YASID: Sturgeon (?) and the technique of bulldozing
Ed Treijs
bulldozing a new road is trickier than it looks, because the bulldozer
is running on the road it's created, and there's a positive feedback
cycle if the road is uneven: as the bulldozer rocks on the uneven
road, the blade goes up and down creating more uneveness, which the
bulldozer runs along and the blade goes up and down.....
I know everyone is thinking "Killdozer!", but it ain't. I just re-read
it, and people actually operate Daisy Etta for a very short period of
the story, basically Rivera (we don't see Dennis' fatal ride).
The bit from the story I have in mind seems to be set in the Southern
Pacific on an island, which is why I was convinced it would be in
"Killdozer!" as well. I would have read a long time ago, at least
thirty years.
Going back to "Killdozer!", was the ending with the "IRBM" falling on
the island part of the 1944 story? I thought it was really
anachronistic to have a multistage rocket, and especially the "IRBM"
label, when the V2 programme was just getting underway. Wikipedia, the
fount of all questionable knowledge, says that the story was revised
in 1959. The IRBM would make sense if it came in there. (I read the
story in an Asimov/Greenberg collection of novellas from the golden
age.)
....Ed
Butch Malahide
> There's a part in a story, I think by Sturgeon, where he explains that
> bulldozing a new road is trickier than it looks, because the bulldozer
> is running on the road it's created, and there's a positive feedback
> cycle if the road is uneven: as the bulldozer rocks on the uneven
> road, the blade goes up and down creating more uneveness, which the
> bulldozer runs along and the blade goes up and down.....
[BEGIN QUOTE]
The blade loaded and gravel ran off the ends in two even rolls, and my
right hand flicked to and away from me on the blade control, knowing
how to raise it enough to let the gravel run out evenly underneath the
cutting edge, not too high so that it would make a bobble in the fill
for the tracks to teeter on when they reached it--for a bulldozer
builds the road it walks on, and if the road is rough the machine see-
saws forward and the blade cuts and fills to make waves which, when
the tracks reach them, makes the machine see-saw and cut waves, which,
when the tracks reach them . . . anyway, my hands knew what to do, and
my feet; and they did it all the time when I could only see what was
to be done, and could not understand the events of doing it.
[END QUOTE]
"Abreaction" by Theodore Sturgeon:
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?45007
Bill Snyder
<ed.to...@gmail.com> wrote:
>There's a part in a story, I think by Sturgeon, where he explains that
>bulldozing a new road is trickier than it looks, because the bulldozer
>is running on the road it's created, and there's a positive feedback
>cycle if the road is uneven: as the bulldozer rocks on the uneven
>road, the blade goes up and down creating more uneveness, which the
>bulldozer runs along and the blade goes up and down.....
>
>I know everyone is thinking "Killdozer!", but it ain't. I just re-read
>it, and people actually operate Daisy Etta for a very short period of
>the story, basically Rivera (we don't see Dennis' fatal ride).
"Abreaction"; if you have the collected short stories, it's in the
same volume and just after "Killdozer."
"[F]or a bulldozer builds the road it walks on, and if the road is
rough the machine see-saws forward and the blade cuts and fills to
make waves which, when the tracks reach them, makes the machine
see-saw and cut waves, which, when the tracks reach them . . ."
>
>The bit from the story I have in mind seems to be set in the Southern
>Pacific on an island, which is why I was convinced it would be in
>"Killdozer!" as well. I would have read a long time ago, at least
>thirty years.
>
>Going back to "Killdozer!", was the ending with the "IRBM" falling on
>the island part of the 1944 story? I thought it was really
>anachronistic to have a multistage rocket, and especially the "IRBM"
>label, when the V2 programme was just getting underway. Wikipedia, the
>fount of all questionable knowledge, says that the story was revised
>in 1959. The IRBM would make sense if it came in there. (I read the
>story in an Asimov/Greenberg collection of novellas from the golden
>age.)
The original ending involved a Japanese aircraft carrier "sunk
nearer to our shores than any other Jap warship," and five planes
which "having been separated by three vertical miles of water from
their flight deck, turned east with their bomb load and droned
away for a suicide mission."
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
Robert Carnegie
Just to add that I think I've bicycled on roads like that a few times,
wondering whether the bounce is due to a wobbly wheel or a wobbly road.
Ed Treijs
> "Abreaction"; if you have the collected short stories, it's in the
> same volume and just after "Killdozer."
>
> "[F]or a bulldozer builds the road it walks on, and if the road is
> rough the machine see-saws forward and the blade cuts and fills to
> make waves which, when the tracks reach them, makes the machine
> see-saw and cut waves, which, when the tracks reach them . . ."
