Invaders of the Deeps!
Bruce
John Wyndham's "Out of the Deeps" AKA "The Kraken Wakes."
Any others that you would consider interesting reading?
Bruce
Mike Schilling
Varley's "The Ophiuci Hotline" kinda fits.
BillGill
Murray Leinster.
Bill
Matt Hughes
Don't know if there was ever a novel, but the movie The Abyss had an
alien life form in the deep sea.
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Chris Thompson
Orson Scott Card wrote the novelization of _The Abyss_ - pretty good
as such things go.
Part of Gregory Benford's _Across the Sea of Suns_ (the story thread
that takes place back on earth) involves hostile aliens in the oceans.
And that brings to mind his much more recent short story "Dark Heaven"
which has some similarities.
--
Chris Thompson
Email: ce...@cam.ac.uk
robo
"Bruce" <bam...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3119fb43-ae22-445a...@p23g2000vbl.googlegroups.com...
A very recent German edition to this niche genre called the _Swarm_ by Frank
Schatzing
and a personal two personal favorites,
Warriors of the Rainbow by A.D. Harvey... the hive minds of ant colonies and
whales conspire against our species...really cool.
Also Alexander Jablokov's _Deeper Sea_ features malign whales....
P. Taine
wrote:
Hal Cements' "Needle" starts in the sea, but the (2) aliens enter terrestrial
human hosts.
mimus
There was an interesting short-short once, only two or three pages, about
a deep-sea (Philippine Deep, IIRC) anti-submarine robot, left over from a
global conflict, that had refused to come in or would've been too much
trouble to recover, and that attacked and destroyed an alien vessel that'd
secretly landed and dove down there.
The 'bot had a companion, too, another, less-loaded-for-bear 'bot,
although I don't remember why.
The title was something like "Him", or maybe "It", and I was thinking it
was by Asimov, but couldn't find it by title when checking the Asimov site
and Wikipedia just now.
--
In their brief time together Slothrop forms
the impression that this octopus is not in
good mental health, though where's his basis
for comparing?
< _Gravity's Rainbow_
Michael Stemper
>The classic "aliens invade our seas, not the land" story is of course
>John Wyndham's "Out of the Deeps" AKA "The Kraken Wakes."
I had already known about _The Chrysalids_/_Re-Birth_. When I went to
the isfdb to confirm that _The Day of the Triffids_ had a variant
title, I was astounded to see how many of Wyndham's works have been
retitled.
Why did he get retitled so often?
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
Mike Schilling
> In article
> <3119fb43-ae22-445a...@p23g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>,
> Bruce <bam...@yahoo.com> writes:
>> The classic "aliens invade our seas, not the land" story is of
>> course
>> John Wyndham's "Out of the Deeps" AKA "The Kraken Wakes."
>
> I had already known about _The Chrysalids_/_Re-Birth_. When I went
> to
> the isfdb to confirm that _The Day of the Triffids_ had a variant
> title, I was astounded to see how many of Wyndham's works have been
> retitled.
>
> Why did he get retitled so often?
Same reason as Wodehouse, I'd expect -- the British and American
publishers had different ideas about titles that would sell.
Anthony Nance
> In article <3119fb43-ae22-445a...@p23g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>, Bruce <bam...@yahoo.com> writes:
>>The classic "aliens invade our seas, not the land" story is of course
>>John Wyndham's "Out of the Deeps" AKA "The Kraken Wakes."
>
> I had already known about _The Chrysalids_/_Re-Birth_. When I went to
> the isfdb to confirm that _The Day of the Triffids_ had a variant
> title, I was astounded to see how many of Wyndham's works have been
> retitled.
>
> Why did he get retitled so often?
I think it happened to a lot of UK authors of that period.
Check out Aldiss and Clarke, for example. I don't know
the reasons/mechanisms behind it, but I'd guess others do.
(I think some reasons have been put forth here before, but
I can't match the ones I'm thinking of to people posting here.)
Tony
Michael Stemper
>There was an interesting short-short once, only two or three pages, about
>a deep-sea (Philippine Deep, IIRC) anti-submarine robot, left over from a
>global conflict, that had refused to come in or would've been too much
>trouble to recover, and that attacked and destroyed an alien vessel that'd
>secretly landed and dove down there.
Depending upon when it was written, this story could either be a precursor
of, or inspired by, one (or more) of Laumer's Bolo stories.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
No animals were harmed in the composition of this message.
Matt Hughes
> I think it happened to a lot of UK authors of that period.
It also works the other way around, apparently. One of the British tv
channels showed "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" the other night,
but the title was "Harold and Kumar Get the Munchies."
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
David Johnston
(Michael Stemper) wrote:
>In article <3119fb43-ae22-445a...@p23g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>, Bruce <bam...@yahoo.com> writes:
>>The classic "aliens invade our seas, not the land" story is of course
>>John Wyndham's "Out of the Deeps" AKA "The Kraken Wakes."
>
>I had already known about _The Chrysalids_/_Re-Birth_. When I went to
>the isfdb to confirm that _The Day of the Triffids_ had a variant
>title, I was astounded to see how many of Wyndham's works have been
>retitled.
>
>Why did he get retitled so often?
He has weird titles. Chrysalids? Triffids? Those aren't even really
words.
Matt Hughes
> He has weird titles. Chrysalids? Triffids? Those aren't even really words.
Chrysalid is. It's the cocoon that moths and butterflies wrap around
themselves when they get tired of being caterpillars. Though triffid
is a made-up word.
Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos was renamed Village of the Damned for
the US market. I think the US publisher thought that most Americans
wouldn't know what cuckoos do with other birds' nests. The British
are more into birdwatching, apparently. Still, the renaming might
cause a reader to assume there was a religious element to the story,
though there wasn't. Invasion of the Womb Squatters would have been
more accurate.
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On Aug 7, 7:53 pm, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>
>> He has weird titles. Chrysalids? Triffids? Those aren't even really words.
>
> Chrysalid is. It's the cocoon that moths and butterflies wrap around
> themselves when they get tired of being caterpillars.
That's ChrysalIS for butterflies, cocoon for moths; at least that's how
I've always seen it.
How he morphed that to Chrysalid I don't know.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Ilya2
> that takes place back on earth) involves hostile aliens in the oceans.
SPOILER:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Hostile aliens in "Across the Sea of Suns" are more like bioweapons,
or equivalent of attack dogs sent by the never-seen controlling alien
intelligence. And some of them manage to break their programming and
to side with humans.
Szymon Sokół
> Matt Hughes wrote:
>> On Aug 7, 7:53 pm, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>>
>>> He has weird titles. Chrysalids? Triffids? Those aren't even really words.
>>
>> Chrysalid is. It's the cocoon that moths and butterflies wrap around
>> themselves when they get tired of being caterpillars.
>
> That's ChrysalIS for butterflies, cocoon for moths; at least that's how
> I've always seen it.
