Attn JMS - Technomage Trilogy
Brian Stinson
Amazon.com. Looking forward to it.
Is there any timetable on the release of the Technomage Trilogy ?
SGBruckner
According to DelRey, Jeanne Cavelos will have her first novel out on the
technomages in March.There's a little blurb about the last Centauri novel as
well as a look ahead at the technomage series out at The Zocalo Today
(http://zocalo.isnnews.net).
Take care.
Sandy
Sandra Bruckner
Editor/Publisher
The Zocalo Today
http://zocalo.isnnews.net
Jms at B5
only about halfway done, I think it may be the best of the bunch. If there's
any one of the books that I think could be considered Nebula material...it's
this one.
jms
(jms...@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)
Tammy Smith
Tammy
PS--I've actually been reading those Harry Potter books. They're not
bad! I think I would've really been a fan if they had been published
when I was a kid. At least they are getting young people to read!
Gharlane of Eddore
In <20000724182028...@ng-fa1.aol.com>
jms...@aol.com (Jms at B5) writes:
>
> I'm reading the first installment of the Technomage trilogy now,
> and though I'm only about halfway done, I think it may be the best
> of the bunch. If there's any one of the books that I think could
> be considered Nebula material...it's this one.
>
(A) This is a JEAN CAVELOS project you're discussing;
(B) We've seen you wax effusive over the sublime glory of various
B5 books in the past, demonstrating in the process some rather
major disability in the area of prose fiction evaluation;
(C) We've *SEEN* the lady's work. Far too much of it.
And it hasn't done you or your Franchise any good at all.
Since she's delayed so many months past your originally advertised
dates, there's been time for her to work on her stupendously crude
and unskilled writing, and possibly call in more competent friends
and readers for polish passes --- so yes, it *is* possible that the
current work is at least readable; but a writer so bereft of literary
ability, so lacking in genre background, so ill-prepared for work in
a speculative genre; and worse, so lacking in basic talent, -- is
hugely unlikely to produce anything even remotely award-worthy, and
your assertions to the contrary are at least mildly aggravating to
folks who actually care about the B-5 Franchise and the products
you're hyping.
Rather than:
>
> I'm reading the first installment of the Technomage trilogy now,
> and though I'm only about halfway done, I think it may be the best
> of the bunch. If there's any one of the books that I think could
> be considered Nebula material...it's this one.
>
You'd have been a good deal better off making a statement with
some correllability to reality, possibly along the lines of:
>
> I'm reading the first installment of the Technomage trilogy now,
> and though I'm only about halfway done, I think I may like it best
> of the bunch.
>
In this way, you would not be reprising your past sins of
drek-touting and trash-hyping, and could still communicate your
feelings on the matter without the jaw-droppingly effusive
hyperbole.
Just my opinion, of course; but with Cavelos' track record to date,
I think it's rather likely to be correct.
For those who are new to the discussion of Cavelos' contributions
to the B-5 Universe, here's a copy of my original book review of
her blockbuster novel, from a couple of years back; I'll just repost
it rather than explicating anew.
=============================================================
> > > > >
>
> From: ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore)
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
> Subject: Brief Review of "THE SHADOW WITHIN"
> Date: 20 Apr 1997 18:54:49 -0400
> Organization: Evil Beings from Planet Eddore, Inc.
> Lines: 335
> Approved: b5mod <b5...@deepthot.cary.nc.us>
> Distribution: world
> Message-ID: <5jdbou$9...@news.csus.edu>
> Summary: sheesh.
> X-Auth: PGPMoose V1.1 PGP rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
> iQBVAwUBM1qetvS74aYNuHsRAQFFrwH+I5FoRFCMUVtPGXrXbvb6Elbt1oifKjhg
> efy1YhR6rKarOM2RzAAXrKMmoYMDHMYlFDHCR68xfYjezR0pKNwWPA==
> =cBiJ
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> | |
> | Note: At moderator request, the following set of comments have |
> | been edited for content, witticisms, and purposeful and |
> | trenchantly amusing slams which were felt to be too |
> | effective and vituperative for a family NewsGroup. |
> | The result is bland as pablum, and much less offensive. |
> | If you have a problem with any part of it, feel free |
> | to post objections to "alt.religion.kibology," where |
> | your wrath and outrage will earn you many new friends. |
> | |
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> Review of "THE SHADOW WITHIN" by Jeanne Cavelos,
>
> or
>
> "How I Spent My Wednesday Night When I Should Have Been Grading Papers,"
> by Gharlane, age <deleted>
>
> My delay in discussing this book has been attributable to a multiplicity
> of factors:
>
> I refused to spend any more money on B-5 tie-in books;
>
> I had a few other things going on during Midterm Season;
>
> I didn't want to deal with any more charges of prejudice and
> sundry other crimes of attitude such that it were better my
> mother had never borne me;
>
> I was unable to get to page two the first time I attempted to read it;
> and etc. etc. und so weiter.
>
> As I type these comments, it's about twelve hours until Episode #410
> comes down off the satellite, so everyone will have something else to
> be excited about and wrangle over, and my few diffident comments and
> explications will not be afforded any undue attention or import, even
> by persons who feel that my attitude is a response to Ms. Cavelos' dual
> complement of X-chromosomes rather than simply justifiable outrage over
> her product's putridity.
>
> A friend who'd been sent a review copy of the book gave it to me;
> he asked not to be named, and commented only that after reading the
> first couple of chapters, he felt he had better ways to spend his time.
>
>
> The first page of this book was the reason I tossed it aside the
> first time I tried to read it. I'd promised to read it with an
> open mind, preserving some degree of objectivity, and I was in a
> testy enough mood that I had no patience for slovenly writing;
> if I'd found the turkey in a slushpile, I'd have tossed it back
> into the outgoing envelope without a second's hesitation.
>
> On the first page of this opus, we find the opening sentence:
>
> "Anna Sheridan rested her elbows on her desk and her chin on
> her nested fists...."
>
> "Nested" doesn't conceptually imply side-by-side, unless the
> objects at issue are *in* something. When nested objects are not
> in a nest, the second default parsing implies containment, possibly
> in series, like those Russian dolls that fit inside each other.
>
> If Cavelos meant that Anna was holding one fist inside the other hand,
> that might constitute a form of nesting, but in that case only ONE hand
> is in a fist, so the mess still doesn't parse.
>
> You see my problem with this? An opening sentence should be a
> "hook," something that grabs the reader and pulls him into the
> narrative, not a parsing puzzle that makes the reader stop and
> wonder what the writer is actually trying to express.
>
> IT IS NOT THE READER'S RESPONSIBLITY TO COMPENSATE FOR LIMITED
> CAPACITY FOR EXPRESSION ON THE PART OF THE WRITER.
>
> On this same page, we get several more sterling examples of
> fractured narrative language; the worst, to my eyes, are:
>
> "The front end, as she had come to think of it, rounded in a
> gentle curve, looking almost like a head, while the back end
> tapered to a point, almost like a tail."
>
> "The object, the mouse as she called it, was the first example
> of true biomechanical technology ever discovered."
>
> This is not *writing*. This is typewriter operation by someone
> with a limited vocabulary of expression and concept.
>
> Trying to insert some character referentiality into a dead
> sentence by pasting in a modifying clause that forces relation
> to a character uninvolved in the direct meaning of the sentence
> is jarring and disconcerting.
>
> Direct references to "stretched-out teardrops," or "pint-sized
> banana slugs," and a joke about Anna wondering whether she was
> looking at the head or tail, or even if the device *had* a head
> or tail, would have carried a great deal more information with
> greater economy and readability, and more contrast for the horror
> that comes later.
>
> This is the OPENING PAGE of the book, a critically important part
> of a novel, and Ms. Cavelos is so at odds with her purported craft
> that she can't be bothered to make it smoothly readable, to use
> ACTIVE instead of passive structures, to give us sentences that
> flow instead of ill-conceived frames with additional clauses
> clumsily inserted by main force.
>
> (Why is the bloody thing being referred to as a MOUSE? It has
> no legs, no little face, no features; "worm," "slug," "space slug,"
> "caterpiller," "whatsit," would all be more likely. On
> subsequent pages we find that the device/critter was found in
> something like a pod or cocoon; mice don't grow in cocoons.
> The choice of terminology is never actually justified or defended.
> In real life, it is very unlikely that such an inappropriate name
> would be applied. However, this is Cavelos' story, and she can
> make her characters as silly and non-sequitur as she likes, as
> long as someone is fool enough to publish her work. But any group
> I've ever worked with would be calling them by all kinds of joke
> names, ranging from "Incipient Maybe-Butterflies," quickly shortened
> to "IMB's," or "caterpiggles." "Mouse" wouldn't even be thought of.)
>
> Page eight, references to "mitochondrial RNA." Riiiight.
> Cavelos specifically references RNA as a primary genetic and
> protein sampling structure at several points in the text without
> explaining why it's preferable to DNA or DNA analogues.
>
> Page nine, we establish that IPX has been in operation for
> at *least* ten years. (This becomes of import later...)
>
> Page twelve, references to archaeologists' hands being callused by
> the work.... this is TWO HUNDRED YEARS in the future, and we've got
> variations of scanning MRI almost working NOW. In the present time,
> ethical archaeologists normally dig only a percentage of a site,
> leaving sections untouched for examination by future researchers
> with more advanced techniques and technology; by 2250, it'll
> be possible to examine a site without disturbing it at all, and
> if the archaeologists aren't using cortical implants for direct
> information input from their instruments, they might have some
> professional characteristic like a pale raccoon-mask, from using
> "smart glasses" to look at instrumentation output overlaid on
> their normal visual field, while outside strolling around a site...
> *presuming* they don't just use remote-telefactor devices operated
> by remote control, or send out Expert-System controlled research
> robots. There will be a LOT of sites, and a limited number of
> qualified archaeologists, after all.
>
> Page seventeen, we blow the heck out of the IPX research iso-lab,
> and the alarms don't call in emergency crews? IPX hasn't got its
> own in-house medical staff and support? With ten years (at least)
> of operation, there are no better procedures in place?
> People work alone on single, possibly unique, artifacts of
> unknown behavior and value? Give us a break.
>
> Page eighteen, we have:
>
> "With Churlstein she dragged Terrence across the boulevard into
> the emergency room and stammered out that Terrence had been in
> an explosion. They took him into a curtained cubicle."
>
> This kind of writing is TYPICAL of the text.... the clumsy
> sentence construction implies parallellism of verbs, and the
> reader must decode the sentence to presume that Anna and
> Churlstein probably didn't BOTH "stammer out" information...
> and then must read the next paragraph to find out who "they"
> is, since the most immediate un-named referent in this paragraph
> would be whoever Anna & Churlstein were "stammering" *to*.
>
> There's something this aggravating in at least one location on
> every page of the text, and I could write more than the length
> of the novel discussing the details; but that's a mug's game,
> something that *SHOULD* have been done by the "editor" who was
> responsible for overseeing this fiasco.
>
> There's a Psi-Corps operative whose character is "developed"
> using a fairly feeble device, not at all defensible, an
> off-the-wall forced insertion of a relatively mundane
> horror-novel schtick.... Cavelos doesn't know how to make
> an assassin really terrifying on the page.
>
> As for the big ones....
>
> I'll limit myself to pointing out one really huge botchery of
> concept, on page 182. There, we are told that a certain small
> critical component has been removed from the the fire-control
> system, somehow preventing the ship's main system from being
> aware that a major system is down. The context makes it
> clear that this "bridge" is a communications *link*, merely
> a message carrier, and that Ms. Cavelos is under the impression
> that it is acceptable engineering to have a critical system
> fail in UN-safe mode.
>
> With any kind of distributed-node processing system, *particularly*
> one that is critical to the operability and combat capacity of a
> major military vessel, constant checking, "keep-alive" signals,
> and regular "heartbeat verification" are a rock-bottom *minimum*
> of expected design criteria, and optimally should have complex
> time-variant encryption systems to help reduce sabotage and
> other false-data substitution. Multi-path communications routing
> should be automatically presumed, a given!
>
> Cavelos specifically tells us
>
> "It turns out the information pathway regarding the optics was
> interrupted. A bridge had been removed. The optics were reading
> green on the diagnostic system because no other information was
> reaching it."
>
> Is there any way to communicate just how incredibly stupid a concept
> this is? A *military* system, not designed to ring every alarm
> on the panel when it's disconnected from the machinery it's supposed
> to be monitoring?
>
> This is a major plot point, and it falls down and dies under slapdash
> handling. This is the kind of hand-waving we get from the bozos on
> "VOYAGER," when they need something to break, so they invent a new
> particle to do it; this is the kind of superficial explanation whipped
> out by someone who's never even thought about how things work.
>
> A minor aggravation; for some reason Cavelos refers to characters by
> surname, save for Anna Sheridan, Jeffrey Sinclair, and John Sheridan.
> For some reason, these three are referred to in the text by their
> given names, another subliminally jangling effect.
>
> Cavelos gave us one or two good points, things of interest to B-5
> fans; the source of Morden's necklace, a sophistic justification
> for Morden's willingness to work for the Shadows.... but what few
> additions to the B-5 universe are supplied here are simply not
> enough to justify the time, expense, and effort involved in reading
> this poorly-written and poorly-conceived attempt at an SF novel.
> There are a few points in the book where Cavelos attempts to
> switch modes, and wax literarily poetic, and these are painful
> to encounter, since she is not a gifted descriptive writer.
>
> I could go on for several hours of my lifespan, just typing in
> comments on specific things that are wrong with this book; but
> I've already wasted more time on it than I care to, having read
> it twice to be sure I wasn't missing any concealed flights of
> brilliance, and this entry is already approaching 300 lines in
> length. The only review entry this book really deserves is
> something like "Take your money out and invest in a copy of
> David Brin's 'STARTIDE RISING.' Not only can it be had more
> cheaply, it's a vastly better book."