Yeah, that's it. I read "Killdozer!" in "Aliens 4", which I still may
have. Not sure when I read the collection, but that bit has stayed
with me for lo these many years.
> The original ending involved a Japanese aircraft carrier "sunk
> nearer to our shores than any other Jap warship," and five planes
> which "having been separated by three vertical miles of water from
> their flight deck, turned east with their bomb load and droned
> away for a suicide mission."
I wonder why a collection purporting to be "SF from the golden
age" (specifically the 1940s) would go with the revised ending. It
really jarred.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to look up the book itself; I think
it might be a UK edition. Ten novellas, eight from Astounding, from
the 1940s. Greenberg and Asimov. It's gone back to the library already
so I can't just take a look at it.
....Ed
Keith F. Lynch
> I wonder why a collection purporting to be "SF from the golden
> age" (specifically the 1940s) would go with the revised ending.
> It really jarred.
Was Eric Flint involved? :-)
As for potentially offense mention of "Japs," I know I read a version
of Murray Leinster's "First Contact" in which the protagonists
speculated that the aliens might be as gruff but fundamentally decent
as a Swede, or as outwardly polite but treacherous as a Jap. But the
only versions I've been able to find in recent years have no mentions
of Swedes or Japs.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Robert A. Woodward
"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> Ed Treijs <ed.to...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I wonder why a collection purporting to be "SF from the golden
> > age" (specifically the 1940s) would go with the revised ending.
> > It really jarred.
>
> Was Eric Flint involved? :-)
>
> As for potentially offense mention of "Japs," I know I read a version
> of Murray Leinster's "First Contact" in which the protagonists
> speculated that the aliens might be as gruff but fundamentally decent
> as a Swede, or as outwardly polite but treacherous as a Jap. But the
> only versions I've been able to find in recent years have no mentions
> of Swedes or Japs.
The first publication in May 1945 issue of _ASF_ had Japanese and
ferocity. I will check other versions ... the paragraph appears to
be unchanged in _Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol 1_ and _First
Contacts: The Essential Murray Leinster_ (it's on page 89).
--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>
tkma...@yahoo.co.uk
Whole of Astounding, November 1944 issue that had the (presumably)
original "Killdozer" is online as scans (large CBR file in a RAR pack,
inconvenient for those short on bandwidth). Details here:
<http://variety-sf.blogspot.com/2010/01/astounding-science-fiction-november.html>
(this issue also has van Vogt's excellent "The Haromizer").
Version you recall may be from "Isaac Asimov Presents Great SF Stories 6
(1944)" edited by Asimov & Greenberg. I think the series is also
available in 2-years-per-volume version with a slightly changed title.
I personally haven't read the Astounding version of Killdozer; only the
later one you talk about.
--
<http://variety-sf.blogspot.com/>
<http://twitter.com/varietysf>
Ed Treijs
> Ed Treijs <ed.toro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I wonder why a collection purporting to be "SF from the golden
> > age" (specifically the 1940s) would go with the revised ending.
> > It really jarred.
>
> Was Eric Flint involved? :-)
No, Martin Greenberg who is supposedly the "king of
anthologists" (wasn't that Roger Elwood?) and Isaac Asimov, who
*really* should have known better.
The book is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Book-Golden-Age-SF/dp/0786719052/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274972259&sr=1-1#noop
The one reader review is a bit harsh. I mean, yeah, it will be dated--
it's from sixty-seventy years ago. Although "Daymare" which I had
never read seemed like pretty weak Brown, and "Nerves" was boring when
I read it in a novelized form in the early 1970s and I don't like it
any more now.
> As for potentially offense mention of "Japs," I know I read a version
> of Murray Leinster's "First Contact" in which the protagonists
> speculated that the aliens might be as gruff but fundamentally decent
> as a Swede, or as outwardly polite but treacherous as a Jap. But the
> only versions I've been able to find in recent years have no mentions
> of Swedes or Japs.
Yet the version of "Killdozer!" in this anthology still has the
expression "That's mighty white of you," in an apparently non-ironic
sense. Also Dennis' putdowns of Rivera are pretty nasty. I guess
Sturgeon was recollecting the dysfunctional characters he had to work
with when he was actually doing this stuff.
Finally, I still think "Killdozer!" has one of the best opening
sentences ever. From memory:
"Before the race was the deluge, and before the deluge another race,
whose nature it is not for mankind to understand."
....Ed
Keith F. Lynch
> Yet the version of "Killdozer!" in this anthology still has the
> expression "That's mighty white of you," in an apparently non-ironic
> sense.
Oh, is that no longer politically correct? I didn't think it had
anything to do with race. I thought it was related to white hats and
black hats meaning good and bad.
