The Nebulas (1968)

[James Nicoll]

Good lord, I did a third one! This is lasting much longer than I expected.
Of course since I have not read most of these, I am reduced to looking at
their publication history.

I had no idea, *no idea at all*, Dangerous Visions was still in print. I
don't know if modern readers can deal with the mind warping trauma of edgy
stories like the one where it turns out the protagonist is (whispers)
homosexual.

novels

Samuel R. Delany* The Einstein Intersection
Piers Anthony Chthon
Hayden Howard The Eskimo Invasion
Roger Zelazny Lord of Light
Robert Silverberg Thorns

Three of these are books published by Ballantine. I wonder who their
editor was? Again, hampered by pervasive ignorance here. The ones of these I
have read I do not remember clearly. I don't have any good reason to think
SFWA didn't make the right call here.

The Delany was reprinted many times in the 1970s and then less frequently.
I don't see an edition past 1999, which frankly surprises me. The Anthony
also saw a number of reprints but very few after 1990 (this surprises me rather
less). I'm not sure if the ISFDB can distinguish between the novel form of
the Howard and the one that showed up in 1967 (or that they are actually
different) but in any case it fell out of print almost immediately. The
Zelazny has never fallen out of print. The Silverberg... popular during his
middle period but not many reprints since about 1991.


Novellas

Michael Moorcock* "Behold the Man"
Philip Jose Farmer "Riders of the Purple Wage"
Anne McCaffrey "Weyr Search"
Robert Silverberg "Hawksbill Station"
Theodore Sturgeon "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One
Marry Your Sister?"

The Farmer and the Sturgeon are from Dangerous Visions.

The Moorcock has stayed in print since it was first published, which
surprises me a little since it was expanded into a novel. The Farmer has
had a fair number of reprints, unless you exclude reprints of Dangerous
Visions, in which case it has had very few. The McCaffrey has been reprinted
frequently and also spawned a franchise (I don't know if that counts for or
against it). Hawksbill Station also has managed to stay in print reasonably
well (again, despite there being a novel version). Most of the Sturgeon's
reprints have been thank to being in the Dangerous Visions.

Well, at least I have read and remember most of these. I don't seem to
have any strong preferences, except I never liked the Farmer.

novelettes

1967 Fritz Leiber* "Gonna Roll the Bones"
1967 Harlan Ellison "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"
1967 Larry Niven "Flatlander"
1967 Roger Zelazny "The Keys to December"
1967 Roger Zelazny "This Mortal Mountain"

And the winner is from Dangerous Visions; this seems to have been Dangerous
Visions' year. (the Niven and one of the Zelazny's are from IF; IF did very
well in this period, despite being intended to be the junior partner to
Galaxy).

Even discounting the many Dangerous Visions reprints, the Leiber has
done well. The Ellison has also remained in print (and not just in new
editions of The Essential Ellison). Oddly, the Niven's fate seems to be tied
to the collection Neutron Star, universally acknowledge to be the best
starting place for Niven. Once Neutron Star goes out of print, "FLatlander"
is only collected in Crashlander and The Best of Larry Niven. Huh. The
first Zelazny seems to have done reasonably well at staying in print, but
the second one is less popular (both are in The Doors of His Face, The Lamps
of His Mouth, which has a pretty good track record for a single author
collection but it does not tend to get included in anthologies).

I don't know the Zelaznys (although I have that collection) and that's
a minor Niven. I'm comfortable giving the Leiber but respect the fact the
Ellison probably has a large constituency.

short stories

Samuel R. Delany* ""Aye, and Gomorrah.""
Reginald Bretnor "Earthwoman"
Samuel R. Delany "Driftglass"
Fritz Leiber "Answering Service"
Theodore L. Thomas "The Doctor"
Kate Wilhelm "Baby, You Were Great"

And another winner from Dangerous Visions. I've read ... none of them
except the winner and the Thomas and I don't remember them at all.

The first Delany has had multiple reprints (even aside from the reprints
of Dangerous Visions, it has done OK). The second Delany drops off in
popularity in the early 1990s. The Bretnor was considerably less popular
and has not been reprinted in decades. The Leiber has been more popular than
the Bretnor but not by much and has not been in print in ages. The Thomas got
a flurry of inclusions in the 1970s and early 1980s but seems to have fallen
off most people's radar. The Wilhelm has an odd pattern: popular in the 1970s,
banished to the outer marches for the 1980s, a handful of anthologies included
it in the 1990s, no collections in the aughts but one in 2011.

I would not be able to support a disagreement with SFWA for this category
this year.

I don't want to go back and undo my edits but I think from now on I will
leave in where the stories are from.

--
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)

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2013-03-30 00:36:57 -0400, James Nicoll said:

Ah, here's where they went to five per category.

> novels
>
> Samuel R. Delany* The Einstein Intersection
> Piers Anthony Chthon
> Hayden Howard The Eskimo Invasion
> Roger Zelazny Lord of Light
> Robert Silverberg Thorns

I've read all of these except the Delany.

Hated THORNS. Didn't think much of CHTHON. I'd have to go with LORD OF LIGHT.

> I'm not sure if the ISFDB can distinguish between the novel form of
> the Howard and the one that showed up in 1967 (or that they are actually
> different) but in any case it fell out of print almost immediately.

The novel was a compilation of four novelets/novellas, of which the
first shared the title.

I think it was written as a novel first, then subdivided, but I'm not
sure. At any rate, I'm not aware of anything else Hayden Howard ever
wrote, and as I've commented elsewhere, this was a very strange novel.
Howard's prose was serviceable but uninvolving, and all the characters
other than his protagonist are kind of flat, but the ideas are unique,
the plot bizarre.

> Novellas
>
> Michael Moorcock* "Behold the Man"
> Philip Jose Farmer "Riders of the Purple Wage"
> Anne McCaffrey "Weyr Search"
> Robert Silverberg "Hawksbill Station"
> Theodore Sturgeon "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One
> Marry Your Sister?"

Amazingly, I have never read "Hawksbill Station." Of the others...
well, let's see. "Behold the Man" is very well done, but as someone
raised with almost no background in Christianity, it didn't do much for
me emotionally. "If All Men Were Brothers..." depends entirely on the
shock value of its premise, which I didn't find all that shocking.
"Riders of the Purple Wage" is Farmer trying to prove he can skim the
crest of the New Wave and fire off verbal pyrotechnics as well as
anyone; unlike the Sturgeon, he did include an actual story, though
it's a bit buried under the special effects.

"Weyr Search" is horribly retro, but I'd probably give it the award.

> novelettes
>
> 1967 Fritz Leiber* "Gonna Roll the Bones"
> 1967 Harlan Ellison "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"
> 1967 Larry Niven "Flatlander"
> 1967 Roger Zelazny "The Keys to December"
> 1967 Roger Zelazny "This Mortal Mountain"

Huh. I've only read the first two, so far as I recall -- though I
probably read "Flatlander" and just don't remember it by title.

Didn't like "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes" much. I don't share Harlan's
attitudes toward women and never did.

"Gonna Roll the Bones" is fun in an over-the-top folktale kind of way,
but I was disappointed by the ending. I'd probably give it the award
anyway.

> short stories
>
> Samuel R. Delany* ""Aye, and Gomorrah.""
> Reginald Bretnor "Earthwoman"
> Samuel R. Delany "Driftglass"
> Fritz Leiber "Answering Service"
> Theodore L. Thomas "The Doctor"
> Kate Wilhelm "Baby, You Were Great"

I've read the Delany and the Wilhelm, and maybe the Leiber but I don't
recognize the title.

I'd give it to Wilhelm.




--
Now available on Amazon or B&N: One-Eyed Jack.
Greg Kraft could see ghosts. That didn't mean he could stop them...

[James Nicoll]

In article <kj5tru$jai$1...@dont-email.me>,

Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>On 2013-03-30 00:36:57 -0400, James Nicoll said:
>
>Ah, here's where they went to five per category.

It won't stay there. I am dreading 1976.

>>
>> 1967 Fritz Leiber* "Gonna Roll the Bones"
>> 1967 Harlan Ellison "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"
>> 1967 Larry Niven "Flatlander"
>> 1967 Roger Zelazny "The Keys to December"
>> 1967 Roger Zelazny "This Mortal Mountain"
>
>Huh. I've only read the first two, so far as I recall -- though I
>probably read "Flatlander" and just don't remember it by title.
>

It's the one where Shafer meets Elephant and they visit an exotic world,
I think.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 04:36:57 +0000 (UTC), James Nicoll
<jdni...@panix.com> wrote in
<news:kj5q59$m0l$1...@reader1.panix.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> novels

> Samuel R. Delany* The Einstein Intersection
> Piers Anthony Chthon
> Hayden Howard The Eskimo Invasion
> Roger Zelazny Lord of Light
> Robert Silverberg Thorns

> Three of these are books published by Ballantine. I wonder
> who their editor was? Again, hampered by pervasive
> ignorance here. The ones of these I have read I do not
> remember clearly. I don't have any good reason to think
> SFWA didn't make the right call here.

The Delany is ambitious and rather literary and probably
deserving of a nomination; I simply didn't care much for it.
_Chthon_ is one of Anthony's better novels, though I
remember it as being a little pretentious; however, I found
much of it rather unpleasant and didn't care much for it,
either, but it too probably deserved the nomination.
_Thorns_ is in the same category: well-written, but not much
fun to read. I'm not sure that I ever read the Howard.
_Lord of Light_ would have been my easy choice then, and it
still is: that book is on my all-time shortlist.

> Novellas

> Michael Moorcock* "Behold the Man"
> Philip Jose Farmer "Riders of the Purple Wage"
> Anne McCaffrey "Weyr Search"
> Robert Silverberg "Hawksbill Station"
> Theodore Sturgeon "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One
> Marry Your Sister?"

[...]

> Well, at least I have read and remember most of these. I
> don't seem to have any strong preferences, except I never
> liked the Farmer.

I've read all of them, but I remember only the McCaffrey and
the Sturgeon and would pick one of them, especially after
doing a little digging to remind myself of the others. I'd
probably go with the Sturgeon: there's more there than the
obvious shock value.

> novelettes

> 1967 Fritz Leiber* "Gonna Roll the Bones"
> 1967 Harlan Ellison "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"
> 1967 Larry Niven "Flatlander"
> 1967 Roger Zelazny "The Keys to December"
> 1967 Roger Zelazny "This Mortal Mountain"

> And the winner is from Dangerous Visions; this seems to
> have been Dangerous Visions' year. (the Niven and one of
> the Zelazny's are from IF; IF did very well in this
> period, despite being intended to be the junior partner
> to Galaxy).

