Can a sapient being vote?

[Michael F. Stemper]

In the United States, we have a election of some local consequence
rapidly approaching. That makes this a good time to brush up on
SF in which elections play a significant part. Here's a start:

1944: "The Big and the Little", by Isaac Asimov (now known as
"The Merchant Princes"). Master Trader Hober Mallow discovers what
he thinks is an impending Seldon Crisis. The current administration
hands him mass appeal by trying him on trumped-up charges. In order
to ensure that the crisis is handled properly, he runs for Mayor.
(Of the stories that I've listed, the election itself has the
least importance in this one.)

1950: _First Lensman_, by E.E. "Doc" Smith. This novel provides
some back-story for the Lensmen series. There are three main
challenges for the newly-formed Galactic Patrol: 1. Keep Earth,
its colonies, and its shipping from being overcome by piracy.
2. Keep its citizens safe from noxious drugs (especially thionite)
that are being pumped in in increasing quantities. 3. Defeat, in a
fair election, the political party thats actualy behind the first
two problems. Interestingly, although Earth was bombed back to
savagery several centuries prior to the events in this story, North
America uses something very similar to the Electoral College to
select its president.

1965: _Subspace Explorers_, by E.E. "Doc" Smith. This one is similar
in theme to _Atlas Shrugged_. But, it's a lot more fun and only about
twice as long as Galt's radio address. Smith portrays another crucial
election, in a manner so similar that one might think that he just
filed off the serial numbers from _First Lensman_. One key difference
is that va guvf bar, gur "tbbq thlf" ybfr.

1970: "Ballot and Bandits", by Keith Laumer. Terra has helped the
denizens of the planet Oberon to free themselves from Groaci rule.
Now is the time for the Oberonians to select their first leader in
a fair and open election. Unfortunately, the Terran ambassador and
his staff are having trouble deciding who should win.

1982: _The Stainless Steel Rat for President_, by Harry Harrison. The
Rat discovers that the world of Paraiso-Aqui has been ruled by the same
strongman for generations, despite regular elections. He sets himself
the task of bringing down the ruler, despite the closed-source voting
machines that have been ensuring his re-election. Behind-the-scenes
negotiations with respect to the party platform, getting the message
out, and balancing the ticket are all portrayed. Gur bhgpbzr vf dhvgr
fvzvyne gb gung bs "Onyybg naq Onaqvgf".

1994: _Interface_, by "Stephen Bury". This features a presidential
election run by incredibly savvy media handlers. What even the
candidates don't know is that the handlers are actually working on
behalf of what is, in all but name, the Bavarian Illuminati. It's
a rip-roaring techno-thriller, with an ending reminiscent of that of
Urvayrva'f "Bire gur Envaobj--".

--
Michael F. Stemper
Always use apostrophe's and "quotation marks" properly.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <nphl0o$m8s$1...@dont-email.me>,

Two obvious ones missing, including perhaps the most obvious one ever.

Asimov, "Franchaise"

&

Bradbury, "A Sound of Thunder"
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[David Johnston]

On 8/23/2016 8:02 AM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> In the United States, we have a election of some local consequence
> rapidly approaching. That makes this a good time to brush up on
> SF in which elections play a significant part. Here's a start:
>
> 1944: "The Big and the Little", by Isaac Asimov (now known as
> "The Merchant Princes"). Master Trader Hober Mallow discovers what
> he thinks is an impending Seldon Crisis. The current administration
> hands him mass appeal by trying him on trumped-up charges. In order
> to ensure that the crisis is handled properly, he runs for Mayor.
> (Of the stories that I've listed, the election itself has the
> least importance in this one.)

Asimov also wrote that story where the election consisted of a singled
statistically chosen voter picking for everyone else.

[David Johnston]

Also there's the climax of "Double Star", Robert Heinlein's take on
"Zenda". The imposter and his cabal wait for the outcome of Earth's
election (in a surprisingly European parliamentary system).

[Kevrob]

Don't forget Harry Harrison's "The Stainless Steel Rat for President."
(1982) Slippery Jim as a campaign manager is a riot! (At least if you
were both an SF fan and a political science student when it came out...)

Kevin R

[Michael F. Stemper]

Thanks. When I perused my shelves to create that list, I saw _Double
Star_ and couldn't remember if it had an election or not.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding;
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.

[David Johnston]

On 8/23/2016 10:29 AM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 2016-08-23 10:20, David Johnston wrote:
>> Also there's the climax of "Double Star", Robert Heinlein's take on
>> "Zenda". The imposter and his cabal wait for the outcome of Earth's
>> election (in a surprisingly European parliamentary system).
>
> Thanks. When I perused my shelves to create that list, I saw _Double
> Star_ and couldn't remember if it had an election or not.
>

Yeah. The the interesting thing was that if I remember right, it was a
unicameral legislature with proportionate representation so the process
of forming a government was an incredible mess.

[Michael F. Stemper]

My book log tells me that it's been nearly a decade since I last read
it, so I guess that it's due.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Galatians 3:28

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <nphvtp$vs9$2...@dont-email.me>,

Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:

Do! The protagonist is an unusually complex character, for a
Heinlein story.

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

[lal_truckee]

On 8/23/16 9:29 AM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>
> Thanks. When I perused my shelves to create that list, I saw _Double
> Star_ and couldn't remember if it had an election or not.

It's pretty much all about an election -
the buildup, the dirty tricks, the campaign (mostly in background),
election night, post election ...

Contrasting to Heinlein hijacking by Libertarians, it's fascinating to
see Heinlein's positive take on active big government, particularly with
such an active progressive agenda as the good guys.

Also, in spite of Martians (the green kind) and ray guns, it's put
together with some plausibility.

Definitely readable.

[Richard Todd]

"Michael F. Stemper" <michael...@gmail.com> writes:

> In the United States, we have a election of some local consequence
> rapidly approaching. That makes this a good time to brush up on
> SF in which elections play a significant part. Here's a start:

If you're willing to consider elections on referenda, rather than on
electing one of several candidates to high office, I can suggest another
one:

Diane Duane's _Spock's World_: about an election where the people of
Vulcan are voting on whether or not to leave the Federation.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <x7shtvx...@ichotolot.servalan.com>,

Vexit!

[Michael F. Stemper]

Hey, it was fifth on my list.

What about fantasy? I don't read much fantasy, so I don't have any of
that on my list. What fantasy works feature an election?

I know that one of the latter HP stories included the Minister of
Magic briefing a newly-elected Muggle PM, but that's just the fact that
an election happened. The election itself was not shown.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <npijop$a7h$1...@dont-email.me>,

Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 2016-08-23 11:24, Kevrob wrote:
>> On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 11:20:00 AM UTC-4, David Johnston wrote:
>>> Also there's the climax of "Double Star", Robert Heinlein's take on
>>> "Zenda". The imposter and his cabal wait for the outcome of Earth's
>>> election (in a surprisingly European parliamentary system).
>>
>> Don't forget Harry Harrison's "The Stainless Steel Rat for President."
>> (1982) Slippery Jim as a campaign manager is a riot! (At least if you
>> were both an SF fan and a political science student when it came out...)
>
>Hey, it was fifth on my list.
>
>What about fantasy? I don't read much fantasy, so I don't have any of
>that on my list. What fantasy works feature an election?
>

Rachael Aaron's latest Heartstrikers' book, _No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished_
has a critical election to the HS ruling council. (Critical because if
the can actually get an RC up and running instead of killing each other
for the leadership it will be a big win).

De Camp had a humorous "he who counts the votes" election sequence in
one of his alt history books. I forget the title, but it's the one
Turtledove did a sequel to.

[tsbr...@gmail.com]

#Vulexit!