Of course this is a very small nitpick. You might even say it's
niggardly of me. :-)
Keith F. Lynch
> The first publication in May 1945 issue of _ASF_ had Japanese and
> ferocity.
You have a copy? Can you give the exact quote? Thanks.
Robert A. Woodward
"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> Robert A. Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com> wrote:
> > The first publication in May 1945 issue of _ASF_ had Japanese and
> > ferocity.
>
> You have a copy? Can you give the exact quote? Thanks.
Exactly how much do you want? Here are a few sentences:
"Maybe these creatures will be aesthetic marvels, nice and friendly
and polite--and underneath with the sneaking brutal ferocity of a
Japanese. Or maybe they'll be crude and gruff as a Swedish
farmer--and just as decent underneath. Maybe they will be something
in between."
Robert Carnegie
> On May 26, 9:43 pm, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>
> > Ed Treijs <ed.toro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I wonder why a collection purporting to be "SF from the golden
> > > age" (specifically the 1940s) would go with the revised ending.
> > > It really jarred.
>
> > Was Eric Flint involved? :-)
>
> No, Martin Greenberg who is supposedly the "king of
> anthologists" (wasn't that Roger Elwood?) and Isaac Asimov, who
> *really* should have known better.
Maybe "knowing better" - at least thinking that they did - was why
they did it. Maybe the original was altered by the previous editor (I
think I read from Asimov that John Campbell was one who didn't like
stories where aliens, of any kind [except maybe for a new,
evolutionarily superior, type of white American], came out ahead), or
maybe the author lived long enough to change their own mind.
> The book is this one:http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Book-Golden-Age-SF/dp/0786719052/ref=sr...
Keith F. Lynch
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> You have a copy? Can you give the exact quote? Thanks.
> Exactly how much do you want? Here are a few sentences:
> "Maybe these creatures will be aesthetic marvels, nice and friendly
> and polite--and underneath with the sneaking brutal ferocity of a
> Japanese. Or maybe they'll be crude and gruff as a Swedish farmer
> --and just as decent underneath. Maybe they will be something in
> between."
Perfect. Thanks.
I find I have at least four copies of this story, in:
* The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology, (1964, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr.)
* The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1, (1970, ed. Robert Silverberg.)
* The Best of Murray Leinster, (1978, ed. J.J. Pierce.)
* Aliens from Analog (Anthology #7), (1983, ed. Stanley Schmidt.)
Much to my surprise, three of them have exactly what you quoted. I
was beginning to doubt my memory. But the Pierce replaces "Japanese"
with "mugger," and deletes the word "Swedish." Maybe that's the only
publication ever to do that, I don't know.
If anyone had other publications of this story, I'd be interested to
hear which version they have. Thanks.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
My version is in "CONTACT!", an anthology with a number of other
excellent stories, and has the Japanese and Swede lines.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Karsten Kretschmer
>> I find I have at least four copies of this story, in:
>>
>> * The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology, (1964, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr.)
>> * The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1, (1970, ed. Robert Silverberg.)
>> * The Best of Murray Leinster, (1978, ed. J.J. Pierce.)
>> * Aliens from Analog (Anthology #7), (1983, ed. Stanley Schmidt.)
>>
>> Much to my surprise, three of them have exactly what you quoted. I
>> was beginning to doubt my memory. But the Pierce replaces "Japanese"
>> with "mugger," and deletes the word "Swedish." Maybe that's the only
>> publication ever to do that, I don't know.
>>
>> If anyone had other publications of this story, I'd be interested to
>> hear which version they have. Thanks.
>
> My version is in "CONTACT!", an anthology with a number of other
> excellent stories, and has the Japanese and Swede lines.
For what it's worth, I have a German translation of this story, in the
collection "Playboy Science Fiction - Die besten Stories von Murray
Leinster", printed 1980, translated by Rosemarie Hundermarck, ISBN
3-8118-6704-0. It goes:
| Vielleicht sind sie Wunder an Schönheit, nett und freundlich und
| höflich -- und unter der polierten Oberfläche von der
| erbarmungslosen Grausamkeit eines Krokodils. Oder vielleicht sind
| sie grob und unwirsch wie ein Bauer -- und ebenso anständig.
| Vielleicht sind sie etwas, das zwischen diesen beiden Extremen liegt.
so: Japanese -> crocodile; Swedish -> nil
Ciao, Karsten
--
kkretsch@charon:~% fortune -s
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
John M
> Ed Treijs <ed.toro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Yet the version of "Killdozer!" in this anthology still has the
> > expression "That's mighty white of you," in an apparently non-ironic
> > sense.
>
> Oh, is that no longer politically correct? I didn't think it had
> anything to do with race. I thought it was related to white hats and
> black hats meaning good and bad.