Memory (admittedly fallible at this point) says that I
considered IF the better of the two.

[...]

> I don't know the Zelaznys (although I have that
> collection) and that's a minor Niven. I'm comfortable
> giving the Leiber but respect the fact the Ellison
> probably has a large constituency.

The Leiber isn't a bad choice, but I think that I'd go with
one of the Zelazny's, probably 'This Mortal Mountain'. I
just don't care for the Ellison, and the Niven, though
enjoyable enough, is the weakest of the lot.

> short stories

> Samuel R. Delany* ""Aye, and Gomorrah.""
> Reginald Bretnor "Earthwoman"
> Samuel R. Delany "Driftglass"
> Fritz Leiber "Answering Service"
> Theodore L. Thomas "The Doctor"
> Kate Wilhelm "Baby, You Were Great"

> And another winner from Dangerous Visions. I've read ...
> none of them except the winner and the Thomas and I don't
> remember them at all.

I've read both of the Delany stories and the Wilhelm. I'd
go with the actual winner by a hair over the Wilhelm, I
think.

[...]

Brian

[Howard Brazee]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 02:27:37 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
<b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>_Chthon_ is one of Anthony's better novels, though I
>remember it as being a little pretentious; however, I found
>much of it rather unpleasant and didn't care much for it,
>either, but it too probably deserved the nomination.
>_Thorns_ is in the same category: well-written, but not much
>fun to read. I'm not sure that I ever read the Howard.

Both of these authors seem to switch between trying to be hacks and
trying to be Important Literary Influences. I wonder what they
thought when we rejected their Important Literary Works.

--
Anybody who agrees with one side all of the time or disagrees with the
other side all of the time is equally guilty of letting others do
their thinking for them.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Saturday, 30 March 2013 04:36:57 UTC, James Nicoll wrote:
> Even discounting the many Dangerous Visions reprints, the Leiber has
> done well. The Ellison has also remained in print (and not just in new
> editions of The Essential Ellison). Oddly, the Niven's fate seems to be tied
> to the collection Neutron Star, universally acknowledge to be the best
> starting place for Niven. Once Neutron Star goes out of print, "FLatlander"
> is only collected in Crashlander and The Best of Larry Niven. Huh. The
> first Zelazny seems to have done reasonably well at staying in print, but
> the second one is less popular (both are in The Doors of His Face, The Lamps
> of His Mouth, which has a pretty good track record for a single author
> collection but it does not tend to get included in anthologies).

I think there's one Niven collection where he comments about
wanting to keep his short stories available in separate collections
without overlap so that readers don't have to buy several stories
twice to get everything. This could also imply that they don't
appear in multiple-author collections, or, for the particularly
well-regarded stories, maybe someone wants you to buy the Niven
collection instead of a collection with one Niven story in it.
Famously /he/ doesn't need the money, so his motives are pure,
I guess.

[James Nicoll]

In article <kj5tru$jai$1...@dont-email.me>,
Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:

>On 2013-03-30 00:36:57 -0400, James Nicoll said:
>
>> Novellas
>>
>> Michael Moorcock* "Behold the Man"
>> Philip Jose Farmer "Riders of the Purple Wage"
>> Anne McCaffrey "Weyr Search"
>> Robert Silverberg "Hawksbill Station"
>> Theodore Sturgeon "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One
>> Marry Your Sister?"
>
>Amazingly, I have never read "Hawksbill Station." Of the others...
>well, let's see. "Behold the Man" is very well done, but as someone
>raised with almost no background in Christianity, it didn't do much for
>me emotionally. "If All Men Were Brothers..." depends entirely on the
>shock value of its premise, which I didn't find all that shocking.

But isn't that true of a lot of the stories in DV and ADV? At the time
it must have been an effective technique because DV did very well in
the Nebulas. Hugos, too.

>"Weyr Search" is horribly retro, but I'd probably give it the award.

It's kind of like the case for giving her the Grand Master, isn't it? Her
fiction was not my thing but she was undeniably influential.

[David DeLaney]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:42:29 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>On 2013-03-30 00:36:57 -0400, James Nicoll said:
>> Novellas
>>
>> Michael Moorcock* "Behold the Man"
>> Philip Jose Farmer "Riders of the Purple Wage"
>> Anne McCaffrey "Weyr Search"
>> Robert Silverberg "Hawksbill Station"
>> Theodore Sturgeon "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One
>> Marry Your Sister?"
>

>"Weyr Search" is horribly retro, but I'd probably give it the award.

The crucial question here is: is it 40 years retro? Or is it 50 years retro?

>> 1967 Fritz Leiber* "Gonna Roll the Bones"
>> 1967 Harlan Ellison "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"
>> 1967 Larry Niven "Flatlander"
>> 1967 Roger Zelazny "The Keys to December"
>> 1967 Roger Zelazny "This Mortal Mountain"
>
>Huh. I've only read the first two, so far as I recall -- though I
>probably read "Flatlander" and just don't remember it by title.

It's the one where Bey goes to Earth, encounters pickpockets, and lures
Elephant out to the very strange star system that eats their ship's hull,
if I recall right?

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.

[James Nicoll]

In article <5cndl8pqpu62nh3uj...@4ax.com>,

Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 02:27:37 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
><b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
>>_Chthon_ is one of Anthony's better novels, though I
>>remember it as being a little pretentious; however, I found
>>much of it rather unpleasant and didn't care much for it,
>>either, but it too probably deserved the nomination.
>>_Thorns_ is in the same category: well-written, but not much
>>fun to read. I'm not sure that I ever read the Howard.
>
>Both of these authors seem to switch between trying to be hacks and
>trying to be Important Literary Influences. I wonder what they
>thought when we rejected their Important Literary Works.

As I recall, Anthony started off ambitious and then took a lesson
from the fact that while MACROSCOPE didn't do well, the cotton candy
of XANTH sold like hotcakes. Since then, the quality of his stuff
has steadily declined (although he does not seem to notice that). He
also has the aging SF author thing of becoming comfortable with sharing
elements of his inner life the rest of us would rather not share, as
funny as it was to watch Jordan Bassior go on about TRUE LOVE before
he was reminded the love interest in FIREFLY was only five.

Silverberg started off as an enormously prolific hack and got bored
with it, as far as I can tell. He left the genre for other fields,
was tempted back by Fred Pohl, and then spent about a decade on more
ambitious work, work that may not have been as appreciated as it could
have but which did attract awards. Then after a crappy couple of years
(a major house fire, among other things) he retired again.

I'm pretty sure Silverberg had a speech for his second retirement.
I've never seen a text of it, though.

His official site says this:

"By 1973, he was once again starting to suffer from what we would now
call burn-out, though of a different sort than in 1959. That other time,
he was frustrated by the low standards prevalent in the field; now he was
feeling drained by the intensity of effort required to produce the kind
of writing he demanded of himself. He stopped writing short stories
altogether, and then turned out a few more novels before publicly announcing
his retirement (again). His prodigious output during the preceding decades
made this departure both necessary and possible.

[...]

Despite much pleading from editors and fans, he held out until 1978, when
he found himself working on what became Lord Valentine's Castle. The
retirement revealed itself as only a sabbatical. It wasn't until 1980
that he returned to the shorter forms, with "Waiting for the Earthquake",
which he had promised Harlan Ellison (in 1975) for the Medea collection."

I'm not crazy about his third period but unlike Anthony Silverberg always
maintains a reasonable level of competence: RS still attracts awards from
colleagues and readers.

[James Nicoll]

In article <slrnkle0f...@gatekeeper.vic.com>,

David DeLaney <d...@vic.com> wrote:
>On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:42:29 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>On 2013-03-30 00:36:57 -0400, James Nicoll said:
>>> Novellas
>>>
>>> Michael Moorcock* "Behold the Man"
>>> Philip Jose Farmer "Riders of the Purple Wage"
>>> Anne McCaffrey "Weyr Search"
>>> Robert Silverberg "Hawksbill Station"
>>> Theodore Sturgeon "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One
>>> Marry Your Sister?"
>>
>>"Weyr Search" is horribly retro, but I'd probably give it the award.
>
>The crucial question here is: is it 40 years retro? Or is it 50 years retro?
>
>>> 1967 Fritz Leiber* "Gonna Roll the Bones"
>>> 1967 Harlan Ellison "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"
>>> 1967 Larry Niven "Flatlander"
>>> 1967 Roger Zelazny "The Keys to December"
>>> 1967 Roger Zelazny "This Mortal Mountain"
>>
>>Huh. I've only read the first two, so far as I recall -- though I
>>probably read "Flatlander" and just don't remember it by title.
>
>It's the one where Bey goes to Earth, encounters pickpockets, and lures
>Elephant out to the very strange star system that eats their ship's hull,
>if I recall right?

I believe you are right.

[Wayne Throop]

:: It's the one where Bey goes to Earth, encounters pickpockets, and

:: lures Elephant out to the very strange star system that eats their
:: ship's hull, if I recall right?

: jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
: I believe you are right.

Yes, that descripion sounds familial.

By the way, stuff like that is becoming more and more common, and it
grates on my metaphorical ear. Now, ordinarily I might be up for a
Norm Crosby routine, but Norm Crosby as a routinely employed co-author
is prolly too much. One author made a near-phonetic substitution that
reversed the meaning of the sentence entirely. I also see such things
done by news announcers. Drat, I can't call any to mind just now, but
as I say, I've been noticing lots of them, especially in newer authors.
And they don't get caught by whatever editing process the books undergo,
neither.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2013-03-30 11:06:28 -0400, James Nicoll said:

> In article <kj5tru$jai$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>> On 2013-03-30 00:36:57 -0400, James Nicoll said:
>>
>>> Novellas
>>>
>>> Michael Moorcock* "Behold the Man"
>>> Philip Jose Farmer "Riders of the Purple Wage"
>>> Anne McCaffrey "Weyr Search"
>>> Robert Silverberg "Hawksbill Station"
>>> Theodore Sturgeon "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One
>>> Marry Your Sister?"
>>
>> Amazingly, I have never read "Hawksbill Station." Of the others...
>> well, let's see. "Behold the Man" is very well done, but as someone
>> raised with almost no background in Christianity, it didn't do much for
>> me emotionally. "If All Men Were Brothers..." depends entirely on the
>> shock value of its premise, which I didn't find all that shocking.
>
> But isn't that true of a lot of the stories in DV and ADV?

