Long abandoned or untended machines
veritas
Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
I liked Pournelle's King David's Spaceship. I also liked waching the
StarLost when I was 9, a man discoveres that his entire world is an
abandoned machine (found it again on youtube a few weeks ago -oh how
bad the acting!).
What do you like of this type of story?
art...@yahoo.com
Gateway (sort of fits)
Quadibloc
> I also liked waching the
> StarLost when I was 9,
I was too young to see things like Captain Video. When I was quite
young, I saw a bit of Doctor Who - with the first Doctor - but then
didn't see it again for a long time.
In my youth, I enjoyed Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space,
and The Time Tunnel... but I also enjoyed Star Trek, in its original
run, when I was 12 or so, and, of course, I realized that was *much*
better.
Then, I had to make do with watching stuff like Space: 1999, Starlost,
UFO, and Battlestar Galactica.
It was so disappointing.
John Savard
Nobody in particular
> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
> it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
That reminds me of my old i486/25 computer running Xenix I last
seriously used in college and hadn't even been started up in a few
years. Well, whaddayaknow, it works, It Works, IT WORKS,
bwahahahahah... ahem. I suppose if I ever need my homework
from 15+ years ago, I can still get at it. That's a relief.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
These are memorable ones that come to my mind:
The Ringworld
The Tar-Aiym Krang
The Monolith
The ship in "Frost & Fire"
Bova's weather machines on Titan
The "Astarte"
The lybrinth in _Rogue Moon_
"A Relic of War"
Stuart's "Make me a curious machine"
Haviland Tuff's ship
Ted
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Gene
$s77....@bignews3.bellsouth.net:
> These are memorable ones that come to my mind:
Dahak from Mutineers' Moon.
Wim Lewis
art...@yahoo.com <art...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Jun 25, 7:54 pm, veritas wrote:
>> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
>> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
>> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
>> it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
>>
>
>Gateway (sort of fits)
Others that come to mind:
Feersum Endjinn, and to some extent Against a Dark Background
A Fire upon the Deep, and probably A Deepness in the Sky
Aren't there some Asimov Foundation stories in settings like this? People
have access to bits of pre-decadent technology, and they know they're
really important, but don't really have a grasp of what they are or
what they're for?
--
Wim Lewis <wi...@hhhh.org>, Seattle, WA, USA. PGP keyID 27F772C1
Mike Schilling
> In article
> <ba87a2a4-d15d-4fe0...@z72g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
> art...@yahoo.com <art...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Jun 25, 7:54 pm, veritas wrote:
>>> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
>>> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of
>>> it,
>>> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to
>>> turn it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
>>>
>>> What do you like of this type of story?
>>
>> Gateway (sort of fits)
>
> Others that come to mind:
> Feersum Endjinn, and to some extent Against a Dark Background
> A Fire upon the Deep, and probably A Deepness in the Sky
The artillery pieces in Vance's "The Miracle Workers" (about a society
that's given up science for psi powers and understands nothing about
machinery.)
Brian P Griffin
Dahak being sentient, even if very low-functioning, I wouldn't call
him abandoned, though maybe untended fits. My first thought, Rama (AKA
That About Which Only One Book Was Ever Written), probably falls in
the same category. Thinking of Clarke and one of my all-time SF
favorites, some transport systems and ships in The City and The Stars
were abandoned and untended for a very long time.
Also Typhon's mountain complex in The Book of the New Sun....and if my
memories of The Dying Earth (must reread) were more perfect I could
probably come up with something. And weren't there untended gadgets in
Hiero's Journey?
Brian Griffin
Par
> These are memorable ones that come to my mind:
Not because it is _good_ but from early memories; thre extra-galactic
ship in Hamiltons "Star Wolf".
And fantasy is smock full of half-understood relics from ancient times.
/Par
--
Par use...@hunter-gatherer.org
Movie The Wizard of Oz: Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl
kills the first woman she meets, then teams up with three complete strangers
to kill again.
Peter Huebner
ffb495...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
verit...@gmail.com says...
>
> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
> it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
>
Just read an old E F Russell story where a race had been wiped
out by one of their own creations (kind of energy based whatsit
that they built as an explorer/conquerer but it turned on them)
but the area of space that they had inhabited was still full of
navigational buoys/beacons that they had installed, and those
were still working. The Creation was still using them to find
its way around home space. Come an Earthling ship and abduct a
buoy...
-P.
--
=========================================
firstname dot lastname at gmail fullstop com
Esa Perkio
: And fantasy is smock full of half-understood relics from ancient times.
IMHO one of the best examples of this is the apparently much
under-appreciated Chronicles of an Age of Darkness by Hugh Cook. The
Chronicles are a set 10 books written in very different tones. The first
book is called the Wizards and the Warriors.
IIRC, every one of them has at least one and usually several products of
ancient arts and sciences from different cultures as important tools,
obstacles or both.
--
Esa Perkiö
Peter Huebner
ffb495...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
verit...@gmail.com says...
>
> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
> it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
>
Just thought of it, Sheri Tepper uses this device in some
settings. There's Ancient Technology in the World of Game
novels for instance, left over from the original spaceship and
its crew, but no longer understood by the Gamesmen; I seem to
remember an army of cyber-soldiers in 'Moving the Stones'.
Wasn't there a lot of hunting for 'Precursor Artifacts' in
Brin's 'Sundiver' etc?
And I seem to recall something like that from a Takeshi Kovacz
novel ... Alien Spaceship kind of deal (no title in my memory,
make this a YASID)
David DeLaney
>verit...@gmail.com says...
>> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
>> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
>> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
>> it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
>
>Brin's 'Sundiver' etc?
Which in turn reminds me of Sheffield's Transcendence setting, as well as
several other settings I know I've read that have the galaxy strewn with
Precursor-type artifacts and have stories about interacting with them but
which I can't recall at present. (The Starrigger series by de Chancie falls
into this too, doesn't it? Unless you're meaning to exclude machines that
can be / are used but we have no idea how to repair them or change settings
on them or stuff.)
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.
tkma...@yahoo.co.uk
Heinlein - "Universe"
A Bertram Chandler - "Giant Killer": not an abandoned machine, but
discovery that their entire world is...
--
"there are always women with perfection of features in the world, & they
are not the ones that legend remembers. It was the light within, shining
through her charming, imperfect features, that had made this Deirdre's
face so lovely."
- "No Woman Born" by C L Moore
<http://variety-sf.blogspot.com/2008/06/c-l-moore-no-woman-born-novella-science.html>
Par
> These are memorable ones that come to my mind:
I once (1980's) read a story about sword wielding pirates in space. The
way the author made it "work" is by making the ships indestructible and
fully automatic: you climbed aboard, pushed the destination icon (IIRC)
and off you went. it may even have had smoking sconces as illumination
(lightbulbs don't last as long as the vital parts of the ship).
/Par
--
Par use...@hunter-gatherer.org
Ignorance is a renewable resource
-- PJ O'Rourke
Michael Stemper
>Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
>abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
>they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
>it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
>What do you like of this type of story?
I'm partial to Laumer's Bolo stories. A "Bolo" is a semi-autonomous,
vaguely tank-like, fighting machine. He has references to them in a
few Retief stories, but also wrote at least a book's worth of stories
about them.
Mostly, the stories involve a Bolo that was abandoned in the field, or
otherwise incorrectly decommissioned. It wakes up years later and, like
the proverbial Japanese sniper, is unable to realize that the war is over.
Sometimes, good things come from the Bolo's unexpected presence, sometimes,
the Bolo is prevented from unknowingly doing something bad, sometimes,
other stuff happens.
--
Michael F. Stemper
91.2% of all statistics are made up by the person quoting them.
Chris Thompson
The meme is very wide-spread, of course, but an example that hasn't been
mentioned yet is the planetary defense machines in Fred Saberhagen's
"Sign of the Wolf" (a Berserker story).
--
Chris Thompson
Email: cet1 [at] cam.ac.uk
Michael Stemper
>>verit...@gmail.com says...
