_Tunnel in the Sky_, Robert Heinlein
Tim McDaniel
This review isn't really intended to convince anyone, I suppose.
It's really more that I need to vent.
I hadn't read this in years because I despised the humiliation of the
ending. Re-reading a book should expand one's appreciation, broadening
and deepending it, and this re-read did. I now appreciate far more
things to loathe about it, and I have a deeper loathing for the
ending.
As for that ending, I should note that I could only bear to skim it.
But I have a hard time believing in a near descendent of America where
young adults, stranded with little equipment for three years, would
not on rescue be treated as heroes of survival, or at least accorded
respect for their skills in surviving. The book declares that this is
a romantic age, so I would expect even more admiration due to that.
Instead, the rescuers seems to treat the kids as nuisances, and the
rest are as bad.
My deepest loathing is for the premise, a course of training that
would be considered insane, stupid, vicious, and murderous in training
Special Forces commandos. Our Hero is taking Advanced Survival in a
high school (it can also be a college course). The standard notion of
a final is to abandon them more or less individually on a planet N
light years away, bid them travel some unknown distance in an unknown
number of days ... having deliberately refused to tell them anything
about the destination and leaving it almost entirely to their oun
resources for what they bring with ... and having emphasized that
there is no law at the destination, so anything goes. And indeed
he quickly finds a murder victim, and later is mugged and left for
dead himself. "We're looking for graduates, not casualties" my Aunt
Fanny Jane.
What are they training for? The only idea I can think of is serial
killers or psycopaths. Planetary explorers? Like hell. The
wormholes are expensive, good planets are quite valuable, and hazards
are often unknown, so you need a *team* (accent on the *team*) to be
trained together and work together with roled, and equipped well to be
an effective exploration squad. Settlers? Even less sensible. With
travel expensive and destinations dangerous, they're going to be stuck
on their own for years. Pioneer settlers in the US out in the
frontier were not loners, I believe, or if they were, I think they
were stupid. The Mayflower and Jamestown and Roanoke were groups, for
darned good reasons, and even with mutual support on a planet on which
humans evolved they mostly or entirely died. And givernment and law
were settled by the Mayflower group before they even got off the boat.
Near the front, I saw a statement that it was a prereq for being an
off-planet lawyer (and lots of other off-planet jobs, as I recall).
What, *really*?
Contrast this with The Test of Life in _The Chosen_ by S. M. Stirling
and David Drake. There are exams, psych tests, stress tests, et
cetera. In the team endurance event that concludes it, the five get
minimal equipment and are not told where the destination is, but
they're dropped in a known environment for which the equpment is at
least minimally adequate. *But the section starts*
"Teamwork, teamwork, you morons!"
They are massively penalized if all five don't make it out the other
side, and being a team, they look out for each other. *That* teaches
teamwork and other useful skills.
There are worse aspects. Our Hero (Rod) refuses to look at the death
rate for previous classes. A high-school class in something American
enough to be set at Patrick Henry High with a substantial death rate?
Leaving aside the notion that the students don't seem to care, their
parents don't? But even the kids don't seem to care about outright
murder. Rod comes across someone who died almost immediately, and
realizes that it had to be murder because the fellow's gun was
missing. His only reaction was a low whistle and a freshened resolve
to get into cover ASAP. There are veteran inner-city cops who would
have more of a reaction, and the teacher had said that he was too
emotional and too sentimental. When he was mugged, his main reaction
was that an heirloom watch was stolen. Most Afghanistan veterans
would react worse.
But I think that, like the Spiders in _A Deepness in the Sky_, these
are not in fact humans but aliens with languages and anatomy
translated into English. There's something in there about how Man is
the most individualistic of the primates, nevertheless learning to
work together. Uh, no, you're thinking of *orangutans*. Humans in
hunter-gatherer bands naturally form groups, I think comparable in
side to most other great apes. Solitary confinement without human
contact can quickly drive people to mental illness. Hmans are
natually social.
(Since I just ran across it: I'll mention how tired I am of the
hectoring that Man is the most dangerous animal and that animals are
far better than tractors for a colony.)
He picks a site for a town. It's in a creek bed. One of their major
building materials is adobe. They're new to the planet, so they don't
know about a rainy season.
The site turns out to be bad (on a major migration route of nasty
critters and merely desperate critters trying to escape them). Lots
of their people are killed. He has just returned from a trip where he
found much superior quarters. He insists on the town staying where it
is, in honor of the previous leader, who was incompetent and got
killed. They follow him in staying.
I think I had more reasons to despise this book, but I've forgotten
them, and damned if I'll read it again to see. This goes next to
_Farnham's Freehold_, and having just re-re-re-re-read _Farmer in the
Sky_ with less tolerance than hitherto (a Malthusian crisis while they
find it economical to transmute oxygen to nitrogen on Ganymede?!),
FitS may join them.
--
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tm...@panix.com
Lynn McGuire
Lynn
lal_truckee
> There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
You didn't say - did you like it or not?
Randy L AT DOT
"Tim McDaniel" <tm...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:p98jk8-...@tmcd-linux-p4.austin.tx.us...
>
> This review isn't really intended to convince anyone, I suppose.
> It's really more that I need to vent.
>
Tim, I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but "Tunnel In The
Sky" is a work of fiction. F-I-C-T-I-O-N....look this word up in a
dictionary. It is not required to make sense, or to be internally
consistent. If you felt that this story had to make logical sense or be
internally consistent, then you missed the point. This story was written for
a certain target audience. That is why this novel is considered a Heinlein
"juvenile". It was written mostly for junior high school and high school
children. It is a "what if" adventure story written for a target audience
that are usually not as discriminating as adults. This is a what-if
adventure story pure and simple. And as a what-if adventure story, it works
very well in my opinion.
You certainly do have the right to detest anything that you like. But I
can't help to think that you enterly missed the point of the story.
Randy L.
--
"I've seen things you people would not believe.
Barbeques on fire off the shoulder of the Interstate.
I've watched the gift shops glitter in the dark on Rodeo Drive.
All these moments will be lost in time,
like sweat-socks in the dryer. Time to pee."
--first draft of the script for the movie
Blade Runner
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
>
> "Tim McDaniel" <tm...@panix.com> wrote in message
> news:p98jk8-...@tmcd-linux-p4.austin.tx.us...
>> There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
>>
>> This review isn't really intended to convince anyone, I suppose.
>> It's really more that I need to vent.
>>
>> snip diatribe<
>
> Tim, I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but "Tunnel In The
> Sky" is a work of fiction. F-I-C-T-I-O-N....look this word up in a
> dictionary. It is not required to make sense, or to be internally
> consistent.
A few -- a VERY few -- authors can manage to write something that's
good with minimal nods to continuity, sense, and internal consistency,
but that's being good IN SPITE OF those lacks.
Even the most outlandish SF or fantasy should have INTERNAL consistency
-- it should make sense within the context of that world's rules.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Bill Snyder
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>On 9/19/11 12:54 PM, Randy L wrote:
>>
>> "Tim McDaniel" <tm...@panix.com> wrote in message
>> news:p98jk8-...@tmcd-linux-p4.austin.tx.us...
>>> There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
>>>
>>> This review isn't really intended to convince anyone, I suppose.
>>> It's really more that I need to vent.
>>>
>>> snip diatribe<
>>
>> Tim, I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but "Tunnel In The
>> Sky" is a work of fiction. F-I-C-T-I-O-N....look this word up in a
>> dictionary. It is not required to make sense, or to be internally
>> consistent.
>
>
> Yes, it is, if it's supposed to be GOOD.
>
> A few -- a VERY few -- authors can manage to write something that's
>good with minimal nods to continuity, sense, and internal consistency,
>but that's being good IN SPITE OF those lacks.
>
> Even the most outlandish SF or fantasy should have INTERNAL consistency
>-- it should make sense within the context of that world's rules.
"make sense" on an intuitive basis, or there goes the WSoD. "Ha, ha,
missed again, evull villain! Don't you know you can't shoot the hero
on a Tuesday?" is not going to work in most contexts.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
world and rules are, the more time you're going to have to spend easing
your audience INTO the rules so they accept them.
Bill Snyder
Drak Bibliophile
news:j57unc$gp$2...@dont-email.me...
rules" than the writer and other readers are operating under.
It's been a while since I read _Tunnel In The Sky_ but nothing seemed "off"
to me when I read it.
--
*
Paul Howard (Alias Drak Bibliophile)
*
Sometimes The Dragon Wins!
*
--------
*
Lynn McGuire
Stargate Series. Very well done in my opinion. A little
bit bloodthirsty for a YA but so is _Treasure_Island_.
