Question about Tiptree
r.r...@thevine.net
authors, and started with Tiptree's _Her Smoke Rose up Forever_.
Knowing that Tiptree was the alias for Alice Sheldon, I have to admit
that I was surprised that her overall portrayal of women seemed to be
pretty negative. They were passive, hysterical, or pretty much ditzy.
And the worst was in "Houston, Houston, Do You Read", where the
overall view of the men seems to be that a society of women is
completely meaningless, because men are the inventors and creators.
Does anyone know if this is this really Sheldon's view of women, or is
it just what society expected women to be like in books? I couldn't
quite pin down whether it was a skewering of the male viewpoint (men
think that women are crazy, so I'll write about them as if they are),
whether it was just the accepted social norm of the day, or if Sheldon
really just didn't like women.
Rebecca
Dan Goodman
Or quite possibly that's what she thought _really sane_ women would be like.
And it could be "all of the above".
--
Dan Goodman
Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/
Decluttering: http://decluttering.blogspot.com
Predictions and Politics http://dsgood.blogspot.com
All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician.
Kent Coyle
If it helps any, when I read "Houston..." my impression was that the
author hated men. I thought the author *had* to be a woman, no matter the
name used. Others have had the opposite reaction...
Michael Alan Chary
Kent Coyle <k...@email.unc.edu> wrote:
>
>
>On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 r.r...@thevine.net wrote:
>
>> I decided to broaden my SF horizons a bit by reading some of the older
>> authors, and started with Tiptree's _Her Smoke Rose up Forever_.
>> Knowing that Tiptree was the alias for Alice Sheldon, I have to admit
"Older authors?"
gronk
What about, I dunno, Judith Merrill?
--
In memoriam: Fred Korematsu, age 86, American Hero
The All-New, All-Different Howling Curmudgeons!
http://www.whiterose.org/howlingcurmudgeons
j...@sfbooks.com
> I decided to broaden my SF horizons a bit by reading some of the
> older authors, and started with Tiptree's _Her Smoke Rose up
> Forever_.
Well, I certainly must applaud both the author and the book decision...
> Knowing that Tiptree was the alias for Alice Sheldon, I have to
> admit that I was surprised that her overall portrayal of women
> seemed to be pretty negative. They were passive, hysterical, or
> pretty much ditzy. And the worst was in "Houston, Houston, Do You
> Read", where the overall view of the men seems to be that a society
> of women is completely meaningless, because men are the inventors
> and creators.
Um. Um. Um.
I'm used to thinking of you as a perceptive reader, so this just leaves
me flabbergasted.
The men in "Houston, Houston, Do You Read" *are not meant* to be
objective observers!
Here's the deal. In "Houston, Houston" you're looking at, among other
things, a feminist utopia of a type much discussed at the time. (No, I
am not making this up, there were really people who thought this would
be ideal. See, speaking of "older books", Joanna Russ's <The Female
Man>. I believe there still are people in the real world who think
such a place would be Just Dandy, but I haven't seen it advertised in
SF for a longish time, unless that's what the books I haven't read yet
in Suzy McKee Charnas's tetralogy turn out to be about. Um, it *is*
Charnas, isn't it? the series that begins with <Walk to the End of the
World>?)
Um, anyway. Back to Tiptree and "Houston". Your view of this utopia
is massively mediated:
1) You don't actually see it up close. You only see its astronauts and
some of its media communications.
2) You see it largely through the reactions of men who are patently
unqualified to judge the merits of a feminist utopia, among other
things because they're not feminists and (separate issue) because
they're moral imbeciles.
3) You see it entirely through the observations of a man, the narrator,
who is at least as concerned to look at his fellow men (and for that
matter himself) as he is to look at the astronauts and media
communications.
And here's the catch: Ultimately, *all* of these - the utopia, the
"alpha males", and the narrator - are shown to be fallible and flawed.
I don't think I've previously encountered a reader whose first reaction
was to assume that the alpha males were the reliable viewpoint.
Myself, I've teetered between the other two, and I was mildly
surprised, but not *very* surprised, to read Tiptree quoted as saying
that the story is a critique of all sides.
But she did say so.
> Does anyone know if this is this really Sheldon's view of women, or
> is it just what society expected women to be like in books? I
> couldn't quite pin down whether it was a skewering of the male
> viewpoint (men think that women are crazy, so I'll write about them
> as if they are), whether it was just the accepted social norm of
> the day, or if Sheldon really just didn't like women.
She was a famously colourful person, and my impression from all that
colourfulness is that she had very high odds indeed of being the sort
of woman who doesn't much like women in general. It's worth noting
that she was a working woman all her life, doing the sorts of jobs
where she was usually "the first woman", not simply teaching or
secretarying; this was the case even though she married a fairly high
government official. (Both of them were among the founders of the CIA,
him at a rather higher rank.) Her marriage did give her the freedom to
work in different ways - first by going to school in psychology (the
story "The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats" is more
than a little autobiographical), then by writing SF. She did not have
much in common with the women who were suburban housewives in the
1950s, confused by their children in the 1960s, and embittered by
divorces in the 1970s, although she was of that generation, more or
less. (In fact, she also didn't get divorced. Um, from that husband;
she had one much earlier, being typical of her generation anyway by
marrying early, if again atypical by also becoming *un*married
early...)
Notoriously, there was a feminist round-robin letter among SF writers
in the early 1970s - um, think a mailing list with a dozen members - in
which the men, which I think meant two people of whom Tiptree was one,
were asked to leave because they couldn't really understand women, or
some such. There is extensive documentation of this in the posthumous
collection of loose ends, <Meet Me at Infinity>.
I'm a little unsure how to answer your general point, though. It kind
of depends on what you're thinking of as Tiptree casting aspersions on
women...
Let me think.
In "She Waits for All Men Born", for example, we have a basically alien
woman. This is not unique; I suppose it's also true, in a sense, of
"Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death".
In "The Women Men Don't See", women embrace aliens. Interestingly,
this is a much more praised story than "And I Awoke and Found Me Here
on the Cold Hillside" (I may have that title imprecise), in which men
embrace aliens. Much of the praising is done specifically by
feminists, because they're taken by the main point, the one enshrined
in the title there: men don't see women; men don't notice women; men
are, from women's point of view, basically aliens anyway, so what's the
difference? It's unclear to me that the women in the story are
"hysterical" or "ditzy", though they are admittedly sometimes
"passive", and certainly the decision that drives home the story's
point can be read as "passive". I submit, however, that there is
something *radically* wrong with reading the story *as an SF story* -
with the general set of understandings SF readers normally have - and
still seeing the women as "passive". It is not a neutral decision they
make at the end; there are other factors besides what company they
keep. [1 - spoiler!]
In "A Momentary Taste of Being", argh. I don't like that story and
certainly don't remember it well enough to talk about how women are
represented in it, but I don't think "passive" or "ditzy" applies in
the least; what I'm not sure about is "hysterical".
In "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever", the women depicted are certainly not
particularly faithful, but I don't buy the adjectives you used. Note
also that here again they are mediated through a male consciousness,
and again, through a *flawed* male consciousness.
Much of the work where Tiptree dealt most clearly with women, however,
appeared in two overlapping bodies of work which are under-represented
in <Her Smoke Rose Up Forever>. That book focuses on "classic
Tiptree". There are several stories published as by "Raccoona
Sheldon", only a few of which are in <Her Smoke Rose Up Forever>.
There are also quite a few stories published later in her career, after
her name had been revealed and after her health had begun to decline.
These are generally not as highly praised as the ones I've been talking
about so far, but in each of these bodies of work, Tiptree did not feel
the need to maintain the appearance of being a male writer, and so was
freer in a number of ways. One of these was to depict women without an
intermediary male consciousness. Note, for example, the sane woman at
the centre of "The Screwfly Solution", and the insane woman at the
centre of "Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!" Um,
I *think* both of those are Raccoona Sheldon stories contained in <Her
Smoke Rose Up Forever>...
Moving outside that book, though:
"All the Kinds of Yes" depicts four more or less flower-child types
circa 1970, two male, two female. None of them exactly come off as
sane and sober, but the girls seem saner, and rather more sensible,
than the boys. This is "classic Tiptree", not Raccoona Sheldon or
"late Tiptree", but was (stupidly) omitted from <Her Smoke Rose Up
Forever>; I forget which collection it's originally in, and know my
memory's untrustworthy on this score, but it's either <Star Songs of an
Old Primate> or <Warm Worlds and Otherwise>, both of which are well
worth owning anyway if you can find them.
<The Starry Rift> is a set of three stories, only one of which I
particularly like; this is "The Only Neat Thing to Do", and is about
two young females with considerable courage and intelligence. Whether
you'd object to them as unrepresentative, in some way, though, I don't
know.
The women and other females in Tiptree's novels, <Up the Walls of the
World> and <Brightness Fell from the Air>, are many things, but they
are not passive, they are usually not hysterical (there are
exceptions), and they are usually not ditzy (ditto). (Most of the
exceptions are in the later book, <Brightness>, and not all of them Are
What They Seem, if I remember right.)
Women are prominent in a number of more or less problematic stories in
<Crown of Stars>, which collects the late short fiction, ranging from
"Morality Meat" to "Backward, Turn Backward". I'm not sure I can point
you to one where you'll be happy with the portrayal of women, but I'm
fairly sure your specific aspersions don't apply. There is an
early-written story that I think is mixed in with these in that
collection, rather than being in the four "classic Tiptree"
collections, "The Earth Does Like a Snake Renew", whose main character
is an *extremely* strange woman who is generally seen as something of a
Tiptree self-portrait, but who can certainly be called "ditzy" by at
least some meanings of the word. There is a novella that didn't appear
in that collection but in a Tor Double, and perhaps is also in <Meet Me
at Infinity> ? - anyway, "The Color of Neanderthal Eyes" is about the
most-praised of the "late Tiptree" stories by people who focus mainly
on "classic", and focuses on an alien woman who is neither passive,
ditzy, nor hysterical. It is, however, noteworthy that in this
relatively-praised story, there is again a male intermediary POV.
"Classic Tiptree" was consistently written with more or less attention
to maintaining the fiction of a male viewpoint. It was not essential
to Sheldon's selling her stories that she present herself as male, note
- although it certainly *helped*, at least through the mid-1970s! - and
she did know this, since she'd been reading SF for years. Nevertheless
she chose to do so, and to do so fairly thoroughly. At the same time,
"classic Tiptree" presents a devastatingly dark portrayal of human
societies, generally male-dominated, as most human societies
historically have been. I note that "passive", "hysterical", and
"ditzy" are also adjectives that could be applied without much
difficulty to many of Tiptree's males, although "macho" is another (and
much less suited to most of Tiptree's women - "The Earth Doth Like a
Snake Renew" is a notable exception). So. She's writing from a
presumptively-sexist male viewpoint about women. She thinks badly of
humans in general. Yes, you're probably write that she writes harshly
about women, but, well, she writes harshly about *everyone*, so this is
not that shocking. See the novels or the harder-to-find stories
(especially the ones I labeled "Federation stories" in my review of her
fiction a year or three back) if you want her at her more optimistic.
Joe Bernstein
[1] Sigh, I suppose there might be people out there who haven't read
"The Women Men Don't See" yet, even the OP, so OK. My point here is
that while today we may all take for granted that we will get to go to
faraway star systems within our lifetimes, back in the benighted 1970s,
this was not at all obvious. So basically, Tiptree is suggesting that
these women are getting a really stupendous prize, travel on a hitherto
unknown scale, by trading one set of alien companions for another.
--
Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/>
r.r...@thevine.net
>r.r...@thevine.net wrote:
>
>> I decided to broaden my SF horizons a bit by reading some of the
>> older authors, and started with Tiptree's _Her Smoke Rose up
>> Forever_.
>
>Well, I certainly must applaud both the author and the book decision...
>
>> Knowing that Tiptree was the alias for Alice Sheldon, I have to
>> admit that I was surprised that her overall portrayal of women
>> seemed to be pretty negative. They were passive, hysterical, or
>> pretty much ditzy. And the worst was in "Houston, Houston, Do You
>> Read", where the overall view of the men seems to be that a society
>> of women is completely meaningless, because men are the inventors
>> and creators.
>
>Um. Um. Um.
>
>I'm used to thinking of you as a perceptive reader, so this just leaves
>me flabbergasted.
>
Thanks. I appreciate your comments, and am going to do a massive snip
here, in order to comment on some of them.
>
>She was a famously colourful person, and my impression from all that
>colourfulness is that she had very high odds indeed of being the sort
>of woman who doesn't much like women in general. It's worth noting
>that she was a working woman all her life, doing the sorts of jobs
>where she was usually "the first woman", not simply teaching or
>secretarying; this was the case even though she married a fairly high
>government official. (Both of them were among the founders of the CIA,
>him at a rather higher rank.) Her marriage did give her the freedom to
>work in different ways - first by going to school in psychology (the
>story "The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats" is more
>than a little autobiographical), then by writing SF. She did not have
>much in common with the women who were suburban housewives in the
>1950s, confused by their children in the 1960s, and embittered by
>divorces in the 1970s, although she was of that generation, more or
>less. (In fact, she also didn't get divorced. Um, from that husband;
>she had one much earlier, being typical of her generation anyway by
>marrying early, if again atypical by also becoming *un*married
>early...)
>
Ok. I have to say, being born in the late 60's, and to a woman who
also was "the first woman" in many ways (example, she was the first
female at her school to take shop instead of home ec), I look at women
from the 40's and 50's and wonder what in the world they were
thinking. So, when people write about the sexes back then, it is
somewhat difficult for me to determine whether it is an accurate
rendition of social norms at the time, or an exaggeration of them to
make a point. For evidence, I point to the excerpts of the 1950's
Home Ec book on the web. If you read parts of that and asked me
whether it was real advice or something someone made up, I'd go with
made up.
>I'm a little unsure how to answer your general point, though. It kind
>of depends on what you're thinking of as Tiptree casting aspersions on
>women...
>
Well, I think that the problem is that I was jumping around in the
book, and the general tone was that she didn't think much of people in
general. And many of the stories I chose to read were about women,
because I wanted to see how she portrayed them, since she was
masquerading as a guy at the time.
>In "The Women Men Don't See", women embrace aliens. Interestingly,
>this is a much more praised story than "And I Awoke and Found Me Here
>on the Cold Hillside" (I may have that title imprecise), in which men
>embrace aliens. Much of the praising is done specifically by
>feminists, because they're taken by the main point, the one enshrined
>in the title there: men don't see women; men don't notice women; men
>are, from women's point of view, basically aliens anyway, so what's the
>difference? It's unclear to me that the women in the story are
>"hysterical" or "ditzy", though they are admittedly sometimes
>"passive", and certainly the decision that drives home the story's
>point can be read as "passive". I submit, however, that there is
>something *radically* wrong with reading the story *as an SF story* -
>with the general set of understandings SF readers normally have - and
>still seeing the women as "passive". It is not a neutral decision they
>make at the end; there are other factors besides what company they
>keep. [1 - spoiler!]
>
See, that's what bugged me about this book. Here we have two women,
the kind who are overlooked every day in every office (at least that's
what the narrator is thinking), who are making decisions unilaterally
about the father of their children, and who plot to get on an alien
spacecraft. So, they have brains. They have independent thought.
And yet, they don't really seem to have any way of making an impact on
society. Like you say, they're passive. It just seemed to me that if
they could figure out how to get alien attention, it shouldn't be that
hard for them to get men's.
>In "A Momentary Taste of Being", argh. I don't like that story and
>certainly don't remember it well enough to talk about how women are
>represented in it, but I don't think "passive" or "ditzy" applies in
>the least; what I'm not sure about is "hysterical".
>
>In "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever", the women depicted are certainly not
>particularly faithful, but I don't buy the adjectives you used. Note
>also that here again they are mediated through a male consciousness,
>and again, through a *flawed* male consciousness.
>
Definitely a flawed male consciousness. But still, we have one woman
who disappoints by being into threesomes instead of being a shy pure
virgin. We have the radical free-love woman, who disappoints by being
more attracted to someone else. Neither are very attractive,
morally/emotionally. But I grant you that the guy was equally messed
up in that one.
>Much of the work where Tiptree dealt most clearly with women, however,
>appeared in two overlapping bodies of work which are under-represented
>in <Her Smoke Rose Up Forever>. That book focuses on "classic
>Tiptree". There are several stories published as by "Raccoona
>Sheldon", only a few of which are in <Her Smoke Rose Up Forever>.
>There are also quite a few stories published later in her career, after
>her name had been revealed and after her health had begun to decline.
>These are generally not as highly praised as the ones I've been talking
>about so far, but in each of these bodies of work, Tiptree did not feel
>the need to maintain the appearance of being a male writer, and so was
>freer in a number of ways. One of these was to depict women without an
>intermediary male consciousness. Note, for example, the sane woman at
>the centre of "The Screwfly Solution", and the insane woman at the
>centre of "Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!" Um,
>I *think* both of those are Raccoona Sheldon stories contained in <Her
>Smoke Rose Up Forever>...
>
In Screwfly, we still have a woman who's main concern is her husband
and family. She knows that things are going strange. She can sense
that she's in danger from some unknown source. But she doesn't do
anything about it. The most that she does is send on the information
from her male friend, so that the two men can figure out what's going
on. And that's as almost forgotten afterthoughts, after the rest of
the letter is written about how much she misses him, etc. It's not
until the end that she actually starts acting for herself, at which
point it's too late. Actually, I think that it was this character
that I was thinking of when I wrote "ditzy".
On the other hand, we have the woman in Faces. She is doing her own
thing, happy, enjoying her life, accomplishing her goals. She is also
quite crazy.
And then there was Houston, which seemed to crystallize all the things
that I was finding disturbing into one plot.
So, at this point I had to wonder whether I was having issues because
I expect these women to act like modern 90's women when they aren't,
or whether Tiptree had issues. And, if Tiptree had issues, was it
because she was trying to write from a "male" viewpoint, or did she
really have issues about women and how they acted.
I think that if I read one story and stopped, it wouldn't have been an
issue. But after reading another and another, this question about
whether she thought women were capable of achieving things on their
own became an underlying theme that started to bug me. Does that make
any more sense?
Rebecca
Dorothy J Heydt
<r.r...@thevine.net> wrote:
>>
>Ok. I have to say, being born in the late 60's, and to a woman who
>also was "the first woman" in many ways (example, she was the first
>female at her school to take shop instead of home ec), I look at women
>from the 40's and 50's and wonder what in the world they were
>thinking. So, when people write about the sexes back then, it is
>somewhat difficult for me to determine whether it is an accurate
>rendition of social norms at the time, or an exaggeration of them to
>make a point. For evidence, I point to the excerpts of the 1950's
>Home Ec book on the web. If you read parts of that and asked me
>whether it was real advice or something someone made up, I'd go with
>made up.