>>> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
>>> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
>>> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
>>> it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
> (The Starrigger series by de Chancie falls
>into this too, doesn't it? Unless you're meaning to exclude machines that
>can be / are used but we have no idea how to repair them or change settings
>on them or stuff.)
If we're going to include those jump-ways (Tipler cylinders, IIRC), then
I think that Anderons' T-machines from _The Avatar_ ought to be included
as well.
Cross-thread someplace, I saw somebody mention a single Berserker story.
But, really, the Berserkers as a whole would also qualify.
--
Michael F. Stemper
This message contains at least 95% recycled bytes.
William George Ferguson
>Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com>:
>> These are memorable ones that come to my mind:
>
>I once (1980's) read a story about sword wielding pirates in space. The
>way the author made it "work" is by making the ships indestructible and
>fully automatic: you climbed aboard, pushed the destination icon (IIRC)
>and off you went. it may even have had smoking sconces as illumination
>(lightbulbs don't last as long as the vital parts of the ship).
>
>/Par
For some reason, I want to guess that it was written by John Brunner :)
--
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
(Bene Gesserit)
William George Ferguson
Bunches of Andre Norton
Defiant Agents
(heck, most the Time Trader books)
Sargasso of Space
Beastmaster
Lord of Thunder
(and loads of other Forerunner books)
Star Rangers/The Last Planet
Johnny Tindalos
news:MPG.22ce0c266...@news.individual.net:
> And I seem to recall something like that from a Takeshi Kovacz
> novel ... Alien Spaceship kind of deal (no title in my memory,
> make this a YASID)
That was the Martian ship from _Broken Angels_; there was also mention of
still-extant Martian technology (the orbital guns of Harlan's World) in
_Altered Carbon_; you get to find out what they are in _Woken Furies_.
I was rather disappointed by this series after the first one; whichever
brain Kovacs found himself sleeved in didn't ever seem to affect his
intellect, colour sense, imagination etc, and the wolf-gene nonsense
didn't actually have any affect on him...well, he just ignored it, and if
it was well-designed he shouldn't have been able to, Envoy conditioning
or not.
(_Market Forces_ wasn't all that, and _Black Man_ was so underwhelming
that I have given up on Richard Morgan for good now.)
Cheers,
Johnny T.
Par
> >I once (1980's) read a story about sword wielding pirates in space. The
> >way the author made it "work" is by making the ships indestructible and
> >fully automatic: you climbed aboard, pushed the destination icon (IIRC)
> >and off you went. it may even have had smoking sconces as illumination
> >(lightbulbs don't last as long as the vital parts of the ship).
> For some reason, I want to guess that it was written by John Brunner :)
Possible, but we are talking vague agreement with 25 year old memory tracks
here.
/Par
--
Par use...@hunter-gatherer.org
Making mental lists of laws broken is an enjoyable pastime, but I
recommend against putting it in writing. -- Alan J Rosenthal
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Par <use...@hunter-gatherer.org> wrote:
>
>
>William George Ferguson <wmgf...@newsguy.com>:
>> >I once (1980's) read a story about sword wielding pirates in space. The
>> >way the author made it "work" is by making the ships indestructible and
>> >fully automatic: you climbed aboard, pushed the destination icon (IIRC)
>> >and off you went. it may even have had smoking sconces as illumination
>> >(lightbulbs don't last as long as the vital parts of the ship).
>
>> For some reason, I want to guess that it was written by John Brunner :)
>
>Possible, but we are talking vague agreement with 25 year old memory tracks
>here.
>
>/Par
>
I think Van Vogt's _Empire of the Atom_ and Robert Cham Gilman's _The
Rebel of Rhada_ are more assoicated with that sub-genre.
Tim McDaniel
<wi...@hhhh.org> wrote:
>Aren't there some Asimov Foundation stories in settings like this?
>People have access to bits of pre-decadent technology, and they know
>they're really important, but don't really have a grasp of what they
>are or what they're for?
In Asimov's Foundation series, the original three, the only
non-understood technology mentioned in detail is atomic power plants.
They know that they're atomic power plants and that they produce
electricity; they just don't know how to fix them if a D-tube breaks
(for example).
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com
Butch Malahide
> Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com>:
>
> > These are memorable ones that come to my mind:
>
> I once (1980's) read a story about sword wielding pirates in space. The
> way the author made it "work" is by making the ships indestructible and
> fully automatic: you climbed aboard, pushed the destination icon (IIRC)
> and off you went. it may even have had smoking sconces as illumination
> (lightbulbs don't last as long as the vital parts of the ship).
I believe the first of that subgenre was "The Rebel of Valkyr" by
Alfred Coppel, which was reprinted in Aldiss's "Galactic Empires"
anthology.
Matthias Warkus
Yup. Wasn't Anderson's "The Star Plunderer" featured in the same collection?
mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de
W. Citoan
Piper's _The Cosmic Computer_ (aka _Junkward Planet_)
- W. Citoan
--
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Kat R
> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
> it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
>
> I liked Pournelle's King David's Spaceship. I also liked waching the
> StarLost when I was 9, a man discoveres that his entire world is an
> abandoned machine (found it again on youtube a few weeks ago -oh how
> bad the acting!).
>
> What do you like of this type of story?
I like them medium rare.
--
Kat Richardson
http://www.katrichardson.com/
Bloggery: http://katrich.wordpress.com/
http://katatomic.livejournal.com/
William December Starr
Esa Perkio <epe...@cc.helsinki.fi> said:
>> And fantasy is smock full of half-understood relics from ancient
>> times.
>
> IMHO one of the best examples of this is the apparently much
> under-appreciated Chronicles of an Age of Darkness by Hugh Cook.
> The Chronicles are a set 10 books written in very different tones.
> The first book is called the Wizards and the Warriors.
Can you help me make sense of the ISFDB listing for these,
specifically that there are three titles listed as number 2?
* Chronicles of an Age of Darkness
+ Wizard War Chronicles: Lords of the Sword (1991)
+ 1 The Wizards and the Warriors (1986)
o Variant Title: Wizard War (1986)
+ 2 The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (1987)
+ 2 The Questing Hero (1988)
+ 2 The Hero's Return (1988)
+ 3 The Women and the Warlords (1987)
o Variant Title: The Oracle (1987)
+ 4 The Walrus and the Warwolf (1988)
+ 5 The Wicked and the Witless (1989)
+ 6 The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (1990)
+ 7 The Wazir and the Witch (1990)
+ 8 The Werewolf and the Wormlord (1991)
+ 9 The Worshippers and the Way (1992)
+ 10 The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster (1992)
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
David DeLaney
>Esa Perkio <epe...@cc.helsinki.fi> said:
>> IMHO one of the best examples of this is the apparently much
>> under-appreciated Chronicles of an Age of Darkness by Hugh Cook.
>> The Chronicles are a set 10 books written in very different tones.
>> The first book is called the Wizards and the Warriors.
>
>Can you help me make sense of the ISFDB listing for these,
>specifically that there are three titles listed as number 2?
>
> * Chronicles of an Age of Darkness
> + Wizard War Chronicles: Lords of the Sword (1991)
> + 1 The Wizards and the Warriors (1986)
> o Variant Title: Wizard War (1986)
> + 2 The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (1987)
> + 2 The Questing Hero (1988)
> + 2 The Hero's Return (1988)
> + 3 The Women and the Warlords (1987)
> o Variant Title: The Oracle (1987)
> + 4 The Walrus and the Warwolf (1988)
> + 5 The Wicked and the Witless (1989)
> + 6 The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (1990)
> + 7 The Wazir and the Witch (1990)
> + 8 The Werewolf and the Wormlord (1991)
> + 9 The Worshippers and the Way (1992)
> + 10 The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster (1992)
Um. I'm sort of glad then I have only numbers 1, 2, 2, and 3, I guess. The rest
don't seem to have made it to the US, or didn't make it to the stores I was
patronizing then. (I'm guessing the 'variant titles' are the US titles?)
