Folks, who, alas, are all gone now,
though, were very insistent on not giving in to ignorance.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by
slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been
replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat." --Leon Trotsky
Mitch Wagner
en0.news.prodigy.com>:
>Myself, I voted _Deepness_ first, and _Cryptonomicon_ second, in a
>close decision, because I liked _Deepness_ a bit more. So shoot me.
<bang>
--
Mitch Wagner
David Dyer-Bennet
> More importantly, they are getting kids to read, and read big
> complex books. Seeing eight-year-olds toting around 300-page
> novels gives me a very good feeling.
>
> So if those people who dislike the series could explain their
> feelings, I'd appreciate it.
I don't have a direct opinion on them -- haven't read them. I haven't
read them because they aren't sitting around the house; they sound
interesting, and I'll probably enjoy them when I read them. I don't
*think* I'm badly prejudiced against either them directly, or "kids
books" in general (big fan of Heinlein's juveniles, selected Nourse,
Diane Duane's Wizard books, etc.)
I hear they're a mainstream breakthrough, and not at all innovative
when viewed from within the genre. It's good to get kids to read, and
more power to J.K. Rowling for breaking through to the mainstream with
these books. But that doesn't leave me expecting a mind-expanding
experience when I read them.
So I didn't figure I'd support it for the Hugo.
--
Photos: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ Minicon: http://www.mnstf.org/minicon
Bookworms: http://ouroboros.demesne.com/ SF: http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b
David Dyer-Bennet / Welcome to the future! / dd...@dd-b.net
David Dyer-Bennet
> On 04 Sep 2000 17:00:33 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@gw.dd-b.net>
> wrote:
> >Having read both, I'm very glad Vinge won. Cryptonomicon is an
> >interesting bit of literature, but it's nothing much as science
> >fiction. ADitS is fantastic, mind-blowing, science fiction, and
> >easily deserved to win.
>
> Actually, I couldn't think of a single science fictional element in
> Cryptonomicon.
Hmmm; well, at the least, it's alternate history, which is generally
grouped under the SF umbrella. (This is probably a mistake; this and
time travel. For some reason I'm fine with FTL, which is just as
crazy.)
And in fact it's clearly set in the future relative to where we are
now, and that generally makes something science fiction too.
Kevin J. Maroney
>I was arguing this with rich brown in chat last night. He thought Joe
>only got the Hugo because he was dead. I thought that being dead
>might have added some push, but that he deserved it.
I find The Judy Lynn effect most lamentable not when it rewards people
who don't deserve it at all but when it rewards people who really
should have been rewarded when they were alive.
John Kensmark
>
> And lo, it came to pass on Tue, 05 Sep 2000 09:29:05 +0100 that
> Alison Scott <ali...@kittywompus.com>, wrote thusly:
>
>> I would have been much less happy with a win for the Harry
>> Potter,
>
> I'm curious about where this strong dislike for the harry Potter
> series comes from. I've seen in several places on the net, and
> it confuses me.
I'm not sure you're actually seeing it in Alison's remark, but I
know what you mean. I haven't seen so much of this dislike on the
net, but I've seen plenty of it elsewhere.
> My niece insisted that I read the books, so I borrowed the first
> three from my mother. I read them all in two days. They were
> that good. Well plotted, interesting characters, not at all
> juvenile in tone, with twists that kept me guessing right up to
> the end.
>
> More importantly, they are getting kids to read, and read big
> complex books. Seeing eight-year-olds toting around 300-page
> novels gives me a very good feeling.
>
> So if those people who dislike the series could explain their
> feelings, I'd appreciate it.
Some of it, I think, is reactionism. Anything sufficiently popular
draws a certain amount of criticism, warranted or not.
Some of it, I think, is unfocussed jealousy, which turns into
resentment. I've heard people who, I'm sure, have no desire to
write anything commercial express dismay that someone could 'so
easily' be so popular and successful. I've been strongly reminded
of when Men Without Hats had a number one single with "Pop Goes the
World", and I heard DJ after DJ disparage the song and wonder why
*they* hadn't written a number one single, since it was obviously so
easy.
Some of it is dislike coupled with alienation. Not everyone will
like Harry Potter, even if they give the books an honest chance, and
they may resent it when it seems as if everyone else *does* like it,
or even love it.
Some folks are just tired of the media blitz. I don't blame them.
Personally, I *somewhat* dislike Harry Potter, the phenomenon, and
somewhat like it. Moreso like than dislike, I'm pretty sure. I
read the first Harry Potter book, and I think it's okay. I don't
think it's great, but I don't think there's anything wrong with it;
I think it's a fine book, but it's not something I'd put at the top
of my list for books to buy for my young nephews.
I think there are much better fantasy stories for children. A lot
depends on the child, but I think kids who can read Harry Potter can
also read and be impressed by other stuff that I think is better
(not all necessarily *lots* better, but better), like:
The Phantom Tollbooth
The Dark is Rising
The Chronicles of Prydain
The House with a Clock in its Walls
The Sword in the Stone
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (the original)
The Book of the Dun Cow
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Hobbit
Watership Down
and lard knows what else. For some of this stuff, yeah, it's handy
to have an adult around, but I don't think it's out of the reach of
many of the younger kids who read Harry Potter, and certainly not
kids 10-12 and up.
Nothing wrong with Harry Potter, then, and I think the series
deserves to be successful. Less worthy stuff, in the past and
probably right now, has been more successful than it deserves. I do
feel frustrated when I see Harry Potter being praised and mentioned
so much when there's so much else out there that kids would like if
only someone would hand it to them and encourage them to read it.
I do rather admire what I've seen of Rowling (right?), though. I
like her standing up to Spielberg over the casting of the movie, and
she's come across fine in the interviews I've read. I certainly
don't begrudge her her success. I say, more power to her.
--
John Kensmark kensmark#hotmail.com
I'm sort of entertained that the Times says "an Islamic
society, based on the Koran". As opposed to what, an
Islamic society based on the books of Tolkein?
-- Nat Lanza
Kip Williams
>
> Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
> >I was arguing this with rich brown in chat last night. He thought Joe
> >only got the Hugo because he was dead. I thought that being dead
> >might have added some push, but that he deserved it.
>
> I find The Judy Lynn effect most lamentable not when it rewards people
> who don't deserve it at all but when it rewards people who really
> should have been rewarded when they were alive.
Giving him another one next year would help dispel that. Or at least
show that we're serious about our sentiment.
Bruce Schneier
wrote:
>Bruce Schneier <schn...@counterpane.com> writes:
>
>> On 04 Sep 2000 17:00:33 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@gw.dd-b.net>
>> wrote:
>> >Having read both, I'm very glad Vinge won. Cryptonomicon is an
>> >interesting bit of literature, but it's nothing much as science
>> >fiction. ADitS is fantastic, mind-blowing, science fiction, and
>> >easily deserved to win.
>>
>> Actually, I couldn't think of a single science fictional element in
>> Cryptonomicon.
>
>Hmmm; well, at the least, it's alternate history, which is generally
>grouped under the SF umbrella. (This is probably a mistake; this and
>time travel. For some reason I'm fine with FTL, which is just as
>crazy.)
It's not alternate history, unless you mean historical fiction. The
history is all real, and it's fiction.
>And in fact it's clearly set in the future relative to where we are
>now, and that generally makes something science fiction too.
I don't think it's set in the future, either. I think it's set in the
present. Maybe we can quibble on which technological innovations are
real right now, but that doesn't strike me as science fiction. I
don't see any "future" elements that make the universe different than
the one we are living in.
I believe the story is considered SF because the author is considered
SF. If the author had not written clearly SF novels in the past, this
would have never been considered SF.
Ulrika O'Brien
grid...@mindspring.com says...
> And lo, it came to pass on Tue, 05 Sep 2000 09:29:05 +0100 that
> Alison Scott <ali...@kittywompus.com>, wrote thusly:
>
> >I would have been much less happy with a win for the Harry Potter,
>
> I'm curious about where this strong dislike for the harry Potter
> series comes from. I've seen in several places on the net, and
> it confuses me.
I've seen Alison express liking and enjoyment of the Potter books
in past threads, so if you are perceiving strong dislike of them
in her remark, I think you've just misread her. I've enjoyed
reading the Potter books, and I, too, would have been sorely
disappointed if the nominated Harry Potter had won a Hugo, too.
I don't have to dislike a book to feel that it isn't the best
candidate in the field of candidates.
> My niece insisted that I read the books, so I borrowed the first
> three from my mother. I read them all in two days. They were
> that good. Well plotted, interesting characters, not at all
> juvenile in tone, with twists that kept me guessing right up to
> the end.
