Thoughts on the Foundation series...
Tue Sorensen
still remains after having finished "Foundation and Earth" is: WHY is
it so important to keep Earth (and its radioactivity) secret to the
citizens of the Galactic Empire? I don't believe we get an answer. We
hear that the robots have been deleting references to Earth in the
various galactic archives, but it is never clear why. Can anyone offer
any speculation, or justification?
Actually, now that I glance over the last pages again, it seems
(although it isn't directly stated) that the reason for Earth's
secrecy is simply that the robots have their HQ on the moon and must
not be found. This is a rather inadequate reason, I feel, for the
robots could (and probably do) have bases anywhere in the galaxy that
they wish. And if they remain on the moon to somehow guard Earth
against discovery, we again have the question: Why? Is it all just
Daneel's nostalgia and guilt...?
I would have thought that, as the Second Galactic Empire approached,
the robots would be gradually *revealing* their secret knowledge to
humanity.
- Tue Sorensen
Dan Goodman
> the robots would be gradually revealing their secret knowledge to
> humanity.
>
> - Tue Sorensen
You made the mistake of reading on past the good ones -- the original
three books.
--
--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://clerkfuturist.wordpress.com
Mirror Journal http://dsgood.insanejournal.com
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Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
mimus
> Tue Sorensen wrote:
>
>> I have just been rereading the Foundation books, and one question that
>> still remains after having finished "Foundation and Earth" is: WHY is
>> it so important to keep Earth (and its radioactivity) secret to the
>> citizens of the Galactic Empire? I don't believe we get an answer. We
>> hear that the robots have been deleting references to Earth in the
>> various galactic archives, but it is never clear why. Can anyone offer
>> any speculation, or justification?
>>
>> Actually, now that I glance over the last pages again, it seems
>> (although it isn't directly stated) that the reason for Earth's
>> secrecy is simply that the robots have their HQ on the moon and must
>> not be found. This is a rather inadequate reason, I feel, for the
>> robots could (and probably do) have bases anywhere in the galaxy that
>> they wish. And if they remain on the moon to somehow guard Earth
>> against discovery, we again have the question: Why? Is it all just
>> Daneel's nostalgia and guilt...?
>>
>> I would have thought that, as the Second Galactic Empire approached,
>> the robots would be gradually revealing their secret knowledge to
>> humanity.
>
> You made the mistake of reading on past the good ones -- the original
> three books.
That's what it sounded like to me too. And I've never made that mistake,
entirely by chance (didn't even know there were any more).
Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into each
other.
--
"You have," the machine informed him, "a classic case of
feem desire, complicated by strong dwarkish intentions."
"I do? I thought I was homicidal."
< _Pilgrimage to Earth_
Jaimie Vandenbergh
wrote:
>Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into each
>other.
Ayup. Thus succumbing to the Brain Eater.
Cheers - Jaimie
--
There are no normal people--only people you don't know very much about.
-- Nancy Lebovitz, rasfw
Ken from Chicago
"Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote in message
news:4bb89410og4h4f844...@newsposting.sessile.org...
Wasn't the Good Doctor trying to weave a cohesive whole out of his various
major stories toward the end there?
-- Ken from Chicago
Jaimie Vandenbergh
<kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>"Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote in message
>news:4bb89410og4h4f844...@newsposting.sessile.org...
>> On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:39:59 -0400, mimus <tinmi...@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into each
>>>other.
>>
>> Ayup. Thus succumbing to the Brain Eater.
>
>Wasn't the Good Doctor trying to weave a cohesive whole out of his various
>major stories toward the end there?
That's what I said, yes. That trick never works, and just makes an
aging grand master look like they've completely lost the plot.
Cheers - Jaimie
--
"By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy;
if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." - Socrates
Raymond Speer
I never understood why Asimov and Heinlein in the twilight of their
years had a desire to write fan-fic (fiction composed with the intention
of mixing characters and situations of wholly different worlds into one
compound mess, huh, reality).
At least Heinlein and Asimov did not get together like Niven and
Pournelle and magnify each other's weaknesses.
From INCEST AND FOUNDATION:
To Seldon's surprise, his father was not angry upon catching Hari
schtupping his own mother doggy-fashion. True, his father had been
raised about the ganja patches of Helicon and taught the wisdom of
martial arts, and so he knew of behaviors to which Hari had never been
exposed.
In hindsight, Seldon would realize that he had never known anything of
his father's authentic background. Centuries later, with a burst of his
astounding intuition, Terminus Councilman Golan Trevize would be the
first to realize that fact about the Founder.
Seldon's father surprised him: "Didn't you know, Hari? Maureen is my
mother too, so you're laying the pipe to your grandma, who is also your
mom."
"I don't grok it," said Seldon, using references from the Water Sharer
Orange Book legendarily attributed to Michael Valentine Smith, whose
scribe was Jubal Henshaw. (Another clue to Earth's identity was that
Mars was in orbit next to Earth, and Martians matured from a puffball
with three eyes on extenable stalks to a humanoid form. Those Martians
had given Smith the philosophic insights by which the Galactic Empire
drew its Institutional Religion and so the Martian environment would be
on a planet adjacent to the true Earth.)
Seldon looked at Maureen whose flame bright hair was in colorful
contrast to her creamy skin, all of which was evenly tanned under the G
type star cataloged at Trantor as Helicon Primary. "That is the secret I
was going to tell you when you had your eighteenth Galactic Standard
birthday,"" Maureen explained.
Still disconcerted by his breach of Heliconic taboos, Seldon was doubly
afflicted by his newly discovered violation of age guidelines. "Since
dad is in his mid forties, then you must be in your sixties."
Maureen and her husband laughed at their son's mistake. "You seriously
underestimate our ages," said Lazarus Seldon to Hari. "You know that
we're Howards but what you did not know was that we are of the initial
generations of Howards."
"The first generations of Howards is traditionally more than 10 thousand
years before the Galactic Era! Back in the time of Stephen Byerly and
Susan Calvin." Hari was astounded.
"Even earlier than that," Maureen corrected Hari. "I was born on Old
Home Earth, in the last decade of the Nineteenth Century of the Common
Era. almost fifty years PreAtomic. I gave birth to your dad in the
second decade of the Twentieth Century."
"I was born Woodrow Wilson Smith," confirmed Lazarus, "named after a
political leader who is now remembered as the god of schoolteachers in a
faith that peaked in influence in the Third Century of the Galactic
Era."
Maureen added: "Your dad did a lot of things in his extraordinarily
long life. He was the second mate in the first manned spaceflight to
Earth's moon and he called himself Powell when he made the first
hyperspatial flight at the end of the third decade of the Twenty First
Century of the Common Era."
In his heart, by his nurture on Tobacco Planet and his exposure to the
austure culture of the Frepickers, Hari Seldon had picked up patterns
of thought at odds with his parents' revelations.
Besides having committed what was recorded on his conscience as a sin,
Hari finally knew that his parents far exceeded human norms. "But what
about me?" Hari questioned.
"We don't know," admitted Lazarus with a modest smile. "Over our trysts
over the centuries, Maureen and I have had issue, of which you are our
56th child, our twenty-third son. Only a quarter of our offspring are
long lived."
"But we gave you an advantage for sure," Maureen said. "In the womb, we
seeded your brain with the genetic matrix that produced the mind of
Andrew Libby, the smartest man we have ever known."
Lazarus nodded. "You ought to be capable of mathematics that were
beyond the capacity of other humans. You have great things in store for
you, Hari."
Hari thought back to his daycare provider, a man named Daniel who hair
was brushed back straight. Only after he joined the company of other
kids had Hari Seldon realized that calculus was not taught at most
daycares. "But by genes and training, you made me unique. Am I a free
human or a mutant produced to order?"
Mike Schilling
> On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:39:59 -0400, mimus <tinmi...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines
>> into
>> each other.
>
> Ayup. Thus succumbing to the Brain Eater.
The positronic brain eater.
Louann Miller
news:5Z6dnQslXMX9tgnV...@giganews.com:
> Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into each
> other.
>
> --
The Grand Unified Fan Theory. Always a dangerous thing to pursue.
Louann, who rather likes Farmer's.
Derek Lyons
>Hari thought back to his daycare provider, a man named Daniel who hair
>was brushed back straight. Only after he joined the company of other
>kids had Hari Seldon realized that calculus was not taught at most
>daycares. "But by genes and training, you made me unique. Am I a free
>human or a mutant produced to order?"
Brilliant!
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
Jaimie Vandenbergh
wrote:
>I never understood why Asimov and Heinlein in the twilight of their
>years had a desire to write fan-fic (fiction composed with the intention
>of mixing characters and situations of wholly different worlds into one
>compound mess, huh, reality).
>
>At least Heinlein and Asimov did not get together like Niven and
>Pournelle and magnify each other's weaknesses.
>
>From INCEST AND FOUNDATION:
Wonderful!
Cheers - Jaimie
--
>So, what do *you* do for a living?
I sit in a chair pressing small plastic rectangles with my fingers
while peering at many tiny, colored dots. -- Peter Manders
Mike Dworetsky
news:24292-489...@storefull-3171.bay.webtv.net...
Excellent! Made my day, it did. And just as well they never collaborated.
--
Mike Dworetsky
(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)
Wolfspawn
> mimus <tinmi...@hotmail.com> wrote in
> news:5Z6dnQslXMX9tgnV...@giganews.com:
>
> > Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into each
> > other.
The dream is that it will make one's entire backlist must-reads.
Stephen King was doing that deliberately with the Dark Tower, trying to
connect all his books. It became more and more blatantly commercial.
I noticed his last Dark Tower book, in hardcover, first edition, on the
bargain shelf of Borders for 5 bucks.
Dan Goodman
>
> "Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote in message
> news:4bb89410og4h4f844...@newsposting.sessile.org...
> > On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:39:59 -0400, mimus <tinmi...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Sounds like he tried to work his Foundation and Robot lines into
> > > each other.
> >
> > Ayup. Thus succumbing to the Brain Eater.
> >
> > Cheers - Jaimie
> > -- There are no normal people--only people you don't know very
> > much about. -- Nancy
> > Lebovitz, rasfw
>
> Wasn't the Good Doctor trying to weave a cohesive whole out of his
> various major stories toward the end there?
As with Heinlein, that's probably a Brain Eater symptom.
Kurt Busiek
> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Louann Miller wrote:
>
>> mimus <tinmi...@hotmail.com> wrote in
>> news:5Z6dnQslXMX9tgnV...@giganews.com:
>>
>>> Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into each
>>> other.
>
> The dream is that it will make one's entire backlist must-reads.
>
> Stephen King was doing that deliberately with the Dark Tower, trying to
> connect all his books. It became more and more blatantly commercial.
Yeah, King wasn't doing that kind of thing because it was fun for him.
He's just a slave to the paycheck.
That's why he stuck with Donald M. Grant through the Dark Tower series,
because that was the road to riches.
> I noticed his last Dark Tower book, in hardcover, first edition, on the
> bargain shelf of Borders for 5 bucks.
That must be significant. No other huge successes with gigantic first
printings designed to take full advantage of initial sales velocity
ever get remaindered, after all.
kdb
Ken from Chicago
> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008 09:10:46 -0500, "Ken from Chicago"
> <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote in message
>>news:4bb89410og4h4f844...@newsposting.sessile.org...
>>> On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:39:59 -0400, mimus <tinmi...@hotmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into
>>>>each
>>>>other.
>>>
>>> Ayup. Thus succumbing to the Brain Eater.
>>
>>Wasn't the Good Doctor trying to weave a cohesive whole out of his various
>>major stories toward the end there?
>
> That's what I said, yes. That trick never works, and just makes an
> aging grand master look like they've completely lost the plot.
>
> Cheers - Jaimie
Now it does. I think back in the 70s and 80s it was viewed more as an
intellectual challenge to do so.
-- Ken from Chicago
Jaimie Vandenbergh
<kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>"Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote in message
>news:ler8945lokdfgt7n7...@newsposting.sessile.org...
>> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008 09:10:46 -0500, "Ken from Chicago"
>> <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>"Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote in message
>>>news:4bb89410og4h4f844...@newsposting.sessile.org...
>>>> On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:39:59 -0400, mimus <tinmi...@hotmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into
>>>>>each
>>>>>other.
>>>>
>>>> Ayup. Thus succumbing to the Brain Eater.
>>>
>>>Wasn't the Good Doctor trying to weave a cohesive whole out of his various
>>>major stories toward the end there?
>>
>> That's what I said, yes. That trick never works, and just makes an
>> aging grand master look like they've completely lost the plot.
>>
>> Cheers - Jaimie
>
>Now it does. I think back in the 70s and 80s it was viewed more as an
>intellectual challenge to do so.
Hmm. Can you think of anyone who did a reasonable job, rather than
merely glossing over the inconsistent historical backgrounds in their
various worlds like Asimov and Heinlein and King did?
Cheers - Jaimie
--
"The problem is not that the world is full of fools, it's that lightning
isn't being distributed correctly." - Mark Twain
Richard Harter
Speer) wrote:
>
>I never understood why Asimov and Heinlein in the twilight of their
>years had a desire to write fan-fic (fiction composed with the intention
>of mixing characters and situations of wholly different worlds into one
>compound mess, huh, reality).
>
>At least Heinlein and Asimov did not get together like Niven and
>Pournelle and magnify each other's weaknesses.
>
>From INCEST AND FOUNDATION:
[snip wonderful fan fiction]
Is it okay to reprint this on my web site. Pretty please. It
will be properly attributed and credited.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net
http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
Save the Earth now!!
It's the only planet with chocolate.
David Johnston
Logically, if humanity were to rediscover their point of origin they
would regard it with great reverence. It might become the center of a
new religion. The robots might consider that inadvisable.
Sean O'Hara
Vandenbergh declared:
> >
> Hmm. Can you think of anyone who did a reasonable job, rather than
> merely glossing over the inconsistent historical backgrounds in their
> various worlds
How about H. Rider Haggard when he decided to have Allen Quatermain
encounter Ayesha?
