Authors Going Back To The Well

[David Johnston]

Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such as:

Isaac Asimov: Using mathematics to run a society "rationally".
Lifestyles which involve never going outside or never traveling far from
home.

Larry Niven: Big Dumb Objects. Contrariwise, worlds that are only
habitable in small areas.

John Norman: Slave chicks

Richard Matheson: Men isolated by being the only member of their
species in the world.

Piers Anthony: Rule by a more able oligarchy.

Marion Zimmer Bradley: Segregation of male and female. Heat cycles or
otherwise losing sexual inhibition on a regular cyclic basis.

Robert Heinlein: Handling crime by means of corporal punishment,
banishment or execution, rather than imprisonment. Red headed women.

H.P. Lovecraft: Miscegenation. Body horror. Mental instability.
Humans as "ants".

Frank Herbert: Harsh conditions producing awesome superhuman races.
Mind enhancing psychedelic drugs.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <o0vblm$rk2$1...@dont-email.me>,

David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
>to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
>that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such as:
>

The Jacks, Vance & Chalker would seem to merit study..
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[mcdow...@sky.com]

From E.E.Smith's Skylark and Galactic Patrol series, you can pick out at least psi and a rather teleological view of evolution. Also vitalism, though to some extent that comes with Psi. I dare say you could find more common features.

David Drake's work usually has people making the best of bad situations, typically by concentrating on the job in hand. I am tempted to wonder what would happen of a "safe space" special snowflake happened across some of Drake's work, but I guess the whole point of safe spaces is to avoid it at all costs :-)

[Anthony Nance]

I used "recurring theme" as my mental filter here, rather than
"going back to the well", because the latter has a mildly negative
connotation for me.

Roger Zelazny: gods interacting with humans; immortality; exploring
various mythologies/mythological traditions.

Note: James Lovegrove also does the mythologies thing, but for
various reasons he occupies a very different place in my
head from Zelazny's.

Lawrence Watt-Evans: Pragmatic protagonists who actually use
reasoning, powers of observation, and common sense. (Huzzah!)

Tony

[art...@yahoo.com]

On Monday, November 21, 2016 at 12:42:50 PM UTC-5, David Johnston wrote:
> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
> to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
> that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such as:

Clifford Simak: Religious Robots
Kim Stanley Robinson: Environmental Catastrophes. (Too broad?)

[David Johnston]

"Theme" might be a little too elevated. I mean I wouldn't say the idea
of using mathematics to predict people and run society is a theme of
Isaac Asimov. It's just an idea he used 5 times that I can think of.
The Foundation trilogy, Homo Sol, The Caves of Steel, Franchise...well
maybe four times.

[David Johnston]

On 11/21/2016 11:03 AM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <o0vblm$rk2$1...@dont-email.me>,
> David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
>> to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
>> that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such as:
>>
>
> The Jacks, Vance & Chalker would seem to merit study..
>

Jack Chalker did body and mental transformation. It's trickier to
define just what it is that Jack Vance kept on doing even though his
style was most distinctive.

[James Nicoll]

In article <o0vlad$444$2...@dont-email.me>,

David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On 11/21/2016 11:03 AM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>> In article <o0vblm$rk2$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
>>> to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
>>> that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such as:
>>>
>>
>> The Jacks, Vance & Chalker would seem to merit study..
>>
>
>Jack Chalker did body and mental transformation. It's trickier to
>define just what it is that Jack Vance kept on doing even though his
>style was most distinctive.

The detail that natives deprived of territory should not complain because
no doubt they only got the land by taking it from someone else came in
a surprising fraction of the Vance books the SFBC sent me.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My Livejournal at http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

[Lynn McGuire]

Depends how you feel about Robinson's Mars trilogy converting the ecology from red to blue.

Lynn

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2016 13:27:42 -0700, David Johnston
<Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Jack Chalker did body and mental transformation. It's trickier to
>define just what it is that Jack Vance kept on doing even though his
>style was most distinctive.

Cultural norms (language, etiquette, etc.) as determinative of
behavior.



--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com

[Lynn McGuire]

David Weber: Space aliens destroying the Earth (Dahak and Safehold series)

Lynn

[Steve Coltrin]

begin fnord

David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> writes:

> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I
> want to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and
> themes that that authors have used in multiple more or less separate
> works. Such as:

Gene Rottenberry spent the last two decades of his life flogging
alien/computer/god/thing stories, each one more stupid than the one before.
Far too many of them made it to production.

--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Google Groups killfiled here
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press

[hamis...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 4:42:50 AM UTC+11, David Johnston wrote:
> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
> to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
> that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such as:
>
> Isaac Asimov: Using mathematics to run a society "rationally".
> Lifestyles which involve never going outside or never traveling far from
> home.
>
> Larry Niven: Big Dumb Objects. Contrariwise, worlds that are only
> habitable in small areas.
>
> John Norman: Slave chicks

He had written fiction other than the Gor series?

>
> Richard Matheson: Men isolated by being the only member of their
> species in the world.
>
> Piers Anthony: Rule by a more able oligarchy.
>
> Marion Zimmer Bradley: Segregation of male and female. Heat cycles or
> otherwise losing sexual inhibition on a regular cyclic basis.
>
> Robert Heinlein: Handling crime by means of corporal punishment,
> banishment or execution, rather than imprisonment. Red headed women.
>
> H.P. Lovecraft: Miscegenation. Body horror. Mental instability.
> Humans as "ants".
>
> Frank Herbert: Harsh conditions producing awesome superhuman races.
> Mind enhancing psychedelic drugs.

John Ringo - a hero who desires to rape people but holds back the urge...

Kratzman - All liberals and stupid and evil and deserve to die
(you didn't limit it to competent authors)

[Greg Goss]

David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Larry Niven: Big Dumb Objects. Contrariwise, worlds that are only
>habitable in small areas.

Or a small portion of the time. You better be underground for spring
or fall on (or in) We Made It .

--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[Moriarty]

On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 12:01:28 PM UTC+11, hamis...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 4:42:50 AM UTC+11, David Johnston wrote:
> > Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
> > to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
> > that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such

<snip>

> > John Norman: Slave chicks
>
> He had written fiction other than the Gor series?

Indeed he has. In the only one I've read, a 20th century woman gets time tunneled back to the Cro-Magnons and enslaved. He also wrote one where an early settler woman gets captured by the native Americans and enslaved. He even wrote a "Slave Girls in Spaaaaaaace" series.

He knew what he liked and stuck with it.