>
> Certainly, "THE SHADOW WITHIN" ranks among the best three of the
> seven B-5 novels I've looked at; but that's hardly an accolade,
> just a statement that it's better than at least four of the books
> Cavelos claims to have edited in the past.
>
> Now that we've seen what Ms. Cavelos thinks constitutes readable
> narrative writing, and what she thinks is acceptable SF work, it
> is easier to understand the abysmal quality of the previous books.
>
> And it is now clear precisely what is going on with Warner Brothers
> and Dell; the "BABYLON 5" tie-in books are not, repeat *NOT*, any
> sort of attempt to produce quality work for a fair price; they are
> a straightforwardly and rapaciously conceived project whose sole aim
> is mulcting impressionable people with poor genre experience, who
> are willing to accept such shoddy efforts as worthy of their time
> and money.
>
> In short, folks, what we're looking at here is a bald-faced attempt
> to create another n-book publishing empire that will produce as many
> shekels as the TrekkieBooks, and with as little regard for the customer.
>
> Bad as they were, I laid out good cash for the first six books to
> show my support for the series in one of the most effective ways
> possible. I felt that *two* of those books weren't a total waste
> of my time and the bodies of dead trees. I refused to buy a copy
> of the seventh book, and recommend against its purchase in the
> strongest possible terms; it's time to stop encouraging them,
> because they seem to think we like the books they're printing.
>
> A regional distributor who is aware of my interest in the series
> recently sent me a review copy of Book #8, "PERSONAL AGENDAS" by
> Al Sarrantonio. This afternoon I sealed it back into its envelope
> and tossed the envelope into a P.O. box marked "RETURN TO SENDER...."
> I will not read it or review it.
>
> There are simply too many good books out there to waste any more time
> on this trash.
>
> I will continue in my strong support of "BABYLON 5," with all its
> warts and shortcomings, because it is undeniably the finest attempt
> at TV-SF, at dramatic speculative fiction, that we've ever had on our
> TV screens. I believe that it will be a model for the future, and
> I believe that it will win, and deserve, more Hugo Awards, and perhaps
> even the Emmies it should have already gotten many times over.
>
> But I think it's time JMS/WB/Dell bit the bullet and admitted they know
> zip about editing and creating prose SF, and abandoned the book-publishing
> program; these turkeys will not sell to SF fans, will not get prose
> SF readers to watch the shows, and certainly will add neither shine
> nor glory to the series' escutcheon. JMS' unreasoning support of his
> friends and co-workers, his personal loyalty, is a thing rare in Hollywood;
> it is to be lauded and respected, because it is an aspect of the personal
> ethics that make him the man capable of producing our favorite TV series.
>
> But when it results in unreasoning support of garbage (remember his
> praise of "VOYAGER?" Remember his many recommendations and commendations
> of the B-5 books as they were being printed?) it becomes appropriate to
> bear in mind that his work load and competence range tend to render his
> pronunciamentos outside his own areas of excellence, a bit suspect; and
> whenever he's talking about the work of a friend or co-worker, we need to
> take the hyperbole cum grano salis, at least until we've checked out the
> material ourselves.
>
> The "BABYLON 5" books do *not* hew to the stated standards and intent of
> the TV series, and are not a positive contribution to the field at large.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Unless someone has some really specific points for me to respond to,
> this is the last on-line comment I intend to make on the B-5 books.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Coda:
> If you'd like to see how X-tee artifacts that like to make human beings
> part of their social machine *could* be handled, find a short story by
> James H. Schmitz called "HARVEST MOON," and a novel by Schmitz called
> "A TALE OF TWO CLOCKS." These will give you an idea of how ancient
> "biomechanical technology" like that of the Shadows *can* be handled by
> a competent SF writer. The fact that they were published three decades
> ago, and have not even been equalled in Ms. Cavelos' current attempt,
> is indicative of the degree of genre competence we're faced with here.
>
> -30-
>
>
>
> > > > >
Claudia Mastroianni
I should know better than to take up with Gharlane, and yet...
Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:
: jms...@aol.com (Jms at B5) writes:
:> I'm reading the first installment of the Technomage trilogy now,
:> and though I'm only about halfway done, I think it may be the best
:> of the bunch. If there's any one of the books that I think could
:> be considered Nebula material...it's this one.
: (C) We've *SEEN* the lady's work. Far too much of it.
: And it hasn't done you or your Franchise any good at all.
Hers and Kathryn Drennan's were the two worthwhile books out of the
first run of 9 novels. Hers is perhaps the only one that would
work as a good standalone novel, given how much City of Sorrows was
busy filling in the chronology for the fans (something I appreciate,
but something that means the book stands far better in the context of
the series).
:> of the bunch. If there's any one of the books that I think could
:> be considered Nebula material...it's this one.
: You'd have been a good deal better off making a statement with
: some correllability to reality, possibly along the lines of:
:> I'm reading the first installment of the Technomage trilogy now,
:> and though I'm only about halfway done, I think I may like it best
:> of the bunch.
: In this way, you would not be reprising your past sins of
: drek-touting and trash-hyping, and could still communicate your
: feelings on the matter without the jaw-droppingly effusive
: hyperbole.
I don't recall Joe tossing about award names without cause in the past.
[review deleted--to me, "nesting" and "fists" conveyed just what
I imagine they were intended to; dude, it looks like a *computer mouse*;
she was working within the science JMS had already established; etc.
Okay, I agree with you about parallelism, and about the sabotage, but
I find the latter more forgiveable than you do.]
Cavelos is not a genius of an author, but IMO she's a reliable
writer within guidelines like the trilogy outlines JMS has provided.
The trilogies, unlike the one-off novels, have been solid books,
a pleasure to read (not unlike the difference in quality between
the connected episodes and one-off TV movies), and I look forward to
the Technomage series.
:> Unless someone has some really specific points for me to respond to,
:> this is the last on-line comment I intend to make on the B-5 books.
You don't say.
I hope you at least tried Drennan's book, even if you didn't purchase it.
Claudia
--
But I, I love it when you sing to me
And you, you can sing me anything -- The Book of Love, Magnetic Fields
Gharlane of Eddore
In <8ngs17$8p$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu> Claudia Mastroianni
<cma...@fas.harvard.edu> writes:
>
> I should know better than to take up with Gharlane, and yet...
>
jms...@aol.com (Jms at B5) writes:
>
> I'm reading the first installment of the Technomage trilogy now,
> and though I'm only about halfway done, I think it may be the best
> of the bunch.
>
Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:
>
> (C) We've *SEEN* the lady's work. Far too much of it.
> And it hasn't done you or your Franchise any good at all.
>
In <8ngs17$8p$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu> Claudia Mastroianni
<cma...@fas.harvard.edu> writes:
>
> Hers and Kathryn Drennan's were the two worthwhile books out of the
> first run of 9 novels. Hers is perhaps the only one that would
> work as a good standalone novel, given how much City of Sorrows was
> busy filling in the chronology for the fans (something I appreciate,
> but something that means the book stands far better in the context of
> the series).
>
As a stand-alone novel, it would only have gotten published if someone
owed the writer a *huge* favor.
jms...@aol.com (Jms at B5) writes:
>
> If there's any one of the books that I think could
> be considered Nebula material...it's this one.
>
Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:
>
> You'd have been a good deal better off making a statement with
> some correllability to reality, possibly along the lines of:
>
> > I'm reading the first installment of the Technomage trilogy now,
> > and though I'm only about halfway done, I think I may like it best
> > of the bunch.
>
> In this way, you would not be reprising your past sins of
> drek-touting and trash-hyping, and could still communicate your
> feelings on the matter without the jaw-droppingly effusive
> hyperbole.
>
In <8ngs17$8p$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu> Claudia Mastroianni
<cma...@fas.harvard.edu> writes:
>
> I don't recall Joe tossing about award names without cause in the past.
>
I was referring to the way Joe hyped each and every one of the books
as it was coming out, touting it as the greatest thing since sliced
bread, wonderful & worthwhile, great SF, positive contribution to
the canon, etc. We quickly realized that Joe's declamations
concerning his detail attention to the novels, claims like "Every
line will go across this desk and have to be approved BY ME.."
were one with Ellison's announcements of publication dates of
"THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS;" i.e. indicative of good intent on
the part of the deponent, but hardly, shall we say, on a one-to-one
correspondence with reality.
This would not have been a problem for me, since Joe's primary
intent was to make a TV SERIES, not run a TrekkieBook Franchise;
except that his statements in this area betokened either bald-faced
lies, professional incompetence, or the kind of reflexive schmoozing
that any overworked producer automatically engages in when time-
stressed past the limit. I chose to presume the latter of the
three, since Joe is a Good Person with some regard for his craft.
In <8ngs17$8p$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu> Claudia Mastroianni
<cma...@fas.harvard.edu> writes:
>
> [review deleted--to me, "nesting" and "fists" conveyed just what
> I imagine they were intended to; dude, it looks like a *computer
> mouse*; she was working within the science JMS had already established;
>
Oh, yeah, right, we saw so *MANY* computer "mice" in use in the series.
And the thing described looked just *soooo* much like a computer mouse.
Abuse of the language, abuse of concept, and abuse of the reader, are
simply flashing neon road signs indicating the "writer" should find
another line of work.
>
> etc. Okay, I agree with you about parallelism, and about the sabotage,
> but I find the latter more forgiveable than you do.]
>
> Cavelos is not a genius of an author, but IMO she's a reliable
> writer within guidelines like the trilogy outlines JMS has provided.
> The trilogies, unlike the one-off novels, have been solid books,
> a pleasure to read (not unlike the difference in quality between
> the connected episodes and one-off TV movies), and I look forward to
> the Technomage series.
>
I rather suspect you shouldn't, but I'll wait to hear about them
from someone who's fool enough to invest in them and suffer through
them prior to forming my final opinion.
Cavelos has repeatedly proven herself to be a hack typewriter operator.
There is no joy, no art, no beauty of language, no understanding of
the material in any of her ham-handed attempts to produce material
in SF or Spec-eFf genres. The fact that she was the "editor" of
the first half-dozen, without any experience in the production of
science fiction, is appalling; the fact that she *continued* to be
the "editor," after the first couple hit the stands, beggars belief.
>
> I hope you at least tried Drennan's book, even if you didn't
> purchase it.
>
Nope. Nor shall I. I laid out good money for the first seven, to
show support for the series. After the first three, I pretty much
knew they were being written by incompetents and edited by unknown
brain-damage cases; but I hung in there, and my investment on two
( the Mortimore and the Stirling ) wasn't entirely wasted... but
once Cavelos descended from On High, loftily explaining that she
was going to show us all how it should be done, and we had to put
up with Joe crowing about what a *wonderful* addition to the canon
her magnificent opus would be, and then see the tawdry excrescence
she managed to produce.... I made a vow to spend no more of my
pitiful few shekels, and no more of my waning lifespan, on books
produced under the aegis of a franchise devoid of literary
competence and professional capacity. ( Not to mention the massive
genre disability demonstrated by idiots who try to write SF in the
absence of a sixth-grade education in general science. I'm STILL
P.O.'d about rocket-driven spacecraft coming to a halt when someone
pulls the emergency cord and shuts down the engines; this is one
and the same with JMS' belief that an astronaut in a ship in a
free orbit will experience some sort of acceleration relative to
the ship so that he'll feel "gravity" toward one side or another ---
an indication that no one involved with the production of the work
has any business being anywhere near "Science Fiction." Did you
miss the repeated discussions of "Ramming Speed!" in this topic? )
I'll watch any script that JMS writes, and be glad of the opportunity;
but I won't waste any more of my time on books written by his friends
and contractees, because his personal loyalty appears to mitigate
against objective evaluation of the competence of the work produced
by those friends. Perhaps the books being produced through the new
publisher are worthwhile; I've certainly heard enough positive
comments about them, and Keyes has produced work that was worth my
money in the past. But I've paid for far too much advertising
and gotten far too little product from the franchise to date, and
life is too short to throw any more time and money down the well.
...since you ask. I'll try to avoid further comment in this area.
lisa_c...@my-deja.com
ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore) wrote:
> >[reposted from an attempt to post during the newsgroup hiatus]
Much ranting and raving snipped...
In terms of your not trying any more, that's really too bad gharlane.
While I symnpathize (I vowed off Voyager after a number of episodes and
haven't regretted it, nor do I intend to) I must say that of the
originals, I liked 4 (Clark's Law - interesting ethical dilemna), 7(the
Shadow Within, although I wouldn't put it on my Hugo list <g>) and 9 (
To Dream - really excellent treatment of Marcus and Sinclair, and yes,
you had to know something about the series, but this is a tie-in book).
As for the trilogies, the first two are shaping up to be excellent -
well 1 is and 2 is one novel shy of it at this point - can't wait for
November! So I will certainly try the technomage set. And jms does know
writing - just read some of what's on bookface, or Rising Stars, if you
need non-B5 evidence. I've never heard him say anything like this about
any of the other books - hope he's right!
Lisa Coulter
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Gharlane of Eddore
In <8nrv2d$3ef$1...@nnrp1.deja.com> lisa_c...@my-deja.com writes:
>
> Much ranting and raving snipped...
>
> In terms of your not trying any more, that's really too bad gharlane.
> While I symnpathize (I vowed off Voyager after a number of episodes and
> haven't regretted it, nor do I intend to) I must say that of the
> originals, I liked 4 (Clark's Law - interesting ethical dilemna), 7(the
>
Jim Mortimore, as noted in my previous posting.
One of the interesting things about that book ( "Clark's Law" ) is
that Mortimore appears to have written it without ever having seen
an episode of the series... but having studied his tail off on all
available materials, and burned a lot of midnight oil trying to
make it work as a respectable effort of writing and plotting.
Mortimore, whom I was aware of only as what I think of as a "Doctor
Who Hack," impressed me and earned my respect for his professionalism.