>
> How he morphed that to Chrysalid I don't know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysalid
--
Szymon Sokďż˝ (SS316-RIPE) -- Network Manager B
Computer Center, AGH - University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland O
http://home.agh.edu.pl/szymon/ PGP key id: RSA: 0x2ABE016B, DSS: 0xF9289982 F
Free speech includes the right not to listen, if not interested -- Heinlein H
Matt Hughes
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> That's ChrysalIS for butterflies, cocoon for moths; at least that's how
> I've always seen it.
You know, there are other strains of English besides the American.
Chrysalid is a variant of chrysalis.
Cite from Chambers Dictionary: "chrysalis or chrysalid noun
(chrysalises or chrysalides) 1 the pupa of insects that undergo
metamorphosis, eg butterflies, moths. 2 the protective case that
surrounds the pupa.
ETYMOLOGY: 17c: from Greek chrysallis, from chrysos gold."
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Szymon Sokół
> Matt Hughes wrote:
>> On Aug 7, 7:53 pm, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>>
>>> He has weird titles. Chrysalids? Triffids? Those aren't even really words.
>>
>> Chrysalid is. It's the cocoon that moths and butterflies wrap around
>> themselves when they get tired of being caterpillars.
>
> That's ChrysalIS for butterflies, cocoon for moths; at least that's how
> I've always seen it.
>
> How he morphed that to Chrysalid I don't know.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysalid>
"A chrysalis (Latin chrysallis, from Greek χρυσαλλίς = chrysallís,
pl: chrysalides)"
So, he just dropped "e".
--
Szymon Sokół (SS316-RIPE) -- Network Manager B
Chris Thompson
> Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos was renamed Village of the Damned for
> the US market. I think the US publisher thought that most Americans
> wouldn't know what cuckoos do with other birds' nests. The British
> are more into birdwatching, apparently.
The mind, to coin a phrase, boggles. Do Americans not understand the
derivation of the word "cuckold"?
"The Midwich Red-haired Stepchildren", maybe? :-)
> Still, the renaming might
> cause a reader to assume there was a religious element to the story,
> though there wasn't. Invasion of the Womb Squatters would have been
> more accurate.
As I recall, they didn't squat there any longer than naturally
conceived human beings do.
--
Chris Thompson
Email: cet1 [at] cam.ac.uk
Matt Hughes
> As I recall, they didn't squat there any longer than naturally
> conceived human beings do.
My memory of it is that the gestation of the Midwich Cuckoos was
actually shorter than the human, just as they grew much faster after
they were born.
As for the American grasp of the origin of "cuckold", I think I could
make money betting against your average US MITS making the connection
to cuckoo. The American connotation for cuckoo is insanity.
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Wayne Throop
:: the US market. I think the US publisher thought that most Americans
:: wouldn't know what cuckoos do with other birds' nests. The British
:: are more into birdwatching, apparently.
: Chris Thompson <ce...@cam.ac.uk>
: The mind, to coin a phrase, boggles. Do Americans not understand the
: derivation of the word "cuckold"?
Would that matter much? It seems more directly matched to the bird,
while the derivation for cuckold takes it a bit farther from the case
at hand.
: "The Midwich Red-haired Stepchildren", maybe? :-)
I would have thought it was more like the bird; ie, neither of the
caregiver birds are related to the cuckoo chick at all.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Dorothy J Heydt
Chris Thompson <ce...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>Matt Hughes wrote:
>
>> Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos was renamed Village of the Damned for
>> the US market. I think the US publisher thought that most Americans
>> wouldn't know what cuckoos do with other birds' nests. The British
>> are more into birdwatching, apparently.
We don't *have* cuckoos in the US. If someone had said
"cowbirds", which we do have and which have the same habits,
*some* Americans would have understood, but most not, because
we mostly live in cities and, as you say, aren't much into
birdwatching.
>The mind, to coin a phrase, boggles. Do Americans not understand the
>derivation of the word "cuckold"?
Probably not. As I said above, we don't have cuckoos.
I have encountered the word "cuckold" many many times, always
in British writings. I don't know if the US has any
generalized term for the man whose wife has cheated on him.
>
>"The Midwich Red-haired Stepchildren", maybe? :-)
Nope, that won't work either. We know "stepchild" as a
metaphor for someone who is scorned and abused but is
essentially a better person and will eventually win out.
Cinderella, e.g. And "red-headed" as a pejorative isn't a
USian concept at all. Red hair is rather admired (it's
pretty!), particularly in women (because there's an
undercover supposition that redheaded women are particularly
wild, including in bed).
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Bill Snyder
Heydt) wrote:
>>"The Midwich Red-haired Stepchildren", maybe? :-)
>
>Nope, that won't work either. We know "stepchild" as a
>metaphor for someone who is scorned and abused but is
>essentially a better person and will eventually win out.
>Cinderella, e.g. And "red-headed" as a pejorative isn't a
>USian concept at all. Red hair is rather admired (it's
>pretty!), particularly in women (because there's an
>undercover supposition that redheaded women are particularly
>wild, including in bed).
Um, I'm reasonably sure I grew up in the US, and in fairly
provincial redneck territory, even. And I can remember a common
jocular threat in my boyhood being, "I'm gonna beat you like a
red-headed stepchild."
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
Szymon Sokół
> Um, I'm reasonably sure I grew up in the US, and in fairly
> provincial redneck territory, even. And I can remember a common
> jocular threat in my boyhood being, "I'm gonna beat you like a
> red-headed stepchild."
There is that old (at least medieval) prejudice against redheads stemming
from the belief that Judas was a redhead and therefore all redheads are
prone to treachery and double-dealing. Probably mostly forgotten.
--
Szymon Sokďż˝ (SS316-RIPE) -- Network Manager B
Derek Lyons
>>"The Midwich Red-haired Stepchildren", maybe? :-)
>
>Nope, that won't work either. We know "stepchild" as a
>metaphor for someone who is scorned and abused but is
>essentially a better person and will eventually win out.
>Cinderella, e.g. And "red-headed" as a pejorative isn't a
>USian concept at all.
For not being a US concept, it certainly is widely used in the US.
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
Dorothy J Heydt
Fascinating. I sit corrected. What part of redneck country
did you come from? I suppose the term could have been old
enough to come over with early settlers in the Southeast; I
can only say that you're the first USian I ever encountered
who knew it other than from (British) books.
Kurt Busiek
> In article <q88p75ppcq5mnn2do...@4ax.com>,
> Bill Snyder <bsn...@airmail.net> wrote:
>> On Fri, 7 Aug 2009 21:33:50 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>> Heydt) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>> "The Midwich Red-haired Stepchildren", maybe? :-)
>>>
>>> Nope, that won't work either. We know "stepchild" as a
>>> metaphor for someone who is scorned and abused but is
>>> essentially a better person and will eventually win out.
>>> Cinderella, e.g. And "red-headed" as a pejorative isn't a
>>> USian concept at all. Red hair is rather admired (it's
>>> pretty!), particularly in women (because there's an
>>> undercover supposition that redheaded women are particularly
>>> wild, including in bed).
>>
>> Um, I'm reasonably sure I grew up in the US, and in fairly
>> provincial redneck territory, even. And I can remember a common
>> jocular threat in my boyhood being, "I'm gonna beat you like a
>> red-headed stepchild."