-Moriarty

[David DeLaney]

On 2016-11-21, David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Isaac Asimov: Using mathematics to run a society "rationally".
> Lifestyles which involve never going outside or never traveling far from
> home.
>
> Larry Niven: Big Dumb Objects. Contrariwise, worlds that are only
> habitable in small areas.
>
> John Norman: Slave chicks
>
> Richard Matheson: Men isolated by being the only member of their
> species in the world.
>
> Piers Anthony: Rule by a more able oligarchy.
>
> Marion Zimmer Bradley: Segregation of male and female. Heat cycles or
> otherwise losing sexual inhibition on a regular cyclic basis.
>
> Robert Heinlein: Handling crime by means of corporal punishment,
> banishment or execution, rather than imprisonment. Red headed women.
>
> H.P. Lovecraft: Miscegenation. Body horror. Mental instability.
> Humans as "ants".
>
> Frank Herbert: Harsh conditions producing awesome superhuman races.
> Mind enhancing psychedelic drugs.

Jack Chalker. ZOMG, Jack Chalker.

Ann Maxwell: Psychic powers thqt can coalesce into a Unity, people who don't
know their ultimate psychic potential and the plot makes them not find out
until the end (so it's a real shame her Dancer's series never got ended).

Laurell K. Hamilton: Sex-positive writing, protagonists who keep discovering
more and more powers.

Dave, I could probably go on
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "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>
website on VIC is down, probably for good - oh well/ I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <2f502fd3-5dce-456b...@googlegroups.com>,

And the world has moved on without him: now that *real* porn is
available on the Web, he can't sell any more. (And, last I
heard, was complaining about it.)

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <2e768d2e-06ef-4304...@googlegroups.com>,

<hamis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 4:42:50 AM UTC+11, David Johnston wrote:
>> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
>> to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
>> that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such as:
>>
>> Isaac Asimov: Using mathematics to run a society "rationally".
>> Lifestyles which involve never going outside or never traveling far from
>> home.
>>
>> Larry Niven: Big Dumb Objects. Contrariwise, worlds that are only
>> habitable in small areas.
>>
>> John Norman: Slave chicks
>
>He had written fiction other than the Gor series?
>
>>

_Time Slave_, for one.

Actually that's the only non-Gor *fiction* I can think of.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <2f502fd3-5dce-456b...@googlegroups.com>,

Or he know what his audience liked. I've never heard he was "that way"
in his own life.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <JrCdnW6ejZTbWq7F...@earthlink.com>,

Jo Clayton: Magical healing. Maybe because the really, tragically, needed
some.

[Don Bruder]

In article <oH113...@kithrup.com>,

No great loss...

--
Brought to you by the letter K and the number .357
Security provided by Horace S. & Dan W.

[hamis...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 3:19:25 PM UTC+11, David DeLaney wrote:

> Laurell K. Hamilton: Sex-positive writing, protagonists who keep discovering
> more and more powers.

I'm not sure her books count as sex-positive writing, nor would I consider the second bit unusual enough to be distinctive.

[mcdow...@sky.com]

On Monday, November 21, 2016 at 5:42:50 PM UTC, David Johnston wrote:

Christopher Nuttall has a huge amount of stuff published and self-published. His self-published SF stuff usually concentrates on the exploits of semi-cyborg space marines. It's not bad, and if you happen to like it there's a LOT there to keep you happy.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <341b6cde-1dc4-4e59...@googlegroups.com>,

Hmm. I would not have described him that way at all. In fact I have 20
of his books and can't think of a semi-cyborg in one. (Granted there are
a couple I haven't read yet).

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <e9i192...@mid.individual.net>,

If so, his audience has vanished out from under him, like sand
under the tide.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2016 17:57:04 -0700, Steve Coltrin <spco...@omcl.org>
wrote:

>begin fnord
>David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I
>> want to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and
>> themes that that authors have used in multiple more or less separate
>> works. Such as:
>
>Gene Rottenberry spent the last two decades of his life flogging
>alien/computer/god/thing stories, each one more stupid than the one before.
>Far too many of them made it to production.

Um. The trope _I_ saw him running into the ground was "advanced
society has been balkanized into hundreds of isolated communities and
our heroes travel from one to the next trying to reunite the society."

(I scripted the first couple of issues "Gene Roddenberry's Lost
Universe" for Tekno*Comix -- that was the premise before the editors
decided that wasn't commercial and distracted Majel Barrett
sufficiently to let them completely revamp the project. See also
"Genesis II" and "Planet Earth.")

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <mno73cl68fm71d6te...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

Making it the powerhouse we now know it as :-)

See also >"Genesis II" and "Planet Earth.")

Hmm. Never thought of it as a theme, but I guess it's in Trek as well.
A lot of those planets really should have been in contact. Heck, even
worlds supposedly part of the Federation seemed pretty balkanized..

[David Johnston]

Well just how do you know that much about what he liked in the bedroom?

[Butch Malahide]

On Monday, November 21, 2016 at 11:42:50 AM UTC-6, David Johnston wrote:
> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
> to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that

> that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such as:
>
> Isaac Asimov: Using mathematics to run a society "rationally".
> Lifestyles which involve never going outside or never traveling far from
> home.
>
> Larry Niven: Big Dumb Objects. Contrariwise, worlds that are only
> habitable in small areas.
>
> John Norman: Slave chicks
>
> Richard Matheson: Men isolated by being the only member of their
> species in the world.
>
> Piers Anthony: Rule by a more able oligarchy.
>
> Marion Zimmer Bradley: Segregation of male and female. Heat cycles or
> otherwise losing sexual inhibition on a regular cyclic basis.
>
> Robert Heinlein: Handling crime by means of corporal punishment,
> banishment or execution, rather than imprisonment. Red headed women.
>
> H.P. Lovecraft: Miscegenation. Body horror. Mental instability.
> Humans as "ants".
>
> Frank Herbert: Harsh conditions producing awesome superhuman races.
> Mind enhancing psychedelic drugs.

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you mean, but here are my examples.

John W. Campbell: "Brain Stealers of Mars" & "Who Goes There?"
Explorers far from home need a clever trick to solve alien imitators.

Poul Anderson: "Time Heals" & "The Man Who Came Early".
A man in the wrong time.

Poul Anderson: "Flight to Forever" & "Tau Zero".
A one-way trip to oblivion.

Robert Sheckley: "Mindswap" & "Dimension of Miracles".
Joe Blow lost in the Cosmos. Chatty ganzer egg/prize.

[Peter Trei]

Andre Norton: Psi powers, very ancient and extinct Forerunner races,
young people, animal companions.

pt

[James Nicoll]

In article <e9i1dd...@mid.individual.net>,

Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
>

>Jo Clayton: Magical healing. Maybe because the really, tragically, needed
>some.