>
> Of course this is a very small nitpick. You might even say it's
> niggardly of me. :-)
I don't think the expression is generally condemed as 'politically
incorrect" it having become fairly obselete before that category
arose. But I am reasoanbly sure that the expression was in origin
racist, and had nothing to do with "white hats". I don't think it was
generally used as a virulantly racist expression however, pewople
mostly overlookign its basic meaning.
Somewhat similarly "to gyp" meanign "to cheat" was a slur on
"gypsies" (itself a misnomer).
-JM
-JM
Dorothy J Heydt
John M <johnma...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On May 27, 9:06 pm, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> Ed Treijs <ed.toro...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Yet the version of "Killdozer!" in this anthology still has the
>> > expression "That's mighty white of you," in an apparently non-ironic
>> > sense.
>>
>> Oh, is that no longer politically correct? I didn't think it had
>> anything to do with race. I thought it was related to white hats and
>> black hats meaning good and bad.
>>
>> Of course this is a very small nitpick. You might even say it's
>> niggardly of me. :-)
>
>I don't think the expression is generally condemed as 'politically
>incorrect" it having become fairly obselete before that category
>arose. But I am reasoanbly sure that the expression was in origin
>racist, and had nothing to do with "white hats". I don't think it was
>generally used as a virulantly racist expression however, pewople
>mostly overlookign its basic meaning.
There's a scene in a fine film of the stfnal variety, _The World,
the Flesh, and the Devil,_ in which the human race is
mysteriously wiped out, leaving three live people to wander
around an abandoned New York City: a white man, a white woman,
and a black man (played by a young and gorgeous Harry Belafonte).
At one point the white guy says something on the order of he
doesn't care about anybody's race, and the black guy says
sardonically, "That's white of you."
>
>Somewhat similarly "to gyp" meanign "to cheat" was a slur on
>"gypsies" (itself a misnomer).
And "to welsh [on a bet] a slur on the Welsh.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress.
Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked.
Dan Goodman
Overheard a few years ago in a MPLS thrift store: -"He tried to
christian me down. I can't say he tried to jew me down, because he
told me he was the treasurer of his synagogue."
--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal dsgood.dreamwidth.org (livejournal.com, insanejournal.com)
John M
> In article <25c8fe56-64ac-4c41-b6f4-de8c5fbbe...@u26g2000yqu.googlegroups.com>,
Neat comeback. of course, maybe he really didn't care, not EVERYone is
a racist.
>
>
>
> >Somewhat similarly "to gyp" meanign "to cheat" was a slur on
> >"gypsies" (itself a misnomer).
>
> And "to welsh [on a bet] a slur on the Welsh.
"Taffy was a welshman; Taffy was a thief" intended I presume as
redundancy.
"To Jew [one] down" is of course obvious. More obscure, "Slave" as i
understand it originally meant "Slav", and "Bugger" (in the sense of
male homosexual) was origanally a corruption of "Bulgar" aka
"Bulgarian". I doubt anyone who still usees 'Filthy bugger" or even
'Filthy Beggar" thinks of it as an ethnic slur.
-JM
Keith F. Lynch
> "To Jew [one] down" is of course obvious. More obscure, "Slave" as
> i understand it originally meant "Slav", and "Bugger" (in the sense
> of male homosexual) was origanally a corruption of "Bulgar" aka
> "Bulgarian". I doubt anyone who still usees 'Filthy bugger" or
> even 'Filthy Beggar" thinks of it as an ethnic slur.
I don't know. But many people are very sensitive. People have
vehemently objected to someone using the word "niggardly," which has
nothing to do with the black race, and "eenie meenie miny moe," even
though few people know that the next line hasn't always been "catch a
tiger by the toe."
Kay Shapero
@u26g2000yqu.googlegroups.com>, johnma...@yahoo.com says...
> On May 27, 9:06=A0pm, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> > Ed Treijs <ed.toro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Yet the version of "Killdozer!" in this anthology still has the
> > > expression "That's mighty white of you," in an apparently non-ironic
> > > sense.
> >
> > anything to do with race. =A0I thought it was related to white hats and
> > black hats meaning good and bad.
> >
> > niggardly of me. :-)
>
> I don't think the expression is generally condemed as 'politically
> incorrect" it having become fairly obselete before that category
> arose. But I am reasoanbly sure that the expression was in origin
> racist, and had nothing to do with "white hats". I don't think it was
> generally used as a virulantly racist expression however, pewople
> mostly overlookign its basic meaning.
>
>
I've heard it attributed to "wight", an old English term for man, i.e.
"manly" so I suppose that version could be sexist instead. :)
--
Kay Shapero
address munged, email kay at following domain
http://www.kayshapero.net