Worst Hugos Ever?
Rich Horton
Here's my cut:
Everybody assumes THEY'D RATHER BE RIGHT has to come first. Well,
sure. I read it several years ago, out of duty, and it really is very
bad. Although I will say two things about it. 1 -- it is actually very
ambitious. It just doesn't realize its ambitions very well. And 2 --
check out the other choices from 1954 sometime. With one glaring but
anomalous exception -- THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING -- there really
wasn't that much to choose from. And let's be honest -- would that
many mostly American voters have seen Tolkien's novel yet? And did
voters go for such outright fantasy very readily back then? The answer
in both cases, I think, is no. (Let alone that THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE
RING wasn't even really a completed work.) People tend to choose
something like Poul Anderson's BRAIN WAVE as the alternate choice, and
while that's better than THEY'D RATHER BE RIGHT, it's not an enduring
classic either.
Other nominees, among novels ...
STRANGER IS A STRANGE LAND, of course. But you have to admit that it's
a fascinating book in many ways. And very influential, if perhaps not
always for good. And, to be honest, the other choices that year
weren't obviously brilliant.
This is a bit unfair, as I never actually finished the book, but I
tend to think that Fritz Leiber's THE WANDERER was a really poor
choice. I tried to read the book once and got bored, but I suspect it
is at least decent -- Leiber was a great writer -- but surely not
Hugo-worthy, and there were other choices that year, such as DAVY and
THE PLANET BUYER (the first of what became NORSTRILIA).
FOUNDATION'S EDGE isn't an awful novel, either, but it's far from
great. It was clearly a "we love Isaac" award, fair enough in a sense,
but the winner should have been either COURTSHIP RITE, THE PRIDE OF
CHANUR, or THE SWORD OF THE LICTOR. (Or even FRIDAY!)
I love Lois McMaster Bujold's work, and I really enjoyed THE VOR GAME
-- but I certainly didn't think it Hugo worthy. And it beat out THE
FALL OF HYPERION, and EARTH, and QUEEN OF ANGELS (the last of which
was probably my choice).
I have a curious relationship with the 1997 awards -- I read none of
the books on the shortlist, then or since, so I can't really comment.
I know I had a satisfying list of five nominees that year, none of
which made it. But I will say that, love Joe Haldeman's work though I
do, nothing I have read about FOREVER PEACE makes me think it a worthy
winner.
I suppose I could join the chorus condemning the 2001 award to HARRY
POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE, but I actually don't think that that
terrible an award. No, I didn't vote for it -- I voted for THE SKY
ROAD -- but it's pretty enjoyable. And I felt that people were more
likely to complain that it won because a) it's YA, or b) it's fantasy,
or c) it's a bestseller; or d) the writer is not "One of Us"; than to
complain that it's not as good as some of the other books published
that year. Which seems wrongheaded to me.
Now in 2003 the award went to Robert J. Sawyer's HOMINIDS, a truly bad
book. I would rank this as the worst Hugo award winning novel after
THEY'D RATHER BE RIGHT. The other four novels on the shortlist were
all very nice -- my choice for the award was BONES OF THE EARTH, but
to give it to THE SCAR, or KILN PEOPLE, or THE YEARS OF RICE AND SALT
would not have been a bad thing. To give it to HOMINIDS was a
disgrace. I guess the other novels split the "good taste" bloc,
allowing the "awful taste" choice to win.
I also came up with a few cases in which really great books were
beaten out by also very worthy books -- A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ
beating out ROGUE MOON, for example; or STAND ON ZANZIBAR beating
NOVA, or THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE beating JEM, and that same year an
even better novel, ENGINE SUMMER, not even getting nominated.
So -- I can list only three really bad choices, in order:
1. They'd Rather Be Right
2. Hominids
3. The Wanderer
Forced to add two more, I'd probably list Foundation's Edge, and
Stranger in a Strange Land.
In short fiction, I have a harder time really condemning stories. Some
seem dated now, but were pretty good then. I do think Harlan Ellison
won a few times for decent stories that weren't the best in their year
... stuff like "The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World"
-- not a bad story, but the best? No. (On the other hand, he also damn
well deserved to win for some of his other stuff.)
A few particularly weak choices: Poul Anderson's "Hunter's Moon".
Gordon R. Dickson's "The Cloak and the Staff" (which beat out Michael
Shea's "The Autopsy", only the greatest SF horror story EVER, and also
beat Howard Waldrop's "The Ugly Chickens".) Then Anderson again with
"The Saturn Game" (beating out Phyllis Eisenstein's "In the Western
Tradition", a great story). Jack Williamson's "The Ultimate Earth" was
a very weak choice, and it too beat out some great stuff: "Seventy-Two
Letters" most obviously.
Mike Schilling
>
> A few particularly weak choices: Poul Anderson's "Hunter's Moon".
> Gordon R. Dickson's "The Cloak and the Staff" (which beat out
> Michael
> Shea's "The Autopsy", only the greatest SF horror story EVER, and
> also
> beat Howard Waldrop's "The Ugly Chickens".) Then Anderson again with
> "The Saturn Game" (beating out Phyllis Eisenstein's "In the Western
> Tradition", a great story). Jack Williamson's "The Ultimate Earth"
> was
> a very weak choice, and it too beat out some great stuff:
> "Seventy-Two
> Letters" most obviously.
Also Anderson's "The Sharing of Flesh". It's a clever concept and a
decent story, but definitely a "read once" (I am having no luck
finding the other nominees for 1969.)
Rich Horton
And all those stories are by Grand Masters -- a clear case of name
recognition and respect for elders trumping quality. (The other story
short fiction winners in the same year as "The Cloak and the Staff"
are also examples: Dickson's "Lost Dorsai" and Clifford Simak's
"Grotto of the Dancing Deer".
Dan Goodman
> Adam-Troy Castro wondered what I thought the Worst Hugos Ever were.
> Here's my cut:
Not nearly the worst, but I think this 1992 Hugo winner is Least
Appropriate:
Best Related Non-Fiction Book The World of Charles Addams by Charles
Addams [Knopf, 1991]
--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://dangoodman.livejournal.com
mirror 1: http://dsgood.insanejournal.com
mirror 2: http://dsgood.wordpress.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
David T. Bilek
wrote:
... snip lots
>So -- I can list only three really bad choices, in order:
>
>1. They'd Rather Be Right
>2. Hominids
>3. The Wanderer
>
>Forced to add two more, I'd probably list Foundation's Edge, and
>Stranger in a Strange Land.
_They'd Rather Be Right_ must be really, really wretched because there
isn't a seeming redeeming quality to Sawyer's effort. I guess most of
the words were spelled correctly. And the paper was very papery.
-David
William Hyde
>
> This is a bit unfair, as I never actually finished the book, but I
> tend to think that Fritz Leiber's THE WANDERER was a really poor
> choice. I tried to read the book once and got bored, but I suspect it
> is at least decent -- Leiber was a great writer -- but surely not
> Hugo-worthy,
This is a fairly common opinion - James shares it in spades, IIRC -
but I disagree. Admittedly, I haven't read it for two decades, but
it is quite a romp and has some disturbing ideas. I could argue that
it was "mote" before Niven and
Pournelle.
But I didn't know ...
and there were other choices that year, such as DAVY and
> THE PLANET BUYER (the first of what became NORSTRILIA).
... this. "Davy" may not just be my favourite SF novel of that year,
but of that decade(1).
Still, while in light of the above I would not have voted for it, I
also would not put it even close to the bottom of the winners
list. More middle of the pack.
(1) Speaking of which, whatever did happen to those unpublished
manuscripts of Pangborn that Peter Beagle
has? Someone who knows Beagle was going to ask about
this, we discussed it just the other day (say, five years ago).
I assume they're nothing like as good as his published work,
but they could be a lot worse than that and still be readable.
William Hyde
Thomas Lindgren
William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> writes:
> and there were other choices that year, such as DAVY and
>> THE PLANET BUYER (the first of what became NORSTRILIA).
>
> ... this. "Davy" may not just be my favourite SF novel of that year,
> but of that decade(1).
Hee. I found a 1st ed DAVY in the bookshop the other day, and
immediately bought it, even though it's been many years since I last
read it.
(I haven't really gotten any traction with THE WANDERER, I'm afraid,
even though I usually love Leiber. Maybe it's time for another try.)
Best,
Thomas
--
Thomas Lindgren
Joe Morris
> William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> writes:
> > and there were other choices that year, such as DAVY and
> >> THE PLANET BUYER (the first of what became NORSTRILIA).
> >
> > ... this. "Davy" may not just be my favourite SF novel of that year,
> > but of that decade(1).
> Hee. I found a 1st ed DAVY in the bookshop the other day, and
> immediately bought it, even though it's been many years since I last
> read it.
Great catch. I love Pangborn and was hugely disappointed that
Old Earth Books had to quit their reprinting program. I'd
love to have copies of some of his more obscure stuff like
"Wilderness of Spring". My favorite is probably the collection
"Still I Persist In Wondering" -- great stuff!