One of the things that is both a strength and a weakness for
Rowlings is her talent for plotting. She paces excellently, and is
tremendously good at crafting unexpected twists, but I find this
ends up being costly in terms of characterization. Too often for
me, her characters are behaving in certain ways just to serve the
plot, and violating sensible consistency of character to do it. No
where is that more the case than with Hermione's blindness to the
stupidity and dangerousness of dragging her pet cat into the
presence of Ron's pet rat all the time in AZKABAN, and it frankly
annoyed me. Partly because the characters always have to be at the
beck and call of plotting twists, I find that Rowling's characters
don't grow in wisdom, emotional maturity, or perception much even
over the arc of several novels. That lack of growth and insight is
one of the reasons I would be disappointed if one of the books --
especially AZKABAN, which I found weakest in that regard -- took a
Hugo. There's a certain depth of insight I require in outstanding
novels, that in Rowling simply isn't there. Yes, her books are
really compelling reads when I'm in them, but once I've finished I
find it's mostly empty calories I've just consumed.
> More importantly, they are getting kids to read, and read big
> complex books. Seeing eight-year-olds toting around 300-page
> novels gives me a very good feeling.
I don't know of anyone who disparages the power of the Rowling
books to get kid's reading, but this is not, for me, a Hugo
category or voting criterion. It's marvelous. It's exciting. I'm
happy it's happening. But that's not what we give Hugos for.
--
Ulrika O'Brien * member fwa * Soon-to-be-armed rabble without a
clue
Bruce Schneier
wrote:
>In article <sp8arso6bbq9b88pk...@4ax.com>
> schn...@counterpane.com "Bruce Schneier" writes:
>
>> On 04 Sep 2000 17:00:33 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@gw.dd-b.net>
>> wrote:
>> >Having read both, I'm very glad Vinge won. Cryptonomicon is an
>> >interesting bit of literature, but it's nothing much as science
>> >fiction. ADitS is fantastic, mind-blowing, science fiction, and
>> >easily deserved to win.
>>
>> Actually, I couldn't think of a single science fictional element in
>> Cryptonomicon.
>
>Do fantasy elements count?
Sure. But fiction does not equal fantasy. And magical realism does
not equal fantasy. Carlos Castanada and Gabriel Garcia Marquez do not
write fantasy.
Doug Berry
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com>, wrote thusly:
>Did you think it was better than both _Deepness_ and _Cryptonomicon_?
>If not, Alison's comment shouldn't be *that* hard to understand.
I'm sorry if it looked like I was directly refering to Allison, I
wasn't. DitS deserved the win.
I've just seen some fannish disdain towards the series.
Vicki Rosenzweig
-0500:
>I read _A Fire upon the Deep_ mainly to satisfy my curiosity as
>to why a couple of people had referred to me as a "Tine Pack,"
>and I finished mostly out of a sense of duty. I never did
>understand the comparison.
I suspect it was entirely a matter of the way your name
sounds.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig | v...@redbird.org
r.a.sf.f faq at http://www.redbird.org/rassef-faq.html
Vicki Rosenzweig
-0400:
>On Tue, 05 Sep 2000 12:11:17 GMT, Kip Williams <ki...@home.com> wrote:
>
>>I was just thinking about the fan artist Hugo. With all the art Joe
>>left behind, maybe he could win next year as well.
>
>I was arguing this with rich brown in chat last night. He thought Joe
>only got the Hugo because he was dead. I thought that being dead
>might have added some push, but that he deserved it.
I'm fairly sure it did add some push.
And I'd really like to give the award, next year, to someone who
will be able to get up on stage, and say Thank you, and grin.
This means that all you fanartists out there are Not Allowed to
Die in the next twelve months, okay?
Richard Horton
>and lard knows what else.
Well, Diana Wynne Jones, most obviously.
But no one here, I think, is saying they dislike Harry Potter. In my
case, far from it. I lap the books up. But I still think _A Deepness
in the Sky_ and _Cryptonomicon_ were far better.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.sfsite.com/tangent)
Mary Kay Kare
>
> Okay, I'll say it just as strongly but more specifically: I've
> struggled and struggled with _A Fire Upon the Deep_ and come to
> the conclusion that Vernor Vinge's work is never going to be worth
> it for me: the quotient of ridiculousness is so high, and the
> ideas are so stupid, and the characters so unlikely and
> uninvolving that it took me over a month to read a hundred pages
> and I gave up after about a hundred and fifty. So I never read _A
> Deepness in the Sky_. And it'll take a lot for me to attempt
> anything by Vernor VInge again.
>
> Meanwhile, reading Stephenson is a delight and a challenge, and
> his characters are interesting caricatures, and the ideas are
> fun. My son put in a request for_Cryptonomicon_ at the library
> and it took a second request, and months and months. They had
> leased extra copies to keep up with the demand.
>
> But it was so long that we have to request it again, so I can read
> it.
>
> I don't know whay the voters went for Vinge. It seems like a
> serious error.
>
Because other people have different reading experiences? I like
everything I've read by Vinge, though I'm far from having read it all. I
like some of Stephenson's work but not all of it. I will cop to not
having read either of these two, but my husband, who has, thinks the right
book won. De gustibus non disputandam est.
MKK
--
Member:
fwa
Evil Elitist Fannish Conspiracy
RASFF Fire, Usage, and Whinge Brigade
Worldwide TAFF Cabal (there is no cabal)
Thomas Yan
Doug Wickstrom <nims...@uswest.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 05 Sep 2000 05:43:14 GMT,
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) excited the ether to say:
>
>>[re: _A Fire Upon the Deep_ vs _A Deepness in the Sky_]
>>
>>That's interesting, because other people have told me if I hated
>>the one, I'd hate the other.
>
>Oh, lawdy no!
>
>I read _A Fire upon the Deep_ mainly to satisfy my curiosity as
>to why a couple of people had referred to me as a "Tine Pack,"
>and I finished mostly out of a sense of duty. I never did
>understand the comparison.
>
>couldn't put it down -- I finished it in three big gulps -- while
>attending a convention, no less. There's more sensawunda packed
>into ADITS than in any three other novels of the last few years.
>IMHO.
Interesting. I would guess that for most people, enjoyment of one
pretty accurately predicts enjoyment of the other. Furthermore,
although most people seem to like Deepness more and I agree that the
characters in Deepness are better, I liked Fire more.
However, one possibility is that since I read Deepness first, I had a
better idea what to expect with Fire. I think something similar
happened with the Harry Potter books: I didn't like the first as much
as I could have if I had better known what to expect. Certainly, I
got thrown while reading Dickinson's _Eva_, which I somehow thought
was not SF, so I felt kind of lost at first.
--
Thomas Yan (ty...@cs.cornell.edu) I don't speak for Cornell University
Computer Science Department \\ Cornell University \\ Ithaca, NY 14853
(please pardon any lack of capitalization; my hands hurt from typing)
Loren MacGregor
>
> I'm curious about where this strong dislike for the harry Potter
> series comes from. I've seen in several places on the net, and
> it confuses me.
>
> My niece insisted that I read the books, so I borrowed the first
> three from my mother. I read them all in two days. They were
> that good. Well plotted, interesting characters, not at all
> juvenile in tone, with twists that kept me guessing right up to
> the end.
>
> More importantly, they are getting kids to read, and read big
> complex books. Seeing eight-year-olds toting around 300-page
> novels gives me a very good feeling.
>
> So if those people who dislike the series could explain their
> feelings, I'd appreciate it.
I don't believe science fiction and fantasy folk dislike the series
so much as the hype that goes along with it. The books are
apparently well-written -- I base this on Lauryn's reaction, as she
is a thorough critic not only of why she does or doesn't like a
book, but of why and how it worked, why it how it didn't work, and
which parts worked for which reasons. But the books, as good as
they may be, apparently break very little new ground -as far as the
genre "fantasy" is considered-.
Which is, I suspect, one of those double-edged swords. Fantasy
often breaks new ground, but does so in a way which is sometimes
insular (in the way, I think, that Lucy K has been complaining about
neologisms), so that neither the writers nor the fans are -entirely-
aware of how much of the fantasy is built on the ground of what has
gone before -within the genre-.
And stories published -within the genre- often are at least as good
as those published without, such as the Harry Potter series.
It is one of those things that are endlessly frustrating to those
who work within the fields of literature -- that there are books one
loves, and which one believes in, but the likelihood that they will
be published increases -if- they are published within a genre, and
the likelihood that any -individual- book will make at least a
marginal profit increase, -if- they are published within a genre --
but the very real possibility that they will be breakaway
bestsellers also decreases, at least a bit, when they are marketed
as genre books.
The advent of a Harry Potter, rather than a source of distress, is
usually an opportunity to say, to a suddenly reading person, "You
know, you might like these -other- books over here, too." And the
Harry Potter books open that fantasy window wide enough to let what
can be viewed on the other side look that much more attractive.