For Vulcans, it was a really emotionally charged debate!

[Moriarty]

On Wednesday, August 24, 2016 at 8:46:51 AM UTC+10, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 2016-08-23 11:24, Kevrob wrote:
> > On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 11:20:00 AM UTC-4, David Johnston wrote:
> >> Also there's the climax of "Double Star", Robert Heinlein's take on
> >> "Zenda". The imposter and his cabal wait for the outcome of Earth's
> >> election (in a surprisingly European parliamentary system).
> >
> > Don't forget Harry Harrison's "The Stainless Steel Rat for President."
> > (1982) Slippery Jim as a campaign manager is a riot! (At least if you
> > were both an SF fan and a political science student when it came out...)
>
> Hey, it was fifth on my list.
>
> What about fantasy? I don't read much fantasy, so I don't have any of
> that on my list. What fantasy works feature an election?

I've read more than a few fantasies where there's an ecclesiastical election for Pope/Prelate/Patriach/Equivalent. There's one in Paul Kearney's "Monarchies of God" series, at least one in Kathrine Kurtz's Deryni books, one in David Eddings' Elenium, to name a few.

There are a few where elections for various secular officials happen offstage, for example Sam Gamgee was elected to the post of Shire Mayor multiple times, but I can't think of any on-stage ones.

-Moriarty

[tsbr...@gmail.com]

Piers Anthony: Bio of a Space Tyrant: Politician. Hope Hubris runs for President of the United States of North Jupiter. Incumbent President Tocsin plays all sorts of dirty tricks on Hope, including booby trapping his toilet, attacking his train, kidnapping him and erasing his memory (but he managed to recover his memories in time to give a winning speech), trying to steal his electors after the vote, and passing a law declaring him and his sister running mate ineligible to serve on the grounds that he wasn't a "natural born" citizen (he had been born outside North Jupiter's territory to non-Citizen parents, then he migrated to North Jupiter). He had to stage a Constitutional Coup (by his supporters organizing a Constitutional Convention to Balance the Budget) to take office!

[Don Kuenz]

It took me a while to recall the election in the Bradbury. There's also
an election in Heinlein's _Tunnel in the Sky_.

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 2016-08-23 18:12, Moriarty wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 24, 2016 at 8:46:51 AM UTC+10, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>> On 2016-08-23 11:24, Kevrob wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 11:20:00 AM UTC-4, David Johnston wrote:
>>>> Also there's the climax of "Double Star", Robert Heinlein's take on
>>>> "Zenda". The imposter and his cabal wait for the outcome of Earth's
>>>> election (in a surprisingly European parliamentary system).
>>>
>>> Don't forget Harry Harrison's "The Stainless Steel Rat for President."
>>> (1982) Slippery Jim as a campaign manager is a riot! (At least if you
>>> were both an SF fan and a political science student when it came out...)
>>
>> Hey, it was fifth on my list.
>>
>> What about fantasy? I don't read much fantasy, so I don't have any of
>> that on my list. What fantasy works feature an election?
>
> I've read more than a few fantasies where there's an ecclesiastical election for Pope/Prelate/Patriach/Equivalent. There's one in Paul Kearney's "Monarchies of God" series, at least one in Kathrine Kurtz's Deryni books, one in David Eddings' Elenium, to name a few.

The Primate of Gwynned, IIRC. Of course, that was the bishops voting,
the peoples in the pews. But, considering the power that post had, it's
worth noting.

> There are a few where elections for various secular officials happen offstage, for example Sam Gamgee was elected to the post of Shire Mayor multiple times, but I can't think of any on-stage ones.

Not just off-stage, but in the Appendices!

--
Michael F. Stemper
This post contains greater than 95% post-consumer bytes by weight.

[Robert Carnegie]

There were a couple of changes of Minister for Magic,
if you count you-know-who. :-) And the choice of
candidates in _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_.

IIRC, the film _Dave_ features an actor doing the
_Double Star_ bit (present day setting), but _Meet Dave_
is about a man who is actually a mechanical puppet body
controlled by tiny people from another planet. But
played by a different actor. I'm not even sure that
it's the same story.

I don't remember which story in _I, Robot_, the book,
involved someone who could be a robot running for
president (was this before truthers were invented?
I forget that as well), but it is reviewed unfavourably
by a contributor at
<https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/04/07/16/1456201/i-robot-hits-the-theaters>

Spoiler-ish: it's resolved the same way that Buzz Aldrin
resolved the question of whether the moon landings were
faked.

Although then it wouldn't be a robot story...

[Moriarty]

"Evidence".

-Moriarty

[TB]

The alleged robot was running for Mayor.

Spoilers:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

The candidate disproved the robot allegations by solidly hitting a heckler, thus violating the First Law (Robots may not injure humans, or through inaction, allow humans to come to harm).

[TB]

How did Buzz Aldrin prove that the Moon landings happened?

[TB]

On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 4:54:03 PM UTC-7, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> On Tuesday, 23 August 2016 23:46:51 UTC+1, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> > On 2016-08-23 11:24, Kevrob wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 11:20:00 AM UTC-4, David Johnston wrote:
> > >> Also there's the climax of "Double Star", Robert Heinlein's take on
> > >> "Zenda". The imposter and his cabal wait for the outcome of Earth's
> > >> election (in a surprisingly European parliamentary system).
> > >
> > > Don't forget Harry Harrison's "The Stainless Steel Rat for President."
> > > (1982) Slippery Jim as a campaign manager is a riot! (At least if you
> > > were both an SF fan and a political science student when it came out...)
> >
> > Hey, it was fifth on my list.
> >
> > What about fantasy? I don't read much fantasy, so I don't have any of
> > that on my list. What fantasy works feature an election?
> >
> > I know that one of the latter HP stories included the Minister of
> > Magic briefing a newly-elected Muggle PM, but that's just the fact that
> > an election happened. The election itself was not shown.
>
> There were a couple of changes of Minister for Magic,
> if you count you-know-who. :-) And the choice of
> candidates in _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_.

I didn't get the impression that the Ministers were actually elected!

The Triwizard Champions were chosen by the Goblet, not by voters.

[TB]

Election YASID: A telepathic society has an election. The two factions each try to "out-shout" the other telepathically. One faction wants to conquer Earth, but the other faction wins by making a deal with a dissident faction which is more individualistic than the mainstream. The new leader then adopts many of the ideas of the losing faction to maintain racial harmony.


The Slaves of Heaven: The adult male members of primitive tribes elect their chiefs. If the chief messes up too badly, the males can vote him out and execute him! But if the chief wins the recall election, his chief challenger is executed!

One day, robots come from outer space to kidnap the women of Berry's tribe, so Berry (realizing that his political standing has just disappeared) follows them in hopes of rescuing the women and thus avoiding execution.

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <nphl0o$m8s$1...@dont-email.me>,
Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:

>In the United States, we have a election of some local consequence
>rapidly approaching. That makes this a good time to brush up on
>SF in which elections play a significant part. Here's a start:

In Julian May's /Intervention/ (1987), the (2004) US presidential
election campaign takes an important part of the narrative leading up
to the pivotal events of 2013, but I'd have to reread the book to
describe it accurately. A quick skim suggests that President
Baumgartner has campaigned on an anti-metapsychic platform and easily
won re-election; he is surprised on the day of his second inauguration
by the news that his daughter does not have epilepsy but rather, will
become a metapsychic operant herself.

I should reread this book. I've read it half a dozen times but the
last was more than ten years ago, and (near-future history aside) I'm
curious if it still holds up.