--
Joe Morris Atlanta history forums
jol...@gmail.com http://atlhistory.com
Charlie Stross
as <rrho...@prodigy.net> declared:
> Adam-Troy Castro wondered what I thought the Worst Hugos Ever were.
> Here's my cut:
Let me pour some gasoline on one particular smouldering
cigarette?
In 1985/6 STARTIDE RISING won the Hugo and Nebula for best
novel, beating out BLOOD MUSIC (in both awards).
To be fair, the novelette of BLOOD MUSIC had scooped the
awards in 1983/84 ... but I maintain that, with 20+ years of
hindsight, BLOOD MUSIC was a far more significant novel than
STARTIDE RISING. SR was fun, I will concede, but while it's
a fast, plot and character driven space opera that did much
to cement David Brin's reputation, it wasn't shatteringly
brilliant. In contrast, BM is arguably the best genre
biohorror novel of the 20th century (I think it beats out
THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN handily in this department), and
introduced a bunch of radical concepts new to SF --
computational metaphors in genetics, the singularity,
nanotechnology, and a stab at defining a plausible
mind-uploading scenario.
I'm not knocking on STARTIDE RISING as being a *bad* book --
but there was a better book on offer, the voters made
the wrong choice, and from today's vantage point it's
glaringly obvious.
-- Charlie
johan.g...@gmail.com
> Let me pour some gasoline on one particular smouldering
> cigarette?
>
> In 1985/6 STARTIDE RISING won the Hugo and Nebula for best
> novel, beating out BLOOD MUSIC (in both awards).
Try as I might, I can't summon much outrage at the thought of a good
book winning over a great one. Perhaps I need to practice.
> I'm not knocking on STARTIDE RISING as being a *bad* book --
> but there was a better book on offer, the voters made
> the wrong choice, and from today's vantage point it's
> glaringly obvious.
The problem with being ahead of your time is that your work tends to
be dismissed as lunatic ravings. In the field of database research,
one of the major conferences runs a 10-years-later award, with the
intention of recognizing papers that in retrospect turned out to be
influential. I suspect such an award would do SF some real good. It
would certainly be better than all those outdated awards for short
fiction.
Johan Larson
GSV Three Minds in a Can
wonderful person Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> said
>Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
>as <rrho...@prodigy.net> declared:
>
>> Adam-Troy Castro wondered what I thought the Worst Hugos Ever were.
>> Here's my cut:
>
>Let me pour some gasoline on one particular smouldering
>cigarette?
>
>In 1985/6 STARTIDE RISING won the Hugo and Nebula for best
>novel, beating out BLOOD MUSIC (in both awards).
>
>To be fair, the novelette of BLOOD MUSIC had scooped the
>awards in 1983/84 ... but I maintain that, with 20+ years of
>hindsight, BLOOD MUSIC was a far more significant novel than
>STARTIDE RISING. SR was fun, I will concede, but while it's
>a fast, plot and character driven space opera that did much
>to cement David Brin's reputation, it wasn't shatteringly
>brilliant. In contrast, BM is arguably the best genre
>biohorror novel of the 20th century
I'd concede 'novel', but personally I found his short story ('Sisters'
IIRC) considerably more bio-horrific.
As to _SR_, yeah, Ok, with hindsight it doesn't look as good. At the
time I (and others) thought the series was going somewhere and we were
going to get a great backstory and an even better continuation. Boy was
I sold a bill of goods .. 8<,
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
11,020 Km walked. 2,118 Km PROWs surveyed. 38.3% complete.
Charlie Stross
> As to _SR_, yeah, Ok, with hindsight it doesn't look as good. At the
> time I (and others) thought the series was going somewhere and we were
> going to get a great backstory and an even better continuation. Boy was
> I sold a bill of goods .. 8<,
I wasn't going to raise the sequels -- I think that even
considered on its own merits, Startide Rising hasn't fared
as well as (sequel-free) Blood Music.
NB: I may be biased on this -- I was just asked to write an
intro for a new German translation of Blood Music, so of
course had to re-read it for the first time in some years.
(And was blown off my feet by how well it holds up.)
-- Charlie
Thomas Lindgren
jol...@gmail.com (Joe Morris) writes:
> My favorite is probably the collection
> "Still I Persist In Wondering" -- great stuff!
Would you believe I have a copy of that one -- and isn't it a great
title -- but I haven't read it yet? It's in one of the disgraceful
piles that have accumulated over the years. One of these days ...
Will in New Haven
> Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
> as <G...@quik.clara.co.uk> declared:
>
> > As to _SR_, yeah, Ok, with hindsight it doesn't look as good. At the
> > time I (and others) thought the series was going somewhere and we were
> > going to get a great backstory and an even better continuation. Boy was
> > I sold a bill of goods .. 8<,
>
> I wasn't going to raise the sequels -- I think that even
> considered on its own merits, Startide Rising hasn't fared
> as well as (sequel-free) Blood Music.
From the PoV of a voter that year, though, doesn't winning awards in
short form the year before hut its chances? Also, having READ the
short the year before made reading the novel less compelling at least
one person I know. Couldn't the voters have had hte same problem?
I also think "Worst award-winner" and "Award winner that least
deserved to beat its runner up" are different categories. The second-
best novel of all time, if one existed, could theoretically win the
latter contest.
>
> NB: I may be biased on this -- I was just asked to write an
> intro for a new German translation of Blood Music, so of
> course had to re-read it for the first time in some years.
> (And was blown off my feet by how well it holds up.)
<sublininal>Write more fiction.</>
--
"We are stardust
Billion year old carbon" Joni Mitchell - "Woodstock"
>
> -- Charlie
Christopher Henrich
"Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
> Rich Horton wrote:
>
> > Adam-Troy Castro wondered what I thought the Worst Hugos Ever were.
> > Here's my cut:
>
> Not nearly the worst, but I think this 1992 Hugo winner is Least
> Appropriate:
>
> Best Related Non-Fiction Book The World of Charles Addams by Charles
> Addams [Knopf, 1991]
It took me several seconds to pick up on : NON-fiction ...???!!!
Actually, the fiction/nonfiction distinction is implemented by libraries
[1] in a slightly unintuitive way: cartoon books have a Dewey Decimal
number 742 or something like that, or a Library of Congress code N
something; neither of which is "fiction." But still.
There's a Gahan Wilson cartoon that pops to my mind. A painter says, "I
paint what I see." In front of his easel is a harmless park landscape.
*On* his easel is a painting of the same landscape, populated with
bogeymen and monsters.
--
Christopher J. Henrich
chen...@monmouth.com
htp://www.mathinteract.com
Dan Goodman
> In article <47c06e27$0$1117$8046...@auth.newsreader.iphouse.com>,
> "Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>
> > Rich Horton wrote:
> >
> > > Adam-Troy Castro wondered what I thought the Worst Hugos Ever
> > > were. Here's my cut:
> >
> > Not nearly the worst, but I think this 1992 Hugo winner is Least
> > Appropriate:
> >
> > Best Related Non-Fiction Book The World of Charles Addams by Charles
> > Addams [Knopf, 1991]
>
> It took me several seconds to pick up on : NON-fiction ...???!!!
>
> Actually, the fiction/nonfiction distinction is implemented by
> libraries [1] in a slightly unintuitive way: cartoon books have a
> Dewey Decimal number 742 or something like that, or a Library of
> Congress code N something; neither of which is "fiction." But still.
>
> There's a Gahan Wilson cartoon that pops to my mind. A painter says,
> "I paint what I see." In front of his easel is a harmless park
> landscape. On his easel is a painting of the same landscape,
> populated with bogeymen and monsters.
I remember that as "I paint what I see, child."
Jon Schild
I seem to be alone here in this opinion, but I very much liked Hominids,
and the rest of its trilogy. I liked the exploration of a very different
but still human society, among other things.
--
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-- Galileo Galilei
Gene Ward Smith
@news.xmission.com:
>> STRANGER IS A STRANGE LAND, of course. But you have to
admit that it's
>> a fascinating book in many ways. And very influential, if
perhaps not
>> always for good. And, to be honest, the other choices that
year
>> weren't obviously brilliant.
> I seem to be alone here in this opinion, but I very much
liked Hominids,
> and the rest of its trilogy. I liked the exploration of a
very different
> but still human society, among other things.
Hominids wasn't awful, but I don't see it as Hugo quality
either. But this is rather feeble, given that above we see
Stranger dissed, and yet Starship Troopers not even
mentioned. It could have gone to Dorsai! Or The Sirens of
Titan instead. Or even Brain Twister.
Damien Neil
> To be fair, the novelette of BLOOD MUSIC had scooped the
> awards in 1983/84 ... but I maintain that, with 20+ years of
> hindsight, BLOOD MUSIC was a far more significant novel than
> STARTIDE RISING. SR was fun, I will concede, but while it's
> a fast, plot and character driven space opera that did much
> to cement David Brin's reputation, it wasn't shatteringly
> brilliant.