> like Asimov and Heinlein and King did?
>
I don't think King belongs in that grouping -- the others retconned
existing stories into the same universe, whereas King has been
interconnecting his books from the beginning, just like Lovecraft.
Every one of his novels set in our world cross-references or is
cross-referenced in another book, whether it's Ace Merrill showing
up in "Needful Things," or someone referring to the serial killer
from "The Dead Zone." Even the connections between the worlds of
"The Talisman" and "The Dark Tower" are established early on -- Jack
Sawyer pops up in "Tommyknockers"; one of Andolini's associates in
"The Drawing of Three" is the mobster from "Thinner"; in "The Dark
Half" Elizabeth Beaumont was once pushed down an escalator in a
manner reminiscent of Jack Mort's M.O.; and of course Randal Flagg
appears in the third "Dark Tower" novel -- all of this established
by 1991.
The later "Dark Tower" books make these connections more explicit
and explain away any inconsistencies between books (for example, the
Teddy Duchamp who's mentioned in "Carrie," doesn't sound much like
the guy from "The Body") as being because the stories are set in
different but similar alternate universes. But those connections
weren't something King pulled out of his ass like Asimov did when R.
Daneel Olivaw pops up in the Foundation series.
--
Sean O'Hara <http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com>
Tim: At Chasers, it's Hooch for a pound and Wonderbras-get-in-free
night tonight.
-The Office
Tue Sorensen
Thanks for actually responding to my initial question - and yes, this
is a very good idea, actually, since we hear in "Robots and Empire"
that the Settlers considers the Terran solar system "holy space". But
I'm not sure it explains why Earth should be kept secret through
twenty millennia. That's kind of like saying that science shouldn't
explain how the universe was created, because it would make people
revere that knowledge like a religion... Also, with Earth radioactive
and uninhabitable, I doubt it would seem terribly holy...
- Tue
Tue Sorensen
> On 2008-08-02 10:22:53 -0700, Wolfspawn <cr...@bfn.org> said:
>
> > On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Louann Miller wrote:
>
> >>news:5Z6dnQslXMX9tgnV...@giganews.com:
>
> >>> Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into each
> >>> other.
>
> > The dream is that it will make one's entire backlist must-reads.
>
> > Stephen King was doing that deliberately with the Dark Tower, trying to
> > connect all his books. It became more and more blatantly commercial.
>
> Yeah, King wasn't doing that kind of thing because it was fun for him.
> He's just a slave to the paycheck.
>
> That's why he stuck with Donald M. Grant through the Dark Tower series,
> because that was the road to riches.
>
> > I noticed his last Dark Tower book, in hardcover, first edition, on the
> > bargain shelf of Borders for 5 bucks.
>
> That must be significant. No other huge successes with gigantic first
> printings designed to take full advantage of initial sales velocity
> ever get remaindered, after all.
Hi Kurt - nice irony! :-)
It was cool to see you in Copenhagen two months ago. Do you have any
thoughts on the Foundation series? As a writer of substance, I imagine
you are more like, say, David Brin, enjoying world-building and the
challenge of tying things together, and playing around in an open-
ended universe where a nigh-infinite variety of stories can be told,
than these nincompoop nay-sayers in this thread so far? :-)
I think it would be extremely cool to have a consistent Robot/
Foundation universe to tell new stories in (detailing the as yet
unchronicled parts of pre-Imperial, Imperial and Interregnum history),
but it would require the replacement of certain inconsistent and
illogical elements with others that make more sense. The whole Gaia
thing, for instance, is supposed to be a Plan B, to be implemented in
case the Seldon Plan goes wrong, but halfway through the Interregnum
the Seldon Plan is a complete success! So why the heck implement Gaia
*then*? It just doesn't work.
Love to hear your thoughts.
- Tue
Tue Sorensen
wrote:
> "Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote in message
> news:ler8945lokdfgt7n7...@newsposting.sessile.org...
> > On Sat, 2 Aug 2008 09:10:46 -0500, "Ken from Chicago"
> > <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >>Wasn't the Good Doctor trying to weave a cohesive whole out of his various
> >>major stories toward the end there?
>
> > That's what I said, yes. That trick never works, and just makes an
> > aging grand master look like they've completely lost the plot.
>
> > Cheers - Jaimie
>
> Now it does. I think back in the 70s and 80s it was viewed more as an
> intellectual challenge to do so.
And a lot of people in the '70s and '80s were a lot more enlightened
and inspired than most people are today, sadly...
I am a huge fan of the Robot/Foundation series and I love the fact
that the two "franchises" were merged. It could have been done more
efficiently, if Asimov had taken the time and effort to think things
through properly, but I believe the Robot/Foundation universe is still
salvageable, I mean, viable. Even as it stands, it is the most epic
space opera ever, and with a few tweaks it will be cooler still.
- Tue
Kurt Busiek
> On 2 Aug., 19:42, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.comics> wrote:
>> On 2008-08-02 10:22:53 -0700, Wolfspawn <cr...@bfn.org> said:
>>
>>> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Louann Miller wrote:
>>
>>>> mimus <tinmimu...@hotmail.com> wrote in
>>>> news:5Z6dnQslXMX9tgnV...@giganews.com:
>>
>>>>> Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into each
>>>>> other.
>>
>>> The dream is that it will make one's entire backlist must-reads.
>>
>>> Stephen King was doing that deliberately with the Dark Tower, trying to
>>> connect all his books. It became more and more blatantly commercial.
>>
>> Yeah, King wasn't doing that kind of thing because it was fun for him.
>> He's just a slave to the paycheck.
>>
>> That's why he stuck with Donald M. Grant through the Dark Tower series,
>> because that was the road to riches.
>>
>>> I noticed his last Dark Tower book, in hardcover, first edition, on the
>>> bargain shelf of Borders for 5 bucks.
>>
>> That must be significant. No other huge successes with gigantic first
>> printings designed to take full advantage of initial sales velocity
>> ever get remaindered, after all.
>
> Hi Kurt - nice irony! :-)
>
> It was cool to see you in Copenhagen two months ago.
Likewise, sir.
> Do you have any thoughts on the Foundation series?
I read the first three in the series many, many years ago, and enjoyed
them at the time, but it's been so long that I don't think I'm really
qualified to say anything sensible about them today. I haven't read
any of the books where Asimov ties the Foundation and Robot books
together.
> As a writer of substance, I imagine
> you are more like, say, David Brin, enjoying world-building and the
> challenge of tying things together, and playing around in an open-
> ended universe where a nigh-infinite variety of stories can be told,
> than these nincompoop nay-sayers in this thread so far? :-)
I think the only Brin I've read is his novella "Thor Meets Captain
America," which I enjoyed quite a bit, but doesn't give me a sense of
his overall worldbuilding.
And while I like playing with the connections of a sprawling shared
universe like Marvel or DC's, I don't feel any desire to tie together
ASTRO CITY and ARROWSMITH and JONNY DEMON and SHOCKROCKETS -- I like
the fact that they occupy their own worlds, and con't have to
accomodate other series ideas. It would be easy to find excuses --
alternate worlds and gateways and such -- but I don'thave a desire to
chase down those roads.
I like seeing connections in an author's oeuvre -- the way various
characters reappear or are mentioned in Madeleine L'Engle's novels,
both her YA stuff and her adult novels, is a lot of fun, but I don't
know that I'd do that myself.
My spark of derision was for the idea that Stephen King was tying his
books together for the money. I think he does what he does because he
wants to, these days -- money isn't an issue. He did say at one point
that he was going to retire, and just write for himself and stick the
results in a drawer, but I was pretty confident he'd publish -- not
because he needs even more money, but because he wants to publish, he
wants to be read. He tells stories, and telling stories to yourself
isn't the same as telling them to an audience.
But messing up those stories for profit? He'd rather do what he likes,
and has more money than God anyway. He'd rather do the stories the way
he wants, and it'snot like they'll stop making money that way.
> I think it would be extremely cool to have a consistent Robot/
> Foundation universe to tell new stories in (detailing the as yet
> unchronicled parts of pre-Imperial, Imperial and Interregnum history),
> but it would require the replacement of certain inconsistent and
> illogical elements with others that make more sense. The whole Gaia
> thing, for instance, is supposed to be a Plan B, to be implemented in
> case the Seldon Plan goes wrong, but halfway through the Interregnum
> the Seldon Plan is a complete success! So why the heck implement Gaia
> *then*? It just doesn't work.
>
> Love to hear your thoughts.
I don't have an opinion on how well Asimov merged his fictional worlds,
because I had drifted away from reading Asimov by then. Still, he's
dead, and I haven't been moved to read anyone else writing in his
universes, either, so turning them into a construct for other people to
tell stories in doesn't entice me.
I don't have a problem with the shared worlds of the big comics
companies (hard as they are to manage well), or with projects that are
designed to be shared worlds, like Liavek, Thieves' World or Wild
Cards. But I find I have next to no interest in seeing what was
created to be a singular work by an author sharecropped out. I don't
want to read James Bond novels by writers who aren't Ian Fleming,* I
don't want to read Nero Wolfe by anyone but Stout, I wouldn't want to
see other writers telling tales of Ethshar, or continuing the
adventures of Tolkien's characters.
Movies are different; they're adaptation, but prose in those worlds
feels to me like something only the real author is ever going to get
fully right. In the end, I think about them the same way I think about
the concept of other writers writing ASTRO CITY stories. If they're
good enough to do it, they don't need Astro City -- they can invent
their own heroes, their own worlds. And if they're not good enough, I
wouldn't want them near my characters. So it makes sense to keep them
to myself.
I know a lot of people feel differently, and they're welcome to all the
sharecropped novels they want. I'm just not part of that audience.
Anyone who could write a good LORD OF THE RINGS sequel can write a
terrific novel of their own imagining, and I'd rather see that.
kdb
Louann Miller
cb65ff...@e39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:
> I'm not sure it explains why Earth should be kept secret through
> twenty millennia. That's kind of like saying that science shouldn't
> explain how the universe was created, because it would make people
> revere that knowledge like a religion... Also, with Earth radioactive
> and uninhabitable, I doubt it would seem terribly holy...
>
In 20Kyear, would it still be radioactive and uninhabitable?
Tue Sorensen
> Tue Sorensen <sorenson...@gmail.com> wrote in news:81d973a8-08d8-4cfe-a33f-
> cb65ff8de...@e39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:
>
> > I'm not sure it explains why Earth should be kept secret through
> > twenty millennia. That's kind of like saying that science shouldn't
> > explain how the universe was created, because it would make people
> > revere that knowledge like a religion... Also, with Earth radioactive
> > and uninhabitable, I doubt it would seem terribly holy...
>
> In 20Kyear, would it still be radioactive and uninhabitable?
Oh yeah. Radioactivity is bloody hard to get rid of.
Although, it did once occur to me that "anti-radioactivity" might one
day be invented, but that's probably not realistic... :-)
- Tue
Martha Adams
news:8f3b83b2-b771-4f9b...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>I have just been rereading the Foundation books, and one question that
> still remains after having finished "Foundation and Earth" is: WHY is
> it so important to keep Earth (and its radioactivity) secret to the
> citizens of the Galactic Empire? I don't believe we get an answer. We
> hear that the robots have been deleting references to Earth in the
> various galactic archives, but it is never clear why. Can anyone offer
> any speculation, or justification?
>
> Actually, now that I glance over the last pages again, it seems
> (although it isn't directly stated) that the reason for Earth's
> secrecy is simply that the robots have their HQ on the moon and must
> not be found. This is a rather inadequate reason, I feel, for the
> robots could (and probably do) have bases anywhere in the galaxy that
> they wish. And if they remain on the moon to somehow guard Earth
> against discovery, we again have the question: Why? Is it all just
> Daneel's nostalgia and guilt...?
>
> I would have thought that, as the Second Galactic Empire approached,
> the robots would be gradually *revealing* their secret knowledge to
> humanity.
>
Well, it's not that simple. I see two basic points
of view for answering this question (and I can think
of others).
Seems to me, you're writing from a within-the-story
point of view. Taking it as a reality, which is usual
practice. (At least, for me.) My response on this
level is that "We just don't know" is also a plausible
explanation for what goes on there.
But also, I incline to not to question too deeply into
a story. It interferes with the enjoyment of it.
And another point of view, is that of the *writer*.
With Asimov, that's complex; because along with Asimov
writing the Foundation stories, was John Campbell
commenting on these and even suggesting directions for
things to go. For example, my understanding of where
the Mule came from as the work was in writing, was
that Campbell said, Asimov, you need a new direction
here. How about....
But the overall story is very complex on paper and
more complex in the writer's mind, since the writer
has to make all the choices and constructions that
become the story. Now when at a later point he throws
in a change, it's just not practical to check back and
adjust all the little details in the past story to
accurately fit its current part in writing.
So from those two points of view, I'd rather just
read and enjoy the stories for what is in them, and
not to run off too far with examination. I was young
and much simpler in my mind, when Asimov was doing
the Foundation stories into Astounding and I was
haunting the newsstand to get them as near as
possible to the minute they were on the rack. It is
a good memory today. And I think too much examination,
kills it.
Titeotwawki -- mha [rasff 2008 Aug 02]
Wolfspawn
> I like seeing connections in an author's oeuvre -- the way various
> characters reappear or are mentioned in Madeleine L'Engle's novels,
> both her YA stuff and her adult novels, is a lot of fun, but I don't
> know that I'd do that myself.
This was fun in King's early work, because it didn't seem as
self-conscious, it was just something that he did, not a
King-Selling-Point. Then he burnt out, and started focusing on "Kingish"
elements to the detriment of the stories, or to make up for the fact that
he didn't really have a good story. He clearly had no idea where Dark
Tower was going, but deliberately included Dark Tower Tie-ins in most of
his novels in the past 15 years or so. He's even admitted that one novel,
INSOMNIA was a broken novel that he didn't know where he was going with,
until he got the inspiration to make it a Dark Tower novel. Dark Tower
became a justification, and a problem solver, and selling point for a lot
of things, pointedly so, instead of just being mere flavoring for solidly
told stories that stood on their own.