Lynn
Joseph Nebus
>"Tim McDaniel" <tm...@panix.com> wrote in message
>news:p98jk8-...@tmcd-linux-p4.austin.tx.us...
>> There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
>>
>> This review isn't really intended to convince anyone, I suppose.
>> It's really more that I need to vent.
>>
>> snip diatribe<
> Tim, I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but "Tunnel In The
>Sky" is a work of fiction. F-I-C-T-I-O-N....look this word up in a
>dictionary. It is not required to make sense, or to be internally
>consistent. If you felt that this story had to make logical sense or be
>internally consistent, then you missed the point.
an otherwise promising novel because the story was just too internally
consistent and made excessive logical sense.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Will in New Haven
> There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
Nah, you didn't spoil it for me.
--
Will in New Haven
Howard Brazee
<rlink(AT)cableone(DOT)net> wrote:
> Tim, I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but "Tunnel In The
>Sky" is a work of fiction. F-I-C-T-I-O-N....look this word up in a
>dictionary. It is not required to make sense, or to be internally
>consistent.
you're implying. Making sense within the parameters of a story is
extremely important. Not making such sense is a "throw the book
against the wall" thing.
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
Lynn McGuire
Lynn
Suzanne Blom
Bill Snyder
Napoleon wins at Waterloo qualifies; Girl Genius doesn't because
of the different physics. So "you can't hit the hero on Tuesday"
is Right Out.
Glenn P.,
> There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
> This review isn't really intended to convince anyone, I suppose.
> It's really more that I need to vent.
> I hadn't read this in years because I despised the humiliation of the
> ending. Re-reading a book should expand one's appreciation, broadening
> and deepending it, and this re-read did. I now appreciate far more
> things to loathe about it, and I have a deeper loathing for the
> ending... [ Snip! ]
I can't argue anything you've said, except to shrug and say that, "Even
the great Robert Heinlein can have an off day once in awhile!" Admittedly
it's not much of an excuse, but it's as good as it gets.
I can even add to your very last paragraph: if I recall (from memory),
Rod said that the previous leader died "to save the town"; to which even
I said (out LOUD even), "No, he most certainly did NOT! He died to save
the PEOPLE! Now, go to that nice, new, SAFE area you found, Rod, and
stop being an ASSHOLE!" Oh, well...
Bad as it is in many respects, I did find much to enjoy about "Tunnel".
Among other things, it is one of the VERY FEW books in the WHOLE WORLD
to combine my two fascinations:
Science Fiction & Parliamentary Procedure!
I absolutely DEFY you to come up with another book that combines those
two! :)
-- >>>>> "Glenn P.," <C128UserD...@FVI.Net> <<<<<
-----------------------------------------
"Hoc in loco praecantato summa in Silva sito Puellus
et Ursus suus semper ludent."
:: Take Note Of The Spam Block On My E-Mail Address! ::
Lynn McGuire
> On 19-Sep-11 at 2:41am -0500,<tm...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
>
> > This review isn't really intended to convince anyone, I suppose.
> > It's really more that I need to vent.
>
> > I hadn't read this in years because I despised the humiliation of the
> > ending. Re-reading a book should expand one's appreciation, broadening
> > and deepending it, and this re-read did. I now appreciate far more
> > things to loathe about it, and I have a deeper loathing for the
> > ending... [ Snip! ]
>
> I can't argue anything you've said, except to shrug and say that, "Even
> the great Robert Heinlein can have an off day once in awhile!" Admittedly
> it's not much of an excuse, but it's as good as it gets.
>
> I can even add to your very last paragraph: if I recall (from memory),
> Rod said that the previous leader died "to save the town"; to which even
> I said (out LOUD even), "No, he most certainly did NOT! He died to save
> the PEOPLE! Now, go to that nice, new, SAFE area you found, Rod, and
> stop being an ASSHOLE!" Oh, well...
>
> Bad as it is in many respects, I did find much to enjoy about "Tunnel".
> Among other things, it is one of the VERY FEW books in the WHOLE WORLD
> to combine my two fascinations:
>
> I absolutely DEFY you to come up with another book that combines those
> two! :)
>
> -->>>>> "Glenn P.,"<C128UserD...@FVI.Net> <<<<<
> -----------------------------------------
> "Hoc in loco praecantato summa in Silva sito Puellus
> et Ursus suus semper ludent."
>
> :: Take Note Of The Spam Block On My E-Mail Address! ::
http://www.amazon.com/1632-Assiti-Shards-Eric-Flint/dp/0671319728/
I may be wrong, it could be _1633_ instead:
http://www.amazon.com/1633-Eric-Flint/dp/0743471555/
Lynn
Raymond Daley
both Ciao! and Dooyoo.
My basic points were (without spoilers)
It's an idea thats been done to death since the book was written (its
practically Lord Of The Flies or Robinson Crusoe in space in bits of it) but
this still stands out as a good story that keeps you hooked until the next
page right to the finish.
The book can be very sexist in places about the roles of men & women but the
women in this are shown to be as strong as the men (especially Caroline),
but it seems Heinlein was convinced women should get married, stay at home
and raise children.
I think today it would make a great movie or tv miniseries as it has a great
story with very well rounded characters, as for the book itself its
certainly a good page turner and will keep you nicely hooked into the story.
Its not too heavy going and certainly holds up to numerous re-reads which I
can attest to personally having easily read it more than 20 times now and
its still as enjoyable a read every time.
Tim McDaniel
>It's an idea thats been done to death since the book was written (its
>practically Lord Of The Flies or Robinson Crusoe in space in bits of
>it)
http://www.sfreviews.net/tunnel_in_the_sky.html points out "Tunnel was
released the year after Lord of the Flies, and in many ways reads like
a response to it. Heinlein isn't interested so much in how
civilizations collapse as in how they're built from the ground up."
And indeed I very much like that novel (snrk) aspect of the book:
society building. I should note that _Double Star_ is one of my
favorite Heinleins, because of the look into the details of practical
politics.
Nevertheless, as I pointed out, the framing story to get them there
bugged me out to no end.
I thought of a further comment about the background of the story.
It's mentioned that there are substantially more marriageable women
than men, one reason why his sister has joined the Amazons, a military
unit with only unmarried women. I think that happens only if there
was a really big war with a massive death rate within the last couple
of decades, because it would even out in a generation's worth of
births. But (1) there's no text evidence of that, and indeed I was
led to believe that humanity was unified under the Directorate, and
certainly North America and pan-Asia appeared to have no major
problems getting along, and (2) why is there a Malthusian catastrophe
nevertheless looming? (Yes, yes, because there's proof, proof!
actually he said it three times, that Malthusian catastrophe is
inevitable and inexorable and population always rises through a war.)
Though it now occurs to me: Rod's sister talks about sending her
people out on patrol ... who are they patrolling against, when Earth
appears unified and nothing is said about any rebel colonies?
> but this still stands out as a good story that keeps you hooked
>until the next page right to the finish.
By the way, while Googling, I ran across
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1931860/pdf/ajhg00572-0075.pdf
, "Studies in The Human Sex Ratio
5. A Genetic Explanation of the Wartime Increase in the
Secondary Sex Ratio"
Marianne E. Bernstein.
"ONE OF THE most controversial subjects in the study of the human sex
ratio is the assertion that there is a marked rise in the proportion
of male births toward the end and immediately after a major war. Even
those investigators who seem to have proven the existence of an
increase do not agree on its causes. Most of the European
investigators such as Savorgnan (1921) and Marbe (1940) are agreed
that, at least for England, France, and Germany, the increase is
statistically significant ..."
She found that, with one German dataset, those who had a child quickly
after marriage tended to have sons, while those who took longer tended
more towards daughters, and suggested that limited time to procreate
in war or after may have been the cause.
I also ran across
http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/country.php ,
which has country-by-country data. I couldn't get a population
pyramid for France before 1990 or so, but when you look at the CSV or
Excel versions, yeah, you see the male deficit thru 1950 ... but not
after.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
> "Tim McDaniel" <tm...@panix.com> wrote in message
> news:p98jk8-...@tmcd-linux-p4.austin.tx.us...
>> There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
>>
>> This review isn't really intended to convince anyone, I suppose.
>> It's really more that I need to vent.
>>
>> snip diatribe<
>
> Tim, I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but "Tunnel In
> The Sky" is a work of fiction. F-I-C-T-I-O-N....look this word up in a
> dictionary. It is not required to make sense, or to be internally
> consistent.
than fiction. Fiction has to make sense."