I'd say that _Startide Rising_ is the best of the Uplift series, and the
Uplift series in general is significant for putting the word "uplift"
into the SF lexicon. Brin may not have invented the concept, but he
defined it. That counts for something in my book.
I don't have an opinion on _Startide Rising_'s value as opposed to
_Blood Music_--I read the short story that the latter is based on and
didn't care much for it, so I've never read the book--but I don't see
the selection of _SR_ as embarrassing in any way.
- Damien
Rich Horton
wrote:
Well, I don't dislike Starship Troopers, to be honest. I can see an
argument for THE SIRENS OF TITAN or DORSAI! beating it mind you. I
can't see an argument for BRAIN TWISTER (aka "That Sweet Little Old
Lady"), which would have had a chance to be on the list of Worst Hugos
had it one.
Sea Wasp
Well, one of the problem with the voting may be that -- even though
the Hugo voting crowd tends to have its own semi-literary pretensions
-- there are going to be some general more popular attitudes that
influence the vote, and one of them would strongly argue against
horror. *I* certainly would not vote for just about ANY horror book as
the top pick over any other decent book -- at least, not one that was
actually effective in engendering horror.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Sea Wasp
If that was Starship Troopers' competition, clearly the best book won.
Gene Ward Smith
news:47C18DBB...@sgeObviousinc.com:
> Well, one of the problem with the voting may be that
-- even though
> the Hugo voting crowd tends to have its own semi-literary
pretensions
> -- there are going to be some general more popular
attitudes that
> influence the vote, and one of them would strongly argue
against
> horror. *I* certainly would not vote for just about ANY
horror book as
> the top pick over any other decent book -- at least, not
one that was
> actually effective in engendering horror.
The roots of sf go back to horror-Frankenstein, Narrative of
Arthur Gordon Pym , Dracula. So it seems a little odd to
exclude it.
Gene Ward Smith
> If that was Starship Troopers' competition, clearly the
best book won.
What is good about Troopers? The armor?
stre...@rohan.sdsu.edu
> Charlie Stross <cha...@antipope.org> wrote:
> > To be fair, the novelette of BLOOD MUSIC had scooped the
> > awards in 1983/84 ... but I maintain that, with 20+ years of
> > hindsight, BLOOD MUSIC was a far more significant novel than
> > STARTIDE RISING. SR was fun, I will concede, but while it's
> > a fast, plot and character driven space opera that did much
> > to cement David Brin's reputation, it wasn't shatteringly
> > brilliant.
>
> I'd say that _Startide Rising_ is the best of the Uplift series, and the
> Uplift series in general is significant for putting the word "uplift"
> into the SF lexicon. Brin may not have invented the concept, but he
> defined it. That counts for something in my book.
Yup.
> I don't have an opinion on _Startide Rising_'s value as opposed to
> _Blood Music_--I read the short story that the latter is based on and
> didn't care much for it, so I've never read the book--but I don't see
> the selection of _SR_ as embarrassing in any way.
I bounced off of the _Blood Music_ novel somewhere on page two. It's
on the shelf (the ever-growing backlog) waiting for me to get to it
again.
I've reread _Startide Rising_ with enjoyment a couple of times.
--
--Stewart Stremler----------------...@rohan.sdsu.edu--
Performance difference due to programmer variability is greater than
that due to language variability. --Unknown
Sea Wasp
"What is good in Troopers, Wasp?"
"To wear powered armor... to drive the alien bugs before you... and
hear the lamentations of the critics!"
I would presume that much of what I find good you find to be bad.
Sea Wasp
Well, the roots of literature go back to the Iliad, but I doubt I'll
see that getting nominated for a Pulitzer any time soon.
I don't exclude it from consideration, but it's not going to get my
vote for BEST (unless it's "Best Horror", of course).
Gene Ward Smith
> I would presume that much of what I find good you find to
be bad.
You liked the "philosophy" lectures?
Will in New Haven
> Sea Wasp <seawaspObvi...@sgeObviousinc.com> wrote innews:47C18E3A...@sgeObviousinc.com:
>
> > If that was Starship Troopers' competition, clearly the
>
> best book won.
>
> What is good about Troopers? The armor?
What is good about any particular book you like? Is everyone who liked
Troopers _wrong_ in a sense that you can quantify? I don't think it's
an all-time great novel. For one thing, it was written as a juvenile
with the obvious limitations. And it isn't the best of his juveniles.
But there are many good things about it. Juan's development into a
responsible adult is the main thing I liked.
Will in NweHaven
--
"If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space."
Stolen from Patti Beadles on rec.gambling.poker
Larry Caldwell
@n58g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, johan.g...@gmail.com
(johan.g...@gmail.com) says...
> The problem with being ahead of your time is that your work tends to
> be dismissed as lunatic ravings. In the field of database research,
> one of the major conferences runs a 10-years-later award, with the
> intention of recognizing papers that in retrospect turned out to be
> influential. I suspect such an award would do SF some real good. It
> would certainly be better than all those outdated awards for short
> fiction.
What an excellent idea! However, I would just make qualification for
the award be publication over 10 years in the past. _The Martian
Chronicles_ never won an award. "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" never won an
award. There are many stories that stand out from the perspective of
decades that won nothing at the time.
As for alternate Hugos,
http://www.christian-sauve.com/texts/alternate-hugos.htm
is a web site written by someone who has put a lot more thought into it
than I have. Generally, his list is just like mine would be, only
different. :)
--
For email, replace firstnamelastinitial
with my first name and last initial.
Karl Johanson
> What is good about any particular book you like? Is everyone who liked
> Troopers _wrong_ in a sense that you can quantify? I don't think it's
> an all-time great novel. For one thing, it was written as a juvenile
> with the obvious limitations. And it isn't the best of his juveniles.
> But there are many good things about it. Juan's development into a
> responsible adult is the main thing I liked.
A responsible adult who learns that if the government tells you to throw
nukes and terror bombs at civilians, you do it.
Karl Johanson
John Pelan
wrote:
>Adam-Troy Castro wondered what I thought the Worst Hugos Ever were.
>Here's my cut:
>
>Everybody assumes THEY'D RATHER BE RIGHT has to come first. Well,
>sure. I read it several years ago, out of duty, and it really is very
>bad. Although I will say two things about it. 1 -- it is actually very
>ambitious. It just doesn't realize its ambitions very well. And 2 --
>check out the other choices from 1954 sometime. With one glaring but
>anomalous exception -- THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING -- there really
>wasn't that much to choose from. And let's be honest -- would that
>many mostly American voters have seen Tolkien's novel yet? And did
>voters go for such outright fantasy very readily back then? The answer
>in both cases, I think, is no. (Let alone that THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE
>RING wasn't even really a completed work.) People tend to choose
>something like Poul Anderson's BRAIN WAVE as the alternate choice, and
>while that's better than THEY'D RATHER BE RIGHT, it's not an enduring
>classic either.
>
>Other nominees, among novels ...
>
>STRANGER IS A STRANGE LAND, of course. But you have to admit that it's
>a fascinating book in many ways. And very influential, if perhaps not
>always for good. And, to be honest, the other choices that year
>weren't obviously brilliant.
Ahem... DARK UNIVERSE by Daniel F. Galouye was obviously brilliant.
>
>This is a bit unfair, as I never actually finished the book, but I
>tend to think that Fritz Leiber's THE WANDERER was a really poor
>choice. I tried to read the book once and got bored, but I suspect it
>is at least decent -- Leiber was a great writer -- but surely not
>Hugo-worthy, and there were other choices that year, such as DAVY and
>THE PLANET BUYER (the first of what became NORSTRILIA).
Leiber was certainly Hugi-worthy for lots of things, but THE WANDERER
probably wasn't one of them. DAVY would have been my choice that year.
>
>FOUNDATION'S EDGE isn't an awful novel, either, but it's far from
>great. It was clearly a "we love Isaac" award, fair enough in a sense,
>but the winner should have been either COURTSHIP RITE, THE PRIDE OF
>CHANUR, or THE SWORD OF THE LICTOR. (Or even FRIDAY!)
I'm really not partial to giving an award to an installment of a
longer work, so I'd go with COURTSHIP RITE, even though I vastly
prefer the Wolfe book.
>
>I love Lois McMaster Bujold's work, and I really enjoyed THE VOR GAME
>-- but I certainly didn't think it Hugo worthy. And it beat out THE
>FALL OF HYPERION, and EARTH, and QUEEN OF ANGELS (the last of which
>was probably my choice).
>
Tough call, FALL stands on its own pretty well, but QUEEN is awfully
good. Actually, I would submit THE DIVIDE by Robert Charles Wilson as
being far better than anything that was actually nominated.
>I have a curious relationship with the 1997 awards -- I read none of
>the books on the shortlist, then or since, so I can't really comment.
>I know I had a satisfying list of five nominees that year, none of
>which made it. But I will say that, love Joe Haldeman's work though I
>do, nothing I have read about FOREVER PEACE makes me think it a worthy
>winner.
It's the best of a fairly weak field.