Yup, it sure is.

> At the time
> it must have been an effective technique because DV did very well in
> the Nebulas. Hugos, too.
>
>> "Weyr Search" is horribly retro, but I'd probably give it the award.
>
> It's kind of like the case for giving her the Grand Master, isn't it? Her
> fiction was not my thing but she was undeniably influential.

Actually, I read and enjoyed a lot of her work for a long time before I
got tired of it. It was never exactly ground-breaking, though.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2013-03-30 12:01:27 -0400, David DeLaney said:

> On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:42:29 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>> On 2013-03-30 00:36:57 -0400, James Nicoll said:
>>> Novellas
>>>
>>> Michael Moorcock* "Behold the Man"
>>> Philip Jose Farmer "Riders of the Purple Wage"
>>> Anne McCaffrey "Weyr Search"
>>> Robert Silverberg "Hawksbill Station"
>>> Theodore Sturgeon "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One
>>> Marry Your Sister?"
>>
>> "Weyr Search" is horribly retro, but I'd probably give it the award.
>
> The crucial question here is: is it 40 years retro? Or is it 50 years retro?

The style, emotional content, and story structure are old-fashioned
now, and were old-fashioned in 1967. "Old-fashioned" doesn't
necessarily mean outdated or bad. Sometimes old things continue to
work just fine, but I usually prefer to see awards go to more
innovative work.

>>> 1967 Fritz Leiber* "Gonna Roll the Bones"
>>> 1967 Harlan Ellison "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"
>>> 1967 Larry Niven "Flatlander"
>>> 1967 Roger Zelazny "The Keys to December"
>>> 1967 Roger Zelazny "This Mortal Mountain"
>>
>> Huh. I've only read the first two, so far as I recall -- though I
>> probably read "Flatlander" and just don't remember it by title.
>
> It's the one where Bey goes to Earth, encounters pickpockets, and lures
> Elephant out to the very strange star system that eats their ship's hull,
> if I recall right?

Okay, I really didn't read that. I have the book, though, so maybe I
should remedy that.

[David Johnston]

On 3/30/2013 10:42 AM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On 2013-03-30 12:01:27 -0400, David DeLaney said:
>
>> On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:42:29 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net>
>> wrote:
>>> On 2013-03-30 00:36:57 -0400, James Nicoll said:
>>>> Novellas
>>>>
>>>> Michael Moorcock* "Behold the Man"
>>>> Philip Jose Farmer "Riders of the Purple Wage"
>>>> Anne McCaffrey "Weyr Search"
>>>> Robert Silverberg "Hawksbill Station"
>>>> Theodore Sturgeon "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One
>>>> Marry Your Sister?"
>>>
>>> "Weyr Search" is horribly retro, but I'd probably give it the award.
>>
>> The crucial question here is: is it 40 years retro? Or is it 50 years
>> retro?
>
> The style, emotional content, and story structure are old-fashioned now,
> and were old-fashioned in 1967. "Old-fashioned" doesn't necessarily
> mean outdated or bad. Sometimes old things continue to work just fine,
> but I usually prefer to see awards go to more innovative work.

Reads like Witch World fanfiction.

[William Hyde]

On Mar 30, 11:23 am, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> In article <5cndl8pqpu62nh3ujhhat93mjhkv9nq...@4ax.com>,

> Howard Brazee  <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 02:27:37 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
> ><b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
> >>_Chthon_ is one of Anthony's better novels, though I
> >>remember it as being a little pretentious; however, I found
> >>much of it rather unpleasant and didn't care much for it,
> >>either, but it too probably deserved the nomination.
> >>_Thorns_ is in the same category: well-written, but not much
> >>fun to read.  I'm not sure that I ever read the Howard.
>
> >Both of these authors seem to switch between trying to be hacks and
> >trying to be Important Literary Influences.   I wonder what they
> >thought when we rejected their Important Literary Works.
>
> As I recall, Anthony started off ambitious and then took a lesson
> from the fact that while MACROSCOPE didn't do well,

Macroscope was already a step or two down from the ambiton shown in
Chthon. It sold well compared to the latter, I think (allegedly his
total take for Chthon, which took years to write, was $1,500).

The years after Chthon seem to me to be a quest on his part to find a
formula which would allow him to write novels that would sell, but
keep his self-respect. "Rings of Ice", for example, is a serious
attempt despite it's crackpot science.

the cotton candy
> of XANTH sold like hotcakes.

Though it's been something like 36 years since my one and only read of
the first Xanth novel, I thought it was a pretty good fantasy. Here
he actually found what he was looking for, but didn't stay there (or
so I hear, something kept me from reading any further Xanth novels).

"The journey not the arrival matters", or something like that.

> Silverberg started off as an enormously prolific hack and got bored
> with it, as far as I can tell.

Silverberg as a young man desperately wanted to get rich. The hack
writing, the porn, and some astute stock market investing achieved
this by the mid 1960s (for some values of "rich"). But now there was
no need to pound out 300,000 words per year at two cents a word, and
he could reconsider his writing style.

"Thorns" is born of this, it's a transitional novel. Before Thorns,
everything Silverberg sold in SF was first draft, brain to paper to
submission with no revision. Thorns was still "mostly first draft
stuff", according to the author, but there was some revision and he
thought more about the novel before beginning writing than he usually
did.

Post Thorns, everything was revised, on occasion multiple times. He
gives an example somewhere of a paragraph from "The Stochastic Man"
with five or six revisions. By this time he was perhaps going a bit
too far as implied here:

" now he was
feeling drained by the intensity of effort required to produce the
kind
of writing he demanded of himself."

"The Stochastic Man" has a strange, constricting feel (partially the
central idea, but perhaps also the prose). "Valentine", by contrast,
flows easily.

William Hyde

[William Hyde]

On Mar 30, 8:43 am, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 02:27:37 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
>

> <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> >_Chthon_ is one of Anthony's better novels, though I
> >remember it as being a little pretentious; however, I found
> >much of it rather unpleasant and didn't care much for it,
> >either, but it too probably deserved the nomination.
> >_Thorns_ is in the same category: well-written, but not much
> >fun to read.  I'm not sure that I ever read the Howard.
>
> Both of these authors seem to switch between trying to be hacks and
> trying to be Important Literary Influences.   I wonder what they
> thought when we rejected their Important Literary Works.

Their careers take opposite directions. Anthony starts out writing
the best he can, makes no money, and eventually finds a money stream
in hack Xanth novels. Silverberg started out as a hack, then became a
good writer.

Silverberg's "important literary works" won tons of awards and sold
very well, so I don't think he felt rejected. Anthony, I think, did.

Personally I found Silverberg's hack writing to be quite readable and
Anthony's not, but I can't blame either for how they reacted to the
economic reality of writing SF.

William Hyde

[Howard Brazee]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 15:23:10 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

>As I recall, Anthony started off ambitious and then took a lesson
>from the fact that while MACROSCOPE didn't do well, the cotton candy
>of XANTH sold like hotcakes. Since then, the quality of his stuff
>has steadily declined (although he does not seem to notice that). He
>also has the aging SF author thing of becoming comfortable with sharing
>elements of his inner life the rest of us would rather not share, as
>funny as it was to watch Jordan Bassior go on about TRUE LOVE before
>he was reminded the love interest in FIREFLY was only five.

But even at his very beginning he had light fare with interstellar
dentists and nuclear powered cars racing rocket powered cars with a
little girl hitchhiker.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 13:13:04 -0700 (PDT), William Hyde
<wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:19506982-fc08-4563...@k4g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

> On Mar 30, 11:23�am, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:

>> In article <5cndl8pqpu62nh3ujhhat93mjhkv9nq...@4ax.com>,
>> Howard Brazee �<how...@brazee.net> wrote:

>>>On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 02:27:37 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
>>><b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>>>> _Chthon_ is one of Anthony's better novels, though I
>>>> remember it as being a little pretentious; however, I
>>>> found much of it rather unpleasant and didn't care
>>>> much for it, either, but it too probably deserved the
>>>> nomination. _Thorns_ is in the same category:
>>>> well-written, but not much fun to read. �I'm not sure
>>>> that I ever read the Howard.

>>> Both of these authors seem to switch between trying to
>>> be hacks and trying to be Important Literary
>>> Influences. � I wonder what they thought when we
>>> rejected their Important Literary Works.

>> As I recall, Anthony started off ambitious and then took
>> a lesson from the fact that while MACROSCOPE didn't do
>> well,

> Macroscope was already a step or two down from the ambiton
> shown in Chthon. It sold well compared to the latter, I
> think (allegedly his total take for Chthon, which took
> years to write, was $1,500).

I thought _Macroscope_ (1969) the best (or at any rate the
most readable) of the early work that was obviously intended
to be Serious; I even reread it at least once. _Steppe_
(1976) was lighter -- serious but not Serious -- and very
enjoyable. _Prostho Plus_ (1971) was silly, clever fun. So
was _A Spell for Chameleon_ (1977), but then he beat it to
death; I was already losing interest with Nr. 3, and I think
that Nr. 6 was the last that I even tried to read.

[...]

> Though it's been something like 36 years since my one and
> only read of the first Xanth novel, I thought it was a
> pretty good fantasy.

It was fun.

[...]

> Post Thorns, everything was revised, on occasion multiple
> times. He gives an example somewhere of a paragraph from
> "The Stochastic Man" with five or six revisions. By this
> time he was perhaps going a bit too far as implied here:

> " now he was feeling drained by the intensity of effort
> required to produce the kind of writing he demanded of
> himself."

> "The Stochastic Man" has a strange, constricting feel
> (partially the central idea, but perhaps also the prose).
> "Valentine", by contrast, flows easily.

The Majipoor novels are the only Silverberg that I've really
liked. I don't reread them, but I did enjoy them.

Brian

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:52:38 -0600, David Johnston
<Da...@block.net> wrote in <news:kj754c$1o5$1...@dont-email.me>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

> On 3/30/2013 10:42 AM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:

>> On 2013-03-30 12:01:27 -0400, David DeLaney said:

>>> On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:42:29 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans
>>> <l...@sff.net> wrote:

[...]

>>>> "Weyr Search" is horribly retro, but I'd probably give
>>>> it the award.

>>> The crucial question here is: is it 40 years retro? Or
>>> is it 50 years retro?