Birth control, need for, comes up in a number of books. Aleytys' struggle
with her magic hat and the search for her mom's world is complicated by
the fact she has a baby, and at least one of the books about the sorcerer
who is trying to destroy the world for the LOLs has a subplot about a woman
trying to get a safe abortion.

[James Nicoll]

In article <97a9f4ad-feaa-462d...@googlegroups.com>,

Peter Trei <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Andre Norton: Psi powers, very ancient and extinct Forerunner races,
>young people, animal companions.

Civilization exists to enrich the people at the top, decadence is
unavoidable, as is the total collapse of each civilization.

[James Nicoll]

Tanith Lee: missing or dead parents. I've reviewed 40 novels by her, and
so far there have been 39 absent or dead mothers and 34 dead or absent
fathers.

The *other* recurring theme with her is "parents the kids would be better
off without".

[Don Kuenz]

James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <97a9f4ad-feaa-462d...@googlegroups.com>,
> Peter Trei <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>Andre Norton: Psi powers, very ancient and extinct Forerunner races,
>>young people, animal companions.
>
> Civilization exists to enrich the people at the top, decadence is
> unavoidable, as is the total collapse of each civilization.

Though at first this game seemed improbable for me to play, this latest
turn of the thread activated the appropriate engram.

Robin Cook: There's a psychopath behind every (third) tree. :0)

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the
order of memory and time. - Coleridge

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <o11omt$nt5$1...@reader2.panix.com>,

James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>Tanith Lee: missing or dead parents. I've reviewed 40 novels by her, and
>so far there have been 39 absent or dead mothers and 34 dead or absent
>fathers.
>

Ah, She's the "Disney" sf author..

[James Nicoll]

In article <e9jdhq...@mid.individual.net>,

Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:

>In article <o11omt$nt5$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>Tanith Lee: missing or dead parents. I've reviewed 40 novels by her, and
>>so far there have been 39 absent or dead mothers and 34 dead or absent
>>fathers.
>>
>
>Ah, She's the "Disney" sf author..

Yeah, Disney almost certainly has less incest.

[James Nicoll]

In article <2016...@crcomp.net>, Don Kuenz <g...@crcomp.net> wrote:
>
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>> In article <97a9f4ad-feaa-462d...@googlegroups.com>,
>> Peter Trei <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>Andre Norton: Psi powers, very ancient and extinct Forerunner races,
>>>young people, animal companions.
>>
>> Civilization exists to enrich the people at the top, decadence is
>> unavoidable, as is the total collapse of each civilization.
>
>Though at first this game seemed improbable for me to play, this latest
>turn of the thread activated the appropriate engram.
>
>Robin Cook: There's a psychopath behind every (third) tree. :0)
>

George RR Martin: rape is basically the same thing as punctuation.

[Peter Trei]

On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 10:37:03 AM UTC-5, James Nicoll wrote:
> Tanith Lee: missing or dead parents. I've reviewed 40 novels by her, and
> so far there have been 39 absent or dead mothers and 34 dead or absent
> fathers.
>
> The *other* recurring theme with her is "parents the kids would be better
> off without".

Sort of like Disney films?

pt

[Peter Trei]

On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 12:50:01 PM UTC-5, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <2016...@crcomp.net>, Don Kuenz <g...@crcomp.net> wrote:
> >
> >James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> >> In article <97a9f4ad-feaa-462d...@googlegroups.com>,
> >> Peter Trei <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>Andre Norton: Psi powers, very ancient and extinct Forerunner races,
> >>>young people, animal companions.
> >>
> >> Civilization exists to enrich the people at the top, decadence is
> >> unavoidable, as is the total collapse of each civilization.
> >
> >Though at first this game seemed improbable for me to play, this latest
> >turn of the thread activated the appropriate engram.
> >
> >Robin Cook: There's a psychopath behind every (third) tree. :0)
> >
> George RR Martin: rape is basically the same thing as punctuation.

...and murders mark paragraphs...

[The most GRRM ending for ASoIaF would have the Night King sitting on the
Iron Throne at his Total Victory celebration.]

pt


pt

[David Goldfarb]

In article <1e054009-9d8d-4b1c...@googlegroups.com>,

Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com> wrote:
>Poul Anderson: "Flight to Forever" & "Tau Zero".
>A one-way trip to oblivion.

Not a very good description of "Flight to Forever", I think.

--
David Goldfarb |"Well, my days of not taking you seriously
goldf...@gmail.com | are certainly coming to a middle."
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- _Firefly_

[Peter Trei]

...and I forgot to read to the end of new messages before replying.
Again.

[mcdow...@sky.com]

He is certainly keen on Marines, at least in the SF books - and here is a chunk of "Ark Royal" typed by hand:

Royal Marines were no strangers to long route marches, but Ivan was talking about walking several thousand miles to the settlements. It would take weeks, even for the fittest soldiers in the human sphere. He found himself eying the cyborg implants...

This also shows that I have misremembered - clearly in this story the Marines aren't enhanced, which is what I thought I was remembering. In "The Empire's Corp" a quick search yields a first hit of "Marines, it was rumoured, had enhanced eyes, allowing them to see in the dark like cats." I should have said enhanced, not cyborg, which at least gives me the Empire's Corp series.

[Ahasuerus]

On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 12:28:29 PM UTC-5, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <o11omt$nt5$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
> James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> > Tanith Lee: missing or dead parents. I've reviewed 40 novels by her,
> > and so far there have been 39 absent or dead mothers and 34 dead or
> > absent fathers.
>
> Ah, She's the "Disney" sf author..

It helps to get the parents out of the way if you want your underage
characters to have non-trivial adventures. You can make them evil and/or uncaring instead, but it will shape the story in ways that may not be a
good match for what you are trying to accomplish.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <cf17f346-fe1f-49a4...@googlegroups.com>,

OK, haven't read any of that series.

[Lynn McGuire]

On 11/22/2016 9:31 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <e9i1dd...@mid.individual.net>,
> Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
>>
>> Jo Clayton: Magical healing. Maybe because the really, tragically, needed
>> some.
>
> Birth control, need for, comes up in a number of books. Aleytys' struggle
> with her magic hat and the search for her mom's world is complicated by
> the fact she has a baby, and at least one of the books about the sorcerer
> who is trying to destroy the world for the LOLs has a subplot about a woman
> trying to get a safe abortion.

Did she ever write a follow on to her most excellent _Among Others_ ?

Lynn

[James Nicoll]

In article <o123om$o7o$2...@dont-email.me>,

You are confusing Jo Walton with Jo Clayton.