>
>I suppose I could join the chorus condemning the 2001 award to HARRY
>POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE, but I actually don't think that that
>terrible an award. No, I didn't vote for it -- I voted for THE SKY
>ROAD -- but it's pretty enjoyable. And I felt that people were more
>likely to complain that it won because a) it's YA, or b) it's fantasy,
>or c) it's a bestseller; or d) the writer is not "One of Us"; than to
>complain that it's not as good as some of the other books published
>that year. Which seems wrongheaded to me.
>
>Now in 2003 the award went to Robert J. Sawyer's HOMINIDS, a truly bad
>book. I would rank this as the worst Hugo award winning novel after
>THEY'D RATHER BE RIGHT. The other four novels on the shortlist were
>all very nice -- my choice for the award was BONES OF THE EARTH, but
>to give it to THE SCAR, or KILN PEOPLE, or THE YEARS OF RICE AND SALT
>would not have been a bad thing. To give it to HOMINIDS was a
>disgrace. I guess the other novels split the "good taste" bloc,
>allowing the "awful taste" choice to win.
>
THEY'D RATHER BE RIGHT wasn't terrible, what it was in fact was one of
those "right person, wrong work" sort of awards that we often see at
the Academy Awards. Mark Clifton was a terrific writer and beloved by
the readers of ASTOUNDING, however, this certainly wasn't his best
work, not even close... It's surprising that it turned out so badly,
because it was the sort of theme that I'd expect Clifton to do very
well with.
HOMINIDS was simply embarrassing by any standards.
>I also came up with a few cases in which really great books were
>beaten out by also very worthy books -- A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ
>beating out ROGUE MOON, for example; or STAND ON ZANZIBAR beating
>NOVA, or THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE beating JEM, and that same year an
>even better novel, ENGINE SUMMER, not even getting nominated.
>
>So -- I can list only three really bad choices, in order:
>
>1. They'd Rather Be Right
>2. Hominids
>3. The Wanderer
>
>Forced to add two more, I'd probably list Foundation's Edge, and
>Stranger in a Strange Land.
>
>In short fiction, I have a harder time really condemning stories. Some
>seem dated now, but were pretty good then. I do think Harlan Ellison
>won a few times for decent stories that weren't the best in their year
>... stuff like "The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World"
>-- not a bad story, but the best? No. (On the other hand, he also damn
>well deserved to win for some of his other stuff.)
>
>A few particularly weak choices: Poul Anderson's "Hunter's Moon".
>Gordon R. Dickson's "The Cloak and the Staff" (which beat out Michael
>Shea's "The Autopsy", only the greatest SF horror story EVER, and also
>beat Howard Waldrop's "The Ugly Chickens".) Then Anderson again with
>"The Saturn Game" (beating out Phyllis Eisenstein's "In the Western
>Tradition", a great story). Jack Williamson's "The Ultimate Earth" was
>a very weak choice, and it too beat out some great stuff: "Seventy-Two
>Letters" most obviously.
Context means a lot here... There were periods where nothing that
could be construed as fantasy or horror had a chance. There was a
tremendous baclash for years after Robert Bloch won for "That
Hall-bound Train". Yes, it's a good story and everyone loved Bob
Bloch, but it really wasn't a Hugo-caliber tale and it isn't even one
of Bloch's best stories. In retrospect STAND ON ZANZIBAR doesn't hold
up as well as THE SHEEP LOOK UP (which I don't think even garnered a
nomination), and Shea's story has come to be considered a classic,
while Dickson's story is pretty much considered a worthwhile but minor
piece. I would suggest that at the time Dickson was at the peak of his
popularity and Shea and Waldrop were "outsiders" and/or "newcomers".
Another year that I have a problem with is 1992 as the only proper
choice would have been MOJO & THE PICKLKE JAR...
Cheers,
tphile
> Sea Wasp <seawaspObvi...@sgeObviousinc.com> wrote innews:47C1AD91...@sgeObviousinc.com:
>
> > I would presume that much of what I find good you find to
>
> be bad.
>
> You liked the "philosophy" lectures?
Yes, thats some of the best parts. both the classes and Rico's.
whether you agredd with it or not, none of it was mere random
technobabble
or psychobabble.
He made good points and arguments all of which served it purpose to
being
thought provoking and/or debate provoking.
There is a great deal for readers to find likeable or interesting.
tphile
tphile
In awards such as the Oscars, it is some times evident that an award
if
given not just for the individual but for the body of work.
for example Return of the King eared a well deserved best picture and
best director
but that it was for the whole trilogy also.
Troopers earned its award on its own merits, but imho also for the
rest of juveniles.
and being written as a juvenile does not keep it from being an "all-
time-great novel"
regardless of limitations, which a writer could have chosen to impose
on himself
ymmv
tphile
Mike Schilling
> In retrospect STAND ON ZANZIBAR doesn't hold
> up as well as THE SHEEP LOOK UP (which I don't think even garnered a
> nomination),
Doesn't it? The real weakness of SoZ is Chad Mulligan as obnoxious
auctorial mouthpiece, but he doesn't ruin the novel. To me, the
horrible, unrelieved ecopessimism of TSLU makes it far more of a
period peice.
mimus
You see some lack of horrible, unrelieved and, IMHO, well-merited
ecopessism nowadays?
Has global population change finally turned negative?
--
The creatures of light and darkness dance on the guillotine's lip, and
Isis fears the poet. The creatures of light and darkness don and
discard the garments of man, machine, and god; and Isis loves the
dance. The creatures of light and darkness are born in great numbers,
die in an instant, may rise again, may not rise again; and Isis
approves of the garments.
< _Creatures of Light and Darkness_
Sea Wasp
Indeed.
Mike Schilling
> On Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:54:04 +0000, Mike Schilling wrote:
>
>> John Pelan wrote:
>>
>>> In retrospect STAND ON ZANZIBAR doesn't hold
>>> up as well as THE SHEEP LOOK UP (which I don't think even garnered
>>> a
>>> nomination),
>>
>> Doesn't it? The real weakness of SoZ is Chad Mulligan as obnoxious
>> auctorial mouthpiece, but he doesn't ruin the novel. To me, the
>> horrible, unrelieved ecopessimism of TSLU makes it far more of a
>> period peice.
>
> You see some lack of horrible, unrelieved and, IMHO, well-merited
> ecopessism nowadays?
In written SF? Sure do.
Gene Ward Smith
427e-b373-7...@i29g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
>> You liked the "philosophy" lectures?
>
> Yes, thats some of the best parts. both the classes and
Rico's.
> whether you agredd with it or not, none of it was mere
random
> technobabble
> or psychobabble.
My objection is that Heinlein, like Ayn Rand in Atlas
Shrugged, cheats. But he cheats even worse than Rand cheats,
which takes some doing. On the other hand it's hard to tell
how much of the baloney he is shoveling he believes himself.
Steve Coltrin
Christopher Henrich <chen...@monmouth.com> writes:
> cartoon books have a Dewey Decimal number 742 or something like that
741.5.
--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Google Groups killfiled here
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press
David DeLaney
>Gene Ward Smith wrote:
>> What is good about Troopers? The armor?
>
> "What is good in Troopers, Wasp?"
>
> "To wear powered armor... to drive the alien bugs before you... and
>hear the lamentations of the critics!"
-- Conan the Librarian
> I would presume that much of what I find good you find to be bad.
Dave "de gooeystibus non disputandem est. How does one say 'the cake is a lie'
in Latin?" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
mimus
Ah, I see; it's moved from "speculative fiction" to "What the Hell are we
going to do?" while people babble about nuclear power and eating kelp and
anything and everything that allows evading facing up to the need to
develop, pass and enforce a rational population law (involving, among
other things, a refusal to piss away foreign aid to countries refusing to
pass and enforce such, or, more likely, which take advantage of such need
to pass one somehow favoring an "in" group at the bloody expense of the
"outs") . . . .
--
Overpopulation = energy crisis + nuclear-proliferation crisis
+ CO2- + water-vapor- + thermal-emissions crises
+ global-warming crisis + pollution crisis + acid-rain crisis
+ deforestation crisis + deoceanification crisis
+ species-extinction crisis + emerging-virus crisis
+ labor-value crisis + . . . .
GSV Three Minds in a Can
wonderful person Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> said
It ain't Fiction anymore when it's actually happening ..
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
11,020 Km walked. 2,118 Km PROWs surveyed. 38.3% complete.
Will in New Haven
> "Will in New Haven" <bill.re...@taylorandfrancis.com> wrote
Why yes, in the context of that war, you do. If you took the king's
shilling. Of course, the "terror bombs" weren't quite what one would
expect given your brief description nor was the use of nukes what you
imply.
Will in New Haven
--
Have agreed to carry Ring to Mordor. In hindsight, probably a bad
move"
.- Entry from Frodo's Secret Diary
>
> Karl Johanson
Will in New Haven
MMV. No matter how big a Heinlein fan you are, and I am certainly a
Heinlein fan, it would be hard to justify calling one of the
_milddling_ Heinlein juveniles an "all-time great novel." It's a good
book, and praising it infuriates someone I love to see infuriated, but
it isn't as good as RS or CotG or RP. It stands near the top of the
next group. It has caused a great deal of controversy, which is a good
thing, but that is why it gets so much attention while <The Rolling
Stones> just gets re-read constantly by almost everyone I know well
who likes Heinlein.