William December Starr
Johnny Tindalos <Jama...@UnrealEmail.arg> said:
[ re ALTERED CARBON, BROKEN ANGELS, and WOKEN FURIES, the three
Takeshi Kovacs novels by Richard Morgan ]
> I was rather disappointed by this series after the first one;
> whichever brain Kovacs found himself sleeved in didn't ever seem
> to affect his intellect, colour sense, imagination etc,
I can see where the first two might be in play, but is imagination a
function of hard-wiring in the brain?
> and the wolf-gene nonsense didn't actually have any affect on
> him...well, he just ignored it, and if it was well-designed he
> shouldn't have been able to, Envoy conditioning or not.
Don't underestimate Envoy conditioning. One effect -- explored a
bit more in the third book, wherein two ex-Envoys were immune to the
wishful thinking that infected many of their friends regarding the
possible return of a long-dead legendary hero -- is that it _makes_
the person see things as they are. The "wolf-gene nonsense" --
designed into a crop of vat-grown bodies to make their wearers feel
a sense of pack loyalty -- did work on him: he felt it, knew it was
an illusion, and, yes indeed, ignored it.
Mark Zenier
Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
>In article <c50ebd6c-f4f0-46b0...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
>>
>>Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
>>abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
>>they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
>>it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
>>
>>I liked Pournelle's King David's Spaceship. I also liked waching the
>>StarLost when I was 9, a man discoveres that his entire world is an
>>abandoned machine (found it again on youtube a few weeks ago -oh how
>>bad the acting!).
>>
>>What do you like of this type of story?
>
>
> The Ringworld
> The Tar-Aiym Krang
> The Monolith
> The ship in "Frost & Fire"
> Bova's weather machines on Titan
> The "Astarte"
> The lybrinth in _Rogue Moon_
> "A Relic of War"
> Stuart's "Make me a curious machine"
> Haviland Tuff's ship
Starhammer
Newton's Wake
Mark Zenier mze...@eskimo.com
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)
Mark Zenier
Peter Huebner <no....@this.address> wrote:
>In article <c50ebd6c-f4f0-46b0-a555-
>ffb495...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
>verit...@gmail.com says...
>>
>> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
>> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
>> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
>> it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
>>
>
>Just read an old E F Russell story where a race had been wiped
>out by one of their own creations (kind of energy based whatsit
>that they built as an explorer/conquerer but it turned on them)
>but the area of space that they had inhabited was still full of
>navigational buoys/beacons that they had installed, and those
>were still working. The Creation was still using them to find
>its way around home space. Come an Earthling ship and abduct a
>buoy...
Only that's _The Searcher_ by James H. Schmitz.
Konrad Gaertner
> > under-appreciated Chronicles of an Age of Darkness by Hugh Cook.
> > The Chronicles are a set 10 books written in very different tones.
> > The first book is called the Wizards and the Warriors.
>
> Can you help me make sense of the ISFDB listing for these,
> specifically that there are three titles listed as number 2?
>
> * Chronicles of an Age of Darkness
> + Wizard War Chronicles: Lords of the Sword (1991)
> + 1 The Wizards and the Warriors (1986)
> o Variant Title: Wizard War (1986)
> + 2 The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (1987)
> + 2 The Questing Hero (1988)
> + 2 The Hero's Return (1988)
> + 3 The Women and the Warlords (1987)
> o Variant Title: The Oracle (1987)
> + 4 The Walrus and the Warwolf (1988)
> + 5 The Wicked and the Witless (1989)
> + 6 The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (1990)
> + 7 The Wazir and the Witch (1990)
> + 8 The Werewolf and the Wormlord (1991)
> + 9 The Worshippers and the Way (1992)
> + 10 The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster (1992)
I know this has been discussed before, and amazingly Google Groups
is still functional enough to find this post:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/c27cc072d5e99bc4
Short version: UK titles are all _The W* and the W*_, the extra
2's are the two-volume US version of the second book, and _Lords of
the Sword_ is the US title for the first part of book 4. Volumes
11-20 were apparantly never written.
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - email: kgae...@tx.rr.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
-- James Nicoll
James Nicoll
Mark Zenier <mze...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>
>Starhammer
>
Huh. Have not thought of that series in ages.
Has anyone read his Arna books? Any good? Anything
after the last one in that series?
--
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)
Alie...@gmail.com
wrote:
> In article <c50ebd6c-f4f0-46b0-a555-ffb495808...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>, veritas <veritas....@gmail.com> writes:
>
> >Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
> >abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
> >they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
> >it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
> >What do you like of this type of story?
>
> I'm partial to Laumer's Bolo stories. A "Bolo" is a semi-autonomous,
> vaguely tank-like, fighting machine. He has references to them in a
> few Retief stories, but also wrote at least a book's worth of stories
> about them.
Not to mention the shared-Universe Bolo series; other authors have
contributed some pretty damn good stories to them.
> Mostly, the stories involve a Bolo that was abandoned in the field, or
> otherwise incorrectly decommissioned. It wakes up years later and, like
> the proverbial Japanese sniper, is unable to realize that the war is over.
Or it semi-dozes for long enough that local humans wonder why they
bothered building Bolos- then a war comes along and wakes it up...
> Sometimes, good things come from the Bolo's unexpected presence, sometimes,
> the Bolo is prevented from unknowingly doing something bad, sometimes,
> other stuff happens.
Sometimes they semi-doze in isolation, sometimes they're mistaken
for war memorials around which towns get built, etc.
What do I like about them? War stories are a literally ancient
genre, but casting machines as characters forces us to consider how to
parse the ethics of warfare into unambiguous programming in order to
prevent our putative mechanical heroes from becoming traitors. Some
Bolo stories are almost unbearably tragic; it's kinda odd that an
account of a machine deciding to follow its programming to its
destruction can make the water fall from my eyes.
Mark L. Fergerson
John Schilling
wrote:
>Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
>abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
>they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
>it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
>I liked Pournelle's King David's Spaceship. I also liked waching the
>StarLost when I was 9, a man discoveres that his entire world is an
>abandoned machine (found it again on youtube a few weeks ago -oh how
>bad the acting!).
>What do you like of this type of story?
Well, if we're going beyond the purely written, I have to put in a
word for the classics:
The Krell Machine from _Forbidden Planet_.
Accept no substitutes.
Be Happy!
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*John.Sc...@alumni.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Par
> > I liked Pournelle's King David's Spaceship. I also liked waching the
> > StarLost when I was 9, a man discoveres that his entire world is an
> > abandoned machine (found it again on youtube a few weeks ago -oh how
> > bad the acting!).
> >
> > What do you like of this type of story?
>
> I like them medium rare.
Rare or well done, I'd say.
/Par
--
Par use...@hunter-gatherer.org
[A Deepness In The Sky]: A group of Poul Anderson Protagonists struggle
underneath the rule of a group of S. M. Stirling villians, while stranded
above a planet of C. J. Cherryh aliens. -- Phil Fraering (rasfw)
John Reiher
John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
> Well, if we're going beyond the purely written, I have to put in a
> word for the classics:
>
> The Krell Machine from _Forbidden Planet_.
>
> Accept no substitutes.
>
> Be Happy!
I've always wondered if the Krell Machine was sentient. It would have to
be, to be able to decipher the user's thoughts and wishes.
One wonders if in the end, Morbius was already dead, and was a meat
puppet for the Krell Machine to shoo away the stupid apes and that all
it did was shine a very bright light at them, making them think that the
planet blew up?
--
The Kedamono Dragon
Pull Pinky's favorite words to email me.
http://www.ahtg.net
Have Mac, will Compute
Check out the PowerPointers Shop at:
http://www.cafeshops.com/PowerPointers
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Peter Huebner
says...
>
> Only that's _The Searcher_ by James H. Schmitz.
>
You're absolutely right. Major brain fart.
-Peter
--
=========================================
firstname dot lastname at gmail fullstop com
Keith Wetzel AKA Space Cadet
> In article <srba64l8cpf746qvrdqgmb0dn4o6n0n...@4ax.com>,
> John Schilling <schil...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>
> > Well, if we're going beyond the purely written, I have to put in a
> > word for the classics:
>
> > The Krell Machine from _Forbidden Planet_.