Before I tangle myself further in my disquisition, I'll stop.
-- LJM
Mitch Wagner
<bq6ars0upfa929hod...@4ax.com>:
>And lo, it came to pass on Tue, 05 Sep 2000 09:29:05 +0100 that
>Alison Scott <ali...@kittywompus.com>, wrote thusly:
>
>>I would have been much less happy with a win for the Harry Potter,
>
>I'm curious about where this strong dislike for the harry Potter
>series comes from. I've seen in several places on the net, and
>it confuses me.
>
>My niece insisted that I read the books, so I borrowed the first
>three from my mother. I read them all in two days. They were
>that good. Well plotted, interesting characters, not at all
>juvenile in tone, with twists that kept me guessing right up to
>the end.
>
>More importantly, they are getting kids to read, and read big
>complex books. Seeing eight-year-olds toting around 300-page
>novels gives me a very good feeling.
>
>So if those people who dislike the series could explain their
>feelings, I'd appreciate it.
I read one. It was okay. It didn't move me to read another.
I think it's good that it gets kids to read - although I wonder if that is
the case, it's been repeated by Harry Potter fans a good deal but is there
any proof, even anecdotal? - and I think it's swell that so many people
enjoy the books, but I just don't think they're very interesting.
--
Mitch Wagner
mike weber
>I think there are much better fantasy stories for children. A lot
>depends on the child, but I think kids who can read Harry Potter can
>also read and be impressed by other stuff that I think is better
>(not all necessarily *lots* better, but better), like:
>
> The Phantom Tollbooth
> The Dark is Rising
> The Chronicles of Prydain
> The House with a Clock in its Walls
> The Sword in the Stone
> Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (the original)
> The Book of the Dun Cow
> The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
> The Hobbit
> Watership Down
>
Edward Eager's "Half Magic" and associated titles.
Lloyd Alexander's "Westmark" trilogy -- not fantasy, but excellent.
Almost anything by Diana Wynne Jones
The Blue Sword
and prolly others i'll think of as time passes.
--
"It's not what you don't know that can hurt you -- it's the things that
you do know that AREN'T true..." ("The Notebooks of Lazarus Long"?)
================================================================
mike weber kras...@mindspring.com
half complete website of Xeno--http://weberworld.virtualave.net
mike weber
<grid...@mindspring.com> typed
>And lo, it came to pass on Tue, 05 Sep 2000 09:29:05 +0100 that
>Alison Scott <ali...@kittywompus.com>, wrote thusly:
>
>>I would have been much less happy with a win for the Harry Potter,
>
>I'm curious about where this strong dislike for the harry Potter
>series comes from. I've seen in several places on the net, and
>it confuses me.
>
Not so much strong dislike, i wouldn't say; though i find them rather
unoriginal, and just a bit twee in places, the first two are okay but
not much more -- very definitely the work of an outsider who seems to
be having to re-invent the wheel in some places because she didn't
know something already existed/was understood.
But i just don't think that, judged simply as pieces of writing, that
they could *possibly* be the best of the year. *Somebody* has to have
written something that's objectively better than the quality i found
in the Harry Potter books.
mike weber
O'Brien) typed
>I don't know of anyone who disparages the power of the Rowling
>books to get kid's reading, but this is not, for me, a Hugo
>category or voting criterion. It's marvelous. It's exciting. I'm
>happy it's happening. But that's not what we give Hugos for.
>
I dunno -- i seem to recall that the huge popularity of the
"Goosebumps" series didn't particularly translate into wanting to read
other books -- just into wanting more "Goosebumps" books.
Zack Weinberg
Mitch Wagner <mit...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>I think it's good that it gets kids to read - although I wonder if that is
>the case, it's been repeated by Harry Potter fans a good deal but is there
>any proof, even anecdotal? - and I think it's swell that so many people
>enjoy the books, but I just don't think they're very interesting.
I happened to be sitting in the childrens' section of Cody's Books here in
Berkeley, just after the release of HP4. While there I was pleased to hear
three children, aged between 8 and 11 I believe, discussing the series - and
what they were going to read now they'd finished the fourth volume. I
remember mentions of Diana Wynne Jones, Roald Dahl, and the Swallows and
Amazons books. Also _The 21 Balloons_, which I am delighted to find is in
print again.
So there's one anecdote for you. Mind, I have no idea how much their
parents encouraged them to read, and that's got to be a huge factor.
zw
David Langford
wrote:
>Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>>I was arguing this with rich brown in chat last night. He thought Joe
>>only got the Hugo because he was dead. I thought that being dead
>>might have added some push, but that he deserved it.
>
>I find The Judy Lynn effect most lamentable not when it rewards people
>who don't deserve it at all but when it rewards people who really
>should have been rewarded when they were alive.
Just a reminder that Joe Mayhew =was= also rewarded when he was alive. Best
Fan Artist Hugo at Bucconeer in 1998. How soon they forget....
Dave
--
David Langford
ans...@cix.co.uk | http://www.ansible.co.uk/
Alison Scott
>Doug Berry <grid...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> And lo, it came to pass on Tue, 05 Sep 2000 09:29:05 +0100 that
>> Alison Scott <ali...@kittywompus.com>, wrote thusly:
>
>>>I would have been much less happy with a win for the Harry Potter,
>
>> I'm curious about where this strong dislike for the harry Potter
>> series comes from. I've seen in several places on the net, and
>> it confuses me.
>
>I don't think she expressed strong dislike. I wouldn't be happy with
>any of the first three HP books winning a Hugo (haven't read the
>fourth yet), but I liked them.
>
>> My niece insisted that I read the books, so I borrowed the first
>> three from my mother. I read them all in two days. They were
>> that good. Well plotted, interesting characters, not at all
>> juvenile in tone, with twists that kept me guessing right up to
>> the end.
>
>Did you think it was better than both _Deepness_ and _Cryptonomicon_?
>If not, Alison's comment shouldn't be *that* hard to understand.
Indeed, I should make it clear that I've read all the Harry Potter
books so far, and enjoyed them all very much. But the third isn't the
best of them (in fact, I think it was the weakest so far), and in any
case I'd much rather see the Hugo go to a complex, mind-expanding,
adult novel like _Deepness_ or _Cryptonomicon_.
--
Alison Scott ali...@kittywompus.com & www.kittywompus.com
Please remember that I was probably sleep deprived, or weirdly hormonal,
when composing this post.
Avedon Carol
wrote:
>Interesting. I would guess that for most people, enjoyment of one
>pretty accurately predicts enjoyment of the other. Furthermore,
>although most people seem to like Deepness more and I agree that the
>characters in Deepness are better, I liked Fire more.
>
>However, one possibility is that since I read Deepness first, I had a
>better idea what to expect with Fire. I think something similar
>happened with the Harry Potter books: I didn't like the first as much
>as I could have if I had better known what to expect. Certainly, I
>got thrown while reading Dickinson's _Eva_, which I somehow thought
>was not SF, so I felt kind of lost at first.
I think FIRE is more dependent on its dialogue with the genre than
DEEPNESS is. If you're someone who really enjoys sf because of the
skiffy ideas, and reads a lot of it, there is something almost magical
about this very new way of conceptualizing space and space travel, for
example. If the science we know is only "a local phenomenon", there
are whole other ways to look at the universe. We already have
traditions for how we imagine ftl travel, but they are all within a
fairly narrow range; FIRE offers us a new _map_ of space, a new way of
envisioning how these things could be done. I think that's part of
the fun. Similarly, the aliens are wonderfully visualized and taste
really neat to someone who is very familiar with the alien stereotypes
of the field and how they are traditionally used to characterize
specific types of human social psychology, and get can a thrill out of
where the rules are being elaborated, re-thought or broken.
I don't think DEEPNESS depends as much on that sort of genre
knowledge, even though it does many of the same things. It feels to
me like the social science stuff is much more central to the story as
a whole, and I think the tech is also much more in the service of
social science than it is in FIRE. So I think in that respect
DEEPNESS may have broader appeal, and also may be especially appealing
to someone whose preference is for social sciences rather than
techie/skiffy stuff.
If you'd told me that FIRE was interesting because it had neat new
aliens and a whole new geography of space, while DEEPNESS was about
things like mind control and social interaction and history and alien
anthropology and socio-economic systems and stuff like that, I would
have automatically assumed I'd prefer DEEPNESS by miles. (I have
never understood why some people love 2001 as much as they do - I'm
that sort of person. I thought RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA was dull.) But I
wasn't really aware of how much reading sf has affected my tastes, how
very neat FIRE would seem to me after so many years of immersion in
contemplating things like FTL and alienness and artificial
intelligence and all that. So I was captivated by FIRE, even stunned
by the new viewpoints, and utterly absorbed in the story (or stories).