>> The style, emotional content, and story structure are
>> old-fashioned now, and were old-fashioned in 1967.
>> "Old-fashioned" doesn't necessarily mean outdated or
>> bad. Sometimes old things continue to work just fine,
>> but I usually prefer to see awards go to more innovative
>> work.

It was a solid story then, and it's a solid story now. (And
I do understand the preference, at least for the Nebula.)

> Reads like Witch World fanfiction.

Not really, no. They just belong to the same general
family. A rather nice family, at that.

Brian

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:36:38 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans
<l...@sff.net> wrote in <news:kj746f$sfb$1...@dont-email.me> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> On 2013-03-30 11:06:28 -0400, James Nicoll said:

[...]

>> It's kind of like the case for giving her the Grand
>> Master, isn't it? Her fiction was not my thing but she
>> was undeniably influential.

> Actually, I read and enjoyed a lot of her work for a long
> time before I got tired of it. It was never exactly
> ground-breaking, though.

For a very long time it was a reliably good read, a pleasant
way to spend some time.

Brian

[William Hyde]

On Mar 30, 5:55 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 13:13:04 -0700 (PDT), William Hyde

> > "The Stochastic Man" has a strange, constricting feel
> > (partially the central idea, but perhaps also the prose).
> >  "Valentine", by contrast, flows easily.
>
> The Majipoor novels are the only Silverberg that I've really
> liked.  I don't reread them, but I did enjoy them.

I've also yet to reread them, while I have reread most of the rest of
his SF, even some of the hackwork.

I'd be somewhat surprised if, liking the Majipoor novels, you didn't
like "Nightwings".

William Hyde

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 18:35:46 -0700 (PDT), William Hyde
<wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:4da70991-9fa6-42ec...@g4g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> I'd be somewhat surprised if, liking the Majipoor novels,
> you didn't like "Nightwings".

I don't really remember it, but judging from some
descriptions, I don't think that I'd care for it.

Brian

[JRStern]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:42:29 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net>
wrote:

>"Weyr Search" is horribly retro, but I'd probably give it the award.

Did that become a chapter in Dragonflight?

>Huh. I've only read the first two, so far as I recall -- though I
>probably read "Flatlander" and just don't remember it by title.

It was a good year, a good several years, for scifi, but Niven was
just reaching his stride and that's hard to beat then or since.

J.

[Don Bruder]

In article <nllgl8hg53pa0nu5r...@4ax.com>,

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote:

> On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:42:29 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net>
> wrote:
>
> >"Weyr Search" is horribly retro, but I'd probably give it the award.
>
> Did that become a chapter in Dragonflight?

Yep, chapter one, to be precise.

--
If the door is baroque don't be Haydn. Come around Bach and jiggle the Handel.

[JRStern]

On Sun, 31 Mar 2013 09:28:37 -0700, Don Bruder <D...@sonic.net> wrote:

>In article <nllgl8hg53pa0nu5r...@4ax.com>,
> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:42:29 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >"Weyr Search" is horribly retro, but I'd probably give it the award.
>>
>> Did that become a chapter in Dragonflight?
>
>Yep, chapter one, to be precise.

Well, as a standalone it might not be as good, but the book of course
was excellent, maybe the style loosened up a little on later chapters.
The whole book is also copyright 1968, so I had to ask.

J.

[David DeLaney]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote:
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>"Weyr Search" is horribly retro, but I'd probably give it the award.
>
>Did that become a chapter in Dragonflight?

A section, but yes.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

True.

[Gene Wirchenko]

Yes. Then it changed. I do not know how it changed, but her
later work is nowhere near as good. (IMHO, of course.)

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 02 Apr 2013 20:17:11 -0700, Gene Wirchenko
<ge...@telus.net> wrote in
<news:tn7nl81uh26qq7tg5...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

I'd say that it changed when Pern became an industry, but
I'm sure that there's disagreement about just when that was.
(A friend of mine gave up when she killed off Robinton.)

Brian

[Robert Carnegie]

On Wednesday, 3 April 2013 04:59:42 UTC+1, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> I'd say that [Anne McCaffrey's work deteriorated] when Pern became

> an industry, but I'm sure that there's disagreement about just when
> that was. (A friend of mine gave up when she killed off Robinton.)

Since the main interest of the series was the gallant dragonriders
defending Pern from the terrible alien Thread-spore, that may have
been a good place to stop. Then again, you probably don't need
the stuff about musicians, either. I think I didn't even read
the one about dolphins, and if /they're/ fighting the dragons,
then, well... that's unusual, anyway.

[James Silverton]

At the time, I liked her first novel "Restoree" despite the unusually
healthy looking lady on the paperback cover. I couldn't resist enjoying
the dragon novels despite the inconsistent world building. The musicians
were fascinating, IMO. I never read any of the dolphin books. Were they
perhaps the beginning of the family firm?

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not" in Reply To.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Wednesday, 3 April 2013 04:17:11 UTC+1, Gene Wirchenko wrote:
> [Anne McCaffrey]

> I do not know how it changed, but her later work is nowhere near as good.
> (IMHO, of course.)

On reflection, my impression of what I saw of her later books is that
they are mainly about the principal characters discovering the
opportunity to have sex, and dealing with the secret enemy inside
the trusted group, with some limitations in the representation of each.
This may imply that science fiction was also taking place at the
same time but not impressing me, leaving the naughty goings-on and
the Scooby Doo stuff unconsciously foregrounded for me. For instance,
some of the sex was telepathic, or even telekinetic, now there's
a thought. Also, I wasn't following all of her work, and particularly
not "Anne McCaffrey And Who?"

[ppint. at pplay]

On Tuesday, in article
<1u5cqqegpfkni$.yl8juuzv...@40tude.net>
b.s...@csuohio.edu "Brian M. Scott" wrote:
><ge...@telus.net> wrote in

>><b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>>><l...@sff.net> wrote in <news:kj746f$sfb$1...@dont-email.me> in

>>>>James Nicoll said:
>>>>> It's kind of like the case for giving her the Grand
>>>>> Master, isn't it? Her fiction was not my thing but she
>>>>> was undeniably influential.
>>>> Actually, I read and enjoyed a lot of her work for a long
>>>> time before I got tired of it. It was never exactly
>>>> ground-breaking, though.
>>>For a very long time it was a reliably good read, a pleasant
>>>way to spend some time.
>>
>> Yes. Then it changed. I do not know how it changed, but
>> her later work is nowhere near as good. (IMHO, of course.)
>
>I'd say that it changed when Pern became an industry, but
>I'm sure that there's disagreement about just when that was.
>(A friend of mine gave up when she killed off Robinton.)

- the original two dragon novels/fix-ups work, as do the first
two menolly novels; _Dragondrums_, piemur's book, doesn't work
quite as well as them, and i don't recall there being any real
underlying coherence to the novel, _The White Dragon_.

- but it isn't just that a book-length's worth of "and then
this happened, and then this happened" don't make a novel, or
"silver nitrate doesn't do that" errors; the cumulative effects
of unexplained or unconvincing inconsistencies in established
characters' personalities and behaviour, and the mounting mass
of knowledge that's had to've been lost without trace remaining
over as little as two or three generations, jointly served as a
steady drip undermining belief in the whole ramshackle creation.

- doesn't make the first two and the menolly-piemur trilogy any
less good, but the later books became dragon dronings - easy
reading, but not very rewarding: and then, dragon droppings...

- love, a ppint. as hasn't dared try todd mccaffrey - anyone?

[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]
--
"sunspots are important because scientists now know
they can affect the british climate."
- horizon: global weirding, bbc4, 20:35 bst (19:35 gmt) 2/4/13

[J. Clarke]

In article <c2371ccf-a103-4ef9...@googlegroups.com>,
rja.ca...@excite.com says...

I've read them all, most of them several times, and the later ones just
run together into a big jumble in my head. A lot of background on how
the society functions, but they aren't the grand adventure of the early
ones.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:48:50 +0100 (BST), ""ppint. at
pplay"" <v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> wrote in
<news:20130403.144...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

[Pern]

> - the original two dragon novels/fix-ups work, as do the first
> two menolly novels; _Dragondrums_, piemur's book, doesn't work
> quite as well as them, and i don't recall there being any real
> underlying coherence to the novel, _The White Dragon_.

I'd have to reread it; I remember enjoying _The White
Dragon_ when it came out and at least a time or two
thereafter. I agree that _Dragondrums_ is the weakest of
what I think of as the YA trilogy. I've a hard time reading
_Dragonsong_, simply because of what it depicts, but I've
read _Dragonsinger_ many times; it really is very well done.

[...]

Brian

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:06:45 -0400, James Silverton
<not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:kjhcrt$4ea$1...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> At the time, I liked her first novel "Restoree" despite
> the unusually healthy looking lady on the paperback
> cover.

It was a little formulaic (and would seem more so now, I
think), but I enjoyed it at the time. _Decision at Doona_,
published two years later, was also a decent read. The
Crystal Singer trilogy is based on an interesting idea and
had its moments, and I very much enjoyed the fix-up _The
Ship Who Sang_. The Talents universe is decent bus reading.
And the Sassinak trilogy, with co-authors Elizabeth Moon
(Nr. 1 & Nr. 3) and Jody Lynn Nye (Nr. 2) is a bit better
than that.

[...]

Brian

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:48:50 +0100 (BST), v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk
("ppint. at pplay") wrote:

[snip]

> - but it isn't just that a book-length's worth of "and then
> this happened, and then this happened" don't make a novel, or
> "silver nitrate doesn't do that" errors; the cumulative effects

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What does this mean / refer to, please?

> of unexplained or unconvincing inconsistencies in established
> characters' personalities and behaviour, and the mounting mass
> of knowledge that's had to've been lost without trace remaining
> over as little as two or three generations, jointly served as a
> steady drip undermining belief in the whole ramshackle creation.

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; in article, <1ra5tyap3crdu.1...@40tude.net>,
b.s...@csuohio.edu "Brian M. Scott" commented:

> ppint. at pplay"" <v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> wrote in

>[Pern]
>> - the original two dragon novels/fix-ups work, as do the first
>> two menolly novels; _Dragondrums_, piemur's book, doesn't work
>> quite as well as them, and i don't recall there being any real
>> underlying coherence to the novel, _The White Dragon_.
>
>I'd have to reread it; I remember enjoying _The White Dragon_ when it
>came out and at least a time or two thereafter.

- oh, i enjoyed reading it well enough until it ended, and
i realised it'd not really gone anywhere much in (at least)
three different directions.

