yasid: 1960s or earlier, human colonists, cat-like native creatures

[William December Starr]

emailed to MITSFS (and I'll mention in passing that for two terms
Sue Kayton had the single dorm room (of a size and shape
affectionately referred to by house residents as a "coffin") next to
the 4-person "quad" that I was in in Baker House at MIT circa 1976):

-------- [ *cut_here* ] -----------------------------------------

I sent this question to Allexperts and Sue Kayton wasn't able to
help me. She suggested that I contact you, since she said you have
the world's largest SciFi library. This is the information I gave
to her. Given the vagaries of memory, it may be that what I'm
remembering isn't actually close enough to the book to identify it
but I thought I'd make a last try. Any thoughts? Thanks.

I read it in the 60s. It's a colonization story. It begins with the
hero, before leaving Earth, being woken up by an alarm that uses
increasing light instead of sound. The planet involved has natives
who live with telepathic or empathic cat-type creatures who's foot
pads secrete a caustic substance so, of course, the Earthmen start
killing them, causing all sorts of problems. Eventually, they learn
to communicate with the natives using these cats. I think I remember
the heroine's name was Fiona Cathay or Cathey. At the end the two
end up committing themselves to one another and do a private
marriage ceremony where they each say, "By all that is holy and
sacred in the universe..." Does this ring any bells. I've been
trying to figure out what the book was for decades now.

-------- [ *cut_here* ] -----------------------------------------

I'd bet a whole shiny nickel that this is an Andre Norton, except
if it was I'd've expected it to have been solved long ago.

-- wds

[Robert Carnegie]

Well, a "private wedding ceremony" is discussed but
avoided in E.E. Smith's _Spacehounds of IPC_, in which
Percival "Steve" Stevens and Nadia Newton crash-land
part of a shattered spaceship in the jungle on Ganymede.
But they get back to civilisation to be married properly,
i.e., with other people present. And that isn't the
end of the story IIRC.

Speaking of Smith, I think his characters, or most of
them, in _The Skylark of Space_ are married on the
planet Osnome and by its local rituals, which may or
may not include nudity. Smith characters tend to
end up nude.

But these aren't colonisation stories.

[Anthony Nance]

I had some time to dig (electronically) yesterday, and here's
the best lead I turned up:
Fiona Cathay is one of the lead characters of Philip Wilding's
Space-flight Venus from 1954. Below my sign-off is the only thing
I could find that actually referenced the content of the book.
It's a brief review from the November 1954 issue of New Worlds
Science Fiction.

I don't know if it fits or not, but maybe it's enough to lead
someone else to figure it out.

It's kind of a hoot to read, by the way - hyphens a-plenty,
"bosomy", "Well, well!"

Tony
---------------------------------------------------------------
From the November 1954 issue of New Worlds:

In complete contrast, Philip Wilding's Space-Flight Venus (Hennel
Locke 9/6), is the sort of trivial nonsense which can have but limited
appeal. The style is strongly reminiscent of the "Flash Gordon"
type of comic-strip, replete with handsome virile space-men and their
beautiful, bosomy female counterparts, all dressed in the correct 21st
century space-technician fashion - a 'bare' minimum of nylon and
ornaments. The story opens with the lovely Fiona Cathay joining as
a scientist the gadget-ridden secret rocket field in Mexico, from which
her ever-loving space pilot, Dale Picart, will lead an expedition to
Venus. An orthodox route is to be used, via an earth satellite and
subsidiary fuelling stations, and indeed some serious attempt is made
to infuse a little scientific accuracy in this episode. But the inevitable
happens and the Venusians turn out to be - yes, handsome virile men
and their beautiful bosomy female counterparts, without exception,
and complete with a super-scientific utopian set-up. One of the Earth-
men, though, is a villian, and becomes a drunken murderer, hardly
the conduct one expects on Venus, and I was relieved to find he came
to a sticky end, whilst Dale, who for one awful moment nearly fell for
a Venusian plunging neckline, returns safely to the immaculate Fiona.
Well, well!

[Steve Coltrin]

begin fnord

wds...@panix.com (William December Starr) writes:

> It begins with the hero, before leaving Earth, being woken up by an
> alarm that uses increasing light instead of sound.

Whoever wrote that book, I already dislike them. That exists, it's
called "sunrise", and it doesn't work worth shit.