I loved it.
I think there are different ways in which they are both terrific
books, and also similar ways. I think Vinge does many of the same
things in both books, but I also think DEEPNESS is more accessible and
doesn't ask me to love sensawonda skiffy as much as FIRE does. But
I'm still not sure which book I loved more.
At least that's what I think right now, having read each book only
once. I will probably read them both again in a year or three, and
may end up thinking something different. But that's my sort of
un-sifted feeling about this right now. So yeah, I can easily see how
someone might like DEEPNESS a whole lot while not getting whatever is
supposed to be so wonderful about FIRE, even though I think they have
a lot in common and in many ways are very similar, and are both great
books.
Jim Mann
Kevin J. Maroney wrote in message
<82rars8g81bsu52q2...@4ax.com>...
>Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>>I was arguing this with rich brown in chat last night. He thought Joe
>>only got the Hugo because he was dead. I thought that being dead
>>might have added some push, but that he deserved it.
>
>I find The Judy Lynn effect most lamentable not when it rewards people
>who don't deserve it at all but when it rewards people who really
>should have been rewarded when they were alive.
It was particulary bad in Judy Lynn's case. When she first took over at
Ballantine, she did a number of great things. Hell, I think she deserved a
Hugo for the "Best of ... " series alone, not to mention all the other good
stuff Ballantine/Del Rey did. But as her career progressed, she did less and
less of what was Hugo worthy. She no longer deserved a Hugo nomination by
the time she was nominated (nor for several years prior to that).
---
Jim Mann
Jo Walton
schn...@counterpane.com "Bruce Schneier" writes:
> On Tue, 05 Sep 2000 17:47:48 GMT, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton)
> wrote:
>
> >In article <sp8arso6bbq9b88pk...@4ax.com>
> > schn...@counterpane.com "Bruce Schneier" writes:
> >
> >> Actually, I couldn't think of a single science fictional element in
> >> Cryptonomicon.
> >
> >Do fantasy elements count?
>
> Sure. But fiction does not equal fantasy. And magical realism does
> not equal fantasy. Carlos Castanada and Gabriel Garcia Marquez do not
> write fantasy.
I agree that they don't, but would we complain if one of them was
nominated for a Hugo? Rowling isn't writing genre fantasy either.
Generally :Cryptonomicon: (which I liked a lot) goes into the same category
as Womack's :Let's Put the Future Behind Us: of "You're trying to tell me
the real world is like this? Oh yeah?" But I think...
CRYPTIC SPOILERS FOR CRYPTONOMICON
There are enough clues in there that Enoch Root is resurrected, ridiculously
long lived, an alchemist, does magic healing, and invented Unix, or is at
least the original "root". That doesn't strike me as magic realism. The
stupid Qghelm stuff would probably be fine in a mainstream novel, but I
think Root's organization would make it secret history even without the
presence of Root as wizard.
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - UPDATED Interstichia; Poetry; RASFW FAQ;
THE KING'S PEACE, Tor Books, October 2000 - can be ordered now from Amazon
sample chapters on http://www.tor.com/sampleKingsPeace.html
Julie Stampnitzky
> I'll agree with you on _A Fire Upon the Deep_, I never got into
> that book. So I was reluctant to start _Deepness_.
>
> Once I did, I was rapidly pulled into one of the best, sense of
> wonder inspiring, stories I have read in years.
>
> Of course, next year its going to be Harry Potter...
By "it," do you mean your reading material, or the Hugo winner? I hope
not the latter- I thought _Goblet of Fire_ was okay, but not as good as
_Azkaban_. It was long, perhaps over-long, yet there didn't seem to be
room for much character development. And the plot depended on the bad
guys behaving idiotically. Okay, maybe they *were* insane.
--
Julie Stampnitzky
Rehovot, Israel
http://www.yucs.org/~jules
Raymond Chuang
news:bq6ars0upfa929hod...@4ax.com...
> I'm curious about where this strong dislike for the harry Potter
> series comes from. I've seen in several places on the net, and
> it confuses me.
I think it's mostly out of sheer jealousy. (smile)
After all, we are talking a novel series that in the last three years has
made around US$500 -million- in revenues--and mostly of sales in hardcover!
Even more amazing is the fact the Harry Potter books are aimed at readers
younger than 18 primarily.
The jealously just increases when the fourth volume, HARRY POTTER AND THE
GOBLET OF FIRE, sold out its entire first print run (3.8 million USA, 1.5
million Great Britain) in less than two weeks! That is US$10 million in
royalty payments to Ms. Rowling herself. $_$
The novels may recycle a lot of old ideas, but it does it in such a
refreshing and quite original fashion it really stands on its own.
Besides, the nice benefit of the success of Rowling's novels is that
children -are- starting to discover other authors in a similar vein. There
is renewed interest in Ursula LeGuin's EARTHSEA trilogy, for starters. ;-)
Anyway, if you think the hype behind the Harry Potter books are crazy, just
wait till November 2001. Rowling at the recent Edinburgh Arts Festival
confirmed the fifth Harry Potter novel will be released almost at the same
time as the Harry Potter movie! The hype that drove GOBLET OF FIRE will be a
minor event compared to what will happen then. :-/
--
Raymond Chuang
Mountain View, CA USA
Andrew Plotkin
> And lo, it came to pass on Tue, 05 Sep 2000 16:29:23 GMT that
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com>, wrote thusly:
>>Did you think it was better than both _Deepness_ and _Cryptonomicon_?
>>If not, Alison's comment shouldn't be *that* hard to understand.
> I'm sorry if it looked like I was directly refering to Allison, I
> wasn't. DitS deserved the win.
> I've just seen some fannish disdain towards the series.
Oh -- okay. Never mind.
In that case... well, other people have covered most of it.
I know that there's no conspiracy committee that sat down and said,
"This series will be a popular phenomenon." Nonetheless, I wish that
there was some way for the media and marketing industries to focus
one-tenth that energy onto each of ten different juvenile-scifi-and-
fantasy books that I like more.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Doug Berry
mit...@sff.net (Mitch Wagner), wrote thusly:
>I think it's good that it gets kids to read - although I wonder if that is
>the case, it's been repeated by Harry Potter fans a good deal but is there
>any proof, even anecdotal? - and I think it's swell that so many people
>enjoy the books, but I just don't think they're very interesting.
Well, my niece is pushing the Narnia books on her Potter-jinesing
friends, and she's beginning the Heinlein juveniles, but that's
more my brother's influence.
I am seeing more kids in the SF/Fantasy section.
Doug Berry
Bruce Schneier <schn...@counterpane.com>, wrote thusly:
>I believe the story is considered SF because the author is considered
>SF. If the author had not written clearly SF novels in the past, this
>would have never been considered SF.
Didn't this sort of argument flare up when Analog published
Spider Robinson's "The Time Traveller"?
Doug Berry
Julie Stampnitzky <ju...@yucs.org>, wrote thusly:
>By "it," do you mean your reading material, or the Hugo winner? I hope
>not the latter- I thought _Goblet of Fire_ was okay, but not as good as
>_Azkaban_. It was long, perhaps over-long, yet there didn't seem to be
>room for much character development. And the plot depended on the bad
>guys behaving idiotically. Okay, maybe they *were* insane.
I haven't read GoF yet, but I think I will be rereading the
series again over the next year.
I don't normally do fantasy, I'm of the Hal Clement/Robert
Forward school of hard SF. But something about the world of
Hogwarts just drew me in. I like the idea of a entire society of
mages living alongside us Muggles.
Darn it! *I* want to go to Hogwarts!
Hmm..there's a filk in that.. to the tune of Steve Savitsky's "I
want to be a webmaster"...
Marcus L. Rowland
>
>I think it's good that it gets kids to read - although I wonder if that is
>the case, it's been repeated by Harry Potter fans a good deal but is there
>any proof, even anecdotal? - and I think it's swell that so many people
>enjoy the books, but I just don't think they're very interesting.
My nephew wasn't a reader. Period. He's now on his third pass through
the earlier HP books, to be followed I assume by a second read of Goblet
of Fire. He's also now read two or three of DWJ's books.
--
Marcus L. Rowland
Forgotten Futures - The Scientific Romance Role Playing Game
http://www.forgottenfutures.co.uk/ http://www.forgottenfutures.com/
"We are all victims of this slime. They... ...fill our mailboxes with gibberish
that would get them indicted if people had time to press charges"
[Hunter S. Thompson predicts junk e-mail, 1985 (from Generation of Swine)]
Tom Galloway
Vicki Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org> wrote:
>And I'd really like to give the award, next year, to someone who
>will be able to get up on stage, and say Thank you, and grin.