Can you give a URL? I'd like to see it.
(Born 1942, by the way, and did not grow up intending to make
marriage-and-motherhood a career, even though I did eventually
marry and have a couple of kids.)
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
r.r...@thevine.net
After poking around to see if it was on line, I found the Snopes link.
Which says essentially that no one can prove whether it really is true
or not. And links to some other interesting pieces of advice
supposedly written "back when".
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/goodwife.htm
Rebecca
Dorothy J Heydt
Interesting; thanks.
I certainly never saw that text back in the day; but I didn't
take Home Ec in high school (and the version all the girls got in
my seventh and eighth grade was strictly a sewing class). But
the general attitude expressed in the text is certainly the one
that prevailed among my contemporaries. I can still remember the
girls in the locker room, on being told that I didn't intend to
marry, exclaiming, "But, if EVERYbody was like YOU, there
wouldn't be any PEOple!" They took their reproductive
obligations seriously back in the 1950s.
Joe Bernstein
> But the general attitude expressed in the text is certainly the one
> that prevailed among my contemporaries. I can still remember the
> girls in the locker room, on being told that I didn't intend to
> marry, exclaiming, "But, if EVERYbody was like YOU, there
> wouldn't be any PEOple!" They took their reproductive
> obligations seriously back in the 1950s.
Well, I remember hearing that in the 1980s, too, but it was by no means
a universal, um, argument then.
But what you're saying is, to my way of thinking, a suggestion that
perhaps those of us younger than the Baby Boom (this would include both
me and the OP, apparently) are at a special disadvantage in assessing
what gender attitudes and relations were like around the time we were
born and before. Not only are we unaccustomed to the kind of virulent
patriarchy we're given to understand used to exist, but we're also
given that understanding largely by people who were, at the time,
young, and not necessarily in sympathy with their elders.
I mean, the mothers of teenagers in 1958 would be women who were
probably young adults during World War II. They would be Rosie the
Riveter and - well, a few of them - the members of the WAC and the
WAVE. But note how I stereotyped their younger siblings, if not
them themselves, in my previous post.
To correcting which I now should turn.
Joe Bernstein
Joe Bernstein
I wrote without books handy, without having checked them first, and
without knowing how to get Google's latest software to put my name
in the From: line, a post I must now correct at some length:
> r.r...@thevine.net wrote:
> > Knowing that Tiptree was the alias for Alice Sheldon, I have to
> > admit that I was surprised that her overall portrayal of women
> > seemed to be pretty negative. They were passive, hysterical, or
> > pretty much ditzy. And the worst was in "Houston, Houston, Do You
> > Read", where the overall view of the men seems to be that a society
> > of women is completely meaningless, because men are the inventors
> > and creators.
> Here's the deal. In "Houston, Houston" you're looking at, among other
> things, a feminist utopia of a type much discussed at the time.
> And here's the catch: Ultimately, *all* of these - the utopia, the
> "alpha males", and the narrator - are shown to be fallible and flawed.
>
> I don't think I've previously encountered a reader whose first reaction
> was to assume that the alpha males were the reliable viewpoint.
> Myself, I've teetered between the other two, and I was mildly
> surprised, but not *very* surprised, to read Tiptree quoted as saying
> that the story is a critique of all sides.
>
> But she did say so.
Well, OK, maybe she did, but I didn't find it when, *after* posting
this post, I checked my books. What I did find was a two- or three-
page set of comments on "Houston, Houston" in <Meet Me at Infinity>,
in which she actually said that she had modeled the future women-
only society largely on the WAC camp where she was during World War II,
and although she didn't come right out and *say* she was writing a
utopia, she certainly made it sound like that was her intent.
So either she said something entirely different some other time, or
my memory was making things up. Unfortunately, my memory displays
considerably less reliability than I'm used to in Tiptree's opinions,
so my bet is that I'm just wrong. Sorry.
> She was a famously colourful person, and my impression from all that
> colourfulness is that she had very high odds indeed of being the sort
> of woman who doesn't much like women in general.
Oops. Well, could still be true, but see above.
> She did not have
> much in common with the women who were suburban housewives in the
> 1950s, confused by their children in the 1960s, and embittered by
> divorces in the 1970s, although she was of that generation, more or
> less. (In fact, she also didn't get divorced. Um, from that husband;
> she had one much earlier, being typical of her generation anyway by
> marrying early, if again atypical by also becoming *un*married
> early...)
Sigh. I knew she had married in the 1930s, but had avoided realising
what that *meant*.
She was born in 1915 and died in 1987. This means actually that she
was oldish, but not outlandishly old, to follow the schedule laid
out above. Regardless, she would have remembered the flappers, the
way I remember the late-model flower children, and probably with
similar affection; there's a remark from her about how when things
get tough, women's rights are the first to go, which is actually
historically very dubious, but which would certainly fit the contrast
between the 1920s and the 1930s in the US.
And whether or not she had much in common with her contemporaries'
*later* careers, she differs crucially from younger members of the
cohort who gave birth to the Baby Boom - my mother, for example (I
have three elder siblings who like to deny they're Boomers, but who
are certainly too old for Gen X, on whose borders I lie) - by having
been fully adult during, and involved in, World War II.
> Note, for example, the sane woman at
> the centre of "The Screwfly Solution", and the insane woman at the
> centre of "Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!" Um,
> I *think* both of those are Raccoona Sheldon stories contained in <Her
> Smoke Rose Up Forever>...
Oh, good, I got one guess right.
> "All the Kinds of Yes"
> I forget which collection it's originally in, and know my
> memory's untrustworthy on this score, but it's either <Star Songs of an
> Old Primate> or <Warm Worlds and Otherwise>, both of which are well
> worth owning anyway if you can find them.
Well, I should probably qualify this. "All the Kinds of Yes" is
in <Warm Worlds and Otherwise>, which includes a couple of other
stories well worth reading (notably "Through a Lass Darkly", which
also sheds some light on Tiptree's take on women) that are not in
<Her Smoke Rose Up Forever>, though "All the Kinds of Yes" is the
only one whose omission is utterly boneheaded.
<Star Songs of an Old Primate> includes *five* stories from <Her
Smoke Rose Up Forever>, plus "Your Haploid Heart" and "The Psychologist
Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats". "Your Haploid Heart" is one
of the darker Federation stories, not that they're sweetness and light
in general, and isn't quite as dark (nor as well told) as the
Federation story in <Her Smoke Rose Up Forever>, "We Who Stole the
<Dream>". "Psychologist" is rather more a horror than an SF story,
and features a hapless male narrator not unlike the one in "Houston,
Houston". Neither story is first-rate, neither is much worse than
that. Ideally, the person who already owns <Her Smoke Rose Up
Forever> should probably find a copy of <Star Songs> to borrow before
making up her mind about whether those two stories justify hunting
a copy down.
> Women are prominent in a number of more or less problematic stories in
> <Crown of Stars>, which collects the late short fiction, ranging from
> "Morality Meat" to "Backward, Turn Backward".
Actually, far as I can see, those are *the* obvious two in that
collection that deal seriously with women. Sorry.
> There is an
> early-written story that I think is mixed in with these in that
> collection, rather than being in the four "classic Tiptree"
> collections, "The Earth Does Like a Snake Renew",
Doth, as I wrote below but not here; anyway, yes, it's in <Crown of
Stars>.
> There is a novella that didn't appear
> in that collection but in a Tor Double, and perhaps is also in <Meet Me
> at Infinity> ? - anyway, "The Color of Neanderthal Eyes"
Yes, it's in <Meet Me at Infinity>.
> I note that "passive", "hysterical", and
> "ditzy" are also adjectives that could be applied without much
> difficulty to many of Tiptree's males, although "macho" is another
Um, in case it wasn't clear, I was also trying to indicate that in
Tiptree's universe, "macho" is not a compliment.
Joe Bernstein
Joe Bernstein
> On 18 Apr 2005 20:56:20 -0700, j...@sfbooks.com wrote:
>
> >r.r...@thevine.net wrote:
> Well, I think that the problem is that I was jumping around in the
> book, and the general tone was that she didn't think much of people in
> general. And many of the stories I chose to read were about women,
> because I wanted to see how she portrayed them, since she was
> masquerading as a guy at the time.
OK. Then here's at least part of the deal. You're encountering
Tiptree in a moderately unusual way. (Not *totally* unusual. "The
Women Men Don't See", "Houston, Houston, Do You Read", and "The
Screwfly Solution" are all widely advocated as works of feminist
SF, so someone approaching Tiptree strictly out of interest in
feminism would be likely to form somewhat similar opinions. On
the other hand, it's not clear to me that that someone wouldn't have
reading protocols of her own, in which, for example, "passive" was
translated into "Normal woman under conditions of patriarchy" rather
than SF's version, which is more like "Boring and probably incompetent
human".)
I'm not saying your choice of stories to focus on is *wrong*, but
I do think it's probably leading you toward at least a somewhat
false view of Tiptree's work as a whole.
("The Women Men Don't See")
> See, that's what bugged me about this book. Here we have two women,
> the kind who are overlooked every day in every office (at least that's
> what the narrator is thinking), who are making decisions unilaterally
> about the father of their children, and who plot to get on an alien
> spacecraft. So, they have brains. They have independent thought.
> And yet, they don't really seem to have any way of making an impact on
> society. Like you say, they're passive. It just seemed to me that if
> they could figure out how to get alien attention, it shouldn't be that
> hard for them to get men's.
They are, in fact, seen with a modicum of thought, aliens in their
own right. I mean, a hereditary line distinguished by consistent
lifeways wildly at variance with social norms... Were there millions
of them, they'd be like the Jews, I guess, but there aren't. And yet
there's no outside pressure *keeping* them to their traditions, is
there? Whereas any time the pressure on Jews is let up, any number
jump ship.
Anyway, it seems quite clear that they *can* get men's attention;
otherwise there wouldn't be any hereditary line, right? The point is
that they don't *want* it.
By this time we are rather far afield from conventional feminist
readings of the story; but we are also not in quite the same space
as, say, a normal deep reading of SF from the 1950s. Hmm.
The real issue is, why don't they want to make "an impact on society"?
The sort of cohesion implied by the hereditary line ought logically
to bring with it a certain amount of zeal. I suppose Tiptree could
have been naive enough to think that women couldn't be zealous, but
I seriously doubt she *was* that naive. So at this point this whole
line of reasoning strikes me as falling apart. The obvious way out
for me is that there is no hereditary line, that it's just a fantasy
of the narrator's, which is, I think, how it's presented anyway. But
then there's nothing *at all* to stop these two women from making an
impact on society, is there?
> >In "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever", the women depicted are certainly not
> >particularly faithful, but I don't buy the adjectives you used. Note
> >also that here again they are mediated through a male consciousness,
> >and again, through a *flawed* male consciousness.
> >
> Definitely a flawed male consciousness. But still, we have one woman
> who disappoints by being into threesomes instead of being a shy pure
> virgin. We have the radical free-love woman, who disappoints by being
> more attracted to someone else. Neither are very attractive,
> morally/emotionally. But I grant you that the guy was equally messed
> up in that one.
Wow, did I ever misremember. I thought she wasn't radical, she was
"Oops, my boyfriend's back from the war". She could, of course, be
both. Anyway, though, the deal here seems to be that a) there is
something eternal about bitter disappointment; b) there *appears*
to be rather a lot of bitter disappointment in this guy's life, and
it seems to focus on killing and fucking; c) the women involved in
the latter are, indeed, disappointing to him. Golly gosh, doesn't
look like there's any way this story *could* have gone differently.
Well, except that when you get that sort of answer, you either have
a perfect story, or an example of auctorial bad faith, or both. In
this case, it strikes me as a perfect realisation of a premise which,
unless taken *strictly* as speculation, is clearly bad faith.
"Disappointment is all our immortal souls contain" is at some level
just *silly*, after all...
I'm not going to dispute your characterisations of the Raccoona Sheldon
stories, of which I'm not especially fond; you've read them more recently
than I, after all. I've already disputed your take on "Houston, Houston
Do You Read" and won't reiterate. So to conclude:
> So, at this point I had to wonder whether I was having issues because
> I expect these women to act like modern 90's women when they aren't,
> or whether Tiptree had issues. And, if Tiptree had issues, was it
> because she was trying to write from a "male" viewpoint, or did she
> really have issues about women and how they acted.
They're certainly not modern 90s women. Apparently we're contemporaries,
so this is slightly weird for me, but anyway... I absorbed - and at
least partly from these stories - a certain amount of 1970s feminism
while I was a child. I'm quite certain that this is part of what
informs my reading Tiptree's stories, and indeed those of authors I've
picked up more recently: to me, "women stifled by patriarchy" is
indeed a functioning category, around which I can build reading
protocols. "Women rising above patriarchy" and "women existing free"
are other categories I can work with too, but I didn't get those from
1970s feminism as I saw it in childhood!
(None of this is meant to imply that I'm particularly well read in
feminist theory, history, or whatever, although I have about as much
acquaintance with feminist *SF* as with space opera or planetary
romances, say. I'm talking more about what I'm used to than about
what I know.)
I can tell you that I had problems even as a young teenager, and have
had more since, with Tiptree's tendency to talk about men as "alphas"
and not, and indeed so to portray us. She eventually got over this,
but in "classic Tiptree" (which is what I found young) she hadn't yet.
So I'm not really particularly surprised to hear a woman saying that
her portrayal of women is problematic too.
But...
> I think that if I read one story and stopped, it wouldn't have been an
> issue. But after reading another and another, this question about
> whether she thought women were capable of achieving things on their
> own became an underlying theme that started to bug me. Does that make
> any more sense?
Yes, it does, but the obvious answer is that you need to change your
reading criteria.
"Classic Tiptree" is science fiction written at the height of the era
of feminist SF, by a feminist woman well aware that she was very
unusual, who was maintaining a pseudonym meant to be taken as that
of a rather unusual man. It's *wrapped* in "issues", as you put it,
that bear fairly directly on Tiptree's portrayal of women. And you
then chose to introduce yourself to Tiptree by reading the subset of
this group of stories that focuses on women.
Now, you're free to say "Yuck", and just stop reading. But if you
*are* interested in forming a more full picture of Tiptree, and
possibly even getting to a point where you can re-assess your reactions
to these stories (whether or not such a re-assessment actually changes
your opinions, you may at least find that you understand them better)...
Then I'm inclined to say you should proceed to Tiptree's novels,
specifically. They show people being more *effective*, to put it
bluntly, than the short stories generally do, and they may give
you enough of a sense of what Tiptree was about to make the darker
of the short stories more accessible.
In my own case, I read some of the dark stories quite early - "Love
Is the Plan" for example. But I repeatedly tripped over "Her Smoke
Rose Up Forever", didn't get most of "She Waits for All Men Born",
intensely disliked "Houston Houston Do You Read", didn't see the
point of "The Women Men Don't See", and couldn't finish "A Momentary
Taste of Being", when I was younger. (My original copies of <Warm
Worlds and Otherwise> and <Star Songs of an Old Primate> came to me
as stripcovers, sigh, what were people thinking? when I was 14 or so.)
The stories I *liked*, and kept coming back to, were actually "Through
a Lass Darkly", "All the Kinds of Yes", and oddly enough "Your Haploid
Heart"; sometimes also "And So On, and So On", or "Amberjack", or ...
I grew into the great Tiptree stories, with few earlier, and some not
yet. I'm not casting aspersions on *you* by suggesting you take an
indirect route.
I suppose, at one level, the question remains open whether a writer
is really "great" if her work can only be approached by, in essence,
making allowances for her particular bugaboos. I don't think that's
really what I'm suggesting, though. I think I'm pointing to a real
difficulty you're likely to have with assessing Tiptree's takes on
women, one you've pointed out yourself, and also pointing to the
possibility that you've got more of the "effective protagonist" meme
than a reader of the SF magazines in the early 1970s was likely to;
and I'm saying that you're missing stuff by not having the context.
OK, trying to put this another way, here's what I considered as
"great" by Tiptree as of 1997, and as of 2002:
"The Last Flight of Dr. Ain" (dark vision)
"Your Haploid Heart" (2002 doubts; Federation story)
"Mother in the Sky with Diamonds" (science fiction tragedy)
"The Man Who Walked Home" (science fiction tragedy)
"All the Kinds of Yes" (science fiction comedy)
"On the Last Afternoon" (science fiction tragedy)
"The Women Men Don't See" (sex wars story)
"Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death" (science fiction tragedy)
"Her Smoke Rose Up Forever" (dark vision)
"Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" (sex wars story)
"She Waits for All Men Born" (dark vision)
"Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!" (sex wars story)
<Up the Walls of the World> (stupendous aliens story)
"Slow Music" (dark vision)
<Brightness Falls from the Air> (Federation story)
"The Only Neat Thing to Do" (Federation story)
"Yanqui Doodle" (dark vision or science fiction tragedy)
Separately, there are stories I *didn't* rate as "great" in 1997,
but tentatively thought in 2002 I might have underrated:
"And So On, and So On" (fable)
"And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side" (dark vision)
"The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (science fiction tragedy)
What I'm trying to do with this list is again suggest widening your
focus, if you continue reading Tiptree. You've already read all the
works I rated as "great" "sex wars stories", and indeed at least one
("Screwfly") which I didn't. You've read one of the dark visions
that are the core of her reputation, but ?not the others. I'm
willing to bet you haven't read her best Federation stories, nor
science fiction tragedies, let alone comedies. Makes a difference.
Joe Bernstein
Dorothy J Heydt
Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
>In article <IF7D...@kithrup.com>, Dorothy J Heydt
><djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
>> But the general attitude expressed in the text is certainly the one
>> that prevailed among my contemporaries. I can still remember the
>> girls in the locker room, on being told that I didn't intend to
>> marry, exclaiming, "But, if EVERYbody was like YOU, there
>> wouldn't be any PEOple!" They took their reproductive
>> obligations seriously back in the 1950s.
>
>Well, I remember hearing that in the 1980s, too, but it was by no means
>a universal, um, argument then.
Indeed not. The 1960s had happened.
>
>But what you're saying is, to my way of thinking, a suggestion that
>perhaps those of us younger than the Baby Boom (this would include both
>me and the OP, apparently) are at a special disadvantage in assessing
>what gender attitudes and relations were like around the time we were
>born and before.
Quite right. Remember the long long thread about whether the
traditional Hollywood meme about a beautiful actress can become
ugly by putting on glasses and beautiful by taking them off again
had any real-world meaning? And I kept saying "People really did
think that way back then" and no one would believe me?
Not only are we unaccustomed to the kind of virulent
>patriarchy we're given to understand used to exist, but we're also
>given that understanding largely by people who were, at the time,
>young, and not necessarily in sympathy with their elders.
It wasn't so much virulent patriarchy as _belle indifference_.