[James Nicoll]

In article <c609c890-50ee-42e1...@googlegroups.com>,

Did Disney ever adapt any VC Andrews books?

[David Johnston]

On 11/22/2016 11:27 AM, David Goldfarb wrote:
> In article <1e054009-9d8d-4b1c...@googlegroups.com>,
> Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Poul Anderson: "Flight to Forever" & "Tau Zero".
>> A one-way trip to oblivion.
>
> Not a very good description of "Flight to Forever", I think.
>

To be specific both stories are about one way time travel to the end of
the universe and into its recreation

[Don Bruder]

In article <o12445$7es$1...@reader2.panix.com>,

jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:

> In article <c609c890-50ee-42e1...@googlegroups.com>,
> Peter Trei <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 10:37:03 AM UTC-5, James Nicoll wrote:
> >> Tanith Lee: missing or dead parents. I've reviewed 40 novels by her, and
> >> so far there have been 39 absent or dead mothers and 34 dead or absent
> >> fathers.
> >>
> >> The *other* recurring theme with her is "parents the kids would be better
> >> off without".
> >
> >Sort of like Disney films?
>
> Did Disney ever adapt any VC Andrews books?

Thanks for the spew alert...

<stomps off looking for the windex and paper towels, grumbling "Some
jerks just got no idea how hard it is to get milk and half-chewed
blueberry pop-tart chunks off a monitor...">

--
Brought to you by the letter K and the number .357
Security provided by Horace S. & Dan W.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <466aad4e-f0b7-475e...@googlegroups.com>,
Peter Trei <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>...and murders mark paragraphs...

Heh. I used to work for a molecular biologist (good scientist,
not-so-good human, dead now). He was difficult to work with.
But there was one thing he did right. He'd go to symposia and
give lectures, and then bring the audio tapes back for me to
transcribe, and I quickly discovered that whenever he said
"Now, ..." there was the place to delete "Now" and start a new
paragraph.

Beats murders. I *think.*

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <o12445$7es$1...@reader2.panix.com>,

James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <c609c890-50ee-42e1...@googlegroups.com>,
>Peter Trei <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 10:37:03 AM UTC-5, James Nicoll wrote:
>>> Tanith Lee: missing or dead parents. I've reviewed 40 novels by her, and
>>> so far there have been 39 absent or dead mothers and 34 dead or absent
>>> fathers.
>>>
>>> The *other* recurring theme with her is "parents the kids would be better
>>> off without".
>>
>>Sort of like Disney films?
>
>Did Disney ever adapt any VC Andrews books?

Not yet. For God's sake don't put ideas in their heads.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <e9jdhq...@mid.individual.net>,

Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:

>In article <o11omt$nt5$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>Tanith Lee: missing or dead parents. I've reviewed 40 novels by her, and
>>so far there have been 39 absent or dead mothers and 34 dead or absent
>>fathers.
>
>Ah, She's the "Disney" sf author..

OTOH, one of the major ways of getting the hero[ine]'s journey
started is separating him/her from the safe environment of his/her
parents.

[James Nicoll]

In article <o1241c$bjq$1...@reader2.panix.com>,

James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <o123om$o7o$2...@dont-email.me>,
>Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On 11/22/2016 9:31 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
>>> In article <e9i1dd...@mid.individual.net>,
>>> Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Jo Clayton: Magical healing. Maybe because the really, tragically, needed
>>>> some.
>>>
>>> Birth control, need for, comes up in a number of books. Aleytys' struggle
>>> with her magic hat and the search for her mom's world is complicated by
>>> the fact she has a baby, and at least one of the books about the sorcerer
>>> who is trying to destroy the world for the LOLs has a subplot about a woman
>>> trying to get a safe abortion.
>>
>>Did she ever write a follow on to her most excellent _Among Others_ ?
>>
>You are confusing Jo Walton with Jo Clayton.
>

I seem to recall that Clayton died right about the time Walton sold her
first novel to Tor and a *lot* of people confused the two authors.

[Lynn McGuire]

On 11/22/2016 12:50 PM, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <o123om$o7o$2...@dont-email.me>,
> Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 11/22/2016 9:31 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
>>> In article <e9i1dd...@mid.individual.net>,
>>> Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Jo Clayton: Magical healing. Maybe because the really, tragically, needed
>>>> some.
>>>
>>> Birth control, need for, comes up in a number of books. Aleytys' struggle
>>> with her magic hat and the search for her mom's world is complicated by
>>> the fact she has a baby, and at least one of the books about the sorcerer
>>> who is trying to destroy the world for the LOLs has a subplot about a woman
>>> trying to get a safe abortion.
>>
>> Did she ever write a follow on to her most excellent _Among Others_ ?
>>
> You are confusing Jo Walton with Jo Clayton.

Sigh, yup. Senility approacheth.

Lynn

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Tue, 22 Nov 2016 20:22:52 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

>In article <o1241c$bjq$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>In article <o123om$o7o$2...@dont-email.me>,
>>Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>On 11/22/2016 9:31 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
>>>> In article <e9i1dd...@mid.individual.net>,
>>>> Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Jo Clayton: Magical healing. Maybe because the really, tragically, needed
>>>>> some.
>>>>
>>>> Birth control, need for, comes up in a number of books. Aleytys' struggle
>>>> with her magic hat and the search for her mom's world is complicated by
>>>> the fact she has a baby, and at least one of the books about the sorcerer
>>>> who is trying to destroy the world for the LOLs has a subplot about a woman
>>>> trying to get a safe abortion.
>>>
>>>Did she ever write a follow on to her most excellent _Among Others_ ?
>>>
>>You are confusing Jo Walton with Jo Clayton.
>
>I seem to recall that Clayton died right about the time Walton sold her
>first novel to Tor and a *lot* of people confused the two authors.

No, Jo Clayton had been dead for years before Jo Walton sold her
first.

More's the pity.




--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com

[David Goldfarb]

In article <g0c93c5c1m38vdps6...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

Well, three years: Jo Clayton died in 1998 and _The King's Peace_
came out in 2001.

--
David Goldfarb |"Never argue with a pedant over nomenclature.
goldf...@gmail.com | It wastes your time and annoys the pedant."
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- Lois McMaster Bujold

[Moriarty]

On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 3:52:52 PM UTC+11, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <2f502fd3-5dce-456b...@googlegroups.com>,
> Moriarty <blu...@ivillage.com> wrote:
> >On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 12:01:28 PM UTC+11, hamis...@gmail.com wrote:

> >> On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 4:42:50 AM UTC+11, David Johnston wrote:
> >> > Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
> >> > to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
> >> > that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such
> >

> ><snip>
> >
> >> > John Norman: Slave chicks
> >>
> >> He had written fiction other than the Gor series?
> >
> >Indeed he has. In the only one I've read, a 20th century woman gets time
> >tunneled back to the Cro-Magnons and enslaved. He also wrote one where
> >an early settler woman gets captured by the native Americans and
> >enslaved. He even wrote a "Slave Girls in Spaaaaaaace" series.
> >
> >He knew what he liked and stuck with it.
> >
>
> Or he know what his audience liked. I've never heard he was "that way"
> in his own life.