-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

[Michael R N Dolbear]

"David Johnston" wrote

>>> Also there's the climax of "Double Star", Robert Heinlein's take on
>>> "Zenda". The imposter and his cabal wait for the outcome of Earth's
>>> election (in a surprisingly European parliamentary system).

RAH needed a system with a constitutional monarch which allowed a
unscheduled election.

>> Thanks. When I perused my shelves to create that list, I saw _Double
>> Star_ and couldn't remember if it had an election or not.


> Yeah. The the interesting thing was that if I remember right, it was a
unicameral legislature with proportionate representation so the process
of forming a government was an incredible mess.

No mention of proportional representation, though not all districts were
geographical.

The love interest represented "districtless university women" as a Grand
assembly member.


--
Mike D

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <e242ri...@mid.individual.net>,

That woul have been "The Wheels of If," then.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <1da247b5-2888-43de...@googlegroups.com>,

TB <tsbr...@dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>
>The Slaves of Heaven: The adult male members of primitive tribes elect
>their chiefs. If the chief messes up too badly, the males can vote him
>out and execute him! But if the chief wins the recall election, his
>chief challenger is executed!

Old Spanish proverb: Quien tira al rey ha de matarlo. Who shoots
at the king had better kill him.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <226cb6e7-6b4e-4beb...@googlegroups.com>,

A quick trip to the bookcase reveals "Evidence."

[Cryptoengineer]

"Michael F. Stemper" <michael...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:npindd$ic1$1...@dont-email.me:

Bob Silverberg: "Good News from the Vatican".

pt

[Kevrob]

On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 6:46:51 PM UTC-4, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 2016-08-23 11:24, Kevrob wrote:
> > On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 11:20:00 AM UTC-4, David Johnston wrote:
> >> Also there's the climax of "Double Star", Robert Heinlein's take on
> >> "Zenda". The imposter and his cabal wait for the outcome of Earth's
> >> election (in a surprisingly European parliamentary system).
> >
> > Don't forget Harry Harrison's "The Stainless Steel Rat for President."
> > (1982) Slippery Jim as a campaign manager is a riot! (At least if you
> > were both an SF fan and a political science student when it came out...)
>
> Hey, it was fifth on my list.
>

Right. I hit "page down" twice and missed 5 & 6. Mea culpa!

> What about fantasy? I don't read much fantasy, so I don't have any of
> that on my list. What fantasy works feature an election?
>
> I know that one of the latter HP stories included the Minister of
> Magic briefing a newly-elected Muggle PM, but that's just the fact that
> an election happened. The election itself was not shown.
>

Dave Sim's "Cerebus the Aardvark" gets elected prime minister,
and is later named pope.

In L Neil Smith's "The Venus Belt" the election for the Presidency
of the North American Confederacy is held at the end of the story.

Kevin R

[Don Kuenz]

Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In the United States, we have a election of some local consequence
> rapidly approaching. That makes this a good time to brush up on
> SF in which elections play a significant part. Here's a start:

<snip>

"Joe Steele" by Turtledove. :0)

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

A generation which ignores history has no past - and no future.

[Cryptoengineer]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
news:oCE3z...@kithrup.com:

> In article <1da247b5-2888-43de...@googlegroups.com>,
> TB <tsbr...@dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>>
>>The Slaves of Heaven: The adult male members of primitive tribes elect
>>their chiefs. If the chief messes up too badly, the males can vote him
>>out and execute him! But if the chief wins the recall election, his
>>chief challenger is executed!
>
> Old Spanish proverb: Quien tira al rey ha de matarlo. Who shoots
> at the king had better kill him.

Spanish? Do you have a cite?

Ralph Waldo Emerson used it as early as 1843. Machiavelli expresses
very much the same sentiment (at greater length )in The Prince (1505).

pt

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <XnsA66DE3DC08...@216.166.97.131>,

It was in my second-year Spanish textbook. No author cited.

[Robert Bannister]

Are you sure that was a story and not present-day America?

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

[David Johnston]

On 8/23/2016 6:59 PM, Michael R N Dolbear wrote:
>
> "David Johnston" wrote
>
>>>> Also there's the climax of "Double Star", Robert Heinlein's take on
>>>> "Zenda". The imposter and his cabal wait for the outcome of Earth's
>>>> election (in a surprisingly European parliamentary system).
>
> RAH needed a system with a constitutional monarch which allowed a
> unscheduled election.
>
>>> Thanks. When I perused my shelves to create that list, I saw _Double
>>> Star_ and couldn't remember if it had an election or not.
>
>
>> Yeah. The the interesting thing was that if I remember right, it was a
> unicameral legislature with proportionate representation so the process
> of forming a government was an incredible mess.
>
> No mention of proportional representation, though not all districts were
> geographical.

Didn't they have to do the elaborate coalition building thing? That
only happens with proportionate representation.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <oCE40...@kithrup.com>,

Yeah, that sounds right.

[David Johnston]

On 8/23/2016 4:46 PM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 2016-08-23 11:24, Kevrob wrote:
>> On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 11:20:00 AM UTC-4, David Johnston wrote:
>>> Also there's the climax of "Double Star", Robert Heinlein's take on
>>> "Zenda". The imposter and his cabal wait for the outcome of Earth's
>>> election (in a surprisingly European parliamentary system).
>>
>> Don't forget Harry Harrison's "The Stainless Steel Rat for President."
>> (1982) Slippery Jim as a campaign manager is a riot! (At least if you
>> were both an SF fan and a political science student when it came out...)
>
> Hey, it was fifth on my list.
>
> What about fantasy? I don't read much fantasy, so I don't have any of
> that on my list. What fantasy works feature an election?

Prince's Fire by Amy Raby. After his non compos mentis father is pushed
into abdicating while the prince is out of the country, the prince must
rush back to face a popular vote on whether he will succeed his father.
It's a yes-no vote, and I'm foggy on what would have happened had he
lost, but apparently the head of the council of nobles thought it would
work out well for him.

In the computer game Dragon Age Origins, a "landsmeet" of the nobles is
called to challenge the legitimacy of Loghain's regency and vote on who
will succeed the king who Loghain abandoned to death on the battlefield.

Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch. The protagonists are in a battle to
fix an election with author's ex-wife.

[David Johnston]

On 8/23/2016 6:33 PM, TB wrote:

> The alleged robot was running for Mayor.
>
> Spoilers:
>
> 1
> 2
> 3
> 4
> 5
> 6
> 7
> 8
> 9
> 10
>
> The candidate disproved the robot allegations by solidly hitting a heckler, thus violating the First Law (Robots may not injure humans, or through inaction, allow humans to come to harm).
>

But of course nobody checked to make sure the heckler was human.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <npj66t$lm9$1...@dont-email.me>,

David Johnston <Davidjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On 8/23/2016 4:46 PM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>> On 2016-08-23 11:24, Kevrob wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 11:20:00 AM UTC-4, David Johnston wrote:
>>>> Also there's the climax of "Double Star", Robert Heinlein's take on
>>>> "Zenda". The imposter and his cabal wait for the outcome of Earth's
>>>> election (in a surprisingly European parliamentary system).
>>>
>>> Don't forget Harry Harrison's "The Stainless Steel Rat for President."
>>> (1982) Slippery Jim as a campaign manager is a riot! (At least if you
>>> were both an SF fan and a political science student when it came out...)
>>
>> Hey, it was fifth on my list.
>>
>> What about fantasy? I don't read much fantasy, so I don't have any of
>> that on my list. What fantasy works feature an election?
>
>Prince's Fire by Amy Raby. After his non compos mentis father is pushed
>into abdicating while the prince is out of the country, the prince must
>rush back to face a popular vote on whether he will succeed his father.
>It's a yes-no vote, and I'm foggy on what would have happened had he
>lost, but apparently the head of the council of nobles thought it would
>work out well for him.