HOWEVER.... since Mortimore didn't get the onscreen "feel" of the
series, or have faces and personalities to put with the characters,
the book, while ringing fairly solid as a narrative exercise, didn't
subliminally fit into the "BABYLON 5" universe; there were too many
niggling little details that just weren't quite right, due to no
fault of Mortimore's. Since Cavelos "edited" it, I'm left wishing
I could see a copy of the manuscript before Cavelos got to it; it's
probably a better book.
>
> Shadow Within, although I wouldn't put it on my Hugo list <g>) and 9 (
> To Dream - really excellent treatment of Marcus and Sinclair, and yes,
> you had to know something about the series, but this is a tie-in book).
>
"THE SHADOW WITHIN," due to its clumsiness, its incompetence; its
general disdain for the genre, the characters, the English language,
and narrative writing in general; and most importantly due to its
presentation as a hugely-touted effort by The Great Cavelos, who
was going to show us all how it should have been done.....
.... was the book that caused me to swear off buying BabblieBooks
forever. I invested in seven, and that's it. There are too many
*competent* people out there who are *earning* my money to take any
more chances on a project I have no faith in. I deeply regret that
I was fool enough to believe JMS' assertions about how wonderful Book
#7 was, and waste my time trying to find something worthwhile in it.
By the way, I've quite liked J. Gregory Keyes' "NEWTON'S CANNON"
series; imagination, skill, good breadth of concept and material.
On the basis of his work there, I suspect his B-5 books may
actually be worth the trouble.
>
> As for the trilogies, the first two are shaping up to be excellent -
> well 1 is and 2 is one novel shy of it at this point - can't wait for
> November! So I will certainly try the technomage set. And jms does know
> writing - just read some of what's on bookface, or Rising Stars, if you
> need non-B5 evidence. I've never heard him say anything like this about
> any of the other books - hope he's right!
>
( Check the archives. You'll find JMS advertising the whey out of
each book as, and just before, it appeared. He's never touted
for a Nebula before, but on the basis of his past recommendations,
"Nebula-worthy" most likely equates to "just barely good enough
to justify not using as kindling." )
Just remember that there is a *WHOLE* lot of difference between the
writing skills of a "J. Gregory Keyes" and a "Jean Cavelos," and
don't expect the latter to be in the same quality ballpark as the
former. I had *hoped* the new publisher would contract some people
who could be trusted with the material, but the day I discovered that
Cavelos, after her appalling performance with the Dell books, had been
contracted for a *trilogy*, I realized that all you need to make it
in the business is a lizard and a great line of B.S.
If JMS were a competent judge of prose writing, he wouldn't have posted
all that effusion about how wonderful each new B-5 novel was going to be;
he'd have just admitted, up front, that he either had no control over
the book franchise, or wasn't tooled up to handle the task, and declined
further comment on the subject.
J. Potts
In <8ngs17$8p$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu> Claudia Mastroianni
<cma...@fas.harvard.edu> writes:
> I hope you at least tried Drennan's book, even if you didn't
> purchase it.
In article <8nrrgh$k...@news.csus.edu>,
Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:
>Nope. Nor shall I. I laid out good money for the first seven, to
>show support for the series. After the first three, I pretty much
>knew they were being written by incompetents and edited by unknown
>brain-damage cases; but I hung in there, and my investment on two
>( the Mortimore and the Stirling ) wasn't entirely wasted...
Too bad, you should have saved your money on the first seven and just
bought Kathryn's book. It was really the only one (IMO) that felt like
it belonged. The rest should make for some good kindling.....
--
JRP
"How many slime-trailing, sleepless, slimy, slobbering things do you know
that will *run and hide* from your Eveready?"
--Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson
Scott Johnson
> I refused to spend any more money on B-5 tie-in books;
You've said this a few times in the thread, but I'm surprised that you
would even refuse to check the Drennan book out of your local public library.
They are free, you know, except for your taxes, which you've already paid
to them anyway. I realize you are busy, but if you were willing to invest
the time in reading so many of the other poorly written books, I'd think you
would not mind reading one that many have said is actually well-written!
Cheers,
--
Scott Iekel-Johnson sco...@eecs.umich.edu
Dept. of EECS, Univ. of Michigan http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~scottdj
(734) 763-5363
Finger for PGP public key.
Mac Breck
From: "J. Potts" <nav...@xnet.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2000 11:54 AM
Subject: Re: Attn JMS - Technomage Trilogy
>
> In <8ngs17$8p$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu> Claudia Mastroianni
> <cma...@fas.harvard.edu> writes:
> > I hope you at least tried Drennan's book, even if you didn't
> > purchase it.
>
>
> In article <8nrrgh$k...@news.csus.edu>,
> Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:
> >Nope. Nor shall I. I laid out good money for the first seven, to
> >show support for the series. After the first three, I pretty much
> >knew they were being written by incompetents and edited by unknown
> >brain-damage cases; but I hung in there, and my investment on two
> >( the Mortimore and the Stirling ) wasn't entirely wasted...
>
> Too bad, you should have saved your money on the first seven and just
> bought Kathryn's book. It was really the only one (IMO) that felt like
> it belonged. The rest should make for some good kindling.....
Really? I'm half-way through Book #7 "The Shadow Within" and like it. It
feels like it belongs in B5, and fills in the Anna/John history.
In regard to Book #5 "The Touch of Your Shadow, The Whisper of Your Name", I
agree with you completely. It was torture to read. It was work.
So far, I've read only Book #5, Book #9, and am halfway through Book #7.
Mac
Kerry Casey
> >
> > Claudia Mastroianni wrote:
> >
> > Too bad, you should have saved your money on the first seven and just
> > bought Kathryn's book. It was really the only one (IMO) that felt like
> > it belonged. The rest should make for some good kindling.....
>
> Really? I'm half-way through Book #7 "The Shadow Within" and like it. It
> feels like it belongs in B5, and fills in the Anna/John history.
>
> In regard to Book #5 "The Touch of Your Shadow, The Whisper of Your Name",
I
> agree with you completely. It was torture to read. It was work.
>
> So far, I've read only Book #5, Book #9, and am halfway through Book #7.
>
Okay, I thought I'd weigh in now with my opinions :-)
I bought and read the first five Babylon 5 novels when they first came out.
I thought the first three (#1 Voices, #2 Accusations, #3 Blood Oath) were
okay (just), #4 (Clarke's Law) was good though not very true to the
characters, but #5 ("The Touch of your Shadow, the Whisper of your Name")
was terrible. That's when I stopped buying them. I didn't bother lending
them to any of my friends who are B5 fans, I said it would be a waste of
time reading them.
Meanwhile #6 Betrayals, #7 The Shadow Within and #8 Personal Agendas come
out and I ignored them.
Then I read on the newsgroup messages applauding #9 "To Dream in the City of
Sorrows", saying that it was 100% canon (and mentioning that #7 The Shadow
Within was about 80% canon). I bought and read #9 and enjoyed it immensely.
I thought it was an excellent tie-in fan book ( I did not and do not judge
it as a stand-alone novel). I then found and bought a copy of #7 "The Shadow
Within" and enjoyed it as well. To complete the set, I then bought #6
Betrayals (which I enjoyed) and #8 "Personal Agendas" which I found annoying
and implausible.
Thus I did end up completing my collection of the first nine Babylon 5
novels after all.
I have, of course, bought, read and enjoyed the Psi Corp trilogy and the two
books released so far of the Centauri Prime trilogy, and look forward to the
technomage trilogy.
I have since lent #7, #9, the Psi Corps books and the Centauri Prime books
plus the Amazing Stories and Babylon 5 magazine short stories to all my
friends who are B5 fans. A couple of friends who were suffering severe B5
withdrawal symptoms borrowed the rest of the novels in desperation and had
similar views on them to mine.
Kerry
Kerry Casey
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
E-mail kca...@bom.gov.au
Pål Are Nordal
>
> Check the archives. You'll find JMS advertising the whey out of
> each book as, and just before, it appeared.
Not in the ones I've read. He first said he would _try_ to get them
right. That he _wanted_ them to be an extension of the show. Then he
noted that there were things in 1 & 2 he wasn't too happy about but
didn't catch them soon enough to have them changed. He sent #3 back for
a total rewrite.
After six books he admitted that it wasn't working the way he wanted to,
and would try to assign premises instead. Of the next three, he hyped 7
and 9, stating that 9 was the best.
Some references:
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/find/Usenet/jms94-08-usenet/50.html
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/find/Usenet/jms95-07-usenet/21.html
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/find/America-Online/aol96-03/128.html
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/find/Usenet/jms97-02-usenet/39.html
And while I'm at it, I have an offer for you. Email me an address that
one of your acolytes has access to, and I'll go to Amazon and buy you #9
and one of the Del Rey books of your choice. Don't care if you read them
or not, but at least you'll have one less excuse.
--
Donate free food with a simple click: http://www.thehungersite.com/
Pål Are Nordal
a_b...@bigfoot.com
Jay Denebeim
Pål Are Nordal <a_b...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>Gharlane of Eddore wrote:
>And while I'm at it, I have an offer for you. Email me an address that
>one of your acolytes has access to, and I'll go to Amazon and buy you #9
>and one of the Del Rey books of your choice. Don't care if you read them
>or not, but at least you'll have one less excuse.
I'd take him up on it if I were you Gharlane. Drennan's book is all
it's cracked up to be.
Jay
--
* Jay Denebeim Moderator rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated *
* newsgroup submission address: b5...@deepthot.org *
* moderator contact address: b5mod-...@deepthot.org *
* personal contact address: dene...@deepthot.org *
Geoduck
Johnson) wrote:
>Gharlane of Eddore (ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu) wrote:
>> I refused to spend any more money on B-5 tie-in books;
>
>You've said this a few times in the thread, but I'm surprised that you
>would even refuse to check the Drennan book out of your local public library.
>They are free, you know, except for your taxes, which you've already paid
>to them anyway. I realize you are busy, but if you were willing to invest
>the time in reading so many of the other poorly written books, I'd think you
>would not mind reading one that many have said is actually well-written!
I agree 100% with this. The Drennan book is worth reading. Maybe not
paying for, but worth reading. (It's the only one of the B5 books I
*have* purchased/read, in fact.) It's simply a novelized version of a
B5 episode, or more realistically two or three episodes, which were
never made. Nothing more and certainly nothing less.
--
Geoduck
geo...@usa.net
http://www.olywa.net/cook
Dirk A. Loedding
nav...@xnet.com (J. Potts) wrote:
[snip]
>Too bad, you should have saved your money on the first seven and just
>bought Kathryn's book. It was really the only one (IMO) that felt like
>it belonged. The rest should make for some good kindling.....
7 wasn't all that bad. But I completely agree with you about
Kathryn's book. It was very good. Probably one of the best tie-in
books I've ever read. Wanna borrow my copy?
--
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Dirk A. Loedding <*> ju...@america.net |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Chibi-Light
Loedding) writes:
>In article <8nsa4m$a9m$1...@flood.xnet.com>,
>nav...@xnet.com (J. Potts) wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>Too bad, you should have saved your money on the first seven and just
>>bought Kathryn's book. It was really the only one (IMO) that felt like
>>it belonged. The rest should make for some good kindling.....
>
>7 wasn't all that bad. But I completely agree with you about
>Kathryn's book. It was very good. Probably one of the best tie-in
>books I've ever read. Wanna borrow my copy?
I must be the only one that found #9 tedious and boring and Marcus'
character being completely OUT of character. Then again, what do I
know, I've sat through 50+ Doctor Who novels, I've read worse, and
I've read better. ("Just War" anyone? "Cold Fusion?")
CL
The Reverend Jacob Corbin
Gharlane of Eddore wrote:
>
> By the way, I've quite liked J. Gregory Keyes' "NEWTON'S CANNON"
> series; imagination, skill, good breadth of concept and material.
>
> On the basis of his work there, I suspect his B-5 books may
> actually be worth the trouble.
I should say so. Keyes' B5 books, while certainly not marble-clad classics,
certainly hold their own when pitted against other middleweight sf paperback
adventures. They're no worse than your average Bujold, for instance.
--
Reverend Jacob
http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/shirley/272/
"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they
like." Richard M. Nixon
Mac Breck
news:39a9e8d1...@news.ix.netcom.com...
> In rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, ju...@america.net (Dirk A.
> Loedding) writes:
>
> >In article <8nsa4m$a9m$1...@flood.xnet.com>,
> >nav...@xnet.com (J. Potts) wrote:
> >
> >[snip]
> >
> >>Too bad, you should have saved your money on the first seven and just
> >>bought Kathryn's book. It was really the only one (IMO) that felt like
> >>it belonged. The rest should make for some good kindling.....
> >
> >7 wasn't all that bad. But I completely agree with you about
> >Kathryn's book. It was very good. Probably one of the best tie-in
> >books I've ever read. Wanna borrow my copy?
>
> I must be the only one that found #9 tedious and boring
It was a bit slow at times, especially at the beginning.
> and Marcus'
> character being completely OUT of character.
He's different from the Marcus we knew in Season 3, but I can see the
pre-Ranger Marcus developing into the one we knew. Marcus' character wasn't
"completely out of character".
> Then again, what do I
> know, I've sat through 50+ Doctor Who novels, I've read worse, and
> I've read better. ("Just War" anyone? "Cold Fusion?")
For me, Book #7 was lot faster read. Yes, I know Book #7 is shorter (78
pages shorter, and used slightly larger print than Book #9), but I finished
Book #7 in about 1/5th the time, and put down a lot less. That said, I
liked 'em both.