> My spark of derision was for the idea that Stephen King was tying his
> books together for the money. I think he does what he does because he
> wants to, these days -- money isn't an issue. He did say at one point
> that he was going to retire, and just write for himself and stick the
> results in a drawer, but I was pretty confident he'd publish -- not
> because he needs even more money, but because he wants to publish, he
> wants to be read. He tells stories, and telling stories to yourself
> isn't the same as telling them to an audience.
Oh yes, rich people NEVER want to make money after a certain level of
wealth. They do not wish to promote their works after a scertain level
of success. This JUST DOES NOT HAPPEN. (Do you detect a "spark of
derision" there?).
> But messing up those stories for profit? He'd rather do what he likes,
> and has more money than God anyway. He'd rather do the stories the way
> he wants, and it'snot like they'll stop making money that way.
Yes. Of course. And you know King's bank acount, how much of his ego is
tied to seeing his name on the best-seller lists, and exactly how much of
either element he finds pleasing?
One of the most horrifyingly deceptive stunts he pulled was the marketing
of REGULATORS and DESPERATION together. REGULATORS had been an unproduced
script he'd written years earlier, into which he plugged the names of the
characters from DESPERATION. And then the books were marketed with linking
covers. That's as blatant as it gets, and the desperate and poorly thought
out Dark Tower in Everything campaign as the end to the DArk Tower series
approached is seen in this one example. (it's an example of ti-in
gimmickery, not particularly Dark Tower tie-in gimmickry, even though I'm
sure there are other tie-in elements).
Martha Adams
*I like that quote!*
In response, I think of Jack Vance.
Titeotwawki -- mha [rasfw 2008 Aug 02]
Peter Knutsen
> On 3 Aug., 02:29, Louann Miller <louan...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>In 20Kyear, would it still be radioactive and uninhabitable?
>
> Oh yeah. Radioactivity is bloody hard to get rid of.
Depends on what kind of radioactivity it is. Some isotopes decay relatively
quickly into something stable, or into something with such a long half life that
it might as well be stable. It probably also depends on the weapons used, i.e.
fission bombs, or different types of fusion bombs, or even antimatter bombs, or
even "dusting" attacks similar to the so-called "dirty bombs" that terrorists
will use sooner or later, where there is no "atomic bomb" per se, and any
explosive is used only to distribute the already radioactive material.
In particular with "dusting", one might go for a short-term effect and use a
dust with as short a half-life as possible[0], for maximum shock value, although
one might instead desire to render an area uninhabitable for the long-term
(similar to how the Romans, IIRC, spread salt on the fields of a conquered enemy
in order to render it into permanent wasteland).
> Although, it did once occur to me that "anti-radioactivity" might one
> day be invented, but that's probably not realistic... :-)
There's a personal anti-weapon[1] force field in one of the original/trilogy
stories, so I don't see why the Foundation scientists can't also invent a
radiation-proof force field.
Or those psionic guys from t** s***** f********* can invent a procedure so that
one can heal one's own cells of genetic damage.
[0] Although of course it is possible that the isotope used, with the very short
half-life, primarily decays into something that has a long half-life. That'd be
fine for terror tactics, but not if you wish to conquer a place.
[1] IIRC it protects only against kinetic weapons; I don't think they had lasers
in the trilogy.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
Tue Sorensen
> On 2008-08-02 16:54:49 -0700, Tue Sorensen <sorenson...@gmail.com> said:
>
> > On 2 Aug., 19:42, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.comics> wrote:
> >> On 2008-08-02 10:22:53 -0700, Wolfspawn <cr...@bfn.org> said:
> >>> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Louann Miller wrote:
> >>>> mimus <tinmimu...@hotmail.com> wrote in
> >>>>news:5Z6dnQslXMX9tgnV...@giganews.com:
> >>>>> Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into each
> >>>>> other.
> >>> The dream is that it will make one's entire backlist must-reads.
> >>> Stephen King was doing that deliberately with the Dark Tower, trying to
> >>> connect all his books. It became more and more blatantly commercial.
>
> >> Yeah, King wasn't doing that kind of thing because it was fun for him.
> >> He's just a slave to the paycheck.
>
> >> That's why he stuck with Donald M. Grant through the Dark Tower series,
> >> because that was the road to riches.
>
> >>> I noticed his last Dark Tower book, in hardcover, first edition, on the
> >>> bargain shelf of Borders for 5 bucks.
>
> >> That must be significant. No other huge successes with gigantic first
> >> printings designed to take full advantage of initial sales velocity
> >> ever get remaindered, after all.
>
> > Hi Kurt - nice irony! :-)
>
> > It was cool to see you in Copenhagen two months ago.
>
> Likewise, sir.
*bowing* :-)
> > Do you have any thoughts on the Foundation series?
>
> I read the first three in the series many, many years ago, and enjoyed
> them at the time, but it's been so long that I don't think I'm really
> qualified to say anything sensible about them today. I haven't read
> any of the books where Asimov ties the Foundation and Robot books
> together.
I like the Foundation trilogy for its scope and symbolism, and I think
this symbolism gains a whole new level in the merged Robot/Foundation
universe, where the robots represent the positive force of science,
making itself felt up through history. I love that. And I think that
makes it very good *science* fiction. But, since it is not perfectly
executed, I long for new stories that will heal over the
inconsistencies, turning the whole saga into something even grander.
> > As a writer of substance, I imagine
> > you are more like, say, David Brin, enjoying world-building and the
> > challenge of tying things together, and playing around in an open-
> > ended universe where a nigh-infinite variety of stories can be told,
> > than these nincompoop nay-sayers in this thread so far? :-)
>
> I think the only Brin I've read is his novella "Thor Meets Captain
> America," which I enjoyed quite a bit, but doesn't give me a sense of
> his overall worldbuilding.
Well, I think he is definitely one of the better SF writers of our
time. I was extremely impressed with the amount of thoughts and ideas
he crammed into his New Foundation Trilogy installment, "Foundation's
Triumph" (the last, and by far the best, of the three), although it
also had problematic elements which, to my mind, undermined the
symbolism of the original trilogy.
Brin was in Copenhagen a couple of years ago, and I had the privilege
of talking to him. It was shortly before the release of Star Wars
Episode 3, and Brin entertained us at length with his extensive plot
ideas for how all six Star Wars movies could be beautifully tied
together in ways that were very obviously vastly superior to what
Lucas actually ended up doing. It strikes me as a very great shame
that ideas which could have improved or even rescued a large but
faltering fictional universe are not allowed to be used.
> And while I like playing with the connections of a sprawling shared
> universe like Marvel or DC's, I don't feel any desire to tie together
> ASTRO CITY and ARROWSMITH and JONNY DEMON and SHOCKROCKETS -- I like
> the fact that they occupy their own worlds, and con't have to
> accomodate other series ideas. It would be easy to find excuses --
> alternate worlds and gateways and such -- but I don'thave a desire to
> chase down those roads.
That's entirely understandable, but there were never any distinct
contradictions between Asimov's robot stories and Foundation stories.
The former took place on Earth somewhere around the 4th millennium AD,
and the latter took place in the extreme future, such as the year
12,000 of the Galactic Era, where the world of origins, Earth, was
practically forgotten. So what Asimov does in merging them is simply
to say that the history of the one is also the history of the other,
and then he has the robots, guided by the Zeroth Law ("a robot may not
injure *humanity*, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to
harm"), direct humanity's large-scale history towards a Galactic
Empire over a time-span of roughly twenty-thousand years. I think
that's incredibly cool. The only real problem with this merging is
that it wasn't originally intended to be so, so that the original
Foundation trilogy makes no mention of robots. The later Foundation
novels then retcon this, but Asimov did not have his heart
sufficiently in it to make it entirely consistent. That's too bad
(especially because the New Foundation Trilogy by Benford, Bear and
Brin then proceeds to try to explain the inconsistencies in ways that,
in some cases at least, just make matters worse), but I still love the
Robot/Foundation universe and would very much like to see it expanded,
same as I would with any other interesting fictional universe. It just
requires, of course, that the new stories are well told, consistent
and based on good ideas.
> I like seeing connections in an author's oeuvre -- the way various
> characters reappear or are mentioned in Madeleine L'Engle's novels,
> both her YA stuff and her adult novels, is a lot of fun, but I don't
> know that I'd do that myself.
Well, I don't mean that *all* things have to fit together - just that
large interesting universes would be cool to make even larger! As long
as a good level of quality can be maintained, that is... and that's
really the weak point. Just look at the Marvel Universe now as
compared to twenty years ago... :-(
> My spark of derision was for the idea that Stephen King was tying his
> books together for the money. I think he does what he does because he
> wants to, these days -- money isn't an issue. He did say at one point
> that he was going to retire, and just write for himself and stick the
> results in a drawer, but I was pretty confident he'd publish -- not
> because he needs even more money, but because he wants to publish, he
> wants to be read. He tells stories, and telling stories to yourself
> isn't the same as telling them to an audience.
>
> But messing up those stories for profit? He'd rather do what he likes,
> and has more money than God anyway. He'd rather do the stories the way
> he wants, and it'snot like they'll stop making money that way.
:-)
> > I think it would be extremely cool to have a consistent Robot/
> > Foundation universe to tell new stories in (detailing the as yet
> > unchronicled parts of pre-Imperial, Imperial and Interregnum history),
> > but it would require the replacement of certain inconsistent and
> > illogical elements with others that make more sense. The whole Gaia
> > thing, for instance, is supposed to be a Plan B, to be implemented in
> > case the Seldon Plan goes wrong, but halfway through the Interregnum
> > the Seldon Plan is a complete success! So why the heck implement Gaia
> > *then*? It just doesn't work.
>
> > Love to hear your thoughts.
>
> I don't have an opinion on how well Asimov merged his fictional worlds,
> because I had drifted away from reading Asimov by then. Still, he's
> dead, and I haven't been moved to read anyone else writing in his
> universes, either, so turning them into a construct for other people to
> tell stories in doesn't entice me.
Maybe it would if you read them... :-)
> I don't have a problem with the shared worlds of the big comics
> companies (hard as they are to manage well), or with projects that are
> designed to be shared worlds, like Liavek, Thieves' World or Wild
> Cards. But I find I have next to no interest in seeing what was
> created to be a singular work by an author sharecropped out. I don't
> want to read James Bond novels by writers who aren't Ian Fleming,* I
> don't want to read Nero Wolfe by anyone but Stout, I wouldn't want to
> see other writers telling tales of Ethshar, or continuing the
> adventures of Tolkien's characters.
Generally speaking, that is no doubt a reasonable attitude, but it may
happen that, exceptionally, some writer comes along who can write
something really interesting, and thus add to the given universe -
that is, after all, what you hope to do in the Marvel and DC
universes. So it goes with other universes as well.
> Movies are different; they're adaptation, but prose in those worlds
> feels to me like something only the real author is ever going to get
> fully right. In the end, I think about them the same way I think about
> the concept of other writers writing ASTRO CITY stories. If they're
> good enough to do it, they don't need Astro City -- they can invent
> their own heroes, their own worlds. And if they're not good enough, I
> wouldn't want them near my characters. So it makes sense to keep them
> to myself.
When you put it that way, it *does* make a lot of sense. However...
> I know a lot of people feel differently, and they're welcome to all the
> sharecropped novels they want. I'm just not part of that audience.
Except, of course, as regards the Marvel and DC universes, which are
just about the ultimate sharecropped universes... ;-) Otherwise,
you're arguing against any good writer working in those universes as
well, which is as much as to endorse those universes' total
stagnation... :-/ OK, you were talking prose. I don't know that I
consider prose so enormously different from comics, though. What I
think is important is the inspiration. Let's say, just hypothetically,
that I was really psyched about writing new stories in the Foundation
universe... if my ideas were good enough, surely some people (incl.
perhaps a great many of the fans of the original) would want to read
it. Not that I don't have ideas for original universes of my own, but
still - some people do their best work in shared universes. Taking
comics as an example again (I know, wrong newsgroup, sorry!), many
writers and artists have become well-known names for their Marvel and
DC work, and some of them might not have been as well-known if they
had worked on their own original concepts. A lot of workers-for-hire
(present company naturally excluded) simply don't have good original
ideas, but do have the capacity to be inspired by the original ideas
of others (such as for instance Lee & Kirby) - in fact, one may argue
that the entire Marvel and DC universes are made up of that sort of
work. And, everything considered, that's a good thing. (Although it
would be a heck of a lot better if the editors had kept tighter reins
on the continuity...)
> Anyone who could write a good LORD OF THE RINGS sequel can write a
> terrific novel of their own imagining, and I'd rather see that.
Mm... But a good story only fulfills its potential if it reaches a lot
of people. A writer choosing between doing a story in a super-
successful established universe or doing a story in his own obscure
universe will often be understandably swayed to choose the former
option, as this will reach a much larger audience. And if he's a good
writer, he may be able to convey the very message he wants to, no
matter which universe the story is set in. :-)
Well, I think I've taken enough of your time now! Dont want to keep
you away from your writing duties...! :-)
- Tue
Tue Sorensen
> Tue Sorensen wrote:
> > On 3 Aug., 02:29, Louann Miller <louan...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>In 20Kyear, would it still be radioactive and uninhabitable?
>
> > Oh yeah. Radioactivity is bloody hard to get rid of.
>
> Depends on what kind of radioactivity it is.
That of uranium and thorium.
> Some isotopes decay relatively
> quickly into something stable, or into something with such a long half life that
> it might as well be stable. It probably also depends on the weapons used, i.e.