>
> > Accept no substitutes.
>
> > Be Happy!
>
> I've always wondered if the Krell Machine was sentient. It would have to
> be, to be able to decipher the user's thoughts and wishes.
>
> One wonders if in the end, Morbius was already dead, and was a meat
> puppet for the Krell Machine to shoo away the stupid apes and that all
> it did was shine a very bright light at them, making them think that the
> planet blew up?
>
> --
Hmmmm, Sequel anyone?
Just my $0.02
Keith W of St. Louis AKA Space Cadet
Ericth...@gmail.com
> I liked Pournelle's King David's Spaceship. I also liked waching
the
> StarLost when I was 9, a man discoveres that his entire world is an
> abandoned machine (found it again on youtube a few weeks ago -oh how
> bad the acting!).
>
> What do you like of this type of story?
The first book in this genre I read was "The Forgotten Door", in which
the title mechanism transports our hero from a very nice world...to
ours. I liked it because it gave an opportunitt for a survival story
combined with social commentary.
A big part of the fun of "forgotten machine stories is figuring out
what they do; another fun thing is seeing how the natives, who do not
understand it's purpose treat the machine. Accordingly there's the
Forerunner books as well as "No Night Without Stars".from Andre
Norton. For a riff on how primitives interact with military
technology, there's Children of Morrow.
And then of course there's the Big Screen treatments of black-box
abandoned technology; 20 Million Years to Earth, and 2001.
Eric Tolle
Joel Olson
"W. Citoan" <wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:slrng68bq6....@wcitoan-via.verizon.net...
And Garbage World?
-----------------------
Fear penetrates all people at different speeds.
The shrieks were scattered. - Jean Mark Gawron
-----------------------
Rob St. Amant
> Cross-thread someplace, I saw somebody mention a single Berserker story.
> But, really, the Berserkers as a whole would also qualify.
I was thinking of the Berserkers, too. Which reminds me of a story
set in the Hyperion universe, "Orphans of the Helix", in which we see
an apparent example of one.
John Reiher
<29af03f3-f226-4571...@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
Only if we can get most of the original cast to at least cameo in the
movie and they stick to the architectural and technological style used
in the first movie.
There are a lot of unanswered questions in this movie: Was the "plastic
educator" really an educator, or was it gauge to measure how well you
could use the Great Machine?
Is Altaira a real person or a construct from Morbius's mind?
Is Robbie a "guide dog" for those Krell that cannot use the Great
Machine? (How does he create the stuff he makes, like lead, unless he's
a walking spigot for the Great Machine?)
Wayne Throop
::: puppet for the Krell Machine to shoo away the stupid apes and that
::: all it did was shine a very bright light at them, making them think
::: that the planet blew up?
With a name like "Morbius", it's natural to wonder if he was already dead.
Out of morbid curiosity if nothing else.
:: Hmmmm, Sequel anyone?
: John Reiher <kedamo...@Narf.mac.com>
: Only if we can get most of the original cast to at least cameo in the
: movie and they stick to the architectural and technological style used
: in the first movie.
Well, they would have to have Leslie Nielsen step into the bridge
for a moment and say "I just want to tell you good luck, we're all
counting on you", and leave. Extra points if that's his only
scene in the movie. But that's not important now...
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Simon Slavin
ffb495...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>:
> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
> it on
The Unorthodox Engineers stories by Colin Kapp. The 'machines' are big,
like a complete railway system, or a continent-wide power-generation
system.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unorthodox_Engineers>
Pretty-much the only reason I kept my _New Worlds_ paperbacks as long as I
did.
Simon.
--
http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk
Kat R
> Kat R <null....@lycos.com>:
>
>
>>> I liked Pournelle's King David's Spaceship. I also liked waching the
>>> StarLost when I was 9, a man discoveres that his entire world is an
>>> abandoned machine (found it again on youtube a few weeks ago -oh how
>>> bad the acting!).
>>>
>>> What do you like of this type of story?
>> I like them medium rare.
>
> Rare or well done, I'd say.
>
> /Par
>
Tah-mate-toe, Tah-mah-toe....
John Schilling
<kedamo...@Narf.mac.com> wrote:
>In article <srba64l8cpf746qvr...@4ax.com>,
> John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>> Well, if we're going beyond the purely written, I have to put in a
>> word for the classics:
>> The Krell Machine from _Forbidden Planet_.
>> Accept no substitutes.
>> Be Happy!
>I've always wondered if the Krell Machine was sentient. It would have to
>be, to be able to decipher the user's thoughts and wishes.
It could perhaps be using the user's sentients for that purpose.
Initial quasi-random bits of creation, then optimization based
on the strength of the user's "the universe is as I expect/want
it to be" response.
Assuming the latter to be measurable even across a species barrier,
but that's probably a reasonable handwave for any story that includes
the Krell Machine in the first place.
Michael Grosberg
> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
>
> StarLost when I was 9, a man discoveres that his entire world is an
> abandoned machine (found it again on youtube a few weeks ago -oh how
> bad the acting!).
>
> What do you like of this type of story?
M. John Harrison's _The Pastel City_ is full of such machines: the
societies in this far-future novel use artifacts from the long-dead
"afternoon cultures". They have fliers, beam weapons and exoskeletons
- along with horses and swords. They rarely know how these things work
or how new ones can be made. The plot revolves around one side of a
conflict reviving some especially nasty ancient technology.
Johnny Tindalos
@panix2.panix.com:
> In article <Xns9AC9C26DF6D73Ja...@216.196.109.145>,
> Johnny Tindalos <Jama...@UnrealEmail.arg> said:
>
> [ re ALTERED CARBON, BROKEN ANGELS, and WOKEN FURIES, the three
> Takeshi Kovacs novels by Richard Morgan ]
>
>> I was rather disappointed by this series after the first one;
>> whichever brain Kovacs found himself sleeved in didn't ever seem
>> to affect his intellect, colour sense, imagination etc,
>
> I can see where the first two might be in play, but is imagination a
> function of hard-wiring in the brain?
Visual imagination, certainly (I thought of qualifying that statement
just after I hit send, alas) as is memory, including the ability to see
what one's recalling in one's mind's eye - both vary greatly among
people; some can see things very clearly, while others just know that
they're thinking about something, but don't get a picture of it. (Orson
Scott Card is one writer who's like that).
Imagination as in creative thinking, I would also expect to have a
hardwired component, as well as one learning how to use what one's
got...which is itself affected by intellect as well as desire and
opportunity.
Desires themselves vary between individuals and often have to do with
particular hardwiring (there have been some recent brain-imaging studies
pertaining to this, one I recall pertained to there being structural
similarities between the brains of heterosexual women and homosexual men,
and between heterosexual men and homosexual women), I don't know whether
the technology in the Kovacs books subordinates the host brain to the
installed personality; I don't recall it saying it did.
> Don't underestimate Envoy conditioning.
Hmmm...I guess maybe I did!
> One effect -- explored a
> bit more in the third book, wherein two ex-Envoys were immune to the
> wishful thinking that infected many of their friends regarding the
> possible return of a long-dead legendary hero
Hadn't recalled that bit, for example!
> -- is that it _makes_
> the person see things as they are. The "wolf-gene nonsense" --
> designed into a crop of vat-grown bodies to make their wearers feel
> a sense of pack loyalty -- did work on him: he felt it, knew it was
> an illusion, and, yes indeed, ignored it.
>
So I guess that means that installed personalities *can* override the
host brain's wiring - if only with Envoy conditioning.
Cheers,
Johnny T.
Steven L.
> In article <srba64l8cpf746qvr...@4ax.com>,
> John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>
>> Well, if we're going beyond the purely written, I have to put in a
>> word for the classics:
>>
>> The Krell Machine from _Forbidden Planet_.
>>
>> Accept no substitutes.
>>
>> Be Happy!