I have a vague memory of Brenda Clough on this ng recalling the time she'd been on the same panel as John Norman/Lange at some con or other. On the panel, at least, he was "that way". Whether it extended to his actual home life, I don't know.

-Moriarty

[Butch Malahide]

On Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 1:03:09 PM UTC-6, David Johnston wrote:
> On 11/22/2016 11:27 AM, David Goldfarb wrote:

> > Butch Malahide wrote:
> >> Poul Anderson: "Flight to Forever" & "Tau Zero".
> >> A one-way trip to oblivion.
> >
> > Not a very good description of "Flight to Forever", I think.
> >
>
> To be specific both stories are about one way time travel to the end of
> the universe and into its recreation

I was trying not to be too spoilery.

[Don Kuenz]

Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> In article <e9jdhq...@mid.individual.net>,
> Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
>>In article <o11omt$nt5$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
>>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>Tanith Lee: missing or dead parents. I've reviewed 40 novels by her, and
>>>so far there have been 39 absent or dead mothers and 34 dead or absent
>>>fathers.
>>
>>Ah, She's the "Disney" sf author..
>
> OTOH, one of the major ways of getting the hero[ine]'s journey
> started is separating him/her from the safe environment of his/her
> parents.

In _The Runaway Robot_ (del Rey) Paul Simpson jumps ship immediately
before takeoff and leaves his family behind. In _The Hunger Games:
Catching Fire_ (Collins) Katniss takes her younger sister's place in the
games then leaves her widowed mom and sister behind.

In _Citizen of the Galaxy_ (Heinlein) Thorby's implicitly separated from
his parents at the start of the story. Implicitly because readers only
discover the villainy of Thorby's treacherous relatives near the end of
the story.

Those are the first stories that come to mind for me. YMMV. There's got
to be a hundred others. Does the separation-from-parents start of a
journey appear only in YA?

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

The dawn speeds a man on his journey, and speeds him too in his work.
- Hesiod

[James Nicoll]

In article <oH2Dq...@kithrup.com>,

David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>In article <g0c93c5c1m38vdps6...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>On Tue, 22 Nov 2016 20:22:52 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
>>Nicoll) wrote:
>>>I seem to recall that Clayton died right about the time Walton sold her
>>>first novel to Tor and a *lot* of people confused the two authors.
>>
>>No, Jo Clayton had been dead for years before Jo Walton sold her
>>first.
>>
>>More's the pity.
>
>Well, three years: Jo Clayton died in 1998 and _The King's Peace_
>came out in 2001.

But I thought she announced the sale years before? When did I have
her at my store?

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <o0vblm$rk2$1...@dont-email.me>,

David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
>to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
>that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works.

Lackey: there's some sort of magical power that's specific to
musicians, allowing them to control other people or even inanimate
objects through music, often just by playing a song in their mind's
ear.

Guessing if I went to tvtropes I'd probably find that it's more
widespread and also has a snarky name assigned.

-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <2016...@crcomp.net>, Don Kuenz <g...@crcomp.net> wrote:
>

_Tarzan_

[David Mitchell]

On 22/11/16 05:43, mcdow...@sky.com wrote:

> On Monday, November 21, 2016 at 5:42:50 PM UTC, David Johnston wrote:
>> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
>> to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that

>> that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such as:

<snip>

Sheri S Tepper: All men are bastards.

Can't back this up with cites, as it's been a long time since I read
any, so also her early work.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Wed, 23 Nov 2016 01:36:05 -0000 (UTC), Don Kuenz <g...@crcomp.net>
wrote:

>In _The Runaway Robot_ (del Rey)...

Actually, it's by Paul Fairman -- he ghost-wrote it from Lester del
Rey's outline. Lester had signed the contract, then found he couldn't
deliver and paid Fairman to write it for him.

[David Goldfarb]

In article <o130bb$f61$1...@reader2.panix.com>,

James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <oH2Dq...@kithrup.com>,
>David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Well, three years: Jo Clayton died in 1998 and _The King's Peace_
>>came out in 2001.
>
>But I thought she announced the sale years before?

I didn't recall there being that long a gap between the sale and the
book's release, but a quick look on Google Groups turns up a thread
in rasfc that does in fact date to late 1998, less than a year after
Jo Clayton died.

>When did I have her at my store?

I don't see any obvious way for me to discover that.

--
David Goldfarb |"Just once I'd like to battle an alien menace
goldf...@gmail.com | that *wasn't* immune to bullets."
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- Brigadier Lethbridge-Stuart
| Doctor Who: "Robot"

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Only, no, but more commonly, for the simple reason that it's not nearly
as common for a non-YA novel to feature a below-age-of-majority
protagonist. (in fact, a lot of modern definitions of YA take such a
protagonist as one of the major indicators that it's YA).

Does happen, though; _Deed of Paksenarrion_, for instance, starts with
Paks running away from home. I don't think _Deed_ is YA.



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

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 11/22/16 10:20 PM, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> In article <o0vblm$rk2$1...@dont-email.me>,
> David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
>> to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
>> that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works.
>
> Lackey: there's some sort of magical power that's specific to
> musicians, allowing them to control other people or even inanimate
> objects through music, often just by playing a song in their mind's
> ear.
>
> Guessing if I went to tvtropes I'd probably find that it's more
> widespread and also has a snarky name assigned.

That's true of just about everything.

[Robert Woodward]

In article <o14599$cho$3...@dont-email.me>,

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

> On 11/22/16 8:36 PM, Don Kuenz wrote:

<Snip re: YA fiction>

> >
> > Those are the first stories that come to mind for me. YMMV. There's got
> > to be a hundred others. Does the separation-from-parents start of a
> > journey appear only in YA?
>
> Only, no, but more commonly, for the simple reason that it's not nearly
> as common for a non-YA novel to feature a below-age-of-majority
> protagonist. (in fact, a lot of modern definitions of YA take such a
> protagonist as one of the major indicators that it's YA).
>
> Does happen, though; _Deed of Paksenarrion_, for instance, starts with
> Paks running away from home. I don't think _Deed_ is YA.