Keep ib mind that the early German tribes, and their descendant
nations for a very long time, held elections to determine which
member of the royal family should succeed to the throne. (This
can be seen in detail in de Camp's _Lest Darkness Fall._) And as
late as the eighteenth century, the nobleman to whom Bach
presented the Brandenburg Concerti* had as one of his titles, The
Elector of Brandenburg.

_____
*And he never read or heard them, and they were found untouched
in a cabinet a century later, but you knew that.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Wed, 24 Aug 2016 06:02:31 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

>Keep ib mind that the early German tribes, and their descendant
>nations for a very long time, held elections to determine which
>member of the royal family should succeed to the throne. (This
>can be seen in detail in de Camp's _Lest Darkness Fall._) And as
>late as the eighteenth century, the nobleman to whom Bach
>presented the Brandenburg Concerti* had as one of his titles, The
>Elector of Brandenburg.

The hereditary title of Elector indicated that the bearer was one of
the individuals who would vote on the selection of the Holy Roman
Emperor from the available candidates.

Until the country was gobbled up by its neighbors, the Kings of Poland
were also elected by the Polish nobility from a limited pool of
candidates; I forget exactly what the limits were.




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

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <mrfqrbda801f9vqtq...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 24 Aug 2016 06:02:31 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>Keep ib mind that the early German tribes, and their descendant
>>nations for a very long time, held elections to determine which
>>member of the royal family should succeed to the throne. (This
>>can be seen in detail in de Camp's _Lest Darkness Fall._) And as
>>late as the eighteenth century, the nobleman to whom Bach
>>presented the Brandenburg Concerti* had as one of his titles, The
>>Elector of Brandenburg.
>
>The hereditary title of Elector indicated that the bearer was one of
>the individuals who would vote on the selection of the Holy Roman
>Emperor from the available candidates.
>
>Until the country was gobbled up by its neighbors, the Kings of Poland
>were also elected by the Polish nobility from a limited pool of
>candidates; I forget exactly what the limits were.
>

In _Lest Darkness Fall_, which I mentioned upthread, the
candidate had to be a member of the royal family, the Amalings.
In OTL, General Wittigis got himself qualified by marrying
Princess Mathaswentha; in the book, Padway achieved the same
thing for the more intelligent Urias by persuading Mathaswentha
to marry him (Urias, not Padway).

I haven't studied the subject sufficiently to know how often a
man could qualify as a candidate by marriage or adoption, but I
suspect there were ways.

[Anthony Nance]

Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:

The 1984 anthology _Election Day 2084_ contains sf short stories
about the future of elections and politics. Isfdb has the table
of contents, and only a few of the stories have already been
mentioned in this thread.

Laumer wrote something...something...<google>...Hm. Must be
"Ballots and Bandits", but that title rings no bells. Hm.

In addition to "Franchise" and "Evidence", didn't Asimov also
do something with an election in "The Bicentennial Man", or
maybe "The Tercentenary Incident". (Did he write a "Quadrennial
<Something>"? Almost sounds like a string of Ludlum titles.)

Speaking of "Franchise", William Tenn did something sort of
similar in "Null P".

And even though it's more about selection than election, I'll
bring up the Drazi in Babylon 5, just because it was fun for
a while. (Purple! Green!)


Relevant to fantasy and elections (which you ask about else-thread):
Stephen King's "The Dead Zone", certainly.

Mary Gentle's "Grunts" has The Dark Lord trying to conquer the world
by holding an election, and it takes up a non-trivial amount of
the book.

I think Heinlein's "Our Fair City" probably fits. Wikipedia describes
it better and more succinctly than I would:
"The story involves an old parking lot attendant, his pet whirlwind
(named Kitten), and a muckraking newspaper columnist who decide to
"clean up" their city's corrupt government by running the whirlwind
for political office."

Still thinking...
Tony

[Bill Gill]

There seems to be something annoying wrong with your editor. It
keeps garbling whole sentences that ruin the thought you
are trying to get across. Try fixing that and resending your
message.

Bill

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 2016-08-24 08:08, Anthony Nance wrote:
> Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> In the United States, we have a election of some local consequence
>> rapidly approaching. That makes this a good time to brush up on
>> SF in which elections play a significant part. Here's a start:

>> 1970: "Ballot and Bandits", by Keith Laumer. Terra has helped the
>> denizens of the planet Oberon to free themselves from Groaci rule.
>> Now is the time for the Oberonians to select their first leader in
>> a fair and open election. Unfortunately, the Terran ambassador and
>> his staff are having trouble deciding who should win.

> The 1984 anthology _Election Day 2084_ contains sf short stories
> about the future of elections and politics. Isfdb has the table
> of contents, and only a few of the stories have already been
> mentioned in this thread.

I'll have to look for it.

> Laumer wrote something...something...<google>...Hm. Must be
> "Ballots and Bandits", but that title rings no bells. Hm.

> I think Heinlein's "Our Fair City" probably fits.

Which reminds me that his "A Bathroom of Her Own" also portrays
a municipal election.

> Still thinking...

More contributions are always welcome.

--
Michael F. Stemper
This sentence no verb.

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 2016-08-24 08:39, Bill Gill wrote:
> On 8/23/2016 9:02 AM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>> In the United States, we have a election of some local consequence
>> rapidly approaching. That makes this a good time to brush up on
>> SF in which elections play a significant part. Here's a start:

>> 1965: _Subspace Explorers_, by E.E. "Doc" Smith. This one is similar
>> in theme to _Atlas Shrugged_. But, it's a lot more fun and only about
>> twice as long as Galt's radio address. Smith portrays another crucial
>> election, in a manner so similar that one might think that he just
>> filed off the serial numbers from _First Lensman_. One key difference
>> is that va guvf bar, gur "tbbq thlf" ybfr.

>> 1982: _The Stainless Steel Rat for President_, by Harry Harrison. The
>> Rat discovers that the world of Paraiso-Aqui has been ruled by the same
>> strongman for generations, despite regular elections. He sets himself
>> the task of bringing down the ruler, despite the closed-source voting
>> machines that have been ensuring his re-election. Behind-the-scenes
>> negotiations with respect to the party platform, getting the message
>> out, and balancing the ticket are all portrayed. Gur bhgpbzr vf dhvgr
>> fvzvyne gb gung bs "Onyybg naq Onaqvgf".
>>
>> 1994: _Interface_, by "Stephen Bury". This features a presidential
>> election run by incredibly savvy media handlers. What even the
>> candidates don't know is that the handlers are actually working on
>> behalf of what is, in all but name, the Bavarian Illuminati. It's
>> a rip-roaring techno-thriller, with an ending reminiscent of that of
>> Urvayrva'f "Bire gur Envaobj--".
>>
> There seems to be something annoying wrong with your editor. It
> keeps garbling whole sentences that ruin the thought you
> are trying to get across. Try fixing that and resending your
> message.

In case you're serious:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROT13#Usage>

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, August 24, 2016 at 7:39:44 AM UTC-6, Bill Gill wrote:

> There seems to be something annoying wrong with your editor. It
> keeps garbling whole sentences that ruin the thought you
> are trying to get across. Try fixing that and resending your
> message.

No, what you are seeing is something called "rot13", being used to avoid giving
away the plot twists of stories; one needs to select the text involved and choose
that function from the menu in one's newsreader to see the spoilers.

John Savard

[Michael F. Stemper]

With _Bio of a Space Tyrant_, it's rather hard to tell the difference.
The setting is basically Earth blown up to the Solar System. Different
planets, satellites, and asteroids all have a one-to-one and onto
mapping with specific current political entites. (Well, current as of
the time of writing.)