>
> I've always wondered if the Krell Machine was sentient. It would have to
> be, to be able to decipher the user's thoughts and wishes.
Consistent with the movie's Freudian interpretation, our wishes for
material goods are part of our Id and Ego, not our Superego. It could
satisfy our desires to manufacture various objects for our amusement,
but it couldn't answer deeper questions like "Make my life more
meaningful" or "Make our society more just", etc.
Therefore, the Krell Machine may have been sentient but only at a low
level, in the same unsophisticated way that a baby is: Gimme this,
gimme that, and if you don't, I'll start crying.
--
Steven L.
Email: sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
Steven L.
> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
> it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
> What do you like of this type of story?
If you're willing to include movies: "Forbidden Planet."
The stupendously powerful Krell machine waited patiently and alone for
centuries, maintaining itself, until humans landed on the planet and
their subconscious minds could activate it again.
Mark Zenier
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <g41if...@enews4.newsguy.com>,
>Mark Zenier <mze...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>>
>>Starhammer
>>
> Huh. Have not thought of that series in ages.
>
> Has anyone read his Arna books? Any good?
Think of a cross between Sherri Tepper's talking animals and The Black
Company. A multi-species culture of virtuous hominids being invaded by
fleets of nasty humans from the other continent. Sailing ships and swords
and pikes. I found them a bit contrived, gloomy, and the hero a bit
too Mary Sue. I think I didn't get to the third, if there was a third.
>Anything after the last one in that series?
ISFDB says no.
The later Basil books seemed to be a bit forced, too. Seemed like,
"I've got a contract, now I've got to extrude some books".
I meant to comment on Rowley in that thread you had with L. Watt-Evans
about people who aren't published in the 21st century. There are a lot
of people who didn't get anything out after 2002. Rowley, John Stith,
(authors that I usually bought) and Jessica Amanda Salmonson (who, as
Paghat, hung out in various newsgroups tweeking noses), and the
half a dozen more that came up in that sub-thread, all have their
last stuff then.
Was there a major upheaval in the publishing industry in 2002?
Did the Republican War Machine Propaganda Division take over?
Or did everybody just spend all their time dorking around with
their web site?
James Nicoll
Mark Zenier <mze...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>
>I meant to comment on Rowley in that thread you had with L. Watt-Evans
>about people who aren't published in the 21st century. There are a lot
>of people who didn't get anything out after 2002. Rowley, John Stith,
>(authors that I usually bought) and Jessica Amanda Salmonson (who, as
>Paghat, hung out in various newsgroups tweeking noses), and the
>half a dozen more that came up in that sub-thread, all have their
>last stuff then.
>
>Was there a major upheaval in the publishing industry in 2002?
>Did the Republican War Machine Propaganda Division take over?
>Or did everybody just spend all their time dorking around with
>their web site?
Well, that is roughly when I started freelancing for
(then) Bookspan but I am sure that's a coincidence.
I know that in 2003, the major chains told publishers
that (best selling authors aside), they would no longer take
SF novels over 120K words because those don't sell well enough
in hardcover. I don't see why that would affect Rowley (whose SF
was never that long and who had moved to fantasy anyway), Stith
(not given to long books) or Salmonson (fantasy).
I can think of other authors who got burned by the 03
but usually in the form of "I see my novel that I was told in
2002 had to be long is now coming out in two parts and depending
on who my editor is, either the readers will be told up front
that the first installment is half a book or they will discover
this when they finish the first book."
Mind you, 2002 is to 9/11 as 1992 is to the fall of the
Soviet Union and books take at least a year to get to market.
Maybe it's related to that, either because some flavours of
SF went out of fashion [1] or because 9/11 allowed competing
flavours to take over scarce publishing slots.
1: Good luck selling FIRE IN A FARAWAY PLACE these days, but his
career was over long before 9/11.
James Nicoll
where an unusually high number of careers hit a bump. I am not
sure how to do that, though.
William Hyde
> In article <g41if602...@enews4.newsguy.com>,Mark Zenier <mzen...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>
> >Starhammer
>
> Huh. Have not thought of that series in ages.
Just reread it. It's one of my favourite "recovering
from the flu" books. For that period when I am lucid,
but new strings of words are just too much work.
>
> Has anyone read his Arna books? Any good?
A mixed bag. Some fine passages and scenes, mixed
with an iffy overall setup. If I saw a third book, I'd
probably buy it, largely to see how/if the situation is
wrapped up.
I miss Rowley's SF. But as I posted here some years
ago, his sales for the Dragon books were vastly
better than his SF sales.
William Hyde
William Hyde
> In article <g41nbi$kp...@reader2.panix.com>,
>
> >>Starhammer
>
> > Huh. Have not thought of that series in ages.
>
> > Has anyone read his Arna books? Any good?
>
[...]
>
> >Anything after the last one in that series?
>
> ISFDB says no.
Apparently there is one, "Doom's Break". I don't
recall ever seeing it.
Judging by his web site, he seems to be working in
comics (whether web only or paper I can't say) and
on a web-published novel, "Netherworld".
William Hyde
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>Was there a major upheaval in the publishing industry in 2002?
>Did the Republican War Machine Propaganda Division take over?
>Or did everybody just spend all their time dorking around with
>their web site?
Fiction sales suffered a major drop in late 2001 and into 2002.
While fiction as a whole has mostly recovered, some genres are still
in serious decline, including science fiction and to a lesser extent,
traditional fantasy.
Most writers I know about are now accepting lower advances and slower
pay-outs than they did ten years ago -- for example, getting part of
the advance on publication used to mean you were a loser with an inept
agent, whereas now it's absolutely standard.
A lot of writers apparently stopped getting published at all.
As it happens, I made a three-book deal with Tor just before things
went to hell, got delayed writing it, and took five years to finish
the three books. Then I went back to Tor last fall with my next
series.
I sold it, got a two-book contract, but wow, the terms suck compared
to what I was getting in the 1990s, and my agent (one of the top
agents in the SF field) tells me I did better than a lot of his
clients -- he had horror stories about some big names who can't get a
decent deal anymore. During that five years when I wasn't paying
attention, everything shrank.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
The eighth issue of Helix is now at http://www.helixsf.com
Gene
news:04ad649tent1j4q1t...@news.rcn.com:
> Fiction sales suffered a major drop in late 2001 and into 2002.
Was everyone spending all their time rereading Harry Potter, or what?
Lawrence Watt-Evans
There was this little economic and political bobble in mid-September
2001 that altered discretionary spending habits.
Gene
>>Was everyone spending all their time rereading Harry Potter, or what?
>
> There was this little economic and political bobble in mid-September
> 2001 that altered discretionary spending habits.
Well, fear not! All you authors, writers, novelists and other literary
creatures take heart, for I have found for you a growing genre of fiction.
Apparently, you don't need to actually be very good:
Ahasuerus
> Mind you, we should probably see if 2002 really was a year
> where an unusually high number of careers hit a bump. I am not
> sure how to do that, though.
Hm. Is it fair to say that you want to see how many authors -- with at
least N novels to their credit and a career spanning at least M years
-- stopped publishing books after year YYYY even though they were
still alive and under 65 (60? 70?) at the time? I am sure we could do
this for each year where YYYY=1960-2007 using ISFDB data although we
are missing some death dates.
Ahasuerus
> [snip]
> Can you help me make sense of the ISFDB listing for these,
> specifically that there are three titles listed as number 2?