>
> Fascinating. I sit corrected. What part of redneck country
> did you come from? I suppose the term could have been old
> enough to come over with early settlers in the Southeast; I
> can only say that you're the first USian I ever encountered
> who knew it other than from (British) books.
I alwas thought "red-headed stepchild" had nothing to do with reheads
being unattractive, but with redheads being thought to be children of
extramarital affairs. Something like the Farkel Family on Laugh-In.
But I certainly knew the phrase, and associated it with use in the US.
kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!
David Johnston
<arch...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>On Aug 7, 7:53�pm, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>
>> He has weird titles. �Chrysalids? �Triffids? �Those aren't even really words. �
>
>Chrysalid is. It's the cocoon that moths and butterflies wrap around
>themselves when they get tired of being caterpillars. T
No, that's a "Chrysalis"
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> Matt Hughes wrote:
>
>> Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos was renamed Village of the Damned for
>> the US market. I think the US publisher thought that most Americans
>> wouldn't know what cuckoos do with other birds' nests. The British
>> are more into birdwatching, apparently.
>
> The mind, to coin a phrase, boggles. Do Americans not understand the
> derivation of the word "cuckold"?
I would bet that 90%+ of Americans younger than, say, 30, don't know
the WORD "cuckold".
Bill Snyder
Heydt) wrote:
>In article <q88p75ppcq5mnn2do...@4ax.com>,
>Bill Snyder <bsn...@airmail.net> wrote:
>>On Fri, 7 Aug 2009 21:33:50 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>>Heydt) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>"The Midwich Red-haired Stepchildren", maybe? :-)
>>>
>>>Nope, that won't work either. We know "stepchild" as a
>>>metaphor for someone who is scorned and abused but is
>>>essentially a better person and will eventually win out.
>>>Cinderella, e.g. And "red-headed" as a pejorative isn't a
>>>USian concept at all. Red hair is rather admired (it's
>>>pretty!), particularly in women (because there's an
>>>undercover supposition that redheaded women are particularly
>>>wild, including in bed).
>>
>>Um, I'm reasonably sure I grew up in the US, and in fairly
>>provincial redneck territory, even. And I can remember a common
>>jocular threat in my boyhood being, "I'm gonna beat you like a
>>red-headed stepchild."
>
>Fascinating. I sit corrected. What part of redneck country
>did you come from? I suppose the term could have been old
>enough to come over with early settlers in the Southeast; I
>can only say that you're the first USian I ever encountered
>who knew it other than from (British) books.
Northeast Louisiana (it's the southern part of the state that's
got Cajuns; the north has rednecks).
Somewhat to my surprise, I find numerous mentions of the US use of
"red-headed stepchild" on the 'net, including a fair number
involving beating of same, tho' I've so far at least found no
particularly convincing explanation of the origin. In fact, it
appears in the tv-tropes list, which says it was used on "Buffy
the Vampire Slayer" -- but there I go making a pop-culture
reference. Anyway, for a sample:
<http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedHeadedStepChild>
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/since-when-is-a-red-headed-stepchild-a-double-negative/article1238748/>
<http://en.allexperts.com/q/Literature-697/Origin-Phrase.htm>
<http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/39824>
<http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_did_the_phrase_%27beat_you_like_a_red-headed_stepchild%27_come_from_and_what_does_it_mean>
Doug Wickstr�m
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>Chris Thompson wrote:
>> Matt Hughes wrote:
>>
>>> Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos was renamed Village of the Damned for
>>> the US market. I think the US publisher thought that most Americans
>>> wouldn't know what cuckoos do with other birds' nests. The British
>>> are more into birdwatching, apparently.
>>
>> The mind, to coin a phrase, boggles. Do Americans not understand the
>> derivation of the word "cuckold"?
>
> I would bet that 90%+ of Americans younger than, say, 30, don't know
>the WORD "cuckold".
There's also the part about North American cuckoos not doing the
other birds nests thing. Lots of cuckoos in the world, but
apparently only the "common," or Eurasian cuckoo lays its eggs in
other birds nests.
Wayne Throop
:: themselves when they get tired of being caterpillars.
: David Johnston <da...@block.net>
: No, that's a "Chrysalis"
The dictionary seems to disagree with you.
About the "no" part, not the "that's a Crysalis" part.
Chrysalid Chrys"a*lid, a.
Pertaining to a chrysalis; resembling a chrysalis.
[1913 Webster]
Chrysalid Chrys"a*lid, n.; pl. Chrysalids.
See Chrysalis.
[1913 Webster]
Derek Lyons
>In article <q88p75ppcq5mnn2do...@4ax.com>,
>Bill Snyder <bsn...@airmail.net> wrote:
>
>>Um, I'm reasonably sure I grew up in the US, and in fairly
>>provincial redneck territory, even. And I can remember a common
>>jocular threat in my boyhood being, "I'm gonna beat you like a
>>red-headed stepchild."
>
>Fascinating. I sit corrected. What part of redneck country
>did you come from? I suppose the term could have been old
>enough to come over with early settlers in the Southeast; I
>can only say that you're the first USian I ever encountered
>who knew it other than from (British) books.
Make that two... Though I grew up in red neck country also (North
Carolina), the phrase was quite common in the Navy as well.
Bruce
>
> What immediately comes to my mind is "Creatures of the Abyss" by
> Murray Leinster.
>
> Bill
Not sure I've read that one - brief synopsis?
Bruce
Bruce
> "Bruce" <bam1...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:3119fb43-ae22-445a...@p23g2000vbl.googlegroups.com...> The classic "aliens invade our seas, not the land" story is of course
> > John Wyndham's "Out of the Deeps" AKA "The Kraken Wakes."
>
>
> > Bruce
>
> ]
>
> A very recent German edition to this niche genre called the _Swarm_ by Frank
> Schatzing
>
> and a personal two personal favorites,
>
> Warriors of the Rainbow by A.D. Harvey... the hive minds of ant colonies and
> whales conspire against our species...really cool.
>
> Also Alexander Jablokov's _Deeper Sea_ features malign whales....
Hm - these are all native terrestrial species, no?
Bruce
Ahasuerus
> In article <q88p75ppcq5mnn2dopamo8pgv30vbbi...@4ax.com>,
> Bill Snyder <bsny...@airmail.net> wrote:
> >On Fri, 7 Aug 2009 21:33:50 GMT, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
> >Heydt) wrote:
>
> >>>"The Midwich Red-haired Stepchildren", maybe? :-)
>
> >>Nope, that won't work either. We know "stepchild" as a
> >>metaphor for someone who is scorned and abused but is
> >>essentially a better person and will eventually win out.
> >>Cinderella, e.g. And "red-headed" as a pejorative isn't a
> >>USian concept at all. Red hair is rather admired (it's
> >>pretty!), particularly in women (because there's an
> >>undercover supposition that redheaded women are particularly
> >>wild, including in bed).
>
> >Um, I'm reasonably sure I grew up in the US, and in fairly
> >provincial redneck territory, even. And I can remember a common
> >jocular threat in my boyhood being, "I'm gonna beat you like a
> >red-headed stepchild."
