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Query about the works of E. C. Tubb

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Butch Malahide

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Sep 18, 2016, 7:01:18 PM9/18/16
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E. C. Tubb wrote a story called "Talk Not at All" (_Nebula_ #33, 1958)
about an alien race of capricious super-surgeons and biological engineers
called the Thaed.

Was this part of a series? Did Tubb write another story about the Thaed?

David Johnston

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Sep 18, 2016, 7:54:22 PM9/18/16
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That seems unlikely even though there was a whole series of Franken Fran
comics.

Butch Malahide

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Sep 18, 2016, 11:56:53 PM9/18/16
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It probably wasn't a very *long* series, but maybe Tubb could have written *two* stories about the Thaed? I'm trying to solve a YASID which sounds very Thaedish, but the story details don't match "Talk Not at All".

David DeLaney

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Sep 19, 2016, 11:09:23 AM9/19/16
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Googling for "thaed tubb" seems to only catch the one story, before trailing
off into unrelated thaeds, so I'm thinking maybe just the one?

Dave, a quick test but fairly wide
--
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It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
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Robert Carnegie

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Sep 19, 2016, 2:10:05 PM9/19/16
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I assume there's a reason you're not sharing more -
such as, it's for a contest. Or it's StarMaker asking...

Butch Malahide

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Sep 19, 2016, 4:11:08 PM9/19/16
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On Monday, September 19, 2016 at 1:10:05 PM UTC-5, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Monday, 19 September 2016 04:56:53 UTC+1, Butch Malahide wrote:
> > On Sunday, September 18, 2016 at 6:54:22 PM UTC-5, David Johnston wrote:
> > > On 9/18/2016 5:01 PM, Butch Malahide wrote:
> > > > E. C. Tubb wrote a story called "Talk Not at All" (_Nebula_ #33, 1958)
> > > > about an alien race of capricious super-surgeons and biological engineers
> > > > called the Thaed.
> > > >
> > > > Was this part of a series? Did Tubb write another story about the Thaed?
> > > >
> > >
> > > That seems unlikely even though there was a whole series of Franken Fran
> > > comics.
> >
> > It probably wasn't a very *long* series, but maybe Tubb could have written *two* stories about the Thaed? I'm trying to solve a YASID which sounds very Thaed-like, but the story details don't match "Talk Not at All".
>
> I assume there's a reason you're not sharing more -
> such as, it's for a contest. Or it's StarMaker asking...

No particular reason. The space aliens in this YASID query

http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/140959/question-about-a-short-story-i-heard-read-on-the-radio-about-a-race-who-performs

sound very much like the Thaed, but the story details don't match
"Talk Not at All." Did anybody else write about aliens like that?

Brian M. Scott

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Sep 19, 2016, 11:43:17 PM9/19/16
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On Mon, 19 Sep 2016 13:11:06 -0700 (PDT), Butch Malahide
<fred....@gmail.com> wrote
in<news:57468dd3-ede2-4457...@googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/140959/question-about-a-short-story-i-heard-read-on-the-radio-about-a-race-who-performs

Why am I not surprised to find you on the first page of
all-time users in that group? <g>

I don’t think that I ever ran across much Tubb (as Tubb)
apart from the Dumarest series, which I greatly enjoyed; at
its worst it was entertaining, and at its best it was
really pretty good. Offhand I can’t think of a better
episodic series of greater length, certainly not one that
progresses along an underlying arc.

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.

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

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Sep 20, 2016, 12:05:32 AM9/20/16
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In article <rvsspwdleeb1$.6lfyl0lh...@40tude.net>,
Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>On Mon, 19 Sep 2016 13:11:06 -0700 (PDT), Butch Malahide
><fred....@gmail.com> wrote
>in<news:57468dd3-ede2-4457...@googlegroups.com>
>in rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>[...]
>
>>
>http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/140959/question-about-a-short-story-i-heard-read-on-the-radio-about-a-race-who-performs
>
>Why am I not surprised to find you on the first page of
>all-time users in that group? <g>
>
>I don’t think that I ever ran across much Tubb (as Tubb)
>apart from the Dumarest series, which I greatly enjoyed; at
>its worst it was entertaining, and at its best it was
>really pretty good. Offhand I can’t think of a better
>episodic series of greater length, certainly not one that
>progresses along an underlying arc.
>
>Brian

Did you read the two post-DAW entries? Interesting wrap-up that left me
wondering how a middle-aged Tubb might have handled it.

I believe Tubb was also the DAW "Cap Kennedy" author Gregory Kern, which you
could tell from some shared quirks.

(OTOH, I also thought Tubb must be the "Hook" author Tully Zetford, but
that turned out to be Kenneth Bulmer [whom I would also nominate in the
entertaining episodic series with a long underlying arc category]).

Notice I didn't say anything about "Space 1999"..
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Brian M. Scott

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Sep 20, 2016, 12:40:15 AM9/20/16
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On 20 Sep 2016 04:05:30 GMT, "Ted Nolan <tednolan>"
<t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote
in<news:e4bqsa...@mid.individual.net> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> In article <rvsspwdleeb1$.6lfyl0lh...@40tude.net>,
> Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>> On Mon, 19 Sep 2016 13:11:06 -0700 (PDT), Butch Malahide
>> <fred....@gmail.com> wrote
>> in<news:57468dd3-ede2-4457...@googlegroups.com>
>> in rec.arts.sf.written:

>>[...]

>>http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/140959/question-about-a-short-story-i-heard-read-on-the-radio-about-a-race-who-performs

>> Why am I not surprised to find you on the first page of
>> all-time users in that group? <g>

>> I don't think that I ever ran across much Tubb (as Tubb)
>> apart from the Dumarest series, which I greatly
>> enjoyed; at its worst it was entertaining, and at its
>> best it was really pretty good. Offhand I can't think
>> of a better episodic series of greater length,
>> certainly not one that progresses along an underlying
>> arc.