>
> * Chronicles of an Age of Darkness
> + Wizard War Chronicles: Lords of the Sword (1991)
> + 1 The Wizards and the Warriors (1986)
> o Variant Title: Wizard War (1986)
> + 2 The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (1987)
> + 2 The Questing Hero (1988)
> + 2 The Hero's Return (1988)
> + 3 The Women and the Warlords (1987)
> o Variant Title: The Oracle (1987)
> + 4 The Walrus and the Warwolf (1988)
> + 5 The Wicked and the Witless (1989)
> + 6 The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (1990)
> + 7 The Wazir and the Witch (1990)
> + 8 The Werewolf and the Wormlord (1991)
> + 9 The Worshippers and the Way (1992)
> + 10 The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster (1992)
_The Wordsmiths and the Warguild_, like many novels in that series, is
quite long and was published in two volumes (_The Questing Hero_ and
_The Hero's Return_) in the US. The fourth volume, _The Walrus and the
Warwolf_, was another 800 page doorstop that was split for US
publication, but only the first part, _Lords of the Sword_, was ever
published. Wikipedia says that it contained the "first half" of the
original novel, but the page count and my notes suggest that it was
closer to the first third.
As far as the way the ISFDB displays the series goes... The problem is
that we are yet to figure out how to record novels-that-were-later-
split-into-multiple-volumes in a way that makes sense to our users
without adding extra layers of complexity to the database :(
Konrad Gaertner
>
> As far as the way the ISFDB displays the series goes... The problem is
> that we are yet to figure out how to record novels-that-were-later-
> split-into-multiple-volumes in a way that makes sense to our users
> without adding extra layers of complexity to the database :(
It's even more fun when one of the parts has the same title as the
unsplit version (Wurts' _Ships of Merior_).
One possible solution would be to have a parenthetical comment after
the title giving the distinguishing characteristic (binding,
publisher, or market).
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - email: kgae...@tx.rr.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
-- James Nicoll
Ahasuerus
> Ahasuerus wrote:
>
> > As far as the way the ISFDB displays the series goes... The problem is
> > that we are yet to figure out how to record novels-that-were-later-
> > split-into-multiple-volumes in a way that makes sense to our users
> > without adding extra layers of complexity to the database :(
>
> It's even more fun when one of the parts has the same title as the
> unsplit version (Wurts' _Ships of Merior_).
>
> One possible solution would be to have a parenthetical comment after
> the title giving the distinguishing characteristic (binding,
> publisher, or market).
We tried this approach in the past, but it wasn't viable at the time
because some of our relationships -- e.g. book reviews -- were created
dynamically every time a page was generated and they were based on
having an exact title match. Thus, a review of _Lords of the Sword_
would have appeared on that book's page if the title had matched the
title in the review, but it wouldn't have appeared if the title had
been, say, _Lords of the Sword (first third)_. We are slowly changing
the software to get rid of this type of logic and it's becoming more
viable to add comments like "(abridged)", "(first half)" etc to
titles. Take a look at what I have done with Hugh Cook's page -- see
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Hugh_Cook -- perhaps it makes more
sense now.
Konrad Gaertner
I was thinking more like:
Chronicles of an Age of Darkness
1 The Wizards and the Warriors (1986) (UK)
1 Wizard War (1986) (US)
2 The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (1987) (UK)
2a The Questing Hero (1988) (US)
2b The Hero's Return (1988) (US)
3 The Women and the Warlords (1987) (UK)
3 The Oracle (1987) (US)
4 The Walrus and the Warwolf (1988) (UK)
4a Lords of the Sword (1991) (US)
5 The Wicked and the Witless (1989) (UK)
6 The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (1990) (UK)
7 The Wazir and the Witch (1990) (UK)
8 The Werewolf and the Wormlord (1991) (UK)
9 The Worshippers and the Way (1992) (UK)
10 The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster (1992) (UK)
Does this look clear?
Ahasuerus
> Ahasuerus wrote:
> [snip]
> > On Jun 28, 7:14 pm, Konrad Gaertner <kgaert...@tx.rr.com> wrote:
> > > One possible solution would be to have a parenthetical comment after
> > > the title giving the distinguishing characteristic (binding,
> > > publisher, or market).
>
> > We tried this approach in the past, but it wasn't viable at the time
> > because some of our relationships -- e.g. book reviews -- were created
> > dynamically every time a page was generated and they were based on
> > having an exact title match. Thus, a review of _Lords of the Sword_
> > would have appeared on that book's page if the title had matched the
> > title in the review, but it wouldn't have appeared if the title had
> > been, say, _Lords of the Sword (first third)_. We are slowly changing
> > the software to get rid of this type of logic and it's becoming more
> > viable to add comments like "(abridged)", "(first half)" etc to
> > titles. Take a look at what I have done with Hugh Cook's page -- see
> > sense now.
>
> I was thinking more like:
>
> Chronicles of an Age of Darkness
> 1 The Wizards and the Warriors (1986) (UK)
> 1 Wizard War (1986) (US)
> 2 The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (1987) (UK)
> 2a The Questing Hero (1988) (US)
> 2b The Hero's Return (1988) (US)
> 3 The Women and the Warlords (1987) (UK)
> 3 The Oracle (1987) (US)
> 4 The Walrus and the Warwolf (1988) (UK)
> 4a Lords of the Sword (1991) (US)
> 5 The Wicked and the Witless (1989) (UK)
> 6 The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers (1990) (UK)
> 7 The Wazir and the Witch (1990) (UK)
> 8 The Werewolf and the Wormlord (1991) (UK)
> 9 The Worshippers and the Way (1992) (UK)
> 10 The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster (1992) (UK)
>
> Does this look clear?
Yes, that would work and would also help better organize some recent
series where the author/publisher used non-numeric series numbers like
"17.1". Unfortunately, it would require adding another field --
something like "displayed series number" -- to the Title record since
we need to keep the current integer series number to sort all series
entries properly. One of these days...
P. Taine
>Ahasuerus wrote:
>>
>> As far as the way the ISFDB displays the series goes... The problem is
>> that we are yet to figure out how to record novels-that-were-later-
>> split-into-multiple-volumes in a way that makes sense to our users
>> without adding extra layers of complexity to the database :(
>
>It's even more fun when one of the parts has the same title as the
>unsplit version (Wurts' _Ships of Merior_).
Not to mention Stevenson's "Quicksilver" books, where the cost of the 9(?) MMPs
is noticably greater than the 3 TPs.
mimus
There's always room for good spinners of lies for corporations,
politicians and guvmental agencies . . . .
--
"You are either insane or a fool."
"I am a sanitary inspector."
< _Maske: Thaery_
James Nicoll
William December Starr
Ahasuerus <ahas...@email.com> said:
> We are slowly changing the software to get rid of this type of
> logic and it's becoming more viable to add comments like
> "(abridged)", "(first half)" etc to titles. Take a look at what I
> have done with Hugh Cook's page -- see
> http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Hugh_Cook -- perhaps it makes
> more sense now.
Much, *much* better. Makes full sense now.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
William December Starr
"Steven L." <sdli...@earthlink.net> said:
> If you're willing to include movies: "Forbidden Planet."
>
> The stupendously powerful Krell machine waited patiently and alone
> for centuries, maintaining itself, until humans landed on the
> planet and their subconscious minds could activate it again.
And on the smaller screen but no less impressive, the Guardian in
the City on the Edge of Forever[*1].
*1: Unless you subscribe to the heresy that the city referred
to in the title was 1930-mumble New York, of course.
Oh, and an addition to the general list: the _Ma Wi Jung_ in
CRYSTAL RAIN by Tobias S. Buckell, which I just finished reading.
Dirk van den Boom
> I sold it, got a two-book contract, but wow, the terms suck compared
> to what I was getting in the 1990s, and my agent (one of the top
> agents in the SF field) tells me I did better than a lot of his
> clients -- he had horror stories about some big names who can't get a
> decent deal anymore. During that five years when I wasn't paying
> attention, everything shrank.
Don't worry, I'm currently buying all your Ethshar-books from Wildside.
You'll be immensely rich in no time (Did "Blood of a dragon" get a
sequel? I found that the only one so far mildly disappointing).
Lawrence Watt-Evans
I consider _Blood of a Dragon_ the weakest of the series, myself. The
sequel, _Dumery of the Dragon_, is in my (long) list of things I want
to write eventually, but hasn't yet gotten beyond the outline stage.
Mark Zenier
Some more trends come to mind.