>
> Fascinating. I sit corrected. What part of redneck country
> did you come from? I suppose the term could have been old
> enough to come over with early settlers in the Southeast; I
> can only say that you're the first USian I ever encountered
> who knew it other than from (British) books.
It's not particularly common, but it's not unknown either and a quick
scan of books.google.com finds many hits in USian books, speeches,
etc.
"Cuckold", on the other hand, is definitely "bookish" in the US and
the connection with cuckoos is fairly obscure. The American Heritage
Dictionary finds it necessary to explain that (http://
dictionary.reference.com/browse/cuckold): "The female of some Old
World cuckoos lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, leaving them
to be cared for by the resident nesters. This parasitic tendency has
given the female bird a figurative reputation for unfaithfulness as
well" since "The allusion to the cuckoo on which the word cuckold is
based may not be appreciated by those unfamiliar with the nesting
habits of certain varieties of this bird."
Wayne Throop
: "Cuckold", on the other hand, is definitely "bookish" in the US and
: the connection with cuckoos is fairly obscure. The American Heritage
: Dictionary finds it necessary to explain that (http://
: dictionary.reference.com/browse/cuckold): "The female of some Old
: World cuckoos lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, leaving them
: to be cared for by the resident nesters. This parasitic tendency has
: given the female bird a figurative reputation for unfaithfulness as
: well" since "The allusion to the cuckoo on which the word cuckold is
: based may not be appreciated by those unfamiliar with the nesting
: habits of certain varieties of this bird."
FWIW, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo's_Egg_(novel)
seemed to do OK in the US.
As I say, I expect using "cuckoo" directly without worrying
about any connection to cuckold would work out just fine,
even in the culturally backwards US, where nobody, apparently,
has ever heard of the philosopher's stone.
Mike Schilling
>>>
>>> Um, I'm reasonably sure I grew up in the US, and in fairly
>>> provincial redneck territory, even. And I can remember a common
>>> jocular threat in my boyhood being, "I'm gonna beat you like a
>>> red-headed stepchild."
>>
>> Fascinating. I sit corrected. What part of redneck country
>> did you come from? I suppose the term could have been old
>> enough to come over with early settlers in the Southeast; I
>> can only say that you're the first USian I ever encountered
>> who knew it other than from (British) books.
>
> Northeast Louisiana (it's the southern part of the state that's
> got Cajuns; the north has rednecks).
>
> Somewhat to my surprise, I find numerous mentions of the US use of
> "red-headed stepchild" on the 'net, including a fair number
> involving beating of same, tho' I've so far at least found no
> particularly convincing explanation of the origin. In fact, it
> appears in the tv-tropes list, which says it was used on "Buffy
> the Vampire Slayer" -- but there I go making a pop-culture
> reference. Anyway, for a sample:
Well, a red-headed stepchild
Ain't got nothing in the world these days
-- Red-headed Stepchild Blues
Robert A. Woodward
<21c13d50-e0d5-40a8...@z28g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>
,
Bruce <bam...@yahoo.com> wrote:
According to Donald Tuck's _Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and
Fantasy_: "Beings at the bottom of the Luzon Deep try to take over
the world."
_Creatures of the Abyss_ was a 1961 paperback from Berkley.
--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>
Rebecca Rice
Actually, that's an interesting question. I don't think a
lot of Americans know what "cuckold" means... it's not a
commonly used word outside of Regency romance novels over
here. But those who do know the word's meaning probably do
know the association with cuckoos.
Rebecca
Peter Meilinger
> In article
> <21c13d50-e0d5-40a8-8eb8-01b6774ba...@z28g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>
> Bruce <bam1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > What immediately comes to my mind is "Creatures of the Abyss" by
> > > Murray Leinster.
>
>
> According to Donald Tuck's _Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and
> Fantasy_: "Beings at the bottom of the Luzon Deep try to take over
> the world."
Luckily a team of plucky scientists is around to stop them,
though I don't remember exactly how. I do remember there
was a giant squid sent up to attack the scientists, and I
love me a giant squid attack.
I don't remember much about this one, but I did like
it. I'll have to dig it out and give it another look.
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>We don't *have* cuckoos in the US. If someone had said
>"cowbirds", which we do have and which have the same habits,
>*some* Americans would have understood, but most not, because
>we mostly live in cities and, as you say, aren't much into
>birdwatching.
I think more Americans are aware of the habits of cuckoos than of
cowbirds. So many aren't bird watchers, so what we know is from
popular culture, either TV or literature, and the behavior of cuckoos
is well represented there. Cowbirds are less well documented.
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
W. Citoan
>
> "Cuckold", on the other hand, is definitely "bookish" in the US and
> the connection with cuckoos is fairly obscure.
Er, do a Google search on the term. In the US, I certainly wouldn't
call it bookish. In fact, the US population segment that knows that
term the most probably doesn't have a large overlap with the book
reading segment.
- W. Citoan
--
If Bill Gates had a dime for every time a Windows box crashed...oh, wait a
minute - he already does.
-- Anonymous
Kurt Busiek
> On Fri, 7 Aug 2009 21:33:50 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
> wrote:
>
>> We don't *have* cuckoos in the US. If someone had said
>> "cowbirds", which we do have and which have the same habits,
>> *some* Americans would have understood, but most not, because
>> we mostly live in cities and, as you say, aren't much into
>> birdwatching.
>
> I think more Americans are aware of the habits of cuckoos than of
> cowbirds. So many aren't bird watchers, so what we know is from
> popular culture, either TV or literature, and the behavior of cuckoos
> is well represented there. Cowbirds are less well documented.
I can confirm that. I know what cuckoos do; I only know cowbirds from
the POGO comic strip.
Sean O'Hara
declared:
>
> I alwas thought "red-headed stepchild" had nothing to do with reheads
> being unattractive, but with redheads being thought to be children of
> extramarital affairs. Something like the Farkel Family on Laugh-In.
>
What does it matter if your *step*child is the product of an
extramarital affair? He's not your kid one way or the other.
--
Sean O'Hara <http://www.diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com>
New audio book: As Long as You Wish by John O'Keefe
<http://librivox.org/short-science-fiction-collection-010/>
Sean O'Hara
declared:
> On Aug 7, 7:53 pm, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>
>> He has weird titles. Chrysalids? Triffids? Those aren't even really words.
>
> is a made-up word.
>
> Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos was renamed Village of the Damned for
> the US market. I think the US publisher thought that most Americans
> wouldn't know what cuckoos do with other birds' nests.
ISFDB says the title "Village of the Damned" wasn't used until 1960,
which would make it a tie-in edition for the movie. The film was a
British production and "Village of the Damned" was its title in the
UK and US. Blaming Americans for the retitling is unwarranted.
Kurt Busiek
> In the Year of the Earth Ox, the Great and Powerful Kurt Busiek declared:
>>
>> I alwas thought "red-headed stepchild" had nothing to do with reheads
>> being unattractive, but with redheads being thought to be children of
>> extramarital affairs. Something like the Farkel Family on Laugh-In.
>
> What does it matter if your *step*child is the product of an
> extramarital affair? He's not your kid one way or the other.
Stepchildren have a birthright, at least. Bastard stepchilden don't --
or if they have one it may be resented as unwarranted.