I think, and this is a very faint memory, that in the setting, Earth
represented India.

This even works down to the level of US states. Different asteroids
(IIRC) are specific states. The two that I recall (after thirty years)
were "Golden" and "Sunshine", which were analogues of California and
Florida.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 19:22:20 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt
<djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in<news:oCDn5...@kithrup.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

[_Double Star_]

> Do! The protagonist is an unusually complex character,
> for a Heinlein story.

Mostly, I think, because we see more of his growth than we
usually get to see, and because he starts out not just
naive, but shallow. But I agree that it’s one of the best
of the early novels, along with _Citizen of the Galaxy_.

Brian
--
It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their
holes to root for sandtatties. The waves whispered
rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,
haggisss.

[TB]

On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 5:47:29 PM UTC-7, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> In article <nphl0o$m8s$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >In the United States, we have a election of some local consequence
> >rapidly approaching. That makes this a good time to brush up on
> >SF in which elections play a significant part. Here's a start:
>
> In Julian May's /Intervention/ (1987), the (2004) US presidential
> election campaign takes an important part of the narrative leading up
> to the pivotal events of 2013, but I'd have to reread the book to
> describe it accurately. A quick skim suggests that President
> Baumgartner has campaigned on an anti-metapsychic platform and easily
> won re-election; he is surprised on the day of his second inauguration
> by the news that his daughter does not have epilepsy but rather, will
> become a metapsychic operant herself.

So he's like Donald Trump!

So Baumgartner is going to have to lock up his daughter!

[TB]

I thought that the states were collections of Bubble Cities.

[Michael F. Stemper]

That's entirely possible, which is why my message included "IIRC", which
means "if I recall correctly" and generally is taken as an implication
that the recollection might be incorrect.

--
Michael F. Stemper
This post contains greater than 95% post-consumer bytes by weight.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Wednesday, 24 August 2016 01:35:30 UTC+1, TB wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 4:54:03 PM UTC-7, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> > ["Evidence", Asimov]
> > Spoiler-ish: it's resolved the same way that Buzz Aldrin
> > resolved the question of whether the moon landings were
> > faked.
> >
> > Although then it wouldn't be a robot story...
>
> How did Buzz Aldrin prove that the Moon landings happened?

Buzz Aldrin punched the guy who said they didn't. Famously.
It may be on YouTube?

Admittedly that isn't proof, strictly, but it resembles
proof in that a lot of us were satisfied with it.

[Robert Carnegie]

... human, i.e., not a second human-looking robot.

Further spoiler of sorts: I think it turns out (in Asimov's
late fiction, at least) that robots also aren't bound by
the Three Laws with respect to intelligent alien life.
Come to think... I don't recall how this is treated
in "Victory Unintentional".

[David Johnston]

It isn't addressed. The Jovians don't begin to face the robots with an
actual threat to their continued existence because they are so
over-engineered to survive both the natural conditions of Jupiter as
well as Earthlike conditions and space and so they have no reason to
fight back.

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 2016-08-24 13:24, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Wednesday, 24 August 2016 05:08:26 UTC+1, David Johnston wrote:
>> On 8/23/2016 6:33 PM, TB wrote:
>>> The alleged robot was running for Mayor.

[Does anybody know how to insert a <CTRL>-L in the editor that is
integrated with Thunderbird?]

>>> The candidate disproved the robot allegations by solidly hitting a heckler, thus violating the First Law (Robots may not injure humans, or through inaction, allow humans to come to harm).
>>
>> But of course nobody checked to make sure the heckler was human.
>
> ... human, i.e., not a second human-looking robot.
>
> Further spoiler of sorts: I think it turns out (in Asimov's
> late fiction, at least) that robots also aren't bound by
> the Three Laws with respect to intelligent alien life.

Since the First Law specifically refers to "a human being",
this isn't much of a surprise. However, I don't recall any
intelligent alien life in the main corpus of his work. That
is, the Three Laws-Psychohistory stuff. The end of _Robots
and Earth_ alludes (IIRC) to the possibility of extra-galactic
stuff, and hints that the Solarians might have become non-human.
But, at that point in time, they were the only ones making
robots, so they were defining "human" as "Solarian".

> Come to think... I don't recall how this is treated
> in "Victory Unintentional".

"Victory Unintentional" isn't a Three Laws story, is it? Even so,
the ZZ's didn't, to the best of my memory, hurt any of the Jovians
anyhow.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Isaiah 10:1-2

[Bill Dugan]

On Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:38:58 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
<michael...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 2016-08-24 13:24, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 24 August 2016 05:08:26 UTC+1, David Johnston wrote:
>>> On 8/23/2016 6:33 PM, TB wrote:
>>>> The alleged robot was running for Mayor.
>
>[Does anybody know how to insert a <CTRL>-L in the editor that is
>integrated with Thunderbird?]
>
>>>> The candidate disproved the robot allegations by solidly hitting a heckler, thus violating the First Law (Robots may not injure humans, or through inaction, allow humans to come to harm).
>>>
>>> But of course nobody checked to make sure the heckler was human.
>>
>> ... human, i.e., not a second human-looking robot.
>>
>> Further spoiler of sorts: I think it turns out (in Asimov's
>> late fiction, at least) that robots also aren't bound by
>> the Three Laws with respect to intelligent alien life.
>
>Since the First Law specifically refers to "a human being",

YASID: short story where a robot concludes aliens are human because
even though they don't look human they behave like humans. I think in
Analog, used Three Laws but not actually by Asimov.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

fOn Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:38:58 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"

<michael...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 2016-08-24 13:24, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 24 August 2016 05:08:26 UTC+1, David Johnston wrote:
>>> On 8/23/2016 6:33 PM, TB wrote:
>>>> The alleged robot was running for Mayor.
>
>[Does anybody know how to insert a <CTRL>-L in the editor that is
>integrated with Thunderbird?]
>
>>>> The candidate disproved the robot allegations by solidly hitting a heckler, thus violating the First Law (Robots may not injure humans, or through inaction, allow humans to come to harm).
>>>
>>> But of course nobody checked to make sure the heckler was human.
>>
>> ... human, i.e., not a second human-looking robot.
>>
>> Further spoiler of sorts: I think it turns out (in Asimov's
>> late fiction, at least) that robots also aren't bound by
>> the Three Laws with respect to intelligent alien life.
>
>Since the First Law specifically refers to "a human being",
>this isn't much of a surprise. However, I don't recall any
>intelligent alien life in the main corpus of his work. That
>is, the Three Laws-Psychohistory stuff.

I remember reading Asimov saying somewhere after John Campbell's death
that he never tried to sell Campbell anything with aliens in it
because he disagreed with some of Campbell's ground rules (e.g.,
humans must always be superior to the aliens in some significant way).

Since most of Asimov's big series started out in Astounding/Analog,
that meant they didn't have aliens in them.

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 2016-08-24 14:11, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> fOn Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:38:58 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
> <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2016-08-24 13:24, Robert Carnegie wrote:

>>> Further spoiler of sorts: I think it turns out (in Asimov's
>>> late fiction, at least) that robots also aren't bound by
>>> the Three Laws with respect to intelligent alien life.
>>
>> Since the First Law specifically refers to "a human being",
>> this isn't much of a surprise. However, I don't recall any
>> intelligent alien life in the main corpus of his work. That
>> is, the Three Laws-Psychohistory stuff.
>
> I remember reading Asimov saying somewhere after John Campbell's death
> that he never tried to sell Campbell anything with aliens in it
> because he disagreed with some of Campbell's ground rules (e.g.,
> humans must always be superior to the aliens in some significant way).