Shrinking demographic: The next generation is {illiterate/spends all
their discretionary money on iTunes or games/expects to get stuff free
off the Internet/reads comics instead/reads free web-comics/only
read books tied into their favorite game/only reads books about
vampires in black leather/...}
We don't do that: The creative elements of the next generation(s) are not
into a media as mundane as text.
"Positive" feedback leading to a death spiral: you don't look on the
shelves (or Amazon) if you haven't found anything you like for several
years. I used to hit the bookstores once a month at least, now it's
"it's about time for a new Pratchett or MacLeod, guess I'll look on
the web".
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>In article <Xns9ACB95330EB9ge...@207.115.17.102>,
>Gene <ge...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
>>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote in
>>news:04ad649tent1j4q1t...@news.rcn.com:
>>
>>> Fiction sales suffered a major drop in late 2001 and into 2002.
>>
>>Was everyone spending all their time rereading Harry Potter, or what?
>
>Some more trends come to mind.
>
>Shrinking demographic: The next generation is {illiterate/spends all
>their discretionary money on iTunes or games/expects to get stuff free
>off the Internet/reads comics instead/reads free web-comics/only
>read books tied into their favorite game/only reads books about
>vampires in black leather/...}
They don't read comics; comic book sales are down more than book
sales. They went into a steep decline late in 1992.
Unless you count manga; manga sales are huge.
Kurt Busiek
> On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:43:32 GMT, mze...@eskimo.com (Mark Zenier)
> wrote:
>
>> In article <Xns9ACB95330EB9ge...@207.115.17.102>,
>> Gene <ge...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
>>> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote in
>>> news:04ad649tent1j4q1t...@news.rcn.com:
>>>
>>>> Fiction sales suffered a major drop in late 2001 and into 2002.
>>>
>>> Was everyone spending all their time rereading Harry Potter, or what?
>>
>> Some more trends come to mind.
>>
>> Shrinking demographic: The next generation is {illiterate/spends all
>> their discretionary money on iTunes or games/expects to get stuff free
>> off the Internet/reads comics instead/reads free web-comics/only
>> read books tied into their favorite game/only reads books about
>> vampires in black leather/...}
>
> They don't read comics; comic book sales are down more than book
> sales. They went into a steep decline late in 1992.
>
> Unless you count manga; manga sales are huge.
Comics in book form are one of the few categories on the upswing in
book sales, I'm told. They're growing strongly every year.
Comic book sales in pamphlet form were artificially inflated in 1992,
and the bubble burst, after which the specialty-market sales started
hurrying to catch up to the long slow sales collapse of newsstand
sales, which had been fading since WWII.
But periodical sales are up, of late, and book-format sales are booming.
Manga sales had been booming for years, but seem to be hitting a period
of much slower growth, which has caused financial problems for some
manga publishers in the US, used to the idea that rapid expansion is
always supportable.
kdb
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>On 2008-06-30 09:12:42 -0700, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> said:
>
>> On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:43:32 GMT, mze...@eskimo.com (Mark Zenier)
>> wrote:
>>
>>> In article <Xns9ACB95330EB9ge...@207.115.17.102>,
>>> Gene <ge...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
>>>> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote in
>>>> news:04ad649tent1j4q1t...@news.rcn.com:
>>>>
>>>>> Fiction sales suffered a major drop in late 2001 and into 2002.
>>>>
>>>> Was everyone spending all their time rereading Harry Potter, or what?
>>>
>>> Some more trends come to mind.
>>>
>>> Shrinking demographic: The next generation is {illiterate/spends all
>>> their discretionary money on iTunes or games/expects to get stuff free
>>> off the Internet/reads comics instead/reads free web-comics/only
>>> read books tied into their favorite game/only reads books about
>>> vampires in black leather/...}
>>
>> They don't read comics; comic book sales are down more than book
>> sales. They went into a steep decline late in 1992.
>>
>> Unless you count manga; manga sales are huge.
>
>Comics in book form are one of the few categories on the upswing in
>book sales, I'm told. They're growing strongly every year.
Yeah, but I wasn't thinking of those as comic books. Which I suppose
is unreasonable of me.
>Comic book sales in pamphlet form were artificially inflated in 1992,
>and the bubble burst, after which the specialty-market sales started
>hurrying to catch up to the long slow sales collapse of newsstand
>sales, which had been fading since WWII.
>
>But periodical sales are up, of late, and book-format sales are booming.
Okay, you'd know better than I, but I'd had the impression that
periodical sales were flat of late.
>Manga sales had been booming for years, but seem to be hitting a period
>of much slower growth, which has caused financial problems for some
>manga publishers in the US, used to the idea that rapid expansion is
>always supportable.
Didn't say they were growing, said they were huge.
Kurt Busiek
> On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:56:42 -0700, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.comics>
> wrote:
>
>> On 2008-06-30 09:12:42 -0700, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> said:
>>
>>> They don't read comics; comic book sales are down more than book
>>> sales. They went into a steep decline late in 1992.
>>>
>>> Unless you count manga; manga sales are huge.
>>
>> Comics in book form are one of the few categories on the upswing in
>> book sales, I'm told. They're growing strongly every year.
>
> Yeah, but I wasn't thinking of those as comic books. Which I suppose
> is unreasonable of me.
>
>> Comic book sales in pamphlet form were artificially inflated in 1992,
>> and the bubble burst, after which the specialty-market sales started
>> hurrying to catch up to the long slow sales collapse of newsstand
>> sales, which had been fading since WWII.
>>
>> But periodical sales are up, of late, and book-format sales are booming.
>
> Okay, you'd know better than I, but I'd had the impression that
> periodical sales were flat of late.
A lot of individual series are down in sales, but overall unit sales
are growing, I'm told.
>> Manga sales had been booming for years, but seem to be hitting a period
>> of much slower growth, which has caused financial problems for some
>> manga publishers in the US, used to the idea that rapid expansion is
>> always supportable.
>
> Didn't say they were growing, said they were huge.
This is true. On the one hand, it's an indication of something that
TokyoPop, which I think is the largest manga publisher in the US, is
laying off 40% of its workforce and cutting its line in half. It's
another indicator that even cut in half, they'll be publishing 22
titles a month.
kdb
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
Half of which are still probably crap.
I've been amazed, looking at the manga shelves, how much crap has been
shoveled out there to feed the public's not-so-insatiable-after-all
appetite for manga. I pick up the samplers various publishers put
out, and typically only one series in every half-dozen has anything in
it that appeals to me at all.
I know, I know -- I'm not a fourteen-year-old girl. Still.
There's manga I adore -- I never miss an issue of Hikaru no Go or
Inu-Yasha -- but there's an awful lot of really stupid stuff, too.
So I figure we're getting the usual boom-and-bust stuff, where
something gets hot and expands until the market is over-saturated,
then collapses down to a more sustainable level.
Kurt Busiek
> On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:20:38 -0700, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.comics>
> wrote:
>
>> On 2008-06-30 13:10:40 -0700, Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> said:
>>
>>> On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:56:42 -0700, Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.comics>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Manga sales had been booming for years, but seem to be hitting a period
>>>> of much slower growth, which has caused financial problems for some
>>>> manga publishers in the US, used to the idea that rapid expansion is
>>>> always supportable.
>>>
>>> Didn't say they were growing, said they were huge.
>>
>> This is true. On the one hand, it's an indication of something that
>> TokyoPop, which I think is the largest manga publisher in the US, is
>> laying off 40% of its workforce and cutting its line in half. It's
>> another indicator that even cut in half, they'll be publishing 22
>> titles a month.
>
> Half of which are still probably crap.
Only half? That'd be beating Sturgeon's law by a wide margin.
But then, 90% of everything Sturgeon said was crud.
kdb
Andrew Wheeler
> In article <Xns9ACB95330EB9ge...@207.115.17.102>,
> Gene <ge...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
> >Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote in
> >news:04ad649tent1j4q1t...@news.rcn.com:
> >
> >> Fiction sales suffered a major drop in late 2001 and into 2002.
> >
> >Was everyone spending all their time rereading Harry Potter, or what?