Paks ran away from home to avoid an arranged marriage. Does that fit the
below-age-of-majority template?

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
ã-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robe...@drizzle.com

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 11/23/16 1:25 PM, Robert Woodward wrote:
> In article <o14599$cho$3...@dont-email.me>,
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> On 11/22/16 8:36 PM, Don Kuenz wrote:
>
> <Snip re: YA fiction>
>
>>>
>>> Those are the first stories that come to mind for me. YMMV. There's got
>>> to be a hundred others. Does the separation-from-parents start of a
>>> journey appear only in YA?
>>
>> Only, no, but more commonly, for the simple reason that it's not nearly
>> as common for a non-YA novel to feature a below-age-of-majority
>> protagonist. (in fact, a lot of modern definitions of YA take such a
>> protagonist as one of the major indicators that it's YA).
>>
>> Does happen, though; _Deed of Paksenarrion_, for instance, starts with
>> Paks running away from home. I don't think _Deed_ is YA.
>
> Paks ran away from home to avoid an arranged marriage. Does that fit the
> below-age-of-majority template?
>

The basic story-effect is the same: separation-from-parents (and any
other people likely to try to keep character from going On Adventure).

[J. Clarke]

In article <o14ncn$itq$2...@dont-email.me>,
sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com says...

Thinking about "Spirited Away" (in part because
it's being shown at the local cineplex in a
couple of weeks), Miyazaki handles the
separation-from-parents quite nicely--the
parents screw up and have Bad Things happen to
them and the kid has to fix it. Note that it's
not the usual "smart kids and dumb adults"
schtick--neither the parents nor the kid
understand the setup at first but the kid makes
different mistakes whose consequences are not
quite so drastic.

[Jesper Lauridsen]

On 2016-11-21, David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
> to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that

> that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such as:

Peter F. Hamilton: Deus ex machina wish fulfillment resolutions. Or at
least that was the case in both the two books of his I've read.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <robertaw-B2E809...@news.individual.net>,

Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>In article <o14599$cho$3...@dont-email.me>,
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> On 11/22/16 8:36 PM, Don Kuenz wrote:
>
><Snip re: YA fiction>
>
>> >
>> > Those are the first stories that come to mind for me. YMMV. There's got
>> > to be a hundred others. Does the separation-from-parents start of a
>> > journey appear only in YA?
>>
>> Only, no, but more commonly, for the simple reason that it's not nearly
>> as common for a non-YA novel to feature a below-age-of-majority
>> protagonist. (in fact, a lot of modern definitions of YA take such a
>> protagonist as one of the major indicators that it's YA).
>>
>> Does happen, though; _Deed of Paksenarrion_, for instance, starts with
>> Paks running away from home. I don't think _Deed_ is YA.
>
>Paks ran away from home to avoid an arranged marriage. Does that fit the
>below-age-of-majority template?
>

Considering how in many cultures (both in the past, and in the
present) marry a girl off as soon as she reaches menarche, yes it
does.

[Moriarty]

Disagree with that one. Tepper wrote many stories with sympathetic male leads. I think a better characterisation would be: all bastards are men.

-Moriarty

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
news:oH487...@kithrup.com:

Below age of majority _in the setting_ is no the same as below age
of majority _to the reader_.

--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Kevrob]

S. M. Stirling: Warrior Lesbians. Ascended Fanboys (and Fangirls.)

Kevin R

[Robert Bannister]

On 24/11/16 2:25 am, Robert Woodward wrote:
> In article <o14599$cho$3...@dont-email.me>,
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> On 11/22/16 8:36 PM, Don Kuenz wrote:
>
> <Snip re: YA fiction>
>
>>>
>>> Those are the first stories that come to mind for me. YMMV. There's got
>>> to be a hundred others. Does the separation-from-parents start of a
>>> journey appear only in YA?
>>
>> Only, no, but more commonly, for the simple reason that it's not nearly
>> as common for a non-YA novel to feature a below-age-of-majority
>> protagonist. (in fact, a lot of modern definitions of YA take such a
>> protagonist as one of the major indicators that it's YA).
>>
>> Does happen, though; _Deed of Paksenarrion_, for instance, starts with
>> Paks running away from home. I don't think _Deed_ is YA.
>
> Paks ran away from home to avoid an arranged marriage. Does that fit the
> below-age-of-majority template?
>

I think so. Child, or at least teenage, marriage was much more common in
olden days and still is in backward countries. Grown-up for a girl was
when she got her first period.

--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote in
news:e9mojl...@mid.individual.net:

Teenage marriage is common in the United States. 18 and 19 year
olds - of both sexes - get married all the time, and nobody blinks
an eye.

[Kevrob]

C'est la vie say the old folks....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoDPPgWbfXY

Kevin R

[dac...@hotmail.com]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2016 10:43:03 -0700, David Johnston
<Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
>to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
>that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such as:
>

(snip)

Raymond E Feist - hordes of (insert evil minions here) led by (insert
evil overlord(s) here) defeated by small band of oddments although
things look grim at the end of books 1 (and 2 and sometimes 3) -
although this may be a general description of most epic fantasy series


Harry Harrison - planets inimical to human colonisation - "I'd written
Deathworld what felt like thirty or forty times and published it in
various disguises..."
- vagaries / perils of organised religion

Joe Haldeman - deus ex machina / incomprehensible omnipotent aliens

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=65377

[Robert Bannister]

They're counted as adults in most countries these days. I'm trying to
remember which country is where you don't become an adult till you're 30.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote in

news:e9sbcc...@mid.individual.net:

Yes. But you didn't say "child teenager," you said "child, _or at
least teenage_"

> I'm
> trying to remember which country is where you don't become an
> adult till you're 30.
>

Nowhere today, apparently. From
https://www.ageofconsent.net/highest-and-lowest

"The highest Age of Consent in the world is 21 in Bahrain. The
second-highest age of consent is 20 in South Korea, while the
majority of other countries have an Age of Consent between 16 and
18.

"The lowest Age of Consent in the world is 11, in Nigeria. The age
of consent is 12 in the Philippines and Angola, and 13 in Burkina
Faso, Comoros, Niger, and Japan. Japan often stands out as the only
developed country on the list of lowest ages of consent, but local
prefecture statutes in most areas of the country raise the
effective age to 16-18.

"Additionally, several Middle Eastern and African countries have no
legal age of consent, but ban all sexual relations outside of
marriage. This has raised concerns by many international
organizations, especially in some countries where girls are married
at as young as 9 or 10 years old. Countries with marriage-based
ages of consent include Afghanistan, Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives,
Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the UAE."

[Robert Carnegie]

It's 33 in Hobbiton.