>I agree that _Dragondrums_ is the weakest of what I think of as the YA
>trilogy. I've a hard time reading _Dragonsong_, simply because of what
>it depicts, but I've read _Dragonsinger_ many times; it really is very
>well done.

- mccaffrey was good at conveying how a number of forms of
music can be beautiful, each in their own way, in simple
words on the page; this isn't common in sf - lloyd biggle's
_The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets_ is one stand-out well
worth reading; but more often, sf-about-music requires the
reader to already be familiar with, and like, the particular
piece(s) of music involved. and fantasy does surprisingly
poorly at conveying the beauty in music, as a whole, con-
sidering how often bards are featured: mercedes lackey does
it well, in some of her novels & shorter stories.
mccaffrey doesn't do so much in the "crystal singer"
stories (_Continuum 1_ through _4_, roger elwood ed.) nor
in the three novels she based on these; but it is arguably
not so much of the guild/profession's job description, to
be able to give stunning virtuoso performances, as to de-
tect and recover perfectly-tuned crystals... the natural
beauty in pure notes and their harmonics mayn't bear over-
emphasis, or much repetition in prose.

- love, ppint.

[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]
--

a superfluous upward key-change is the last resort of the incompetent composer
or producer of pop songs: the penultimate being the infliction of violins.

[david.sh...@ymail.com]

On Apr 4, 4:11 pm, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:48:50 +0100 (BST), v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk
>
> ("ppint. at pplay") wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> >    - but it isn't just that a book-length's worth of "and then
> >    this happened, and then this happened" don't make a novel, or
> >    "silver nitrate doesn't do that" errors; the cumulative effects
>
>         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>      What does this mean / refer to, please?

Maybe ppint was hearing "AgNO3" rather than "HNO3"?

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; in article, <rhnrl8l0raa4qssuh...@4ax.com>,
ge...@telus.net "Gene Wirchenko" sought enlightenment:

> ("ppint. at pplay") wrote:
>[snip]
>> - but it isn't just that a book-length's worth of "and then
>> this happened, and then this happened" don't make a novel, or
>> "silver nitrate doesn't do that" errors; the cumulative effects
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> What does this mean / refer to, please?
>
>> of unexplained or unconvincing inconsistencies in established
>> characters' personalities and behaviour, and the mounting mass
>> of knowledge that's had to've been lost without trace remaining
>> over as little as two or three generations, jointly served as a
>> steady drip undermining belief in the whole ramshackle creation.
>[snip]

- anne mccaffrey wrote landed thread was burned by having
"ageenothree" pumped over it. AgNO3 is soluble in water
but not caustic nor significantly acidic: its main use
in a chemistry lab is to detect the presence of chloride
ions in aqueous solution - AgCl precipitates out as a
white cloud since silver chloride is insoluble in water.
(quite a lot of silver salts are insoluble in water, so
it isn't a conclusive test for chloride ions by itself.)
concentrated nitric acid would have been a far better
candidate, as it is both strongly acidic and an oxidising
agent, but silver nitrate is pretty innocuous.
(silver salts generally are - the most they usually do
is fall apart if you look at them too strongly.)

- hth, hand - tdwsc!

- love, a ppint. as feels fairly confident most rasfwrers
'll appreciate elemental silver's a pretty unreactive metal

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 4/4/13 8:44 PM, ppint. at pplay wrote:
> - hi; in article, <rhnrl8l0raa4qssuh...@4ax.com>,
> ge...@telus.net "Gene Wirchenko" sought enlightenment:
>> ("ppint. at pplay") wrote:
>> [snip]
>>> - but it isn't just that a book-length's worth of "and then
>>> this happened, and then this happened" don't make a novel, or
>>> "silver nitrate doesn't do that" errors; the cumulative effects
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> What does this mean / refer to, please?
>>
>>> of unexplained or unconvincing inconsistencies in established
>>> characters' personalities and behaviour, and the mounting mass
>>> of knowledge that's had to've been lost without trace remaining
>>> over as little as two or three generations, jointly served as a
>>> steady drip undermining belief in the whole ramshackle creation.
>> [snip]
>
> - anne mccaffrey wrote landed thread was burned by having
> "ageenothree" pumped over it. AgNO3 is soluble in water
> but not caustic nor significantly acidic:

But "HN03" is quite acidic and caustic, which is what was meant there.
It was "Agenothree" not "Ageenothree", the latter of which would be
pronounced closer to AgNO3, but the former and correct one closer to HNO3.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[David DeLaney]

ppint. at pplay <v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> - anne mccaffrey wrote landed thread was burned by having
> "ageenothree" pumped over it. AgNO3 is soluble in water
> but not caustic nor significantly acidic: its main use
> in a chemistry lab is to detect the presence of chloride
> ions in aqueous solution - AgCl precipitates out as a
> white cloud since silver chloride is insoluble in water.
> (quite a lot of silver salts are insoluble in water, so
> it isn't a conclusive test for chloride ions by itself.)
> concentrated nitric acid would have been a far better
> candidate, as it is both strongly acidic and an oxidising
> agent, but silver nitrate is pretty innocuous.
> (silver salts generally are - the most they usually do
> is fall apart if you look at them too strongly.)

Now, if you would, say "HNO3" out loud to yourself...

Dave, and remember, "Ag" is pronounced either "silver" or "argentum". Not
"ajjj".

[Joy Beeson]

On Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:06:45 -0400, James Silverton

<not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote:

> At the time, I liked her first novel "Restoree" despite the unusually
> healthy looking lady on the paperback cover.

I still regret that _Restoree_ didn't sell well enough to demand a
sequel. The hero is described as outstandingly ugly. The heroine is
gorgeous by virtue of full-body plastic surgery that included "taking
pity" on her enormous nose.

I really, really wanna see the children.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net

[Robert Carnegie]

On Friday, 5 April 2013 05:01:26 UTC+1, Joy Beeson wrote:
> I still regret that _Restoree_ didn't sell well enough to demand a
> sequel. The hero is described as outstandingly ugly.

In the face, I guess. The rest of him seems to be
found adequate.

> The heroine is
> gorgeous by virtue of full-body plastic surgery that included "taking
> pity" on her enormous nose.
>
> I really, really wanna see the children.

Well, the plastic surgery is still an option...
hang on, there may not be large amounts of
transplantable skin available any more.
And they're probably going to be somewhere
between "golden" and (now was it or not?)
Jewish, and the planet otherwise doesn't
have "racial" colour variation. They're
gonna look funny at school.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 4/4/13 11:52 PM, David DeLaney wrote:
> ppint. at pplay <v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> - anne mccaffrey wrote landed thread was burned by having
>> "ageenothree" pumped over it. AgNO3 is soluble in water
>> but not caustic nor significantly acidic: its main use
>> in a chemistry lab is to detect the presence of chloride
>> ions in aqueous solution - AgCl precipitates out as a
>> white cloud since silver chloride is insoluble in water.
>> (quite a lot of silver salts are insoluble in water, so
>> it isn't a conclusive test for chloride ions by itself.)
>> concentrated nitric acid would have been a far better
>> candidate, as it is both strongly acidic and an oxidising
>> agent, but silver nitrate is pretty innocuous.
>> (silver salts generally are - the most they usually do
>> is fall apart if you look at them too strongly.)
>
> Now, if you would, say "HNO3" out loud to yourself...
>
> Dave, and remember, "Ag" is pronounced either "silver" or "argentum". Not
> "ajjj".
>

Well, if you're saying "Aytch Enn Oh Three" for HNO3, it seems
perfectly reasonable to say "Ay Gee Enn Oh Three" for AgNO3, which is
what I presume he was doing in his head.

This is a well-known confusion with respect to those books, and a
number of people have mentioned this issue.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

The same's true of the Stainless Steel Rat, though Harrison seems to
have forgotten that (A) Jim DiGriz had almost complete reconstructive
surgery done that changed his appearance including height, and (B)
Angelina began as a girl so terribly cursed with ugliness that Jim
couldn't even detail it, and went through uncountable surgeries to
become the bombshell she eventually was. Their kids should have not
looked ANYTHING like their parents.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:41:13 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E.
Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
<news:kjlkgn$ao3$1...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> The same's true of the Stainless Steel Rat, though
> Harrison seems to have forgotten that (A) Jim DiGriz had
> almost complete reconstructive surgery done that changed
> his appearance including height, and (B) Angelina began
> as a girl so terribly cursed with ugliness that Jim
> couldn't even detail it, and went through uncountable
> surgeries to become the bombshell she eventually was.
> Their kids should have not looked ANYTHING like their
> parents.

Which from a professional point of view might be a good
thing.

Brian

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 04 Apr 2013 21:10:18 +0100 bst, ""ppint. at pplay""
<v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> wrote in
<news:20130404.201...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> - mccaffrey was good at conveying how a number of forms of
> music can be beautiful, each in their own way, in simple
> words on the page; this isn't common in sf - lloyd biggle's
> _The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets_ is one stand-out well
> worth reading; but more often, sf-about-music requires the
> reader to already be familiar with, and like, the particular
> piece(s) of music involved. and fantasy does surprisingly
> poorly at conveying the beauty in music, as a whole, con-
> sidering how often bards are featured: mercedes lackey does
> it well, in some of her novels & shorter stories.

Sometimes the beauty is taken for granted, and the emphasis
is instead on the magical power of music. Modesitt did that
in the Spellsong novels, but in the Ghost novels and
_Archform: Beauty_ there's a real attempt to convey the
beauty and importance of music.

I have Mary Gentle's _Black Opera_ waiting to be read; I
suspect that I'll find that she's done a good job conveying
both.

Brian

[Chris]

On Mar 30, 1:53 am, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> In article <kj5tru$ja...@dont-email.me>,
> Lawrence Watt-Evans  <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
> >On 2013-03-30 00:36:57 -0400, James Nicoll said:
>
> >Ah, here's where they went to five per category.
>
> It won't stay there. I am dreading 1976.
>
>
>
> >>     1967 Fritz Leiber* "Gonna Roll the Bones"
> >>     1967 Harlan Ellison "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"
> >>     1967 Larry Niven "Flatlander"
> >>     1967 Roger Zelazny "The Keys to December"
> >>     1967 Roger Zelazny "This Mortal Mountain"
>
> >Huh.  I've only read the first two, so far as I recall -- though I
> >probably read "Flatlander" and just don't remember it by title.
>
> It's the one where Shafer meets Elephant and they visit an exotic world,
> I think.
>
> --http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicollhttp://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll(For all your "The problem with
> defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)

I think that's the one in which they rescue a Kdatlyno artist
kidnapped from their ship, no?