While he wouldn't have been able to do the latter two, out of sheer curiosity
does anyone know if it was ever considered to bring the urn containing
Joe's ashes up on stage? (and for those who weren't at Chicon, yes, it
was in the hotel)
tyg t...@netcom.com
Janice Gelb
(Lucy Kemnitzer) wrote:
>
>Okay, I'll say it just as strongly but more specifically: I've
>struggled and struggled with _A Fire Upon the Deep_ and come to
>the conclusion that Vernor Vinge's work is never going to be worth
>it for me: the quotient of ridiculousness is so high, and the
>ideas are so stupid, and the characters so unlikely and
>uninvolving that it took me over a month to read a hundred pages
>and I gave up after about a hundred and fifty. So I never read _A
>Deepness in the Sky_. And it'll take a lot for me to attempt
>anything by Vernor VInge again.
>
It took me three times to finally get into _Fire_ and when
I did, I was impressed. I thought he did a good job at making
his aliens really *alien*, for one thing. I found _Deepness_
more approachable, though.
***********************************************************************
Janice Gelb | The only connection Sun has with
janic...@marvin.eng.sun.com | this message is the return address.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8018/index.html
"Politics is show business for ugly people" -- James Carville
Janice Gelb
>Quoth Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> on Tue, 05 Sep 2000 16:06:25
>-0400:
>
>>On Tue, 05 Sep 2000 12:11:17 GMT, Kip Williams <ki...@home.com> wrote:
>>
>>>I was just thinking about the fan artist Hugo. With all the art Joe
>>>left behind, maybe he could win next year as well.
>>
>>I was arguing this with rich brown in chat last night. He thought Joe
>>only got the Hugo because he was dead. I thought that being dead
>>might have added some push, but that he deserved it.
>
>I'm fairly sure it did add some push.
>
However, he *did* win once before (and made a moving speech
about Ian's being ill) so it certainly wasn't *only* because
he's gone.
>And I'd really like to give the award, next year, to someone who
>will be able to get up on stage, and say Thank you, and grin.
>
>This means that all you fanartists out there are Not Allowed to
>Die in the next twelve months, okay?
>
Teddy Harvia was making some comments to this effect too :->
Avram Grumer
<schn...@counterpane.com> wrote:
> On 05 Sep 2000 16:17:11 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@gw.dd-b.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Hmmm; well, at the least, it's alternate history, which is generally
> >grouped under the SF umbrella. (This is probably a mistake; this and
> >time travel. For some reason I'm fine with FTL, which is just as
> >crazy.)
>
> It's not alternate history, unless you mean historical fiction. The
> history is all real, and it's fiction.
Well, there are fictional countries in it, so it's not _totally_ real
world, but I don't think just fictional countries are enough to make
something alternate history or SF.
> >And in fact it's clearly set in the future relative to where we are
> >now, and that generally makes something science fiction too.
>
> I don't think it's set in the future, either. I think it's set in the
> present.
You're both wrong. _Cryptonomicon_ is set in the future, but not relative
to where we are now. We're also set in the future.
> I believe the story is considered SF because the author is considered
> SF. If the author had not written clearly SF novels in the past,
> this would have never been considered SF.
It does have fantasy elements, if you pay attention.
--
Avram Grumer | av...@grumer.org | http://www.PigsAndFishes.org
"Some people need to learn that the Internet changes everything.
And some people need to learn that it doesn't." -- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Wendy Shaffer
Wagner) wrote:
> I think it's good that it gets kids to read - although I wonder if that
> is
> the case, it's been repeated by Harry Potter fans a good deal but is
> there
> any proof, even anecdotal?
Well, this isn't exactly proof that the books are being _read_, but
sales of children's books are up. Kid's fantasy series like
the Narnia books and the Prydain books are selling a lot more than
they were just a few years ago. (I think I recall seeing in the New
York Times that sales of _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ had
doubled or tripled last year.)
There are also plenty of anecdotal reports from school librarians
that the Harry Potter books are pulling in reluctant readers.
---wendy
Kevin J. Maroney
>I think it's good that it gets kids to read - although I wonder if that is
>the case, it's been repeated by Harry Potter fans a good deal but is there
One of the members of the staff of NYRSF is, in his secret identity, a
staff editor of _School Library Journal_. He says that there is a
tremendous amount of evidence that kids are, indeed, hungry to read
"things like Harry Potter". I've seen several articles in several
venues on "what to read next" (we ran one in NYRSF; Walter showed me
the one from _School Library Journal_; and I've seen lists posted in
libraries) , which indicates to me that there is, indeed, some
spillover effect.
This is distinct from the _Goosebumps_ phenomenon because the body of
work is of such dissimilar size. There are 60+ _Goosebumps_ books, and
only 4 HP to date; even the most devoted reader of HP is likely to
want to move on to something else eventually.
--
Kevin Maroney | kmar...@ungames.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction
<http://www.nyrsf.com>
Kevin J. Maroney
>*Somebody* has to have
>written something that's objectively better than the quality i found
>in the Harry Potter books.
I don't believe that's a meaningful statement. "Surely somebody must
have found a frame of reference which is moving closer to the speed of
light than this one."
David G. Bell
mit...@sff.net "Mitch Wagner" wrote:
There's some American academic -- an elderly Professor of English
Literature at Yale and some University in New York, but I don't recall
his name -- who has been pretty dismissive of it. And I found myself
thinking, maybe it isn't great literature, but you're missing the point
completely.
The thing is, while the target audience may be tracking the character
ages, the books are written for kids, not adults, and judging them
solely against the great Dead White Males of English Literature strikes
me as ill-advised. It's a point of view, and it may show up weaknesses
in the writing, but he took it too far.
What he could say was that the Harry Potter books wouldn't turn out to
be enduring literature, and he could have presented reasons why he
thought that. But he seemed to be arguing that anything which wasn't
Literature was worthless, and I don't recall hearing anyone doing such a
thorough job of begging the question for quite a while.
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
Copyright 2000 David G. Bell
The right to insert advertising material in the above text is reserved
to the author. The author did not use any form of HTML in the above text.
Any text following this line was added without the author's permission.
Paul D. Shocklee
> CRYPTIC SPOILERS FOR CRYPTONOMICON
> There are enough clues in there that Enoch Root is resurrected, ridiculously
> long lived, an alchemist, does magic healing, and invented Unix, or is at
> least the original "root". That doesn't strike me as magic realism. The
> stupid Qghelm stuff would probably be fine in a mainstream novel, but I
> think Root's organization would make it secret history even without the
> presence of Root as wizard.
Where is it implied that he invented Unix? I can find evidence in the text
for all of the above except that one, and it would be rather odd if the book
suggested that, because the inventors of Unix are rather well known in real life.
--
Paul Shocklee
Graduate Student, Department of Physics, Princeton University
Researcher, Science Institute, Dunhaga 3, 107 Reykjavík, Iceland
Phone: +354-525-4429
Avram Grumer
shoc...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul D. Shocklee) wrote:
> Jo Walton (J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> > CRYPTIC SPOILERS FOR CRYPTONOMICON
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > There are enough clues in there that Enoch Root is resurrected,
> > ridiculously long lived, an alchemist, does magic healing, and
> > invented Unix, or is at least the original "root". That doesn't
> > strike me as magic realism. The stupid Qghelm stuff would probably
> > be fine in a mainstream novel, but I think Root's organization
> > would make it secret history even without the presence of Root as
> > wizard.
>
> Where is it implied that he invented Unix? I can find evidence in
> the text for all of the above except that one, and it would be rather
> odd if the book suggested that, because the inventors of Unix are
> rather well known in real life.
Unless Jo means that Root invented Finux, the fictionalized version of
Linux in the novel, but I don't remember any hints along those lines.
Del Cotter
James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>Lucy Kemnitzer <rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>>But I notice that most of Bear's other titles seem to have "God"
>>or something like it in the title, and I'm sort of put off. Why
>>would ostensibly hard science fiction be titled like that?
>
>What, you never hit your thumb just as you were titling a story?
I have, but _Forge of BollocksarseholesbuggeryChristona*stick*_ keeps
getting sent back with the comment "Thank you, but it's not the sort of
thing we're looking for at the moment"...
--
. . . . Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk . . . .
JustRead:Mars:JohnBarnesApocalypses&ApostrophesMichaelConeyHelloSummerGoodby
e:WalterMMillerJrStLeibowitz&TWHW:IainBanksWhit:DorothyDunnettTheGameOfKings
ToRead:SMStirlingAgainstTheTideOfYears:HBeamPiperSpaceViking:VernorVingeADee
Jo Walton
grid...@mindspring.com "Doug Berry" writes:
> Darn it! *I* want to go to Hogwarts!