After all, if you've been coddled all your life to the extent of
being given to believe that the other half of the human race was
designed by God to be your cook, housekeeper, bottle-washer,
itch-scratcher, heir-producer, and general support staff,
wouldn't you be annoyed if somebody tried to take it all away
from you?
>
>I mean, the mothers of teenagers in 1958 would be women who were
>probably young adults during World War II. They would be Rosie the
>Riveter and - well, a few of them - the members of the WAC and the
>WAVE.
Yes, and many of them had not worked for a living before the war,
and had discovered during it that most jobs are not glamorous
careers, they are just dumb jobs at which you toil for eight or
more hours in order to put beans on the table, whether men or
women are doing them; they had spent the war dreaming of war's
end, the men coming home, the rose-covered cottage etc. etc.
It took them a couple decades to realize that the rose-covered
cottage is no bed of roses *either*, it also is a dumb job at
which you toil round the clock in order to clean the table after
the beans have been delicvered there.
r.r...@thevine.net
Hmmm. I feel that I need to point out that I am not approaching this
in a highly scholarly way. It's more of "I've read all my favorite
authors' current books, need to get something to read from the
library, and so let me try some of the older authors I haven't read
and see if I like them." I decided to start with Tiptree because I
had read Screwfly before and liked it, and the library had Her Smoke
Rose up Forever.
And I think that a discussion of Screwfly may be helpful. I
remembered this as an excellent short story. The odd situation, the
tension portrayed in trying to determine the cause, the imagery, and
that famous closing line, all stuck in my mind, even though I read the
story probably at least 15 years ago. And yet, when I reread it, what
struck me was the following:
1. We have a woman who is writing to her husband, who has been away
on business. Ok, I can handle the lovey-dovey stuff, probably better
than when I first read the story.
2. As the story goes on, the tone of the letters becomes more
anxious. You can tell that the writer is becoming concerned about the
events going on, even though she tries to downplay it.
3. The couple has a friend who is using her to relay information and
theories about the situation to the husband.
4. This is where I had the problem: She doesn't even bother to read
what the friend sends! In fact, iirc, there is one time where she
comments that she had to reseal the envelope because she forgot to put
the friend's clippings in.
Which all seems to me to be a very unrealistic portrayal, especially
given that we are told that the wife (who's name I'm blanking on), is
an intelligent scholarly woman. This may be where my 90's woman view
messes things up, because that felt to me very much like "don't worry
your pretty little head about this, just let the men take care of it".
(In fact, once again iirc, there is one time where she did try to read
what the friend had sent and commented that it was just too technical
for her.) While I, on the other hand, would be trying to gather every
scrap of information I could to try and figure out what was going on
and how to protect myself from it. Especially if, like the woman in
the story, I had a daughter to take care of as well. And yet, I
wasn't bothered by this the first time I read the story. Which most
likely means that I looked at the story through a different set of
lenses at the time.
I will take your advice to try some of the novels, and see if that
gives me a different view.
Rebecca
Nancy Lebovitz
<j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
>
>In "The Women Men Don't See", women embrace aliens. Interestingly,
>this is a much more praised story than "And I Awoke and Found Me Here
>on the Cold Hillside" (I may have that title imprecise), in which men
>embrace aliens. Much of the praising is done specifically by
Nitpick: Women seem to be about as likely to be sexually fascinated
by aliens. IIRC, the narrator is married, but his wife is hooked on
abusive aliens as much as he is, and they hate each other.
I hadn't thought about it, but that story (and much of Tiptree) shows
as bleak a view of aliens as it does of humans.
>feminists, because they're taken by the main point, the one enshrined
>in the title there: men don't see women; men don't notice women; men
>are, from women's point of view, basically aliens anyway, so what's the
>difference? It's unclear to me that the women in the story are
>"hysterical" or "ditzy", though they are admittedly sometimes
>"passive", and certainly the decision that drives home the story's
>point can be read as "passive". I submit, however, that there is
>something *radically* wrong with reading the story *as an SF story* -
>with the general set of understandings SF readers normally have - and
>still seeing the women as "passive". It is not a neutral decision they
>make at the end; there are other factors besides what company they
>keep. [1 - spoiler!]
--
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
"We've tamed the lightning and taught sand to give error messages."
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov
Nancy Lebovitz
>and family. She knows that things are going strange. She can sense
>that she's in danger from some unknown source. But she doesn't do
>anything about it. The most that she does is send on the information
>from her male friend, so that the two men can figure out what's going
>on. And that's as almost forgotten afterthoughts, after the rest of
>the letter is written about how much she misses him, etc. It's not
>until the end that she actually starts acting for herself, at which
>point it's too late. Actually, I think that it was this character
>that I was thinking of when I wrote "ditzy".
>
(especially until rather recently) are apt to be portrayed as plausibly
unheroic.
That's a lot of how I see _Podkayne of Mars_--there's nothing tragic
about her not becoming a spaceship captain. It's an ambition she holds
vaguely, but she doesn't show any striking talent in that direction and
she finds she wants to do something less ambitious.
On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet written
the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain. There are
women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not quite the same
thing.
Joe Bernstein
<r.r...@thevine.net> wrote (in a reply to me, if it matters):
> And I think that a discussion of Screwfly may be helpful. I
> remembered this as an excellent short story. The odd situation, the
> tension portrayed in trying to determine the cause, the imagery, and
> that famous closing line, all stuck in my mind, even though I read the
> story probably at least 15 years ago.
Agree, agree, agree. I'm not sure when I last read the story;
certainly in 1997, perhaps in 2002 but perhaps not, probably not
more recently. But otherwise, dead on.
> And yet, when I reread it, what
> struck me was the following:
> 1. We have a woman who is writing to her husband, who has been away
> on business. Ok, I can handle the lovey-dovey stuff, probably better
> than when I first read the story.
(Tee hee. I'm sure I first read it no later than high school, so
emphatically me too to this as well.)
> 2. As the story goes on, the tone of the letters becomes more
> anxious. You can tell that the writer is becoming concerned about the
> events going on, even though she tries to downplay it.
> 3. The couple has a friend who is using her to relay information and
> theories about the situation to the husband.
> 4. This is where I had the problem: She doesn't even bother to read
> what the friend sends! In fact, iirc, there is one time where she
> comments that she had to reseal the envelope because she forgot to put
> the friend's clippings in.
>
> Which all seems to me to be a very unrealistic portrayal, especially
> given that we are told that the wife (who's name I'm blanking on), is
> an intelligent scholarly woman. This may be where my 90's woman view
> messes things up, because that felt to me very much like "don't worry
> your pretty little head about this, just let the men take care of it".
> (In fact, once again iirc, there is one time where she did try to read
> what the friend had sent and commented that it was just too technical
> for her.) While I, on the other hand, would be trying to gather every
> scrap of information I could to try and figure out what was going on
> and how to protect myself from it. Especially if, like the woman in
> the story, I had a daughter to take care of as well.
I had an answer *all ready* for you, but then re-read the story, and
that answer broke into a million pieces. Oops.
So frankly, at this point, I think you *have* put your finger on a
flaw in the story. I'm just not sure how far that flaw reaches.
Here's the broken answer. This is an early-1970s story. It takes for
granted bunches of early-1970s assumptions about how the world works;
the most notable is the effectiveness of big institutions. (Government
censorship of the news media, for example. Is there any country on
earth that's *effectively* censoring the news media today, as opposed
to just denying its citizens access to same?)
Oh, and that isn't just an innocent example. It means specifically
and strongly that except for people with official or unofficial
access to information about what's going on, there's no real way
for someone in a single location to work it out, because the info
for bringing it all together can't be had without wide travel.
To put it another way: There is no WWW in this story. There is no
Usenet. And there isn't even e-mail on any noticeable scale.
So basically, if Anne had been almost *anyone* other than who she
was, the story would get off scot free. But.
1. She's "Dr.". She knows her husband via academic circles; she's
probably in the same general field as he is, because they're based
in Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, a gigantic
institution where I wouldn't care to bet on a lot of cross-faculty
fraternisation. So she needn't be in the same department, but I'm
betting her doctorate isn't in art history, or even in sociology.
2. She's in Ann Arbor. Until she becomes housebound in fear, she
has access to the university *library*. There are few larger
libraries in the world with open stacks. As places to research
things go, this is primo.
3. As you point out, she *doesn't even try*. Doesn't ask Barney
to explain what he's thinking, at least not until the end; doesn't
try to read his stuff herself; doesn't launch an independent effort
to understand; just *doesn't*.
4. Given that this is the early 1970s, and she's a woman with a
presumably scientific doctorate, she's *got* to be an effective, non-
passive person. Sorry, but if setting your story in the early
1970s is what you want to do, you have to take that with the
territory.
So basically, she might not have succeeded, but it's totally out
of character for her not even to have tried. Nor is this just
another consequence of the poison; we're specifically told of a
colleague of hers who *has* tried.
So the question is, how far does this flaw reach? If it's as I've
described it - a characterisation flaw - then it's really a massive
one. Under other readings it could shrink considerably. ("Tiptree
should have clarified that her doctorate was in linguistics.") But
it's certainly there.
> And yet, I
> wasn't bothered by this the first time I read the story. Which most
> likely means that I looked at the story through a different set of
> lenses at the time.
Well, to me it means that we, and a lot of other people, have been
careless readers. This is really blindingly obvious if one stops
to think about it at all, and yet I haven't heard of anyone previous
who caught it. Methinks I'll have to go see what the feminist
critics have actually said about this story - whether any have
gotten beyond the premise, which, obviously, is the main attraction
for specifically-feminist readers, to a close reading that might
have uncovered this; and if so, what they said.
> I will take your advice to try some of the novels, and see if that
> gives me a different view.
Well, I hope it does, but at this point it's looking like I have to
abandon trying to exonerate Tiptree on a number of fronts. I think
I have adequately defended "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever" and "Houston,
Houston, Do You Read?" But you've got me beat on "The Women Men
Don't See" and "The Screwfly Solution". (The issue with "Your Faces,
O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!" is one of context.
There's nothing wrong with the story in its own right. Sitting
within the oeuvre of an unambiguously feminist writer, it should
presumably fit fine. The problem is if you have a writer whose
apparently obvious feminism has been rendered problematic by a
critique like the one you've leveled at Tiptree. Then is the story
itself affected? "This writer whose pseudo-feminist stories portray
women so harshly has here a woman who can only find sanity by being
raving mad." It stops being an effective critique of society, and
becomes as you've depicted it, a critique of women's sanity in general.)
Hmmm. It looks like if I ever do re-read Tiptree and revise my
survey of her fiction on the way to webbing it, I'll have to read a
lot more carefully. Grumble. Thanks.
Joe Bernstein
Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
> In article <1113882980.7...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
> <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
> >In "The Women Men Don't See", women embrace aliens. Interestingly,
> >this is a much more praised story than "And I Awoke and Found Me Here
> >on the Cold Hillside" (I may have that title imprecise), in which men
> >embrace aliens.
> Nitpick: Women seem to be about as likely to be sexually fascinated
> by aliens. IIRC, the narrator is married, but his wife is hooked on
> abusive aliens as much as he is, and they hate each other.
Yeah, I know. But all the same, the foregrounded narrator is male,
so that's what we see. (Further nitpick, there are xenophiles in
the story who are female, too. ANYWAY. While there are no male
xenophiles in "The Women Men Don't See", there's no intrinsic reason
there couldn't be.)
> I hadn't thought about it, but that story (and much of Tiptree) shows
> as bleak a view of aliens as it does of humans.
In my categorisations of Tiptree's stories, one category is
"stupendous aliens" stories, stories that not only feature, but
revolve around, aliens so advanced that "we are property" is a
reasonable way to read the story.
The aliens in question are not often just wonderfully nice and kind.
Recently I've been reading a lot of midlist science fiction,
including finishing Jack McDevitt's "Hutch" series and now
reading (so far) all but the latest of James Alan Gardner's "League
of Peoples" books. McDevitt portrays a world where intelligent
critters are usually (though not always) nice, though stupendous
ones are less so. Gardner begins with a world of nice stupendous
aliens and more morally mixed ordinary ones, and gets, um, less
comforting from there. Anyway, though, both of them have clearly
done a lot of thinking about what alien intelligence might mean,
and McDevitt, at least, even puts a fair bit of this thinking into
his characters' mouths.
It's not clear to me that Tiptree had done remotely so much thinking.
She's not a midlist SF writer working with things like "What would
First Contact mean?" that excite SF fans; she's a top-rank SF
writer working with things like "What does the dream of First Contact
mean?" instead. (This is obvious even, for example, in her early
<Star Trek> pastiche "Beam Me Home".) So even though she does a
*lot* with aliens, I'm not sure she actually sat down and reasoned
out "This is what aliens might be like"; she just used them as tools,
whether fuzzy and nice ones as in the novels and <The Starry Rift>
(where she was basically playing with the planetary-romance
conventions) or scary nasty ones as in classic Tiptree.
But if she did sit down and reason it out, then she came to some
very dark conclusions, and then changed her mind or decided to
soft-pedal those conclusions in her later work.
Joe Bernstein
Joe Bernstein
Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
> On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet written
> the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain. There are
> women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not quite the same
> thing.
Closest thing I can think of is not-very-close: "The Woman Who
Sailed the <Soul>", Cordwainer Smith.
This disturbs me. Whyever hasn't anyone?
-- JLB
Wayne Throop
:: written the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain.
:: There are women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not
:: quite the same thing.
: Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com>
: Closest thing I can think of is not-very-close: "The Woman Who Sailed
: the <Soul>", Cordwainer Smith.
Hm. I was going to mention Heinlein's Starship Troopers, but
I guess that's not *about* the female pilots/captains, and not about
them growing up wanting to be such. Of course, The Menace from Earth
is sort of about a starship-mad girl growing up, but...
Hm.
What about Flynn's "Firestar" series? Not a starship captain, but
revolves around a female character who's driven to build an entire space
program; "grows up to do it" not being un-apt. And later, a female
character going through pilot training determined to make it, and
eventually getting very high rank in pilot/captain circles.
I suppose The Ship Who Sang doesn't count? Onaccounta her not choosing
the life and all; she had some choice, but not as much as "growing up to
do it" might imply. And/or the distinction between growing up to
*pilot* a starship and growing up to *be* one.
I suppose Pride of Chanur series doesn't count? Onaccounta
males not being tempramentally suited, so females *have* to grow
up to be the captains by fiat of the scenario. Hrm.
Isn't there some other Cherryh with a female starship captain?
Ah. How about the free traders in Citizen of the Galaxy?
Well... men are the "captains", but ... hrm.
Well, OK, OK, how about the Familias Regnant series?
Or Trading in Danger?
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Dorothy J Heydt
Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
>In article <GnUae.2332$5I5.2...@newshog.newsread.com>,
>Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
>
>> On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet written
>> the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain. There are
>> women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not quite the same
>> thing.
>
>Closest thing I can think of is not-very-close: "The Woman Who
>Sailed the <Soul>", Cordwainer Smith.
Nitpick: "The Lady," I think.
>This disturbs me. Whyever hasn't anyone?
Well, there are all those female Naval officers in _Starship
Troopers,_ but they're just spear-carriers.
Dr. Dave
Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>
> On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
written
> the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain. There are
> women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not quite the same
> thing.
If you wade through all of the various prequels and peripheral stories,
you eventually get pretty much the whole life of Honor Bleeping
Harrington.
Other girls who grow up to be ship captains:
THE SHIP WHO SANG, McCaffery
PILOT'S CHOICE, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
James Schmitz's Trigger Argee stories
Hmm. None of those really tell the story from childhood, do they? So,
this is one step closer than just being a spaceship captain, but still
no counterexamples to the original observation.
David Tate
Wayne Throop
: Hmm. None of those really tell the story from childhood, do they?
: still no counterexamples to the original observation.
On the other hand, how many really tell the story of male pilots
all the way from childhood? Well, OK, midshipman's hope and all.
But other than that?
I think we'd have to count anything where a female starship captain
is a major character, and intended to be one since well before maturity.
Eg, Honor Harrington, Heris Serano, etc.
Robert Hutchinson
> On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet written
> the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain.
Do media tie-in novels count?
--
Robert Hutchinson | "[P]eople on the 14th floor--you know what
| floor you're really on. [...] Jump out
| the window--you will die earlier!"
| -- Mitch Hedberg, RIP
Wayne Throop
: I think we'd have to count anything where a female starship captain
: is a major character, and intended to be one since well before maturity.
: Eg, Honor Harrington, Heris Serano, etc.
Ah. And perhaps Rissa Kerguelen.
Dan Goodman
> Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>>
>> On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
> written
>> the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain. There are
>> women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not quite the same
>> thing.
>
> If you wade through all of the various prequels and peripheral stories,
> you eventually get pretty much the whole life of Honor Bleeping
> Harrington.
>
> Other girls who grow up to be ship captains:
>
> THE SHIP WHO SANG, McCaffery
No; she grows up to be a ship.
> PILOT'S CHOICE, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
> James Schmitz's Trigger Argee stories
>
> Hmm. None of those really tell the story from childhood, do they? So,
> this is one step closer than just being a spaceship captain, but still
> no counterexamples to the original observation.
>
> David Tate
--
Derek Tattersall
>> On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet written
>> the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain. There are
>> women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not quite the same
>> thing.
I might suggest _Conflict of Honors_ by Lee and Miller. the protagonist
in that story grows up to be a starship pilot, and becomes a starship
captain in a later book in the series (_I dare_).
r.r...@thevine.net
wrote:
>I suppose Pride of Chanur series doesn't count? Onaccounta
>males not being tempramentally suited, so females *have* to grow
>up to be the captains by fiat of the scenario. Hrm.
>
>Isn't there some other Cherryh with a female starship captain?
Merchanter's Luck? Although she is actually the 26th in line to be
captain, or something like that. Which is why she is so interested in
Sandor and his ship.
Rebecca
Robert A. Woodward
thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:
> :: On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
> :: written the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain.
> :: There are women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not
> :: quite the same thing.
>
> : Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com>
> : Closest thing I can think of is not-very-close: "The Woman Who Sailed
> : the <Soul>", Cordwainer Smith.
>
> Hm. I was going to mention Heinlein's Starship Troopers, but
> I guess that's not *about* the female pilots/captains, and not about
> them growing up wanting to be such. Of course, The Menace from Earth
> is sort of about a starship-mad girl growing up, but...
>
<SNIP>
>
> Isn't there some other Cherryh with a female starship captain?
>
Signe Mallory? She appears fully formed with years of experience.
<snip>
>
> Well, OK, OK, how about the Familias Regnant series?
> Or Trading in Danger?
The Elizabeth Moon title that answers the original question is
_Sassinak_ (well, Anne McCaffrey too, as this was a sharecrop based
on McCaffrey's _Dinosaur Planet_ series).