--
Now available on Amazon or B&N: One-Eyed Jack.
Greg Kraft could see ghosts. That didn't mean he could stop them...
Tim McDaniel
>So are you only going to give it 4 stars ?
4 stars. If I re-read it, I will start when Rod steps out onto the
planet, skip a bit brother when they get to the town site idiocy, and
slam shut the book when the gate opens at the end. I like the middle,
the survival and nation-building parts.
David Goldfarb
>Among other things, it is one of the VERY FEW books in the WHOLE WORLD
>to combine my two fascinations:
>
> Science Fiction & Parliamentary Procedure!
>
>I absolutely DEFY you to come up with another book that combines those
>two! :)
since I read it, but I seem to recall there being some parliamentary
procedure involved.
--
David Goldfarb |"I'm sorry officer, but ever since I started
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | wearing the Wonderbra I've been inexplicably
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | drawn around town preventing crimes."
| -- Bizarro
tphile
Why re-read it then? It doesn't sound like you have reconsidered
anything and that your not going to read it with an open mind or
different perspective. Also if you are gonna re-read it, then read
the WHOLE book otherwise your judgement is invalid. If "you don't get
it before" it's not likely you will "get it" now
Quadibloc
> I hadn't read this in years because I despised the humiliation of the
> ending.
by a corrupt judge... on not using his rightful inheritance to stamp
out slavery too quickly.
Or I Will Fear No Evil, _not_ a juvenile, in which the protagonist
needs to lie about his adaptation to his new body to pander to
misapplied prejudices that he reasonably expects jurors to have...
Heinlein's juveniles, and some of his other works, include what I
would view as distracting painful reminders of the imperfections of
the "real world". Stuff you don't normally find in escapist
literature. But instead of raising his works above genre fiction,
(instead, their quality does that) they stick out like sore thumbs as
things put in because they're "good for you".
So the reporter with the paint doesn't get brought to justice -
another example.
John Savard
Quadibloc
that perhaps he "can't begin to count" because the number is zero.
John Savard
Quadibloc
> I can even add to your very last paragraph: if I recall (from memory),
> Rod said that the previous leader died "to save the town"; to which even
> I said (out LOUD even), "No, he most certainly did NOT! He died to save
> the PEOPLE! Now, go to that nice, new, SAFE area you found, Rod, and
> stop being an ASSHOLE!" Oh, well...
However, it reminds me of something I read when I was in Crowsnest
Pass on business. Someone wrote in a letter that a landslide that had
occurred there that killed many people didn't kill the town, but that
closing the coal mine _would_, because then with no jobs everyone
would move to Calgary.
I found this bizarre. Isn't it better for *everyone* to be living
happily in Calgary than for *some* of those people to live in
Blairmore (part of Crowsnest Pass) and *some* of them to be killed in
a disaster caused by an unsafe coal mine? After all, it's people that
matter; a town is just a material thing created to serve people.
John Savard
Joseph Nebus
>On Sep 20, 3:28=A0am, t...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel) wrote:
>> In article <j57lu3$1o...@dont-email.me>, Lynn McGuire =A0<l...@winsim.com=
>>
>> >So are you only going to give it 4 stars ?
>>
>> Having now vented and re-considered ... I think I'll give it 2 out of
>anything and that your not going to read it with an open mind or
>different perspective.
reverse one's opinion; it can never be that after further consideration
the original opinion is found to be justified, or even too weak in its
vehemence.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Nebus
If I were to pin down a class of stories that work like that,
I think it's the closed-time-loop story where the author assumes there
is the one timeline and it can't be changed that most often makes the
most of its internal logic. Unfortunately there's terribly few of
this example (are Bill and Ted really the lone protagonists in that
vein?) as authors seem to like the implied risk that all history might
collapse in on itself.
Mysteries like to make noises towards excessive logical sense,
once all the plot points are laid out, but --- and I admit when I get
to reading I'm not generally keeping track of the chain of reasoning
--- I also suspect the results are probably like hard science fiction's
noises toward scientific accuracy. Good marketing, not to be taken too
literally, that sort of thing.
Farces need a really strong internal logic as well, although
that seems to me also an under-represented streak in science fiction,
as I say in my perfect ignorance of the many obvious examples.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Dyer-Bennet
> There are worse aspects. Our Hero (Rod) refuses to look at the death
> rate for previous classes. A high-school class in something American
> enough to be set at Patrick Henry High with a substantial death rate?
> Leaving aside the notion that the students don't seem to care, their
> parents don't? But even the kids don't seem to care about outright
> murder. Rod comes across someone who died almost immediately, and
> realizes that it had to be murder because the fellow's gun was
> missing. His only reaction was a low whistle and a freshened resolve
> to get into cover ASAP. There are veteran inner-city cops who would
> have more of a reaction, and the teacher had said that he was too
> emotional and too sentimental. When he was mugged, his main reaction
> was that an heirloom watch was stolen. Most Afghanistan veterans
> would react worse.
Yeah, that bothered me. As you say, highschool classes really shouldn't
have a death rate.
David Dyer-Bennet
> "Tim McDaniel" <tm...@panix.com> wrote in message
> news:p98jk8-...@tmcd-linux-p4.austin.tx.us...
>> There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
>>
>> This review isn't really intended to convince anyone, I suppose.
>> It's really more that I need to vent.
>>
>> snip diatribe<
>
> Tim, I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but "Tunnel In
> The Sky" is a work of fiction. F-I-C-T-I-O-N....look this word up in a
> dictionary. It is not required to make sense, or to be internally
> written for a certain target audience. That is why this novel is
> considered a Heinlein "juvenile". It was written mostly for junior
> high school and high school children. It is a "what if" adventure
> story written for a target audience that are usually not as
> discriminating as adults. This is a what-if adventure story pure and
> simple. And as a what-if adventure story, it works very well in my
> opinion.
Um, actually it is. The classic statement of the problem is "You
couldn't put this in a book!", said about something too weird to be
believed. Fiction has to be plausible; real life does not.
David Dyer-Bennet
> Bad as it is in many respects, I did find much to enjoy about "Tunnel".
> Among other things, it is one of the VERY FEW books in the WHOLE WORLD
> to combine my two fascinations:
>
> Science Fiction & Parliamentary Procedure!
>
> I absolutely DEFY you to come up with another book that combines those
> two! :)
Alexey Romanov
specified originally) isn't.
--
Alexey Romanov
Alexey Romanov
> On 19-Sep-11 at 2:41am -0500, <tm...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
>
> > This review isn't really intended to convince anyone, I suppose.
> > It's really more that I need to vent.
>
> > I hadn't read this in years because I despised the humiliation of the
> > ending. Re-reading a book should expand one's appreciation, broadening
> > and deepending it, and this re-read did. I now appreciate far more
> > things to loathe about it, and I have a deeper loathing for the
> > ending... [ Snip! ]
>
> I can't argue anything you've said, except to shrug and say that, "Even
> the great Robert Heinlein can have an off day once in awhile!" Admittedly
> it's not much of an excuse, but it's as good as it gets.
>
> I can even add to your very last paragraph: if I recall (from memory),
> Rod said that the previous leader died "to save the town"; to which even
> I said (out LOUD even), "No, he most certainly did NOT! He died to save
> the PEOPLE! Now, go to that nice, new, SAFE area you found, Rod, and
> stop being an ASSHOLE!" Oh, well...
>
> Bad as it is in many respects, I did find much to enjoy about "Tunnel".
> Among other things, it is one of the VERY FEW books in the WHOLE WORLD
> to combine my two fascinations:
>
> Science Fiction & Parliamentary Procedure!
>
> I absolutely DEFY you to come up with another book that combines those
> two! :)
--
Alexey Romanov
Bill Snyder
Lynn McGuire
quantification !
Lynn
Derek Lyons
Why not? Just because such would be unacceptable in current Western
society does not mean that it is always and forever unacceptable for
everyone, everywhere, everywhen. If you take as a given that purpose
of the course (possibly of the whole school) is to produce pioneers
and early wave colonists, then a modest death and/or dismemberment
rate seems to me to be acceptable.
Back when sub school was still in Groton, and students still took the
full escape course... In the hallway the students used to enter the
facility, there was a line of plaques - one plaque with a list of
names for each year that someone had died in the tower during the
course of training. The line stretched back to the tower's
construction in the 1920's. (For the WWII years, there were multiple
plaques.) When I attended, in February of 1982, the most recent
plaque was from 1980 as the 1981 plaque had not yet been hung.
(Though the hole for the hanger was there, and freshly drilled. Yes,
I checked.)