Chris

[James Nicoll]

In article <2aeb13cf-cc7f-42e3...@b20g2000yqo.googlegroups.com>,

Isn't that Grendel?
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with

[David DeLaney]

Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>""ppint. at pplay"" <v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> wrote in

>> - mccaffrey was good at conveying how a number of forms of
>> music can be beautiful, each in their own way, in simple
>> words on the page; this isn't common in sf - lloyd biggle's
>> _The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets_ is one stand-out well
>> worth reading; but more often, sf-about-music requires the
>> reader to already be familiar with, and like, the particular
>> piece(s) of music involved. and fantasy does surprisingly
>> poorly at conveying the beauty in music, as a whole, con-
>> sidering how often bards are featured: mercedes lackey does
>> it well, in some of her novels & shorter stories.
>
>Sometimes the beauty is taken for granted, and the emphasis
>is instead on the magical power of music. Modesitt did that
>in the Spellsong novels, but in the Ghost novels and
>_Archform: Beauty_ there's a real attempt to convey the
>beauty and importance of music.

I read The Wise Man's Fear last night, and Rothfuss does at least a medium-good
job of it among the parts of that story as well.

I don't think Foster's Spellsinger series does anything like as well.

Dave

[David DeLaney]

Chris <chris.li...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Mar 30, 1:53 am, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:

>> Lawrence Watt-Evans  <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>> >Huh.  I've only read the first two, so far as I recall -- though I
>> >probably read "Flatlander" and just don't remember it by title.
>>
>> It's the one where Shafer meets Elephant and they visit an exotic world,
>> I think.

(Yes.)

>I think that's the one in which they rescue a Kdatlyno artist
>kidnapped from their ship, no?

No, that one's Grendel (also in Neutron Star and Crashlander).

[Rich Horton]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 15:23:10 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

>Silverberg started off as an enormously prolific hack and got bored
>with it, as far as I can tell.

Also learned that he could make more money in other fields.

> He left the genre for other fields,
>was tempted back by Fred Pohl,

Who basically told him "you can do better"

>and then spent about a decade on more
>ambitious work, work that may not have been as appreciated as it could
>have but which did attract awards. Then after a crappy couple of years
>(a major house fire, among other things) he retired again.
>

The house fire came more or less in the middle of his "second period",
as I recall. There was a divorce in there somewhere too.

(I read Silverberg's quasi-autobiography recently ...)

>I'm pretty sure Silverberg had a speech for his second retirement.
>I've never seen a text of it, though.
>
>His official site says this:
>
>"By 1973, he was once again starting to suffer from what we would now
>call burn-out, though of a different sort than in 1959. That other time,
>he was frustrated by the low standards prevalent in the field; now he was
>feeling drained by the intensity of effort required to produce the kind
>of writing he demanded of himself. He stopped writing short stories
>altogether, and then turned out a few more novels before publicly announcing
>his retirement (again). His prodigious output during the preceding decades
>made this departure both necessary and possible.
>
>[...]
>
>Despite much pleading from editors and fans, he held out until 1978, when
>he found himself working on what became Lord Valentine's Castle. The
>retirement revealed itself as only a sabbatical. It wasn't until 1980
>that he returned to the shorter forms, with "Waiting for the Earthquake",
>which he had promised Harlan Ellison (in 1975) for the Medea collection."
>
>I'm not crazy about his third period but unlike Anthony Silverberg always
>maintains a reasonable level of competence: RS still attracts awards from
>colleagues and readers.


He has suggested that he has more or less retired again, at least from
writing novels. (He'll still do non-fiction, like his column at
Asimov's, and I suppose perhaps the occasional piece of short
fiction.)

[Rich Horton]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 18:35:46 -0700 (PDT), William Hyde
<wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Mar 30, 5:55�pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>> On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 13:13:04 -0700 (PDT), William Hyde
>
>> > "The Stochastic Man" has a strange, constricting feel
>> > (partially the central idea, but perhaps also the prose).
>> > �"Valentine", by contrast, flows easily.
>>
>> The Majipoor novels are the only Silverberg that I've really
>> liked. �I don't reread them, but I did enjoy them.
>
>I've also yet to reread them, while I have reread most of the rest of
>his SF, even some of the hackwork.
>
>I'd be somewhat surprised if, liking the Majipoor novels, you didn't
>like "Nightwings".
>

It's worth noting that even the early Silverberg, undeniably hackwork,
and tiresome at times for that, is still "competent" -- he never gave
less than ordinary value for his penny or two a word.

[Rich Horton]

On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:42:29 -0400, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net>

wrote:

>On 2013-03-30 00:36:57 -0400, James Nicoll said:
>
>Ah, here's where they went to five per category.
>

>> novels
>>
>> Samuel R. Delany* The Einstein Intersection
>> Piers Anthony Chthon
>> Hayden Howard The Eskimo Invasion
>> Roger Zelazny Lord of Light
>> Robert Silverberg Thorns
>
>I've read all of these except the Delany.
>
>Hated THORNS. Didn't think much of CHTHON. I'd have to go with LORD OF LIGHT.
>

Haven't reread THORNS or CHTHON in forever. I agree with what Lawrence
says about the H. H. book. I've never loved LORD OF LIGHT as much as
most people do ... Zelazny for me is yet another SF writer best at
novelette/novella length. But the first time through the Delany I
confess bewilderment. So, back then it might have been LORD OF LIGHT
by default, may still be, though another go at the Delany would
probably be worth it.


>> Novellas
>>
>> Michael Moorcock* "Behold the Man"
>> Philip Jose Farmer "Riders of the Purple Wage"
>> Anne McCaffrey "Weyr Search"
>> Robert Silverberg "Hawksbill Station"
>> Theodore Sturgeon "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One
>> Marry Your Sister?"
>
>Amazingly, I have never read "Hawksbill Station." Of the others...
>well, let's see. "Behold the Man" is very well done, but as someone
>raised with almost no background in Christianity, it didn't do much for
>me emotionally. "If All Men Were Brothers..." depends entirely on the
>shock value of its premise, which I didn't find all that shocking.
>"Riders of the Purple Wage" is Farmer trying to prove he can skim the
>crest of the New Wave and fire off verbal pyrotechnics as well as
>anyone; unlike the Sturgeon, he did include an actual story, though
>it's a bit buried under the special effects.
>

"Hawksbill Station" is actually pretty good. I agree with what others
say about "Weyr Search" -- McCaffrey was at this time an enjoyable
writer. (I still would never have made her a Grand Master -- how about
say Kate Wilhelm instead? -- but there you are.) Back in the day I was
fairly impressed with the Moorcock and the Farmer, perhaps less so
now. The Sturgeon always struck me as Sturgeon in near self-parody
mode.


>> novelettes

>>
>> 1967 Fritz Leiber* "Gonna Roll the Bones"
>> 1967 Harlan Ellison "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"
>> 1967 Larry Niven "Flatlander"
>> 1967 Roger Zelazny "The Keys to December"
>> 1967 Roger Zelazny "This Mortal Mountain"
>

>Huh. I've only read the first two, so far as I recall -- though I
>probably read "Flatlander" and just don't remember it by title.
>

>Didn't like "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes" much. I don't share Harlan's
>attitudes toward women and never did.
>
>"Gonna Roll the Bones" is fun in an over-the-top folktale kind of way,
>but I was disappointed by the ending. I'd probably give it the award
>anyway.

I'd go with one of the Zelaznys, not sure which, here. All the stories
are decent, though.

>> short stories
>>
>> Samuel R. Delany* ""Aye, and Gomorrah.""
>> Reginald Bretnor "Earthwoman"
>> Samuel R. Delany "Driftglass"
>> Fritz Leiber "Answering Service"
>> Theodore L. Thomas "The Doctor"
>> Kate Wilhelm "Baby, You Were Great"
>
>I've read the Delany and the Wilhelm, and maybe the Leiber but I don't
>recognize the title.
>
>I'd give it to Wilhelm.

Haven't read the Bretnor, actually. Nor the Leiber, oddly. I'd give it
to "Aye, and Gomorrah", which I think a truly great great story.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 14:44:42 -0500, Rich Horton
<rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote in
<news:upi3m8dkq96p2dg9v...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...].

> I agree with what others say about "Weyr Search" --
> McCaffrey was at this time an enjoyable writer. (I still
> would never have made her a Grand Master -- how about say
> Kate Wilhelm instead? -- but there you are.)

Far more people have read and enjoyed McCaffrey. I don't
think that she's by any means the oddest selection that's
been made. Kate Wilhelm wouldn't even occur to me. But
then neither would Connie Willis.

Brian

[Rich Horton]

I would agree she's not the oddest selection they've made. And I
wouldn't go to the barricades for Wilhelm. And for that matter, now
that we're in the Ws, the notion that Willis got it before Wolfe is
mindboggling.

That said, I'm not in favor of giving the Grand Master based on how
many people have read and enjoyed a writer. (I'd allow it can be a
component in your thought process, though.)

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:53:36 -0500, Rich Horton
<rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote in
<news:olf4m8ljgkiikt663...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> On Sun, 7 Apr 2013 21:44:33 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
> <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>>On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 14:44:42 -0500, Rich Horton
>><rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote in
>><news:upi3m8dkq96p2dg9v...@4ax.com> in
>>rec.arts.sf.written:

>>[...].

>>> I agree with what others say about "Weyr Search" --
>>> McCaffrey was at this time an enjoyable writer. (I
>>> still would never have made her a Grand Master -- how
>>> about say Kate Wilhelm instead? -- but there you are.)

>> Far more people have read and enjoyed McCaffrey. I don't
>> think that she's by any means the oddest selection
>> that's been made. Kate Wilhelm wouldn't even occur to
>> me. But then neither would Connie Willis.

> I would agree she's not the oddest selection they've made.
> And I wouldn't go to the barricades for Wilhelm. And for
> that matter, now that we're in the Ws, the notion that
> Willis got it before Wolfe is mindboggling.

I agree, and I'm not even a Wolfe fan!

> That said, I'm not in favor of giving the Grand Master
> based on how many people have read and enjoyed a writer.
> (I'd allow it can be a component in your thought process,
> though.)

I think that it ought to be a significant component in the
thought processes of those actually making the award. Not
the only one, certainly -- I've no quarrel with Damon
Knight's award, for instance -- but a significant one.