I hear they're looking for a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher...
All the nine year olds I know are confidently expecting an invitation
to Hogwarts to arrive when they are eleven. And I made two of them
very happy yesterday by buying them a pair of Harry Potter back to
school socks each.
mike weber
<kmar...@ungames.com> typed
>kras...@mindspring.com (mike weber) wrote:
>>*Somebody* has to have
>>written something that's objectively better than the quality i found
>>in the Harry Potter books.
>
>I don't believe that's a meaningful statement. "Surely somebody must
>have found a frame of reference which is moving closer to the speed of
>light than this one."
>
Sorry. "Objsctively better in the subjective opinions of the Hugo
voters". How's that?
--
"It's not what you don't know that can hurt you -- it's the things that
you do know that AREN'T true..." ("The Notebooks of Lazarus Long"?)
================================================================
mike weber kras...@mindspring.com
half complete website of Xeno--http://weberworld.virtualave.net
mike weber
<kmar...@ungames.com> typed
>This is distinct from the _Goosebumps_ phenomenon because the body of
>work is of such dissimilar size. There are 60+ _Goosebumps_ books, and
>only 4 HP to date; even the most devoted reader of HP is likely to
>want to move on to something else eventually.
>
There is that. However, even when there were relatively few
"Goosebumps" books, there wasn't a lot of spillover.
Sharon L Sbarsky
Alison Scott <ali...@kittywompus.com> wrote:
>rit...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer) wrote:
>
>>I don't know whay the voters went for Vinge. It seems like a
>>serious error.
>
>They're both fine books; I didn't vote in the Hugos this year (because
>I've known for a while I wouldn't be at Chicon),
Huh? Not being at Chicon shouldn't have stopped you from voting in the
Hugos. There are supporting memberships just for that sort of thing.
(Besides the fact that it was all done pre-con anyway.)
Sharon
P Nielsen Hayden
Jeremy2000 <jerem...@aol.com> wrote:
>Jeremy Bloom and Frequency Magazine are pleased to report the results of the
>2000 Hugo Awards:
>
>Novel: A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge
>Novella: The Winds of Marble Arch, Connie Willis
>Novelette: 10^6 to 1, James Patrick Kelly
>Short Story: Scherzo with Tyrannosaur, Michael Swanwick
> Free Download! Get an audio rrecording of "Scherzo" in MP3 format at
>www.frequencymagazine.com
>
>John W. Campbell Award: Cory Doctorow (yeah! cory!)
>Dramatic Presentation: Galaxy Quest
>Professional Artist: Michael Whelen
>Professional Editor: Gardiner Dozois
>Semiprozine: Locus, Charles N. Brown
>Fanzine: File 770
>Fan Writer: Dave Langford
>Fan Artist: Joe Mayhew
>Related Book: Science Fiction of the 20th Century, Frank M. Robinson.
This post has several errors, albeit fewer than the slides at the
actual Hugo ceremony.
Jim Kelly's story is actually entitled "10^16 to 1". The artist
winner spells his last name "Whelan." The editor winner spells his
first name "Gardner." Just for the record.
I actually kept a handwritten log of the errors at the actual Hugo
ceremony, which were significantly worse. It always seemed to me that
this sort of thing ought to be handled as if the honored guests' -- or
award nominees' -- mothers were in the audience. Clearly, though,
the Chicon committee had other views.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Richard Horton
<grid...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>And lo, it came to pass on Tue, 05 Sep 2000 18:23:31 -0500 that
>Bruce Schneier <schn...@counterpane.com>, wrote thusly:
>
>>I believe the story is considered SF because the author is considered
>>SF. If the author had not written clearly SF novels in the past, this
>>would have never been considered SF.
>
>Didn't this sort of argument flare up when Analog published
>Spider Robinson's "The Time Traveller"?
Yes, though "The Time Traveller" might get a pass because though it in
itself is not SF, it is part of a series of stories which include
obvious SFnal elements (beginning with the first, "The Guy With the
Eyes"). So there is sort of an implied SFnal milieu.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.sfsite.com/tangent)
Richard Horton
("David G. Bell") wrote:
>There's some American academic -- an elderly Professor of English
>Literature at Yale and some University in New York, but I don't recall
>his name -- who has been pretty dismissive of it. And I found myself
>thinking, maybe it isn't great literature, but you're missing the point
>completely.
Harold Bloom.
See the long (and mostly long-since topic drifted) thread on rasfw
called "Bloom vs. Potter".
P Nielsen Hayden
Lucy Kemnitzer <rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>Okay, I'll say it just as strongly but more specifically: I've
>struggled and struggled with _A Fire Upon the Deep_ and come to
>the conclusion that Vernor Vinge's work is never going to be worth
>it for me: the quotient of ridiculousness is so high, and the
>ideas are so stupid, and the characters so unlikely and
>uninvolving that it took me over a month to read a hundred pages
>and I gave up after about a hundred and fifty. So I never read _A
>Deepness in the Sky_.
Forgive me if this reads like the words of a kid complaining that
opera is obviously "stupid" because people don't actually converse in
song, much less carry orchestras around wherever they go.
You don't get it. Sorry about that. For me, quite the opposite. I
adored CRYPTONOMICON, but I thought A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY one of the
best SF novels of the last two decades, a high point of depth and
maturity in its idiom. (And before anybody says anything dumb, do
note that Vinge isn't my author and DEEPNESS wasn't my book.)
No demerits to you for not liking it. I can't read more than a couple
of chapters into DUNE. But I don't think DUNE is stupid, I just
accept that I don't get it.
P Nielsen Hayden
Lucy Kemnitzer <rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>I seem to have the inside-out opinion of a lot of other people
>when it comes to _Darwin's Radio_. I thought the premise was
>ridiculous -- oh how do I do this without activating the spoiler
>police? -- the evolutinoary thing, the genetic thing at the core
>of the idea, right? It was silly. And I didn't for a moment
>believe the events of the last third or so of the book. But I
>thought the supporting science was good, and oddly, the
>characterization was good
Why "oddly"? Greg Bear is frequently good at characterization, actually.
>, and most of the book was fun, and there
>were moments where people were contemplating thigns that were
>luminous. So, on balance, though it had its ridiculousness built
>right into it, I thought the writing carried it and it was a good
>little book.
>
>But I notice that most of Bear's other titles seem to have "God"
>or something like it in the title, and I'm sort of put off. Why
>would ostensibly hard science fiction be titled like that?
Greg Bear novels I can think of, arranged in alphabetical order:
Anvil of Stars
Blood Music
Darwin's Radio
Dinosaur Summer
Eon
Eternity
The Forge of God
Foundation and Chaos
Heads
Hegira
Legacy
Psychlone
Queen of Angels
Slant
Songs of Earth and Power
Strength of Stones
That's one "god" and one "angels". I really don't think this
indicates a strong religious bias. I think I can say with some
authority that you have the wrong idea here.
P Nielsen Hayden
[Spoilers for A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY below.]
^L
On Wed, 06 Sep 2000 11:59:28 +0100,
Avedon Carol <ave...@thirdworld.uk> wrote:
>I think FIRE is more dependent on its dialogue with the genre than
>DEEPNESS is.
[...]
>I don't think DEEPNESS depends as much on that sort of genre
>knowledge, even though it does many of the same things. It feels to
>me like the social science stuff is much more central to the story as
>a whole, and I think the tech is also much more in the service of
>social science than it is in FIRE. So I think in that respect
>DEEPNESS may have broader appeal, and also may be especially appealing
>to someone whose preference is for social sciences rather than
>techie/skiffy stuff.
On the other hand, I think that having read A FIRE UPON THE DEEP
before reading A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY allows the second book to hit a
note of deep irony usually far beyond the reach of genre fiction. For
as John Clute pointed out, we read the entirety of A DEEPNESS IN THE
SKY knowing things about the universe that nobody in the book
knows...and the nobody in the book will _ever_ know.
P Nielsen Hayden
>There's some American academic -- an elderly Professor of English
>Literature at Yale and some University in New York, but I don't recall
>his name -- who has been pretty dismissive of it.
Harold Bloom.
>And I found myself
>thinking, maybe it isn't great literature, but you're missing the point
>completely.
He does.
In Bloom's favor, though, he's been modestly supportive of the notion
of taking SF and fantasy seriously in academic contexts.
P Nielsen Hayden
Bruce Schneier <schn...@counterpane.com> wrote:
>On 04 Sep 2000 17:00:33 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@gw.dd-b.net>
>wrote:
>>Having read both, I'm very glad Vinge won. Cryptonomicon is an
>>interesting bit of literature, but it's nothing much as science
>>fiction. ADitS is fantastic, mind-blowing, science fiction, and
>>easily deserved to win.