Our first day at the tower, three of my classmates turned right
around, went down to the admin office and unvolunteered for submarine
duty. Only one was a surprise, the other two had already been tagged
amongst us as unlikely to complete the school.
The presence and configuration of the plaques was no accident, in the
lobby used by general visitors there was just a series of memorial
plaques by year - with no names.
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
Lynn McGuire
It was high school classes from all over the globe,
not just a single class, right ?
A few totally evil people are going to slip through
the screening. If there even was a screening.
Stargate programs bring out the weird in people.
Lynn
Jared
the _classes_ are of course supposed to be safe. And furthermore people
in high school are thinking about doing dangerous things, like joining
the military, playing pro sports, or riding motorcycles. And kids who
are not in high school yet are thinking about being in high school and
being nearly adult.
So I think the danger and violence is absolutely on target for the
audience. I'm not sure how old you people are, but when I first read it
I was a teenager and I remember well enough my state of mind that your
criticisms sound very odd.
If Patrick Henry High is a lot more extreme than a real high school,
isn't that the point of the story and what keeps one's interest?
--
Jared
Scott Fluhrer
"Joseph Nebus" <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote in message
news:j5a659$qt8$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>
>>On 9/19/2011 2:20 PM, Joseph Nebus wrote:
>
>>> I can't begin to count the number of times I've had to set down
>>> an otherwise promising novel because the story was just too internally
>>> consistent and made excessive logical sense.
>
>>Titles ?
>
>
> What, and risk the start of counting?
>
>
> If I were to pin down a class of stories that work like that,
> I think it's the closed-time-loop story where the author assumes there
> is the one timeline and it can't be changed that most often makes the
> most of its internal logic. Unfortunately there's terribly few of
> this example (are Bill and Ted really the lone protagonists in that
> vein?)
_Timemaster_, Forward
If you don't insist that the protagonist take advantage of the
closed-time-loop-ness, there's a bunch of others.
I'll agree that they're a small minority of time-travel stories.
> as authors seem to like the implied risk that all history might
> collapse in on itself.
>
> Mysteries like to make noises towards excessive logical sense,
> once all the plot points are laid out, but --- and I admit when I get
> to reading I'm not generally keeping track of the chain of reasoning
> --- I also suspect the results are probably like hard science fiction's
> noises toward scientific accuracy. Good marketing, not to be taken too
> literally, that sort of thing.
that the reader could figure out 'who did it' beforehand. To be fair in
this, the reader really does have to know the self-consistent rules the
world follows.
--
poncho
Will in New Haven
places selling booze at the county line and it is illegal to even
_own_ alcoholic_ beverages within the county (irregularly enforced)
and most of the kids are raised to think they are either going to be
tee-totalers or drunks, the number of youngsters killed driving or
riding to and from "the line" is going to be fairly predictable.
I had a friend who was in three fatal accidents and never the driver
nor one of the fatalities. After awhile, no one would give him a ride
anywhere.
I read it before I went to that high school and it still seemed
reasonable, given the nature of the course.
If I had high-school kids, I guess the concept would strike me
differently.
--
Will in New Haven
Franco
football. Usually, it happens at the beginning of the season when
heart, etc. defects that weren't found during the required medical
exam result in death during practice. There are sometimes other deaths
during the season from a variety of causes.
Christopher J. Henrich
Glenn P., <C128UserD...@FVI.Net> wrote:
> Among other things, it is one of the VERY FEW books in the WHOLE WORLD
> to combine my two fascinations:
>
> Science Fiction & Parliamentary Procedure!
>
> I absolutely DEFY you to come up with another book that combines those
> two! :)
--
Chris Henrich
http://www.mathinteract.com
The wonderful thing about not planning, is that failure comes as a complete
surprise, and is not preceded by a period of worry or depression.
-- "Kiltannen"
Tim McDaniel
Derek Lyons <fair...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Yeah, that bothered me. As you say, highschool classes really
>>shouldn't have a death rate.
>
>Why not? Just because such would be unacceptable in current Western
>society does not mean that it is always and forever unacceptable for
>everyone, everywhere, everywhen.
numbers of high-school-aged teenagers training that had a substantial
risk of them being murdered in training by fellow students. The list
I have so far:
(1) Sparta
It doesn't seem applicable to a place named Patrick Henry High School
on a world with higher tech than ours. Patrick Henry HS, unlike
Sparta, offered them ranged weapons. Perhaps there are other world
cultures I'm not aware of -- I'm pretty woefully ignorant of
non-European history.
>If you take as a given that purpose of the course (possibly of the
>whole school) is to produce pioneers and early wave colonists,
take it in college. It's also stated that it's required for any
offplanet-related career whatsoever, implying that not passing it or
not taking it just restricts one's options to, I guess, at least 97%
of all jobs.
Walter Bushell
> In article <Pine.LNX.4.61.11...@Bfjrtb.SbkInyyrl.arg>,
> Glenn P., <C128UserD...@FVI.Net> wrote:
> >Among other things, it is one of the VERY FEW books in the WHOLE WORLD
> >to combine my two fascinations:
> >
> > Science Fiction & Parliamentary Procedure!
> >
> >I absolutely DEFY you to come up with another book that combines those
> >two! :)
>
> Well, _Green Mars_ has a constitutional convention. It's been a while
> since I read it, but I seem to recall there being some parliamentary
> procedure involved.
--
Ignorance is no protection against reality. -- Paul J Gans
Walter Bushell
number of deaths, maimings and paralyzations. I would suspect driver ed
does too, more, of course, before we adopted seat belts.
Will in New Haven
> In article <4e7cc367.1141642...@news.supernews.com>,
> fairwa...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons) wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> wrote:
isn't the only other sport with fatalities. And drunk driving is very
possibly the most popular intra-mural sport at Quinippiac College down
the road.
And no one HAD to have, or had to want, an off-planet job. That course
would not have been as popular as it seemed to be, except that all the
other kids who read the book back when I did thought they wanted to
take that course, as did I.
--
Will in New Haven
Townes Van Zandt - "Pancho and Lefty"
Gene Wirchenko
[snip]
>I absolutely DEFY you to come up with another book that combines those
>two! :)
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Doug Wickström
<pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>And High Schools still have football teams which produce a certain
>number of deaths, maimings and paralyzations. I would suspect driver ed
>does too, more, of course, before we adopted seat belts.
Seat belts and drivers ed came in about the same time.
--
Doug Wickstr�
Lawrence Watt-Evans
--
Now available on Amazon or B&N: One-Eyed Jack.
Greg Kraft could see ghosts. That didn't mean he could stop them...
Doug Wickström
<l...@sff.net> wrote:
>On 2011-09-22 02:19:22 -0400, Doug Wickström said:
>
>> On Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:13:52 -0400, Walter Bushell
>> <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>> And High Schools still have football teams which produce a certain
>>> number of deaths, maimings and paralyzations. I would suspect driver ed
>>> does too, more, of course, before we adopted seat belts.
>>
>> Seat belts and drivers ed came in about the same time.
>
>No, driver's ed was earlier by maybe eight to ten years.
1956 model year.
--
Doug Wickström
Michael Stemper
>There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
>and deepending it, and this re-read did. I now appreciate far more
>things to loathe about it, and I have a deeper loathing for the
>ending.
>
>But I have a hard time believing in a near descendent of America where
>young adults, stranded with little equipment for three years, would
>not on rescue be treated as heroes of survival, or at least accorded
>respect for their skills in surviving. The book declares that this is
>a romantic age, so I would expect even more admiration due to that.
>Instead, the rescuers seems to treat the kids as nuisances, and the
>rest are as bad.
I was ten years old when I first read this book, and the ending
struck me at the time as perfectly plausible. Adults who thought
that they knew better than the kids who'd been there seemed like
an abosolutely realistic thing to me.
The "journalist" who tricked the viewpoint character into posing
as a painted savage was espeically plausible, and irritating.
The ending really pissed me off, for that very reason. On the other
hand, this was the first "real book" where I went directly from the
last page back to the first and started over.
>My deepest loathing is for the premise, a course of training that
>would be considered insane, stupid, vicious, and murderous in training
>Special Forces commandos. Our Hero is taking Advanced Survival in a
>high school (it can also be a college course). The standard notion of
>a final is to abandon them more or less individually on a planet N
>light years away, bid them travel some unknown distance in an unknown
>number of days ... having deliberately refused to tell them anything
This matched my experiences with "grown-ups", as well. They just
issued arbitrary mandates, and questions weren't accepted.
Maybe these things that you're pointing out here contributed to
my immense enjoyment at age ten.