Brian

[Rich Horton]

On Mon, 8 Apr 2013 00:13:45 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"

Seems to me Connie Willis is a slam dunk then, given how many people
have read and enjoyed her work.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

I'd agree it should be one component, with the other major component
being whether the author's work influenced others in the field
significantly. McCaffrey certainly had an effect on other authors and
the field in general over her lifetime, so I have no problem with her
getting the status.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

My only question is whether she's been influential in the genre or not.
I don't know, myself; I haven't heard her name come up much in
discussions of anything other than her work in specific, but that could
easily mean that I'm just out of touch.

[Howard Brazee]

On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:53:36 -0500, Rich Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net>
wrote:

>That said, I'm not in favor of giving the Grand Master based on how
>many people have read and enjoyed a writer. (I'd allow it can be a
>component in your thought process, though.)

That seems to be (mostly) how the awards are given. Do you wish to
have "experts" choose instead?

--
Anybody who agrees with one side all of the time or disagrees with the
other side all of the time is equally guilty of letting others do
their thinking for them.

[Howard Brazee]

On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 08:43:15 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

> My only question is whether she's been influential in the genre or not.
>I don't know, myself; I haven't heard her name come up much in
>discussions of anything other than her work in specific, but that could
>easily mean that I'm just out of touch.

Does "influential" mean - if Dan Brown can turn crud into millions,
then I should be able to do so too?

[Howard Brazee]

On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 08:42:18 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

> I'd agree it should be one component, with the other major component
>being whether the author's work influenced others in the field
>significantly. McCaffrey certainly had an effect on other authors and
>the field in general over her lifetime, so I have no problem with her
>getting the status.

Because dragons are more popular now?

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 4/8/13 9:29 AM, Howard Brazee wrote:
> On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 08:43:15 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> My only question is whether she's been influential in the genre or not.
>> I don't know, myself; I haven't heard her name come up much in
>> discussions of anything other than her work in specific, but that could
>> easily mean that I'm just out of touch.
>
> Does "influential" mean - if Dan Brown can turn crud into millions,
> then I should be able to do so too?

Well, I suppose that could be ONE yardstick... if those attempting to
imitate Dan Brown had enough success that you could see he'd had an
effect outside of the slush pile.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2013-04-08 09:28:14 -0400, Howard Brazee said:

> On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:53:36 -0500, Rich Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net>
> wrote:
>
>> That said, I'm not in favor of giving the Grand Master based on how
>> many people have read and enjoyed a writer. (I'd allow it can be a
>> component in your thought process, though.)
>
> That seems to be (mostly) how the awards are given. Do you wish to
> have "experts" choose instead?

The Grand Master Award is supposedly for writers who have been
INFLUENTIAL, rather than popular. Obviously, the categories have a
great deal of overlap.




--
Now available on Amazon or B&N: One-Eyed Jack.
Greg Kraft could see ghosts. That didn't mean he could stop them...

[James Nicoll]

In article <kjumt9$guf$1...@dont-email.me>,

Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>On 2013-04-08 09:28:14 -0400, Howard Brazee said:
>
>> On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:53:36 -0500, Rich Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> That said, I'm not in favor of giving the Grand Master based on how
>>> many people have read and enjoyed a writer. (I'd allow it can be a
>>> component in your thought process, though.)
>>
>> That seems to be (mostly) how the awards are given. Do you wish to
>> have "experts" choose instead?
>
>The Grand Master Award is supposedly for writers who have been
>INFLUENTIAL, rather than popular. Obviously, the categories have a
>great deal of overlap.
>

Wasn't the original idea to honour people whose careers predated
the Nebulas?

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2013-04-08 11:26:15 -0400, James Nicoll said:

> In article <kjumt9$guf$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>> On 2013-04-08 09:28:14 -0400, Howard Brazee said:
>>
>>> On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:53:36 -0500, Rich Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> That said, I'm not in favor of giving the Grand Master based on how
>>>> many people have read and enjoyed a writer. (I'd allow it can be a
>>>> component in your thought process, though.)
>>>
>>> That seems to be (mostly) how the awards are given. Do you wish to
>>> have "experts" choose instead?
>>
>> The Grand Master Award is supposedly for writers who have been
>> INFLUENTIAL, rather than popular. Obviously, the categories have a
>> great deal of overlap.
>>
> Wasn't the original idea to honour people whose careers predated
> the Nebulas?

That was certainly part of it; in fact, there was discussion of
discontinuing the award once van Vogt (the last of the really major
pre-Nebula writers who was still alive at the time and hadn't yet
received it) got his.

Instead the award fans in SFWA won out, and they actually increased the
frequency with which it could be given. The pre-Nebula aspect is long
gone now, but at least when I was still in SFWA, it was still for
people who had significantly influenced the field.

[James Silverton]

On 4/8/2013 11:17 AM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On 2013-04-08 09:28:14 -0400, Howard Brazee said:
>
>> On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:53:36 -0500, Rich Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> That said, I'm not in favor of giving the Grand Master based on how
>>> many people have read and enjoyed a writer. (I'd allow it can be a
>>> component in your thought process, though.)
>>
>> That seems to be (mostly) how the awards are given. Do you wish to
>> have "experts" choose instead?
>
> The Grand Master Award is supposedly for writers who have been
> INFLUENTIAL, rather than popular. Obviously, the categories have a
> great deal of overlap.
>
>
>
>

They'd damn well better or does anyone write stories just for themselves?

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not" in Reply To.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

To answer the question as stated first: Sure, lots of people do. Just
ask Tina Hall.

To get a bit more detailed about influential vs. popular, though, an
author can be immensely popular without being influential to any
significant degree -- avoiding the SF genre to avoid argument, consider
Jackie Collins.

And certain authors are influential without being popular, because they
appeal to _other writers_, rather than a mass audience.

Oddly, you can find authors who manage to do both of these in a single
career; Robert W. Chambers was fabulously popular in the 1920s, but
none of his work from that period was influential. On the other hand,
his early work, from the 1890s, was _tremendously_ influential in the
fields of fantasy and horror, but didn't sell especially well when
first published.

In between he wrote a book, _The Tracer of Lost Persons_, published in
1906, that was both.

[David Harmon]

On Thu, 04 Apr 2013 21:27:03 -0400 in rec.arts.sf.written, "Sea Wasp
(Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote,
>On 4/4/13 8:44 PM, ppint. at pplay wrote:
>> - anne mccaffrey wrote landed thread was burned by having
>> "ageenothree" pumped over it. AgNO3 is soluble in water
>> but not caustic nor significantly acidic:
>
> But "HN03" is quite acidic and caustic, which is what was meant there.
>It was "Agenothree" not "Ageenothree", the latter of which would be
>pronounced closer to AgNO3, but the former and correct one closer to HNO3.

Ag is silver. Not by any stretch is it anything else. Next?

[Robert Carnegie]

On Monday, 8 April 2013 19:42:40 UTC+1, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> To get a bit more detailed about influential vs. popular,
> though, an author can be immensely popular without being
> influential to any significant degree -- avoiding the
> SF genre to avoid argument, consider Jackie Collins.

I'm aware of work similar to hers, but if someone else
invented it first, then /that/ is who's influential.
(Harold Robbins? He gets the respect in _Star Trek IV_.)

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Indeed, but in a WORD -- which we are discussing, not chemical
symbology, but a word derived from said symbology by people who do not
know what the chemical symbology meant -- "Age" is pronounced as the
word that is the root of "aging", "aged", etc., and THAT sounds quite
like the letter "H".

As Word Of God (the author) states that "Agenothree" was pronounced
that way, AND was specifically intended to be "HNO3", your complaint is
rendered pointless; you simply didn't interpret it correctly, because
you were reading rather than hearing.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Exactly -- she works in a well-established genre and does absolutely
nothing original with it. She just does it really well. Not
influential at all, but immensely popular.

[James Silverton]

For Pete's sake, she got it wrong and I noticed it at the time. Let's
leave it.

[Rich Horton]

On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 07:28:14 -0600, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net>
wrote:

>On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:53:36 -0500, Rich Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net>
>wrote:
>
>>That said, I'm not in favor of giving the Grand Master based on how
>>many people have read and enjoyed a writer. (I'd allow it can be a
>>component in your thought process, though.)
>
>That seems to be (mostly) how the awards are given. Do you wish to
>have "experts" choose instead?

As long as I'm the expert. <g>

But, yes, actually, in the specific case of the SFWA Grand Master, I
do think it should be the experts.

(In fact, in history it's only sort of been the "experts", in that the
choice was (at one time) largely the province of the current SFWA
president, with, I suppose, the advice and consent of the BOD. (I
think Lawrence can explain much better.) In my opinion there are clear
cases where that meant "My mentor needs to be a Grand Master" or
something much like that.)

I've discussed my feelings about past Grand Master awardings in this
forum at some length ... I feel a bit less curmudgeonly now, I
suppose. But I do still think the standards for it should be the
highest, and that popularity should be a somewhat minor component.
Otherwise, as suggested by someone, Dan Brown would be a choice.

[Wayne Throop]

:::: - anne mccaffrey wrote landed thread was burned by having

:::: "ageenothree" pumped over it. AgNO3 is soluble in water but not
:::: caustic nor significantly acidic:
::: But "HN03" is quite acidic and caustic, which is what was meant
::: there. It was "Agenothree" not "Ageenothree", the latter of which
::: would be pronounced closer to AgNO3, but the former and correct one
::: closer to HNO3.
:: Ag is silver. Not by any stretch is it anything else. Next?

Yeah, goodness knows, pronunciation of words never drifts, and couldn't
possibliy change from "aitch" to "aygee" no matter how many hundreds of
years went by, goodness knows. It must be phonetically identical,
just like the e pleb nista.


Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was,
same as it ever was, same as it ever was

--- Talking Heads

"You monsters are such interesting creatures! I was just saying to
my girlfriend, just the other day, 'Monsters are such interesting
people! Why I'll bet they lead such interesting lives!' The things
you must see and the things you must do! My stars!"

--- Bugs Bunny

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> writes:

> On 2013-04-08 09:28:14 -0400, Howard Brazee said:
>
>> On Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:53:36 -0500, Rich Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> That said, I'm not in favor of giving the Grand Master based on how
>>> many people have read and enjoyed a writer. (I'd allow it can be a
>>> component in your thought process, though.)
>>
>> That seems to be (mostly) how the awards are given. Do you wish to
>> have "experts" choose instead?
>
> The Grand Master Award is supposedly for writers who have been
> INFLUENTIAL, rather than popular. Obviously, the categories have a
> great deal of overlap.