Mac
Gharlane of Eddore
Concerning my mildly negative comments about the Dell B-5 books
and the ham-handedly incompetent and image-destroying "contribution"
to the franchise we got from Jean Cavelos, and my avowal that I
was done investing money and lifespan on the abominations,
In <39A5FAD4...@bigfoot.com>,
Pål Are Nordal <a_b...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>
> And while I'm at it, I have an offer for you. Email me an address
> that one of your acolytes has access to, and I'll go to Amazon and
> buy you #9 and one of the Del Rey books of your choice. Don't care
> if you read them or not, but at least you'll have one less excuse.
>
Thanks for the thought; but at this point, I'm so generally P.O.'d
on the subject of the Dell novels that I couldn't read it objectively
anyway. And since K. Drennan has always been civil and courteous to
me, and Joe has usually treated me well -- ( I ascribe his occasional
divergences from genteel diplomacy, such as his off-the-wall accusation
that I'm some sort of "christian," to momentary stress debilitation
rather than any overt hostility ) -- I see no reason to get involved
in any further wrangling on the subject; I've expressed myself on the
subject of Why It Is That Jean Cavelos Should Be Writing Cookbooks For
A Living, and How Cavelos Must Have Pictures Of JMS Doing Bad Things
With Under-Age Cub Scouts in order to keep getting writing assignments
from the franchise; and anything past that is merely wallowing in
obsession, the kind of thing we set this moderated topic up to AVOID....
My recent comments were a response to Joe's habitual enthusiasm for
any upcoming project, in this case Cavelos' impending trilogy.
( Presuming she ever manages to finish it. ) My re-post of those
original comments about Book #7 were in response to e-mail wanting
to know what I had against Cavelos. ( quick answer: everything she's
done to date in relation to "BABYLON 5," since I feel she did horrendous
damage and cost the show a lot, even exceeding Richard Compton in
off-handed disdain for the material and the customers. )
Since I won't be reading J.C.'s "Technomage Trilogy," positing its
eventual completion/existence, I won't be discussing her future
"BABYLON 5" work. This point should be welcome news to the many civil
folks around this topic who are sick unto the twelfth reincarnation
of my attitudes in the matter.
Further, I won't be reading any more franchise novels set in the
"BABYLON 5" universe. It's that simple; they had their shot, I
bent over backwards cutting them slack, I stayed with them for
seven books, they proved they couldn't buy a clue with a goverment
grant. While the Dell era of the franchise novels may possibly have
experienced a renaissance with Book #9, the fact that the new franchise
dealers have chosen to contract with Cavelos for a *trilogy* looks to
me like something's still awry with the whole operation.
Heck, what's-her-name, Yvonne Navarro was it? -- Is an incompetent,
slop-hack SkiFfytypist... and SHE was dropped from the schedule...
yet Navarro's better at half-witted schlockbooks than Cavelos.
And Cavelos is being allowed to try to do three more books, even with
her track record? Doesn't something about this reek, just a bit?
So I'm not supporting the program. Period.
( Despite the fact that chances are, I'd be interested in reading
Keyes' contribution. )
In <8o53pv$lft$1...@dent.deepthot.org>
dene...@deepthot.org (Jay Denebeim) writes:
>
> I'd take him up on it if I were you Gharlane.
> Drennan's book is all it's cracked up to be.
>
Good, glad to hear it. ( This would mean it only took them *NINE*
tries to come up with a B-5 book worth reading? Says just a *bit*
about the competence levels we're dealing with, here, doesn't it? )
But I'm never going to put myself in a position where I feel called
upon to comment on Drennan's work, because I've had quite enough of
the whole mess.
At this point, my major interest is Joe's new series; I haven't *quite*
worn the oxide off my B-5 tapes yet, and I think they'll last me until
the new show starts airing.... but it'll be close, and aside from
"STARGATE SG-1,"(*) there's not much else worth watching in the genre.
With any luck, "ANDROMEDA" will be worthwhile; it's got a good chance.
====================================================================
|| ||
|| "It's Science Fiction if, presuming technical competence on ||
|| the part of the writer, he genuinely believes it could ||
|| happen. Otherwise, it's Fantasy." ||
|| --- John W. Campbell, Jr. <1937> ||
|| ||
====================================================================
(*) "STARGATE SG-1" is an ongoing recommendation of mine. Even when
they're screwing up massively, it's still usually worth seeing,
and their internal consistency is orders of magnitude better than
most TV-SkiFfy has ever dreamed of achieving. Watch it from the
beginning if you can, since the ongoing plot threads are *not*
forgotten or abused -- *fine* actors, production, and direction.
Aris Katsaris
Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote in message
news:8oedi0$b...@news.csus.edu...
>
>
> Concerning my mildly negative comments about the Dell B-5 books
> and the ham-handedly incompetent and image-destroying "contribution"
> to the franchise we got from Jean Cavelos, and my avowal that I
> was done investing money and lifespan on the abominations,
I know there's no chance in hell of changing your mind, but I'd just like to
share my opinion: Jean Cavelos did great stuff with both characterisation
and plot in Book 7, stuff *very* worthy to be included in the canon. And
since
I consider everything else to be unimportant compared to these two
elements, I greatly liked her book.
Book 9 seems to have been loved by those that hated Book 7. But Drennan's
book has a very weak, almost non-existent plot, and the characterisation is
spineless and equally weak, adding little-to-nothing to the canon. I give it
a thumb down.
If anything I think that your own tactic was wrong. Buying books so as to
support
a series? I think you should have read a handful of reviews first and used
your
power of judgement. Your dissapointment may have been less and you might
not have been so worn out before you had a chance to come to the good stuff
(even though we disagree about what the good stuff).
Anyway, let me make a suggestion - read the Greg Keyes Psi-corps trilogy, or
atleast read the first book in it. It's just great, far better than any
other B5 book
I've read and I think also worthy to be read as a book on its own right even
without
its B5 connection. Great solid plot spanning decades, great
characterisation.
Aris Katsaris
Pål Are Nordal
>
> I've expressed myself on the
> subject of Why It Is That Jean Cavelos Should Be Writing Cookbooks For
> A Living,
To be honest, while I did enjoy the story of her book, I her prose
clumsy and longwinded.
> and How Cavelos Must Have Pictures Of JMS Doing Bad Things
> With Under-Age Cub Scouts in order to keep getting writing assignments
> from the franchise;
Nonono... She has his spec scripts for the Care Bears...
Trek Barnes
Pål Are Nordal <a_b...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:39AB16AA...@bigfoot.com...
Gharlane of Eddore wrote:
>
> I've expressed myself on the
> subject of Why It Is That Jean Cavelos Should Be Writing Cookbooks For
> A Living,
To be honest, while I did enjoy the story of her book, I her prose
clumsy and longwinded.
> and How Cavelos Must Have Pictures Of JMS Doing Bad Things
> With Under-Age Cub Scouts in order to keep getting writing assignments
> from the franchise;
Nonono... She has his spec scripts for the Care Bears...
This is your week for bringing up Old-Things-That-Should-Be-Forgotten, isn't
it?
Mac Breck
From: "Aris Katsaris" <kats...@otenet.gr>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2000 4:52 PM
Subject: Re: "Ranting"; was Re: Attn JMS - Technomage Trilogy
>
> Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote in message
> news:8oedi0$b...@news.csus.edu...
> >
> >
> > Concerning my mildly negative comments about the Dell B-5 books
> > and the ham-handedly incompetent and image-destroying "contribution"
> > to the franchise we got from Jean Cavelos, and my avowal that I
> > was done investing money and lifespan on the abominations,
>
> I know there's no chance in hell of changing your mind, but I'd just like
to
> share my opinion: Jean Cavelos did great stuff with both characterisation
> and plot in Book 7, stuff *very* worthy to be included in the canon. And
> since
> I consider everything else to be unimportant compared to these two
> elements, I greatly liked her book.
>
> Book 9 seems to have been loved by those that hated Book 7. But Drennan's
> book has a very weak, almost non-existent plot, and the characterisation
is
> spineless and equally weak, adding little-to-nothing to the canon. I give
it
> a thumb down.
Why are you even trying to change his mind? It's shut and locked like a
bank vault, and the doors have been welded shut 100% of the way around the
seam.
This whole thread comes off like a bunch of old, irritable English
Literature professors arguing with each other, trying to sound important,
like they have some profound analysis of the novels. Just let it go.
Mac
James Bell
and break vows for one excuse or another that it is refreshing to see someone
sticking by one, no matter how minor.
Gharlane, "Never give up, never surrender!"
Jim
Aris Katsaris wrote:
> Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote in message
> news:8oedi0$b...@news.csus.edu...
> >
> >
> > Concerning my mildly negative comments about the Dell B-5 books
> > and the ham-handedly incompetent and image-destroying "contribution"
> > to the franchise we got from Jean Cavelos, and my avowal that I
> > was done investing money and lifespan on the abominations,
>
> I know there's no chance in hell of changing your mind, but I'd just like to
> share my opinion: Jean Cavelos did great stuff with both characterisation
> and plot in Book 7, stuff *very* worthy to be included in the canon. And
> since
> I consider everything else to be unimportant compared to these two
> elements, I greatly liked her book.
>
> Book 9 seems to have been loved by those that hated Book 7. But Drennan's
> book has a very weak, almost non-existent plot, and the characterisation is
> spineless and equally weak, adding little-to-nothing to the canon. I give it
> a thumb down.
>
Gharlane of Eddore
In <39ABB6CF...@naxs.com> jam...@naxs.com writes:
>
> I, for one, admire Gharlane's sticking to his principles.
> So many people make and break vows for one excuse or another that it
> is refreshing to see someone sticking by one, no matter how minor.
>
> Gharlane, "Never give up, never surrender!"
>
If I hew to my obsessive precepts, does this mean I get to co-star
with Sigourney Weaver? (*) That would make it all worthwhile....
In the meantime, please note that I have no delusions concerning
the Relative Importance of my opinions in the Great Scheme of
Things, since JMS stopped listening to me *long* ago, and even
appears to be blocking e-mail from my general direction. *grin*
"The best revenge is living well." --- Heinlein
"Even better is completely ignoring them, so you don't have to
waste time worrying about revenge. Besides, it drives them nuts."
--- Fettes Gray
(*) Missy Pyle would be an acceptable fall-back, if Ms. Weaver
is still married.
Simo Aaltonen
> simply flashing neon road signs indicating the "writer" should find
> another line of work.
On the "[a]buse of the language" part... One of my English lecturers at
the University -- an Englishman -- says he can't read Tolkien because
of his (Tolkien's) "dreadful English". Likewise, he calls Bram
Stoker's "Dracula" a "terrible novel". He's an intelligent man, but I
don't see Tolkien or Stoker as writing bad English, just different from
the "norm(s)". I think the language in The Lord of the Rings is
beautiful.
I've read Cavelos's "The Shadow Within" only once, but I do remember
that I enjoyed it, and did not notice the abuses of the English
language you've described... Which, in my case, indicates that the
story itself was sufficiently absorbing to render the use of language
unnoticeable to me.
Basically, you seem so keen on studying the trees (the words and the
sentences and the paragraphs) that the sight of the forest (the story)
escapes you. That's not a judgment call, just the way it seems to me...
-Simo Aaltonen
Gharlane of Eddore
ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore) wrote:
>
> Abuse of the language, abuse of concept, and abuse of the reader, are
> simply flashing neon road signs indicating the "writer" should find
> another line of work.
>
In <8omqed$qfd$1...@nnrp1.deja.com> Simo Aaltonen <simo...@st.jyu.fi> writes:
>
> On the "[a]buse of the language" part... One of my English lecturers at
> the University -- an Englishman -- says he can't read Tolkien because
> of his (Tolkien's) "dreadful English". Likewise, he calls Bram
> Stoker's "Dracula" a "terrible novel". He's an intelligent man, but I
> don't see Tolkien or Stoker as writing bad English, just different from
> the "norm(s)". I think the language in The Lord of the Rings is
> beautiful.
>
Tolkien's "writing style" is, shall we say, not up there with Spenser
or Shakespeare; but at least *HE* started out with a story to tell.
There are passages that read like prose poetry, elegant and lovely;
passages that read like minimalist Hemingway narrative; and passages
that read like the poor guy was just whacking out the words to get
the next installment into the post for his son to read at the front.
That's a *lot* of total wordage there, and you have to remember the
only reason he came up with it was that he'd constructed a couple of
languages as an exercise in linguistics, invented a history to justify
the evolutionary aspects of those languages, and then couldn't bear to
throw the framework away without using it in some stories. The man
wasn't writing for publication, but rather for his kids!
Abe Stoker set out to tell a story without the slightest idea of how
to write narrative fiction, and chose to write his most famous novel
in the form of narrative correspondence rather than First Person or
Third Person Omniscient View; the power of his story, and his
visualization of the events, is what carries it, rather than elegance
of language or style, although there are occasional segments that
rank at the top of the imaginative-fiction field. ( For an example
of competently done first-person narrative from that social milieu,
in that approximate era, see the works of John Hamish Watson, M.D. )(
But both *are* respectable literary efforts, their shortcomings
notwithstanding; and both are milestones in the history of English
speculative fiction. This is not the case with Jean Cavelos, whose
work will only be remarked upon a hundred years from now due to the
*discussions* of it that will remain on-line in the human race's
electronic archives. She, like Samuel Johnson, will be remembered
*not* for the shoddy and indifferent quality of her work, but because
better writers chose to discuss it; after all, would anyone really
regard Johnson as a major literary figure if Boswell had not been
a vastly more competent and interesting writer, who chose to discuss
him?
>
> I've read Cavelos's "The Shadow Within" only once, but I do remember
> that I enjoyed it, and did not notice the abuses of the English
> language you've described... Which, in my case, indicates that the
> story itself was sufficiently absorbing to render the use of language
> unnoticeable to me.
>
> Basically, you seem so keen on studying the trees (the words and the
> sentences and the paragraphs) that the sight of the forest (the story)
> escapes you. That's not a judgment call, just the way it seems to me...