>about the destination and leaving it almost entirely to their oun
>resources for what they bring with ... and having emphasized that
>there is no law at the destination, so anything goes.
This appealed to me, as well. Complete independence sounded
wonderful. Especially since grown-ups were so arbitrary and annoying.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding;
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.
Michael Stemper
>"Tim McDaniel" <tm...@panix.com> wrote in message news:p98jk8-...@tmcd-linux-p4.austin.tx.us...
>> It's really more that I need to vent.
>>
>
> Tim, I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but "Tunnel In The
>Sky" is a work of fiction. F-I-C-T-I-O-N....look this word up in a
>dictionary. It is not required to make sense, or to be internally
>consistent.
idea, and one that I'd not previously encountered.
> You certainly do have the right to detest anything that you like. But I
>can't help to think that you enterly missed the point of the story.
The point of the story was, as I saw it, kids growing up and becoming
self-reliant and independent. I'd bet that Tim saw that as the point of
the story, even though he thought that it was quite poorly done.
Michael Stemper
>In article <Pine.LNX.4.61.11...@Bfjrtb.SbkInyyrl.arg>, Glenn P., <C128UserD...@FVI.Net> wrote:
>>Among other things, it is one of the VERY FEW books in the WHOLE WORLD
>>to combine my two fascinations:
>>
>> Science Fiction & Parliamentary Procedure!
>>
>>two! :)
>
> but I seem to recall there being some parliamentary
>procedure involved.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
lal_truckee
>>
>
> And driver's ed courses started showing up around 1948.
I learned to drive in 1949 when I was 5, sitting on Dad's lap steering a
1944 surplus jeep around the orchard.
Yesterday I drove that same jeep around that same orchard.
Michael Stemper
>> And High Schools still have football teams which produce a certain
>> number of deaths, maimings and paralyzations. I would suspect driver ed
>> does too, more, of course, before we adopted seat belts.
>>
>And high schools have rodeo and stock still can kill you and football
>isn't the only other sport with fatalities. And drunk driving is very
>possibly the most popular intra-mural sport at Quinippiac College down
>the road.
>
>And no one HAD to have, or had to want, an off-planet job. That course
>would not have been as popular as it seemed to be, except that all the
>other kids who read the book back when I did thought they wanted to
>take that course, as did I.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
http://www.leepers.us/evelyn/faqs/sf-written
Please read it before posting.
Michael Stemper
seat belts into his 1965 Falcon.
Michael Stemper
>In article <p98jk8-...@tmcd-linux-p4.austin.tx.us>, tm...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel) writes:
>>There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
>>As for that ending, I should note that I could only bear to skim it.
>>But I have a hard time believing in a near descendent of America where
>>young adults, stranded with little equipment for three years, would
>>not on rescue be treated as heroes of survival, or at least accorded
>>respect for their skills in surviving. The book declares that this is
>>a romantic age, so I would expect even more admiration due to that.
>>Instead, the rescuers seems to treat the kids as nuisances, and the
>>rest are as bad.
>The ending really pissed me off, for that very reason. On the other
>hand, this was the first "real book" where I went directly from the
>last page back to the first and started over.
Wait a minute. The ending wasn't the self-sufficient once-kids coming
back under parental and societal wings. The ending was Rod watching
the wagons rollin', rollin', rollin'. Did *this* part piss you off?
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
The name of the story is "A Sound of Thunder".
It was written by Ray Bradbury. You're welcome.
Michael Stemper
>> t...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel) writes:
>> > rate for previous classes. =A0A high-school class in something American
>> Yeah, that bothered me. =A0As you say, highschool classes really shouldn't
>Ours did and I think it was a fairly predictable one. When you have
>places selling booze at the county line and it is illegal to even
>_own_ alcoholic_ beverages within the county (irregularly enforced)
Between the end of our junior year and graduation day, one died that
way, one was shot by a home invader, one died in a duck blind, and
one died of a brain tumor. Out of a graduating class of about 400.
Tim McDaniel
>The point of the story was, as I saw it, kids growing up and becoming
>self-reliant and independent. I'd bet that Tim saw that as the point
>of the story,
brutish and short forming a civil society.
Lynn McGuire
> In article<gb1m771hl4uuib0ne...@4ax.com>, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Doug_Wickstr=F6m?=<nims...@comcast.net> writes:
>> On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 02:58:04 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans<l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>> On 2011-09-22 02:19:22 -0400, Doug Wickstr�m said:
>
>>>>> And High Schools still have football teams which produce a certain
>>>>> number of deaths, maimings and paralyzations. I would suspect driver ed
>>>>> does too, more, of course, before we adopted seat belts.
>>>>
>>>> Seat belts and drivers ed came in about the same time.
>>>
>>> No, driver's ed was earlier by maybe eight to ten years.
>>
>> Seat belts were introduced as a factory option by Ford for the
>> 1956 model year.
>
> And not standard equipment for another decade. My father retro-fitted
> seat belts into his 1965 Falcon.
1965 Fords had lap belts (installed also). If you
wanted shoulder belts then that was a special order
and you installed them yourself.
Lynn
Walter Bushell
> In article
> <18ea0948-63d7-4320...@fi7g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, Will in
> New Haven <bill....@taylorandfrancis.com> writes:
> >On Sep 20, 11:01=A0am, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> >> t...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel) writes:
>
> >> > There are worse aspects. =A0Our Hero (Rod) refuses to look at the death
> >> > rate for previous classes. =A0A high-school class in something American
>
> >> Yeah, that bothered me. =A0As you say, highschool classes really shouldn't
> >> have a death rate.
>
> >Ours did and I think it was a fairly predictable one. When you have
> >places selling booze at the county line and it is illegal to even
> >_own_ alcoholic_ beverages within the county (irregularly enforced)
>
> I was in a 21 county, five miles from a small town in an 18 county.
>
> Between the end of our junior year and graduation day, one died that
> way, one was shot by a home invader, one died in a duck blind, and
> one died of a brain tumor. Out of a graduating class of about 400.
Out of 4 kids in my grade one died in a sledding accident. I never
thought to ask about the influence of alcohol and anyway it would have
been impolite.
Michael Stemper
>In article <j5fsm2$u4e$1...@dont-email.me>, mste...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:
>> In article <18ea0948-63d7-4320...@fi7g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, Will in New Haven <bill....@taylorandfrancis.com> writes:
>> >On Sep 20, 11:01=A0am, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> >> Yeah, that bothered me. =A0As you say, highschool classes really shouldn't
>> >> have a death rate.
>>
>> >Ours did and I think it was a fairly predictable one. When you have
>> >places selling booze at the county line and it is illegal to even
>> >_own_ alcoholic_ beverages within the county (irregularly enforced)
>>
>> I was in a 21 county, five miles from a small town in an 18 county.
>>
>> Between the end of our junior year and graduation day, one died that
>> way, one was shot by a home invader, one died in a duck blind, and
>> one died of a brain tumor. Out of a graduating class of about 400.
>
>Was alcohol involved in the duck blind case?
that just occurred to me in the last five-ten years) is that it
was a suicide.
>Out of 4 kids in my grade one died in a sledding accident. I never
>thought to ask about the influence of alcohol and anyway it would have
>been impolite.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.
Raymond Daley
"Michael Stemper" <mste...@walkabout.empros.com> wrote in message
news:j5fsbi$pu9$8...@dont-email.me...
> In article <j5fabu$r3k$1...@dont-email.me>, mste...@walkabout.empros.com
> (Michael Stemper) writes:
>>The ending really pissed me off, for that very reason. On the other
>>hand, this was the first "real book" where I went directly from the
>>last page back to the first and started over.
>
> Wait a minute. The ending wasn't the self-sufficient once-kids coming
> back under parental and societal wings. The ending was Rod watching
> the wagons rollin', rollin', rollin'. Did *this* part piss you off?
He did say he hates reading the actual ending.
I'm assuming the "ending" he hates is when the camera crew arrive and try to
make a BS documentary that has no reflection of the lifestyle they were
living on the planet.
It smacks of media exploitation and unwillingness to report the facts if a
complete fabrication will get better ratings.
They even say they will do a softcore and hardcore version, those specific
terms aren't used but they kinda intimate there will be a clean and
wholesome version and a less than wholesome version as well.
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>And High Schools still have football teams which produce a certain
>number of deaths, maimings and paralyzations. I would suspect driver ed
>does too, more, of course, before we adopted seat belts.
We have quite a range of extreme activities which are at least as
dangerous but have people who are obsessed with doing.