--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>
John Schilling
says...
"Cherryh" and "female starship captain" would point most strongly to
Signy Mallory, Norway, IMO. Admittedly, there isn't much in the way
of stories *about* her, but all the ship captains we do get stories
about are mostly just playing in the universe she defined. And she
is sometimes on-stage in a supporting role.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Dr. Dave
Wayne Throop wrote:
> : I think we'd have to count anything where a female starship captain
> : is a major character, and intended to be one since well before
maturity.
> : Eg, Honor Harrington, Heris Serano, etc.
OK. Add Tocohl Susumo from HELLSPARK, then.
Dave Tate
Mike Schilling
"John Schilling" <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote in message
news:d5b73...@drn.newsguy.com...
>
>
> "Cherryh" and "female starship captain" would point most strongly to
> Signy Mallory, Norway, IMO. Admittedly, there isn't much in the way
> of stories *about* her, but all the ship captains we do get stories
> about are mostly just playing in the universe she defined. And she
> is sometimes on-stage in a supporting role.
>
She's an important, if not major, character in _Downbelow Station_ and a
minor one in _Rimrunners_.
William December Starr
"Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> said:
>> "Cherryh" and "female starship captain" would point most strongly
>> to Signy Mallory, Norway, IMO. Admittedly, there isn't much in
>> the way of stories *about* her, but all the ship captains we do
>> get stories about are mostly just playing in the universe she
>> defined. And she is sometimes on-stage in a supporting role.
>> [John Schilling]
>
> She's an important, if not major, character in _Downbelow Station_
> and a minor one in _Rimrunners_.
I see her as _the_ major character in _Downbelow Station_, as my
view is that the whole novel is about her making a Decision right
near the end, with everything else just being there to build up to
and support that scene.
(Of course in order to believe that I have to filter out the fair
amount of bloat that marred the book, but that's easy to do when one
is merely remembering the work rather than actually trudging through
it. :-))
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
John Schilling
I understand exactly what you are saying.
Cherryh tends to write stories about the little guy who gets caught too
close to the Great Events of the day and muddles through. And as ships
and captains go, Norway and Mallory are at the top of the list of the
Greatness that reshapes the universe into such an interesting place for
everyone else to muddle through. Finity and Neihart in second place,
with all the rest as the muddling little guys.
_Downbelow Station_ comes closer than most to dealing directly with the
great players and the great events, and that is probably why it holds
such a distinguished (for good or ill) place among the Alliance/Union
tales. But it is still a Cherryh tale, and so it is still fundamentally
a story told around, rather than about, Signy Mallory.
Mike Schilling
>
> _Downbelow Station_ comes closer than most to dealing directly with the
> great players and the great events, and that is probably why it holds
> such a distinguished (for good or ill) place among the Alliance/Union
> tales.
Whereas _Cyteen_ (her masterwork IMHO) is about one of the greatest of the
great players. Interesting.
Joe Bernstein
[quoting Rebecca Rice]
> :: On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
> :: written the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain.
> :: There are women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not
> :: quite the same thing.
> : Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com>
> : Closest thing I can think of is not-very-close: "The Woman Who Sailed
> : the <Soul>", Cordwainer Smith.
(Oops, yes, it's "The Lady", shame on me.)
> What about Flynn's "Firestar" series? Not a starship captain, but
> revolves around a female character who's driven to build an entire space
> program; "grows up to do it" not being un-apt. And later, a female
> character going through pilot training determined to make it, and
> eventually getting very high rank in pilot/captain circles.
This strikes me as a stretch on several grounds, although it is one
of the things I considered along the way.
We'll ignore Mariesa Van Huyten because while we do see a little bit
of her growing up, 17 strikes me as a poor approximation of "girl",
and anyway she doesn't actually become a spaceship captain.
So that leaves the hotshot pilot of the second pair of books whose
name I forget. Here the difficulties are, again, we don't see much
of the "grows up" part; and pilots in those books don't really
strike me as meaningfully "captains", but rather "pilots". I mean
by this not merely that they don't have the kind of social grouping
to control that captains of sea vessels have, and pilots of aircraft
rarely do; but that captains of sea vessels are subject to an
entirely different kind of control by their employers from those
pilots of aircraft are (for example, they are much less limited
by their fuel, disregarding some modern vessels). In each of these
aspects, the pilots in the <Firestar> series are clearly more pilot-
like than captain-like.
Now, you can fairly reply that almost any ship meant for insystem
travel is going to be more like an aircraft than a sea vessel by
those criteria, and frankly, I agree. Which is why I managed to
elide the OP's "spaceship" into "starship" without even noticing
that I was doing so. So, Ms. Rice, which is it?
ANYWAY. Another reason I'm less than comfortable with reading
"pilot" as "captain" is that in at least one *star*ship setting
familiar to me, they are very distinct. And indeed, <The Void
Captain's Tale> revolves centrally around this distinction, no?
But of course, we also don't see there a hint of how the *pilot*
got there from girlhood.
Argh. The other example I rejected as not even so close as "The
Lady Who Sailed the <Soul>" was Varley's "The Pusher". It
belatedly occurs to me that at least for in-system purposes,
well mostly anyhow, it would be plausible to consider another
story I recently read. Alas, I'm having trouble remembering
author and title; but since I read Flynn's story collection
before ploughing into his novels, I'm guessing it could be in
there. It's a very, well, Varley-ish story, involving a clone
and harvesting the Oort cloud, if that helps any. Hmm. I may be
conflating two stories, come to think. Argh. Anyone?
> Or Trading in Danger?
Is this one of the books in the omnibus <Heris Serrano> ? Or is
it a Liaden book? If the latter, I'm intentionally forgetting it
as dangerously addictive for too little reward, but if the former,
nope, we don't get the "growing up" part.
Someone else in this thread has pointed out the paucity of male
characters whom we see growing up to become spaceship captains,
too. And, well, yeah; I can't think of any of those either.
Sigh. Harumph. What are everlasting series *good* for exactly,
if not showing us characters growing up?
(Tee hee. Does Magnus d'Armand in Christopher Stasheff's allegedly
now-concluded but probably infinite "wizard" series become a
spaceship captain and/or pilot?)
Wayne Throop
: Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com>
: Is this one of the books in the omnibus <Heris Serrano> ? Or is it a
: Liaden book? If the latter, I'm intentionally forgetting it as
: dangerously addictive for too little reward, but if the former, nope,
: we don't get the "growing up" part.
No, it's the first in a new Heris-Serrano-alike series by Moon; I see on
google the series is being called "Vatt's War". Briefly, intrepid young
former-military-cadet shipping company spaceship captain gets ensnared
in real nasty political/corporate-backstabbing goings-on, and mayhem
ensues. And just when she thinks she's gotten herself extricated, they
pull her back in for the next book...
We also don't get the "growing up" part; we get just about as much
of it as the Heris Serrano scerraneio; maybe a bit more. We join Our
Heroine just as she's kicked out of space cadet school in her
senior year. We get some flashbacks and reminiscences of her
childhood, and why it led her to go to military school.
r.r...@thevine.net
<j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
>In article <11151...@sheol.org>, Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>
>[quoting Rebecca Rice]
>> :: On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
>> :: written the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain.
>> :: There are women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not
>> :: quite the same thing.
>
>> : Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com>
>> : Closest thing I can think of is not-very-close: "The Woman Who Sailed
>> : the <Soul>", Cordwainer Smith.
>(Oops, yes, it's "The Lady", shame on me.)
>
>Now, you can fairly reply that almost any ship meant for insystem
>travel is going to be more like an aircraft than a sea vessel by
>those criteria, and frankly, I agree. Which is why I managed to
>elide the OP's "spaceship" into "starship" without even noticing
>that I was doing so. So, Ms. Rice, which is it?
>
Just want to point out that I am not the person who asked the bit
being quoted up top. I believe my only contribution was the bit
Allison Reilly, which somehow morphed into a discussion of Signy
Mallory. Although, to be scrupulously fair to the criteria, we don't
get to see much of Allison's growing up, either. Then again, I'm
drawing a blank on books with male characters that we follow from
childhood to starship captain, so perhaps it does count.
Rebecca
r.r...@thevine.net
But, on the other hand, it isn't. Ari II is not Ari I, and whether
she winds up being one of the greatest is still open.
Rebecca
Nancy Lebovitz
Joe Bernstein <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
>
>Someone else in this thread has pointed out the paucity of male
>characters whom we see growing up to become spaceship captains,
>too. And, well, yeah; I can't think of any of those either.
>Sigh. Harumph. What are everlasting series *good* for exactly,
>if not showing us characters growing up?
I wonder if the decline of YA science fiction (as distinct from
fantasy) meant that a lot of good story possibilities never got
explored.
I'm assuming that decline--I don't follow YA fiction much, but I hear
a lot about YA fantasy, and so little about YA science fiction that
I'm assuming nothing notable is going on there.
norrin
I agree, young adult sf is in decline. That's the best vehicle for a
coming of age novel, of which the hypothetical kybernautaroman is a
highly specialized subtype.
Bill Westfield
> :: written the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain.
McCaffery's "The Ship who Sang" is pretty damned close, IMO.
And, um, some of Bujold's major minor characters (Elli, Taura, Elena.
Not quite captains, but all definately growing up into classic "male"
space roles...)
BillW
Bill Westfield
YA fantasy, OTOH, is doing rather well.
It is perhaps science that has let us down. It has become simultaneously
too ordinary, too inaccessible, and not very much fun. Nobody wants to
be an astronaut when clearly what astronauts do most is sit around hoping
the space program won't be canceled out from underneath them...
BillW
how...@brazee.net
On 12-May-2005, Bill Westfield <bi...@cypher.cisco.com> wrote:
> > :: On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
> > :: written the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain.
>
> McCaffery's "The Ship who Sang" is pretty damned close, IMO.
I'd say so.
But Elizabeth Moon specialized in novels where girls grow up to be spaceship
captains.
Joe Bernstein
<r.r...@thevine.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 6 May 2005 00:45:20 +0000 (UTC), Joe Bernstein
> <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote:
> >[quoting [not] Rebecca Rice [but Nancy Lebovitz]]
> >> :: On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
> >> :: written the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain.
> >> :: There are women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not
> >> :: quite the same thing.
> >Now, you can fairly reply that almost any ship meant for insystem
> >travel is going to be more like an aircraft than a sea vessel by
> >those criteria, and frankly, I agree. Which is why I managed to
> >elide the OP's "spaceship" into "starship" without even noticing
> >that I was doing so. So, Ms. Rice, which is it?
> >
> Just want to point out that I am not the person who asked the bit
> being quoted up top.
My apologies to both Ms. Rice and Ms. Lebovitz. But it now appears
that the rest of this sub-thread has in fact determined that there
*aren't* any stories depicting the growing-up of any person of
*either* gender into a member of *either* relevant profession, so
unless we're all wrong about that, Ms. Lebovitz may not need to take
the time to answer my question. So sorry!
-- JLB, feeling stupid
David E. Siegel
Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
> In article <9d4961p45e0ck23ku...@4ax.com>,
> <r.r...@thevine.net> wrote:
> That's a lot of how I see _Podkayne of Mars_--there's nothing tragic
> about her not becoming a spaceship captain. It's an ambition she
holds
> vaguely, but she doesn't show any striking talent in that direction
and
> she finds she wants to do something less ambitious.
>
> On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
written
> the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain. There are
> women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not quite the same
> thing.
> --
Elizabeth Moon: _Sassinek_ and _Trading in Danger_
Are there other good examples? Surely there must be.
-DES
Konrad Gaertner
>
> Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
> >
> > On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
> written
> > the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain. There are
> > women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not quite the same
> > thing.
> Elizabeth Moon: _Sassinek_ and _Trading in Danger_
>
> Are there other good examples? Surely there must be.
I think Doyle and MacDonald's _The Price of the Stars_ does this
(though the heroine is already an adult when it starts).
--
Konrad Gaertner email: gae...@aol.com
http://www.livejournal.com/users/kgbooklog/
Keith Morrison
>>On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
>>written the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain. There are
>>women who are spaceship captains in sf, but that's not quite the same
>>thing.
>
> Elizabeth Moon: _Sassinek_ and _Trading in Danger_
>
> Are there other good examples? Surely there must be.
Marissa Flores "Mary Sue" Picard, Chief Sociopath, Empress of
the Known Universe and all-round disgustingly obnoxious
character.[1]
1. It's a "good" example in that it portrays the girl who grows
up to be a starship commander. You didn't say anything about the
story, characters, plotting, setting, premise or logic having to
be good.[2]
2. I've only read the MiSTied versions. I know I have low taste,
but give me *some* credit.
--
Keith
Joseph Nebus
>David E. Siegel wrote:
>> Are there other good examples? Surely there must be.
>Marissa Flores "Mary Sue" Picard, Chief Sociopath, Empress of
>the Known Universe and all-round disgustingly obnoxious
>character.[1]
>1. It's a "good" example in that it portrays the girl who grows
>up to be a starship commander. You didn't say anything about the
>story, characters, plotting, setting, premise or logic having to
>be good.[2]
>2. I've only read the MiSTied versions. I know I have low taste,
>but give me *some* credit.
Hey, I've written some of the MiSTed versions, and I've got to
admit, the premise and the logic -- even the characterization -- is
getting to be reasonably good, as Stephen Ratliff slowly reboots the
whole Marrissaverse. There's still the problem of getting a 15-year-
old into the chain of command, but by the relentless application of
Age of Exploration metaphors he's able to make it less of a glaringly
absurd notion and more of a just-take-it-for-the-story idea.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tina Hall
> Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>> On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
>> written the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship
>> captain. There are women who are spaceship captains in sf, but
>> that's not quite the same thing.
> Elizabeth Moon: _Sassinek_ and _Trading in Danger_
> Are there other good examples? Surely there must be.
I'm not quite sure where the distinction between 'grows up to be...'
and 'is...' is (or rather, what exactly defines 'grows up to be...',
wishes, destiny, what?), but in the Nights Dawn Trilogy, there's a
female protagonist who literally grows up to be a starship captain,
inside the ship for the first year of her (and the ship's) existence
even (instead of being carried by her mother and being born
properly). Forgot the name, something with 'S' at the beginning.
(Random side-data: The ship has a memorably stupid name, for that
it's hard to read properly, and just as hard to remember properly.
Something like 'Onenone' or some such. This version is definitely
wrong, but that's what I always read. Imagine that pronounced in
neither English nor German; oh-oon-no-oon. That happens only with
weirdly spelled names.)
--
Tina
No internet access.
### XP v3.40 RC3 ###
Nancy Lebovitz
Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>David E. Siegel <sie...@acm.org> wrote:
>> Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>
>>> On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
>>> written the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship
>>> captain. There are women who are spaceship captains in sf, but
>>> that's not quite the same thing.
>
>> Elizabeth Moon: _Sassinek_ and _Trading in Danger_
>
>> Are there other good examples? Surely there must be.
>
>I'm not quite sure where the distinction between 'grows up to be...'
>and 'is...' is (or rather, what exactly defines 'grows up to be...',
>wishes, destiny, what?), but in the Nights Dawn Trilogy, there's a
Here's what I had in mind: the story includes a reasonably detailed
account including early dreams of being a spaceship captain, relevent
education, and rising through the ranks. Actually spending time seeing
the captain in charge is a welcome bonus.
It's ok if the story is told in flashbacks, but I think it's better
if it's told in chronological order.
>female protagonist who literally grows up to be a starship captain,
>inside the ship for the first year of her (and the ship's) existence
>even (instead of being carried by her mother and being born
>properly). Forgot the name, something with 'S' at the beginning.
--
Hallvard B Furuseth
> I'm not quite sure where the distinction between 'grows up to be...'
> and 'is...' is (or rather, what exactly defines 'grows up to be...',
> wishes, destiny, what?), but in the Nights Dawn Trilogy, there's a
> female protagonist who literally grows up to be a starship captain,
> inside the ship for the first year of her (and the ship's) existence
> even (instead of being carried by her mother and being born
> properly). Forgot the name, something with 'S' at the beginning.
This looks like the cue to mention The Ship Who Sang/...Searched/etc
by McCaffrey:-)
--
Hallvard
Don't anthropomorphize computers. They hate that.
Stephen
:
>David E. Siegel <sie...@acm.org> wrote:
>> Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>
>>> On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
>>> written the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship
>>> captain. There are women who are spaceship captains in sf, but
>>> that's not quite the same thing.
>
>> Elizabeth Moon: _Sassinek_ and _Trading in Danger_
>
>> Are there other good examples? Surely there must be.
>
>I'm not quite sure where the distinction between 'grows up to be...'
>and 'is...' is (or rather, what exactly defines 'grows up to be...',
>wishes, destiny, what?), but in the Nights Dawn Trilogy, there's a
>female protagonist who literally grows up to be a starship captain,
>inside the ship for the first year of her (and the ship's) existence
>even (instead of being carried by her mother and being born
>properly). Forgot the name, something with 'S' at the beginning.
Syrinx - named after a Greek nymph who, being pursued by the God Pan,
called on the other gods to protect her virtue and was turned into a
clump of reeds from which Pan then made his pipes.
>(Random side-data: The ship has a memorably stupid name, for that
>it's hard to read properly, and just as hard to remember properly.
>Something like 'Onenone' or some such. This version is definitely
>wrong, but that's what I always read. Imagine that pronounced in
>neither English nor German; oh-oon-no-oon. That happens only with
>weirdly spelled names.)
Oenone - named after a Greek nymph who married Paris before he got
caught up with the judgement between Goddesses that lead to the Trojan
War. Pronounced "Ee-NOH-ni".
--
Stephen
Rostrum Camera Ken Morse
Tina Hall
> Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
[Is there a story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain?]
>> I'm not quite sure where the distinction between 'grows up to
>> be...' and 'is...' is (or rather, what exactly defines 'grows up
>> to be...', wishes, destiny, what?), but in the Nights Dawn
>> Trilogy, there's a
> Here's what I had in mind: the story includes a reasonably
> detailed account including early dreams of being a spaceship
> captain, relevent education, and rising through the ranks.
> Actually spending time seeing the captain in charge is a welcome
> bonus.
Ah.
Now I wonder whether there are any such about boys, never mind
girls. Don't you normally just see the end product?
> It's ok if the story is told in flashbacks, but I think it's
> better if it's told in chronological order.
<scratching head> What would be interesting to read about in either?
Nancy Lebovitz
Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>> Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>
>[Is there a story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain?]
>>> I'm not quite sure where the distinction between 'grows up to
>>> be...' and 'is...' is (or rather, what exactly defines 'grows up
>>> to be...', wishes, destiny, what?), but in the Nights Dawn
>>> Trilogy, there's a
>
>> Here's what I had in mind: the story includes a reasonably
>> detailed account including early dreams of being a spaceship
>> captain, relevent education, and rising through the ranks.