> Did you read the two post-DAW entries? Interesting
> wrap-up that left me wondering how a middle-aged Tubb
> might have handled it.

I know that I’ve read at least _Child of Earth_; I’m not
positive about _The Return_, but I think so.

> I believe Tubb was also the DAW "Cap Kennedy" author
> Gregory Kern, which you could tell from some shared
> quirks.

Yes, he was, though I did not know that at the time; had I
known it, I might have given them a try.

> (OTOH, I also thought Tubb must be the "Hook" author
> Tully Zetford, but that turned out to be Kenneth Bulmer
> [whom I would also nominate in the entertaining episodic
> series with a long underlying arc category]).

The only series of his that I liked was Keys to the
Dimensions, which is much shorter. I read a few of the
Dray Prescott books, but they didn’t do much for me. I
don’t think that I read anything from any of his other
series, though I did read some of his singletons,
definitely including _Cycle of Nemesis_, _To Outrun
Doomsday_, _The Star Venturers_, _Kandar_, _On the
Symb-Socket Circuit_, and _Roller Coaster World_. (This is
not to say that I remember much of anything about them; I
just checked the covers!)

> Notice I didn't say anything about "Space 1999"..

Butch Malahide

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Sep 20, 2016, 6:21:32 AM9/20/16
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Tubb's 1952 story "Precedent" was basically "The Cold Equations" but two years earlier:

https://archive.org/stream/New_Worlds_015v05_1952-05#page/n29/mode/2up

Brian M. Scott

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Sep 20, 2016, 12:41:58 PM9/20/16
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On Tue, 20 Sep 2016 03:21:29 -0700 (PDT), Butch Malahide
<fred....@gmail.com> wrote
in<news:12db3520-d735-494b...@googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> Tubb's 1952 story "Precedent" was basically "The Cold Equations" but two years earlier:

> https://archive.org/stream/New_Worlds_015v05_1952-05#page/n29/mode/2up

Thanks. I definitely had not seen that one; I’d have
remembered it.

Don Kuenz

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Sep 24, 2016, 10:55:52 AM9/24/16
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This followup does not answer your question. Instead it shares my own
impressions of "Talk Not at All."

This thread piqued my interest in "Talk." Fortunately it's in one of the
four issues of _Nebula_ that's available for free at archive.org. [1]

The story begins with a trio of people who embark for Thaed. When they
arrive they find Thaed in strict quarantine by the Galactic Federation.
The Federation's an advanced alien civilization that regards humanity as
"dirty little children."

###

At this point in the story my mmpb copy of _Brain_ (Cook) arrived. It
proved impossible to ignore. A quick peek quietly turned into a long
read of the whole darned story.

Most of the time, the best way to read Cook is keep a Netter's (Atlas of
Human Anatomy) at your left elbow and a Dorland's (Illustrated Medical
Dictionary) at your right. That way you can stop to look up each and
every new word that Cook tosses at you.

My intentions to take a quick peek and look up each and new word fell
by the wayside after Cook hooked me right proper. At that point the only
thing that mattered was what happens next in the story, the devil with
peeks and new words.

OK. So the ending is now known. An immediate careful re-read of _Brain_
is indicated. Once again with the Netter truly to the left of me and
the Dorland's to the right...

###

spoiler space


A planet full of deadly creatures marked my return to "Talk." They
reminded me of _Deathworld_ (Harrison).

It turns out that the Thaed are biological engineers. Serendipity now
appears. _Brain_ ends on a note of biological engineer villainy. :0)

Note.

1. https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive?and[]=subject%3A%22fiction%22&and[]=subject%3A%22nebula%22

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

Serendipity . . . you will understand it better by the derivation
than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called "The
Three Princes of Serendip": as their highnesses traveled, they were
always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they
were not in quest of. . . . Now do you understand serendipity? - Walpole

Butch Malahide

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Sep 25, 2016, 5:50:02 AM9/25/16
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On Saturday, September 24, 2016 at 9:55:52 AM UTC-5, Don Kuenz wrote:

> This thread piqued my interest in "Talk." Fortunately it's in one of the
> four issues of _Nebula_ that's available for free at archive.org.

Actually, 32 of the 41 issues of _Nebula_ are in the archive:

#5 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_05_1953-09

#6 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_06_1953-12

#7 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_07_1954-02-03

#9 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_09_1954-08

#12 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_12_1955-04

#14 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_14_1955-11

#15 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_15_1956-01

#16 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_016_1956-03.Hamiltoncape1736

#17 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_17_1956-07

#19 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_019_1956-12_cape1736

#20 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_20_1957-03

#21 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_21_1957-05

#22 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_22_1957-07

#23 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_23_1957-08

#24 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_24_1957-09

#25 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_25_1957-10

#26 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_26_1958-01

#27 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_27_1958-02

#28 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_28_1958-03

#29 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_29_1958-04

#30 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_30_1958-05

#31 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_31_1958-06

#32 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_32_1958-07

#33 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_American_Ed._33_1958-12

#34 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_34_1958-09

#35 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_35_1958-10

#36 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_36_1958-11

#37 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_37_1958-12

#38 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_38_1959-01

#39 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_39_1959-02

#40 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_40_1959-05

#41 https://archive.org/details/Nebula_41_1959-06

Don Kuenz

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Sep 25, 2016, 1:03:37 PM9/25/16
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That's fantastic!

Thank you,

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure-
Sweet is pleasure after pain. - Dryden
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