None of it makes logical sense -- if the guy doing the beating is angry
because he thinks his wife wasn't faithful to her previous husband, it
still doesn't make sense to take it out on the kid. But the idea that
red hair (in an otherwise non-redheaded family) was a sign of a child
being born of adultery is a pretty old one, and the idea that
"redheaded stepchild" is about assumed adultery rather than merely the
child's looks comes up reasonably often:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=red+headed+stepchild
I
suppose the idea might be that a child born of adultery is being
thought of as a stepchild even if he/she was born during the marriage;
he/she is the mother's child but not the father's. So a
stepchild-by-marriage is a freely-entered-into obligation, and a
redheaded stepchild is a sign of shame.
But I never dug into it that far.
Sean O'Hara
declared:
> In article <h5i309$953$1...@gemini.csx.cam.ac.uk>,
> Chris Thompson <ce...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Matt Hughes wrote:
>>
>>> Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos was renamed Village of the Damned for
>>> the US market. I think the US publisher thought that most Americans
>>> are more into birdwatching, apparently.
>
Yes we do. In fact, one of the most famous Looney Tunes characters
is one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geococcyx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wile_E._Coyote_and_Road_Runner
However, only three species of New World cuckoos practice
forced-fostering.
>> "The Midwich Red-haired Stepchildren", maybe? :-)
>
> Nope, that won't work either. We know "stepchild" as a
> metaphor for someone who is scorned and abused but is
> essentially a better person and will eventually win out.
> Cinderella, e.g. And "red-headed" as a pejorative isn't a
> USian concept at all. Red hair is rather admired (it's
> pretty!), particularly in women (because there's an
> undercover supposition that redheaded women are particularly
> wild, including in bed).
"Red-headed stepchild" is a common idiom.
Greg Goss
>Actually, that's an interesting question. I don't think a
>lot of Americans know what "cuckold" means... it's not a
>commonly used word outside of Regency romance novels over
>here. But those who do know the word's meaning probably do
"not"
>know the association with cuckoos.
I didn't.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
Greg Goss
>Northeast Louisiana (it's the southern part of the state that's
>got Cajuns; the north has rednecks).
Jeff Foxworthy points out that his wife comes from Cajun country.
"That's rednecks with hot sauce."
Mike Schilling
> Bill Snyder <bsn...@airmail.net> wrote:
>
>> Northeast Louisiana (it's the southern part of the state that's
>> got Cajuns; the north has rednecks).
>
> Jeff Foxworthy points out that his wife comes from Cajun country.
> "That's rednecks with hot sauce."
Shouldn't that be "Them's rednecks ...".
PV
>Um, I'm reasonably sure I grew up in the US, and in fairly
>provincial redneck territory, even. And I can remember a common
>jocular threat in my boyhood being, "I'm gonna beat you like a
>red-headed stepchild."
But that's not because of any prejudice against redheads or stepchildren.
The implication, I think, is that the child is the outcome of the wife's
affair, with a haircolor that neither parent has making it all the more
obvious. *
--
* PV Something like badgers, something like lizards, and something
like corkscrews.
PV
>I alwas thought "red-headed stepchild" had nothing to do with reheads
>being unattractive, but with redheads being thought to be children of
>extramarital affairs. Something like the Farkel Family on Laugh-In.
Exactly. It's not an uncommon phrase, I'm surprised Dorothy has never
encountered it. *
PV
>What does it matter if your *step*child is the product of an
>extramarital affair? He's not your kid one way or the other.
He's your stepchild BECAUSE of the affair. Get it? *
Matt Hughes
> ISFDB says the title "Village of the Damned" wasn't used until 1960,
> which would make it a tie-in edition for the movie. The film was a
> British production and "Village of the Damned" was its title in the
> UK and US. Blaming Americans for the retitling is unwarranted.
No blame was intended, merely a conjectured explanation. However, it
appears that Americans were, let us say, "responsible" for the
renaming, if Wikipedia has it right:
"The film was originally an American picture when preproduction began
in 1957. Ronald Colman was contracted for the leading role, but MGM
shelved the project, deeming it inflammatory and controversial because
of the sinister depiction of virgin birth."
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Wayne Throop
: He's your stepchild BECAUSE of the affair. Get it?
No. No I don't. The meaning I thought "stepchild" had, which seems
to be confirmed with a quick check of a dictionary, has nothing at all
to do with whether there has been an affair; that is to say, an
affair is neither necessary nor sufficient to categorize a person
as a "stepchild".
Wayne Throop
: It's not an uncommon phrase, I'm surprised Dorothy
: has never encountered it.
Eh. I never encountered it either.
Formative years in western Pennsylvania.
Jack Bohn
>On Aug 7, 7:53�pm, David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:
>
>> He has weird titles. �Chrysalids? �Triffids? �Those aren't even really words. �
>
>Chrysalid is. It's the cocoon that moths and butterflies wrap around
>themselves when they get tired of being caterpillars. Though triffid
>is a made-up word.
Having chewed up chrysalid and cuckoo... Is "triffid" invented to
suggest some three-part structure, maybe the leaf or flower of
the plant? Or was the meteor shower associated with the plants
from the [section of the sky containing the] Trifid Nebula?
--
-Jack
Kurt Busiek
> Kurt Busiek <ku...@busiek.com> writes:
>> I alwas thought "red-headed stepchild" had nothing to do with reheads
>> being unattractive, but with redheads being thought to be children of
>> extramarital affairs. Something like the Farkel Family on Laugh-In.
>
> Exactly. It's not an uncommon phrase, I'm surprised Dorothy has never
> encountered it. *
I'm not. Dorothy has, largely by choice and taste, walled herself off
from much popular culture and entertainment of the last 50 years or so,
except for her specific areas of interest.
Nothing wrong with that, but it does create a lot of open areas between
Dorothy's cultural-knowledge pool and the general one.
Kurt Busiek
That doesn't actually indicate that the title was changed before MGM
shelved it.
By the time the movie was actually made, it was a British production,
and at what point in the process the title was changed, we don't seem
to know.
Could have been when the film was completely done, and some marketing
guy said, "We want to signal that it's a horror movie. Can we get
"damned" in the title?"
"The Damned Cuckoos?"
"Yeah, try again."
Jo'Asia
> Having chewed up chrysalid and cuckoo... Is "triffid" invented to
> suggest some three-part structure, maybe the leaf or flower of
> the plant? Or was the meteor shower associated with the plants
> from the [section of the sky containing the] Trifid Nebula?
IIRC the name came from triffids's three "legs". See
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffid>.
Jo'Asia
--
__.-=-. -< Joanna Slupek >----------------------< http://esensja.pl/ >-
--<()> -< joasia @ hell . pl >------< http://bujold.fantastyka.net/ >-
.__.'| -< What kind of sicko would space a *teddy bear*?
{Space Cases} >-
Matt Hughes
> Could have been when the film was completely done, and some marketing
> guy said, "We want to signal that it's a horror movie. Can we get
> "damned" in the title?"
This may be one of life's open-ended mysteries, like why millions of
people went out and bought The Da Vinci Code.