Will in New Haven
--
Have agreed to carry Ring to Mordor. In hindsight, probably a bad
move"
.- Entry from Frodo's Secret Diary
>
> tphile
Mike Schilling
> MMV. No matter how big a Heinlein fan you are, and I am certainly a
> Heinlein fan, it would be hard to justify calling one of the
> _milddling_ Heinlein juveniles an "all-time great novel." It's a
> good
> book, and praising it infuriates someone I love to see infuriated,
> but
> it isn't as good as RS or CotG or RP.
Or TSB or SJ or HSSWT or [1]... an awful lot of them, really.
1. TiTS isn't one of the very best, but I like the acronym.
Will in New Haven
wrote:
I agree about HSSWT and maybe SJ. I put Troopers in the same class as
TSB and TiTs and some others. Maybe, because of all the fuss about it,
more _important_ than the others.
Mike Schilling
> On Feb 24, 4:32 pm, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>> Will in New Haven wrote:
>>
>>> MMV. No matter how big a Heinlein fan you are, and I am certainly
>>> a
>>> Heinlein fan, it would be hard to justify calling one of the
>>> _milddling_ Heinlein juveniles an "all-time great novel." It's a
>>> good
>>> book, and praising it infuriates someone I love to see infuriated,
>>> but
>>> it isn't as good as RS or CotG or RP.
>>
>> Or TSB or SJ or HSSWT or [1]... an awful lot of them, really.
>>
>> 1. TiTS isn't one of the very best, but I like the acronym.
>
> I agree about HSSWT and maybe SJ. I put Troopers in the same class
> as
> TSB and TiTs and some others. Maybe, because of all the fuss about
> it,
> more _important_ than the others.
TSB is funny, maybe the funniest of all of them. (RS is funny too.)
One of the things I dislike about ST is its utter humorlessness.
Gene Ward Smith
news:eolwj.13440$Ej5....@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net:
>> it isn't as good as RS or CotG or RP.
>
> Or TSB or SJ or HSSWT or [1]... an awful lot of them,
really.
>
> 1. TiTS isn't one of the very best, but I like the acronym.
TiTS has one thing in common with Troopers, anyway: education
as child abuse.
Gene Ward Smith
news:9f22d1a0-0622-4f24-9cb6-
bb6ff9...@u10g2000prn.googlegroups.com:
> I agree about HSSWT and maybe SJ. I put Troopers in the
same class as
> TSB and TiTs and some others. Maybe, because of all the
fuss about it,
> more _important_ than the others.
Sure, controversy equals value. Contact is good because of
the crap about pi, not in spite of it. Atlas Shrugged is good
because it is so damned idiotic.
Karl Johanson
Asimov opinioned that we don't need to promote non-growth, we just need
to stop promoting growth.
> Overpopulation = energy crisis + nuclear-proliferation crisis
> + CO2- + water-vapor- + thermal-emissions crises
> + global-warming crisis + pollution crisis + acid-rain crisis
> + deforestation crisis + deoceanification crisis
> + species-extinction crisis + emerging-virus crisis
> + labor-value crisis + . . . .
Karl Johanson
tphile
> tphile <tph...@cableone.net> wrote in news:13d06701-2419-
>
>
>
> >> You liked the "philosophy" lectures?
>
> > Yes, thats some of the best parts. both the classes and
> Rico's.
> > whether you agredd with it or not, none of it was mere
> random
> > technobabble
> > or psychobabble.
>
> My objection is that Heinlein, like Ayn Rand in Atlas
> Shrugged, cheats. But he cheats even worse than Rand cheats,
> which takes some doing. On the other hand it's hard to tell
> how much of the baloney he is shoveling he believes himself.
therefore provoking thought and debate. mission accomplished
I never read Rand and only watched the Gary Cooper Fountainhead movie.
so can't really comment.
or what you exactly mean by "cheats"
but this is SF, and what the writer personally believes man help but
is
not essential or relevant.Like when playing devils advocate.
Does it matter if RAH believed in hanging and twenty lashes?
tphile
Gene Ward Smith
4eea-86a2-7...@62g2000hsn.googlegroups.com:
>> My objection is that Heinlein, like Ayn Rand in Atlas
>> Shrugged, cheats. But he cheats even worse than Rand
cheats,
>> which takes some doing. On the other hand it's hard to
tell
>> how much of the baloney he is shoveling he believes
himself.
>
* therefore provoking thought and debate. mission
accomplished
Promoting ignorance and stupidity is not the same thing as
promoting thought, and these books share the problem that
they promote ersatz thought at the expense of real thought in
all too many people.
tphile
> tphile <tph...@cableone.net> wrote in news:69389239-b6ee-
>
> >> My objection is that Heinlein, like Ayn Rand in Atlas
> >> Shrugged, cheats. But he cheats even worse than Rand
> cheats,
> >> which takes some doing. On the other hand it's hard to
> tell
> >> how much of the baloney he is shoveling he believes
> himself.
>
> * therefore provoking thought and debate. mission
> accomplished
>
> Promoting ignorance and stupidity is not the same thing as
> promoting thought, and these books share the problem that
> they promote ersatz thought at the expense of real thought in
> all too many people.
no it doesn't, at least with RAH
and even ersatz thought can lead to real thought
just as fiction can give insight into reality.
Are you the one the Will in New Haven likes to see infuriated?
tphile
Will in New Haven
> Will in New Haven <bill.re...@taylorandfrancis.com> wrote in
> news:9f22d1a0-0622-4f24-9cb6-
> bb6ff91e1...@u10g2000prn.googlegroups.com:
>
>
>
> > I agree about HSSWT and maybe SJ. I put Troopers in the
> same class as
> > TSB and TiTs and some others. Maybe, because of all the
> fuss about it,
> > more _important_ than the others.
>
> Sure, controversy equals value. Contact is good because of
> the crap about pi, not in spite of it. Atlas Shrugged is good
> because it is so damned idiotic.
These things add value to knowing you, Gene.
Gene Ward Smith
4f33-a9d6-7...@60g2000hsy.googlegroups.com:
>> Promoting ignorance and stupidity is not the same thing as
>> promoting thought, and these books share the problem that
>> they promote ersatz thought at the expense of real thought
in
>> all too many people.
>
> no it doesn't, at least with RAH
Really? He cooks the books. How many people notice how
fraudulent the whole thing is?
David DeLaney
>My objection is that Heinlein, like Ayn Rand in Atlas
>Shrugged, cheats. But he cheats even worse than Rand cheats,
>which takes some doing. On the other hand it's hard to tell
>how much of the baloney he is shoveling he believes himself.
Which of course promotes endless threads, to the point of it being a Usenet
Rule, on how much he does believe (or not).
Dave "his work here is done" DeLaney
David DeLaney
Longest haiku EVER
If we ever get artificial intelligence, will its thoughts be ersatz, real,
Memorex, or a combination thereof?
>Are you the one the Will in New Haven likes to see infuriated?
Something about "anger leads to prose, prose leads to contracts, ..." is
trying to form here but it isn't getting through. Oh well.
Dave
mimus
> tphile <tph...@cableone.net> wrote:
>
>>Gene Ward Smith <g...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Promoting ignorance and stupidity is not the same thing as
>>> promoting thought, and these books share the problem that
>>> they promote ersatz thought at the expense of real thought in
>>> all too many people.
>>
>>no it doesn't, at least with RAH
>>and even ersatz thought can lead to real thought
>>just as fiction can give insight into reality.
>
> Longest haiku EVER
>
> If we ever get artificial intelligence, will its thoughts be ersatz, real,
> Memorex, or a combination thereof?
>
>>Are you the one the Will in New Haven likes to see infuriated?
>
> Something about "anger leads to prose, prose leads to contracts, ..." is
> trying to form here but it isn't getting through. Oh well.
The only emailed offers I've gotten from Usenet prose are offers to take
up snake-farming or something like that.
--
You want a job and a lizard to ride?
< _The Einstein Intersection_
johan.g...@gmail.com
> Gene Ward Smith <g...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
>
> >My objection is that Heinlein, like Ayn Rand in Atlas
> >Shrugged, cheats. But he cheats even worse than Rand cheats,
> >which takes some doing. On the other hand it's hard to tell
> >how much of the baloney he is shoveling he believes himself.
>
> Which of course promotes endless threads, to the point of it being a Usenet
> Rule, on how much he does believe (or not).
>
> Dave "his work here is done" DeLaney
We still need a ST Flamewar drinking game.
Johan Larson
Wayne Throop
: My objection is that Heinlein, like Ayn Rand in Atlas
: which takes some doing. On the other hand it's hard to tell
: how much of the baloney he is shoveling he believes himself.
My perspective is that he didn't believe it literally.