> fission bombs, or different types of fusion bombs, or even antimatter bombs, or
> even "dusting" attacks similar to the so-called "dirty bombs" that terrorists
> will use sooner or later, where there is no "atomic bomb" per se, and any
> explosive is used only to distribute the already radioactive material.
In "Robots and Empire" they use "nuclear intensifiers" to vastly
increase the radioactivity of Earth's natural uranium and thorium
deposits. Don't ask me about the scientific soundness of it...
> In particular with "dusting", one might go for a short-term effect and use a
> dust with as short a half-life as possible[0], for maximum shock value, although
> one might instead desire to render an area uninhabitable for the long-term
> (similar to how the Romans, IIRC, spread salt on the fields of a conquered enemy
> in order to render it into permanent wasteland).
>
> > Although, it did once occur to me that "anti-radioactivity" might one
> > day be invented, but that's probably not realistic... :-)
>
> There's a personal anti-weapon[1] force field in one of the original/trilogy
> stories, so I don't see why the Foundation scientists can't also invent a
> radiation-proof force field.
"Robots and Empire" takes place 20,000 years before the Foundation...
> Or those psionic guys from t** s***** f********* can invent a procedure so that
> one can heal one's own cells of genetic damage.
Yes, given enough technological development, there probably is a way
out of the Earth's radioactive status. But it didn't happen in
Asimov's books. In "Foundation and Earth", Daneel (the main robot)
says that he once tried to remove the radioactive soil, but the
project failed.
- Tue
Tue Sorensen
Are you sure that was *his* idea and not his editors'? Discredit where
discredit is due! :-)
- Tue
Tue Sorensen
> "Tue Sorensen" <sorenson...@gmail.com> wrote in message
True. And I have no objection to that (as Asimov is dead, any chance
of having such questions authoritatively answered lies with the
potential efforts of other writers sanctioned by the Asimov Estate -
and they might then tell us what we didn't know from the original
works, and hopefully their ideas will be good ones), except that it
very strongly seems like we should have gotten a proper answer at the
end of "Foundation and Earth". But "we just don't know" is also OK, as
it frees us to make our own suppositions.
> But also, I incline to not to question too deeply into
> a story. It interferes with the enjoyment of it.
For some, I think, such questioning rather holds the promise of
intensifying the enjoyment of the story, hoping to see its internal
logic greatly improved.
> And another point of view, is that of the *writer*.
> With Asimov, that's complex; because along with Asimov
> writing the Foundation stories, was John Campbell
> commenting on these and even suggesting directions for
> things to go. For example, my understanding of where
> the Mule came from as the work was in writing, was
> that Campbell said, Asimov, you need a new direction
> here. How about....
Sure, but I *am* trying to see things from a within-the-story point of
view. That's what I'm interested in. Where the ideas came from in the
real world doesn't interest me as much - in this case, at this time
(always good to include caveats...).
> But the overall story is very complex on paper and
> more complex in the writer's mind, since the writer
> has to make all the choices and constructions that
> become the story. Now when at a later point he throws
> in a change, it's just not practical to check back and
> adjust all the little details in the past story to
> accurately fit its current part in writing.
Not practical? The whole idea is to make it fit, so I would think it
was pretty darn *imperative*! I would greatly have welcomed
"remastered" authorial versions of the original trilogy with robot
scenes inserted, and satisfying explanations for just how and why the
robots created the Galactic Empire...
> So from those two points of view, I'd rather just
> read and enjoy the stories for what is in them, and
> not to run off too far with examination. I was young
> and much simpler in my mind, when Asimov was doing
> the Foundation stories into Astounding and I was
> haunting the newsstand to get them as near as
> possible to the minute they were on the rack. It is
> a good memory today. And I think too much examination,
> kills it.
Well, then, perhaps, you should not read my response to your post
(!)... I think it is legitimate to complain about plot holes or
inconsistencies. Quality writing shouldn't have these in significant
amounts. But of course, quality tends to be (perceived as) subjective,
and different people enjoy different things to different degrees, and
at different times and ages. If we're not interested in the same
questions or points, then we don't have much to discuss (in this case,
at this time!)... :-)
- Tue
Jon Schild
A lot of Heinlein's good stuff, meaning before Stranger in a Strange
Land, was written with consistency in mind. The old copies of the
paperbacks of books like Green Hills of Earth, The Man Who Sold the
Moon, Methuselah's Children, etc, have a chart included. In the early
books, the events, people, technological advances, etc are there but few
story names are filled in. Some that are there are in parentheses,
indicating that they are forthcoming. Later novels and short story
collections have more story names in the chart. Some compliations of
these stories have promised the chart, but I don't know of any that
actually delivered it. In the old editions of Revolt in 2100, there is a
"Postscript" called "Concerning Stories Never Written" that speaks
briefly of what would have been in the stories, and why he never wrote
them. This is an old edition, printed in early 1950s and priced at 60
cents. I don't know if newer ones have that. Those books without the
chart were not intended to be part of the consistent series.
--
The problem is not that the world is full of fools, it's that lightning
isn't being distributed correctly.
-- Mark Twain
Jon Schild
Mike Schilling wrote:
> Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:39:59 -0400, mimus <tinmi...@hotmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines
>>>into
>>>each other.
>>
>>Ayup. Thus succumbing to the Brain Eater.
>
>
I just have to ask; is this a positronic device that eats brains, or a
creature that eats positronic brains?
Kurt Busiek
> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>
>> My spark of derision was for the idea that Stephen King was tying his
>> books together for the money. I think he does what he does because he
>> wants to, these days -- money isn't an issue. He did say at one point
>> that he was going to retire, and just write for himself and stick the
>> results in a drawer, but I was pretty confident he'd publish -- not
>> because he needs even more money, but because he wants to publish, he
>> wants to be read. He tells stories, and telling stories to yourself
>> isn't the same as telling them to an audience.
>
> Oh yes, rich people NEVER want to make money after a certain level of
> wealth. They do not wish to promote their works after a scertain level
> of success. This JUST DOES NOT HAPPEN. (Do you detect a "spark of
> derision" there?).
Yeah, but it's idiotic.
Your thesis is that unless no other writer ever feel that way, King must.
As usual, you leap to a conclusion and can't conceive of any other.
kdb
Kurt Busiek
> On 3 Aug., 02:19, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.comics> wrote:
>> I don't have an opinion on how well Asimov merged his fictional worlds,
>> because I had drifted away from reading Asimov by then. Still, he's
>> dead, and I haven't been moved to read anyone else writing in his
>> universes, either, so turning them into a construct for other people to
>> tell stories in doesn't entice me.
>
> Maybe it would if you read them... :-)
I've got lots of other stuff to read...
>> I don't have a problem with the shared worlds of the big comics
>> companies (hard as they are to manage well), or with projects that are
>> designed to be shared worlds, like Liavek, Thieves' World or Wild
>> Cards. But I find I have next to no interest in seeing what was
>> created to be a singular work by an author sharecropped out. I don't
>> want to read James Bond novels by writers who aren't Ian Fleming,* I
>> don't want to read Nero Wolfe by anyone but Stout, I wouldn't want to
>> see other writers telling tales of Ethshar, or continuing the
>> adventures of Tolkien's characters.
>
> Generally speaking, that is no doubt a reasonable attitude, but it may
> happen that, exceptionally, some writer comes along who can write
> something really interesting, and thus add to the given universe -
> that is, after all, what you hope to do in the Marvel and DC
> universes. So it goes with other universes as well.
As I metioned, it doesn't bother me in the big-company comics, perhaps
because they were so thoroughly like that when I first encountered
them. But I don't feel the same way about most other works.
>> I know a lot of people feel differently, and they're welcome to all the
>> sharecropped novels they want. I'm just not part of that audience.
>
> Except, of course, as regards the Marvel and DC universes, which are
> just about the ultimate sharecropped universes... ;-)
Actually, while I'm still a part of the Marvel and DCU audiences, it's
far less so than I used to be. I still like good superhero comics, but
I'm more attracted to more specific visions, that don't get reworked
and retconned by others.
> Otherwise,
> you're arguing against any good writer working in those universes as
> well,
Saying I'm not part of an audience doesn't mean I'm arguing that no one
should do it. As I said, the people who like that sort of thing are
welcome to all they want of it.
And saying I'm arguing against something I specifically said I'm fine
with just doesn't match up. I don't have to want to see it in
everything or oppose it in everything, after all.
> I don't know that I consider prose so enormously different from comics, though.
I don't, either. I don't want to see GROO or FABLES or HELLBOY
sharecropped out either.
And in prose, I have no problem with "Thieves' World," as I've said. It
wa designed to be that kind of project, and Marvel and DC have been
that way since before I was born, so I was introduced to it that way.
So those work fine for me, but it doesn't make me want to read someone
else's take on, say, Heinlein's Future History.
> What I
> think is important is the inspiration. Let's say, just hypothetically,
> that I was really psyched about writing new stories in the Foundation
> universe... if my ideas were good enough, surely some people (incl.
> perhaps a great many of the fans of the original) would want to read
> it.
Sure. With all due respect, though, I'm not part of that group.
> Taking
> comics as an example again (I know, wrong newsgroup, sorry!), many
> writers and artists have become well-known names for their Marvel and
> DC work, and some of them might not have been as well-known if they
> had worked on their own original concepts.
It's hard to tell, though, how much that's due to the fact that the
longevity and size of the shared universes crowding other books off the
stage. If comics had had an approach more like SF and fantasy prose,
who knows what we might have gotten?
I have no idea if it would have been better or worse. Perhaps Roy
Thomas would have done brilliant work with his own creations. Perhaps
he wouldn't, but someone who never broke in at all would have been a
star under such a system. No real way to tell.
> Mm... But a good story only fulfills its potential if it reaches a lot
> of people.
I disagree, actually.
> A writer choosing between doing a story in a super-
> successful established universe or doing a story in his own obscure
> universe will often be understandably swayed to choose the former
> option, as this will reach a much larger audience.
And I'm not stopping him. I'm just not likely to be in the audience for it.
You seem to be assuming that if I say "I'm not drawn to that," I'm
saying that no one should be. I'm not -- I'm saying I'm not drawn to
it, with a few exceptions.
kdb
Wolfspawn
King is on record saying he got the idea for Regulators two thirds of the
way through writing Desperation. He blabs pretentiously about the play of
creativity or something, and totally neglects to mention the 15 year old
script he was going to be retooling. Basically, he lied, claiming that all
that existed of Regulators at that point was a piece of paper with one
word on it. (the original script was called "The Shotgunners" and Sam
Peckinpah was supposed to direct it, but died.)
And this sort of re-tooling and tie-in fixing of a novel to sell is
exactly what he says he did with INSOMNIA, which he was stuck on until he
decided to graft in all these Dark Tower connections that he hadn't
originally envisaged.
Wolfspawn
You retardedly assumed that King MUST not care about his success, because
of the success he has already had.
As for his "retiring", he's been "retiring" ever since THE STAND. Every
time he puts out a novel that he's embarassed by, he announces that he's
"retiring", and then puts out more novels.
Yes, he is on record (in a Playboy interview, I believe) saying he
considered himself retired after THE STAND. And he's been announcing his
retirement ever since. And every time he comes back with sloppier, lazier
work. I think he uses it to explain away the sloppiness of the work he's
done, to excuse the sloppiness of the work he's planning to release, and
to keep his editors off his back "Hey, I'm retired, youre lucky you are
getting a first draft, let alone rewrites."
Kurt Busiek
> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>
>> On 2008-08-02 18:26:04 -0700, Wolfspawn <cr...@bfn.org> said:
>>
>>> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>>>
>>>> My spark of derision was for the idea that Stephen King was tying his
>>>> books together for the money. I think he does what he does because he
>>>> wants to, these days -- money isn't an issue. He did say at one point
>>>> that he was going to retire, and just write for himself and stick the
>>>> results in a drawer, but I was pretty confident he'd publish -- not
>>>> because he needs even more money, but because he wants to publish, he
>>>> wants to be read. He tells stories, and telling stories to yourself
>>>> isn't the same as telling them to an audience.
>>>
>>> Oh yes, rich people NEVER want to make money after a certain level of
>>> wealth. They do not wish to promote their works after a scertain level
>>> of success. This JUST DOES NOT HAPPEN. (Do you detect a "spark of
>>> derision" there?).
>>
>> Yeah, but it's idiotic.
>>
>> Your thesis is that unless no other writer ever feel that way, King must.
>>
>> As usual, you leap to a conclusion and can't conceive of any other.
>
> You retardedly assumed that King MUST not care about his success, because
> of the success he has already had.
No, I don't. I simply reason it out from his statements and behavior,
which are better gauges than your demented, obsessive assertions.
kdb
Wolfspawn
King actually says that the reason he quit with Viking was because they
weren't marketing his books enough, favoring Tom Clancy instead.
The real reason was that they wouldn't give him the price he wanted for
"Bag of Bones". Their complaint was that his sales per book had been
actually falling off. (and it wasn't due to lack of Marketing... the Green
Mile serial stunt and the Desperation/Regulators stunt were highly visible
marketing efforts). But still, King blamed it on poor marketing. So he is
highly conscious of marketing, at leasst, as a defense against the charge
that his writing was the problem.
Kurt Busiek
> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>
>>> You retardedly assumed that King MUST not care about his success, because
>>> of the success he has already had.
>>
>> No, I don't. I simply reason it out from his statements and behavior,
>> which are better gauges than your demented, obsessive assertions.
>
> King actually says that the reason he quit with Viking was because they
> weren't marketing his books enough, favoring Tom Clancy instead.
This is a non sequitor.
You've also changed the goalposts a couple of times, which isn't unusual.
You've informed us about the sexual interests of people we've never
met, that JK Rowling is a sadist, and obsessed about Hillary Clinton.