Adult responsibility may be aligned to the conclusion
of compulsory education, where that happens after puberty.
Meanwhile a culture's coming-of-age ceremony may be stuck
at an earlier age, such as indeed becoming a teenager...
which, as a purely mathematical concept (although
in agreement with some observations of behaviour),
is misaligned to the modern definition of adulthood.
And so you get political hand-wringing about the evil
of teenage pregnancy when, as you say, people may
be legally and properly (if hastily and unwisely) married,
as well as pregnant, and even in that order.

The latter interferes with college though...

[Robert Bannister]

I didn't think the age of majority was the same thing as the age of
consent. Of course, neither of these match up with the age you can be
sent to war, but I think of the adulthood more in terms of which
contracts you can enter into without an adult at least going guarantor.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote in

news:ea1b4r...@mid.individual.net:

"Become an adult," which is what you actually said, is meaningless.

[Richard Hershberger]

You forgot the torture porn.

Richard R. Hershberger

[Peter Trei]

On Wednesday, November 23, 2016 at 12:37:14 PM UTC-5, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> On 11/22/16 10:20 PM, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> > In article <o0vblm$rk2$1...@dont-email.me>,
> > David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
> >> to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that
> >> that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works.
> >
> > Lackey: there's some sort of magical power that's specific to
> > musicians, allowing them to control other people or even inanimate
> > objects through music, often just by playing a song in their mind's
> > ear.
> >
> > Guessing if I went to tvtropes I'd probably find that it's more
> > widespread and also has a snarky name assigned.
>
> That's true of just about everything.

As you say...

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicMusic

"A Wandering Minstrel, Magical Flutist or Music Meister
may have this as their main method of fighting. The Musical
Assassin uses a particularly nasty variant. Often shows up
as a kind of Mind Control, or also commonly it can buff
allies in a justified Theme Music Power-Up."

Lots of F/SF examples in the Literature section, including Lackey.

pt

[Don Bruder]

In article <5a71e89f-7512-49c4...@googlegroups.com>,

I'm sorta surprised that the *REALLY* big Lackey trope hasn't come up
yet - Blue-eyed talking magic spirit horses. Compared to those, the
various flavors of magical musicians she's done barely register on the
recycle-ometer.

--
Brought to you by the letter K and the number .357
Security provided by Horace S. & Dan W.

[Kevrob]

One (or 2) I rather liked:

Songs of Earth and Power (1994 The Infinity
Concerto and The Serpent Mage)

"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world". - P B Shelley

Kevin R

[Moriarty]

That's a prominent feature of Patricia McKillip's work too. The Riddle Master trilogy and The Bards of Bone Plain are obvious ones.

-Moriarty

[Dimensional Traveler]

Alan Dean Foster did a whole series based on the idea, "Spellsinger".


--
Running the rec.arts.TV Channels Watched Survey.
Fall 2016 survey began Sep 01 and will end Nov 30

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <o1hoj2$s66$1...@dont-email.me>, Don Bruder <dak...@sonic.net> wrote:
>I'm sorta surprised that the *REALLY* big Lackey trope hasn't come up
>yet - Blue-eyed talking magic spirit horses.

Because the OP's specification was "across multiple independent
works", and that's AFAIK limited to one series. (A particularly long
one, but still singular).

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

[Don Bruder]

In article <o1i96g$1531$1...@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>,

wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:

> In article <o1hoj2$s66$1...@dont-email.me>, Don Bruder <dak...@sonic.net> wrote:
> >I'm sorta surprised that the *REALLY* big Lackey trope hasn't come up
> >yet - Blue-eyed talking magic spirit horses.
>
> Because the OP's specification was "across multiple independent
> works", and that's AFAIK limited to one series. (A particularly long
> one, but still singular).
>
> -GAWollman

Eh... I *CAN* accept that, but at the same time, I can't - Everything
does indeed tie together sooner or later, yes. No question about that.
Yet everything pretty much stands alone within its "sub-series". The
grand arc doesn't really appear to tie it all together until the Mage
Storms set. It might just be me, but it's pretty clear that the
"bringing together" was *a whole lot less* than well planned and
executed, and was deliberately done "after the fact". Probably done as
as a "let's wrap this up and move on to something else" effort. (and
with some pretty blatantly visible chainfalls, winches, and duct tape to
get parts of it to match up, then hold it all together. In some ways, a
*LOT* like Niven's "Fleet of Worlds" fixups that glued his Known Space
and Ringworld works into a single (mostly...) coherent story, rather
than just leaving them as a bunch of "set in the same universe but
pretty much independent of each other" shorts.)

[hamis...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 12:50:25 PM UTC+11, Don Bruder wrote:
> In article <o1i96g$1531$1...@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>,
> wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>
> > In article <o1hoj2$s66$1...@dont-email.me>, Don Bruder <dak...@sonic.net> wrote:
> > >I'm sorta surprised that the *REALLY* big Lackey trope hasn't come up
> > >yet - Blue-eyed talking magic spirit horses.
> >
> > Because the OP's specification was "across multiple independent
> > works", and that's AFAIK limited to one series. (A particularly long
> > one, but still singular).
> >
> > -GAWollman
>
> Eh... I *CAN* accept that, but at the same time, I can't - Everything
> does indeed tie together sooner or later, yes. No question about that.

Lots of questions about that.

> Yet everything pretty much stands alone within its "sub-series". The
> grand arc doesn't really appear to tie it all together until the Mage
> Storms set.

The blue eyed talking spirit horses are only in the series as companions of heralds of valdemar. That's a continuing series of books.

> It might just be me, but it's pretty clear that the
> "bringing together" was *a whole lot less* than well planned and
> executed, and was deliberately done "after the fact".

What durgs are you on?

[Don Bruder]

In article <fd77bf6a-5a6d-4899...@googlegroups.com>,

hamis...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 12:50:25 PM UTC+11, Don Bruder wrote:
> > In article <o1i96g$1531$1...@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>,
> > wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
> >
> > > In article <o1hoj2$s66$1...@dont-email.me>, Don Bruder <dak...@sonic.net>
> > > wrote:
> > > >I'm sorta surprised that the *REALLY* big Lackey trope hasn't come up
> > > >yet - Blue-eyed talking magic spirit horses.
> > >
> > > Because the OP's specification was "across multiple independent
> > > works", and that's AFAIK limited to one series. (A particularly long
> > > one, but still singular).
> > >
> > > -GAWollman
> >
> > Eh... I *CAN* accept that, but at the same time, I can't - Everything
> > does indeed tie together sooner or later, yes. No question about that.
>
> Lots of questions about that.