I thought that that was in _The Early Asimov_. However, I just checked
the two most likely spots -- the intro to and the extro from "Blind
Alley" and it wasn't in either of them.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Galatians 3:28

[David Johnston]

It's in the intro for Homo Sol.

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <d6b121e4-f5e0-4664...@googlegroups.com>,

I stopped skimming when I got to the point where he tears up his
planned inauguration speech, just after taking the oath of office, and
invents a new one (not reported in the text) extemporaneously.

-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

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <49eb9f7f-310c-40a4...@googlegroups.com>,

Wasn't that the one where the aliens packed up and left the
Galaxy? Were there any robots in it?

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <47srrblrshjmn3oh7...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

There was one race of aliens in the Trantor universe, but iirc they
took themselves offstage in the course of their only appearance.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Peter Trei]

It's been a very long time - was that in the original trilogy (I can't
recall anything like that), or in the later (post-Campbell) books which
attempted to reconcile Foundation and the Robot stories?

pt

[Michael F. Stemper]

No, you're thinking of "Blind Alley". This was the one where three
robots went down to the surface of Jupiter, and a sequel to "Not
Final!"

--
Michael F. Stemper
Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.

[Michael F. Stemper]

Yeah, that was "Blind Alley".

[Michael F. Stemper]

No to both. It was set *very* early in the Galactic Empire (977 G.E.),
and sold to Campbell. As I understand it, he wrote it in part so that
he wouldn't have to have aliens the the Trantorian stuff, due to
JWC's desire that humans always be portrayed as bigger ass-kickers
than anybody else.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <npl2n0$s8v$2...@dont-email.me>,

Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 2016-08-24 16:01, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>> In article
><47srrblrshjmn3oh7...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,
>> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>> fOn Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:38:58 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
>>> <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>> Since the First Law specifically refers to "a human being",
>>>> this isn't much of a surprise. However, I don't recall any
>>>> intelligent alien life in the main corpus of his work. That
>>>> is, the Three Laws-Psychohistory stuff.
>>>
>>> I remember reading Asimov saying somewhere after John Campbell's death
>>> that he never tried to sell Campbell anything with aliens in it
>>> because he disagreed with some of Campbell's ground rules (e.g.,
>>> humans must always be superior to the aliens in some significant way).
>>>
>>> Since most of Asimov's big series started out in Astounding/Analog,
>>> that meant they didn't have aliens in them.
>>
>> There was one race of aliens in the Trantor universe, but iirc they
>> took themselves offstage in the course of their only appearance.
>
>Yeah, that was "Blind Alley".
>

Ah, yep, that title still doesn't ring a bell, but that's definitely the
one I was thinking of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Alley

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <d9df6361-41e9-4704...@googlegroups.com>,

No, it was an early story. I'm blanking on the title, but he
wrote it during WWII, while he was working for the research lab in
Pennsylvania (along with Heinlein and de Camp). He had to write
specifications according to an exceedingly anal set of
rules, all full of outlines and indented subheadings, in a
strictly regulated military-speak. He wrote the story, about
the one alien race ever discovered by the Galactic Empire, in
that style (sufficiently modified to make it readable by humans)
to get it out of his system.

And the plot consisted of, the aliens got themselves the hell out
of the Galaxy so they wouldn't have to deal with the Empire. And
he says somewhere that he did avoid having aliens in his stories
for Astounding because of Campbell's prejudices, which amounted
to generalizing from "Northern Europeans are the best people on
the planet" to "human beings are the best people in the Galaxy."

If somebody wants to, you can probably find the tale in the
appropriate section of _In Memory Yet Green._

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <npl2n0$s8v$2...@dont-email.me>,

Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 2016-08-24 16:01, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>> In article
><47srrblrshjmn3oh7...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,
>> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>> fOn Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:38:58 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
>>> <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>> Since the First Law specifically refers to "a human being",
>>>> this isn't much of a surprise. However, I don't recall any
>>>> intelligent alien life in the main corpus of his work. That
>>>> is, the Three Laws-Psychohistory stuff.
>>>
>>> I remember reading Asimov saying somewhere after John Campbell's death
>>> that he never tried to sell Campbell anything with aliens in it
>>> because he disagreed with some of Campbell's ground rules (e.g.,
>>> humans must always be superior to the aliens in some significant way).
>>>
>>> Since most of Asimov's big series started out in Astounding/Analog,
>>> that meant they didn't have aliens in them.
>>
>> There was one race of aliens in the Trantor universe, but iirc they
>> took themselves offstage in the course of their only appearance.
>
>Yeah, that was "Blind Alley".

Thank you; now I don't have to look it up.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <npl05i$ot8$1...@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>,

Garrett Wollman <wol...@bimajority.org> wrote:
>In article <d6b121e4-f5e0-4664...@googlegroups.com>,
>TB <tsbr...@dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>>On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 5:47:29 PM UTC-7, Garrett Wollman wrote:
>>> In Julian May's /Intervention/ (1987), the (2004) US presidential
>>> election campaign takes an important part of the narrative leading up
>>> to the pivotal events of 2013, but I'd have to reread the book to
>>> describe it accurately. A quick skim suggests that President
>>> Baumgartner has campaigned on an anti-metapsychic platform and easily
>>> won re-election; he is surprised on the day of his second inauguration
>>> by the news that his daughter does not have epilepsy but rather, will
>>> become a metapsychic operant herself.
>>
>>So he's like Donald Trump!
>>
>>So Baumgartner is going to have to lock up his daughter!
>
>I stopped skimming when I got to the point where he tears up his
>planned inauguration speech, just after taking the oath of office, and
>invents a new one (not reported in the text) extemporaneously.

Sort of like the Master in Doctor Who (brilliantly played by John
Simm) when he was elected Prime Minister of the UK and at his
first Cabinet meeting took all the policy documents and threw
them up in the air?

(And then he assassinated all his Ministers and took off from
there.)

[David DeLaney]

On 2016-08-24, Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
> With _Bio of a Space Tyrant_, it's rather hard to tell the difference.

Yep. Folks here will know about my widespread acceptance of possibly-triggering
stuff in SF. ...This is the Piers Anthony series that I started and did NOT
finish. I don't think I got past book 1, in fact.

Dave, think about it
--
\/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.

[David DeLaney]

On 2016-08-24, Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>>Keep ib mind that the early German tribes, and their descendant
>>>nations for a very long time, held elections to determine which
>>>member of the royal family should succeed to the throne. (This
>>>can be seen in detail in de Camp's _Lest Darkness Fall._) And as
>>>late as the eighteenth century, the nobleman to whom Bach
>>>presented the Brandenburg Concerti* had as one of his titles, The
>>>Elector of Brandenburg.
>>
>>The hereditary title of Elector indicated that the bearer was one of
>>the individuals who would vote on the selection of the Holy Roman
>>Emperor from the available candidates.
>>
>>Until the country was gobbled up by its neighbors, the Kings of Poland
>>were also elected by the Polish nobility from a limited pool of
>>candidates; I forget exactly what the limits were.
>
> In _Lest Darkness Fall_, which I mentioned upthread, the
> candidate had to be a member of the royal family, the Amalings.
> In OTL, General Wittigis got himself qualified by marrying
> Princess Mathaswentha; in the book, Padway achieved the same
> thing for the more intelligent Urias by persuading Mathaswentha
> to marry him (Urias, not Padway).

In the backstory for Eddings' _Belgariad_, the first king of Sendaria was
elected to the position, and apparently it took a good while. He hadn't been
paying attention to the proceedings, and got notified while he was manuring his
cabbages.

And I seem to recall that somewhere in the middle of the Wheel of Time we
get to see an Aes Sedai important-meeting election, in detail; possibly the one
that elected what's-her-face to Supreme Aes Sedai Mugwump, I think?