Do you wonder that people think you're demented and obsessive?
kdb
Tue Sorensen
> On 2008-08-02 18:55:48 -0700, Tue Sorensen <sorenson...@gmail.com> said:
>
> > On 3 Aug., 02:19, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.comics> wrote:
> >> I don't have an opinion on how well Asimov merged his fictional worlds,
> >> because I had drifted away from reading Asimov by then. Still, he's
> >> dead, and I haven't been moved to read anyone else writing in his
> >> universes, either, so turning them into a construct for other people to
> >> tell stories in doesn't entice me.
>
> > Maybe it would if you read them... :-)
>
> I've got lots of other stuff to read...
Don't we all... :-) Speaking of that, I got hold of The Fiction Editor
by Thomas McCormack that you mentioned on the Komiks.dk panel! Haven't
read it yet, though...
> >> I don't have a problem with the shared worlds of the big comics
> >> companies (hard as they are to manage well), or with projects that are
> >> designed to be shared worlds, like Liavek, Thieves' World or Wild
> >> Cards. But I find I have next to no interest in seeing what was
> >> created to be a singular work by an author sharecropped out. I don't
> >> want to read James Bond novels by writers who aren't Ian Fleming,* I
> >> don't want to read Nero Wolfe by anyone but Stout, I wouldn't want to
> >> see other writers telling tales of Ethshar, or continuing the
> >> adventures of Tolkien's characters.
>
> > Generally speaking, that is no doubt a reasonable attitude, but it may
> > happen that, exceptionally, some writer comes along who can write
> > something really interesting, and thus add to the given universe -
> > that is, after all, what you hope to do in the Marvel and DC
> > universes. So it goes with other universes as well.
>
> As I metioned, it doesn't bother me in the big-company comics, perhaps
> because they were so thoroughly like that when I first encountered
> them. But I don't feel the same way about most other works.
Generally speaking, I don't really see a difference. If a universe is
interesting, I want to read more good stories taking place in it. Be
it a superhero universe, or Star Wars, or Star Trek, or something
else. In my opinion the story itself and its quality and consistency
are significantly more important than whether it's written by a
specific individual. I was always more a fan of characters and
concepts rather than creators.
> >> I know a lot of people feel differently, and they're welcome to all the
> >> sharecropped novels they want. I'm just not part of that audience.
>
> > Except, of course, as regards the Marvel and DC universes, which are
> > just about the ultimate sharecropped universes... ;-)
>
> Actually, while I'm still a part of the Marvel and DCU audiences, it's
> far less so than I used to be.
Same here. The comics aren't as good as they used to be (though some
would disagree).
> I still like good superhero comics, but
> I'm more attracted to more specific visions, that don't get reworked
> and retconned by others.
I sometimes consider a single person's unifying vision superior to one
by committee, too, but it so happens that most of the really grand and
fantastic universes with great scope tend to be (by now) committee
visions (again, superheroes, SW, ST)... and while not all of it is
good, it is produced on such a massive, industrial scale that there's
almost always *some* of it that's good. Even if only a little...
> > Otherwise,
> > you're arguing against any good writer working in those universes as
> > well,
>
> Saying I'm not part of an audience doesn't mean I'm arguing that no one
> should do it. As I said, the people who like that sort of thing are
> welcome to all they want of it.
>
> And saying I'm arguing against something I specifically said I'm fine
> with just doesn't match up. I don't have to want to see it in
> everything or oppose it in everything, after all.
Conceded.
> > I don't know that I consider prose so enormously different from comics, though.
>
> I don't, either. I don't want to see GROO or FABLES or HELLBOY
> sharecropped out either.
>
> And in prose, I have no problem with "Thieves' World," as I've said. It
> wa designed to be that kind of project, and Marvel and DC have been
> that way since before I was born, so I was introduced to it that way.
> So those work fine for me, but it doesn't make me want to read someone
> else's take on, say, Heinlein's Future History.
And someone else's take on, say, Robert E. Howard's Conan...? :-)
Well, since you're only mentioning specific franchises and not making
a sweeping general statement, maybe I should clarify what I am
ultimately on about; which position I'm trying to espouse: I think -
and I know this is awfully woolly - that the artistic substance that
humanity most essentially needs from art is not so much found in
personal styles of individual artists as in overall allegorical
narrative structures that have been passed on up through the ages.
Structures which are present in almost all stories, to greater or
lesser degrees, and which chronicle and clarify the journey of the
human species from emotional animal to rational, moral, scientific and
civilized human being (towards which we still have a ways to go). To a
great extent, these structures emerge in response to mass appeal -
which means that commercial fiction and pop culture (incl. Hollywood
movies!) may have far, far more substantial and important content that
a lot of ostensibly quality-conscious people habitually allege.
(That's not to say, of course, that Hollywood or incompetent editors
can't completely ruin a good concept by an originating individual
artist - they can, and frequently do.)
> > What I
> > think is important is the inspiration. Let's say, just hypothetically,
> > that I was really psyched about writing new stories in the Foundation
> > universe... if my ideas were good enough, surely some people (incl.
> > perhaps a great many of the fans of the original) would want to read
> > it.
>
> Sure. With all due respect, though, I'm not part of that group.
Well, with all due respect, how can you be sure until you've tried
it? :-) Still, I must accept, of course, that it's apparently not
within your sphere of interest, but that's not really pertinent to the
discussion of the principle of doing something like that. You have
worked in other people's universes yourself, and done work (like
Conan) that the overall "expanded canon" of that universe would have
been the poorer without. I simply have the same vain and hypothetical
ambition for the Foundation universe.
> > Mm... But a good story only fulfills its potential if it reaches a lot
> > of people.
>
> I disagree, actually.
Yes, it's a controversial attitude. I think, somewhat vaguely, that
successful art (incl. pop culture) should aid in the advancing of the
positive trends of the human condition. And it's only really in a
position to do that if it reaches a significant portion of its
surrounding culture. Unless of course it slowly accumulates an
audience over many centuries, but few writers currently alive can
allow themselves to expect that from their published work. So as an
aspiring writer, I consider it important to reach a large audience.
Whether that will in fact be possible, however, is, of course,
something else entirely.
> > A writer choosing between doing a story in a super-
> > successful established universe or doing a story in his own obscure
> > universe will often be understandably swayed to choose the former
> > option, as this will reach a much larger audience.
>
> And I'm not stopping him. I'm just not likely to be in the audience for it.
>
> You seem to be assuming that if I say "I'm not drawn to that," I'm
> saying that no one should be. I'm not -- I'm saying I'm not drawn to
> it, with a few exceptions.
No problem. I'm sure there are hordes of Foundation fans even so! :-)
But yeah, I do have a tendency to assume that people whose intellect I
admire often speak in terms of principle rather than simply personal
taste, and so I may unfairly challenge their expressed point of view.
Bad habit. Perhaps. :-) But I nearly always fall into it. In our case,
for instance, the argument seems to boil down to whether an artwork
primarily ought to be a manifestation of its original artist's
individual personality and vision (as with Fleming's Bond), or whether
it primarily ought to be a living, evolving property of a whole
culture, created and/or perpetuated by diverse qualified hands. Of
course we agree, I'm sure, that there is and should be room for both
types of artworks, but as for me I tend to be more interested in, and
place more importance on, the latter type.
- Tue
David Goldfarb
Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.comics> wrote:
>I don't
>want to read James Bond novels by writers who aren't Ian Fleming,*
Are we missing a footnote here?
--
David Goldfarb |"Get your mind out of the gutter -- you're blocking
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | my snorkel."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- Frank Ney, on rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Jaimie Vandenbergh
>>>> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008 09:10:46 -0500, "Ken from Chicago"
>>>> <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Wasn't the Good Doctor trying to weave a cohesive whole out of his
>>>>>various
>>>>>major stories toward the end there?
>> Hmm. Can you think of anyone who did a reasonable job, rather than
>> merely glossing over the inconsistent historical backgrounds in their
>> various worlds like Asimov and Heinlein and King did?
>
>In response, I think of Jack Vance.
Did Vance retrofit prior books into a larger history? I thought that
he just occasionally wrote other books within certain universes,
rather than trying to tie them together post-facto like Asimov did.
Cheers - Jaimie
--
Never sleep with anyone crazier than you are.
Jaimie Vandenbergh
<soren...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I am a huge fan of the Robot/Foundation series and I love the fact
>that the two "franchises" were merged. It could have been done more
>efficiently, if Asimov had taken the time and effort to think things
>through properly, but I believe the Robot/Foundation universe is still
>salvageable, I mean, viable. Even as it stands, it is the most epic
>space opera ever, and with a few tweaks it will be cooler still.
"Will be"? Asimov has passed away, and other people playing in his
universe(s) doesn't really count for me.
Cheers - Jaimie
--
"If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in
your mouth. Particularly if the thing is cats."
- Lemony Snicket, "The Wide Window"
Raymond Speer
an Asimov-Heinlein collaboration.
I agree with Wolfspawn that extending a completed series is a strategy
to hopefully kickstart renewed sales of an author's backlist. I cannot
see any other practical reason for a publisher to indulge his writer by
printing a book that is unintelligible without references to other
books.
But I agree with Kurt Busiak that there are creative payoffs in
fan-fics. I've seen too many typescripts on the Web for Wolverine-Batman
teamups on Babylon 5 to ever deny that such stories must be charming,
at least to their authors. (Certainly, no one is paying for such
products.)
Personally, I find amusement in the possibilities of, say, a Jan
Austen-Leo Tolstoy-Charles Dickens-James F. Cooper crossgraft. It is an
"in-joke" understood only by people who have read the original fictions
in which the characters were established, but in that circle, it could
be quite entertaining.
(I think that it is more entertaining as a web post than as a three
volume set of a thousand pages apiece. My greatest crticism of Stephen
King was "literary bloat": the second and subsequent volumes of DARK
TOWER SAGA were far more massive than GUNFIGHTER but with half the punch
of the original.)
I did find it sad when authors who could do better, like Heinlein and
Asimov, spend their last years alive doing fan-fic on characters and
situations that they had generated back when they were "red hot" with
creativity. Good for them if they cashed big checks or did not need the
money or whatever, but it was not good for their fans, who tracked their
favorite "dinosaur" and saw it dwindle into a little "lizard."
Wolfspawn
The "non-sequitor" followed the earlier suggestion that it was not King
who was concerned personally with marketing and gimmicks, but his
publishers and editors. I was informing whoever that King has expressed
personal interest in marketing.
That being said .... is reusing the phrase "demented and obsessive" is
really all you have to contribute to any conversation? Thanks. You will be
ignored henceforth.
Kurt Busiek
> On 3 Aug., 04:51, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.com> wrote:
>> On 2008-08-02 18:55:48 -0700, Tue Sorensen <sorenson...@gmail.com> said:
>>
>>> On 3 Aug., 02:19, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.comics> wrote:
>>>> I don't have an opinion on how well Asimov merged his fictional worlds,
>>>> because I had drifted away from reading Asimov by then. Still, he's
>>>> dead, and I haven't been moved to read anyone else writing in his
>>>> universes, either, so turning them into a construct for other people to
>>>> tell stories in doesn't entice me.
>>
>>> Maybe it would if you read them... :-)
>>
>> I've got lots of other stuff to read...
>
> Don't we all... :-) Speaking of that, I got hold of The Fiction Editor
> by Thomas McCormack that you mentioned on the Komiks.dk panel! Haven't
> read it yet, though...
Hope you enjoy it.
At this point, I think McCormack owes me royalties...
>>>> I don't have a problem with the shared worlds of the big comics
>>>> companies (hard as they are to manage well), or with projects that are
>>>> designed to be shared worlds, like Liavek, Thieves' World or Wild
>>>> Cards. But I find I have next to no interest in seeing what was
>>>> created to be a singular work by an author sharecropped out. I don't
>>>> want to read James Bond novels by writers who aren't Ian Fleming,* I
>>>> don't want to read Nero Wolfe by anyone but Stout, I wouldn't want to
>>>> see other writers telling tales of Ethshar, or continuing the
>>>> adventures of Tolkien's characters.
>>
>>> Generally speaking, that is no doubt a reasonable attitude, but it may
>>> happen that, exceptionally, some writer comes along who can write
>>> something really interesting, and thus add to the given universe -
>>> that is, after all, what you hope to do in the Marvel and DC
>>> universes. So it goes with other universes as well.
>>
>> As I metioned, it doesn't bother me in the big-company comics, perhaps
>> because they were so thoroughly like that when I first encountered
>> them. But I don't feel the same way about most other works.
>
> Generally speaking, I don't really see a difference.
That's okay. You asked me for my thoughts, so I've gotta give you
mine. If mine and yours were the same, there wouldn't be muchpoint to
a conversation, since we'd agree on everything right down the line.
>>> I don't know that I consider prose so enormously different from comics, though.
>>
>> I don't, either. I don't want to see GROO or FABLES or HELLBOY
>> sharecropped out either.
>>
>> And in prose, I have no problem with "Thieves' World," as I've said. It
>> wa designed to be that kind of project, and Marvel and DC have been
>> that way since before I was born, so I was introduced to it that way.
>> So those work fine for me, but it doesn't make me want to read someone
>> else's take on, say, Heinlein's Future History.
>
> And someone else's take on, say, Robert E. Howard's Conan...? :-)
In Conan's case, I was introduced to it in the first place in a
sharecropped sense, through Roy Thomas's version. But I still have no
interest in anyone's Conan prose fiction but Howard's, and very little
comics material aside from Thomas's.
I had a great time writing it, but that's a rather different process.
Plus, I got tostart over, not having to "share" with the dozens of
writers who'd built up the Marvel continuity -- I wouldn'thave been
interested in that. In essence, I was going back to the roots and
doing my own adaptation, which feels different to me. Now Tim Truman
has to continue based on both the REH and on what I laid down, and he's
presumably enjoying it, but if our positions were reversed, I'm not
sure I'd want to -- to my eyes, the REH is the "real" Conan, and I
didn't want to be tied to anything else.