Maybe. I think an author can be popular *among authors* without being
more widely popular. In this generation (I know he was a much bigger
deal in his own time) James Branch Cabel comes to mind. Both Robert
Heinlein and Neil Gaiman are pretty influenced by him, so that's
already really major! No doubt there are many many more. But he's not
very much read by most people. Charles Williams might be another one,
or E.R. Eddison.
--
Googleproofaddress(account:dd-b provider:dd-b domain:net)
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

[lal_truckee]

On 4/8/13 10:26 AM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> The pre-Nebula aspect is long gone now, but at least when I was still in
> SFWA, it was still for people who had significantly influenced the field.

For ever decreasing values of "significant" apparently.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 09 Apr 2013 02:17:29 GMT, Wayne Throop
<thr...@sheol.org> wrote in <news:13654...@sheol.org> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

>:: Ag is silver. Not by any stretch is it anything else. Next?

> Yeah, goodness knows, pronunciation of words never drifts, and couldn't
> possibliy change from "aitch" to "aygee" no matter how many hundreds of
> years went by, goodness knows. It must be phonetically identical,
> just like the e pleb nista.

In fact a much smaller change was postulated, from 'aitch'
to 'age', with voicing of the affricate.

Brian

[William December Starr]

In article <kjlkgn$ao3$1...@dont-email.me>,
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> said:

> The same's true of the Stainless Steel Rat, though Harrison seems to
> have forgotten that (A) Jim DiGriz had almost complete reconstructive
> surgery done that changed his appearance including height, and (B)
> Angelina began as a girl so terribly cursed with ugliness that Jim
> couldn't even detail it, and went through uncountable surgeries to
> become the bombshell she eventually was. Their kids should have not
> looked ANYTHING like their parents.

I think we can file that under "Problem Solved by the Power of Awesome".

-- wds

[William December Starr]

In article <kjv0cs$lce$2...@dont-email.me>,

Didn't Zelazny? Though in that case "for himself" meant "to help him
better understand a character that he was in the process of writing
for others about," as opposed to the simpler "did it just to
entertain himself, work out inner demons, or whatever".

-- wds

[Anthony Nance]

Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

Aye - in my youth, I read an Encyclopedia Brown story, resolution
of which hinged on him realizing someone heard the vocalized
spelling "W-H-E-N" but the speaker was saying "W-A-G-N" (as in
"Wagner", the culprit.

Tony

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

It is true that the awesomeness of James DiGriz pretty much overcomes
all obstacles, except that of his wife.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:59:21 -0400, James Silverton
<not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:kjv0cs$lce$2...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> They'd damn well better or does anyone write stories just
> for themselves?

I've done so. Tina Hall has done so in spades.

Brian

[James Silverton]

I believe you, but how do you know about Tina Hall?

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 4/10/13 8:24 AM, James Silverton wrote:
> On 4/9/2013 9:28 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>> On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:59:21 -0400, James Silverton
>> <not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote in
>> <news:kjv0cs$lce$2...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> They'd damn well better or does anyone write stories just
>>> for themselves?
>>
>> I've done so. Tina Hall has done so in spades.
>>
>> Brian
>>
> I believe you, but how do you know about Tina Hall?
>

She's described her preferences, and her process in writing books
specifically for herself, in detail several times on this group and on
r.a.sf.c as well.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2013-04-10 09:39:33 -0400, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) said:

> On 4/10/13 8:24 AM, James Silverton wrote:
>> On 4/9/2013 9:28 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>> On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:59:21 -0400, James Silverton
>>> <not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote in
>>> <news:kjv0cs$lce$2...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>>> They'd damn well better or does anyone write stories just
>>>> for themselves?
>>>
>>> I've done so. Tina Hall has done so in spades.
>>>

>> I believe you, but how do you know about Tina Hall?
>
> She's described her preferences, and her process in writing books
> specifically for herself, in detail several times on this group and on
> r.a.sf.c as well.

Including quotes from her work.

[J. Clarke]

In article <kk3v57$6d1$1...@dont-email.me>, l...@sff.net says...

>
> On 2013-04-10 09:39:33 -0400, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) said:
>
> > On 4/10/13 8:24 AM, James Silverton wrote:
> >> On 4/9/2013 9:28 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> >>> On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:59:21 -0400, James Silverton
> >>> <not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote in
> >>> <news:kjv0cs$lce$2...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:
> >>>
> >>> [...]
> >>>
> >>>> They'd damn well better or does anyone write stories just
> >>>> for themselves?
> >>>
> >>> I've done so. Tina Hall has done so in spades.
> >>>
> >> I believe you, but how do you know about Tina Hall?
> >
> > She's described her preferences, and her process in writing books
> > specifically for herself, in detail several times on this group and on
> > r.a.sf.c as well.
>
> Including quotes from her work.

Seems to me that if you're not writing for yourself then it could become
terrible drudgery.

[Juho Julkunen]

In article <MPG.2bcf5293...@news.newsguy.com>,
jclark...@cox.net says...

> Seems to me that if you're not writing for yourself then it could become
> terrible drudgery.

I suppose it helps to get paid.

--
Juho Julkunen

[J. Clarke]

In article <MPG.2bcfc474f...@news.kolumbus.fi>,
giao...@hotmail.com says...

But you've got to do quite a lot of practicing in order to be good
enough to get paid.

[James Silverton]

I had not seen her descriptions but I quite possibly could have missed
them as she seems mainly to have juvenile and teaching books in print.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:19:47 -0400, James Silverton
<not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:kk4ksd$icu$2...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> I had not seen her descriptions but I quite possibly could
> have missed them as she seems mainly to have juvenile and
> teaching books in print.

If you're talking about our Tina Hall, to the best of my
knowledge she has nothing in print; I doubt that she's ever
submitted anything for publication. Oh, and to help
disambiguate her from any others of that name: she's German
and lives (last I knew) in Germany.

Brian

[Tina Hall]

Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

> James Silverton <not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote

> [...]

>> They'd damn well better or does anyone write stories just
>> for themselves?

> I've done so. Tina Hall has done so in spades.

Heh, yeah. But only because no one else writes what I want to read.
(Or at least, it's not published anywhere I am aware of, and I gave
up trying. 10 years of arguing here about getting recommendations is
enough.)

--
"Whatever happened to your patience?"
"The Shan ate it." -- Kian and Senar, Magic Earth VI
Excerpts at: <http://home.htp-tel.de/fkoerper/ath/athintro.htm>
Misc bits: <http://ath-stories.livejournal.com/>

[Tina Hall]

Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> James Silverton <not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote

> [...]

>> I had not seen her descriptions but I quite possibly could
>> have missed them as she seems mainly to have juvenile and
>> teaching books in print.

Huh?

> If you're talking about our Tina Hall, to the best of my
> knowledge she has nothing in print; I doubt that she's ever
> submitted anything for publication.

You are 100% correct.

I'll refrain from rambling on about why I wouldn't want to submit
anything.

I'm still occasionally looking for a betareader, though. But not
just any random stranger. (Why? Because I want it written well, just
as I want a drawing I do to look good. With a drawing I can see it
myself. With writing, I am not so sure.)

> Oh, and to help disambiguate her from any others of that name:
> she's German and lives (last I knew) in Germany.

Well, I was born in the UK. And in the UK I count as British.

--
"Raving avalance!" she exclaimed, grinning. "If people are tearing up other
people, the least they could do is eat them, to get some good out of it."
"Come on, Ma, let's find something more to your liking, before you give
further sound advice." -- Kevra and Lanar, S&E I: Controlled by Magic

[James Silverton]

On 4/10/2013 7:37 PM, Tina Hall wrote:
> Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>> James Silverton <not.jim....@verizon.net> wrote
>
>> [...]
>
>>> I had not seen her descriptions but I quite possibly could
>>> have missed them as she seems mainly to have juvenile and
>>> teaching books in print.
>
> Huh?
>
>> If you're talking about our Tina Hall, to the best of my
>> knowledge she has nothing in print; I doubt that she's ever
>> submitted anything for publication.
>
> You are 100% correct.
>
> I'll refrain from rambling on about why I wouldn't want to submit
> anything.
>
> I'm still occasionally looking for a betareader, though. But not
> just any random stranger. (Why? Because I want it written well, just
> as I want a drawing I do to look good. With a drawing I can see it
> myself. With writing, I am not so sure.)
>
>> Oh, and to help disambiguate her from any others of that name:
>> she's German and lives (last I knew) in Germany.
>
> Well, I was born in the UK. And in the UK I count as British.
>

An Amazon search brings up quite a few books by "Tina Hall".

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Yes, but those aren't unusual names.

If you search for "Ryk Spoor", you can be pretty confident most of the
hits you come up with (though not quite all) are referring to me. But
"Tina Hall" isn't nearly that rare a name.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Right. And I hyphenated my pen name because there were at least three
authors named Lawrence Evans who were published before I was.

There's an author in Virginia who uses a pen name (which I forget)
because his real name is Steven King. Steven, not Stephen, but still...

Anyway, the Tina Hall who posts here is unpublished, unless you count
the snippets in her .sig.

LOTS of people write only for themselves. Emily Dickinson did -- she
was only published posthumously. Most of them, of course, we never
hear of.

[James Silverton]

On 4/11/2013 11:28 AM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On 2013-04-11 09:12:50 -0400, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) said:
>
>> On 4/11/13 8:29 AM, James Silverton wrote:
>>>
>>> An Amazon search brings up quite a few books by "Tina Hall".
>>
>> Yes, but those aren't unusual names.
>>
>> If you search for "Ryk Spoor", you can be pretty confident most of
>> the hits you come up with (though not quite all) are referring to me.
>> But "Tina Hall" isn't nearly that rare a name.
>
> Right. And I hyphenated my pen name because there were at least three
> authors named Lawrence Evans who were published before I was.
>
> There's an author in Virginia who uses a pen name (which I forget)
> because his real name is Steven King. Steven, not Stephen, but still...
>
> Anyway, the Tina Hall who posts here is unpublished, unless you count
> the snippets in her .sig.
>
> LOTS of people write only for themselves. Emily Dickinson did -- she
> was only published posthumously. Most of them, of course, we never hear
> of.
>
>
>

Somehow, I feel that a poet like Emily Dickinson may more appropriately
write for herself. To me, a story seems to need sharing but I'm not a
fiction writer even if I have found myself plotting a tale in the
moments before wakening. It seems that the point at which thinking is
needed is when I awake :-(