>
>Actually, I couldn't think of a single science fictional element in
>Cryptonomicon.
Sure. My daily life is full of people who come back from the dead.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Gelb) wrote:
>In article <39b40017...@enews.newsguy.com>, rit...@cruzio.com
>(Lucy Kemnitzer) wrote:
>>
>>Okay, I'll say it just as strongly but more specifically: I've
>>struggled and struggled with _A Fire Upon the Deep_ and come to
>>the conclusion that Vernor Vinge's work is never going to be worth
>>it for me: the quotient of ridiculousness is so high, and the
>>ideas are so stupid, and the characters so unlikely and
>>uninvolving that it took me over a month to read a hundred pages
>>and I gave up after about a hundred and fifty. So I never read _A
>>Deepness in the Sky_. And it'll take a lot for me to attempt
>>anything by Vernor VInge again.
>>
>
>It took me three times to finally get into _Fire_ and when
>I did, I was impressed. I thought he did a good job at making
>his aliens really *alien*, for one thing. I found _Deepness_
>more approachable, though.
I thought his aliens were stupid, sorry: the Tines, which were the
reason I kept coming back, were promising, but there were holes in
the conception of them you could drive a Mack truck through, and
no matter how many times I kept going back and trying to make
progress, I kept rubbing up against the Other Deadly Words: "I
Don't Believe This For An Instant."
It did have some good effect, though: now I itch to write critters
like the Tines as they should have been.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Lucy Kemnitzer
<d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>On Tue, 5 Sep 2000, in rec.arts.sf.fandom,
>James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
>>Lucy Kemnitzer <rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>>>But I notice that most of Bear's other titles seem to have "God"
>>>or something like it in the title, and I'm sort of put off. Why
>>>would ostensibly hard science fiction be titled like that?
>>
>>What, you never hit your thumb just as you were titling a story?
>
>I have, but _Forge of BollocksarseholesbuggeryChristona*stick*_ keeps
>getting sent back with the comment "Thank you, but it's not the sort of
>thing we're looking for at the moment"...
>
You never wrote "Forge of Yaaaagh"?
Lucy Kemnitzer
Mitch Wagner
>And lo, it came to pass on Tue, 05 Sep 2000 16:29:23 GMT that
>Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com>, wrote thusly:
>
>>Did you think it was better than both _Deepness_ and _Cryptonomicon_?
>>If not, Alison's comment shouldn't be *that* hard to understand.
>
>I'm sorry if it looked like I was directly refering to Allison, I
>wasn't. DitS deserved the win.
>
>I've just seen some fannish disdain towards the series.
Well, looking back on why I read one Harry Potter book and no more: I felt
like it had nothing new to say to me that I hadn't already heard many times
before. The evil-adoptive-family stuff reminded me of "James and the Giant
Peach"; the boarding-school stuff reminded me of a couple of books I'd read
as a kid, such as "Light a Single Candle" and Robert A. Heinlein's "Red
Planet." The magic involving plays on words reminded me of Piers Anthony's
Xanth.
BTW, "Light a Single Candle" was a favorite book of mine when I was a child
- it was actually a girls' book, so don't tell the guys in the locker room,
or else they'll snap their towels at me and otherwise give me a hard
time, huh?
--
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner
<39B57314.50DB1FF@see_end_of_post.com>:
>Personally, I *somewhat* dislike Harry Potter, the phenomenon, and
>somewhat like it. ...
Reminds me of the McCourt Family, the Phenomenon, which I think even - or
especially - Frank "Angela's Ashes" McCourt & kin are pretty sick of.
However, the McCourts are men in the 60s who previously did not have much
money, so they feel the need to pile up as much money as they can as fast
as they can as they enter a phase of life when people generally need LOTS
of money so they can give it all to doctors. And I, for one, can't blame
them.
--
Mitch Wagner
Vicki Rosenzweig
>
>I think it's good that it gets kids to read - although I wonder if that is
>the case, it's been repeated by Harry Potter fans a good deal but is there
>any proof, even anecdotal?
Sasha told me that his friends who don't read anything else read and
enjoyed the Harry Potter books. Sasha likes them too, but he's a
sensible fannish person, and reads all sorts of things.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig | v...@redbird.org
r.a.sf.f faq at http://www.redbird.org/rassef-faq.html
Mary Kay Kare
> (I have
> never understood why some people love 2001 as much as they do - I'm
> that sort of person. I thought RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA was dull.)
Oh, thank ghu. I've been afraid to say that aloud ever since I read it.
Perhaps now that you've taken the plunge more of us will declare
ourselves. Maybe enough for a support group. :-)
MKK
--
Member:
fwa
Evil Elitist Fannish Conspiracy
RASFF Fire, Usage, and Whinge Brigade
Worldwide TAFF Cabal (there is no cabal)
Bruce Schneier
wrote:
>CRYPTIC SPOILERS FOR CRYPTONOMICON
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>There are enough clues in there that Enoch Root is resurrected, ridiculously
>long lived, an alchemist, does magic healing, and invented Unix, or is at
>least the original "root". That doesn't strike me as magic realism. The
>stupid Qghelm stuff would probably be fine in a mainstream novel, but I
>think Root's organization would make it secret history even without the
>presence of Root as wizard.
Leaving aside whether or not there ARE enough clues, I don't believe
this is enough. Science fiction and fantasy are literary genres, not
puzzles. I just don't see someone saying: "There are enough clues in
this book to shelve it with the science fiction books."
And there are similar clues in Don Quixote; I wouldn't even think of
shelving it next to Jerry Pournelle.
Bruce
**********************************************************************
Bruce Schneier, Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. Tel: 408-556-2401
3031 Tisch Way, Suite 100PE, San Jose, CA 95128 Fax: 408-556-0889
Free crypto newsletter. See: http://www.counterpane.com
Mitch Wagner
<t30brsg68j3i8tm5u...@4ax.com>:
>Sure. But fiction does not equal fantasy. And magical realism does
>not equal fantasy. Carlos Castanada and Gabriel Garcia Marquez do not
>write fantasy.
Okay, I'll bite: I haven't read any Castaneda, but I've read quite a bit of
Marquez - why isn't he fantasy? It's got ghosts in it.
--
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner
<968225...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>:
>In article <t30brsg68j3i8tm5u...@4ax.com>
> schn...@counterpane.com "Bruce Schneier" writes:
>
>> On Tue, 05 Sep 2000 17:47:48 GMT, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >In article <sp8arso6bbq9b88pk...@4ax.com>
>> > schn...@counterpane.com "Bruce Schneier" writes:
>> >
>> >> Actually, I couldn't think of a single science fictional element in
>> >> Cryptonomicon.
>> >
>> >Do fantasy elements count?
>>
>> Sure. But fiction does not equal fantasy. And magical realism does
>> not equal fantasy. Carlos Castanada and Gabriel Garcia Marquez do not
>> write fantasy.
>
>I agree that they don't, but would we complain if one of them was
>nominated for a Hugo? Rowling isn't writing genre fantasy either.
>
>Generally :Cryptonomicon: (which I liked a lot) goes into the same
>category as Womack's :Let's Put the Future Behind Us: of "You're trying
>to tell me the real world is like this? Oh yeah?" But I think...
>
>CRYPTIC SPOILERS FOR CRYPTONOMICON
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>There are enough clues in there that Enoch Root is resurrected,
>ridiculously long lived, an alchemist, does magic healing, and invented
>Unix, or is at least the original "root". That doesn't strike me as
>magic realism. The stupid Qghelm stuff would probably be fine in a
>mainstream novel, but I think Root's organization would make it secret
>history even without the presence of Root as wizard.
I rather liked the Qghelm stuff. De gustibus, I guess.
--
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner
<39B4A00C...@learnlink.emory.edu>:
>Lucy Kemnitzer wrote:
>>
>> Okay, I'll say it just as strongly but more specifically: I've
>> struggled and struggled with _A Fire Upon the Deep_ and come to
>> the conclusion that Vernor Vinge's work is never going to be worth
>> it for me: the quotient of ridiculousness is so high, and the
>> ideas are so stupid, and the characters so unlikely and
>> uninvolving that it took me over a month to read a hundred pages
>> and I gave up after about a hundred and fifty. So I never read _A
>> Deepness in the Sky_. And it'll take a lot for me to attempt
>> anything by Vernor VInge again.
>
>You *might* want to try "True Names" by Vinge sometime: It's a
>novella, not a massive novel; and it, as much as any other story
>outside of perhaps Brunner's "Shockwave Rider," was responsible for
>the birth of cyberpunk SF. Come to think of it, "True Names" reminds
>me more of "Cryptonomicon" than it does "A Deepness in the Sky."