> To a
> great extent, these structures emerge in response to mass appeal -
> which means that commercial fiction and pop culture (incl. Hollywood
> movies!) may have far, far more substantial and important content that
> a lot of ostensibly quality-conscious people habitually allege.
That's an interesting take. I'm more drawn to commercial fiction than
to literature, myself, but still not particularly drawn to sharecropped
works, aside from material that was either intended to work that way
all along, or never had a single centralized vision -- the Marvel and
DC Universes, for instance, arose through combining a number of visions
rather than taking one well-established singular one and building on it.
>> Sure. With all due respect, though, I'm not part of that group.
>
> Well, with all due respect, how can you be sure until you've tried
> it? :-)
I have tried reading such works, off and on, over the years. And I
don't think I need to read every example of it before I can say I'm not
interested.
I'm not sure I'd _need_ to read any -- if I'm not interested in
something, that's a statement by itself, and I don't have to prove it
by trying that something and confirming that I don't like it. If it
doesn't entice me, it didn't do Job One -- it didn't make me want to
read it. I don't have to put aside things that do in order to try it
anyway andfind out whether I might actually enjoy it, or else I can no
longer pick and choose anything, on the ground that without reading it
I don't know for sure.
That said, though, I've read sharecropped novels before, for a number
of reasons -- I was enough of a Star Trek fan when young that the Blish
and Gerrold material attracted me then, I've read more recent Trek
novels by friends (or by clients, when I was a literary agent), I've
read other such stuff when I didn't have anything more enticing at
hand, that sort of thing. And I'm just not interested.
I like Tim Zahn's writing, but I don't want to read his STAR WARS
fiction. I read a couple of the recent "Young James Bond" novels, and
I like the basic idea, but find I don't want to continue. I'm abig fan
of MikeMignola's HELLBOY, but have no attraction to te "Odd Jobs" or
"Weird Tales" anthologies, where other people handlethe character -- I
want Mike's Hellboy, not simply any well-crafted Hellboy.
> Still, I must accept, of course, that it's apparently not
> within your sphere of interest, but that's not really pertinent to the
> discussion of the principle of doing something like that.
Perhaps not, but you asked me for my thoughts, so they're what you get.
And my thought boil down to: I'm not interested, but for people who
like that sort of thing, go ahead. Nothing in there suggests I'm
condemning the practie, trying to stop people from doing it, or
challenging you to justify having different tastes from mine.
> In our case,
> for instance, the argument seems to boil down to whether an artwork
> primarily ought to be a manifestation of its original artist's
> individual personality and vision (as with Fleming's Bond), or whether
> it primarily ought to be a living, evolving property of a whole
> culture, created and/or perpetuated by diverse qualified hands. Of
> course we agree, I'm sure, that there is and should be room for both
> types of artworks, but as for me I tend to be more interested in, and
> place more importance on, the latter type.
And for me it's pretty solidly the former.
Even with public-domain properties, like, say, Robin Hood, I'd be more
interested in Writer A's take on the Robin Hood legend, free of the
requirement to conform to someone else's vision, than I would be in a
"Robin Hood canon," in which multiple writers shared the same material
and were constrained by one another's stories. A new vision informed
by the legends but free to shape, alter, build on or cast them out at
will is a different animal than a vision required to fit into someone
else's guidelines.
[Plus, of course, Robin Hood comes to us as the result of multiple
visions already, just multiple visions that grew and lived or died
based on the audience, and not on an editor or licensor telling those
old tale-tellers what was permitted.]
kdb
Taki Kogoma
allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:
> There's a personal anti-weapon[1] force field in one of the original/trilogy
> stories, so I don't see why the Foundation scientists can't also invent a
> radiation-proof force field.
>
> [1] IIRC it protects only against kinetic weapons; I don't think they had
> lasers in the trilogy.
There were "atom blasters" which employed some unspecified directed
energy. Mayor Hardin had a personal force field which was proof against
the small arms available to the Four Kingdoms.
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.
Kurt Busiek
> In article <2008080217192750073-kurt@busiekcomics>,
> Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.comics> wrote:
>> I don't
>> want to read James Bond novels by writers who aren't Ian Fleming,*
>
> Are we missing a footnote here?
Yes. I mentioned it in a later note -- I read a couple of those "Young
007" novels that recently came out, because I liked the conceit of it,
and because they didn't seem like merely a continuation of Fleming, but
like a sidestep to a new beginning, where a writer might explore a
rather different central question. So they, at least, enticed me
enough to check them out.
Still, they didn't keep my attention past the two books.
kdb
Kurt Busiek
> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>
>> On 2008-08-02 21:38:30 -0700, Wolfspawn <cr...@bfn.org> said:
>>
>>> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>>>
>>>>> You retardedly assumed that King MUST not care about his success, because
>>>>> of the success he has already had.
>>>>
>>>> No, I don't. I simply reason it out from his statements and behavior,
>>>> which are better gauges than your demented, obsessive assertions.
>>>
>>> King actually says that the reason he quit with Viking was because they
>>> weren't marketing his books enough, favoring Tom Clancy instead.
>>
>> This is a non sequitor.
>>
>> You've also changed the goalposts a couple of times, which isn't unusual.
>>
>> You've informed us about the sexual interests of people we've never
>> met, that JK Rowling is a sadist, and obsessed about Hillary Clinton.
>>
>> Do you wonder that people think you're demented and obsessive?
>
> The "non-sequitor" followed the earlier suggestion that it was not King
> who was concerned personally with marketing and gimmicks, but his
> publishers and editors.
Not my suggestion, so making it in response to me suggests you're not
paying attention.
I derided your assertion that the only reason King would want to tie
his worlds together was for profit, as opposed to the shocking idea
that he creatively likes doing it. You've responded with a lot of
blather about marketing and success and finding ways to make things
work that he felt wren't working, as if they all equate to a desire to
pile up dollars over any other satisfaction thatcomes with writing
material you enjoy andhaving a large audience appreciate it.
> That being said .... is reusing the phrase "demented and obsessive" is
> really all you have to contribute to any conversation?
I could go with "Wolfspawn is a cunt," but it's been taken.
Nonetheless, I'm content that most readers here have seen me contribute
quite a bit to lots of conversations; it doesn't require me to treat
your angry, obsessive projections of your own fixations on to other
people seriously. Pointing out that you're angry, bitter, demented and
stickily, sweatily obsessive when you're doing it may be repetitive,
but then, so is your behavior.
> You will be ignored henceforth.
Excellent. This way, I can poke at your demented assertions when I'm
moved to, without the tedious back-and-forth that follows.
kdb
Bill Patterson
wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008 09:10:46 -0500, "Ken from Chicago"
>
>
> >"Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote in message
> >> On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:39:59 -0400, mimus <tinmimu...@hotmail.com>
> >> wrote:
>
> >>>Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into each
> >>>other.
>
> >> Ayup. Thus succumbing to the Brain Eater.
>
> >major stories toward the end there?
>
> aging grand master look like they've completely lost the plot.
>
> � � � � Cheers - Jaimie
> "By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy;
> if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." - Socrates
I have, frankly, never understood why this should be objectionable per
se within SF fandom (as opposed to the way in which such a particular
mythopoeia is done). Anyone who believes he is working in myth will
naturally tend toward linking the myths into a coherent mythology --
it's just the natural evolution of that kind of doing-art.
Having tried for several years to understand what is meant by the
"brain eater" discussions here in this forum, I have come to the
conclusion that talking about the Brain Eater is itself a symptom that
the critical-thinking faculties of the author's brain has been eaten
-- or, more likely, wasted away from want of exercise.
David DeLaney
>But I agree with Kurt Busiak that there are creative payoffs in
>fan-fics. I've seen too many typescripts on the Web for Wolverine-Batman
>teamups on Babylon 5 to ever deny that such stories must be charming,
>at least to their authors. (Certainly, no one is paying for such products.)
And any genre that _can_ come up with something like Once More with Hobbits
(if you've never seen it, google it and go look) every so often, we can put
up with large slushpiles for...
>Personally, I find amusement in the possibilities of, say, a Jan
>Austen-Leo Tolstoy-Charles Dickens-James F. Cooper crossgraft. It is an
>"in-joke" understood only by people who have read the original fictions
>in which the characters were established, but in that circle, it could
>be quite entertaining.
Well ... if done right, it could be quite entertaining to people who have
never read one (or even all) of the components, just from style considerations.
(You don't _have_ to have seen all the classic Warner Brothers cartoons to
enjoy Animaniacs, for a sidewise example. It just helps.)
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
pullo
"Bill Patterson" <WHPat...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:8bdb2924-92dc-458d...@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
[snip criticism of authors combining previous works]
> I have, frankly, never understood why this should be objectionable per
> se within SF fandom (as opposed to the way in which such a particular
> mythopoeia is done). Anyone who believes he is working in myth will
> naturally tend toward linking the myths into a coherent mythology --
> it's just the natural evolution of that kind of doing-art.
I think that most who dislike it, do so because they have found the attempts
to have failed and that it might not be the failings of all the authors who
have tried but rather the inherent impossibility of making a cohesive whole
out varying and disparate works retroactively.
> Having tried for several years to understand what is meant by the
> "brain eater" discussions here in this forum, I have come to the
> conclusion that talking about the Brain Eater is itself a symptom that
> the critical-thinking faculties of the author's brain has been eaten
> -- or, more likely, wasted away from want of exercise.
Pretty much.
Default User
> Did Vance retrofit prior books into a larger history? I thought that
> he just occasionally wrote other books within certain universes,
> rather than trying to tie them together post-facto like Asimov did.
I've recently read the Mike Resnick "Starship" books. Those are in his
Birthright universe. In there he explains that some of his works were
added to the background at the suggestion of his editors (requiring
some changes), and that he frequently tries to fit new works in.
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
James Nicoll
>
>"Bill Patterson" <WHPat...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:8bdb2924-92dc-458d...@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
>
>[snip criticism of authors combining previous works]
>
>> I have, frankly, never understood why this should be objectionable per
>> se within SF fandom (as opposed to the way in which such a particular
>> mythopoeia is done). Anyone who believes he is working in myth will
>> naturally tend toward linking the myths into a coherent mythology --
>> it's just the natural evolution of that kind of doing-art.
>
>I think that most who dislike it, do so because they have found the attempts
>to have failed and that it might not be the failings of all the authors who
>have tried but rather the inherent impossibility of making a cohesive whole
>out varying and disparate works retroactively.
Whether it's impossible depends on the approach taken. An
Inn Between Worlds or having the barriers of Reality be so thin out
on the Rim that a good sneeze can propel someone between worlds
might let characters from very different universes meet without
irredeemable problems. The problems show up with incompatable
continuities are crammed into the same timeline so for example
if Varley suddenly started trying to fit the Anna Louise Bach
stories into the history of the Eight Worlds, it wouldn't work
and if Niven tried to cram the All the Bridges Rusting stories
into Known Space, that would not work either (As far as I know,
neither has. I am just for exampling).
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
Dan Goodman
> On Aug 2, 8:24�am, Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org>
> wrote:
> > On Sat, 2 Aug 2008 09:10:46 -0500, "Ken from Chicago"
> >
> > <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> > >"Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote in
> > message
> > > news:4bb89410og4h4f844...@newsposting.sessile.org...
> > >> On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:39:59 -0400, mimus
> > <tinmimu...@hotmail.com> >> wrote:
> >
> > > > > Sounds like he tried to work his Foundation and Robot lines
> > > > > into each other.
> >
> > >> Ayup. Thus succumbing to the Brain Eater.
> >
> > > Wasn't the Good Doctor trying to weave a cohesive whole out of
> > > his various major stories toward the end there?
> >
> > That's what I said, yes. That trick never works, and just makes an
> > aging grand master look like they've completely lost the plot.
> >
> > � � � � Cheers - Jaimie
> > --
> > "By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy;
> > if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." - Socrates
>
> I have, frankly, never understood why this should be objectionable per
> se within SF fandom (as opposed to the way in which such a particular
> mythopoeia is done).
Speaking for myself: I've never yet seen it done well. Of the writers
I've seen do it, Stephen King has done best; he achieved mediocracy.
Also, I am annoyed when writers go in for what I consider excessive
retconning. For an example outside the topic of this discussion: Le
Guin's attempt to make the Earthsea background sufficiently feminist.
And building a Grand Unified Story World out of previously-unconnected
story worlds requires doing that.
> Anyone who believes he is working in myth will
> naturally tend toward linking the myths into a coherent mythology --
> it's just the natural evolution of that kind of doing-art.
Not really. For example, Roger Zelazny and Jack Chalker didn't take
that direction.
--
--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://clerkfuturist.wordpress.com
Mirror Journal http://dsgood.insanejournal.com
Mirror 2 http://dsgood.wordpress.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
Ken from Chicago
"Bill Patterson" <WHPat...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:8bdb2924-92dc-458d...@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Aug 2008 09:10:46 -0500, "Ken from Chicago"
>
> <kwicker1b_nos...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >"Jaimie Vandenbergh" <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote in message
> >news:4bb89410og4h4f844...@newsposting.sessile.org...
> >> On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:39:59 -0400, mimus <tinmimu...@hotmail.com>
> >> wrote:
>
> >>>Sounds like he tried to work his _Foundation_ and _Robot_ lines into
> >>>each
> >>>other.
>
> >> Ayup. Thus succumbing to the Brain Eater.
>
> >Wasn't the Good Doctor trying to weave a cohesive whole out of his
> >various
> >major stories toward the end there?
>
> That's what I said, yes. That trick never works, and just makes an
> aging grand master look like they've completely lost the plot.
>
> --
> "By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy;
> if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." - Socrates
~I have, frankly, never understood why this should be objectionable per
~se within SF fandom (as opposed to the way in which such a particular
~mythopoeia is done). Anyone who believes he is working in myth will
~naturally tend toward linking the myths into a coherent mythology --
~it's just the natural evolution of that kind of doing-art.