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Howard Brazee
>Bill Snyder <bsn...@airmail.net> writes:
>>Um, I'm reasonably sure I grew up in the US, and in fairly
>>provincial redneck territory, even. And I can remember a common
>>jocular threat in my boyhood being, "I'm gonna beat you like a
>>red-headed stepchild."
>
>But that's not because of any prejudice against redheads or stepchildren.
>The implication, I think, is that the child is the outcome of the wife's
>affair, with a haircolor that neither parent has making it all the more
>obvious. *
There also was a stereotype that redheads were more rambunctious.
Kurt Busiek
Indeed.
Matt Hughes
> There also was a stereotype that redheads were more rambunctious.
It has been established (there was something recently in the New York
Times), that red-haired people require twenty per cent more general
anesthetic than the rest of us, and that they are less responsible to
dental local anaesthetics like novocaine. I haven't seen any evidence
that they're more sensitive to sexual stimuli, but I would have
volunteered to be part of the groundbreaking study, if it had happened
before I became decrepit.
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Ahasuerus
> Ahasuerus wrote:
> [snip]
> > "Cuckold", on the other hand, is definitely "bookish" in the US and
> > the connection with cuckoos is fairly obscure.
>
> Er, do a Google search on the term. In the US, I certainly wouldn't
> call it bookish. In fact, the US population segment that knows that
> term the most probably doesn't have a large overlap with the book
> reading segment.
A Google search finds an article (http://www.nvcc.edu/home/vpoulakis/
translation/tartuffetr2.htm) by one "Victoria Poulakis, now Professor
Emerita, formerly Professor of English, at Northern Virginia Community
College" (http://www.nvcc.edu/home/vpoulakis/translation/home.htm),
who writes that "cuckold [is] a word commonly used in British English
to refer to a man whose wife has been unfaithful" and that "references
to cuckolds and horns aren't commonly used in modern American English".
Ahasuerus
Additional googling suggests that there is something known as a
"cuckold lifestyle", e.g. http://www.wikiafterdark.com/index.php/The_Cuckold_Lifestyle
claims that "A lot of men get very turned on by the thought of their
wives having sex with another man, either in front of them or as part
of a three way or gang bang situation. Their partners are also very
into either the fantasy or the reality of having sex with other men as
well."
Assuming that this "US population segment" is non-negligible and that
it doesn't read British books, there may exist potential for rather
peculiar misunderstandings ("Oh, so you are familiar with the term as
well...")
Mike Schilling
>> pv+u...@pobox.com (PV)
>> It's not an uncommon phrase, I'm surprised Dorothy
>> has never encountered it.
>
> Eh. I never encountered it either.
> Formative years in western Pennsylvania.
Me too, in Northern CA (same location as Dorothy, though I'm a bit
younger).
Mike Schilling
>> pv+u...@pobox.com (PV)
>> He's your stepchild BECAUSE of the affair. Get it?
>
> No. No I don't. The meaning I thought "stepchild" had, which seems
> to be confirmed with a quick check of a dictionary, has nothing at
> all
> to do with whether there has been an affair; that is to say, an
> affair is neither necessary nor sufficient to categorize a person
> as a "stepchild".
I've got a stepson (from my wife''s first marriage), and no affair was
involved. Not that he's red-headed (half Korean and half
Italian-American, so naturally most people assume he's Mexican.)
W. Citoan
> On Aug 8, 8:09pm, Ahasuerus <ahasue...@email.com> wrote:
> > On Aug 8, 9:50am, "W. Citoan" <wcit...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Ahasuerus wrote: [snip]
> > > > "Cuckold", on the other hand, is definitely "bookish" in the US
> > > > and the connection with cuckoos is fairly obscure.
> >
> > > Er, do a Google search on the term. In the US, I certainly
> > > wouldn't call it bookish. In fact, the US population segment that
> > > knows that term the most probably doesn't have a large overlap
> > > with the book reading segment.
> >
> > A Google search finds an article
>
> Additional googling suggests that there is something known as a
>
> Assuming that this "US population segment" is non-negligible and that
> it doesn't read British books, there may exist potential for rather
> peculiar misunderstandings ("Oh, so you are familiar with the term as
> well...")
I didn't mean for you to research it. I meant for you to do a Google
search and simply look at the results returned. Wikipedia is first and
then a whole long list of porn sites. The fact that there are so many
sites that use that at a search term aught to tell you that quite a few
people know its porn meaning.
- W. Citoan
--
If Bill Gates had a dime for every time a Windows box crashed...oh, wait a
minute - he already does.
-- Anonymous
Ahasuerus
> ["cuckold" vs. "the cuckold lifestyle" and "cuckold in pornography"]
> I didn't mean for you to research it. I meant for you to do a Google
> search and simply look at the results returned. Wikipedia is first and
> then a whole long list of porn sites. The fact that there are so many
> sites that use that at a search term aught to tell you that quite a few
> people know its porn meaning.
As far as I can tell, it means that (a) these porn folks know how to
ensure that their sites appear on the first page of a Google search
and (b) there are no sites actively selling anything else cuckold-
related :)
tHaving said that, I wonder if there is a way to estimate how many
people first encountered the word in an older and/or UK book vs. on a
porn Web site. I suppose the first challenge will be to get the
respondents to admit that they visit porn sites...
Sean O'Hara
> >
> Having chewed up chrysalid and cuckoo... Is "triffid" invented to
> suggest some three-part structure, maybe the leaf or flower of
> the plant? Or was the meteor shower associated with the plants
> from the [section of the sky containing the] Trifid Nebula?
>
The "meteor shower" wasn't associated with the triffids -- it merely
provided them with an opportunity to run wild, the way a hurricane
might open the door for a cholera outbreak.
The triffids had been named for their three lobed feet -- the second
"f" is there because people mispronounced the name as trif-id.
David DeLaney
>>>provincial redneck territory, even. And I can remember a common
>>>jocular threat in my boyhood being, "I'm gonna beat you like a
>>>red-headed stepchild."
>>
>>did you come from? I suppose the term could have been old
>>enough to come over with early settlers in the Southeast; I
>>can only say that you're the first USian I ever encountered
>>who knew it other than from (British) books.
>
>Make that two... Though I grew up in red neck country also (North
>Carolina), the phrase was quite common in the Navy as well.
There is a book on the SF shelves at Waldenbooks right now, "Red-Headed
Stepchild" by Jaye Wells. (Vampire novel. I'm sort of overstocked on
vampire novels at the moment, and it didn't look spectacular, so I haven't
acquired it.)
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Matt Hughes
> The classic "aliens invade our seas, not the land" story is of course
> John Wyndham's "Out of the Deeps" AKA "The Kraken Wakes."
It has just occurred to me that "The Kraken Wakes" was my first
exposure to science fiction. In 1954, at the age of five, I was
sitting in a barbershop in Wallasey, across the Mersey from Liverpool,
waiting to get my hair cut. The radio was playing the BBC version and
I was listening, horrified, to descriptions of people being rolled up
into balls of flesh and run down to the sea by armored, tentacled
monsters. This had meaning to me because we lived only a hundred
yards from the river and "the sands" was where we played. After that,
whenever we were building sand forts or poking sticks into stranded
Portuguese men-of-war, I kept a wary eye on the water.