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
Howard Brazee
mste...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:
>
>And not standard equipment for another decade. My father retro-fitted
>seat belts into his 1965 Falcon.
I worked for Ralph Nader's parents in the 1960s. They retrofitted
their old Dodge with some seat belts - but they didn't use them. They
were Lebanese restaurateurs who had typical immigrant working values.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
that, then.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>
>>tm...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel) writes:
>>
>>> There are worse aspects. Our Hero (Rod) refuses to look at the death
>>> rate for previous classes. A high-school class in something American
>>> enough to be set at Patrick Henry High with a substantial death rate?
>>> Leaving aside the notion that the students don't seem to care, their
>>> parents don't? But even the kids don't seem to care about outright
>>> murder. Rod comes across someone who died almost immediately, and
>>> realizes that it had to be murder because the fellow's gun was
>>> missing. His only reaction was a low whistle and a freshened resolve
>>> to get into cover ASAP. There are veteran inner-city cops who would
>>> have more of a reaction, and the teacher had said that he was too
>>> emotional and too sentimental. When he was mugged, his main reaction
>>> was that an heirloom watch was stolen. Most Afghanistan veterans
>>> would react worse.
>>
>>Yeah, that bothered me. As you say, highschool classes really shouldn't
>>have a death rate.
>
> Why not? Just because such would be unacceptable in current Western
> society does not mean that it is always and forever unacceptable for
> everyone, everywhere, everywhen.
Do you know what a highschool is? That's not an acceptable locale for
that level of training.
> If you take as a given that purpose
> of the course (possibly of the whole school) is to produce pioneers
> and early wave colonists, then a modest death and/or dismemberment
> rate seems to me to be acceptable.
That's an absurd premise. This was an ordinary American highschool; NOT
a specialized school aimed at what you say.
> Back when sub school was still in Groton, and students still took the
> full escape course... In the hallway the students used to enter the
> facility, there was a line of plaques - one plaque with a list of
> names for each year that someone had died in the tower during the
> course of training. The line stretched back to the tower's
> construction in the 1920's. (For the WWII years, there were multiple
> plaques.) When I attended, in February of 1982, the most recent
> plaque was from 1980 as the 1981 plaque had not yet been hung.
> (Though the hole for the hanger was there, and freshly drilled. Yes,
> I checked.)
And this kind of military abuse of recruits in training really disgusts
me, and badly taints the whole military enterprise.
David Dyer-Bennet
> And High Schools still have football teams which produce a certain
> number of deaths, maimings and paralyzations. I would suspect driver ed
> does too, more, of course, before we adopted seat belts.
Some coaches have a lot more of those than others. I think criminal
charges would be in order -- depraved indifference, say, along with
abuse of authority.
David Dyer-Bennet
And didn't "come in" in any meaningful sense until the early 1960s
sometime.
(Airplanes had them earlier, many racing cars had them earlier, etc.;
the idea of the seat belt isn't the key point in "came in" here.)
David Dyer-Bennet
> On Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:13:52 -0400, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com>
> wrote:
>
>>And High Schools still have football teams which produce a certain
>>number of deaths, maimings and paralyzations. I would suspect driver ed
>>does too, more, of course, before we adopted seat belts.
>
> We have quite a range of extreme activities which are at least as
> dangerous but have people who are obsessed with doing.
Hobby activities are different from coursework in a school, even
elective coursework.
And, do we? I'm not sure what the right unit of measure is, but it
looks to me like there were multiple fatalities in Rod's class BEFORE
the fact that they were stranded came to light (i.e. while they were
still an ordinary class). How many people in the class, 25 or
something? I forget the number of early deaths, but even two fatalaties
out of 25, if it's typical for the class, is absurdly high for any class
or any hobby activity.
What if the football team lost two members a year? Would that go on?
Or would they change the rules until it stopped?
Scuba diving and parachuting, both somewhat dangerous, don't come
anywhere near two people out of every 25 in their initial year of
training (gets safer later of course). Learning to ride a motorcycle
doesn't kill 2 of 25 in the first year.
(Or was Rod's class much bigger? I remember it as one class, one
teacher.)
David Dyer-Bennet
> On 9/20/2011 10:01 AM, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
>> tm...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel) writes:
>>
>>> There are worse aspects. Our Hero (Rod) refuses to look at the death
>>> rate for previous classes. A high-school class in something American
>>> enough to be set at Patrick Henry High with a substantial death rate?
>>> Leaving aside the notion that the students don't seem to care, their
>>> parents don't? But even the kids don't seem to care about outright
>>> murder. Rod comes across someone who died almost immediately, and
>>> realizes that it had to be murder because the fellow's gun was
>>> missing. His only reaction was a low whistle and a freshened resolve
>>> to get into cover ASAP. There are veteran inner-city cops who would
>>> have more of a reaction, and the teacher had said that he was too
>>> emotional and too sentimental. When he was mugged, his main reaction
>>> was that an heirloom watch was stolen. Most Afghanistan veterans
>>> would react worse.
>>
>> Yeah, that bothered me. As you say, highschool classes really shouldn't
>> have a death rate.
>
> It was high school classes from all over the globe,
> not just a single class, right ?
I'm just counting deaths in Rod's class, I think. Yes, there were
others on the same planet, and they met up, as I remember it.
> A few totally evil people are going to slip through
> the screening. If there even was a screening.
So I don't believe in the test schenario.
> Stargate programs bring out the weird in people.
Oh, is that the problem?
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>> Why not? Just because such would be unacceptable in current Western
>> society does not mean that it is always and forever unacceptable for
>> everyone, everywhere, everywhen.
>
>Do you know what a highschool is? That's not an acceptable locale for
>that level of training.
I know what high school is in the U.S. in our life times. But times
change. We don't know much at all about Earth when this novel takes
place.
John Halpenny
> Doug Wickstr m <nimshu...@comcast.net> writes:
> > On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 02:58:04 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans
> > <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>
> >>> On Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:13:52 -0400, Walter Bushell
> >>> <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> >>>> And High Schools still have football teams which produce a certain
> >>>> number of deaths, maimings and paralyzations. I would suspect driver ed
> >>>> does too, more, of course, before we adopted seat belts.
>
> >>> Seat belts and drivers ed came in about the same time.
>
> >>No, driver's ed was earlier by maybe eight to ten years.
>
> > Seat belts were introduced as a factory option by Ford for the
> > 1956 model year.
>
> And didn't "come in" in any meaningful sense until the early 1960s
> sometime.
>
> (Airplanes had them earlier, many racing cars had them earlier, etc.;
> the idea of the seat belt isn't the key point in "came in" here.)
When I bought my first car, in '68, I had already spent three summers
on helicopter survey, where I fastened my seat belt many times a day.
I used my car belt out of habit, but few other people did.
David Goldfarb
Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:23:39 -0400, "Glenn P.,"
><C128UserD...@FVI.Net> wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>I absolutely DEFY you to come up with another book that combines those
>>two! :)
>
Who was it that said the fastest way to get the answer to a question
on Usenet was not to ask the question, but to violently assert a
wrong answer to it?
--
David Goldfarb |"It is curious that a dog runs already
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | on the escalator."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- Bella Abzug
lal_truckee
> This was an ordinary American highschool; NOT
One of the classes undertaking their final examination in Solo Survival
was from Outlands Arts College; sounds like "a specialized school."
Tim McDaniel
>On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 21:41:06 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
>wrote:
>
>>> Why not? Just because such would be unacceptable in current
>>> Western society does not mean that it is always and forever
>>> unacceptable for everyone, everywhere, everywhen.
>>
>>Do you know what a highschool is? That's not an acceptable locale
>>for that level of training.
>
>I know what high school is in the U.S. in our life times. But times
>change. We don't know much at all about Earth when this novel takes
>place.
the only social difference I remember seeing (other than the casual
acceptance of legal unlimited homicide during the test, which I
questioned) and other than the Peace Lamp and the father being the
family priest, nothing is really said about it. He's Rod Walker,
going to Patrick Henry High School, commuting home via the Hoboken
Gate, taking the class from the Department of Social Studies. There's
not enough detail to be sure, but I'm inclined to think it's not too
different from today.
Tim McDaniel
David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> writes:
>> We have quite a range of extreme activities which are at least as
>> dangerous but have people who are obsessed with doing.
>
>Hobby activities are different from coursework in a school, even
>elective coursework.
>
>And, do we? I'm not sure what the right unit of measure is, but it
>looks to me like there were multiple fatalities in Rod's class BEFORE
>the fact that they were stranded came to light (i.e. while they were
>still an ordinary class).