>
YOU, sir, are a multilingual scholar whose command of English vastly
exceeds that of the average U.S. college graduate. You are used to
coping with variant linguistic structures, running multiple parallel
parsing trees in your conceptual background, and deriving or
interpolating useful and valid concept from language and writing
styles that would provide many with a case of the shrieking fits.
In short, any book you read, particularly in a "foreign" language,
is vastly improved by what you bring to it, and by the process of
translation into your own personal internal concept-set. You have
-- unlike many -- found a way to internally "map" the conceptual
referents of English that most foreigners never learn to handle.
Finnish has something like two dozen case forms for nouns, right?
And yet in English, you can express the same range of meanings
via "synonym" selection, word order, and complex clausal structures.
In short, when *YOU* read printed English, it is my belief that
the act of reading and apprehending it allows you to contribute
far more to the material than is actually extant.
------------
The problem with Cavelos' writing is that it is *not* colloquial
English, or acceptable prose style; it is ham-handed bash-and-crash
typing as opposed to "writing." It should *NOT* take as much work
to derive solid referents out of a text as it does to translate it
into a foreign language, filling in the gaps in the process.)
The story which she chose to tell is uninteresting, incompetently
structured, and logically incoherent; her version of "character
development" is reminiscent of the worst of the turn-of-the-century
pre-pulp fiction. Her ignorance of science and technology is
odious; her disdain for the reader, the genre, and the work itself,
is a blatant slap in the face. Outside of those few minor points,
I quite agree that it's a great piece of literature, ranking right
up there with the lesser Adventures of Captain Mors, or perhaps the
worst of the Hardy Boys.
Catherine Anne Foulston
>> Basically, you seem so keen on studying the trees (the words and the
>> sentences and the paragraphs) that the sight of the forest (the story)
>> escapes you. That's not a judgment call, just the way it seems to me...
The trouble is that if you trip over a tree root or get whapped
in the face with a branch every other step, it's hard to keep your
eyes on the forest. At least, that's how I see it. I can't
remember if I've read the book in question, but I've read enough
bad writing to know the feeling of being constantly distracted
from the story by some strange word choice or awkward phrasing.
>up there with the lesser Adventures of Captain Mors, or perhaps the
>worst of the Hardy Boys.
Were the Hardy Boys books really bad? I only read one or two. I had
Nancy Drews and though it's been a long time, I don't remember them
being all *that* bad. Pedestrian? Yes. Formulaic? Unquestionably.
But I remember them as being at least readable, which is more than I
can say for some of the franchise fiction I've read. Maybe I just
can't remember badness from that long ago.
--
Catherine Foulston cathyf @ rice.edu
Senior Network Specialist
Rice University Networking & Telecommunications
This message is my personal opinion. I don't speak for Rice.
Simo Aaltonen
I tend to agree with you on most of them and rather suspect that the
huge variation in style and content in Tolkien's prose is one of the
reasons for his popularity. It helps to establish a sense of scope, and
plays into the mythic/epic qualities of his works. (The Bible is
similar in this regard -- lots of beautiful writing, but there's also a
whole lot of ridiculously uninteresting and needlessly complex text in
there. The variability of Tolkien's writing lends the same quality to
The Lord of the Rings that almost every book having been written by a
different writer lends to The Bible.)
I wrote in my previous message on this thread:
> > Basically, you seem so keen on studying the trees (the words and the
> > sentences and the paragraphs) that the sight of the forest (the
story)
> > escapes you. That's not a judgment call, just the way it seems to
me...
That STILL reads like I'm being judgmental of your way of looking at
things, despite my attempt not to sound that way. In fact, I can't help
but agree with your criticisms of Cavelos' style of writing (though not
feeling quite so strongly about them), while on the other hand I have a
distinct recollection of not being at all uncomfortable with her style
when reading "The Shadow Within". Which was not the case when reading
the rest of the books (other than #9, which I again enjoyed in "a good
tie-in" kind of way)... including Jim Mortimore's "Clark's Law".
Now THAT book had a REALLY distracting writing style. Jim Mortimore's
attempts at utilising powerful and stylish narrative techniques got
very, very tired in very short order. You already mentioned the
characterisation problems (just how many times did Sheridan sigh in the
book...?). There were mistakes that had me throwing up my hands in
frustration (metaphorically speaking), like Ivanova having rioters
*stunned* with PPGs and Lyta being described as having been born blind.
Those might have been forgivable offenses if the narrative had been
well-crafted enough otherwise.
Wasn't the case. Mortimore used very short sentences (which soon got
very tiresome to read, giving the narrative a halting, stop-and-go
feeling), literally hundreds of one-word or one-sentence paragraphs,
chapters typically only a few pages in length, poor attempts at stream-
of-consciousness story-telling... And his dialogue did not come alive
at all. The last seems to be more of a problem for B5 books than most
Star Trek novels. Mortimore, for example, seemed to be trying to write
the way the characters would speak on the show. In B5's case, I tend to
think that's a mistake. The style just does not translate well into
writing, unlike most Trek dialogue which has always been very formal
and non-colloquial to start with, translating more painlessly into good
prose.
By bringing Mortimore's shortcoming up here, I wanted to give an
example of what I myself find poor writing. Reading Mortimore, I could
not get into the story AT ALL, I just kept thinking how the author was
trying to write in a way that would have taken a far more skilled
writer than he was to pull off. With "Clark's Law", *I* was unable to
look behind the words, to follow the story instead of the actual words
and sentences. It was like watching David Copperfield doing his flying
trick, only hanging from ropes three inches thick -- not magical or
impressive in any way, just sad.
With Cavelos I managed to let go and enjoy the story. As I said, I've
only read her book once, and don't remember it all THAT well. I
remember the main plot points, some of the characters, and how it
ended, but that's it. And certainly it was not a piece of great
literature in any way. It just *felt* like a good tie-in, perhaps in
part because I was comparing it to the six prior novels in the series.
...
Again, good points on the way multi-lingualism can affect the way I see
these things... For many, many years now I've read books almost solely
in English, and very few of them in Finnish. I want to read books in
their original language (when possible), but that's not the only reason
I read mostly English books and magazines and comics and so on. I just
ENJOY reading things in English more than I enjoy reading most things
in Finnish. Being surrounded by Finns and the Finnish language, maybe I
see English novels etc. from a more personal perspective than Finnish
ones, making them more "my own".
-Simo Aaltonen
---
(One last point: I rather LIKE pulp fiction, as long as it's
entertaining. Weird Tales was considered pulp fiction, but was written
by people like Lovecraft, Bradbury, and Sturgeon. And again, I don't
consider Cavelos anywhere near in the same class with the
aforementioned giants.)
Chris Schumacher
wrote:
>Good points and observations on Tolkien and Stoker, Gharlane. Actually
>I tend to agree with you on most of them and rather suspect that the
>huge variation in style and content in Tolkien's prose is one of the
>reasons for his popularity. It helps to establish a sense of scope, and
>plays into the mythic/epic qualities of his works.
One of the reasons why I always liked The Hobbit better was because it
was written like a conventional novel. (I hate to make this
comparison, but the Hobbit looked almost like J.K. Rowling could've
written it). I also liked the Silmariliion because it was told as a
myth, and hence seemed a great deal like I was reading Homer or
Virgil.
LOTR on the other hand... Well, I've never even finished "The
Fellowship of The Ring". Since I saw the cartoon version, someone
suggested that I start with The Two Towers, since it was in the thick
of things and, consquently, a much better book, but it's just
something I've never gotten around to.
>Now THAT book had a REALLY distracting writing style. Jim Mortimore's
>attempts at utilising powerful and stylish narrative techniques got
>very, very tired in very short order. You already mentioned the
>characterisation problems (just how many times did Sheridan sigh in the
>book...?). There were mistakes that had me throwing up my hands in
>frustration (metaphorically speaking), like Ivanova having rioters
>*stunned* with PPGs and Lyta being described as having been born blind.
She was deaf. Here are a list, and there are just the ones I remember;
- Lyta still being on the station, and being deaf.
- The female Drazi security guard. Damn it Jim, this isn't Star Trek!
- The name of the Centauri emperor is WRONG, despite the fact that
Mortimore had access to the video (and probably script) of The Long
Twilight Struggle, in which Cartagia's name was first mentioned. (he
could've just asked Joe, for Christ's sake...)
- Not really an error, but do you think that Refa had that speech
at the end written for Cartagia? It certainly didn't sound anything
like him.
>-SNIP-
Just want to intervene here to say that Mortimore is a very good and
very gifted writer. It just didn't show in this book. If you can find
a copy of it, read his "Lucifer Rising", it's a Doctor Who book, and
is as good as most mainstream SF these days (though that isn't really
saying much...)
And yes, all the good parts are written by him and not Lane.
>With Cavelos I managed to let go and enjoy the story. As I said, I've
>only read her book once, and don't remember it all THAT well. I
>remember the main plot points, some of the characters, and how it
>ended, but that's it. And certainly it was not a piece of great
>literature in any way. It just *felt* like a good tie-in, perhaps in
>part because I was comparing it to the six prior novels in the series.
She had one of the bigger no-nos in the books, where she stated that
Sheridan was on the Agamennon during the Minbari War.
Completely forgetting the fact the Omega class destroyer was only
created a few years prior to the beginning of B5. I'm starting to
doubt that it was even around at the time of the book, though I'm sure
it can be argued that it very well COULD have been.
Also, in addition the "mouse" looking nothing like a mouse (it
actually looks like a jet-black model of a virus), the artifact that
became Morden's pendant wasn't described as looking anything like
what Ed Wasser wore in the series.
And I'm not even going to start with the thing about Morden's family
being stuck in Hyperspace.
>(One last point: I rather LIKE pulp fiction, as long as it's
>entertaining. Weird Tales was considered pulp fiction, but was written
>by people like Lovecraft, Bradbury, and Sturgeon. And again, I don't
>consider Cavelos anywhere near in the same class with the
>aforementioned giants.)
I consider At The Mountains of Madness to be probably the most
important work to ever be created in the history of the English
language. Talk about scope...
I guess that's why I have such a hard time with James Joyce. How could
you be interested in some whiners in Dublin when you've had your mind
stretched reading about the Elder Ones?
-==Kensu==-
Simo Aaltonen
ke...@madison.tdsnet.com (Chris Schumacher) wrote:
> I guess that's why I have such a hard time with James Joyce. How could
> you be interested in some whiners in Dublin when you've had your mind
> stretched reading about the Elder Ones?
Just an aside...
James Joyce reportedly said, of one of his novels, that if it's taken
him a lifetime to write something, it's only fair that it'd take a
lifetime for someone else to read it. Meaning actually understanding
all the allusions and getting even the most intricate details of the
narrative.
As an Irish lecturer of mine said: "Dream on, James!"
-Simo Aaltonen
Gharlane of Eddore
In <8oovcf$rck$1...@joe.rice.edu> cat...@lost.is.rice.edu
(Catherine Anne Foulston) writes:
>
> The trouble is that if you trip over a tree root or get whapped
> in the face with a branch every other step, it's hard to keep your
> eyes on the forest. At least, that's how I see it. I can't
> remember if I've read the book in question, but I've read enough
> bad writing to know the feeling of being constantly distracted
> from the story by some strange word choice or awkward phrasing.
>
Nicely symbolized.
...<deletia>
GOE> up there with the lesser Adventures of Captain Mors, or perhaps
GOE> the worst of the Hardy Boys.
...<deletia>
>
> Were the Hardy Boys books really bad? I only read one or two. I had
> Nancy Drews and though it's been a long time, I don't remember them
> being all *that* bad. Pedestrian? Yes. Formulaic? Unquestionably.
> But I remember them as being at least readable, which is more than I
> can say for some of the franchise fiction I've read. Maybe I just
> can't remember badness from that long ago.
>
Actually, the early ones from the '20's and 30's were quite good
kiddiebooks, and the later versions from more recent decades quite
acceptable for children.
"Franklin W. Dixon" was a group pseudonym used by Harriet S. Adams
and a group of other kiddie-books pulp hacks.
These books were manufactured under group pseudonyms by the
Stratemeyer Syndicate, with most of the writing done by Harriet
(Stratemeyer) Adams. She herself wrote something like 170 of
the "BOBBSEY TWINS," the "HARDY BOYS," the "NANCY DREWS," and
even contributed one of the original "TOM SWIFT" books.
The thing to remember about "HARDY BOYS" and "NANCY DREW" books is
that they filled about the same basic ecological niche as schlock TV
shows do now; they were aimed with blithe disdain for the lowest
common denominator, and providing prose yarning that was accessible
to sub-teens.
Hilariously, several subsequent production runs have been been watered
down in terms of total wordage *and* literary level; if you compare a
book by "Carolyn Keene" published in the thirties with the "same" one
from the fifties, you'll be appalled... and comparing one from the
fifties with a *PRESENT-DAY* version is worse than appalling, it's
terrifying... because they were aimed at the same age level.
Even putting an original "TOM SWIFT" book next to a 1950's "TOM SWIFT
JUNIOR" book will show you a massive degradation in vocabulary,
clausal complexity, and concept deemed appropriate for kids of the
same age level in different decades.
The closest modern printed equivalent to the original Stratemeyer
products, as I see it, is the TrekkieBook Franchise, with the
"STAR WARS" franchise crud tossed in as well.
My objection to Cavelos' work was couched in a reference to the
original Hardy Boys yarns in the sense that her "professionalism"
seems to me to have all the earmarks of disdain that were present
in the worse HB yarns, which were indifferently crafted by a group
of hack typists, mostly fired newspapermen with alcohol problems.
Since she presumably doesn't have the attitudinal excuse of being
a penniless, desperate, unemployable newspaper hack who hates what
he's doing, her work begs explanation --- that was all I sought to
imply.