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Ahasuerus
[snip]
> There is a book on the SF shelves at Waldenbooks right now, "Red-Headed
...who, when asked "Why do all the vampires have red hair in your
world?", explains (http://jayewells.com/about/) that:
"This is also taken from folklore and the Bible. After Cain killed
Able, he was punished by God. He was sent out to wander alone for the
rest of his days. God marked Cain so that no one would kill him, thus
he regained his immortality in a sense. Again, people have debate what
this marked actually was. Some said it was red hair, which is rare in
the Middle East. Also, in some Eastern European traditions, vampires
were reported to have red hair. So I took these two ideas and decided
all the vampires in this world would have red hair."
cryptoguy
Actually, Wyndham was following in the footsteps of HG Wells:
"The Sea Raiders" & "In the Abyss" (both 1896)
pt
Matt Hughes
> Actually, Wyndham was following in the footsteps of HG Wells:
> "The Sea Raiders" & "In the Abyss" (both 1896)
We're all following in Herbert George's footsteps. The man
singlehandedly invented the time travel, alien invasion, moon landing
and transgenetics tropes, and you could give him credit for near-
future military sf (The War in the Air).
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Mark Bestley
Defintely near future military SF - 'The Land Iron Clads', forecast the
tank (well armoured personel vehicles)
--
Mark
Ahasuerus
> On Aug 9, 4:33 pm, cryptoguy <treifam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Actually, Wyndham was following in the footsteps of HG Wells:
> > "The Sea Raiders" & "In the Abyss" (both 1896)
>
> We're all following in Herbert George's footsteps. The man
> singlehandedly invented the time travel,
Wells invented the time *machine*, rather than time *travel*.
> alien invasion,
Lasswitz beat Wells by a year, but his was a much more benevolent
invasion.
> moon landing
Poe got to the Moon before Wells, although his pseudo-scientific
explanation was more transparently pseudo-scientific that Wells' :-)
> and transgenetics tropes, and you could give him credit for near-
> future military sf (The War in the Air).
"Future War" was a venerable cliche by the time Wells decided to try
his hand at it. It was so hoary that Wodehouse parodied the genre the
following year.
Matt Hughes
You know, if you're going to insist on actual accuracy, this will be a
lot less fun.
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
Howard Brazee
<ahas...@email.com> wrote:
>> We're all following in Herbert George's footsteps. �The man
>> singlehandedly invented the time travel,
>
>Wells invented the time *machine*, rather than time *travel*.
I prefer his method over Mark Twain's method of traveling through
time.
Ahasuerus
> On Sun, 9 Aug 2009 14:06:36 -0700 (PDT), Ahasuerus
>
> >> We're all following in Herbert George's footsteps. The man
> >> singlehandedly invented the time travel,
>
> >Wells invented the time *machine*, rather than time *travel*.
>
> I prefer his method over Mark Twain's method of traveling through time.
Well, it's definitely more comfortable, but I hear it may be accident-
prone and takes a while to master. Anstey's method, which also
predates Wells, is clearly superior.
Ahasuerus
Sorry, force of habit...
Mike Schilling
> Poe got to the Moon before Wells, although his pseudo-scientific
> explanation was more transparently pseudo-scientific that Wells' :-)
And Cyrano before Wells, as everyone nose.
>
>> and transgenetics tropes, and you could give him credit for near-
>> future military sf (The War in the Air).
>
> "Future War" was a venerable cliche by the time Wells decided to try
> his hand at it. It was so hoary that Wodehouse parodied the genre
> the
> following year.
_The Swoop_? That was really "imminent war" with nothing futuristic
about it, as if someone nowadays were taliing about the coming Muslim
takeover of Europe.
Ahasuerus
wrote:
> Ahasuerus wrote: [snip]
> > "Future War" was a venerable cliche by the time Wells decided to try
> > his hand at it. It was so hoary that Wodehouse parodied the genre
> > the following year.
>
> _The Swoop_?
Yes, the first version.
> That was really "imminent war" with nothing futuristic about it, as if
> someone nowadays were taliing about the coming Muslim takeover of Europe.
Most 1890s/1900s stories of "a coming invasion of England" were
realistic "this can happen tomorrow" affairs (see I. F. Clarke's
exhaustive work on the subject.) Wells, on the other hand, set his
novel in the 1910s, which gave technology another decade to develop
and create bigger and better mechanical monsters. The tone of the
second half of book ("and then we all suffer greatly and, for the most
part, die horribly") was also unusual at the time and a significant
departure from Wells' earlier forecast (_Anticipations_, 1902). It was
certainly an important step in the development of the "future war"
genre, but Wells didn't invent it.
William December Starr
thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) said:
> FWIW, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo's_Egg_(novel)
> seemed to do OK in the US.
It was a new C.J. Cherryh book in 1985. It might have
sold almost as well with a title like SCHNORT CLSHYRTSU/.
-- wds
Sean O'Hara
declared:
> Ahasuerus wrote:
>> Poe got to the Moon before Wells, although his pseudo-scientific
>> explanation was more transparently pseudo-scientific that Wells' :-)
>
> And Cyrano before Wells, as everyone nose.
>
>>> and transgenetics tropes, and you could give him credit for near-
>>> future military sf (The War in the Air).
>> "Future War" was a venerable cliche by the time Wells decided to try
>> his hand at it. It was so hoary that Wodehouse parodied the genre
>> the
>> following year.
>
> _The Swoop_? That was really "imminent war" with nothing futuristic
> about it,
And even the "war" part is questionable -- the foreign armies rolled
into London with no opposition save for a lone boy-scout.
But there's no real difference between, say, The Riddle of the Sands
and The Thirty-Nine Steps except that Buchan waited until the war
began to write his book while Childers wrote his three years beforehand.
Mike Schilling
The other Cuckoo's Egg did fine do, and that was a nerd detective
story.
Mike Stone
"mimus" <tinmi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:6uOdnbf9JM7Hy-HX...@giganews.com...
> On Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:02:49 -0700, Bruce wrote:
>
> > The classic "aliens invade our seas, not the land" story is of course
> > John Wyndham's "Out of the Deeps" AKA "The Kraken Wakes."
> >
> > Any others that you would consider interesting reading?
>
Does Dan Dare count?
Iirc, "The Phantom Fleet" (c1958) involved an invasion by "Pescods" who
wanted to colonise Earth's oceans.
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough, England
"Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of
Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work
strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby in the
reservoir, he turns to the cupboard only to find the vodka bottle empty".
P G Wodehouse - Jill the Reckless
David DeLaney
>thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) said:
>> FWIW, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo's_Egg_(novel)
>> seemed to do OK in the US.
>
>It was a new C.J. Cherryh book in 1985. It might have
>sold almost as well with a title like SCHNORT CLSHYRTSU/.
... ... subscirbe?
Dave "I'd give it a second look, at least" DeLaney
Michael Stemper
>Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos was renamed Village of the Damned for
>the US market.