Dave

[Robert Woodward]

In article
<47srrblrshjmn3oh7...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,
Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:

Since John Campbell did buy stories that did not follow that rule (not
often, I will admit), I sometimes wondered about the truthfulness of
that statement.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Oh, Campbell violated his own rules any time he felt like it.

[Peter Trei]

On Thursday, August 25, 2016 at 12:25:40 AM UTC-4, David DeLaney wrote:
> On 2016-08-24, Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > With _Bio of a Space Tyrant_, it's rather hard to tell the difference.
>
> Yep. Folks here will know about my widespread acceptance of possibly-triggering
> stuff in SF. ...This is the Piers Anthony series that I started and did NOT
> finish. I don't think I got past book 1, in fact.
>
> Dave, think about it

I also dropped the series. I don't find accounts of non-consensual sex
entertaining. (Anthony *has* done other porn/erotica I did enjoy.)

pt

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <robertaw-8F0D68...@news.individual.net>,

"Perception is reality."

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <oCGw4...@kithrup.com>,

Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:

An interesting quote in the SF context..

Are there any stories to the effect that if you persuade
enough people that X is true, X really does become true?

I have the feeling several are right at the tip of my brain,
but the caffine hasn't fully kicked in yet..

[Peter Trei]

Pretty much any court drama. "Truth" in a court of law is defined
as "What a sufficient number of jurors can be persuaded to believe".

Closer to the spirit of the question, though not spot on, is David Brin's
"The Practice Effect"

Also, stories where the existence of gods and other supernatural entities
are contingent on the existence of believers in the same.

pt

[a425couple]

"Michael F. Stemper" <michael...@gmail.com> wrote in...
> In the United States, we have a election of some local consequence
> rapidly approaching. That makes this a good time to brush up on
> SF in which elections play a significant part. Here's a start:

I am not currently seeing that anyone mentioned
Arthur C. Clarke's books, so I'll add from memory.

In his "Songs from Distant Earth" they had a fairly
standard colony government which decided that
anyone who wanted to rule, was automaticly ruled out!
So, a big list was made of qualified sane normal
people, and then a random pick was made.

But, of interest to me, in his "Hammer of God",
and entire earth wide vote was taken, in what seemed
to me to have been properly a scientific decision,
weither to hit the dangerous asteroid with a nuke
or not.

[leif...@dimnakorr.com]

Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>
> An interesting quote in the SF context..
>
> Are there any stories to the effect that if you persuade
> enough people that X is true, X really does become true?
>

One of the stories in the Sandman comic by Neil Gaiman --
'A dream of a thousand cats', Sandman #18 -- was about a
cat who tried to change the world by having a large
number of cats all share the same dream -- as that was how
humans had once changed the world to the one where they
rather than cats were the masters.

Granted, that was about X people all having the same dream,
not the same belief, but close enough for government work?

--
Leif Roar Moldskred
"Little one, I would like to see anyone ??? prophet, king or
God ??? persuade a thousand cats to do anything at the same
time."

[David Johnston]

On 8/25/2016 11:36 AM, leif...@dimnakorr.com wrote:
> Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>
>> An interesting quote in the SF context..
>>
>> Are there any stories to the effect that if you persuade
>> enough people that X is true, X really does become true?
>>
>
> One of the stories in the Sandman comic by Neil Gaiman --
> 'A dream of a thousand cats', Sandman #18 -- was about a
> cat who tried to change the world by having a large
> number of cats all share the same dream -- as that was how
> humans had once changed the world to the one where they
> rather than cats were the masters.
>
> Granted, that was about X people all having the same dream,
> not the same belief, but close enough for government work?
>

Tanya Huff had a reanimated mummy who wanted to do this big sacrifice
for his god. As I recall the god turned out to just want a believer to
keep him alive. And since the vampire who stopped the mummy had really
good life expectancy and now believed he existed, the god was satisfied
with how things worked out.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <b6ednS_k1_0ysSLK...@giganews.com>,

<leif...@dimnakorr.com> wrote:
>Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>>
>> An interesting quote in the SF context..
>>
>> Are there any stories to the effect that if you persuade
>> enough people that X is true, X really does become true?
>>
>
>One of the stories in the Sandman comic by Neil Gaiman --
>'A dream of a thousand cats', Sandman #18 -- was about a
>cat who tried to change the world by having a large
>number of cats all share the same dream -- as that was how
>humans had once changed the world to the one where they
>rather than cats were the masters.
>
>Granted, that was about X people all having the same dream,
>not the same belief, but close enough for government work?
>

Yep, I think so.

I really need to go back and re-read Sandman

[William Hyde]

On Thursday, August 25, 2016 at 12:25:40 AM UTC-4, David DeLaney wrote:

> On 2016-08-24, Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > With _Bio of a Space Tyrant_, it's rather hard to tell the difference.
>
> Yep. Folks here will know about my widespread acceptance of possibly-triggering
> stuff in SF. ...This is the Piers Anthony series that I started and did NOT
> finish. I don't think I got past book 1, in fact.

That was the winter of my alcohol content. With the aid of far too much cognac I finished the set, laughing most of the way (I mean, the whole conceit is inherently absurd, the Israelis and Arabs leave Earth and move ... right next to each other. And the Arabs have the energy source). It is the only Anthony series I've read even two of since "Ox Orn Omnivore". There's not enough alcohol in the world for me to read Xanth.

On the plus side, when I sold it the store-owner's son was very happy as he hadn't been able to find volumes three or five.

On the minus side, if he was drinking that much at that age he'll be terribly ill by now.

William Hyde

[tsbr...@gmail.com]

So Trump would be able to make his beliefs real? He would be able to magically turn all Mexicans into criminals, magically cause New Jersey Muslims to retroactively celebrate the 9/11 attacks on 9/11/2001, magically make the General Patton pig blood incident real, etc.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 12:31:10 -0700 (PDT), William Hyde
<wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote
in<news:bc2019f6-8fdf-4886...@googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> That was the winter of my alcohol content. With the aid
> of far too much cognac I finished the set, laughing most
> of the way (I mean, the whole conceit is inherently
> absurd, the Israelis and Arabs leave Earth and move ...
> right next to each other. And the Arabs have the energy
> source). It is the only Anthony series I've read even
> two of since "Ox Orn Omnivore". There's not enough
> alcohol in the world for me to read Xanth.

The first two or three Xanth books were actually pretty
good fun.

[...]

Brian
--
It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their
holes to root for sandtatties. The waves whispered
rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,
haggisss.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 16:18:19 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
<b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 12:31:10 -0700 (PDT), William Hyde
><wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote
>in<news:bc2019f6-8fdf-4886...@googlegroups.com>
>in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>[...]
>
>> That was the winter of my alcohol content. With the aid
>> of far too much cognac I finished the set, laughing most
>> of the way (I mean, the whole conceit is inherently
>> absurd, the Israelis and Arabs leave Earth and move ...
>> right next to each other. And the Arabs have the energy
>> source). It is the only Anthony series I've read even
>> two of since "Ox Orn Omnivore". There's not enough
>> alcohol in the world for me to read Xanth.
>
>The first two or three Xanth books were actually pretty
>good fun.

Other than the first being unbelievably sexist, yeah. But they
decayed after that.

I actually made it through something like eight or nine of those
before putting one down and realizing I really, truly didn't want to
pick it up again.

[Moriarty]

On Thursday, August 25, 2016 at 2:29:45 PM UTC+10, David DeLaney wrote:

<snip>

> In the backstory for Eddings' _Belgariad_, the first king of Sendaria was
> elected to the position, and apparently it took a good while. He hadn't been
> paying attention to the proceedings, and got notified while he was manuring his
> cabbages.