>
> Some more trends come to mind.
>
> Shrinking demographic: The next generation is {illiterate/spends all
> their discretionary money on iTunes or games/expects to get stuff free
> off the Internet/reads comics instead/reads free web-comics/only
> read books tied into their favorite game/only reads books about
> vampires in black leather/...}
Actually, there's been a boom in Young Adult fiction over this decade,
since Generation Y (the baby boom echo) has been moving through their
teen years, and they're larger than the previous and subsequent
generations.
So "fiction sales are down" is really "sales of books marked as *adult*
fiction are down." (Until this year, when everything seems to be going
to hell.)
It's demonstrably wrong that "those kids" are illiterate, buying fewer
books, and so on.
--
Andrew Wheeler
Ahasuerus
> In article <a8aff19b-7a23-4387-b104-db1e9ca0f...@f63g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
> Ahasuerus <ahasue...@email.com> said:
>
> > We are slowly changing the software to get rid of this type of
> > logic and it's becoming more viable to add comments like
> > "(abridged)", "(first half)" etc to titles. Take a look at what I
> > have done with Hugh Cook's page -- see
> > more sense now.
>
> Much, *much* better. Makes full sense now.
Thanks for the feedback! I have posted a proposal to change the way we
display all "split novels" to follow the same pattern. We'll see what
happens.
Dirk van den Boom
> but hasn't yet gotten beyond the outline stage.
I'll be patient and order the rest of the books and your Wizard-trilogy
in the meantime. Thank god you have been quite productive :)
(But don't forget it!!)
Joel Olson
"veritas" <verit...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:c50ebd6c-f4f0-46b0...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>
> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
> it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
>
> I liked Pournelle's King David's Spaceship. I also liked waching the
> StarLost when I was 9, a man discoveres that his entire world is an
> abandoned machine (found it again on youtube a few weeks ago -oh how
> bad the acting!).
>
> What do you like of this type of story?
>
Now that the memory links have had a few days to percolate, I seem
to recall images of a vast wrecked derelict spaceship, with a few people
survingn on it, hunting each other for food. I think it was in the Buck
Rogers comic strip, back when I was a child.
And another sequence has our hero returning to earth for the all-important
football game, getting into and firing up the old dusty clank, and taking on
all the newer stronger machines. Long before Rocky.
Has that strip been collected & reprinted?
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
exemplar of this type story. Also some roots in Pohlish SF like "The Midas
Plague" & _The Space Merchants_ (and some Simak robot pastorialism as well).
Ted
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Taki Kogoma
allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:
> I know it's not written, but has anyone mentioned "Wall-E"? Pretty good
> exemplar of this type story. Also some roots in Pohlish SF like "The Midas
> Plague" & _The Space Merchants_ (and some Simak robot pastorialism as well).
Pernese artifacts lasting 2.5 millennia or thereabouts; from microscopes
to plastic spoons to the primary supercomputer for the colony.
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.
Jack Bohn
>Now that the memory links have had a few days to percolate, I seem
>to recall images of a vast wrecked derelict spaceship, with a few people
>survingn on it, hunting each other for food. I think it was in the Buck
>Rogers comic strip, back when I was a child.
>
>And another sequence has our hero returning to earth for the all-important
>football game, getting into and firing up the old dusty clank, and taking on
>all the newer stronger machines. Long before Rocky.
>
>Has that strip been collected & reprinted?
Soon:
http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=155707
--
-Jack
William George Ferguson
>On 2008-07-01, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com>
>allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:
>> I know it's not written, but has anyone mentioned "Wall-E"? Pretty good
>> exemplar of this type story. Also some roots in Pohlish SF like "The Midas
>> Plague" & _The Space Merchants_ (and some Simak robot pastorialism as well).
>
>Pernese artifacts lasting 2.5 millennia or thereabouts; from microscopes
>to plastic spoons to the primary supercomputer for the colony.
Actually [nitpick mode on] that was the secondary supercomputer for the
colony. it was designed to be a backup system.
--
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
(Bene Gesserit)
Mike Schilling
> On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:43:32 GMT, mze...@eskimo.com (Mark Zenier)
> wrote:
>
>> In article <Xns9ACB95330EB9ge...@207.115.17.102>,
>> Gene <ge...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
>>> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote in
>>> news:04ad649tent1j4q1t...@news.rcn.com:
>>>
>>>> Fiction sales suffered a major drop in late 2001 and into 2002.
>>>
>>> Was everyone spending all their time rereading Harry Potter, or
>>> what?
>>
>> Some more trends come to mind.
>>
>> Shrinking demographic: The next generation is {illiterate/spends all
>> their discretionary money on iTunes or games/expects to get stuff
>> free off the Internet/reads comics instead/reads free web-comics/only
>> read books tied into their favorite game/only reads books about
>> vampires in black leather/...}
>
> They don't read comics; comic book sales are down more than book
> sales. They went into a steep decline late in 1992.
>
> Unless you count manga; manga sales are huge.
I didn't realize that many people could read manganese.
Ahasuerus
> In article <1cf51e17-ae3d-46c2-8007-f8873a072...@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Ahasuerus <ahasue...@email.com> wrote:
> >On Jun 28, 1:48 pm, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> >> Mind you, we should probably see if 2002 really was a year
> >> where an unusually high number of careers hit a bump. I am not
> >> sure how to do that, though.
>
> >Hm. Is it fair to say that you want to see how many authors -- with at
> >least N novels to their credit and a career spanning at least M years
> >-- stopped publishing books after year YYYY even though they were
> >still alive and under 65 (60? 70?) at the time? I am sure we could do
> >this for each year where YYYY=1960-2007 using ISFDB data although we
> >are missing some death dates.
>
> Yes, something like that.
OK, I have added it to our list of scripts to write.
Anthony Nance
I'm lead to believe it's more common than you'd zinc.
art...@yahoo.com
> >> wrote:
>
> >>> In article <Xns9ACB95330EB9genewardsmithsbcg...@207.115.17.102>,
> >>> Gene <g...@chewbacca.org> wrote:
> >>>> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote in
> >>>>news:04ad649tent1j4q1t...@news.rcn.com:
>
> >>>>> Fiction sales suffered a major drop in late 2001 and into 2002.
>
> >>>> Was everyone spending all their time rereading Harry Potter, or
> >>>> what?
>
> >>> Some more trends come to mind.
>
> >>> Shrinking demographic: The next generation is {illiterate/spends all
> >>> their discretionary money on iTunes or games/expects to get stuff
> >>> free off the Internet/reads comics instead/reads free web-comics/only
> >>> read books tied into their favorite game/only reads books about
> >>> vampires in black leather/...}
>
> >> They don't read comics; comic book sales are down more than book
> >> sales. They went into a steep decline late in 1992.
>
> >> Unless you count manga; manga sales are huge.
>
> > I didn't realize that many people could read manganese.
>
> I'm lead to believe it's more common than you'd zinc.
You're just being ironic
Mike Schilling
My pevious comment was tungsten cheek.
Bill Snyder
Do that again, and I'll have to call a copper.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
Anthony Nance
Careful - doing that risks having them start a radon this newsgroup.
pmfan57
> Most times a computer but not always. A machine that has been
> abandoned (no one knows of it) or left untended (people know of it,
> they keep it clean and away from harm but can't figure out how to turn
> it on -like my inlaws and their puter :) ).
>
> I liked Pournelle's King David's Spaceship. I also liked waching the
> StarLost when I was 9, a man discoveres that his entire world is an
> abandoned machine (found it again on youtube a few weeks ago -oh how
> bad the acting!).
>
> What do you like of this type of story?
Well "Starlost" is along the lines of Heinlein's "Universe", as I
recall, and that story is pretty old.
Joel Olson
"Jack Bohn" <jack...@bright.net> wrote in message
news:hnlm645bck4ieecbu...@4ax.com...
Thanks. :-)
There was another sequence where our hero got "cloned" into 7 bodies,
one for each vice, and they're all struggling through the Venusian Jungle.