>> Actually spending time seeing the captain in charge is a welcome
>> bonus.
>
>Ah.
>
>Now I wonder whether there are any such about boys, never mind
>girls. Don't you normally just see the end product?
Afaik, no boys, either. It's odd because it seems like a fairly obvious
topic.
There seem to be very few whole career stories of any sort in sf--the
only one I can think of are the Earthsea stories about Ged.
>> It's ok if the story is told in flashbacks, but I think it's
>> better if it's told in chronological order.
>
><scratching head> What would be interesting to read about in either?
The author would include various obstacles--it wouldn't just be straight
study, do moderately challenging work, don't make any awful mistakes,
get the job.
At a minimum, there should be rivals, political messes, and physical risk.
Opposition from prejudice is an optional extra, and I'd rather not have
it because it's been done so much.
Wayne Throop
::: account including early dreams of being a spaceship captain,
::: relevent education, and rising through the ranks. Actually spending
::: time seeing the captain in charge is a welcome bonus.
:: Now I wonder whether there are any such about boys, never mind girls.
: na...@unix5.netaxs.com (Nancy Lebovitz)
: Afaik, no boys, either.
: It's odd because it seems like a fairly obvious topic.
Busby and Feintuch.
Rissa Kerguelen and Midshipman's Hope.
Characters being Rissa Kerguelen and Nicholas Seafort.
Those are the closest matches I can think of.
Well. Starman Jones, maybe. But no intent there.
Not *much* intent with Rissa... sort of. But more than Jones.
All of these have the common theme of children growing up
in an abusive environment. Hrm. Maybe my memory is just in a rut.
David Dyer-Bennet
> In article <MSGID_2=3A240=2F2199.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org>,
> Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>>Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
>>> Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>>
>>[Is there a story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain?]
>>>> I'm not quite sure where the distinction between 'grows up to
>>>> be...' and 'is...' is (or rather, what exactly defines 'grows up
>>>> to be...', wishes, destiny, what?), but in the Nights Dawn
>>>> Trilogy, there's a
>>
>>> Here's what I had in mind: the story includes a reasonably
>>> detailed account including early dreams of being a spaceship
>>> captain, relevent education, and rising through the ranks.
>>> Actually spending time seeing the captain in charge is a welcome
>>> bonus.
>>
>>Ah.
>>
>>Now I wonder whether there are any such about boys, never mind
>>girls. Don't you normally just see the end product?
>
> Afaik, no boys, either. It's odd because it seems like a fairly obvious
> topic.
>
> There seem to be very few whole career stories of any sort in sf--the
> only one I can think of are the Earthsea stories about Ged.
Kimball Kinnison is followed from graduation from the Lensman Academy
up through near-retirement.
Lazarus Long is shown at ages from, I think, 5 to several thousand
years old, for that matter :-).
Outside SF, C.S. Forester started with Hornblower as a midshipman, and
carries him up through admiral and lordship. So much SF coppies those
in so many other ways, it's a bit surprising nobody has copied that
aspect.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
Andrew Wheeler
>
> There seem to be very few whole career stories of any sort in sf--the
> only one I can think of are the Earthsea stories about Ged.
A. Bertam Chandler followed John Grimes from a young lieutenant in his
first command to an approximately-80-year-old Commodore (of an entirely
different polity). It took about twenty novels, and he skipped around a bit.
No "growing up," though -- we meet Grimes as an adult, several years
into his career, and don't get much in the way of flashbacks to his
earlier days.
--
Andrew Wheeler
--
"Next time you die, Jazz Snob."
--Dan Wheeler, _The Last Thing I Ever Did_
http://bobopuppyhead.blogspot.com/
Taki Kogoma
allegedly declared to rec.arts.sf.written...
>Outside SF, C.S. Forester started with Hornblower as a midshipman, and
>carries him up through admiral and lordship. So much SF coppies those
>in so many other ways, it's a bit surprising nobody has copied that
>aspect.
Weber's backfilled Honor Harrington's career at least as far back as
her Midshipman's Cruise (plus those background infodumps about her
Academy experiences). There are still holes in her career before _On
Basilisk Station_, but I expect they'll be written eventually.
For that matter, his Saganami Island spin-off series seems to be
following the careers of recent graduates.
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.
lclough
Miles Vorkosigan is nowhere near done yet -- he may well make
Emperor.
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
Recent short fiction: PARADOX, Autumn 2003
http://home.nyc.rr.com/paradoxmag//index.html
Upcoming short fiction in FIRST HEROES (TOR, May '04)
http://members.aol.com/wenamun/firstheroes.html
Dr. Dave
Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
> In article <MSGID_2=3A240=2F2199.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org>,
> Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
> >
> >Now I wonder whether there are any such about boys, never mind
> >girls. Don't you normally just see the end product?
>
> Afaik, no boys, either. It's odd because it seems like a fairly
obvious
> topic.
>
> There seem to be very few whole career stories of any sort in sf--the
> only one I can think of are the Earthsea stories about Ged.
If you expand to not-just-spaceship-captains science fiction, there's
the obvious Miles Vorkosigan series. Also:
Heinlein, CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY and possibly TUNNEL IN THE SKY
(also, arguably, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND)
Vonnegut, SLAPSTICK (flashbacks)
Card, ENDER'S GAME et seq.
I'm distressed to discover that I can't remember Pangborn's novels DAVY
and A MIRROR FOR OBSERVERS well enough to recall whether they fit this
category or not. Time to re-read, methinks.
Opening up to fantasy-flavored SF, I can think of
Brust, Vlad Taltos books (flashbacks, side stories)
McCaffrey, Harper Hall series
And as noted, in straight fantasy it's not as uncommon:
Vance, LYONESSE
Stewart, THE CRYSTAL CAVE et seq.
White, THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING
McKillip, Riddlemaster trilogy
Hardy, MASTER OF FIVE MAGICS
Card, SONGMASTER and (IIRC) HART'S HOPE
etc.
David Tate
Craig Richardson
<acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
[Piggybacking, not because of killfiling but because I forgot to
respond first time 'round]
>Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>>
>> There seem to be very few whole career stories of any sort in sf--the
>> only one I can think of are the Earthsea stories about Ged.
Well, there is the young man who wanted to be a starship captain like
his father - why he didn't want to be a starship captain like his
mother is an insight into his psychology...
--Craig
--
"I have no sex appeal, a rum-pa-pum-pum," sang Gabe Fenton, in spirit
with the season. "My social skills are nil, a rum-pa-pum-pum."
"Did that actually rhyme?" asked Tuck. -- Christopher Moore,
"He's a bright guy," said Theo. _The Stupidest Angel_
Tina Hall
> Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>> Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
>>> Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>> [Is there a story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship
>> captain?]
>>> Here's what I had in mind: the story includes a reasonably
>>> detailed account including early dreams of being a spaceship
>>> captain, relevent education, and rising through the ranks.
>>> Actually spending time seeing the captain in charge is a
>>> welcome bonus.
>>
>> Ah.
>>
>> Now I wonder whether there are any such about boys, never mind
>> girls. Don't you normally just see the end product?
> Afaik, no boys, either. It's odd because it seems like a fairly
> obvious topic.
Hmm... Maybe something for soap operas rather than SF.
> There seem to be very few whole career stories of any sort in
> sf--the only one I can think of are the Earthsea stories about
> Ged.
As you might guess, that doesn't tell me anything. (I've seen the
word 'Earthsea', but no association comes with it.)
>>> It's ok if the story is told in flashbacks, but I think it's
>>> better if it's told in chronological order.
>>
>> <scratching head> What would be interesting to read about in
>> either?
> The author would include various obstacles--it wouldn't just be
> straight study, do moderately challenging work, don't make any
> awful mistakes, get the job.
Still, I can't find anything interesting in that.
> At a minimum, there should be rivals, political messes, and
> physical risk.
Ew. Maybe that's why I can't imagine it to be interesting. That
would be just dreadfully tedious and boring. Neither rivals nor
political messes have any place in a world I would think worth
reading about. Plotting and scheming is only allowed as long as it
doesn't harm anyone (and preferably is actually beneficial[*]).
Physical risk shouldn't be highlighted, either. Better it's
something in the backround (it happens to be present in battles or
enemy encounters) and not even mentioned as anything worth
mentioning. You don't point out that the sun is shining (whether
behind clouds or visible) during the day each time the characters do
something during the day, either.
> Opposition from prejudice is an optional extra, and I'd rather not
> have it because it's been done so much.
It's also extra boredom. :)
[*] Like someone scheming, harmlessly, to help someone else, rather
than to get an advantage over them.
Mike Schilling
"lclough" <clo...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:Heyhe.535$rI1.454@trnddc02...
>
> Miles Vorkosigan is nowhere near done yet -- he may well make Emperor.
Over his own dead body.
David Johnston
wrote:
>David E. Siegel <sie...@acm.org> wrote:
>> Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>
>>> On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, no one has yet
>>> written the story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship
>>> captain. There are women who are spaceship captains in sf, but
>>> that's not quite the same thing.
>
>> Elizabeth Moon: _Sassinek_ and _Trading in Danger_
>
>> Are there other good examples? Surely there must be.
>
>I'm not quite sure where the distinction between 'grows up to be...'
>and 'is...' is (or rather, what exactly defines 'grows up to be...',
>wishes, destiny, what?), but in the Nights Dawn Trilogy, there's a
>female protagonist who literally grows up to be a starship captain,
>inside the ship for the first year of her (and the ship's) existence
>even (instead of being carried by her mother and being born
>properly). Forgot the name, something with 'S' at the beginning.
Zelde M'Tana is an obvious example of a girl who grows up to be a
spaceship captain, thanks to several mutinies.
Tina Hall
[Is there a story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain?]
>> There seem to be very few whole career stories of any sort in
>> sf--the only one I can think of are the Earthsea stories about
>> Ged.
> Kimball Kinnison is followed from graduation from the Lensman
> Academy up through near-retirement.
The graduation was such a boring start of the book (with plenty of
'bleh'-stuff to object to), that I decided on 'one chapter per day'
after finishing the first (keeping an eye on the pages for when each
would finally end). After the third chapter, I didn't pick Galactic
Patrol up again, since still nothing interesting at all had
happened, and no actual character had turned up; Kinnison isn't flat
or cardboard, he's nonexistent, still, at that point. Maybe some
other time.[*]
But wasn't Nancy talking about a career that starts earlier anyway?
Or has that shifted, now?
> Lazarus Long is shown at ages from, I think, 5 to several
> thousand years old, for that matter :-).
I've come across that name here a few times, I think. Who actually
is that?
[*] Does it actually get some sort of character later, or is it
hollow throughout?
Captain Button
Yes, after his brain is transplanted into Mark's body.
--
Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence.
Four times is enemy action.
BOMB MARS NOW! [ Captain Button - but...@io.com ]
Nancy Lebovitz
Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
>
>> There seem to be very few whole career stories of any sort in
>> sf--the only one I can think of are the Earthsea stories about
>> Ged.
>
>As you might guess, that doesn't tell me anything. (I've seen the
>word 'Earthsea', but no association comes with it.)
I have no idea whether you'd like them.
They start with a boy with considerable magical talent in a poor
village where he can only get the sketchiest training. The magic
is based on knowing the true names of things. Competent magic
also requires knowing how much is safe to do.
The world is is mostly ocean, with a lot of small to medium-sized
islands.
After he does some rather effective magic, he gets hooked up with
a magician who's living quietly and teaches slowly. This can't last,
and he's impatient enough to head off to the big magic school.
After one thing and another, he does a very ill-judged piece of magic
and spends the rest of the book dealing with the monster he unleashed.
Book two: told from the point of view of the high priestess of some
life-wasting and useless gods. Ged gets trapped in their labyrinth,
and the high priestess has to get past the pointless cruelty of what
she's been taught.
Book three: Ged deals with magic and intelligence getting drained
out of people. I don't want to give spoilers here.
Book four: LeGuin notices that the previous series was misogynistic,
and tries to deal with the fact. Imho, she fails because she still
has a gut feeling that guys get to do all the cool stuff. Not one
of my favorite books.
Book five: We discover that the dreary afterlife in book three isn't
built into the structure of the universe.
Most people prefer the first three books, but I may reread book five
one of these years.
These books meet some of your specs--male viewpoint character for most
of them, straightforward stories.
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> na...@unix5.netaxs.com (Nancy Lebovitz) writes:
>
> [Is there a story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain?]
>>> There seem to be very few whole career stories of any sort in
>>> sf--the only one I can think of are the Earthsea stories about
>>> Ged.
>
>> Kimball Kinnison is followed from graduation from the Lensman
>> Academy up through near-retirement.
>
> The graduation was such a boring start of the book (with plenty of
> 'bleh'-stuff to object to), that I decided on 'one chapter per day'
> after finishing the first (keeping an eye on the pages for when each
> would finally end). After the third chapter, I didn't pick Galactic
> Patrol up again, since still nothing interesting at all had
> happened, and no actual character had turned up; Kinnison isn't flat
> or cardboard, he's nonexistent, still, at that point. Maybe some
> other time.[*]
>
> But wasn't Nancy talking about a career that starts earlier anyway?
> Or has that shifted, now?
Yes. Most of the examples start later than the original request was
really looking for. We are, as they say, doing the best we can with
the material available.
>> Lazarus Long is shown at ages from, I think, 5 to several
>> thousand years old, for that matter :-).
>
> I've come across that name here a few times, I think. Who actually
> is that?
He's a character in one good, one mixed, and several very bad books by
Robert A. Heinlein. _Methusaleh's Children_, _Time Enough For Love_,
_The Cat Who Walked Through Walls_, and _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_.
(There are people around who strongly prefer Heinlein's later books,
who would no doubt thus disagree with my quality judgements of these
books.)
> [*] Does it actually get some sort of character later, or is it
> hollow throughout?
One of the most vivid characters in science fiction. So maybe you
shouldn't take my opinions about characters too seriously.
lclough
> In article <JPzhe.5253$Y81...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>,
> "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>"lclough" <clo...@erols.com> wrote in message
>>news:Heyhe.535$rI1.454@trnddc02...
>>
>>>Miles Vorkosigan is nowhere near done yet -- he may well make Emperor.
>>
>>Over his own dead body.
>
>
> Yes, after his brain is transplanted into Mark's body.
>
>
Tch. Too conventional. What is Elly doing these days?
James Nicoll
>Captain Button wrote:
>> In article <JPzhe.5253$Y81...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>,
>> "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>"lclough" <clo...@erols.com> wrote in message
>>>news:Heyhe.535$rI1.454@trnddc02...
>>>
>>>>Miles Vorkosigan is nowhere near done yet -- he may well make Emperor.
>>>
>>>Over his own dead body.
>>
>>
>> Yes, after his brain is transplanted into Mark's body.
>
>Tch. Too conventional. What is Elly doing these days?
>
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Tina Hall
> Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>> Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
>>> There seem to be very few whole career stories of any sort in
>>> sf--the only one I can think of are the Earthsea stories about
>>> Ged.
>>
>> As you might guess, that doesn't tell me anything. (I've seen
>> the word 'Earthsea', but no association comes with it.)
> I have no idea whether you'd like them.
I'm just curious about what they are, so next time I read the name I
might know what people are talking about.
Since you brought up the topic of 'like', I'll comment anyway. :)
> They start with a boy with considerable magical talent in a poor
> village where he can only get the sketchiest training. The magic
> is based on knowing the true names of things.
That sounds very much like it has it all done in exactly the way I
don't want. <g>
Boy, hero-thing ('considerable talent'), poverty, neglect (nothing
better than sketchy training possible), and a daft magic system.
Good would be: Group of adult guys (females are allowed if they use
their brains) and, since it turned up recently, possibly other
genders, all having quite a bit of magic (like everyone else), with
different skills (good training for everyone), and a magic that
doesn't need words or gestures.
> Competent magic also requires knowing how much is safe to do.
Isn't that a given? (I think you mean something different than I
understand.)
> The world is is mostly ocean, with a lot of small to medium-sized
> islands.
That's ok. That the whole world known is something I prefer. (I'm
tired of maps that look as if the world ends behind the next
mountain.)
> After he does some rather effective magic, he gets hooked up with
> a magician who's living quietly and teaches slowly. This can't
> last, and he's impatient enough to head off to the big magic
> school.
All rather the very thing I don't want, again. (The magic, geriatic
old geezer teacher, impatient, magic school.)
> After one thing and another, he does a very ill-judged piece of
> magic and spends the rest of the book dealing with the monster he
> unleashed.
Is there a reason why he's being stupid?
I'm serious. If there's a good reason, I wouldn't complain.
Accidents happen, and people aren't perfect, but for something with
bad effects it needs more than that as explanation. Brainwashing
would serve as an excuse. (Nothing as simple as 'he misjudged'
would.)
Besides, this tale would be appropriate as backround for some
interesting characters dealing with the monster, not focussing on
the culprit responsible.
> Book two: told from the point of view of the high priestess of
> some life-wasting and useless gods. Ged gets trapped in their
> labyrinth, and the high priestess has to get past the pointless
> cruelty of what she's been taught.
Ew. Gods and cruelty have no place in a world worth reading about.
(Bad guys bring cruelty, but they should be new, like the monster
you mention above, and caused by an outside source. The world itself
must not be able to produce real bad things, or I wouldn't care.)
[...]
> Book four: LeGuin notices that the previous series was
> misogynistic, and tries to deal with the fact. Imho, she fails
> because she still has a gut feeling that guys get to do all the
> cool stuff. Not one of my favorite books.
I don't think I'd object to that, actually. But there's still that
boy, not a very interesting character... (And done too often.)
[...]
> These books meet some of your specs--male viewpoint character for
> most of them, straightforward stories.
Not really. (See above.) It really meets the undesirable things spot
on in a number of points.
Apart from that, thanks. :) Hopefully I'll remember and be able to
place the title next time I see it.
David Johnston
wrote:
>> After one thing and another, he does a very ill-judged piece of
>> magic and spends the rest of the book dealing with the monster he
>> unleashed.
>
>Is there a reason why he's being stupid?
Would it be even remotely plausible to write a teenager with vast
powers who doesn't do something stupid?
Mike Schilling
> Captain Button wrote:
>> In article <JPzhe.5253$Y81...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>,
>> "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>"lclough" <clo...@erols.com> wrote in message
>>>news:Heyhe.535$rI1.454@trnddc02...
>>>
>>>>Miles Vorkosigan is nowhere near done yet -- he may well make Emperor.
>>>
>>>Over his own dead body.
>>
>>
>> Yes, after his brain is transplanted into Mark's body.
>>
>>
>
>
> Tch. Too conventional. What is Elly doing these days?
>
Being the Dread Pirate Rob.., um, Admiral of the Dendarii.