The only corpse shown was from a murder that was committed within a
few hours of the start of the test. Jack mentioned later that she
found a corpse that seemed to be that of the murderer.
It's the murder rate, and the explicit statment that there is no law
on the other side, that bothers me more than a death rate per se.
>How many people in the class, 25 or something?
I don't think it says. Not very many attended the class before the
jump. About 10 people were flunked when approaching the gate due to
bad equipment choice. I get the impression that it wasn't too many.
Tim McDaniel
>Or would they change the rules until it stopped?
I'll note the history of American football: multiple deaths in
collegiate rugby football matches drove the initial divergence.
Wayne Throop
: One of the classes undertaking their final examination in Solo
: Survival was from Outlands Arts College; sounds like "a specialized
: school."
And iirc, extra and explicit parental permissions and
liability waivers were required to take the complete class.
Martin DeMello
> In article <p98jk8-...@tmcd-linux-p4.austin.tx.us>, tm...@panix.com
> (Tim McDaniel) writes:
>>There will be spoilers here for this 1955 novel.
>
>>ending. Re-reading a book should expand one's appreciation, broadening
>>and deepending it, and this re-read did. I now appreciate far more
>>things to loathe about it, and I have a deeper loathing for the ending.
>>
>>As for that ending, I should note that I could only bear to skim it. But
>>I have a hard time believing in a near descendent of America where young
>>adults, stranded with little equipment for three years, would not on
>>rescue be treated as heroes of survival, or at least accorded respect
>>for their skills in surviving. The book declares that this is a
>>romantic age, so I would expect even more admiration due to that.
>>Instead, the rescuers seems to treat the kids as nuisances, and the rest
>>are as bad.
>
> I was ten years old when I first read this book, and the ending struck
> me at the time as perfectly plausible. Adults who thought that they knew
> better than the kids who'd been there seemed like an abosolutely
> realistic thing to me.
>
> The "journalist" who tricked the viewpoint character into posing as a
> painted savage was espeically plausible, and irritating.
>
> The ending really pissed me off, for that very reason. On the other
> hand, this was the first "real book" where I went directly from the last
> page back to the first and started over.
Same here - that bit pissed me off not because it was so unrealistic but
because it was so plausible. The bit with the journalist distorting the
character's story in favour of sensationalism was also used in "Logic of
Empire", where it was likewise depressingly plausible.
martin
Tim McDaniel
Raymond Daley <raymon...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>"Michael Stemper" <mste...@walkabout.empros.com> wrote in message
>news:j5fsbi$pu9$8...@dont-email.me...
>> back under parental and societal wings. The ending was Rod watching
>> the wagons rollin', rollin', rollin'. Did *this* part piss you off?
>
>He did say he hates reading the actual ending.
>I'm assuming the "ending" he hates is when the camera crew arrive and
>try to make a BS documentary that has no reflection of the lifestyle
>they were living on the planet.
It's not entirely clear to me what he meant, but I think it's
referring to what I think of as the true ending, when the gate is
reopened. I think of the physical last words, Rod ridin' all
Western-like thru a stargate, as like the ending of _The Stoned Guest_
by P.D.Q. Bach, where (as I recall) everyone dies, but then everyone
is unexplainedly resurrected and sings "Happy ending, happy ending,
happy ending, ...".
For me, my problems with what I think of as the true ending are not
just with the camera crew, but also with the dismissive attitude of
the rescuers and the dismissive attitude of Rod's parents. The latter
is not that unexpected, of course (I'm reminded of the uncle's
reactions to Thorby's slavery in _Citizen of the Galaxy_), but I have
a harder time with the rescuers' reactions comma lack of.
Mart van de Wege
> There's not enough detail to be sure, but I'm inclined to think
> [society in TitS] not too different from today.
If Heinlein does indeed not give enough detail to bear out the
hypothesis that society *is* much different than today's, then this is
one more proof that Heinlein is a lazy writer who consistently overlooks
these sort of inconsistencies.
Not having read TitS (fitting abbreviation, given RAH's later work), I
can not say for sure whether or not this actually is a data point that
would reinforce my Heinlein aversion.
Mart
--
"We will need a longer wall when the revolution comes."
--- AJS, quoting an uncertain source.
Brian M. Scott
rec.arts.sf.written:
> fair...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons) writes:
>> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
[...]
>>> Yeah, that bothered me. As you say, highschool classes
>>> really shouldn't have a death rate.
>> Why not? Just because such would be unacceptable in
>> current Western society does not mean that it is always
>> and forever unacceptable for everyone, everywhere,
>> everywhen.
> Do you know what a highschool is? That's not an
> acceptable locale for that level of training.
As an elective, with a requirement for parental consent?
While I don't think it at all likely, I can imagine society
changing to that extent, and I don't find the idea
intrinsically unacceptable, though I do have some objections
to the implementation in the novel.
[...]
Brian
Brian M. Scott
<mvd...@mail.com> wrote in
<news:86boubu...@gareth.avalon.lan> in
rec.arts.sf.written:
> tm...@tmcd-p4-linux.austin.tx.us (Tim McDaniel) writes:
>> There's not enough detail to be sure, but I'm inclined to think
>> [society in TitS] not too different from today.
> If Heinlein does indeed not give enough detail to bear out
> the hypothesis that society *is* much different than
> today's, then this is one more proof that Heinlein is a
> lazy writer who consistently overlooks these sort of
> inconsistencies.
In fact it's transparently obvious that society differs
greatly from ours today; the similarities are largely on the
surface.
[...]
Brian
David DeLaney
>>
>> Apparently, this translates to "Please make a list for me."
>
>Who was it that said the fastest way to get the answer to a question
>on Usenet was not to ask the question, but to violently assert a
>wrong answer to it?
Dave "weeps for the lost art of trolling" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Jerry Brown
>tm...@tmcd-p4-linux.austin.tx.us (Tim McDaniel) writes:
>
>> There's not enough detail to be sure, but I'm inclined to think
>> [society in TitS] not too different from today.
>
>If Heinlein does indeed not give enough detail to bear out the
>hypothesis that society *is* much different than today's, then this is
>one more proof that Heinlein is a lazy writer who consistently overlooks
>these sort of inconsistencies.
>
>Not having read TitS (fitting abbreviation, given RAH's later work),
Did I imagine this, or did one of said later works have a scene where
the characters broke off from whatever they were doing plotwise to
have an important discussion as to whether or not "teats" was a more
accurate term?
--
Jerry Brown
A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
today. Except that. And that. And that. And... okay, it's not really
much like today at all, is it?"
Heck, when the focal point of the story *IS* a class where it is,
apparently, an accepted and acceptable element to require legal waivers
that explicitly spell out that the student may DIE during the course?
I'd say that's SCREAMING OUT "this is not your world, fool!" with a
megaphone. The other details that emphasize the differences are just
icing on the cake at that point.
IN A WORLD... where we have to fill out permission slips for our kids
to take bus rides to a different kid's HOUSE, just that SINGLE detail
shows that Rod's world IS NOT OURS in many very essential ways.
James Nicoll
>In article <o16l779v1f39hug2g...@4ax.com>,
>Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net> wrote:
>>On Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:23:39 -0400, "Glenn P.,"
>><C128UserD...@FVI.Net> wrote:
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>>I absolutely DEFY you to come up with another book that combines those
>>>two! :)
>>
>> Apparently, this translates to "Please make a list for me."
>
>Who was it that said the fastest way to get the answer to a question
>on Usenet was not to ask the question, but to violently assert a
>wrong answer to it?
>
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
Raymond Daley
"Tim McDaniel" <tm...@tmcd-p4-linux.austin.tx.us> wrote in message
news:e3dtk8-...@tmcd-linux-p4.austin.tx.us...
> few hours of the start of the test. Jack mentioned later that she
> found a corpse that seemed to be that of the murderer.
creature though?
Some sort of feline predator, Rod also said he found claw marks high on the
trees in the morning after he slept in a hammock on his first night.
I might be remembering wrong but Caroline (the zulu girl?) said she killed
something like that. That might be me thinking of something else though.
Mart van de Wege
[citation needed].
So far, the people suggesting the other side have produced, if not
evidence, at least a decent attempt at giving examples buttressing their
argument.
If you don't get any farther than crying 'NO IT ISN'T', guess who I am
going to believe.
David DeLaney
> Heck, when the focal point of the story *IS* a class where it is,
>apparently, an accepted and acceptable element to require legal waivers
>that explicitly spell out that the student may DIE during the course?
>I'd say that's SCREAMING OUT "this is not your world, fool!" with a
>megaphone. The other details that emphasize the differences are just
>icing on the cake at that point.