The main complaints seem twofold:
1) It's done merely to rake in bucks, to get fans of one storyverse to,
literally, buy in to another storyverse.
2) It's done poorly, contradictory, undermining the characterization, the
continuity in one or both storyverses to meld them into one.
~Having tried for several years to understand what is meant by the
~"brain eater" discussions here in this forum, I have come to the
~conclusion that talking about the Brain Eater is itself a symptom that
~the critical-thinking faculties of the author's brain has been eaten
~-- or, more likely, wasted away from want of exercise.
-- Ken from Chicago
erilar
gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) wrote:
> In article <2008080217192750073-kurt@busiekcomics>,
> Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.comics> wrote:
> >I don't
> >want to read James Bond novels by writers who aren't Ian Fleming,*
>
> Are we missing a footnote here?
Why is one needed? The James Bond movies after the first two or three
had little to do with the books, either. Need I footnote that remark?
--
Mary Loomer Oliver (aka Erilar)
You can't reason with someone whose first line of argument is
that reason doesn't count. --Isaac Asimov
Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.chibardun.net/~erilarlo
Kurt Busiek
> In article <g73lo2$2d5v$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
> gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) wrote:
>
>> In article <2008080217192750073-kurt@busiekcomics>,
>> Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.comics> wrote:
>>> I don't
>>> want to read James Bond novels by writers who aren't Ian Fleming,*
>>
>> Are we missing a footnote here?
>
> Why is one needed?
Presumably, because there's an asterisk there.
This suggests to David that I intended a footnote and then forgot about
it -- which is exactly what happened.
kdb
Wolfspawn
I'll simply point out that King as dropped a plethora of clues that,
whatever his reasons for writing, he does NOT enjoy it anymore. The entire
novel of BAG OF BONES is one giant confession in this regard.
Kurt Busiek
> I'll simply point out that King as dropped a plethora of clues that,
> whatever his reasons for writing, he does NOT enjoy it anymore. The entire
> novel of BAG OF BONES is one giant confession in this regard.
And I'll respond by saying you've misread the clues, and your
conclusion is nonsense.
kdb
Wolfspawn
Really? A novel where the most compelling material is about a writer with
writer's block, who identifies with Melville's "Bartelby the Scrivener"
who says "I prefer not to". An author whose attitude toward characters in
his fiction is that compared to the least interesting live human, they are
but "bags of bones"? Pretty big clues, and hard to interpret any other
way.
Bill Patterson
> "Bill Patterson" <WHPatter...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Possibly, though I am dubious. I think that Asimov's attempt went
awry not because he joined together the robot stories and the Galactic
empire, but because the way he developed the psionic ability of the
robots vitiated and destroyed the initial reason for writing the
stories as he did: putting the Moxon's Master syndrome to rest once
and for all, The later books skirt the terms of the debate laid out
in The Humanoids without actually ever joining the issues and so
become, to an extent "idiot plots." The psychic manipulation of
subsequent history becomes more and more tortuous and the ultimate end
of it all -- Galactic Gaia -- just falls flat.
But I think that is a problem with a misjudged agenda for a treatment,
not a problem with the treatment itself.
Bill Patterson
>
> - Show quoted text -
The great-granddaddy for 20th century lit is James Branch Cabell's
Biography of the Life of Manuel -- but you need a somewhat abstract
theme to start with, to make that work. I would say arguably Cabell
did it. The literary ancestry of that traces back to Balzac's Comedie
Humaine, but he completed so little of his master project that the
individual works don't cohere (IMO)
Kurt Busiek
Not that hard for people other than you, apparently.
Not all writers in King's work are autobiographical. This one writes
different kinds of books, has a dead wife, no children, and at his core
is coping with grief over something King himself has not experienced.
The book is also heavily inspired by Du Maurier's REBECCA, in which the
leads end up shucking off the past and starting anew. Mike Noonan
ending his writing career can be seen as no more than a reflection of
that -- a casting-off in favor of a new beginning.
I can't speak to King's exact reasoning, but the idea that it's "hard
to interpret any other way" but as an autobiographical statement is
silly. One can as easily say that the lead character in DUMA KEY, a
former construction exec, after undergoing a traumatic accident with a
rehab ordeal similar to King's, discovers and embraces a creativity
that gives him a new life, and that must mean that King viewed his
pre-accident writing as merely "construction," but the accident woke
him up to deeper creativity, which he then uses to destroy the trauma
of the accident.
It's also nonsense, but it's nonsense that contradicts your reading of
BAG OF BONES, on exactly the same kind of evidence.
kdb
Bill Patterson
wrote:
> "Bill Patterson" <WHPatter...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> - Show quoted text -
I dunno -- I know (1) is not the case in one of the two prime examples
cited for Brain Eaters, Heinlein. He had come back from serious
surgery to relieve oxygen starvation to his brain. The Number of the
Beast was written as a demonstration that his faculties were back and
better than ever: it salvaged a ms (now available through the online
Heinlein Archive) that reads like competent yard goods but not like a
Heinlein novel, and he loaded up the ms. with anagrams and games with
names, deliberate parodies -- the games a writer plays with his text
when he feels at the top of his game. It's not one of my favorite
books, but I don't have to like it to know there's a heck of a lot
going on in the book in a literary sense, and much of it is stuff that
is obviously done for its own sake. I mean, I can't colorably tie
anagram names like "Neil O'Heret Brain -- N.O. Brain".to a "let's fool
the yokels into shelling out bucks for this tripe" agenda. You could
make an argument for reading the final chapter that way, though it's
hard to see why any experienced writer would think the one chapter
would sell a book . . .
(2) is a "discussable" point that depends on the individual reader's
likes and dislikes and sense of what's appropriate for the form, and
so on -- but for that very reason I wouldn't think it suitable to
underwrite a condemnation of the writer or the technique.
Gene
b6d1-8f0...@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com:
> I have, frankly, never understood why this should be objectionable per
> se within SF fandom (as opposed to the way in which such a particular
> mythopoeia is done).
It's such a good idea it should be used more widely than in just sf. For
instance, Beethoven should have spent the time he wasted on his last
quartets and the Missa Solemnis writing bridging movements linking all nine
symphonies together into one gigantic work. This would have been such an
inspiration to Bruckner and Mahler! Painters could take their unsold
canvases and glue them to a giant new canvas, and then paint stuff linking
them all together. Wittgenstein could take all his philosophy, and work it
around so that it isn't flatly self-contradictory by adding more stuff.
(Logicians will claim this is impossible, but pooh on them.) The same could
be applied to the Bible, and we could call it the Puce Protestant Bible.
Wolfspawn
Also, the protagonist, at the end of the novel, describing the previous
events as "like a bad novel" and a major character death as a "cop out".
Since I felt it was a bad novel, it was illuminating to see a character
written by King making the same assessment, albeit under the fictional
guise of being thunderstruck by shock and grief.
David Johnston
<soren...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 2 Aug., 23:08, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>> On Fri, 1 Aug 2008 23:55:00 -0700 (PDT), Tue Sorensen
>>
>>
>>
>> <sorenson...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >I have just been rereading the Foundation books, and one question that
>> >still remains after having finished "Foundation and Earth" is: WHY is
>> >it so important to keep Earth (and its radioactivity) secret to the
>> >citizens of the Galactic Empire? I don't believe we get an answer. We
>> >hear that the robots have been deleting references to Earth in the
>> >various galactic archives, but it is never clear why. Can anyone offer
>> >any speculation, or justification?
>>
>> >Actually, now that I glance over the last pages again, it seems
>> >(although it isn't directly stated) that the reason for Earth's
>> >secrecy is simply that the robots have their HQ on the moon and must
>> >not be found. This is a rather inadequate reason, I feel, for the
>> >robots could (and probably do) have bases anywhere in the galaxy that
>> >they wish. And if they remain on the moon to somehow guard Earth
>> >against discovery, we again have the question: Why? Is it all just
>> >Daneel's nostalgia and guilt...?
>>
>> >I would have thought that, as the Second Galactic Empire approached,
>> >the robots would be gradually *revealing* their secret knowledge to
>> >humanity.
>>
>> Logically, if humanity were to rediscover their point of origin they
>> would regard it with great reverence. It might become the center of a
>> new religion. The robots might consider that inadvisable.
>
>Thanks for actually responding to my initial question - and yes, this
>is a very good idea, actually, since we hear in "Robots and Empire"
>that the Settlers considers the Terran solar system "holy space". But
>I'm not sure it explains why Earth should be kept secret through
>twenty millennia. That's kind of like saying that science shouldn't
>explain how the universe was created, because it would make people
>revere that knowledge like a religion...
The robots might very well make that kind of decision. They're very
paternalistic after all and under their influence humanity has not
been very innovative or scientific.
Wolfspawn
Bag of Bones was written before the accident. How does an autobiographical
insert to fiction, that says he considered his work, pre-accident, to be
"mere construction" contradict a pre-accident work which claims to be
tired of that constructing?
Wolfspawn
> Not that hard for people other than you, apparently.
>
> Not all writers in King's work are autobiographical. This one writes
> different kinds of books, has a dead wife, no children, and at his core
> is coping with grief over something King himself has not experienced.
Actually, it might be something he'd LIKE to experience. He's said, about
Bag of Bones, that he was beginning to feel guilty about the fantasy of
hooking up with a hot young woman, and that maybe killing her off was a
bit of a cop out.
Kurt Busiek
Ah, so now you claim the secret codes say he likes writing; he just
didn't like it between BAG OF BONES and DUMA KEY.
kdb
Kurt Busiek
> On Sun, 3 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>
>> Not that hard for people other than you, apparently.
>>
>> Not all writers in King's work are autobiographical. This one writes
>> different kinds of books, has a dead wife, no children, and at his core
>> is coping with grief over something King himself has not experienced.
>
> Actually, it might be something he'd LIKE to experience.
Asshole.
kdb
Matthias Warkus
> The great-granddaddy for 20th century lit is James Branch Cabell's
> Biography of the Life of Manuel -- but you need a somewhat abstract
> theme to start with, to make that work. I would say arguably Cabell
> did it. The literary ancestry of that traces back to Balzac's Comedie
> Humaine, but he completed so little of his master project that the
> individual works don't cohere (IMO)
Zola finished his Rougon-Macquart cycle, but it's arguable whether that
was ever intended to be myth.
I still haven't got over reading "Germinal"; of course I knew beforehand
that naturalists wanted to write about people like scientists write
about animals, but I didn't know that Zola succeeded to that extent.
It's real disgusting stuff IMHO.
mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de
Matthias Warkus
> Bill Patterson <WHPat...@gmail.com> rote in news:8bdb2924-92dc-458d-
> b6d1-8f0...@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com:
>
>> I have, frankly, never understood why this should be objectionable per
>> se within SF fandom (as opposed to the way in which such a particular
>> mythopoeia is done).
>
> It's such a good idea it should be used more widely than in just sf. For
> instance, Beethoven should have spent the time he wasted on his last
> quartets and the Missa Solemnis writing bridging movements linking all nine
> symphonies together into one gigantic work. This would have been such an
> inspiration to Bruckner and Mahler!
This sounds like something some pretentious composers would like to have
done, c. 1910. I suppose no one sick enough to plan this had enough
talent to pull it through, though.
mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de
Wolfspawn
> On 2008-08-03 16:16:06 -0700, Wolfspawn <cr...@bfn.org> said:
>
> > On Sun, 3 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
> >
> >> Not that hard for people other than you, apparently.
> >>
> >> Not all writers in King's work are autobiographical. This one writes
> >> different kinds of books, has a dead wife, no children, and at his core
> >> is coping with grief over something King himself has not experienced.
> >
> > Actually, it might be something he'd LIKE to experience.
>
> Asshole.
Just ... go away.
Wolfspawn
No, DUMA KEY is about how he did NOT like writing, and rationalizes that
something good has come of his accident to free him from the drudgery of
the way he used to write, making him more creative.
This doesn't contradict a previous work, pre-accident, where the
autobiographical insert shows a profound aversion to writing.
An interesting little short story that he wrote, "Stationary Bike" also
tries to draw good from his accident, seeming to say that his exercize
regimen was bad for him in some way (his accident in real life interrupted
an exercize kick that he'd been on).
Kurt Busiek
> On Sun, 3 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>
>> On 2008-08-03 16:04:11 -0700, Wolfspawn <cr...@bfn.org> said:
>>
>>> On Sun, 3 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>>>
>>>> I can't speak to King's exact reasoning, but the idea that it's "hard
>>>> to interpret any other way" but as an autobiographical statement is
>>>> silly. One can as easily say that the lead character in DUMA KEY, a
>>>> former construction exec, after undergoing a traumatic accident with a
>>>> rehab ordeal similar to King's, discovers and embraces a creativity
>>>> that gives him a new life, and that must mean that King viewed his
>>>> pre-accident writing as merely "construction," but the accident woke
>>>> him up to deeper creativity, which he then uses to destroy the trauma
>>>> of the accident.
>>>>
>>>> It's also nonsense, but it's nonsense that contradicts your reading of
>>>> BAG OF BONES, on exactly the same kind of evidence.
>>>
>>> Bag of Bones was written before the accident. How does an autobiographical
>>> insert to fiction, that says he considered his work, pre-accident, to be
>>> "mere construction" contradict a pre-accident work which claims to be
>>> tired of that constructing?
>>
>> Ah, so now you claim the secret codes say he likes writing; he just
>> didn't like it between BAG OF BONES and DUMA KEY.
>
> No, DUMA KEY is about how he did NOT like writing,
And all those mythical lurkers nod once again. Sheesh.
kdb
Kurt Busiek
> On Sun, 3 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>
>> On 2008-08-03 16:16:06 -0700, Wolfspawn <cr...@bfn.org> said:
>>
>>> On Sun, 3 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>>>
>>>> Not that hard for people other than you, apparently.
>>>>
>>>> Not all writers in King's work are autobiographical. This one writes
>>>> different kinds of books, has a dead wife, no children, and at his core
>>>> is coping with grief over something King himself has not experienced.