Or, put another way, I think what you're objecting to is better described
as muddying the terminology. IMO he used "morals" to mean something more
like "games theory plus sociodynamics". The lectures were obviously
self-satisfied twaddle (if taken literally in their strongest sense)
that I think he *meant* it to be obvious. So, IMO, Rand and Sagan's
abuses of terminology are somewhat worse (though for two slightly
different reasons).
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Wayne Throop
: How does one say 'the cake is a lie' in Latin?
Mea navis aëricumbens anguillis abundat.
Quadibloc
> Ah, I see; it's moved from "speculative fiction" to "What the Hell are we
> going to do?" while people babble about nuclear power and eating kelp and
> anything and everything that allows evading facing up to the need to
> develop, pass and enforce a rational population law
Since a rational population law would be unpopular, it will put strain
on our democratic political system. So, if nuclear power can delay the
need for one, while more benign processes help to reduce population
growth, it is a good idea.
Actually, the last time I looked, the birthrate is not all that high
in the U.S. and Europe, so they really don't need draconian laws to
limit family size. They just need to stop admitting immigrants.
As for foreign aid, if that is distributed so as to foster the growth
of congenial political regimes that support democracy and free
enterprise, the poor countries will eventually become like us.
John Savard
Gene Ward Smith
@sheol.org:
>: Gene Ward Smith <ge...@chewbacca.org>
>: My objection is that Heinlein, like Ayn Rand in Atlas
>: Shrugged, cheats. But he cheats even worse than Rand
cheats,
>: which takes some doing. On the other hand it's hard to
tell
>: how much of the baloney he is shoveling he believes
himself.
>
> My perspective is that he didn't believe it literally.
I think you're right. I think he started with the model of
Athenian democracy, and wanted to produce a novel of ideas.
But I think he missed the point that screwing around the way
in which he did screws around with his chance to actually do
this, and ended up with a strange mess that comes across as a
kind of propaganda exercise for something I don't think be
believed in himself.
William December Starr
news.qwest.net said:
> Context means a lot here... There were periods where nothing that
> could be construed as fantasy or horror had a chance. There was a
> tremendous baclash for years after Robert Bloch won for "That
> Hall-bound Train". Yes, it's a good story and everyone loved Bob
> Bloch, but it really wasn't a Hugo-caliber tale
???? Mileage definitely varies.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
David Goldfarb
David DeLaney <d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote:
>Dave "de gooeystibus non disputandem est. How does one say 'the cake is a lie'
> in Latin?" DeLaney
There are a number of possibilities; I suggest "placenta mendacium est".
--
David Goldfarb |"Well, my days of not taking you seriously
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | are certainly coming to a middle."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- _Firefly_
Quadibloc
> thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote in news:1203899149
> @sheol.org:
> > My perspective is that he didn't believe it literally.
>
> I think you're right. I think he started with the model of
> Athenian democracy, and wanted to produce a novel of ideas.
> But I think he missed the point that screwing around the way
> in which he did screws around with his chance to actually do
> this, and ended up with a strange mess that comes across as a
> kind of propaganda exercise for something I don't think be
> believed in himself.
I certainly agree that Heinlein didn't think the society depicted in
Starship Troopers was an improvement in all respects on American-style
democracy.
But I think the "truth" about Starship Troopers is subtle, nuanced,
and complicated. I'd like to compare it to the novel "In the Wet", by
Nevil Shute.
For people unfamiliar with this latter novel,
(spoiler warning)
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
the narrator obtains the story from the dying words of a man isolated
during the rainy season in the Australian outback. This man speaks of
his life in the future, in which he is given an award for heroism for
assisting the Queen in escaping to Australia from Britain when an
attempt is made to put pressure on her by a venal Labor administration
in Britain. This allows Her Majesty to put the weight of her office
behind a needed political reform, through which citizens can have from
one to six votes based on various voter qualifications, plus the
Seventh Vote, which is given as an award for exceptional merit.
I think that in both cases, we're not dealing with serious proposals
for reform, so in that sense, the authors don't "believe" what their
stories seem to be making a case for.
But I suspect, also, that in both cases, the authors _did_ believe
that the people of America or Britain were exercising their universal
franchise in a less than responsible manner, and that if this trend
were not reversed - in the normal manner, by people recognizing that
they live in serious times, and becoming more sober and serious in
voting - perhaps some manner of restriction on the franchise would
ultimately become necessary to preserve freedom.
So Heinlein "propagandized" on behalf of the society he depicted, to
show that it wasn't all bad, and that it responded in a valid way to
certain contemporary problems. But because he was also writing an
entertaining story, and he needed a plausible situation in which to
place the society, and to clearly illustrate the principles involved,
he created a society more extreme than what he would actually advocate
in real life. Plus, of course, that the best thing to happen would be
for such an expedient, to deal with the failure of the American people
to be equal to Jeffersonian ideals, to be unnecessary.
John Savard
Quadibloc
wrote:
> Gene Ward Smith wrote:
> > The roots of sf go back to horror-Frankenstein, Narrative of
> > Arthur Gordon Pym , Dracula. So it seems a little odd to
> > exclude it.
>
> Well, the roots of literature go back to the Iliad, but I doubt I'll
> see that getting nominated for a Pulitzer any time soon.
>
> I don't exclude it from consideration, but it's not going to get my
> vote for BEST (unless it's "Best Horror", of course).
Horror based on ghosts, werewolves, or vampires certainly ought to be
excluded from an award for "best science-fiction" novel or story for
the good and sufficient reason that it isn't science-fiction!
How does one define science-fiction, by the way? There are definitions
of "hard" science-fiction and some of "good" science-fiction, but
people have seemed to shy away from a definition elastic enough to
match what people commonly think of as science fiction.
I would define "science fiction" in this looser sense as fiction which
includes one or more of the following: a scientific discovery, or
technological invention, which does not yet exist, or a natural
phenomenon of an unprecedented nature or scale, at least in human
experience.
That last qualifier means that despite the dinosaurs, a disaster movie
about an asteroid colliding with the Earth qualifies as science-
fiction. So does Star Wars, since it has spaceships and fancy
binoculars in it, even if it also has "the Force".
And so I would definitely qualify "At the Mountains of Madness" and
"The Shadow out of Time" as science fiction. However, despite being
entertaining, they're badly written, even by the standards of the
horror genre, and so I would hope they weren't considered Hugo
material.
But I wouldn't dismiss a good science-fiction story out of hand from
consideration because it also qualified as a horror story. I don't
think that's a likely genre for the best science-fiction story in a
given year to come from, but it's not impossible.
John Savard
Will in New Haven
John, I think this is the best explanation of what Heinlein probably
intended. And well-stated.
Will in New Haven
--
>
> John Savard
Bill Patterson
> On Feb 24, 12:38�pm, Gene Ward Smith <g...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
>
> > Sea Wasp <seawaspObvi...@sgeObviousinc.com> wrote innews:47C1AD91...@sgeObviousinc.com:
>
> > > I would presume that much of what I find good you find to
>
> > be bad.
>
> > You liked the "philosophy" lectures?
>
> Yes, thats some of the best parts. both the classes and Rico's.
> whether you agredd with it or not, none of it was mere random
> technobabble
> or psychobabble.
> being
> thought provoking and/or debate provoking.
> There is a great deal for readers to find likeable or interesting.
>
> tphile
One of the most curious and unusual features of Starship Troopers, to
my mind, is that first chapter. Johnny Rico as introduced is very
"identifiable" as a juvenile protagonist, but as the chapter goes on
the carnage goes sickeningly over the top, and the field nuke must
have been particularly affecting for the "duck-and-cover" generation
-- a fission frisson, as it were. It's a chapter that seeks to seduce
and repel at the same time, to fascinate in a cobra-and-mongoose sort
of way. True glamor in its original meaning. It clearly is setting
out a juvenile power fantasy and just as clearly could not be
conceivably be published by a juvenile publisher in 1959. There is
nothing in Heinlein's papers that point to deliberately trying to
break his option with Scribner's with that book, but the suspicion
rises anyway.
And it's the same kind of technical tour-de-force Heinlein pulls off
again in Job: A Comedy of Justice, at the point where we find out what
the protagonist was up to in his own home timeline.
I think in both cases, the figure is intended as a kind of V-effekt,
forcing the reader out of the narrative: this is what YOU are wanting/
doing, and the author wants you to be aware of it as the first step
of the evolutoin-of-consciousnes he wants to mediate in the book.
Bill Patterson
wrote:
> John Pelan wrote:
> > In retrospect STAND ON ZANZIBAR doesn't hold
> > up as well as THE SHEEP LOOK UP (which I don't think even garnered a
> > nomination),
>
> Doesn't it? �The real weakness of SoZ is Chad Mulligan as obnoxious
> auctorial mouthpiece, but he doesn't ruin the novel. �To me, the
> horrible, unrelieved ecopessimism of TSLU makes it far more of a
> period peice.