Wayne Throop
: The thing to remember about "HARDY BOYS" and "NANCY DREW" books is
: that they filled about the same basic ecological niche as schlock TV
: shows do now; they were aimed with blithe disdain for the lowest
: common denominator, and providing prose yarning that was accessible to
: sub-teens.
:
: Hilariously, several subsequent production runs have been been watered
: down in terms of total wordage *and* literary level; if you compare a
: book by "Carolyn Keene" published in the thirties with the "same" one
: from the fifties, you'll be appalled... and comparing one from the
: fifties with a *PRESENT-DAY* version is worse than appalling, it's
: terrifying... because they were aimed at the same age level.
:
: Even putting an original "TOM SWIFT" book next to a 1950's "TOM SWIFT
: JUNIOR" book will show you a massive degradation in vocabulary,
: clausal complexity, and concept deemed appropriate for kids of the
: same age level in different decades.
On a completely different level, an friend and I noted a similar thing
upon juxtaposing letters-home-from-war, from the civil war, wwI, wwII,
vietnam, and "desert sneeze" (was that the name? something about
"the mucus of all battles"? but I digress...)
As Gharlane says... it really is, literally, terrifying.
Also puts me in mind of that Asimov (IIRC) short story about the
memoranda home from the alien outpost, detailing attempts to slow human
technological progress down so that they'd eventually assimilate
smoothly into the galactic community (well... not quite so benign, but
roughly that). Starting in (IIRC) mid-bronze-age interventions, with
somewhat positive reports sent back, going through concerned-sounding
reports as technology starts going exponential in the industrial age,
concluding with a pacicked report something like "... we've done
everything we could, we've even applied the previously-proscribed
Stupidifier Project, and *noththing* stops them; even with a majority of
the population subject to the Project, sitting in front of a box with a
light flickering at a rate timed to suppress major brain activity
filling a large fraction of the visual field, they *still* progress at
exponential rates ...". (Again, actually more complicated than that,
but that's the general flavor; this is sort of the "twilight-zonette"
version of a twilight-zone-style short story... but again, I digress.)
Juxtapose technological trends with general population literacy trends.
Both marvelous and terrifying. Anybody remember "Little Black Bag"?
Remember how exagerated it seemed at the time? Hmmm.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
"He's not just a Galaxy Ranger... he's a Super-Trooper!"
cgla...@hotmail.com
cat...@lost.is.rice.edu (Catherine Anne Foulston) wrote:
> Were the Hardy Boys books really bad? I only read one or two. I had
> Nancy Drews and though it's been a long time, I don't remember them
> being all *that* bad. Pedestrian? Yes. Formulaic? Unquestionably.
> But I remember them as being at least readable, which is more than I
> can say for some of the franchise fiction I've read. Maybe I just
> can't remember badness from that long ago.
I remember several of the Hardy Boys, and darn near all of the
*original* Tom Swifts... kee-ripes, I remember *Dave Dawson*...
(The last two generations of my family were book collectors. We got
stuff in the attic that's practically carved in cuneiform on clay
tablets.)
... and yes, formulaic and utterly predictable that they were, they
were still a lot more readable than most modern Franchise Fiction.
--
Chuckg
Mac Breck
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So far, I've only read Book 5 ("The Touch of Your Shadow, The Whisper of
Your Name"), Book 9 ("To Dream in the City of Sorrows"), and Book 7 ("The
Shadow Within"), in that order. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the
worst, and 10 the best, I'd give "The Touch of Your Shadow, The Whisper of
Your Name" a "1" (a complete waste of time and natural resources), and the
other two an "8". Book 9 was a little dry in spots and was a little more
work to get through, and Book 7 seemed to flow better.
Mac
Mac Breck
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Simo Aaltonen" <simo...@st.jyu.fi>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: Attn JMS - Technomage Trilogy
snip
> That STILL reads like I'm being judgmental of your way of looking at
> things, despite my attempt not to sound that way. In fact, I can't help
> but agree with your criticisms of Cavelos' style of writing (though not
> feeling quite so strongly about them), while on the other hand I have a
> distinct recollection of not being at all uncomfortable with her style
> when reading "The Shadow Within". Which was not the case when reading
> the rest of the books (other than #9, which I again enjoyed in "a good
> tie-in" kind of way)... including Jim Mortimore's "Clark's Law".
What did you think of Book 5 ("The Touch of Your Shadow, The Whisper of
Your Name")? Just curious.
I hated it.
> Now THAT book had a REALLY distracting writing style. Jim Mortimore's
> attempts at utilising powerful and stylish narrative techniques got
> very, very tired in very short order. You already mentioned the
> characterisation problems (just how many times did Sheridan sigh in the
> book...?). There were mistakes that had me throwing up my hands in
> frustration (metaphorically speaking), like Ivanova having rioters
> *stunned* with PPGs
What?!?!?! That's ridiculous! PPGs leave holes, like bullets, only without
the hull damage.
Anybody know why PPG shots don't rise? It's superheated helium, right?
Helium *is* lighter than air.
> and Lyta being described as having been born blind.
I suppose this is another of the non-canon points. This makes me not want
to read Clark's Law, even though I already have it.
Can you point out any non-canon parts of "The Shadow Within" ?
> Those might have been forgivable offenses if the narrative had been
> well-crafted enough otherwise.
>
> Wasn't the case. Mortimore used very short sentences (which soon got
> very tiresome to read, giving the narrative a halting, stop-and-go
> feeling), literally hundreds of one-word or one-sentence paragraphs,
> chapters typically only a few pages in length, poor attempts at stream-
> of-consciousness story-telling... And his dialogue did not come alive
> at all. The last seems to be more of a problem for B5 books than most
> Star Trek novels. Mortimore, for example, seemed to be trying to write
> the way the characters would speak on the show. In B5's case, I tend to
> think that's a mistake. The style just does not translate well into
> writing, unlike most Trek dialogue which has always been very formal
> and non-colloquial to start with, translating more painlessly into good
> prose.
>
> By bringing Mortimore's shortcoming up here, I wanted to give an
> example of what I myself find poor writing. Reading Mortimore, I could
> not get into the story AT ALL, I just kept thinking how the author was
> trying to write in a way that would have taken a far more skilled
> writer than he was to pull off. With "Clark's Law", *I* was unable to
> look behind the words, to follow the story instead of the actual words
> and sentences. It was like watching David Copperfield doing his flying
> trick, only hanging from ropes three inches thick -- not magical or
> impressive in any way, just sad.
>
> With Cavelos I managed to let go and enjoy the story.
Same here.
> As I said, I've
> only read her book once, and don't remember it all THAT well. I
> remember the main plot points, some of the characters, and how it
> ended, but that's it. And certainly it was not a piece of great
> literature in any way. It just *felt* like a good tie-in, perhaps in
> part because I was comparing it to the six prior novels in the series.
The only thing I found annoying about "The Shadow Within" was that she had
two threads, Anna/Z Ha' Dum and John/Agamemnon, and took each to a
cliff-hanger, and then switched to the other thread, *every* time, over and
over again.
Mac
Gharlane of Eddore
In <8oovcf$rck$1...@joe.rice.edu>,
cat...@lost.is.rice.edu (Catherine Anne Foulston) wrote:
>
> Were the Hardy Boys books really bad? I only read one or two. I had
> Nancy Drews and though it's been a long time, I don't remember them
> being all *that* bad. Pedestrian? Yes. Formulaic? Unquestionably.
> But I remember them as being at least readable, which is more than I
> can say for some of the franchise fiction I've read. Maybe I just
> can't remember badness from that long ago.
>
In <8opao9$n3c$1...@nnrp1.deja.com> cgla...@hotmail.com writes:
>
> I remember several of the Hardy Boys, and darn near all of the
> *original* Tom Swifts... kee-ripes, I remember *Dave Dawson*...
>
> (The last two generations of my family were book collectors. We got
> stuff in the attic that's practically carved in cuneiform on clay
> tablets.)
>
> ... and yes, formulaic and utterly predictable that they were, they
> were still a lot more readable than most modern Franchise Fiction.
>
Yes, but do you have all the original "Saint" novels in hardback?
( Now *THERE* is some good writing!.... )
Or "THE RETURN OF ANTHONY TRENT" by "Wyndham Martyn,"
or the "Don Sturdy" books, or the "Banner Boy Scout" books, or
"THE LONE EAGLE OF THE BORDER" books?
Got all the "SPIDER," "SHADOW," and "G-8 AND HIS BATTLE ACES" yarns?
How about the original "DOC SAVAGE" yarns? ( Now *there* is a
formulaic group-pseudonym franchise! ) How about the later
"Captain Future" yarns?
And moving into the fifties, there's the "TOM CORBETT" series derived
from Heinlein's "SPACE CADET," and the "RICK BRANT" series that would
eventually lead to TV's "JONNY QUEST."
My Ghreat Ghrotty Ghu. I just realized what the CURRENT-DAY
equivalent of all the classic pulp franchises is.
"POKEMON."
The human species is doomed.
Andrew Swallow
<macb...@access995.com> writes:
>
>> and Lyta being described as having been born blind.
>
>I suppose this is another of the non-canon points. This makes me not want
>to read Clark's Law, even though I already have it.
>
I suspect that the book's author had confused the look Lyta gives when scanning
someone with the 'stare' of a blind person.
Andrew Swallow
Simo Aaltonen
"Mac Breck" <macb...@access995.com> wrote:
> What did you think of Book 5 ("The Touch of Your Shadow, The Whisper
> of Your Name")? Just curious.
>
> I hated it.
So did I, I thought it was far worse than Mortimore's "Clark's Law". At
least Mortimore TRIED to develop some heavy themes and attempted to
tell a gutsy story with powerful moments, even though I didn't think it
succeeded in doing those things due to lacklustre writing and just too
many things that were off about the whole thing.
"The Touch", on the other hand, came across as a thing written under a
crushing deadline by a writer -- a writer with NO idea what he wanted
his story to be about -- in a complete state of panic, just pounding
out any damn thing that tumbled out of his lack of imagination in order
to reach the required 248 pages. "Clark's" featured short chapters, but
usually something happened in each of those chapters, something that
contributed SOMETHING to the big picture. In "The Touch" NOTHING of any
consequence happened in the VAST majority of the chapters. The entire
book reads like Neal Barrett, Jr. (the author) had no interest
whatsoever in the project.
Sometimes when I'm writing an essay that has to be of a certain length,
and when I have little or no interest in the subject I have to write
about, I'll write as much on the topic as naturally flows from the
keyboard. Then I'll do a word count and see that I'm still several
hundred words short. I may look at what I've already written, but if
nothing can be added to the existing text, I can only go on writing,
thinking up something, ANYTHING, to add to what I've already said,
anything to reach the desired length... Usually these added paragraphs
feel forced and disconnected from the paragraphs preceding them, and I
almost never make any really worthwhile points in them.
That's how Barrett's "The Touch of Your Shadow, The Whisper of Your
Name" reads, the whole thing... It's ridiculously lacking in every
regard. Characterisation, content, entertainment... None of these are
to be found in his novel. The best thing about the book is its title,
and even that fits the story extremely poorly.
> What?!?!?! That's ridiculous! PPGs leave holes, like bullets, only
> without the hull damage.
Well, not necessarily holes. If the superheated helium hits a person,
it causes damage by MELTING clothing and skin alike. It cauterizes
wounds, preventing bleeding, and it doesn't really leave a hole unless
it melts through something and that something does not seal up the hole.
> Anybody know why PPG shots don't rise? It's superheated helium,
> right? Helium *is* lighter than air.
PPG shots travel FAST, fast enough that the shots don't have time to
start drifting upwards... Say I, most unscientifically and
speculatively.
> > and Lyta being described as having been born blind.
>
> I suppose this is another of the non-canon points. This makes me not
> want to read Clark's Law, even though I already have it.
I misremembered that one. Actually Lyta is described having been born
*deaf*, not blind. Thanks for the person who pointed that out.
> Can you point out any non-canon parts of "The Shadow Within" ?
Not personally, but someone said elsewhere in this thread that Sheridan
should not have BEEN on the Agamemnon at the time the events in the
book took place.
-Simo Aaltonen
Wayne Throop
: Yes, but do you have all the original "Saint" novels in hardback? (
: Now *THERE* is some good writing!.... )
: Or "THE RETURN OF ANTHONY TRENT" by "Wyndham Martyn," or the "Don
: Sturdy" books, or the "Banner Boy Scout" books, or "THE LONE EAGLE OF
: THE BORDER" books?
: Got all the "SPIDER," "SHADOW," and "G-8 AND HIS BATTLE ACES" yarns?
"Even GI-Gerbil and his Howling Groundhogs joined the desperate fray!"
Sorry. "New Adventures of Mighty Mouse" flashback.
"The Cow vs the League of Super Rodents" episode.
Gharlane of Eddore
Concerning Neal Barrett, Jr.'s hackwork ( which, by the way, you can
find some mealy-mouthed excuses for, posted by Cavelos a couple of
years back --- remember, she "edited" it.... apparently Barrett
is a good buddy, or sang her a sad song of personal problems, or
some danged thing, since she was waffling about "problems I'm not
at liberty to discuss" or words to that effect... )
( Where I come from, if you can't do the work, you get fired, and
someone else gets hired and paid to do it. With more than a
couple of months' lead time for the production of each of these
bombs, it's not like they didn't have time to get a competent
writer on board to pick up the pieces after they realized someone
wasn't going to be making his deadlines with what he'd contracted
for..... )
In <8osg11$259$1...@nnrp1.deja.com> Simo Aaltonen <simo...@st.jyu.fi> writes:
>
....<deletia>
>
> "The Touch", on the other hand, came across as a thing written under a
> crushing deadline by a writer -- a writer with NO idea what he wanted
> his story to be about -- in a complete state of panic, just pounding
> out any damn thing that tumbled out of his lack of imagination in order
> to reach the required 248 pages.