>
> IN A WORLD... where we have to fill out permission slips for our kids
>to take bus rides to a different kid's HOUSE, just that SINGLE detail
>shows that Rod's world IS NOT OURS in many very essential ways.
Dave "will catechize for food" DeLaney
Ernest Dotson
<je...@jwbrown.co.uk.RemoveThisBitToReply> wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:24:45 +0200, Mart van de Wege
>
> >t...@tmcd-p4-linux.austin.tx.us (Tim McDaniel) writes:
>
> >> There's not enough detail to be sure, but I'm inclined to think
> >> [society in TitS] not too different from today.
>
> >If Heinlein does indeed not give enough detail to bear out the
> >hypothesis that society *is* much different than today's, then this is
> >one more proof that Heinlein is a lazy writer who consistently overlooks
> >these sort of inconsistencies.
>
> >Not having read TitS (fitting abbreviation, given RAH's later work),
>
> Did I imagine this, or did one of said later works have a scene where
> the characters broke off from whatever they were doing plotwise to
> have an important discussion as to whether or not "teats" was a more
> accurate term?
>
If memory serves, that was Deety remembering an argument she'd had
with her dad on the topic in NotB.
--
Ernest
Will in New Haven
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:24:45 +0200, Mart van de Wege
> > <news:86boubu...@gareth.avalon.lan> in
> > rec.arts.sf.written:
> >> t...@tmcd-p4-linux.austin.tx.us (Tim McDaniel) writes:
>
> >>> There's not enough detail to be sure, but I'm inclined to think
> >>> [society in TitS] not too different from today.
>
> >> If Heinlein does indeed not give enough detail to bear out
> >> the hypothesis that society *is* much different than
> >> today's, then this is one more proof that Heinlein is a
> >> lazy writer who consistently overlooks these sort of
> >> inconsistencies.
>
> > In fact it's transparently obvious that society differs
> > greatly from ours today; the similarities are largely on the
> > surface.
>
> It is?
>
> [citation needed].
>
> So far, the people suggesting the other side have produced, if not
> evidence, at least a decent attempt at giving examples buttressing their
> argument.
>
> If you don't get any farther than crying 'NO IT ISN'T', guess who I am
> going to believe.
by an author whom you never hestitate to vilify? Nothing after this is
actually addressed to you but I'm saving postage.
The culture shock of having all those little "homey" details and then
realizing that it isn't at all a similar culture is a rather important
feature of the story for those who read it after a certain age and
fairly neat for those who read it as kids, if they catch it.
The one detail that annoyed me when I first read the book was the
young fellow who brought a dog. Certainly both he and his dog were
horrible examples but that no one else brings a dog seems bizarre, as
long as it is allowed. A dog multiplies ones senses by a huge amount
and can be very useful in a rough situation in a large number of
ways.
I'm pretty sentimental about dogs and taking a dog into danger might
bother me some. Neither of my current dogs would be good for much on a
survival trip and I wouldn't bring either of them but I have had a
Malamute, a mutt and an Airedale any of whom would have been
invaluable.
--
Will in New Haven
Richard R. Hershberger
wrote:
> In article <ylfkaa9wdlfy....@dd-b.net>,
>
> >What if the football team lost two members a year? Would that go on?
> >Or would they change the rules until it stopped?
>
> I'll note the history of American football: multiple deaths in
> collegiate rugby football matches drove the initial divergence.
divergence of American football from Rugby happened about 1880,
probably due to differing interpretations of the scrummage rule. In
America it was adapted so that the team controlling the ball before
the scrum would continue to keep control. Apparently scrums also
occurred far more often than in modern Rugby, but I have never managed
to completely run that down. And somewhere along the line the word
was changed in American football to "scrimmage". In any case, this
change created the American football pattern of discrete set plays
rather than free flowing continuous action. It also set off a cascade
of further changes. The requirement that the team controlling the
ball move it a set number of yards within a set number of plays was
created in response to the "hold" game strategy, which was more
concerned with maintaining possession than with advancing the ball.
The other major change was offensive blocking, which would be offsides
in most versions of football. This arose pretty much inevitably due
to the geometry of the scrimmage, with that line of big burly guys in
front of the ball carrier.
None of this had to do with concerns over violence. You are thinking
of the situation a quarter century later. The strategy had evolved of
mass plays, with the players grouped tightly together. Supposedly
there was even a tactic of giving the ball to a small guy and having a
couple of big guys throw him over the top of the mass of players. I
can neither confirm nor deny this. But there is no doubt that the
level of injuries and even fatalities was rising to unacceptable
levels. The mythologized version is that Teddy Roosevelt threatened
to ban the game if nothing were done. A more likely interpretation is
that he organized the reform effort in order to protect the game. In
any case, the forward pass came out of this period.
One can argue that the forward pass is a defining characteristic of
American football. But the divergence from Rugby had already taken
place decades earlier. If you insist on the forward pass as a
defining characteristic, then late 19th century American football was
a transitional state.
I could bore y'all with a theoretical discussion of pre-modern, early
modern, and modern sport, but I will spare you. Suffice it to say
that for baseball, the early modern era runs from 1857 or so to the
mid-1890s. For American football it runs from 1880 or so to, umm...
Sometime in the 1950s? It's hard to say. Baseball entered a long
period of rules stability. American football settled in much more
gradually, if indeed it yet has.
Richard R. Hershberger
Lawrence Watt-Evans
> I could bore y'all with a theoretical discussion of pre-modern, early
> modern, and modern sport, but I will spare you.
> Suffice it to say
> that for baseball, the early modern era runs from 1857 or so to the
> mid-1890s. For American football it runs from 1880 or so to, umm...
> Sometime in the 1950s? It's hard to say. Baseball entered a long
> period of rules stability. American football settled in much more
> gradually, if indeed it yet has.
through the twentieth century -- outlawing the spitball, adding the
designated hitter, the yellow line for homers even if the ball bounces
back into play, etc.
--
Now available on Amazon or B&N: One-Eyed Jack.
Greg Kraft could see ghosts. That didn't mean he could stop them...
David DeLaney
>t...@tmcd-p4-linux.austin.tx.us (Tim McDaniel) wrote:
>> David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> >What if the football team lost two members a year? Would that go on?
>> >Or would they change the rules until it stopped?
>>
>> I'll note the history of American football: multiple deaths in
>> collegiate rugby football matches drove the initial divergence.
>
...wait. did we just manage to derail a Heinlein thread into a football thread?
Dave "we must swear to use this power only for GOOD! Or EVIL!" DeLaney
Will in New Haven
> On 2011-09-23 13:10:26 -0400, Richard R. Hershberger said:
>
> > I could bore y'all with a theoretical discussion of pre-modern, early
> > modern, and modern sport, but I will spare you.
>
> Wouldn't bore ME.
is the real Rugby/U.S. Football divide. The forward pass came in after
the U.S. game was clearly established and the passing game, as we know
it, would be much different without blocking ahead of the runner.
>
> > Suffice it to say
> > that for baseball, the early modern era runs from 1857 or so to the
> > mid-1890s. For American football it runs from 1880 or so to, umm...
> > Sometime in the 1950s? It's hard to say. Baseball entered a long
> > period of rules stability. American football settled in much more
> > gradually, if indeed it yet has.
>
> How stable is "stability"? Because baseball was still tinkering all
> through the twentieth century -- outlawing the spitball, adding the
> designated hitter, the yellow line for homers even if the ball bounces
> back into play, etc.
new, clean ball into play every so often. That was much bigger than
outlawing the spitter or whatever tinkering was done with the ball
itself. After that, it was all tinkering.
Brian M. Scott
<mvd...@mail.com> wrote in
<news:867h4zt...@gareth.avalon.lan> in
rec.arts.sf.written:
> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> writes:
>> On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:24:45 +0200, Mart van de Wege
>> <mvd...@mail.com> wrote in
>> <news:86boubu...@gareth.avalon.lan> in
>> rec.arts.sf.written:
>>> tm...@tmcd-p4-linux.austin.tx.us (Tim McDaniel) writes:
>>>> There's not enough detail to be sure, but I'm inclined to think
>>>> [society in TitS] not too different from today.
>>> If Heinlein does indeed not give enough detail to bear out
>>> the hypothesis that society *is* much different than
>>> today's, then this is one more proof that Heinlein is a
>>> lazy writer who consistently overlooks these sort of
>>> inconsistencies.
>> surface.
> It is?
> [citation needed].
No. RTFB. And if you still can't see it, you're either
mentally blinkered or simply not too bright.
[...]