Andrew Wheeler
<snip the part where she does into interesting detail about exactly what
kind of book she wants>
Does anyone else get the sense that Tina would really enjoy _The Pony
Party_ by Loney M. Setnick?
(Pity it doesn't actually exist.)
Oh, OK, I'll type in a bit of the flap copy:
> Giddy-Up!
> Saddle up for a hayload of happiness when
> the luckiest kids in the world go to a
> party! With ponies! There's a rollicking
> good time to be had by Laurie, Larry and
> Lil' Linda Lotsaluck when the weather is
> nice and there's enough cake for everyone!
> What fun these gleeful siblings will have
> making new friends, trying new things,
> and riding REAL ponies! There's even a
> big prize to win for having the prettiest
> pony...and guess who wins it? Not Old Man
> Grumpus, that's for sure!!
Tina Hall
> Tina...@kruemel.org (Tina Hall) writes:
[Galactic Patrol up to and including chapter three]
>> [*] Does it actually get some sort of character later, or is it
>> hollow throughout?
> One of the most vivid characters in science fiction.
When and where does it turn up?
> So maybe you shouldn't take my opinions about characters too
> seriously.
I'd like your definition, though, trying to understand what you
would call vivid, what gives a character life and substance for you.
With examples, preferably.
I don't see anything in Kinnison up to the point I read, the only
scrap of character I did see was someone 'cheating' with the lots
for who would go with whom, and why he did that, and afair it didn't
look as if that guy would play a big role. (That that was done, had
to be done, without Kinnison knowing, only shows lack of competence
in the latter.)
From the boy the story seems to focus on, I get nothing. He's just
some easiy impressed kid that could be exchanged for any other, with
not much clue and even less reason to give him that ship, apart from
being disposable. And good guys shouldn't think people are
disposable.
Random silly idea: What about people digging out that book (I guess
many have it), and read a chapter per week (say, each wednesday) and
comment with their interpretation of things, and what they like and
don't like, completely subjective. Might help getting a better idea
of what people mean by the words they write.
how...@brazee.net
legs in a hurry?
Aaron Davies
> Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
> > Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
> >> Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
>
> >>> There seem to be very few whole career stories of any sort in
> >>> sf--the only one I can think of are the Earthsea stories about
> >>> Ged.
> >>
> >> As you might guess, that doesn't tell me anything. (I've seen
> >> the word 'Earthsea', but no association comes with it.)
>
> > I have no idea whether you'd like them.
>
> I'm just curious about what they are, so next time I read the name I
> might know what people are talking about.
The books are by Ursula K. Leguin; they are _A Wizard of Earthsea_, _The
Tombs of Atuan_, and _The Farthest Shore_. (There are also _Tehanu_,
_Tales from Earthsea_, and _The Other Wind_, but if _Tehanu is anything
to judge by (I haven't read the last two), avoid them at all costs.)
> > Competent magic also requires knowing how much is safe to do.
>
> Isn't that a given? (I think you mean something different than I
> understand.)
Failing to understand this is the direct cause of most of Ged's
problems, so it's more in the way of a plot hint.
> > After one thing and another, he does a very ill-judged piece of
> > magic and spends the rest of the book dealing with the monster he
> > unleashed.
>
> Is there a reason why he's being stupid?
>
> I'm serious. If there's a good reason, I wouldn't complain.
> Accidents happen, and people aren't perfect, but for something with
> bad effects it needs more than that as explanation. Brainwashing
> would serve as an excuse. (Nothing as simple as 'he misjudged'
> would.)
It's been something like 15 years since I read it, so I'm not entirely
sure. Can anyone say if the SciFi channel version, where he's basically
taunted into it, and does it to prove his power, is at all accurate on
this point?
> > Book four: LeGuin notices that the previous series was
> > misogynistic, and tries to deal with the fact. Imho, she fails
> > because she still has a gut feeling that guys get to do all the
> > cool stuff. Not one of my favorite books.
>
> I don't think I'd object to that, actually. But there's still that
> boy, not a very interesting character... (And done too often.)
Nothing actually happens in book four. Early in book one, Ged is offered
a choice between "a life of being" and "a life of doing". He chooses
doing, and a trilogy ensues. In book four, he is "being", and the
impossibility of a plot about "being" quickly becomes apparently. It was
one of the most boring books I've ever read.
--
Aaron Davies
Opinions expressed are solely those of a random number generator.
"I don't know if it's real or not but it is a myth."
-Jami JoAnne of alt.folklore.urban, showing her grasp on reality.
r.r...@thevine.net
>Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
>> After one thing and another, he does a very ill-judged piece of
>> magic and spends the rest of the book dealing with the monster he
>> unleashed.
>
>Is there a reason why he's being stupid?
>
>I'm serious. If there's a good reason, I wouldn't complain.
>Accidents happen, and people aren't perfect, but for something with
>bad effects it needs more than that as explanation. Brainwashing
>would serve as an excuse. (Nothing as simple as 'he misjudged'
>would.)
>
If I recall correctly (and it's been decades since I read the books,
so I might not), some of the other, more established (or powerful, or
wealthy) students had been giving him a hard time, basically daring
him to do something really stupendous, if he was all that great. So,
to shut them up, he does.
Oh, and by the end of the books, he's a bit older than a "boy".
Rebecca
Taki Kogoma
allegedly declared to rec.arts.sf.written...
>In article <HwNhe.2744$pb1.946@trnddc08>, lclough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>>Captain Button wrote:
>>> In article <JPzhe.5253$Y81...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>,
>>> "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>"lclough" <clo...@erols.com> wrote in message
>>>>news:Heyhe.535$rI1.454@trnddc02...
>>>>>Miles Vorkosigan is nowhere near done yet -- he may well make Emperor.
>>>>
>>>>Over his own dead body.
>>>
>>> Yes, after his brain is transplanted into Mark's body.
>>
>>Tch. Too conventional. What is Elly doing these days?
>
> You know, Miles did have twins. An heir and spare...
I don't think Helen Natalia Vorkosigan qualifies for status of 'spare'
just yet.
Captain Button
how...@brazee.net wrote:
>How about 3 girls who *are* a starship drive, when the starship needs some
>legs in a hurry?
Or the "Pushers", although the one we see in the story is already an adult.
Daniel Silevitch
> On Sun, 15 May 2005 19:39:29 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
> allegedly declared to rec.arts.sf.written...
>>In article <HwNhe.2744$pb1.946@trnddc08>, lclough <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>>>Captain Button wrote:
>>>> In article <JPzhe.5253$Y81...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>,
>>>> "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>"lclough" <clo...@erols.com> wrote in message
>>>>>news:Heyhe.535$rI1.454@trnddc02...
>>>>>>Miles Vorkosigan is nowhere near done yet -- he may well make Emperor.
>>>>>
>>>>>Over his own dead body.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, after his brain is transplanted into Mark's body.
>>>
>>>Tch. Too conventional. What is Elly doing these days?
>>
>> You know, Miles did have twins. An heir and spare...
>
> I don't think Helen Natalia Vorkosigan qualifies for status of 'spare'
> just yet.
If necessary, the Donna/Donno solution can be implemented.
-dms
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> Tina...@kruemel.org (Tina Hall) writes:
>
> [Galactic Patrol up to and including chapter three]
>>> [*] Does it actually get some sort of character later, or is it
>>> hollow throughout?
>
>> One of the most vivid characters in science fiction.
>
> When and where does it turn up?
Well...maybe around the time they steal the Boskonian ship.
>> So maybe you shouldn't take my opinions about characters too
>> seriously.
>
> I'd like your definition, though, trying to understand what you
> would call vivid, what gives a character life and substance for you.
> With examples, preferably.
I certainly can't describe it. Kinnison has strong opinions, strong
convictions, great drive and energy. He's a little too angsty and
self-involved for my ideal.
Characters I remember clearly -- Jubal Harshaw, from _Stranger in a
Strange Land_, Robert A. Heinlein. Old and tired and a bit more
self-pitying than I really like, but mostly rather clear-thinking and
articulate. Lots of interesting views.
Ekaterin from _Komarr_ and _A Civil Campaign_, Lois MacMaster Bujold.
First-rate ability to actually think about her own situation
usefully.
Honor Harrington, many books by David Weber. Again, clear-thinking
and incisive. Sometimes a bit angsty, but tolerable.
Blackie Duquesne, particularly in _Skylark Duquesne_ by Doc Smith.
Rather a rogue, but *not* sociopathic really. Again that
clear-thinking and incisive thing, but with weird postulates, which I
think he's working towards a major crisis with.
Paul Atreides, _Dune_, Frank Herbert. There are no sequels to this
book; don't believe anybody who says otherwise. Lots of growing up,
especially being thrown into a completely different culture as an
adolescent, so we learn a lot about him.
Craig Lowell, _The Lieutenants_ et. seq., W.E.B Griffin.
Manny, _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, Robert A. Heinlein.
I'm finding my descriptions of "why" less and less meaningful as I go,
sorry. The characters "click" in my head, they make sense.
> I don't see anything in Kinnison up to the point I read, the only
> scrap of character I did see was someone 'cheating' with the lots
> for who would go with whom, and why he did that, and afair it didn't
> look as if that guy would play a big role. (That that was done, had
> to be done, without Kinnison knowing, only shows lack of competence
> in the latter.)
Kinnison was trying to "play fair" and the quartermaster felt that
what was at stake was *far* too important for that; they needed to
field the best teams possible to maximize the chances of escape. This
is one of the things Kinnison has a hard time learning, but eventually
does -- the old "a Lensman always goes in" philosophy is stupid. Yes,
Kinnison fails to catch him at it; but then Kinnison is the person
Allerdyce is most stringently trying to conceal it from.
> From the boy the story seems to focus on, I get nothing. He's just
> some easiy impressed kid that could be exchanged for any other, with
> not much clue and even less reason to give him that ship, apart from
> being disposable. And good guys shouldn't think people are
> disposable.
Military officers are in the business of expending people; always as
sparingly as is consistent with the assigned goals, but still
expending them. They're not "disposable", but they can be put at risk
at need, and some percentage of the risks will lose. Port Admiral
Haynes is an officer, looking for a solution to a problem threatening
their entire civilization. It's stated that previous attempts at
solution have already failed.
And Kinnison is the #1 graduate from the Tellurian Lensman academy,
which puts him up in that top scraping of the upper crust. Seems to
me the numbers were somthing like a million 18-year-olds take the
academy exam, some small number of thousands (or just one) are
admitted, and only about 100 graduate each year. He's given that ship
for reasons laid out quite explicitly in the book -- Patrol practice
is to use conventional means, and when that fails, hand the problem to
the #1 graduate in hopes of getting some unconventional results.
> Random silly idea: What about people digging out that book (I guess
> many have it), and read a chapter per week (say, each wednesday) and
> comment with their interpretation of things, and what they like and
> don't like, completely subjective. Might help getting a better idea
> of what people mean by the words they write.
I might be able to do that. We tried something like that on the
Dragaera list (actually on an associated list dedicated to this), and
it never took fire there. But the idea still seems potentially
interesting to me.
Tina Hall
> Tina...@kruemel.org (Tina Hall) wrote:
>> Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
>>> After one thing and another, he does a very ill-judged piece of
>>> magic and spends the rest of the book dealing with the monster
>>> he unleashed.
>>
>> Is there a reason why he's being stupid?
>>
>> I'm serious. If there's a good reason, I wouldn't complain.
>> Accidents happen, and people aren't perfect, but for something
>> with bad effects it needs more than that as explanation.
>> Brainwashing would serve as an excuse. (Nothing as simple as 'he
>> misjudged' would.)
>>
> If I recall correctly (and it's been decades since I read the
> books, so I might not), some of the other, more established (or
> powerful, or wealthy) students had been giving him a hard time,
> basically daring him to do something really stupendous, if he was
> all that great. So, to shut them up, he does.
Thanks.
So there is no reason for him being stupid, and instead just more
reason to confirm that he is stupid. (And more reason to dislike the
world. 'Students' like that don't exist in one worth reading about,
unless the story is about some psychopath mowing down the freaks.)
> Oh, and by the end of the books, he's a bit older than a "boy".
Makes no difference. Starting out as that is what I object to. I've
read three stories too many about 'boy becomes hero' to think that
anything but tiring. (The three I read were the Belgariad, part of
the Wheel of Time and part of the Sword of Truth series.)
Where are the books with groups of decent people where everyone can
do something nifty and useful, and none of them is some particularly
outstanding hero-thing? (Or some lecturing geriatic geezer.)
Like Against a Dark Backround. The viewpoint character had no
purpose, but the others fit that particular parameter (as example).
That in an actually decent Fantasy world and no freaks (apart from
the necessary bad guys), would be nice.
Nancy Lebovitz
David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>
>Blackie Duquesne, particularly in _Skylark Duquesne_ by Doc Smith.
>Rather a rogue, but *not* sociopathic really. Again that
How would you rate his plans for negative eugenics of the murderous
variety?
>clear-thinking and incisive thing, but with weird postulates, which I
>think he's working towards a major crisis with.
Nancy Lebovitz
Aaron Davies <aa...@avalon.pascal-central.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>The books are by Ursula K. Leguin; they are _A Wizard of Earthsea_, _The
>Tombs of Atuan_, and _The Farthest Shore_. (There are also _Tehanu_,
>_Tales from Earthsea_, and _The Other Wind_, but if _Tehanu is anything
>to judge by (I haven't read the last two), avoid them at all costs.)
Rather more happens in _The Other Wind_, but I'm not sure I like seeing
one of the basic premises of the first three taken away.
Tina Hall
> Tina...@kruemel.org (Tina Hall) writes:
>> David Dyer <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>>> Tina...@kruemel.org (Tina Hall) writes:
>> [Galactic Patrol up to and including chapter three]
>>>> [*] Does it actually get some sort of character later, or is
>>>> it hollow throughout?
>>
>>> One of the most vivid characters in science fiction.
>>
>> When and where does it turn up?
> Well...maybe around the time they steal the Boskonian ship.
Is that within the first three chapters? (I remember that there was
some boring stuff about spaceships, but didn't care about what was
going on and just read on in hope of something interesting
happening.)
>>> So maybe you shouldn't take my opinions about characters too
>>> seriously.
>>
>> I'd like your definition, though, trying to understand what you
>> would call vivid, what gives a character life and substance for
>> you. With examples, preferably.
> I certainly can't describe it. Kinnison has strong opinions,
> strong convictions, great drive and energy. He's a little too
> angsty and self-involved for my ideal.
If he has any of that, where is it shown? How?
That's the actual question. I didn't see any of that, after all.
<snip most examples>
I think you misunderstood. That's your impressions, again, but
nothing about how you got them. And that we have different
impressions is pretty clear. :)
> Paul Atreides, _Dune_, Frank Herbert. There are no sequels to
> this book; don't believe anybody who says otherwise.
I believe myself claiming that there are a book number 5 and a book
number 6. You can have number one, and others the rest. (There were
none by anyone not written by Frank Herbert, naturally. I think we
can agree on that, no?)
> Lots of growing up, especially being thrown into a completely
> different culture as an adolescent, so we learn a lot about him.
It's been too long since I read it to remember specifics that might
spark any impressions. And that's really what I'm asking for.
By memory... I don't remember any growing up, but I don't think that
way about stories (there's never any in those I read, afair, and
having someone say it turns up just makes it sound tedious). There
were lots of interesting scenes. Duncan Idaho was my favorite
character (which might or might not be a good example of what I'm
looking for, considering that it's been +/- eight years since I last
read it). I didn't much care about Jessica even then, afair; too
close-mouthed and secretive.
> I'm finding my descriptions of "why" less and less meaningful as
> I go, sorry. The characters "click" in my head, they make sense.
What makes them click, though. Do you have a particular scene, for
example?
>> I don't see anything in Kinnison up to the point I read, the
>> only scrap of character I did see was someone 'cheating' with
>> the lots for who would go with whom, and why he did that, and
>> afair it didn't look as if that guy would play a big role. (That
>> that was done, had to be done, without Kinnison knowing, only
>> shows lack of competence in the latter.)
> Kinnison was trying to "play fair" and the quartermaster felt
> that what was at stake was *far* too important for that;
Which makes the quartermaster more competent than Kinnison and
tumbles any impression that might have turned up that Kinnison knows
what he's doing.
> they needed to field the best teams possible to maximize the
> chances of escape.
If that's what's necessary to beat the bad guys, the one giving the
orders should know that.
> This is one of the things Kinnison has a hard time learning,
I don't care about 'learning', they should start out competent.
The only instance of that that I could accept is say, a frog
unexpectedly turning into a prince without ever having been one
before, provided the frog was an interesting character before it
happened.
Learning to be a person (never mind a prince, scrap the prince, and
kingdoms along with that) is acceptable, if it's not the focus of
the story but just one of the many things going on with many
interesting characters. So all you get is the interesting bits of
that 'learning', the actual events, without any tedious periods in
between. As long as it's not too many of these events, and no
repetitions, or it gets tiresome.
> but eventually does -- the old "a Lensman always goes in"
> philosophy is stupid.
Goes in what?
> Yes, Kinnison fails to catch him at it; but then Kinnison is the
> person Allerdyce is most stringently trying to conceal it from.
Such shouldn't be necessary in the first place, and not possible if
the Lensmen are as uber-good as people claim.
>> From the boy the story seems to focus on, I get nothing. He's
>> just some easiy impressed kid that could be exchanged for any
>> other, with not much clue and even less reason to give him that
>> ship, apart from being disposable. And good guys shouldn't think
>> people are disposable.
> Military officers are in the business of expending people;
Then give me a story where that isn't the case. :)
> always as sparingly as is consistent with the assigned goals, but
> still expending them. They're not "disposable", but they can be
> put at risk at need, and some percentage of the risks will lose.
I think you're mixing two different things here. Or the book doesn't
show that the risk is worth it or something. But that's not the
picture I got. Maybe some 'cause' or 'reason' is missing, or rather
not given. Something to care about, a comfortable pillow rather than
naked metal. I just bounce off the latter with a clang.
> Port Admiral Haynes is an officer, looking for a solution to a
> problem threatening their entire civilization. It's stated that
> previous attempts at solution have already failed.
People state a lot when the day is long. I didn't feel as if there
was such great danger. There was just some pompous, hollow, military
show and some old guy running down empty phrases, as far as I
remember the beginning.
No feeling, no sensation, just lifeless listings of events and
conversations.
> And Kinnison is the #1 graduate from the Tellurian Lensman
> academy, which puts him up in that top scraping of the upper
> crust.
And doesn't impress me at all. I haven't been given any reason to be
impressed by some silly title.
> Seems to me the numbers were somthing like a million 18-year-olds
> take the academy exam, some small number of thousands (or just
> one) are admitted, and only about 100 graduate each year.
With arbitrary tests made by random humans, and those that graduate
are certain before they even start.