Alas, I think "True Names" is pretty dated by now, and I wouldn't recommend
it to anybody but a Vinge-aholic or someone whose interest is purely
academic.
--
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner
<8p690a$p4n$1...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>:
>Jo Walton (J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>> CRYPTIC SPOILERS FOR CRYPTONOMICON
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> There are enough clues in there that Enoch Root is resurrected,
>> ridiculously long lived, an alchemist, does magic healing, and
>> invented Unix, or is at least the original "root". That doesn't strike
>> me as magic realism. The stupid Qghelm stuff would probably be fine in
>> a mainstream novel, but I think Root's organization would make it
>> secret history even without the presence of Root as wizard.
>
>Where is it implied that he invented Unix?
Where does it say ANY of the things that Paul Shocklee says? There's
evidence Root is long-lived, but not incredibly so, and I don't recall any
evidence that he's an alchemist or does magic healing.
> I can find evidence in the
>text for all of the above except that one, and it would be rather odd if
>the book suggested that, because the inventors of Unix are rather well
>known in real life.
"Rather well known" to a very small segment of the population. Probably
only a few thousand people in the world know who invented Unix. And I'm
willing to posit in a fictional novel that it was really some guy named
Enoch Root, if it's a good novel. Hell, I'll bet the inventors of Unix
would say the same thing.
(You'll note that I say "the inventors of Unix" here. The reason for that
is that I can't say for 100% certain that I remember they're names - I'm
pretty sure it was Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie but I may be mistaken.
That's ironic, because I worked for years at a publication called "UNIX
Today." But remembering who invented Unix is just not that important in my
day-to-day life. Nor is it important to appreciating a novel.)(The name of
the publication was actually "UNIX Today!" by the way, but I always hated
that damn exclamation mark.)
--
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner
<tVVMDBAi...@ffutures.demon.co.uk>:
>In article <8FA6DC246as...@127.0.0.1>, Mitch Wagner
><mit...@sff.net> writes
>>
>>I think it's good that it gets kids to read - although I wonder if that
>>is the case, it's been repeated by Harry Potter fans a good deal but is
>>there any proof, even anecdotal? - and I think it's swell that so many
>>people enjoy the books, but I just don't think they're very
>>interesting.
>
>My nephew wasn't a reader. Period. He's now on his third pass through
>the earlier HP books, to be followed I assume by a second read of Goblet
>of Fire. He's also now read two or three of DWJ's books.
That's a datapoint.
--
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner
>And lo, it came to pass on 6 Sep 2000 04:34:38 GMT that
>mit...@sff.net (Mitch Wagner), wrote thusly:
>
>
>>I think it's good that it gets kids to read - although I wonder if that
>>is the case, it's been repeated by Harry Potter fans a good deal but is
>>there any proof, even anecdotal? - and I think it's swell that so many
>>people enjoy the books, but I just don't think they're very
>>interesting.
>
>Well, my niece is pushing the Narnia books on her Potter-jinesing
>friends, and she's beginning the Heinlein juveniles, but that's
>more my brother's influence.
>
Was were niece and her friends readers before Harry Potter?
>I am seeing more kids in the SF/Fantasy section.
That's something.
--
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner
<8p4l1q$5u2$1...@newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu>:
>In article <8FA6DC246as...@127.0.0.1>,
>Mitch Wagner <mit...@sff.net> wrote:
>>
>>I think it's good that it gets kids to read - although I wonder if that
>>is the case, it's been repeated by Harry Potter fans a good deal but is
>>there any proof, even anecdotal? - and I think it's swell that so many
>>people enjoy the books, but I just don't think they're very
>>interesting.
>
>I happened to be sitting in the childrens' section of Cody's Books here
>in Berkeley, just after the release of HP4. While there I was pleased
>to hear three children, aged between 8 and 11 I believe, discussing the
>series - and what they were going to read now they'd finished the fourth
>volume. I remember mentions of Diana Wynne Jones, Roald Dahl, and the
>Swallows and Amazons books. Also _The 21 Balloons_, which I am
>delighted to find is in print again.
>
>So there's one anecdote for you. Mind, I have no idea how much their
>parents encouraged them to read, and that's got to be a huge factor.
That anecdote doesn't say anything about getting kids to read - for all we
know, those kids were enthusiastic readers before Harry Potter.
--
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner
<ug2crsofc4b6cqgo2...@4ax.com>:
> Similarly, the aliens [in "A Fire Upon the Deep"]are wonderfully
visualized and taste
>really neat to someone who is very familiar with the alien stereotypes
>of the field and how they are traditionally used to characterize
>specific types of human social psychology, and get can a thrill out of
>where the rules are being elaborated, re-thought or broken.
One bit I really liked about "A Fire Upon the Deep": sf is filled with hive
mind and groupmind aliens, but Vinge is to my knowledge the first to
attempt to rationalize how the individual bodies in a groupmind might
communicate with each other. Other authors either overlook the question
entirely (Heinlein in "Starship Troopers"), or resort to handwaving about
telepathy or direct nervous-system-to-nervous-system interfaces (Heinlein
in "The Puppet Masters").
I imagine the language used by the individual elements of the Tines to
communicate with each other would sound, to human ears, a little bit like
puppies whining and a little bit like what you hear when you pick up a
phone extension while a modem is online.
(I've said all this before. I am, of course, the very first person to ever
repeat himself on Usenet. The death of the medium will follow soon, I'm
sure.)
And Vinge is a practitioner of the old-fashioned stfnal craft of thinking
things through and attempting to come up with unforeseen consequences of
his gimmicks. Okay, so, the Tines communicate by sound. That means that if
the elements of the Tines get too far away from each other, the tine breaks
up - if Tines get too close together then maybe they'll merge and maybe
they'll go insane - if a large number of Tines get together all the
individual Tines collapse into one big, unruly mob.
Vinge is very good at this kind of thinking-things-through, he does the
same thing in his bobble stories.
--
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner
<slrn8rdnn...@panix3.panix.com>:
>On Tue, 05 Sep 2000 11:47:17 -0500,
> Bruce Schneier <schn...@counterpane.com> wrote:
>>On 04 Sep 2000 17:00:33 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@gw.dd-b.net>
>>wrote:
>>>Having read both, I'm very glad Vinge won. Cryptonomicon is an
>>>interesting bit of literature, but it's nothing much as science
>>>fiction. ADitS is fantastic, mind-blowing, science fiction, and
>>>easily deserved to win.
>>
>>Actually, I couldn't think of a single science fictional element in
>>Cryptonomicon.
>
>
>Sure. My daily life is full of people who come back from the dead.
SPOILER WARNING:
Who came back from the dead in "Cryptonomicon"? Enoch Root? When do we see
him die?
--
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner
>On 04 Sep 2000 17:00:33 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@gw.dd-b.net>
>wrote:
>>Having read both, I'm very glad Vinge won. Cryptonomicon is an
>>interesting bit of literature, but it's nothing much as science
>>fiction. ADitS is fantastic, mind-blowing, science fiction, and
>>easily deserved to win.
>
>Actually, I couldn't think of a single science fictional element in
>Cryptonomicon.
The data haven arguably was, for a few months.
--
Mitch Wagner
Heather Anne Nicoll
> In article <slrn8rdnn...@panix3.panix.com>,
> P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
> >Sure. My daily life is full of people who come back from the dead.
Bluish? You don't -look- bluish. . . .
We could adopt him and make him an Honorary Disaster?
- Darkhawk, particularly fluffy just now
--
Heather Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.net/~darkhawk/
The night'll be our cover and we'll huddle below
We got the music in our bodies and the radio.
- Bonnie Tyler, "Faster Than The Speed of Night"
David Goldfarb
Kevin J. Maroney <kmar...@ungames.com> wrote:
>I've seen several articles in several venues on "what to read next",
>which indicates to me that there is, indeed, some
>spillover effect.
Diane Duane has indicated on rasfw that sales of her "Wizard" books
are up, and that her publisher has contracted for quite a few more
in the series.
--
David Goldfarb <*>|"I don't believe in astrology because
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | I'm a Gemini."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu |
aste...@slip.net | -- Raymond Smullyan
David G. Bell
J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk "Jo Walton" wrote:
> In article <6rscrsk6tjrhsim59...@4ax.com>
> grid...@mindspring.com "Doug Berry" writes:
>
> > Darn it! *I* want to go to Hogwarts!
>
> I hear they're looking for a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher...
I wonder what an FGMP-15 will do to Lord Valdemort
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
Copyright 2000 David G. Bell
The right to insert advertising material in the above text is reserved
to the author. The author did not use any form of HTML in the above text.
Any text following this line was added without the author's permission.