I was very fond of, and somewhat in awe of The Sheep Look Up, as kind
of the best example of that kind of book, nothwithstanding earlier
noteworthy examples like the Year of the Comet and The Santaroga
Barrier, but I'd say Stand On Zanzibar fairly earned its Hugo. I re-
read it recenty and thought it wasn't as *weighty* and *important* as
it seemed in its context, and it's clearly aged, but I would also say
the aging has touched it more lightly than some others. On the whole
I'd leave things as they are.
Quadibloc
> It clearly is setting
> out a juvenile power fantasy and just as clearly could not be
> conceivably be published by a juvenile publisher in 1959. There is
> nothing in Heinlein's papers that point to deliberately trying to
> break his option with Scribner's with that book, but the suspicion
> rises anyway.
I did see some references to Starship Troopers as a "juvenile" in this
thread, and I was surprised at that, even if it has a few structural
similarities to some of his juveniles.
John Savard
Bill Patterson
Most of the remarks I've seen on how much of "X" does Heinlein believe
are conducted in terms that don't make any sense ab initio. Stranger-
chat is the worst offender in this regard, much of the "how much of
'x'" being stuff that actually isn't in the book in the first place.
However, I digress.
We know from Heinlein's papers that he did not "believe" in the first
premise of Starship Troopers, the rule of veterans (it was a
provocative remark his father had made in 1912 or so), but what he did
believe was that it had the makings of a good story in it, and the
fact that he remembered it and was reacting to it 47 years later is
pretty good support for that conclusion. And the fact that we're
talking about the book nearly fifty years later is also pretty good
evidence that it was a good conclusion.
I would say that even at his most polemical that remains true:
whatever is in a Heinlein book is there because he thought it made a
good story (as well as having the qualities he was looking for of
being provocative and telling about, particularly, the way the world
actually worked as opposed to the pretty myths).
Bill Patterson
I've found it useful to read the "morals" lectures in Starship
Troopers as glosses on Generation of Vipers and Wylie's Essay on
Morals. Also applies to the Forrestal Lecture in 1973, btw.
Bill Patterson
That's a very nice meditation on the intentionality behind Starship
Troopers, with much to recommend it. One thing I always found curious
-- in one of the very few comments Heinlein ever made about one of his
own books, he suggested people look at Twain's "Curious Republic of
Gondour" which is about acquiring additional franchises. Starship
Troopers is "about" restricting franchise. He certainly does seem to
have believed the current theory of "warm body" franchise was a Bad
Thing and No Good Can Come of It.
I took the comment as supporting the notion that what he's really
interested in is a debate, internal most likely, about the nature of
citizenship as a way of getting away from encrusted "received" notions
of one's responsibilities as a citizen, and NOT advocacy of a
particular position. So he's more engaged in preparing the groundwork
for a public debate than taking part in a public debate . . .
. . . and that means "polemical" is not quite the right term to apply
to it, is it? At least, not in the usual sense.
Charlton Wilbur
KJ> Asimov opinioned that we don't need to promote non-growth, we
KJ> just need to stop promoting growth.
And if you look at all the societies that have birth control widely
available, health care good enough that the vast majority of children
will grow to adulthood, and more means of supporting oneself in old
age than 'my numerous children will do it,' you find that Asimov
indeed seems to have been right -- as those societies tend to have
population growth close to zero.
Charlton
--
Charlton Wilbur
cwi...@chromatico.net
Howard
>
> And it's the same kind of technical tour-de-force Heinlein pulls off
> again in Job: A Comedy of Justice, at the point where we find out what
> the protagonist was up to in his own home timeline.
>
> I think in both cases, the figure is intended as a kind of V-effekt,
> forcing the reader out of the narrative: this is what YOU are wanting/
> doing, and the author wants you to be aware of it as the first step
> of the evolutoin-of-consciousnes he wants to mediate in the book.- Hide quoted text -
It's been a long time since I've read Job. Can you remind me what the
protagonist was up to?
Gene Ward Smith
41a2-9ab2-4...@e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
> So Heinlein "propagandized" on behalf of the society he
depicted, to
> show that it wasn't all bad, and that it responded in a
valid way to
> certain contemporary problems.
The trouble is, he didn't show it; this is not at all what he
showed. He assumes that there could not be any serious
opposition to his plan, which is ludicrous. That gets
supported by a specious argument which assumes that the only
kind of power is force of arms, plainly false, and that the
only people who could resort to that would be veterans, also
false. What the hell his society would do with a Gandhi we
don't see, nor how they deal with the fact that so much of
the resources and power belongs to the non-veterans.
But that's not the worst of it; the worst of it is that what
we are shown is a propaganda campaign directed at youth
worthy of Stalinist Russia. Instead of Scientific Socialism
we get another brand of pseudo-science, is all. This is what
he shows. I don't think this was really his intent; I think
the book is a failure from the point of view of what, I
surmise, he was attempting. He would have been much better
off just doing Athens in Space, sans the slavery.
Gene Ward Smith
4f71-a09f-d...@p73g2000hsd.googlegroups.com:
> I would define "science fiction" in this looser sense as
fiction which
> includes one or more of the following: a scientific
discovery, or
> technological invention, which does not yet exist, or a
natural
> phenomenon of an unprecedented nature or scale, at least in
human
> experience.
That would mean that not only are Watt's Vampires in Space
science fiction, so is Ghostbusters. This is the chromed and
shiny definition of what science fiction is, which has
something to recommend it but also problems at the margins.
It leads to the conclusion that all you need to make horror
into science fiction is some chrome, a la Frankenstein.
Gene Ward Smith
news:e16f8fc4-1fb7-453a-86c5-
000a94...@n75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:
> I would say that even at his most polemical that remains
true:
> whatever is in a Heinlein book is there because he thought
it made a
> good story (as well as having the qualities he was looking
for of
> being provocative and telling about, particularly, the way
the world
* actually worked as opposed to the pretty myths).
*
Why does Heinlein depict Stalinesque pseudoscientific
indoctrination with seeming approval? I think the book gets
away from him in this respect.
Quadibloc
> I've found it useful to read the "morals" lectures in Starship
> Troopers as glosses on Generation of Vipers and Wylie's Essay on
> Morals. Also applies to the Forrestal Lecture in 1973, btw.- Hide quoted text -
I have read Generation of Vipers, the book that added "momism" to the
language.
John Savard
Gene Ward Smith
4284-8473-7...@s13g2000prd.googlegroups.com:
Me too, God knows why. The man needed the services of a good
psychotherapist.
Quadibloc
> nor how they deal with the fact that so much of
> the resources and power belongs to the non-veterans.
It may well be flawed. We're asked to assume that the veterans being
the only voters doesn't lead to them abusing their position and
exploiting non-voters. The society is apparently the outgrowth of a
crisis that made the need for a change obvious.
> But that's not the worst of it; the worst of it is that what
> we are shown is a propaganda campaign directed at youth
A literary device to sneak in an infodump, but the propagandizing is
not characterized as mendacious, so if you find it so, I think the
issue would be with at least a part of Heinlein's real beliefs.
> He would have been much better
> off just doing Athens in Space, sans the slavery.
But that one has been overdone; probably he avoided that because he
would not have wished to do something cliched - and dishonest, given
that he was no believer in "human perfectibility".
John Savard
Quadibloc
> That would mean that not only are Watt's Vampires in Space
> science fiction, so is Ghostbusters. This is the chromed and
> shiny definition of what science fiction is, which has
> something to recommend it but also problems at the margins.
> It leads to the conclusion that all you need to make horror
> into science fiction is some chrome, a la Frankenstein.
You make a valid point. At one point, I remember thinking of this
definition as the kind of definition you would want if you were
planning on levying a *tax* on science fiction.
So, yes, one wants to bring in other questions. Which genre dominates,
for example. Is the science fiction more than just a backdrop for
retelling Homer, or Arthur Conan Doyle... or C. S. Forester, to recall
an infamous example *currently* in bookstores - as opposed to the
science-fiction element and its implications being central to the
plot.
John Savard
Gene Ward Smith
4d49-8d45-7...@d5g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:
>> But that's not the worst of it; the worst of it is that
what
>> we are shown is a propaganda campaign directed at youth
>
> A literary device to sneak in an infodump, but the
propagandizing is
> not characterized as mendacious, so if you find it so, I
think the
> issue would be with at least a part of Heinlein's real
beliefs.
You think Heinlein really believed he could prove
mathematically that his preferred ethical values were
correct? I doubt it; that would make him a crackpot.
Gene Ward Smith
4d49-8d45-7...@d5g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:
>> He would have been much better
>> off just doing Athens in Space, sans the slavery.
>
> But that one has been overdone; probably he avoided that
because he
> would not have wished to do something cliched - and
dishonest, given
> that he was no believer in "human perfectibility".
As far as I can see it hasn't been done at all. Who did
Athens in Space, and what does that have to do with human
perfectibility?
David Johnston
wrote:
>Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in news:c7b6ad4c-e361-
>4f71-a09f-d...@p73g2000hsd.googlegroups.com:
>
>> I would define "science fiction" in this looser sense as
>fiction which
>> includes one or more of the following: a scientific
>discovery, or
>> technological invention, which does not yet exist, or a
>natural
>> phenomenon of an unprecedented nature or scale, at least in
>human
>> experience.