That really fails to impress me. They don't have any credibility
before they start, but it's just assumed that I think that's nifty
or something, but without credibility it's just hollow. They would
have to prove that they're nifty first, by their thoughts and
actions, not the author just stating 'this guy is supposed to be
cool'. I don't have a switch labeled 'impressed now', or if I do,
this doesn't trigger it toward the positive.
> He's given that ship for reasons laid out quite explicitly in the
> book -- Patrol practice is to use conventional means, and when
> that fails, hand the problem to the #1 graduate in hopes of
> getting some unconventional results.
I didn't see that, just some hollow conversation while they were
standing in front of the ship (or near or something). That
conversation just bored me, too. It's shouting 'this is supposed to
be cool, be impresed now' again, and that doesn't work.
>> Random silly idea: What about people digging out that book (I
>> guess many have it), and read a chapter per week (say, each
>> wednesday) and comment with their interpretation of things, and
>> what they like and don't like, completely subjective. Might help
>> getting a better idea of what people mean by the words they
>> write.
> I might be able to do that. We tried something like that on the
> Dragaera list (actually on an associated list dedicated to this),
> and it never took fire there. But the idea still seems
> potentially interesting to me.
So who starts? :)
David E. Siegel
>
> [Is there a story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship captain?]
> >> be...' and 'is...' is (or rather, what exactly defines 'grows up
> >> to be...', wishes, destiny, what?), but in the Nights Dawn
> >> Trilogy, there's a
>
> > detailed account including early dreams of being a spaceship
> > captain, relevent education, and rising through the ranks.
> > Actually spending time seeing the captain in charge is a welcome
> > bonus.
>
> Ah.
>
> Now I wonder whether there are any such about boys, never mind
> girls. Don't you normally just see the end product?
>
Mostly yes. RAH's _Space Cadet_ and _Starman Jones_ are obvious
examples for boys, and most of his "Juvie" books were in soem sense
'Comming of age' stories, in which a child (usually a boy) becomes more
or less an adult. This is a classic story in litterature generally, but
not much used in science fiction recently -- although it is still quite
common in fantasy. (Lloyd Alexander's Taran series comes to mind, as
does Watt-Evans's "Obsidian Chronicles", just off hand.)
> > It's ok if the story is told in flashbacks, but I think it's
> > better if it's told in chronological order.
>
> <scratching head> What would be interesting to read about in either?
>
Well, the growth and development of the character, the various
indicents of growing seriousness through which the person learns what
really lies behind those early dreams, the adventures along the way,
the chance for the reader to learn about the society and the tech and
the character does, etc.
Might not be your thing, Tina, but would appeal to many, I suspect.
-DES
James Nicoll
Not SPACE CADET. The protagonist of that is still a cadet
when we last see him, isn't he? A competent cadet, agreed, but not
in permanent charge of a sapceship.
Given the serious injuries we hear about people in the Patrol
suffering (a man blinded, another man suffering a serious head injury,
someone else breaking an arm and four entire ships crews killed*)
I'd say that Matt has fair odds of being killed before becoming captain.
James Nicoll
* The first ship to the Moon, the training ship that crashes, the research
ship that gets holed trhough the airlock and the first ship on Venus. A
ship of traders gets killed as well but they had to work to acheive that.
David E. Siegel
Tina Hall wrote:
> As you might guess, that doesn't tell me anything. (I've seen the
> word 'Earthsea', but no association comes with it.)
>
The "Earthsea" series was written by Ursula K. Leguin, and was
origianlly marketed as "for young adults". The first three books were
_A wizard of Earthsea_, _ The Tombs of Atuan_ and _The Farthest Shore_.
These were published between 1968 and 1972. There were also two releted
short stories of about the same time: "The Rule of Names" and "The word
of Unbinding", both included in the collection _The Wind's Twelve
Quarters_. Much later LeGuin returned to this world with a somewhat
different attitude and wrote _Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea_
(1990), _The Other Wind_ (2001), and Tales from Earthsea (2001). Some
people think these later works are not nearly as good is the earlier
ones -- everyone agrees that they are rather different in tone.
Earthsea is a world in which there are many small and some fairly large
islands, surrounded by ocean. Magic is fairly common, and quite
powerful. Magic is mostly based on spells which are writtern or
memorized, and must be spoken aloud to have effect. Ther key element
seems to be knowing the "true name" of the person or thing you are
trying to effect. Wizards must have inherent power, but must also
sturdy to learn how to use this power effectively, and properly, as
unwise use can be disasterous.
The world is a non-industrial one, but not much like the standard
fantasy pesudo european middle ages setting.
I would reccomend these books to most people who hadn't read them. I'm
not sure if you would like them or not.
Here is an excerpt from the start of the first book, linkjed to from
the author's official web site
<http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Biblio-links.html> which links to
<http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?show=MASS%20MARKET:NEW:0553262505:7.99&page=excerpt>,
since you often find such quotes useful in evaulating books:
----------------
WARRIORS IN THE MIST
The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above
the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards. From the
towns in its high valleys and the ports on its dark narrow bays many a
Gontishman has gone forth to serve the Lords of the Archipelago in
their cities as wizard or mage, or, looking for adventure, to wander
working magic from isle to isle of all Earthsea. Of these some say the
greatest, and surely the greatest voyager, was the man called
Sparrowhawk, who in his day became both dragonlord and Archmage. His
life is told of in the Deed of Ged and in many songs, but this is a
tale of the time before his fame, before the songs were made.
He was born in a lonely village called Ten Alders, high on the mountain
at the head of the Northward Vale. Below the village the pastures and
plowlands of the Vale slope downward level below level towards the sea,
and other towns lie on the bends of the River Ar; above the village
only forest rises ridge behind ridge to the stone and snow of the
heights.
The name he bore as a child, Duny, was given him by his mother, and
that and his life were all she could give him, for she died before he
was a year old. His father, the bronze-smith of the village, was a grim
unspeaking man, and since Duny's six brothers were older than he by
many years and went one by one from home to farm the land or sail the
sea or work as smith in other towns of the Northward Vale, there was no
one to bring the child up in tenderness. He grew wild, a thriving weed,
a tall, quick boy, loud and proud and full of temper. With the few
other children of the village he herded goats on the steep meadows
above the river-springs; and when he was strong enough to push and pull
the long bellows-sleeves, his father made him work as smith's boy, at a
high cost in blows and whippings. There was not much work to be got out
of Duny. He was always off and away; roaming deep in the forest,
swimming in the pools of the River Ar that like all Gontish rivers runs
very quick and cold, or climbing by cliff and scarp to the heights
above the forest, from which he could see the sea, that broad northern
ocean where, past Perregal, no islands are.
A sister of his dead mother lived in the village. She had done what was
needful for him as a baby, but she had business of her own and once he
could look after himself at all she paid no more heed to him. But one
day when the boy was seven years old, untaught and knowing nothing of
the arts and powers that are in the world, he heard his aunt crying out
words to a goat which had jumped up onto the thatch of a hut and would
not come down: but it came jumping when she cried a certain rhyme to
it. Next day herding the longhaired goats on the meadows of High Fall,
Duny shouted to them the words he had heard, not knowing their use or
meaning or what kind of words they were:
Noth hierth malk man
hiolk han merth han!
He yelled the rhyme aloud, and the goats came to him. They came very
quickly, all of them together, not making any sound. They looked at him
out of the dark slot in their yellow eyes.
Duny laughed and shouted it out again, the rhyme that gave him power
over the goats. They came closer, crowding and pushing round him. All
at once he felt afraid of their thick, ridged horns and their strange
eyes and their strange silence. He tried to get free of them and to run
away. The goats ran with him keeping in a knot around him, and so they
came charging down into the village at last, all the goats going
huddled together as if a rope were pulled tight round them, and the boy
in the midst of them weeping and bellowing. Villagers ran from their
houses to swear at the goats and laugh at the boy. Among them came the
boy's aunt, who did not laugh. She said a word to the goats, and the
beasts began to bleat and browse and wander, freed from the spell.
"Come with me," she said to Duny.
She took him into her hut where she lived alone. She let no child enter
there usually, and the children feared the place. It was low and dusky,
windowless, fragrant with herbs that hung drying from the crosspole of
the roof, mint and moly and thyme, yarrow and rushwash and paramal,
kingsfoil, clovenfoot, tansy and bay. There his aunt sat crosslegged by
the firepit, and looking sidelong at the boy through the tangles of her
black hair she asked him what he had said to the goats, and if he knew
what the rhyme was. When she found that he knew nothing, and yet had
spellbound the goats to come to him and follow him, then she saw that
he must have in him the makings of power.
As her sister's son he had been nothing to her, but now she looked at
him with a new eye. She praised him, and told him she might teach him
rhymes he would like better, such as the word that makes a snail look
out of its shell, or the name that calls a falcon down from the sky.
"Aye, teach me that name!" he said, being clear over the fright the
goats had given him, and puffed up with her praise of his cleverness.
The witch said to him, "You will not ever tell that word to the other
children, if I teach it to you."
"I promise."
She smiled at his ready ignorance. "Well and good. But I will bind your
promise. Your tongue will be stilled until I choose to unbind it, and
even then, though you can speak, you will not be able to speak the word
I teach you where another person can hear it. We must keep the secrets
of our craft."
"Good," said the boy, for he had no wish to tell the secret to his
playmates, liking to know and do what they knew not and could not.
He sat still while his aunt bound back her uncombed hair, and knotted
the belt of her dress, and again sat cross-legged throwing handfuls of
leaves into the firepit, so that a smoke spread and filled the darkness
of the hut. She began to sing. Her voice changed sometimes to low or
high as if another voice sang through her, and the singing went on and
on until the boy did not know if he waked or slept, and all the while
the witch's old black dog that never barked sat by him with eyes red
from the smoke. Then the witch spoke to Duny in a tongue he did not
understand, and made him say with her certain rhymes and words until
the enchantment came on him and held him still.
"Speak!" she said to test the spell.
The boy could not speak, but he laughed.
Then his aunt was a little afraid of his strength, for this was as
strong a spell as she knew how to weave: she had tried not only to gain
control of his speech and silence, but to bind him at the same time to
her service in the craft of sorcery. Yet even as the spell bound him,
he had laughed. She said nothing. She threw clear water on the fire
till the smoke cleared away, and gave the boy water to drink, and when
the air was clear and he could speak again she taught him the true name
of the falcon, to which the falcon must come.
This was Duny's first step on the way he was to follow all his life,
the way of magery, the way that led him at last to hunt a shadow over
land and sea to the lightless coasts of death's kingdom. But in those
first steps along the way, it seemed a broad, bright road.
When he found that the wild falcons stooped down to him from the wind
when he summoned them by name, lighting with a thunder of wings on his
wrist like the hunting-birds of a prince, then he hungered to know more
such names and came to his aunt begging to learn the name of the
sparrowhawk and the osprey and the eagle. To earn the words of power he
did all the witch asked of him and learned of her all she taught,
though not all of it was pleasant to do or know. There is a saying on
Gont, Weak as woman's magic, and there is another saying, Wicked as
woman's magic. Now the witch of Ten Alders was no black sorceress, nor
did she ever meddle with the high arts or traffic with Old Powers; but
being an ignorant woman among ignorant folk, she often used her crafts
to foolish and dubious ends. She knew nothing of the Balance and the
Pattern which the true wizard knows and serves, and which keep him from
using his spells unless real need demands. She had a spell for every
circumstance, and was forever weaving charms. Much of her lore was mere
rubbish and humbug, nor did she know the true spells from the false.
She knew many curses, and was better at causing sickness, perhaps, than
at curing it. Like any village witch she could brew up a love-potion,
but there were other, uglier brews she made to serve men's jealousy and
hate. Such practices, however, she kept from her young prentice, and as
far as she was able she taught him honest craft.
At first all his pleasure in the art-magic was, childlike, the power it
gave him over bird and beast, and the knowledge of these. And indeed
that pleasure stayed with him all his life. Seeing him in the high
pastures often with a bird of prey about him, the other children called
him Sparrowhawk, and so he came by the name that he kept in later life
as his use-name, when his true-name was not known.
As the witch kept talking of the glory and the riches and the great
power over men that a sorcerer could gain, he set himself to learn more
useful lore. He was very quick at it. The witch praised him and the
children of the village began to fear him, and he himself was sure that
very soon he would become great among men. So he went on from word to
word and from spell to spell with the witch till he was twelve years
old and had learned from her a great part of what she knew: not much,
but enough for the witchwife of a small village, and more than enough
for a boy of twelve. She had taught him all her lore in herbals and
healing, and all she knew of the crafts of finding, binding, mending,
unsealing and revealing. What she knew of chanters' tales and the great
Deeds she had sung him, and all the words of the True Speech that she
had learned from the sorcerer that taught her, she taught again to
Duny. And from weatherworkers and wandering jugglers who went from town
to town of the Northward Vale and the East Forest he had learned
various tricks and pleasantries, spells of Illusion. It was with one of
these light spells that he first proved the great power that was in
him.
In those days the Kargad Empire was strong. Those are four great lands
that lie between the Northern and the Eastern Reaches: Karego-At,
Atuan, Hur-at-Hur, Atnini. The tongue they speak there is not like any
spoken in the Archipelago or the other Reaches, and they are a savage
people, white-skinned, yellow-haired, and fierce, liking the sight of
blood and the smell of burning towns. Last year they had attacked the
Torikles and the strong island Torheven, raiding in great force in
fleets of red-sailed ships. News of this came north to Gont, but the
Lords of Gont were busy with their piracy and paid small heed to the
woes of other lands. Then Spevy fell to the Kargs and was looted and
laid waste, its people taken as slaves, so that even now it is an isle
of ruins. In lust of conquest the Kargs sailed next to Gont, coming in
a host, thirty great longships, to East Port. They fought through that
town, took it, burned it; leaving their ships under guard at the mouth
of the River Ar they went up the Vale wrecking and looting,
slaughtering cattle and men. As they went they split into bands, and
each of these bands plundered where it chose. Fugitives brought warning
to the villages of the heights. Soon the people of Ten Alders saw smoke
darken the eastern sky, and that night those who climbed the High Fall
looked down on the Vale all hazed and red-streaked with fires where
fields ready for harvest had been set ablaze, and orchards burned, the
fruit roasting on the blazing boughs, and barns and farmhouses
smoldered in ruin.
Some of the villagers fled up the ravines and hid in the forest, and
some made ready to fight for their lives, and some did neither but
stood about lamenting. The witch was one who fled, hiding alone in a
cave up on the Kapperding Scarp and sealing the cave-mouth with spells.
Duny's father the bronze-smith was one who stayed, for he would not
leave his smelting-pit and forge where he had worked for fifty years.
All that night he labored beating up what ready metal he had there into
spearpoints, and others worked with him binding these to the handles of
hoes and rakes, there being no time to make sockets and shaft them
properly. There had been no weapons in the village but hunting bows and
short knives, for the mountain folk of Gont are not warlike; it is not
warriors they are famous for, but goat-thieves, sea-pirates, and
wizards.
With sunrise came a thick white fog, as on many autumn mornings in the
heights of the island. Among their huts and houses down the straggling
street of Ten Alders the villagers stood waiting with their hunting
bows and new-forged spears, not knowing whether the Kargs might be far
off or very near, all silent, all peering into the fog that hid shapes
and distances and dangers from their eyes.
With them was Duny. He had worked all night at the forge-bellows,
pushing and pulling the two long sleeves of goathide that fed the fire
with a blast of air. Now his arms so ached and trembled from that work
that he could not hold out the spear he had chosen. He did not see how
he could fight or be of any good to himself or the villagers. It
rankled at his heart that he should die, spitted on a Kargish lance,
while still a boy: that he should go into the dark land without ever
having known his own name, his true name as a man. He looked down at
his thin arms, wet with cold fog-dew, and raged at his weakness, for he
knew his strength. There was power in him, if he knew how to use it,
and he sought among all the spells he knew for some device that might
give him and his companions an advantage, or at least a chance. But
need alone is not enough to set power free: there must be
knowledge.Copyright© 1984 by Ursula K. Le Guin
----------------
I hope thjis gives you a better idea of what is being discussed here.
-DES
David E. Siegel
<snip>
> > Competent magic also requires knowing how much is safe to do.
>
> Isn't that a given? (I think you mean something different than I
> understand.)
>
It is rather more emphasized here than in many fantasies -- point is
made about possible undesired conseqences "Rain on Roke may be dought
on Eskill, unles you know what you are about." and the general flavor
of taoism comes through, as in several LeGuin works.
> > The world is is mostly ocean, with a lot of small to medium-sized
> > islands.
>
> That's ok. That the whole world known is something I prefer. (I'm
> tired of maps that look as if the world ends behind the next
> mountain.)
>
> > After he does some rather effective magic, he gets hooked up with
> > a magician who's living quietly and teaches slowly. This can't
> > last, and he's impatient enough to head off to the big magic
> > school.
>
> All rather the very thing I don't want, again. (The magic, geriatic
> old geezer teacher, impatient, magic school.)
>
> > After one thing and another, he does a very ill-judged piece of
> > magic and spends the rest of the book dealing with the monster he
> > unleashed.
>
> Is there a reason why he's being stupid?
>
> I'm serious. If there's a good reason, I wouldn't complain.
> Accidents happen, and people aren't perfect, but for something with
> bad effects it needs more than that as explanation. Brainwashing
> would serve as an excuse. (Nothing as simple as 'he misjudged'
> would.)
Yes ther areseveral reasons, but msotly because he is in a rivalry with
another boy who taunts him that his skills are not up to any major
serious magic, and he attempts to work a spell he hasa read but not
been formaly taught, nor given permission to do, to prove his skill and
power. It goes wrong, and the consequences are serious indeed.
>
> Besides, this tale would be appropriate as backround for some
> interesting characters dealing with the monster, not focussing on
> the culprit responsible.
>
Ah but Ged is both the person responsible and the sole person who can
deal with the monster. He fears that dealing with it will be the sole
event of his life, and eather last all his life or kill him early.
> > Book two: told from the point of view of the high priestess of
> > some life-wasting and useless gods. Ged gets trapped in their
> > labyrinth, and the high priestess has to get past the pointless
> > cruelty of what she's been taught.
>
> Ew. Gods and cruelty have no place in a world worth reading about.
> (Bad guys bring cruelty, but they should be new, like the monster
> you mention above, and caused by an outside source. The world itself
> must not be able to produce real bad things, or I wouldn't care.)
Welll it is not entirely clear that the prestesses who actually impose
the cruel actions are corectly interpteting the wishes of their gods,
or even that what they are worshipping realy is a god in any meaningful
sense. The crulety here is very much human cruelty.
>
> [...]
> > Book four: LeGuin notices that the previous series was
> > misogynistic, and tries to deal with the fact. Imho, she fails
> > because she still has a gut feeling that guys get to do all the
> > cool stuff. Not one of my favorite books.