Such as?

>
> > Yet everything pretty much stands alone within its "sub-series". The
> > grand arc doesn't really appear to tie it all together until the Mage
> > Storms set.
>
> The blue eyed talking spirit horses are only in the series as companions of
> heralds of valdemar. That's a continuing series of books.

If you say so... <rolls eyes>

>
> > It might just be me, but it's pretty clear that the
> > "bringing together" was *a whole lot less* than well planned and
> > executed, and was deliberately done "after the fact".
>
> What durgs are you on?

Dunno - what's a durgs? (yeah, yeah, I know, cheap shot. And yours
wasn't?)

Point remains the same: the "bring-together" done in Storms was, at
least to me, a pretty obvious, rather clumsy bunch of fix-ups and glue
that looked and felt like a deliberate effort to convert a bunch of
previously related works that shared the same setting, but were
otherwise standalone, together and cram them into a single story that
Lackey could then slap a "The End" on.

>
> > Probably done as
> > as a "let's wrap this up and move on to something else" effort. (and
> > with some pretty blatantly visible chainfalls, winches, and duct tape to
> > get parts of it to match up, then hold it all together. In some ways, a
> > *LOT* like Niven's "Fleet of Worlds" fixups that glued his Known Space
> > and Ringworld works into a single (mostly...) coherent story, rather
> > than just leaving them as a bunch of "set in the same universe but
> > pretty much independent of each other" shorts.)

[William December Starr]

Back in November,
In article <e9sbcc...@mid.individual.net>,

In SF, it's the place -- I can't remember the name -- where the
refugees from the (secondary, distant) effects of the titular event
wound up in Charles Stross' Space Nazis Must Die book, IRON SUNRISE.

-- wds

[Joe Bernstein]

On Friday, November 25, 2016 at 9:05:17 PM UTC-8, Gutless Umbrella

Carrying Sissy wrote:

> From
> https://www.ageofconsent.net/highest-and-lowest
>
> "The highest Age of Consent in the world is 21 in Bahrain. The
> second-highest age of consent is 20 in South Korea, while the
> majority of other countries have an Age of Consent between 16 and
> 18.

South Korea's age is probably incorrectly reported there, but it's
complicated.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ages_of_consent_in_Asia#South_Korea>

Age in South Korea is socially usually reckoned as follows: You're 1
until your first Korean New Year's Day. Then you, and everyone else,
get 1 year older, so you're 2. And so on. So I'll be 51 Korean in a
few days, nearly eight months before I turn 50 Western.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning#Korean>

Thus Koreans think of 20 as the age of majority. For example, the
singer "IU", about whom I've posted here before, born 16 May 1993,
released an album 11 May 2012 whose title translates <Springtime of a
Twenty Year Old>; an American title with similar meaning might be
<Beginner, Eighteen>. Some K-dramas have titles referring to ages;
those with ages under 20 are racier by Korean standards than by ours.

English Wikipedia insists across several articles that South Korean
law *ignores* conventional Korean age reckoning and uses Western
ages, but they treat you as being all year, January 1 to December
31, the age you become on your birthday in that span. (By this
standard, I turned 50 January 1.)

The talk page mess I cited discusses the extent to which the
*article* is correct that the age of consent is 13, versus a
practical age of consent of 19. My best guess is that since some
Koreans think of 19 Western as 20 Korean, some Korean sites report
an age of consent of 20, and your cite picked up on that.

Meanwhile, everyone on the talk page agrees that marriage becomes
legal at 16, but
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age>
states, without a reference, that it's 19, or 18 with parental consent.
Either way, this is why those K-drama titles are only racy, rather
than outrageous. None goes lower than 18.

-- JLB

[Kevrob]

On Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 3:49:59 PM UTC-5, Joe Bernstein wrote:

>
> South Korea's age is probably incorrectly reported there, but it's
> complicated.
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ages_of_consent_in_Asia#South_Korea>
>
> Age in South Korea is socially usually reckoned as follows: You're 1
> until your first Korean New Year's Day. Then you, and everyone else,
> get 1 year older, so you're 2. And so on. So I'll be 51 Korean in a
> few days, nearly eight months before I turn 50 Western.

This sounds like the Jockey Club's rules for which horses are
"3-year-olds" for purposes of horse racing.

> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning#Korean>


http://gettingoutofthegate.com/age-and-sex/

Kevin R

[Robert Carnegie]

On Monday, 21 November 2016 17:42:50 UTC, David Johnston wrote:
> Yeah, I know I've done this before but it's been a few years and I want
> to try to expand my list. What I'm looking for is ideas and themes that

> that authors have used in multiple more or less separate works. Such as:
>
> Isaac Asimov: Using mathematics to run a society "rationally".
> Lifestyles which involve never going outside or never traveling far from
> home.
>
> Larry Niven: Big Dumb Objects. Contrariwise, worlds that are only
> habitable in small areas.
>
> John Norman: Slave chicks
>
> Richard Matheson: Men isolated by being the only member of their
> species in the world.
>
> Piers Anthony: Rule by a more able oligarchy.
>
> Marion Zimmer Bradley: Segregation of male and female. Heat cycles or
> otherwise losing sexual inhibition on a regular cyclic basis.
>
> Robert Heinlein: Handling crime by means of corporal punishment,
> banishment or execution, rather than imprisonment. Red headed women.
>
> H.P. Lovecraft: Miscegenation. Body horror. Mental instability.
> Humans as "ants".
>
> Frank Herbert: Harsh conditions producing awesome superhuman races.
> Mind enhancing psychedelic drugs.

Having just re-read some James White:
A star threatens supernova, and the interstellar
civilisation responds by mounting a rescue mission
for the planets' inhabitants. Done several
different ways.

Arthur C. Clarke was there before, with
"Rescue Party".

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <9acbb51c-12d7-4100...@googlegroups.com>,

Poul Anderson's "Supernova" (retitled later, I think) didn't try
to rescue the inhabitants, just to make them cooperate in
hunkering down. They never forgave us.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

[Robert Carnegie]

I needed to clarify "hunkering down". That story
has a supernova three light years away from these
particular inhabitants. That's still a Lynn McGuire
scenario, if not for well-meaning space men
intervening to save the day. Or not.

I'm not sure what you do when your own star
supernovas and you don't have a ride to out of
range, but hunkering isn't really it.
Watch and pray, I suppose.

There's that "Star Trek" where the entire
population travelled back in time to live
the rest of their own lives in relative safety
assuming they didn't accidentally kill their
grandfather and erase themselves, or something
(effects of time travel vary from week to week:
I don't recall that risk being mentioned).