>
>That would mean that not only are Watt's Vampires in Space
>science fiction, so is Ghostbusters.
Ghostbusters WAS science fiction. The guy who wrote it actually
believed in ghosts as objective phenomena you could detect and
experiment on. Just because the science is bad, doesn't make it
fantasy.
Gene Ward Smith
news:gr86s3pdrs07b7e5d...@4ax.com:
>>That would mean that not only are Watt's Vampires in Space
>>science fiction, so is Ghostbusters.
>
> Ghostbusters WAS science fiction. The guy who wrote it
actually
> believed in ghosts as objective phenomena you could detect
and
> experiment on. Just because the science is bad, doesn't
make it
> fantasy.
A wonderful demonstration of a point I've been making here
for a while; thank you.
David Goldfarb
Bill Patterson <WHPat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>[Heinlein] certainly does seem to
>have believed the current theory of "warm body" franchise was a Bad
>Thing and No Good Can Come of It.
There's a non-fiction article in _Expanded Universe_ in which he
suggests, in all apparent seriousness, that people entering a voting
booth should have to be able to solve a randomly-generated quadratic
equation before they get to vote. (He did say that it could be
restricted to integer roots.)
--
David Goldfarb |"The Carson/Johnson Law of Human Behavior:
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | 80% of all questions that begin with the word
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | 'why' can be answered with the phrase
| 'People are stupid.'" -- Ted Faber
Michael Alan Chary
David Goldfarb <gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>In article <836ef29f-7e41-491b...@e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
>Bill Patterson <WHPat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>[Heinlein] certainly does seem to
>>have believed the current theory of "warm body" franchise was a Bad
>>Thing and No Good Can Come of It.
>
>There's a non-fiction article in _Expanded Universe_ in which he
>suggests, in all apparent seriousness, that people entering a voting
>booth should have to be able to solve a randomly-generated quadratic
>equation before they get to vote. (He did say that it could be
>restricted to integer roots.)
>
You know, Heinlein really was just kind of a prick.
--
The All-New, All-Different Howling Curmudgeons!
http://www.whiterose.org/howlingcurmudgeons
Michael S. Schiffer
news:fpvcbm$u1$1...@agate.berkeley.edu:
> In article
> <836ef29f-7e41-491b...@e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com
> >, Bill Patterson <WHPat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>[Heinlein] certainly does seem to
>>have believed the current theory of "warm body" franchise was a
>>Bad Thing and No Good Can Come of It.
> There's a non-fiction article in _Expanded Universe_ in which he
> suggests, in all apparent seriousness, that people entering a
> voting booth should have to be able to solve a
> randomly-generated quadratic equation before they get to vote.
> (He did say that it could be restricted to integer roots.)
Though IIRC, that's part of a bunch of blue-sky franchise
restriction proposals. (Another, IIRC was to restrict it to women
who had borne children.)
A background detail in an AH story might be having the quadratic
requirement adopted, only to be technologically obsolete just as
the laborious process of amending the Constitution was completed.
Yes, it would doubtless be illegal to bring a calculating device
into the voting booth. But policing that while keeping the ballot
itself secret would be tricky. Especially where the party of the
county clerk or other election administering authority had an
interest in not interfering with voting by the less math-inclined.
(Watch for cell phones to add a quadratic-solver to their built-in
calculators.)
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
David DeLaney
>: d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney)
>: How does one say 'the cake is a lie' in Latin?
>
>Mea navis aëricumbens anguillis abundat.
That cake, while moist, I do not believe would be delici.ous without extra
spices.
Dave 'it appears to be "laganum est a recubo" from one babelfish-supplied
site, but I distrust that for some reason' DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Gene Ward Smith
> There's a non-fiction article in _Expanded Universe_ in
which he
> suggests, in all apparent seriousness, that people entering
a voting
> booth should have to be able to solve a randomly-generated
quadratic
> equation before they get to vote. (He did say that it
could be
> restricted to integer roots.)
I think they should be forced to find, in their head, the
Galois group of a polynomial with integer coefficients of
degree sixteen. This seems fair because the problem comes up
so often in real life, but if you think that's too hard,
perhaps a a polynomial giving a fundamental unit for the
Hilbert class field of a quadratic polynomial whose splitting
field is the class field. This would filter out the riff-
raff, and that's also fair since I am not demanding the
maximal unramified extension, just the class field.
Mike Schilling
"David Goldfarb" <gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote in message
news:fpvcbm$u1$1...@agate.berkeley.edu...
> In article
> <836ef29f-7e41-491b...@e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
> Bill Patterson <WHPat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>[Heinlein] certainly does seem to
>>have believed the current theory of "warm body" franchise was a Bad
>>Thing and No Good Can Come of It.
>
> There's a non-fiction article in _Expanded Universe_ in which he
> suggests, in all apparent seriousness, that people entering a voting
> booth should have to be able to solve a randomly-generated quadratic
> equation before they get to vote. (He did say that it could be
> restricted to integer roots.)
Real only, or m + ni?
David Goldfarb
It's been a while since I read the article, so I don't think he
specified, but if he's restricting it to integers, surely he meant
real integers rather than complex.
--
David Goldfarb |"Backward, turn backward, O time in your flight!
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | I've thought of a comeback I needed last night."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- Dorothy Parker
Kurt Busiek
> In article <836ef29f-7e41-491b...@e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
> Bill Patterson <WHPat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> [Heinlein] certainly does seem to
>> have believed the current theory of "warm body" franchise was a Bad
>> Thing and No Good Can Come of It.
>
> There's a non-fiction article in _Expanded Universe_ in which he
> suggests, in all apparent seriousness, that people entering a voting
> booth should have to be able to solve a randomly-generated quadratic
> equation before they get to vote. (He did say that it could be
> restricted to integer roots.)
I think they should have to identify at least 15 out of 20
randomly-listed superhero characters, identified only by their secret
identity and place of birth.
Not that I trust the political instincts of other superhero geeks all
that much, but truly committed, active political types would have to
learn enough to pass the test, which would filter for commitment and,
not inconsequentially, make my income go up.
kdb
Mike Schilling
"Kurt Busiek" <ku...@busiek.comics> wrote in message
news:2008022515485750073-kurt@busiekcomics...
> On 2008-02-25 13:35:50 -0800, gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb)
> said:
>
>> In article
>> <836ef29f-7e41-491b...@e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
>> Bill Patterson <WHPat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> [Heinlein] certainly does seem to
>>> have believed the current theory of "warm body" franchise was a Bad
>>> Thing and No Good Can Come of It.
>>
>> There's a non-fiction article in _Expanded Universe_ in which he
>> suggests, in all apparent seriousness, that people entering a voting
>> booth should have to be able to solve a randomly-generated quadratic
>> equation before they get to vote. (He did say that it could be
>> restricted to integer roots.)
>
> I think they should have to identify at least 15 out of 20 randomly-listed
> superhero characters, identified only by their secret identity and place
> of birth.
In the GOP primary they'd all turn out to be Ronald Reagan.
Dan Goodman
That is not entirely unknown among sf writers.
--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://dangoodman.livejournal.com
mirror 1: http://dsgood.insanejournal.com
mirror 2: http://dsgood.wordpress.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
David T. Bilek
>Gene Ward Smith wrote:
>
>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in news:e53802d1-38d2-
>> 4d49-8d45-7...@d5g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:
>>
>> >> But that's not the worst of it; the worst of it is that
>> what
>> >> we are shown is a propaganda campaign directed at youth
>> >
>> > A literary device to sneak in an infodump, but the
>> propagandizing is
>> > not characterized as mendacious, so if you find it so, I
>> think the
>> > issue would be with at least a part of Heinlein's real
>> beliefs.
>>
>> You think Heinlein really believed he could prove
>> mathematically that his preferred ethical values were
>> correct? I doubt it; that would make him a crackpot.
>
>That is not entirely unknown among sf writers.
John C. Wright inna house!!!!1!!!11!1
-David
Mike Schilling
"Dan Goodman" <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote in message
news:47c35807$0$1116$8046...@auth.newsreader.iphouse.com...
> Gene Ward Smith wrote:
>
>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in news:e53802d1-38d2-
>> 4d49-8d45-7...@d5g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:
>>
>> >> But that's not the worst of it; the worst of it is that
>> what
>> >> we are shown is a propaganda campaign directed at youth
>> >
>> > A literary device to sneak in an infodump, but the
>> propagandizing is
>> > not characterized as mendacious, so if you find it so, I
>> think the
>> > issue would be with at least a part of Heinlein's real
>> beliefs.
>>
>> You think Heinlein really believed he could prove
>> mathematically that his preferred ethical values were
>> correct? I doubt it; that would make him a crackpot.
>
> That is not entirely unknown among sf writers.
RAH likes to prove things, "mathematically" or otherwise. In "Waldo", as
you might recall, the power source failures weren't merely unexpected or
improbable, they were *impossible* (the uncertainty principle having been
abolished so that it couldn't provide an out.)