>
> I don't think I'd object to that, actually. But there's still that
> boy, not a very interesting character... (And done too often.)
By this time Ged is an adult, indeed a mature if not old man.
-DES
David E. Siegel
James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <1116256213.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> David E. Siegel <sie...@acm.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >Mostly yes. RAH's _Space Cadet_ and _Starman Jones_ are obvious
> >examples for boys [...]
>
> Not SPACE CADET. The protagonist of that is still a cadet
> when we last see him, isn't he? A competent cadet, agreed, but not
> in permanent charge of a sapceship.
>
True, but he is well on his way, and has done his essential growing up.
I think it is pretty clearly implied that he is no longer at risk of
"washing out" of failing to make the grade. If he isn't killed in
action, he will wind up a spaceship captin in due course.
-DES
James Nicoll
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <1116256213.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>David E. Siegel <sie...@acm.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>Mostly yes. RAH's _Space Cadet_ and _Starman Jones_ are obvious
>>examples for boys [...]
>
> Not SPACE CADET. The protagonist of that is still a cadet
>when we last see him, isn't he? A competent cadet, agreed, but not
>
> Given the serious injuries we hear about people in the Patrol
>suffering (a man blinded, another man suffering a serious head injury,
>someone else breaking an arm and four entire ships crews killed*)
>I'd say that Matt has fair odds of being killed before becoming captain.
>
> James Nicoll
>
>* The first ship to the Moon, the training ship that crashes, the research
>ship that gets holed trhough the airlock and the first ship on Venus. A
>ship of traders gets killed as well but they had to work to acheive that.
And of course there's another ship lost on Venus, although
none of the crew die and it's balanced by the recovering of another ship.
I make it four ships destroyed, one badly damaged and one
temporarily misplaced due to loss of the crew. Is that a record for
a RAH novel?
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
>suffering (a man blinded, another man suffering a serious head injury,
>someone else breaking an arm and four entire ships crews killed*)
>I'd say that Matt has fair odds of being killed before becoming captain.
>
> James Nicoll
Ted
Michael Stemper
>David Dyer <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> Tina...@kruemel.org (Tina Hall) writes:
>>> [Galactic Patrol up to and including chapter three]
>>>>> [*] Does it actually get some sort of character later, or is
>>>>> it hollow throughout?
>>>
>>>> One of the most vivid characters in science fiction.
>>>
>>> When and where does it turn up?
>
>> Well...maybe around the time they steal the Boskonian ship.
>
>Is that within the first three chapters?
Nope. That takes place in Chapter 4, "Escape".
>some boring stuff about spaceships, but didn't care about what was
>going on and just read on in hope of something interesting
>happening.)
Well, if you find interstellar chase scenes, "storm and board", and
tactial use of a bizarre combination of electromagnetic fields and
explosives boring, I'd say that the Lensmen books, along with much
science fiction written before about 1955, would not be for you.
>>> I'd like your definition, though, trying to understand what you
>>> would call vivid, what gives a character life and substance for
>>> you. With examples, preferably.
>
>> I certainly can't describe it. Kinnison has strong opinions,
>> strong convictions, great drive and energy. He's a little too
>> angsty and self-involved for my ideal.
>
>If he has any of that, where is it shown? How?
Well, he doesn't start out that way. He starts out young, naive, idealistic,
and full of piss and vinegar. Experience changes him, as it does all real
people. Skimming my summaries of the Lensman books, I see his angst
protrayed in:
_Galactic Patrol_, Chapters 19 and 21.
_Gray Lensman_, Chapters 2, 3, 5, 7, 15 and 19.
_Second Stage Lensman_, Chapters 3, 10, 14, 17.
Look at that pattern. As things go on, he gets more angsty. As they go
on further, he starts getting over it.
I don't recall *any* angsty-ness from KK in _Children of the Lens_.
But, he was in his mid- to late-forties by then. His son, Christopher,
was carrying the load by then. Just like real people.
>>> I did see was someone 'cheating' with
>>> the lots for who would go with whom, and why he did that, and
>>> afair it didn't look as if that guy would play a big role.
You're right there; Allerdyce did not play a big role in the books.
>>> (That
>>> that was done, had to be done, without Kinnison knowing, only
>>> shows lack of competence in the latter.)
>
>> Kinnison was trying to "play fair" and the quartermaster felt
>> that what was at stake was *far* too important for that;
>
>Which makes the quartermaster more competent than Kinnison and
"Competent" does not have a one-to-one and onto correspondence
with "experienced". Kinnison had high ideals and moral standards,
a incredible drive, mental strength out the gazoo. But, he was a
young kid, fresh out of the Academy. He did not have huge amounts
of experience upon which to draw.
If Smith had written Kinnison as not only having what he started
with, but also with a wisdom and knowledge beyond his years, he
would have been writing a godlike character, and the books never
would have lasted. People (aside from you) like to read about
realistic people, not about paragons of perfection.
>> they needed to field the best teams possible to maximize the
>> chances of escape.
>
>If that's what's necessary to beat the bad guys, the one giving the
>orders should know that.
He was a new graduate. This was his first command; indeed it was
his first *anything* since school. The Patrol didn't normally
act that way. Normally, it would have taken Kinnison a decade to
get ship's command. During that time, he would gain the experience
needed in order to be able to make calls like that. The Patrol was
taking a big gamble sending him out on the Britannia.
And, he *did* learn from his experiences. Slowly, painfully, but
he learned. In order to fully accept the lessons, he had to give
over some of his youthful idealism. He had to forsake some of his
egalitarianism, and realize "maybe my survival is more important
than that of my crew -- at times." Since one of the things that
he was taught at Wentworth Hall was probably the importance of
ensuring the safety of men under his command, the realization that
he might, at times, have to sacrifice some of them would be
difficult. Kinnison's high levels of empathy (probably closely
tied to his abilities that made him a Lensman) made it worse.
>> This is one of the things Kinnison has a hard time learning,
>
>I don't care about 'learning', they should start out competent.
Well, then you're going to have a very limited set of literature
available to you. Most people learn and grow throughout their
lives. That means that any realistic portrayal of people will
also show them learning and growing.
>Learning to be a person (never mind a prince, scrap the prince, and
>kingdoms along with that) is acceptable, if it's not the focus of
>the story but just one of the many things going on with many
>interesting characters.
Learning to be a person (and a "prince") are things that go on
in the Lensman stories, but are not the focus. The focus is, of
course, EXPLODING SPACESHIPS!! COLLIDING PLANETS!! MENTAL DUELS!!
Well, and spywork, and a two billion-year chess game, and genetics,
and sex, and strange alien species.
You'll never see this. It's your loss, not mine.
>> but eventually does -- the old "a Lensman always goes in"
>> philosophy is stupid.
>
>Goes in what?
Wherever he thinks that duty might require him to go. Not going in
is viewed, at least implicitly, as cowardice. Even if going in means
certain death, and there are other means that might stand a better
chance of success.
Stupid, yes. For better or worse, it's a tradition that the Patrol has
steeped itself in for centuries. Kinnison is weighted down with that
mind-set, but eventually frees himself.
>> Yes, Kinnison fails to catch him at it; but then Kinnison is the
>> person Allerdyce is most stringently trying to conceal it from.
>
>Such shouldn't be necessary in the first place, and not possible if
>the Lensmen are as uber-good as people claim.
"Good" and "competent" and "experienced" are three less-than-correlated
attributes.
>>> From the boy the story seems to focus on, I get nothing. He's
>>> just some easiy impressed kid that could be exchanged for any
>>> other, with not much clue and even less reason to give him that
>>> ship, apart from being disposable. And good guys shouldn't think
>>> people are disposable.
Which was one of the reasons that Kinnison would have objected --
strongly -- to Allerdyce's attempt to rig the drawing in favor of
Kinnison's survival. Kinnison didn't want to view any of the crew
of the Briatnnia as expendable.
>> Military officers are in the business of expending people;
>
>Then give me a story where that isn't the case. :)
You'd have to stay away from any fiction involving wars or the
military, then. That lets out a large portion of science fiction;
especially from beofre about 1955 or so. It also eliminates a big
chunk of fantasy.
>> always as sparingly as is consistent with the assigned goals, but
>> still expending them. They're not "disposable", but they can be
>> put at risk at need, and some percentage of the risks will lose.
>
>I think you're mixing two different things here. Or the book doesn't
>show that the risk is worth it or something.
Well, the paybacks from the Britannia's voyage aren't really seen
until Chapter 13.
>> Port Admiral Haynes is an officer, looking for a solution to a
>> problem threatening their entire civilization. It's stated that
>> previous attempts at solution have already failed.
>
>People state a lot when the day is long. I didn't feel as if there
>was such great danger.
Well, Smith starts out small. In the beginning of the Lensman series,
all that you see is Kinnison's tiny little bit of what the Patrol
knows. As time progresses, he learns a larger share of that. Then, he
goes into Intelligence work, and is actively involved in increasing
the overall knowledge of the threat that is facing Civilization.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Build a man a fire, and you warm him for a day. Set him on fire,
and you warm him for a lifetime.
Nancy Lebovitz
>David E. Siegel <sie...@acm.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>Mostly yes. RAH's _Space Cadet_ and _Starman Jones_ are obvious
>>examples for boys [...]
>
> Not SPACE CADET. The protagonist of that is still a cadet
>when we last see him, isn't he? A competent cadet, agreed, but not
>in permanent charge of a sapceship.
IIRC, the story starts with him beginning his cadet training--he
isn't a boy in any part of the story.
Tina Hall
>> As you might guess, that doesn't tell me anything. (I've seen
>> the word 'Earthsea', but no association comes with it.)
> The "Earthsea" series was written by Ursula K. Leguin, and was
> origianlly marketed as "for young adults". The first three books
[...]
> Earthsea is a world in which there are many small and some fairly
> large islands, surrounded by ocean. Magic is fairly common, and
> quite powerful. Magic is mostly based on spells which are
> writtern or memorized, and must be spoken aloud to have effect.
> Ther key element seems to be knowing the "true name" of the
> person or thing you are trying to effect.
Just the kind of magic that I think is silly. Real magic doesn't
need such nonsense.
> Wizards must have inherent power, but must also sturdy to learn
> how to use this power effectively, and properly, as unwise use can
> be disasterous.
How about something where everyone has magic, and 'wizard' is
defined quite differently.
> The world is a non-industrial one, but not much like the standard
> fantasy pesudo european middle ages setting.
That at least sounds nice (but alone is not enough).
> I would reccomend these books to most people who hadn't read
> them. I'm not sure if you would like them or not.
From what Nancy mentioned, I'd not.
> Here is an excerpt from the start of the first book, linkjed to
> from the author's official web site [...]
> ----------------
> WARRIORS IN THE MIST
> The island of Gont, [...]
Dreadful start for a story. The location and explanation can come
later. First there should be a character thinking, and he can
provide some idea of what the world is like (and why I'm reading
about him anyway; some event needing a reaction).
The kid's neglected upbringing, summed up naked like that, why
should I care?
Summaries are fine for boring stuff (and should be kept short), but
not something that actually matters and should give the story
substance. Showing a situation from inside a character's head could
do that. A summary can't.
All this falls flat. (And the actual writing style is jarring,
forcedly stilted.)
Besides, a world where this is possible isn't really one that I care
to read about.
> [...] Villagers ran from their houses to swear at the goats and
> laugh at the boy. [...]
That shouldn't be possible, either.
> [...] herbs that hung drying from the crosspole of the roof, mint
> and moly and thyme, yarrow and rushwash and paramal, kingsfoil,
> clovenfoot, tansy and bay. [...]
Stuff like that just makes me think 'yeah, whatever'. The sentence
should have ended after '... of the roof', without the unecessary
details of what.
> She smiled at his ready ignorance. "Well and good. But I will
> bind your promise. Your tongue will be stilled until I choose to
> unbind it, and even then, though you can speak, you will not be
> able to speak the word I teach you where another person can hear
> it. We must keep the secrets of our craft."
That's silly.
> [...] Then his aunt was a little afraid of his strength, for this
> was as strong a spell as she knew how to weave: she had tried not
> only to gain control of his speech and silence, but to bind him
> at the same time to her service in the craft of sorcery. Yet even
> as the spell bound him, he had laughed. [...]
I am not impressed. Why should I be? It's just another summary, no
substance, no character, nothing.
<snip to end>
This is _boring_! How did anyone ever read past the first two
paragraphs, never mind the rest?
> ----------------
> I hope thjis gives you a better idea of what is being discussed
> here.
Yes. Thanks.
I wonder, is the entire story told in summary, without any events
ever happening?
Tina Hall
>> Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>>> Competent magic also requires knowing how much is safe to do.
>>
>> Isn't that a given? (I think you mean something different than I
>> understand.)
>>
> It is rather more emphasized here than in many fantasies -- point
> is made about possible undesired conseqences "Rain on Roke may be
> dought on Eskill, unles you know what you are about."
That's ok, though odd unexpected magic side-effects are interesting.
(Like trying something new out, getting lots of nifty good bits, and
suddenly something odd. Not bad, but just odd.)
> and the general flavor of taoism comes through, as in several
> LeGuin works.
I don't really know what taoism is.
>>> After one thing and another, he does a very ill-judged piece of
>>> magic and spends the rest of the book dealing with the monster
>>> he unleashed.
>>
>> Is there a reason why he's being stupid?
>>
>> I'm serious. If there's a good reason, I wouldn't complain.
>> Accidents happen, and people aren't perfect, but for something
>> with bad effects it needs more than that as explanation.
>> Brainwashing would serve as an excuse. (Nothing as simple as 'he
>> misjudged' would.)
> Yes ther areseveral reasons, but msotly because he is in a
> rivalry with another boy who taunts him that his skills are not
> up to any major serious magic, and he attempts to work a spell he
> hasa read but not been formaly taught, nor given permission to
> do, to prove his skill and power. It goes wrong, and the
> consequences are serious indeed.
So there is no reason and just confirmation that he's stupid.
A reason would be if he found a badly injured kid that fell off a
cliff and needed healing, and he experiments with that despite not
being too familiar with it, because there is no one else in reach to
help, and that then has side effects (but the kid survives healthy).
What the character you mention does is just stupid.
>> Besides, this tale would be appropriate as backround for some
>> interesting characters dealing with the monster, not focussing
>> on the culprit responsible.
> Ah but Ged is both the person responsible and the sole person who
> can deal with the monster.
That doesn't matter because it's just this story, with the author
chosing this way.
Following actually interesting characters trying to beat the monster
(and finding ways to do that) plus cleaning up the damage done, and
the one responsible gets quietly killed (so the story isn't finished
too early and shows more of the interesting characters) would be
nice.
> He fears that dealing with it will be the sole event of his life,
> and eather last all his life or kill him early.
Sounds tiring.
>> Ew. Gods and cruelty have no place in a world worth reading
>> about. (Bad guys bring cruelty, but they should be new, like the
>> monster you mention above, and caused by an outside source. The
>> world itself must not be able to produce real bad things, or I
>> wouldn't care.)
> Welll it is not entirely clear that the prestesses who actually
> impose the cruel actions are corectly interpteting the wishes of
> their gods, or even that what they are worshipping realy is a god
> in any meaningful sense. The crulety here is very much human
> cruelty.
That makes no difference. The world itself must not be able to
produce such people. Only some outside force can be responsible, for
the world (and its people) to be worth caring about.
Say, in one place you have a happy little world with decent people,
and somewhere else you've got some daft humans experimenting with
wormholes. Through that, some purple cryptonium ends up lying around
on the happy little world. Nothing happens at first, but eventually
some unlucky circumstances have the purple cryptonium spout humans.
They, bad as they and their deeds are, serve as an excuse for the
story. (Remove the humans, the source, and prevent it from happening
again, as well as repairing the damage done.) But the focus is the
people, not the bad guys or what they do. With extra magic.
That's just an example of a possible setting for an outside source
providing the bad guys. Scrap Evil Overlords along with the heroes.
A decent world with decent people doesn't have native bad guys.
There's something wrong with one that spouts them, with all the
people, not just those that get jailed.
>> [...]
>>> Book four: LeGuin notices that the previous series was
>>> misogynistic, and tries to deal with the fact. Imho, she fails
>>> because she still has a gut feeling that guys get to do all the
>>> cool stuff. Not one of my favorite books.
>>
>> I don't think I'd object to that, actually. But there's still
>> that boy, not a very interesting character... (And done too
>> often.)
> By this time Ged is an adult, indeed a mature if not old man.
Doesn't matter.
Tina Hall
>> Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix5.netaxs.com> wrote:
>> [Is there a story of a girl who grows up to be a spaceship
>> captain?]
<snip: such stories with boys>
>>> It's ok if the story is told in flashbacks, but I think it's
>>> better if it's told in chronological order.
>>
>> <scratching head> What would be interesting to read about in
>> either?
> Well, the growth and development of the character, the various
> indicents of growing seriousness through which the person learns
> what really lies behind those early dreams, the adventures along
> the way,
I can only repeat the question from above. That just sounds so
dreadfully boring.
I think the problem is again that it focusses on one single
character. That's what you get with that whine-feast in the Covenant
Chronicles (WoT and SoT qualify as well). Better if you just pick
out a few interesting bits and fill the rest with just as
interesting characters. And most of all, whatever is learned should
be something nifty. (Being a spaceship captaion doesn't enter the
picture. Being a magician obviously doesn't, either.)
And, the process should be over quickly and show me some competent
results of that learning.
> the chance for the reader to learn about the society and the tech
> and the character does, etc.
I'd rather learn about the characters and the magic. :)
David Johnston
wrote:
>> Earthsea is a world in which there are many small and some fairly
>> large islands, surrounded by ocean. Magic is fairly common, and
>> quite powerful. Magic is mostly based on spells which are
>> writtern or memorized, and must be spoken aloud to have effect.
>> Ther key element seems to be knowing the "true name" of the
>> person or thing you are trying to effect.
>
>Just the kind of magic that I think is silly. Real magic doesn't
>need such nonsense.
There is no such thing as real magic. However, there is a substantial
tradition of true names having power to control the thing named that
dates back to ancient Egypt and is the reason why the Hebrews had a
prohibition against speaking God's True Name.
>
>> Wizards must have inherent power, but must also sturdy to learn
>> how to use this power effectively, and properly, as unwise use can
>> be disasterous.
>
>How about something where everyone has magic, and 'wizard' is
>defined quite differently.
A "wizard" is someone who knows how to repair bicycles.
>
>> The world is a non-industrial one, but not much like the standard
>> fantasy pesudo european middle ages setting.
>
>That at least sounds nice (but alone is not enough).
>
>> I would reccomend these books to most people who hadn't read
>> them. I'm not sure if you would like them or not.
>
>From what Nancy mentioned, I'd not.
It is difficult to believe anything you like exists.