My 1973 Berkley printing isn't renamed that way. The Wells Index shows
one printing with that title, in 1960.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Visualize whirled peas!
William Hyde
wrote:
> In article <3119fb43-ae22-445a-9b17-d53044d7c...@p23g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>, Bruce <bam1...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> >The classic "aliens invade our seas, not the land" story is of course
> >John Wyndham's "Out of the Deeps" AKA "The Kraken Wakes."
>
> the isfdb to confirm that _The Day of the Triffids_ had a variant
> title, I was astounded to see how many of Wyndham's works have been
> retitled.
>
> Why did he get retitled so often?
Because he used words which the publishers, in their wisdom, deemed
too complicated and/or obscure (Kraken, Chrysalid, and Cuckoo in a
way that makes sense only if you don't think this word is a synonym
for "insane").
Too literate, in other words, cf "philosopher's stone".
William Hyde
Robert A. Woodward
"Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Actually, I have vague recollection that was a THIRD _Cuckoo's Egg_
book in print at the time (but I can't remember what it was about -
poetry? essays on wildlife?).
--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>
Joseph Nebus
I can't tell if that title's rot13'd or not, which does match my
experience reading the Chanur novels.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim McDaniel
Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>wds...@panix.com (William December Starr) writes:
>
>>In article <12497...@sheol.org>,
>>thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) said:
>
>>> FWIW, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo's_Egg_(novel)
>>> seemed to do OK in the US.
>
>>It was a new C.J. Cherryh book in 1985. It might have
>>sold almost as well with a title like SCHNORT CLSHYRTSU/.
>
> I can't tell if that title's rot13'd or not, which does match
>my experience reading the Chanur novels.
Excerpted mercilessly from David Langford's "A Very Short Anthology"
at <http://www.ansible.co.uk/writing/drabbles.html>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Did you ever hear of the great Drabble craze that swept over (bits of)
British sf fandom in the late 1980s? Literary historians have traced
the name back to the 1971 Monty Python's Big Red Book: 'Drabble. A
word game for 2 to 4 players. The four players sit from left to right
and the first person to write a novel wins.'
For this to be playable in real time, it had to be rather a short
novel. Brian Aldiss got all excited about what he called 'mini-sagas',
stories of exactly 50 words ... which rash enthusiasm led him into
judging a national newspaper competition and burning out his cortex
reading 33,000 entries (including one from a member of the Royal
Family who confirmed our worst republican hopes by proving unable to
count correctly to 50). A minority of fans thought 50 words a trifle
flabby and verbose: Nick Lowe pioneered the micro-saga of precisely
eight words, and Colin Greenland wrote the definitive specimen,
'Aliens disguised as typewriters? I never heard such -- '
Others -- notably the Birmingham University SF Society, who are to
blame for what follows -- reckoned that 100 words was the most
comfortable figure. This, gentle reader, is the Drabble. (Once again
the word count must be precise, though up to 15 extra are allowed for
a title. 'Hyphenated-words-are-argued-about.') One dark day in 1987 I
wandered into the Novacon convention hall to find it crammed with
people scribbling and counting obsessively on their
fingers. Drabblemania had begun.
...
Along came the Birmingham SF Group's 20th anniversary party, whose
silly programme items included 'Call My Bluff' ... a dictionary game
involving true and fake definitions of obscure words. In the fan
version, of course, they're obscure SF words. My team duly covered
itself with glory (at a British Milford conference years back, Chris
Priest had complained that 'Langford's only good at this because his
style's just like a bloody dictionary anyway.'). Afterwards in the
bar, someone idly wondered whether all that event's daft words could
be used in a single story. Mere pints of beer later....
A Drabble Inspired by Exceedingly Vague Memories of Twentycon's
Call My Bluff Game
Sipping a steaming mug of qujadin, she stared out across the lush
pelki with its gambolling flocks of varelse. Before another
quantch had elapsed, she would have to make her move and tackle
the menace of the rown. Adjusting the strap of her periboob and
pulling on her webbies, she pondered the terrible situation of
this entire fratrin. Could diplomacy save humanity's deodand even
now, or must everything be abandoned to the glotch? Already the
dread sipstrassi were massing for their attack....
'Oh derg,' she swore, 'I can't understand a word of this. It must
be an early Cherryh novel.'
Moriarty
> In article <1249704...@sheol.org>,
> thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) said:
>
> > FWIW,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo's_Egg_(novel)
> > seemed to do OK in the US.
>
> It was a new C.J. Cherryh book in 1985. It might have
> sold almost as well with a title like SCHNORT CLSHYRTSU/.
That's probably true, but I've always thought some authors (and
publishers) do themselves a dis-service by their naming of books with
words that are meaningless outside the context of the book (or
series) itself. Cherryh is one obvious example with _Cyteen_. LMB
is a repeat offender with Barrayar, Komarr and Categenda. I mean,
*I'm* going to buy the next Miles book no matter what's called, but a
book with a title like that is unlikely to attract new readers.
Dammit, now I'm thinking of counter-examples. "The Call of Cthulhu"
is a great title for a horror short story, even if you've never heard
of the big C before.
-Moriarty
Mike Schilling
> On Aug 10, 10:50 am, wdst...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote:
>> In article <1249704...@sheol.org>,
>> thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) said:
>>
>>> FWIW,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo's_Egg_(novel)
>>> seemed to do OK in the US.
>>
>> It was a new C.J. Cherryh book in 1985. It might have
>> sold almost as well with a title like SCHNORT CLSHYRTSU/.
>
> That's probably true, but I've always thought some authors (and
> publishers) do themselves a dis-service by their naming of books with
> words that are meaningless outside the context of the book (or
> series) itself. Cherryh is one obvious example with _Cyteen_. LMB
> is a repeat offender with Barrayar, Komarr and Categenda. I mean,
> *I'm* going to buy the next Miles book no matter what's called, but a
> book with a title like that is unlikely to attract new readers.
When I first became aware of Bujold (from reading The Mountains of Mourning
in an anthology), I saw that her recent books had titles like "Barrayar" and
"The Vor Game", and dismissed her as someone who'd had one idea for a series
and was determined to run it into the ground. It took me a while to realize
that that was a good thing.
Alan Baker
Chris Thompson <ce...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> Matt Hughes wrote:
> > On Aug 7, 7:02 am, Bruce <bam1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> The classic "aliens invade our seas, not the land" story is of course
> >> John Wyndham's "Out of the Deeps" AKA "The Kraken Wakes."
> >>
> >> Any others that you would consider interesting reading?
> >
> > Don't know if there was ever a novel, but the movie The Abyss had an
> > alien life form in the deep sea.
>
> Orson Scott Card wrote the novelization of _The Abyss_ - pretty good
> as such things go.
So good, in fact, that the director of the Abyss promptly told the
actors that the backstories created by Card should be considered canon
for their roles.
>
> Part of Gregory Benford's _Across the Sea of Suns_ (the story thread
> that takes place back on earth) involves hostile aliens in the oceans.
>
> And that brings to mind his much more recent short story "Dark Heaven"
> which has some similarities.
--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
<http://gallery.me.com/alangbaker/100008/DSCF0162/web.jpg>