Wrong! It was rutabagas.

(If I didn't correct your blatant error, the internet would explode.)

-Moriarty

[Magewolf]

On 8/25/2016 4:18 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 12:31:10 -0700 (PDT), William Hyde
> <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote
> in<news:bc2019f6-8fdf-4886...@googlegroups.com>
> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> [...]
>
>> That was the winter of my alcohol content. With the aid
>> of far too much cognac I finished the set, laughing most
>> of the way (I mean, the whole conceit is inherently
>> absurd, the Israelis and Arabs leave Earth and move ...
>> right next to each other. And the Arabs have the energy
>> source). It is the only Anthony series I've read even
>> two of since "Ox Orn Omnivore". There's not enough
>> alcohol in the world for me to read Xanth.
>
> The first two or three Xanth books were actually pretty
> good fun.
>
> [...]
>
> Brian
>

I liked the first three of the Apprentice Adept books, the first three
of the Xanth book, and the first couple of the Incarnations of
Immortality books.

The common wisdom used to be that the first three books of any Anthony
series were decent at least but anything after that tended to fall off a
cliff. Of course I have not read anything new from him in years so I
have no idea how he is doing now.

[Moriarty]

On Friday, August 26, 2016 at 12:00:38 AM UTC+10, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

<snip>

> >"Perception is reality."
> >
>
> An interesting quote in the SF context..
>
> Are there any stories to the effect that if you persuade
> enough people that X is true, X really does become true?

That was the magic system in one of Lyndon Hardy's Five-Six-Seven novels. Definitely not the first, so it was either "Secret of the Sixth Magic" or "Riddle of the Seven Realms". Probably Six.

-Moriarty

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <npna4...@news6.newsguy.com>,

a425couple <a425c...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>"Michael F. Stemper" <michael...@gmail.com> wrote in...
>> In the United States, we have a election of some local consequence
>> rapidly approaching. That makes this a good time to brush up on
>> SF in which elections play a significant part. Here's a start:
>
>I am not currently seeing that anyone mentioned
>Arthur C. Clarke's books, so I'll add from memory.
>
>In his "Songs from Distant Earth" they had a fairly
>standard colony government which decided that
>anyone who wanted to rule, was automaticly ruled out!
>So, a big list was made of qualified sane normal
>people, and then a random pick was made.

Sounds like a Benedictine monastery. In Rumer Godden's _In This
House of Brede_ it's mentioned that "to intrigue to be Abbess" is
one of the gravest faults on the list of Grave Faults, and the
Abbess comments that anyone who intrigues for the office deserves
to get it.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:57:21 -0700 (PDT), Moriarty
<blu...@ivillage.com> wrote
in<news:03becbd6-49d2-4fbc...@googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

> On Thursday, August 25, 2016 at 2:29:45 PM UTC+10, David DeLaney wrote:

> <snip>

>> In the backstory for Eddings' _Belgariad_, the first
>> king of Sendaria was elected to the position, and
>> apparently it took a good while.

Six years.

>> He hadn't been paying attention to the proceedings,

And thought that his name had been eliminated at some stage
of the proceedings.

>> and got notified while he was manuring his cabbages.

> Wrong! It was rutabagas.

Most probably. Though Silk does say at some point that he
also raised cabbages. Still, even if this is true,
rutabagas were evidently his passion. (And I have to agree
with him: they taste *much* nicer than turnips.)

> (If I didn't correct your blatant error, the internet
> would explode.)

[David DeLaney]

Glad to have been of service, kind sir!

Dave, please take this three-question survey to improve costumer satisfaction

[William Hyde]

On Thursday, August 25, 2016 at 5:18:58 PM UTC-4, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 16:18:19 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
> <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 12:31:10 -0700 (PDT), William Hyde
> ><wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote
> >in<news:bc2019f6-8fdf-4886...@googlegroups.com>
> >in rec.arts.sf.written:
> >
> >[...]
> >
> >> That was the winter of my alcohol content. With the aid
> >> of far too much cognac I finished the set, laughing most
> >> of the way (I mean, the whole conceit is inherently
> >> absurd, the Israelis and Arabs leave Earth and move ...
> >> right next to each other. And the Arabs have the energy
> >> source). It is the only Anthony series I've read even
> >> two of since "Ox Orn Omnivore". There's not enough
> >> alcohol in the world for me to read Xanth.
> >
> >The first two or three Xanth books were actually pretty
> >good fun.
>
> Other than the first being unbelievably sexist, yeah. But they
> decayed after that.

I read the first one and liked it. I then decided, from what I already knew of Anthony, to read no more of them.

It wasn't a matter of prescience or good judgment. I'd followed a number of series as they tumbled downhill, always buying the next volume to as to know what happened, and "in case it gets better". So this time I didn't. More a matter of luck than anything else.

I did the same with his next series. But I was desperately short of reading material when I bought "Bio", so it was an exception. And it didn't go downhill after the first book. Or uphill.

William Hyde

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <7619db21-c1bc-4239...@googlegroups.com>,

I liked those, wish he had done some more. Rather Vancian characters in
an "Unknown" type setting.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 20:37:52 -0700 (PDT), William Hyde
<wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, August 25, 2016 at 5:18:58 PM UTC-4, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>> On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 16:18:19 -0400, "Brian M. Scott"
>> <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>>
>> >On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 12:31:10 -0700 (PDT), William Hyde
>> ><wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote
>> >in<news:bc2019f6-8fdf-4886...@googlegroups.com>
>> >in rec.arts.sf.written:
>> >
>> >[...]
>> >
>> >> That was the winter of my alcohol content. With the aid
>> >> of far too much cognac I finished the set, laughing most
>> >> of the way (I mean, the whole conceit is inherently
>> >> absurd, the Israelis and Arabs leave Earth and move ...
>> >> right next to each other. And the Arabs have the energy
>> >> source). It is the only Anthony series I've read even
>> >> two of since "Ox Orn Omnivore". There's not enough
>> >> alcohol in the world for me to read Xanth.
>> >
>> >The first two or three Xanth books were actually pretty
>> >good fun.
>>
>> Other than the first being unbelievably sexist, yeah. But they
>> decayed after that.
>
>I read the first one and liked it. I then decided, from what I already knew of Anthony, to read no more of them.
>
>It wasn't a matter of prescience or good judgment. I'd followed a number of series as they tumbled downhill, always buying the next volume to as to know what happened, and "in case it gets better". So this time I didn't. More a matter of luck than anything else.

I think _Castle Roogna_ was the best -- that was the third, I believe.
After that, yeah, you don't need to go any further.

Oh, and you don't need (or want) to read _The Source of Magic_ to
appreciate _Castle Roogna_.

But it's been decades since I read any of them, so I may not be
reliable on this.

[Robert Carnegie]

On the other hand, could those so inclined literally wish
that he'd just go away, and have it be so?

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <e0826cff-3cc3-434e...@googlegroups.com>,

There are many SF/F stories on that theme. One about a little
kid who could chant "Rain, rain, go away, come again some other
day," until all the postponed rainstorms came back at once. And
Leigh Richmond's "Prologue to an Analogue", in which

>... a newscaster observed that following a disaster report with
>a commercial for cleanser resulted in the resolution of the
>disaster. So he went on the air and did a comprehensive report
>on everything that was wrong with the world. And then he took a
>deep breath and chanted the slogan, "Witches of the world, unite,
>to make it clean, clean, clean, witch clean, NOW!"
>
>And it worked.

(This was a YASID of mine once, and when someone ID'd it I saved
it to disk.)

And there have got to be more.