--
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

[Quadibloc]

Following your lead, I saw an F&SF review - enough to note that the reviewer
didn't like it either; just because England has Clarke and Wyndham doesn't mean
it can't also have bad SF writers. But it revealed one important fact: while in
Britain it was sold by Hennel Locke for 9 shillings and sixpence, in America it
was sold by Philosophical Library for $2.75.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

But from the description in your lead, apparently the Venusians are fully
human, not cat-like.

Apparently it isn't Fritz Leiber's The Wanderer (about flying saucers, not
colonization) or Lisanne Norman's Turning Point either. And Andre Norton did
have a series with cat-people, but, yes, it isn't the right one. Who knows, it
might be The Cats of Seroster.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 1:57:29 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
> Who knows, it
> might be The Cats of Seroster.

No, that's a fantasy novel with little relation to the YASID.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, May 9, 2016 at 8:32:48 AM UTC-6, William December Starr wrote:

> I'd bet a whole shiny nickel that this is an Andre Norton, except
> if it was I'd've expected it to have been solved long ago.

A search for "Fiona Cathay" on Google Books actually failed to turn up Philip
Wilding's Space-Flight Venus, but it *did* turn up "Emperor, Swords, Pentacles"
by Phyllis Gotlieb... *and* "The Beast Master" by *Andre Norton*.

John Savard

[Robert Carnegie]

On Thursday, 12 May 2016 08:57:29 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 1:45:01 AM UTC-6, I wrote:
> > Following your lead, I saw an F&SF review - enough to note that the reviewer
> > didn't like it either; just because England has Clarke and Wyndham doesn't mean
> > it can't also have bad SF writers. But it revealed one important fact: while in
> > Britain it was sold by Hennel Locke for 9 shillings and sixpence, in America it
> > was sold by Philosophical Library for $2.75.
>
> But from the description in your lead, apparently the Venusians are fully
> human, not cat-like.

The Venus native "people" in the YASID aren't cats -
they /have/ cats. Telepathic/empathic ones.

These aren't mentioned in the review of _Space-Flight Venus_
so we need a brave volunteer to read it.

[Anthony Nance]

I wonder how/why a google books search would link "Fiona Cathay"
to the Gotlieb and Norton, because (from what I can tell) neither
of them has a character with that name. The one thing I found
tying them all to each other is a 2009 librarything page[1] where
this same yasid was posed.

Tony
[1] http://www.librarything.com/topic/61853

[Brian M. Scott]

On Fri, 13 May 2016 13:10:04 -0000 (UTC), Anthony Nance
<na...@math.ohio-state.edu> wrote
in<news:nh4jnc$jd8$1...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:

> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>> On Monday, May 9, 2016 at 8:32:48 AM UTC-6, William
>> December Starr wrote:

>>> I'd bet a whole shiny nickel that this is an Andre Norton, except
>>> if it was I'd've expected it to have been solved long ago.

>> A search for "Fiona Cathay" on Google Books actually
>> failed to turn up Philip Wilding's Space-Flight Venus,
>> but it *did* turn up "Emperor, Swords, Pentacles" by
>> Phyllis Gotlieb... *and* "The Beast Master" by *Andre
>> Norton*.

> I wonder how/why a google books search would link "Fiona
> Cathay" to the Gotlieb and Norton, because (from what I
> can tell) neither of them has a character with that
> name. The one thing I found tying them all to each
> other is a 2009 librarything page[1] where this same
> yasid was posed.

I wondered about that too. There is one other tie:
Gotlieb’s characters Emerald, Prandra, and Khreng belong
belong to a species that could be roughly described as
telepathic red cats, and of course the Norton also has
telepathic critters. But neither fits the rest of the
description.

> Tony
> [1] http://www.librarything.com/topic/61853

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.

[Robert Carnegie]

With or without quotes?? If "with" finds nothing, then you
may be served "without quotes" regardless.

However, I've just been told by Google that just "Cathay"
does not appear in Ms Gotlieb's book. Maybe "Cathy"... No.

I was aware of <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathay> as a
poetic word for China but it turns out to be more complicated
than that.

And "china" does appear!

But not Fiona.

Or Cathy.

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, May 13, 2016 at 1:32:54 PM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> I was aware of <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathay> as a
> poetic word for China but it turns out to be more complicated
> than that.

An interesting article.

John Savard