>
....<deletia>
>
> In "The Touch" NOTHING of any
> consequence happened in the VAST majority of the chapters. The entire
> book reads like Neal Barrett, Jr. (the author) had no interest
> whatsoever in the project.
>
....<deletia>
>
> That's how Barrett's "The Touch of Your Shadow, The Whisper of Your
> Name" reads, the whole thing... It's ridiculously lacking in every
> regard. Characterisation, content, entertainment... None of these are
> to be found in his novel. The best thing about the book is its title,
> and even that fits the story extremely poorly.
>
....<deletia>
>
This is old news. It got righteously and justifiably savaged in
a number of on-line reviews when it first appeared, but Cavelos
asserted that JMS liked it anyway...
Have you noticed, yet, the much larger type font, and roughly
half-as-many-words-per-page in the Barrett opus?
I'd guess it's about half the total wordage of the average novel in the
first half-dozen... and that they just inflated the font and charged the
same for it, even though they'd have been able to fit it into a book
half as thick, using standard font.
( I've been told this trick was repeated in #8, although not as
blatantly... but since I sent my review copy of 8 back without
bothering to open it, having just read #7, I'm not in a position
to verify that. )
Schlock is schlock. "Dell" wasn't tooled up to do anything like
reasonable SF, and they thought they could run a franchise of
kiddiebooks by hiring trash-hacks left over from "young-adult"
TrekkieBook projects, without reference to SF competence or
track record, and shove an "editor" in on the project who didn't,
and doesn't, know squat about SF, --- *or*, apparently about
writing in general.
Neal Barrett has actually written some readable books in his career,
but not in recent decades. The last projects of his that I was
aware of were a couple of highly indifferent additions to the
LATE-era "Tom Swift" pap, and a "Batman" tie-in. We're talking
mediocre media hackwork here, aided and abetted by an "editor"
who apparently spent most of her time on the project heavily
involved with Federal-Expressing PAPER manuscripts back and forth,
and came back a couple of years later to inquire on this topic if
there might be an episode guide available somewhere on-line.......
I believe the phrase is "Unclear on the concept," but somehow that's
just not strong enough.
Gharlane of Eddore
In <9679...@sheol.org> thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) writes:
>
> "Even GI-Gerbil and his Howling Groundhogs joined the desperate fray!"
>
> Sorry. "New Adventures of Mighty Mouse" flashback.
> "The Cow vs the League of Super Rodents" episode.
>
For proper text discussions of the Great Cow Threat, see the FAQs
in "alt.fan.lemming" and read about the historical problems between
the Lemmings and the Ciller Cows; and keep some Grape NeHi handy
in case the Lemming PSI-Corps teleports in to keep you from learning
about them.
Joel Furr is a great and brave man who strives to keep this information
where it can be accessed by those who are strong enough to stand against
the Cows.
Simo Aaltonen
"Mac Breck" <macb...@access995.com> wrote:
> A PPG hole should be about 1" in diameter, right? That may be pretty
hard
> to seal up in short order. OTOH, I rewatched "The Quality of Mercy"
> yesterday, and when the prisoner was shot in the shoulder, point-
blank by
> Garibaldi, it looked like it just burned him, blackening the outer
part of
> his clothing (leaving no visible hole). Maybe it was a glancing
shot. It's
> hard to tell, given the angle of the camera.
No, I seem to remember several shows (not which ones, though) where
it's mentioned that PPG shots, even or especially when hitting a person
dead-on, cauterizes the wound, which is why we've never seen people
bleeding from a PPG shot. I don't know how exactly a charge of
superheated helium affects living tissue, but just thinking of pouring
boiling water on your skin suggests how it must feel, and what it must
do the skin... Only PPG shots travel faster, and are probably a lot
hotter, too (I mean, SUPERheated helium).
Incidentally, I believe the reason PPG shots seem to travel slower than
bullets is just that the effects for the shots were poorer in later
seasons than during the first and second seasons. They show the actual
shot, usually a red blob, wending its weary way from the barrel of the
PPG to the target (actually, usually missing, like in "A View from the
Gallery" where Zack just stands talking into his link while a couple of
dozen shots whizz past him -- those whacky aliens... how amazing their
weapon skills are). In the first season (see for example the firefight
at the end of "The War Prayer"), you could actually only see the air
ripple AFTER the shot, similar to how you see the air "distort" above
hot asphalt. Too bad Netter Digital couldn't do PPG shots as well as
the Foundation people.
Can someone who's better up on the science of PPG shots tell us whether
our speculations or theories are accurate?
Chris Schumacher
wrote:
>
>On what page of Book 7, did you read that John was on the Agamemnon during
>the Earth-Minbari war? I don't remember seeing that in the book. It should
>have stood out like a sore thumb, to me.
Wrong book, I guess. I'm still trying to figure out which one it was.
Since the book actually had Sheridan on the Agamennon in it, I assumed
it was that one; I was wrong.
Anyone remember this? It might have been in Clarke's Law...
Actually, it MIGHT have been the extremely well-written fan-story
"Patterns of Light and Shadow". Does anyone else remember this story?
It was back near the end of the second season, and we were wondering
WHY THE HELL they were letting people like John Vornholt write books
for MONEY when someone that good was writing this story in their spare
time
> A roughly teardrop shape for one is not out of the realm of
>possibility. To me, the argument of "the mouse looking nothing like a
>mouse" is like trying to find fault where none really exists. When she
>first talked about the mouse it was "mottled grayish color", not a
>"jet-black model of a virus." Most computer mice are some shade of tan or
>gray.
Grey? Was it the husk that they came in that was the same color as the
shadow vessel?
>> the artifact that
>> became Morden's pendant wasn't described as looking anything like
>> what Ed Wasser wore in the series.
>That was a miss, but not a big deal. You have to look for it in the TV
>series to notice. It would have been better if what she described and what
>Morden wore in the show had matched. One way or the other (i.e. what she
>described *or* what he wore in the show), I have no preference.
Okay, this is DOWN RIGHT NEGLIGANCE ON HER PART. Considering that she
let something like that go without bothering to dig out a tape of one
of the episodes is a sign of gross negliance. And this person is an
EDITOR for Christ's sake!
And you know, it's REAL easy to confuse a small sphere of crystal with
something that looks like a bar magnet.
>> And I'm not even going to start with the thing about Morden's family
>> being stuck in Hyperspace.
>You're taking this literally, like they were still alive in hyperspace in a
>partly blown-up ship, in January 2257? The ship was blown up in June 2256.
>No, they're long dead. That (top of page 250) was all in Morden's mind.
>Either the Shadows were playing a trick on him, or he just hadn't fully let
>go of them in his mind.
You're saying that, Cavelos didn't. She left it open so that it could
go either way.
>Got any other examples of "flaws" in Book 7?
>
>Mac
You mean aside from the atrocious writing, and the fact that it looked
like a "paint by the numbers" set?
The only thing that set that book apart from the first 6 (excluding
Mortimore) is the premise, and she can't take credit for that.
-==Kensu==-
Chris Schumacher
wrote:
>What?!?!?! That's ridiculous! PPGs leave holes, like bullets, only without
>the hull damage.
Well, holes in people (take a look at the side of Morgan Clark's
head).
However, they don't puncture hulls at all, for an example of this,
watch Chrysalis, when they're shooting at the Feeder. The tile cracks
slightly, and we can see some black substance (probably the melted
carbon from the steel alloy) dripping off of it.
However, this is at the same point where the Feeder slams into it, but
I always assumed it came from a stry PPG shot.
>Anybody know why PPG shots don't rise? It's superheated helium, right?
>Helium *is* lighter than air.
Probably because they go so fast that they don't have a chance to
rise. Watch "The Long Dark" and "Babylon Squared", it might just be my
imagination, but I think they travel upwards faster; also, they never
drop back down again.
Of course, we're forgetting that Plasma acts differently than gas...
Anyone with a physics degree able to help us on this?
(I'm an English)
>Can you point out any non-canon parts of "The Shadow Within" ?
Although I have yet to see any real contradictions, JMS stated that
the Agamennon stuff didn't happen (or that he wasn't going to hesitate
to contradict it). Considering that they were just finding out about
Homeguard in The War Prayer, it makes me suspect that this is true,
since attempting to blow up the station would bring in a HELL of a lot
of publicity for the fringe group.
-==Kensu==-
Pål Are Nordal
>
> In the first season (see for example the firefight
> at the end of "The War Prayer"), you could actually only see the air
> ripple AFTER the shot, similar to how you see the air "distort" above
> hot asphalt. Too bad Netter Digital couldn't do PPG shots as well as
> the Foundation people.
The PPG's are rotoscope - not CGI. And the guy who did them left to form
"Flat Earth" who did effects for Hercules and Xena. If you look at the
gods' entrances in those to shows, you'll note that they're surprisingly
similar to the early PPG shots.
Kerry Casey
>> On 2 Sep 2000 09:54:00 -0700, "Mac Breck" <macb...@access995.com>
> >wrote:
> >
>
> Although I have yet to see any real contradictions, JMS stated that
> the Agamennon stuff didn't happen (or that he wasn't going to hesitate
> to contradict it). Considering that they were just finding out about
> Homeguard in The War Prayer, it makes me suspect that this is true,
> since attempting to blow up the station would bring in a HELL of a lot
> of publicity for the fringe group.
>
I read the book after reading that it was 80% canon, and the thing that
jumped out for me straight away was about an incident caused by a previous
captain of the Agamemnon:
page 35
"Best had attempted to make the jump to hyperspace with an engine port open,
causing a dangerous instability in the jump engines that had spat them out
in the same spot an hour in the future, nearly on top of another Earthforce
vessel."
I read that and thought whoa! Time travel via hyperspace gates! That's new!
Did I miss any references to this ability in the series? (slight sarcasm
here, from someone who has watched them all at least six times, some
episodes more, but then, I did miss the whole Lyta clone thing :-), so who
knows?)
Kerry
--
Kerry Casey
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
E-mail kca...@bom.gov.au
Chris Schumacher
>page 35
>
>"Best had attempted to make the jump to hyperspace with an engine port open,
>causing a dangerous instability in the jump engines that had spat them out
>in the same spot an hour in the future, nearly on top of another Earthforce
>vessel."
>
>I read that and thought whoa! Time travel via hyperspace gates! That's new!
>
>Did I miss any references to this ability in the series? (slight sarcasm
>here, from someone who has watched them all at least six times, some
>episodes more, but then, I did miss the whole Lyta clone thing :-), so who
>knows?)
This goes back to what Gharlane has been saying about her not
understanding either real technology, or the psuedotech of the series.
In "The Gathering" Kosh arrived at the station two days early,
HOWEVER, we later find out that this is because Vorlons and Shadows
can go completely off the beacon and navigate their own routes through
hyperspace, which are much faster than the ones the younger races use.
It was NOT as she suspected, time travel.
Cosnidering that she is writing about the Technomags in her next books
makes me worry even more....
-==Kensu==-
flet...@post.queensu.ca
[ Skipping most of the article to get to make one semi-irrelevent point ]
> (actually, usually missing, like in "A View from the Gallery" where
> Zack just stands talking into his link while a couple of dozen shots
> whizz past him -- those whacky aliens... how amazing their weapon skills
> are).
I always viewed that entire episode as being from the point of view of
Mack and Bo (those are their names, right? Been a while since I did
see it), and as such, the telling of the story would have been distorted
by them because Lochley, Zach, etc are all considered to be such important
people (especially in comparison), that they are almost seen to be super
human. For example, Zach standing there in the middle of a firefight
chattering away on his link, ignoring the shots (for all intents and
purposes) around him. Normal people don't do that, perception and memory
changed his 'real' actions (which may have been entirely different, such
as hiding behind a crate while talking into his link) into the actions
shown/told to us by Mack and Bo.
For the other point, I do agree, the early PPGs looked better than the
later.
Ae.
Mac Breck
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Schumacher" <ke...@madison.tdsnet.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2000 11:57 PM
Subject: Re: Attn JMS - Technomage Trilogy
> On 2 Sep 2000 09:54:00 -0700, "Mac Breck" <macb...@access995.com>
> wrote:
>
> >What?!?!?! That's ridiculous! PPGs leave holes, like bullets, only
without
> >the hull damage.
>
> Well, holes in people (take a look at the side of Morgan Clark's
> head).
We never got a close-up, end-on look at this. It's hard to tell from the
angle we got, and the distance from which we saw the wound.
> However, they don't puncture hulls at all,
Agreed. That's what I said.
> >Anybody know why PPG shots don't rise? It's superheated helium, right?
> >Helium *is* lighter than air.
>
> Probably because they go so fast that they don't have a chance to
> rise.
Isn't momentum equal to mass times velocity? The greater the momentum, the
harder it is for outside forces to alter the path of the object. With a
bullet, we have a lead weight (great mass) moving at high speed (~800 feet
per second). With the PPG charge, the mass would be a LOT less (helium is a
lot less dense, and being superheated would make it even less dense), and it
doesn't appear to be moving as fast as a bullet. So the momentum of the PPG
charge would be a lot less, and it should be deflected (i.e. rise due to
being lighter than air) more than a bullet would be pulled downward by
gravity over tha same distance.
> Watch "The Long Dark" and "Babylon Squared", it might just be my
> imagination, but I think they travel upwards faster; also, they never
> drop back down again.
That would make sense, being lighter than air. They dissipate when they
have expended their energy and reach normal air temperature.
> Of course, we're forgetting that Plasma acts differently than gas...
> Anyone with a physics degree able to help us on this?
> (I'm an English)
As in maybe it's denser? Don't remember, it's been too long.
> >Can you point out any non-canon parts of "The Shadow Within" ?
>
> Although I have yet to see any real contradictions, JMS stated that
> the Agamennon stuff didn't happen (or that he wasn't going to hesitate
> to contradict it). Considering that they were just finding out about
> Homeguard in The War Prayer, it makes me suspect that this is true,
> since attempting to blow up the station would bring in a HELL of a lot
> of publicity for the fringe group.