>>>
>>> Actually, it might be something he'd LIKE to experience.
>>
>> Asshole.
>
> Just ... go away.
You did declare you'd be ignoring me, remember?
Instead, you've been explaining the secret codes by which Stephen King
sends you messages about how he wants his wife to die, and how he hates
writing and has more money than he'll ever be able to spend, but has
still written over a dozen novels and lots and lots of short fiction
since he started putting those secret codes in his books for you to
understand.
kdb
Wolfspawn
Translation: "No one agrees with you, even though I have no substantive
response". Weak.
Wolfspawn
You are still a devoted Stephen King fan. I understand.
Kurt Busiek
Ah, the secret codes again!
kdb
Peter Knutsen
> <soren...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>I am a huge fan of the Robot/Foundation series and I love the fact
>>that the two "franchises" were merged. It could have been done more
>>efficiently, if Asimov had taken the time and effort to think things
>>through properly, but I believe the Robot/Foundation universe is still
>>salvageable, I mean, viable. Even as it stands, it is the most epic
>>space opera ever, and with a few tweaks it will be cooler still.
>
> "Will be"? Asimov has passed away, and other people playing in his
> universe(s) doesn't really count for me.
I'll go so far as to say that the Asimov that wrote the original trilogy is a
different person from the Asimov that wrote the later sequels and prequels.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
pullo
"Bill Patterson" <WHPat...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:6cf0a0e6-fe89-4fad...@q5g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 3, 12:36�pm, "pullo" <pullo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> "Bill Patterson" <WHPatter...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> > Having tried for several years to understand what is meant by the
> > "brain eater" discussions here in this forum, I have come to the
> > conclusion that talking about the Brain Eater is itself a symptom that
> > the critical-thinking faculties of the author's brain has been eaten
> > -- or, more likely, wasted away from want of exercise.
>
> Pretty much.
> Possibly, though I am dubious. I think that Asimov's attempt went
> awry not because he joined together the robot stories and the Galactic
> empire,
I think it was at least a major factor if not the only one. The two themes
were so different as to make combining them a painfully obvious kludge.
He not only had to gloss over the anachronisms of 1950's thinking about
atomic powered spaceships, and robotics - of which the way he had envisaged
robotics is the larger gloss - he had to work them into a uncontradicting
whole.
> but because the way he developed the psionic ability of the
> robots vitiated and destroyed the initial reason for writing the
> stories as he did: putting the Moxon's Master syndrome to rest once
> and for all, The later books skirt the terms of the debate laid out
> in The Humanoids without actually ever joining the issues and so
> become, to an extent "idiot plots." The psychic manipulation of
> subsequent history becomes more and more tortuous and the ultimate end
> of it all -- Galactic Gaia -- just falls flat.
Agree. The Galactic Gaia ending was.... flat.
mimus
It was Ives, but he wanted to play them all simultaneously.
--
Once again the familiar miracle: from chaos, music.
< Vance
Bill Snyder
wrote:
^^^^
You misspelled "factual." HTH. HAND.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
Kurt Busiek
I bet he didn't translate his original claim that the lurkers were
nodding their heads as "Nobody agrees, but I'll pretend they do." It's
a pretty good translation, though.
But his last two posts have provided translations/excuses that
comfortably affirm his worldview -- everything can be decoded to
support him, so everyone secretly agrees with him, once you get past
the troublesome surface.
kdb
Wolfspawn
Seriously, do you do this often? You aren't asking for clarification, and
you are snipping any I provide. What's the deal? Are you my own personal
Terry Austin now? And why did Stephen King trigger this attack? You didn't
complain during the G.R.R. Martin thread, and we had a civil discussion
there about R.E. Howard.
So what gives? You object to the emphatic nature of my statements? I am
able to back them up. I'm not just blowing smoke.
I'm asking a question. Are you a devoted Stephen King fan? You are
reacting as if you know a little bit about him.
Kurt Busiek
> On Sun, 3 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>
>> On 2008-08-03 17:38:26 -0700, Wolfspawn <cr...@bfn.org> said:
>>
>>> On Sun, 3 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Just ... go away.
>>>>
>>>> You did declare you'd be ignoring me, remember?
>>>>
>>>> Instead, you've been explaining the secret codes by which Stephen King
>>>> sends you messages about how he wants his wife to die, and how he hates
>>>> writing and has more money than he'll ever be able to spend, but has
>>>> still written over a dozen novels and lots and lots of short fiction
>>>> since he started putting those secret codes in his books for you to
>>>> understand.
>>>
>>> You are still a devoted Stephen King fan. I understand.
>>
>> Ah, the secret codes again!
>
> Seriously, do you do this often? You aren't asking for clarification, and
> you are snipping any I provide. What's the deal?
Your "clarifications" are inane.
> And why did Stephen King trigger this attack?
It didn't -- I also disagreed with you in similar terms over your
lunatic assertion that that dippy little online story's "whole point"
was to bash Hillary detractors. Your clarifications were just as inane
there.
> So what gives? You object to the emphatic nature of my statements? I am
> able to back them up. I'm not just blowing smoke.
Yes, you are. You really, truly are.
> I'm asking a question. Are you a devoted Stephen King fan? You are
> reacting as if you know a little bit about him.
I like quite a bit of King, and dislike some as well. There have been
times I've avoided reading King, and times I've sought out his work.
Some of the novels you've been bashing, I don't like, some I do.
I disagree with your original statement, and your "clarifications" have
been ludicrous, as you declare that there's no other way to interpret
his fiction except via the lunatic leaps you make. What you "see" in
the work is fueled by your own obsession, as with the Martin stuff and
the Clinton stuff, and you think simply repeating it louder is backing
yourself up, just like you imagine lurkers sagely nodding their heads.
You also seem to have analyzed the secret codes in King's novels right
up to the latest one, despite your conviction that he's no good any
more, which I suppose could be decoded to mean that you're driven by an
anger that makes you read all this stuff you dislike so you can find
the messages in it that say King secretly agrees with you.
And you seem to really want to keep telling someone who's already said
he thinks you're demented and obsessive about it how it really works,
and what the secret messages are...
kdb
Wolfspawn
Avoiding the issue. Are you a Stephen King fan or aren't you?
Kurt Busiek
No, responding to Bill Snyder.
> Are you a Stephen King fan or aren't you?
Answered in response to the post where you asked, not in response to a
post from someone else, who didn't ask.
Do try to pay attention.
kdb
Sean O'Hara
> >
> I'll simply point out that King as dropped a plethora of clues that,
> whatever his reasons for writing, he does NOT enjoy it anymore. The entire
> novel of BAG OF BONES is one giant confession in this regard.
>
That must be why, even after retiring with a bajillion bucks and all
his books still in print and selling well, he keeps writing as a
hobby and publishing anything that's salable.
--
Sean O'Hara <http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com>
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of
thought which they seldom use.
-Kierkegaard
Sean O'Hara
declared:
>>
> Not all writers in King's work are autobiographical.
You mean he doesn't routinely go to remote mountain cabins to finish
books, and was never held hostage by a deranged fan who made him
rewrite Pet Semetary with a happy ending?
And he's not a schizophrenic who created a psychotic alternate
personality to assuage his guilt over plagiarism?
But surely he once rode across the US on a motorcycle with plans to
write a book called "Travels With Harley"?
--
Sean O'Hara <http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com>
Hermes: I respect your diversity to the extent the law requires.
-Futurama
Wolfspawn
> In the Year of the Earth Rat, the Great and Powerful Wolfspawn declared:
> > >
> > I'll simply point out that King as dropped a plethora of clues that,
> > whatever his reasons for writing, he does NOT enjoy it anymore. The entire
> > novel of BAG OF BONES is one giant confession in this regard.
> >
>
> That must be why, even after retiring with a bajillion bucks and all
> his books still in print and selling well, he keeps writing as a
> hobby and publishing anything that's salable.
Sean, he's been "retiring" ever since THE STAND. What he said was "I
consider myself retired by THE STAND, and IT is the one I'll go out on"
In the same interview, I think he said, about IT "I should call it SHIT".
It's not like he isn't able to see when his work has gone bad. He'll say
so of his work in some interview, and then defend himself against critics
of his work in others.
Wolfspawn
> > Seriously, do you do this often? You aren't asking for clarification, and
> > you are snipping any I provide. What's the deal?
>
> Your "clarifications" are inane.
Ad hominems again (and repeatedly). You need to ask yourelf why you have
reduced yourself to this frothing.
> > And why did Stephen King trigger this attack?
>
> It didn't -- I also disagreed with you in similar terms over your
> lunatic assertion that that dippy little online story's "whole point"
> was to bash Hillary detractors. Your clarifications were just as inane
> there.
So, are you a big big fan of Hillary Clinton? I don't understand the venom
over a disagreement as to the author's intention in such a slight, silly
article.
> > So what gives? You object to the emphatic nature of my statements? I am
> > able to back them up. I'm not just blowing smoke.
>
> Yes, you are. You really, truly are.
Are the lurkers nodding with you silently in agreement?
> > I'm asking a question. Are you a devoted Stephen King fan? You are
> > reacting as if you know a little bit about him.
>
> I like quite a bit of King, and dislike some as well. There have been
> times I've avoided reading King, and times I've sought out his work.
> Some of the novels you've been bashing, I don't like, some I do.
>
> I disagree with your original statement, and your "clarifications" have
> been ludicrous, as you declare that there's no other way to interpret
> his fiction except via the lunatic leaps you make.
Have you tried offering alternative interpretations, so see if I was
amenable to altering my position, or my interpretation? You seem to be
merely offering ad-hominem's like "lunatic", which isn't going to open up
discussion, but shut it down hard.
> What you "see" in
> the work is fueled by your own obsession, as with the Martin stuff and
> the Clinton stuff, and you think simply repeating it louder is backing
> yourself up, just like you imagine lurkers sagely nodding their heads.
Are you not doing what you accusse me of doing to King, reading my mind
(on very short association, might I add) and making emphatic statements
about what I'm obsessed about? For instance, you are making the silly
assumption that I'm obsessed with Hillary Clinton, when I've been a
supporter of the Clintons in the past, and a scornful attacker of those
who preach Limbaughite propaganda about her. I even agree with the
original article writer about people who rejecte Hillary soley because
she's a woman. I merely thought the article was constructed solely for her
sake. Whether I'm right or wrong doesn't explain your venom, unless you
misunderstood my investment in Hillary being promoted or not.
> You also seem to have analyzed the secret codes in King's novels right
> up to the latest one, despite your conviction that he's no good any
> more, which I suppose could be decoded to mean that you're driven by an
> anger that makes you read all this stuff you dislike so you can find
> the messages in it that say King secretly agrees with you.
>
> And you seem to really want to keep telling someone who's already said
> he thinks you're demented and obsessive about it how it really works,
> and what the secret messages are...
And you seem really driven, in a demented and obsessive way, to shouting
"He's demented and obsessive! Don't listen to him!" Why? Is it due to an
unusual love for Hillary Clinton, or an unusual love for Stephen King?
Were you humiliated as a child by someone like me? What?
Sean O'Hara
> >
> Why is one needed? The James Bond movies after the first two or three
> had little to do with the books, either. Need I footnote that remark?
>
The character quickly changed from Fleming's
Mike-Hammer-as-secret-agent to a tuxedo-wearing superhero, but it
wasn't until well into the Moore era that they started completely
abandoning the plots of the novel -- "The Spy Who Loved Me" was the
first, but Fleming himself had sold the rights on the condition that
EON only use the title. And of course "Casino Royale" is probably
the most faithful adaptation since "On Her Majesty's Secret Service."
--
Sean O'Hara <http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com>
It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them.
-Caron de Beaumarchais
Kurt Busiek
> On Sun, 3 Aug 2008, Kurt Busiek wrote:
>
>> It didn't -- I also disagreed with you in similar terms over your
>> lunatic assertion that that dippy little online story's "whole point"
>> was to bash Hillary detractors. Your clarifications were just as inane
>> there.
>
> So, are you a big big fan of Hillary Clinton?
Nope. I was indifferent to her until her campaign got desperate and
bitter, and haven't liked her much since. I think she's an adequate
politician who doesn't know how to run a competitive campaign, and has
poor standards for how to campaign against a member of her own party.
> I don't understand the venom over a disagreement as to the author's
> intention in such a slight, silly
> article.
That's because you're seeking an ulterior motive to explain away my
mocking your absurd charges, rather than considering that maybe I'm
puncturing your ridiculosities because they're ridiculous.
>> Yes, you are. You really, truly are.
>
> Are the lurkers nodding with you silently in agreement?
On occasion, they've piped right up and agreed with me. Hasn't
happened with you, but you still declared that they silently nodded
along with you.
>> I disagree with your original statement, and your "clarifications" have
>> been ludicrous, as you declare that there's no other way to interpret
>> his fiction except via the lunatic leaps you make.
>
> Have you tried offering alternative interpretations, so see if I was
> amenable to altering my position, or my interpretation?
I'm not trying to get you to alter your position. I'm laughing at it.
Having seen people try to get you to alter obviously-lunatic positions,
I think that's by far the best option.
> Is it due to an
> unusual love for Hillary Clinton, or an unusual love for Stephen King?
> Were you humiliated as a child by someone like me? What?
"It must be an ulterior motive! He can't actually disagree with me!
Please, please, admit to an ulterior motive!"
Your charges about the online SF piece were silly regardless of my
opinions of Hillary, and your claim that King hates writing and hides
negative reviews of his own work in those works where you can find and
understand them would be silly regardless of whether you're saying it
about a book I liked or a book I didn't.
And I don't recall being humiliated as a child by someone who read into
things and then declared that they confirmed his own fevered
imagination.
It may simply be that I mock your ludicrous claims because they're
ludicrous and merit mockery. I know that doesn't fit your worldview,
but so it goes.
kdb