I wish JMS would comment on this last part!
Mac
Mac Breck
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Simo Aaltonen" <simo...@st.jyu.fi>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2000 11:32 PM
Subject: Re: Attn JMS - Technomage Trilogy
> In article <003f01c015ac$c82fade0$c0d2...@cobweb.net>,
> "Mac Breck" <macb...@access995.com> wrote:
> > A PPG hole should be about 1" in diameter, right? That may be pretty
> hard
> > to seal up in short order. OTOH, I rewatched "The Quality of Mercy"
> > yesterday, and when the prisoner was shot in the shoulder, point-
> blank by
> > Garibaldi, it looked like it just burned him, blackening the outer
> part of
> > his clothing (leaving no visible hole). Maybe it was a glancing
> shot. It's
> > hard to tell, given the angle of the camera.
>
> No, I seem to remember several shows (not which ones, though) where
> it's mentioned that PPG shots, even or especially when hitting a person
> dead-on, cauterizes the wound, which is why we've never seen people
> bleeding from a PPG shot. I don't know how exactly a charge of
> superheated helium affects living tissue, but just thinking of pouring
> boiling water on your skin suggests how it must feel, and what it must
> do the skin... Only PPG shots travel faster, and are probably a lot
> hotter, too (I mean, SUPERheated helium).
I'd always thought a PPG shot would leave a ~1" diameter, cylindrical hole
all the way through, that was cauterized on the wall of the wound; that is,
it wouldn't seal up. Remember the movie, Death Becomes Her, with Goldie
Hawn and Meryl Streep? Goldie gets a ~10" diameter part of her midsection
blown out by a shotgun blast. Think of a similar hole 1/10th the size and
without the bleeding (in the fountain, for Goldie's wound since she was
already dead) for the PPG shot.
> Incidentally, I believe the reason PPG shots seem to travel slower than
> bullets is just that the effects for the shots were poorer in later
> seasons than during the first and second seasons. They show the actual
> shot, usually a red blob, wending its weary way from the barrel of the
> PPG to the target (actually, usually missing, like in "A View from the
> Gallery" where Zack just stands talking into his link while a couple of
> dozen shots whizz past him -- those whacky aliens... how amazing their
> weapon skills are).
I think some of those shots were slow-mo, weren't they? Also, sometimes when
things are happening really fast, your mind seems to slow them down (ever
been in a car wreck where it seems to have happened in slow-mo?). Maybe we
were seeing things from the character's POV in those shots.
> In the first season (see for example the firefight
> at the end of "The War Prayer"), you could actually only see the air
> ripple AFTER the shot, similar to how you see the air "distort" above
> hot asphalt. Too bad Netter Digital couldn't do PPG shots as well as
> the Foundation people.
I'll have to go back and check them out.
Mac
Mac Breck
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Schumacher" <ke...@madison.tdsnet.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2000 11:48 PM
Subject: Re: Attn JMS - Technomage Trilogy
> On 4 Sep 2000 11:04:41 -0700, "Mac Breck" <macb...@access995.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >On what page of Book 7, did you read that John was on the Agamemnon
during
> >the Earth-Minbari war? I don't remember seeing that in the book. It
should
> >have stood out like a sore thumb, to me.
>
> Wrong book, I guess. I'm still trying to figure out which one it was.
> Since the book actually had Sheridan on the Agamennon in it, I assumed
> it was that one; I was wrong.
> Anyone remember this? It might have been in Clarke's Law...
Makes me wish I had 'em all on the computer, so I could do a word search!
Hmmm. Well, I do have a scanner and OCR...... Hmm, beats trying to find
this stuff manually. :-)
> Actually, it MIGHT have been the extremely well-written fan-story
> "Patterns of Light and Shadow". Does anyone else remember this story?
> It was back near the end of the second season, and we were wondering
> WHY THE HELL they were letting people like John Vornholt write books
> for MONEY when someone that good was writing this story in their spare
> time
Never heard of that one.
> > A roughly teardrop shape for one is not out of the realm of
> >possibility. To me, the argument of "the mouse looking nothing like a
> >mouse" is like trying to find fault where none really exists. When she
> >first talked about the mouse it was "mottled grayish color", not a
> >"jet-black model of a virus." Most computer mice are some shade of tan
or
> >gray.
>
> Grey? Was it the husk that they came in that was the same color as the
> shadow vessel?
I don't recall them discussing the color of the husks, although the mouse
did get darker (and pulsate visually) as it was activated. However, when
they found it and named it the "mouse" it was inactive, and "mottled grayish
color".
> >> the artifact that
> >> became Morden's pendant wasn't described as looking anything like
> >> what Ed Wasser wore in the series.
> >That was a miss, but not a big deal. You have to look for it in the TV
> >series to notice. It would have been better if what she described and
what
> >Morden wore in the show had matched. One way or the other (i.e. what she
> >described *or* what he wore in the show), I have no preference.
>
> Okay, this is DOWN RIGHT NEGLIGANCE ON HER PART. Considering that she
> let something like that go without bothering to dig out a tape of one
> of the episodes is a sign of gross negliance. And this person is an
> EDITOR for Christ's sake!
> And you know, it's REAL easy to confuse a small sphere of crystal with
> something that looks like a bar magnet.
I thought Morden's crystal that he wore on the show, was vertical,
cylindrical, and clear. Without going back and finding the description back
in Book &, I thought the stone artifact was opaque brown or something,
roughly disc shaped (like a skipping stone), and with writing on one side.
> >> And I'm not even going to start with the thing about Morden's family
> >> being stuck in Hyperspace.
> >You're taking this literally, like they were still alive in hyperspace in
a
> >partly blown-up ship, in January 2257? The ship was blown up in June
2256.
> >No, they're long dead. That (top of page 250) was all in Morden's mind.
> >Either the Shadows were playing a trick on him, or he just hadn't fully
let
> >go of them in his mind.
>
> You're saying that, Cavelos didn't. She left it open so that it could
> go either way.
>
> >Got any other examples of "flaws" in Book 7?
> >
> >Mac
>
> You mean aside from the atrocious writing,
I disagree. At least, it wasn't as dry as sawdust like Book 5. Admittedly,
I'm not an English Lit/ professor, but rather an electrical engineer who
likes database programming languages, and I didn't find the writing in Book
7 to be atrocious by any stretch if the imagination.
> and the fact that it looked
> like a "paint by the numbers" set?
> The only thing that set that book apart from the first 6 (excluding
> Mortimore) is the premise, and she can't take credit for that.
I was after SPECIFICS, not subjective comments like "atrocious writing". If
you want to see truly atrocious writing, see Book 5. In comparison, Book 7
is a gem.
Mac
Kerry Casey
>
> I thought Morden's crystal that he wore on the show, was vertical,
> cylindrical, and clear. Without going back and finding the description
back
> in Book &, I thought the stone artifact was opaque brown or something,
> roughly disc shaped (like a skipping stone), and with writing on one side.
>
In the series It was vertical, squarish with an slanted end and opaque.
You can see a picture of it on the B5 CCG game card "Shadow Medallion" at
http://www.vorlonspace.org/Shadows/Gallery/?141
When he comes back from the dead in the season 5 episode "Day of the Dead",
it had become clear.
I know this, because I read an interview with Ed Wasser in the Season 5
episode guide "Wheel of Fire" by Jane Killick, where Ed talks about asking
to have his crystal made clear in "Day of the Dead" to signify that he was
no longer under the influence of the shadows. I had never noticed this
change, so fished out the episode and watched it again, and yep, the crystal
was now clear.
I suppose this is the place to admit I never noticed Morden wore a crystal
around his neck until I saw him fingering it just before he dies in "Into
the Fire". I was probably too busy booing and hissing anytime he appeared on
screen to notice what jewellery he was wearing :-)
Andrew Swallow
Schumacher) writes:
>>On what page of Book 7, did you read that John was on the Agamemnon during
>>the Earth-Minbari war? I don't remember seeing that in the book. It should
>>have stood out like a sore thumb, to me.
>
>Wrong book, I guess. I'm still trying to figure out which one it was.
>Since the book actually had Sheridan on the Agamennon in it, I assumed
>it was that one; I was wrong.
>Anyone remember this? It might have been in Clarke's Law...
>
'In The Beginning' by Peter Davis, from the script by JMS has John Sheridan in
the Lexington.
Andrew Swallow
Mac Breck
news:WRAt5.9$8S....@vic.nntp.telstra.net...
> >"Mac Breck" <macb...@access995.com> wrote
> >
> > I thought Morden's crystal that he wore on the show, was vertical,
> > cylindrical, and clear. Without going back and finding the description
> back
> > roughly disc shaped (like a skipping stone), and with writing on one
side.
> >
>
> In the series It was vertical, squarish with an slanted end and opaque.
> You can see a picture of it on the B5 CCG game card "Shadow Medallion" at
> http://www.vorlonspace.org/Shadows/Gallery/?141
>
> When he comes back from the dead in the season 5 episode "Day of the
Dead",
> it had become clear.
>
> I know this, because I read an interview with Ed Wasser in the Season 5
> episode guide "Wheel of Fire" by Jane Killick, where Ed talks about asking
> to have his crystal made clear in "Day of the Dead" to signify that he was
> no longer under the influence of the shadows. I had never noticed this
> change, so fished out the episode and watched it again, and yep, the
crystal
> was now clear.
>
> I suppose this is the place to admit I never noticed Morden wore a crystal
> around his neck until I saw him fingering it just before he dies in "Into
> the Fire". I was probably too busy booing and hissing anytime he appeared
on
> screen to notice what jewellery he was wearing :-)
Thanks for the info. I, too, first noticed the crystal when he grabbed at
it right after Londo nuked the island. That's why I thought it was a
communications device and he sensed the loss (of his shadow allies on the
island) through it.
Mac
Mac Breck
> >"Chris Schumacher" <ke...@madison.tdsnet.com> wrote:
> >> On 2 Sep 2000 09:54:00 -0700, "Mac Breck" <macb...@access995.com>
> > >wrote:
> > >
> > >Can you point out any non-canon parts of "The Shadow Within" ?
> >
> > Although I have yet to see any real contradictions, JMS stated that
> > the Agamennon stuff didn't happen (or that he wasn't going to hesitate
> > to contradict it). Considering that they were just finding out about
> > Homeguard in The War Prayer, it makes me suspect that this is true,
> > since attempting to blow up the station would bring in a HELL of a lot
> > of publicity for the fringe group.
> >
>
> I read the book after reading that it was 80% canon, and the thing that
> jumped out for me straight away was about an incident caused by a previous
> captain of the Agamemnon:
>
> page 35
>
> "Best had attempted to make the jump to hyperspace with an engine port
open,
> causing a dangerous instability in the jump engines that had spat them out
> in the same spot an hour in the future, nearly on top of another
Earthforce
> vessel."
>
> I read that and thought whoa! Time travel via hyperspace gates! That's
new!
>
> Did I miss any references to this ability in the series?
No, but just because this wasn't mentioned in the series, does not
necessarily mean that JMS didn't have this written somewhere. She may not
have made it up. How many have we seen the detailed workings of the EA
Destroyers (what they go through to execute a jump, or fire the weapons) in
the series? It doesn't mean that they don't work the way she said. She may
have made it up. It may have been within her latitude to do so. JMS may
disagree with some of it, but until he writes something that contradicts
what she wrote, it can be considered canon.
> (slight sarcasm
> here, from someone who has watched them all at least six times, some
> episodes more, but then, I did miss the whole Lyta clone thing :-)
That's only a "possibility". We don't know if it's true. :-)
>, so who
> knows?)
JMS, and he isn't talking. He's the guy snickering in the corner.
Mac
Graham Smith
> all the way through, that was cauterized on the wall of the wound; that is,
> it wouldn't seal up.
One thing that is sometimes overlooked in the effects of a PPG hit is the effect
of the impact itself. I would expect that something moving at the speed that a
PPG blast would have to be moving could transfer a good deal of kinetic energy
to the target when it strikes. The damage this does could be as great as the
damage from the hole it would make.
And then there is the matter of dispersion. Most projectiles will flatten out
somewhat when they encounter a body and can fragment some when they strike
bone. PPG blasts are shown "splattering" on walls, so I would expect that there
could be a similar splattering when striking bone. This could cause even more
internal damage and be one of the reasons why such a small projectile could do
as much damage as it was seen to have done to Garibaldi in Season 1/2.
Of course, not having any specs on PPGs makes all this a bit speculative. If
anyone has one, I'd be glad to pick up a side of beef we could use for some test
firing.
--Graham
Mark Maher
<20000906214906...@nso-da.news.cs.com>...
It also placed John on the Hector during the battle of the line.
It was off in the Triad sector, sent there to block a Minbari
incursion. He missed the battle of the line.
__!_!__
Gizmo
Simo Aaltonen
"Mac Breck" <macb...@access995.com> wrote (in reply to what I wrote):
> > In the first season (see for example the firefight
> > at the end of "The War Prayer"), you could actually only see the air
> > ripple AFTER the shot, similar to how you see the air "distort"
above
> > hot asphalt. Too bad Netter Digital couldn't do PPG shots as well as
> > the Foundation people.
>
> I'll have to go back and check them out.
Annoyingly, I just rewatched "The War Prayer", and noticed that a red
blob -- presumably the actual PPG shot -- CAN actually be seen shooting
from the PPGs, but the shots themselves do travel faster than in later
seasons, and the air ripple effect was largely dropped from later
effects, due to the guy who did those effects moving on to Hercules and
Xena... (I was also mistaken in saying that the PPG FX were CGI --
someone else mentioned here that they were rotoscoped).
(This is why I try to stay away from technical discussions. I get only
about 50 percent of my facts straight when it comes to such things.)