[review] Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan

[James Nicoll]

Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/emergency-cases
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 7:26:15 AM UTC-7, James Nicoll wrote:
> Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan
> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/emergency-cases

From your description, it sounds like the book is a textbook example of
an "idiot plot"; that is, the author tried too hard to set up a situation
that would drive conflict and plot developments, with the result that the
situation appears contrived.

In that case, were the author to write stories set in her own universe,
rather than stories based on Star Trek, it would seem to me that she would
have even _more_ opportunity to take this mistake to even greater lengths.

Even if she appears to be a talented writer in other respects, this is a flaw
she would need to overcome in order to write books worth reading.

John Savard

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <e2d4dbb9-857d-4358...@googlegroups.com>,

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 7:26:15 AM UTC-7, James Nicoll wrote:
>> Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan
>> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/emergency-cases
>
>From your description, it sounds like the book is a textbook example of
>an "idiot plot"; that is, the author tried too hard to set up a situation
>that would drive conflict and plot developments, with the result that the
>situation appears contrived.
>
>In that case, were the author to write stories set in her own universe,
>rather than stories based on Star Trek, it would seem to me that she would
>have even _more_ opportunity to take this mistake to even greater lengths.

She did write two other novels that I know of, the brilliant
_Hellspark_ and the intriguing fixup _Mirabile._

>
>Even if she appears to be a talented writer in other respects, this is a flaw
>she would need to overcome in order to write books worth reading.

She died of COPD in 2008.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 8:15:04 AM UTC-7, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:

> She died of COPD in 2008.

That is tragic; I based my post only what I read in his review. I am
glad to hear that her other novels were not as flawed as apparently
the one reviewed was.

John Savard

[Chris Buckley]

John, your opinion might actually mean something if you had read the book.
But knowing nothing about the book except James' review, it's quite worthless.

James is a fine reviewer, but like all reviewers he has his areas of
emphasis. One of those is plot. Unless a book is about one of his
emphasized themes, the plot is all important - a book that is
character-driven or otherwise theme-driven often receives shorter
shrift.

James is correct: the plot of _Uhura's Song_ is a pretty standard Star
Trek plot. It has the standard holes, some good points, some bad
points, but the crew of the Enterprise splits up (allowing emphasis on
more minor characters, in this book often female) and saves the day.
Nothing outstanding.

Despite this, _Uhura's Song_ is one of two Star Trek books on my
Favorites bookcase (along with _The Final Reflection_). Why? She gets
the characters "right", IMO. That is surprisingly hard to do in a
tie-in series. Kagan is a good writer. She's able to provide full
characterization in more subtle ways based on actions. ("Hmmm, yes,
now that I think about it, that is what that Star Trek character would
do in such a situation.")

Getting characters "right" is a pretty subjective notion, and
considering it important is pretty subjective also. That's why I was
surprised several years ago when I realized my high opinion of
_Uhura's Song_ was shared by so many other folks. It's very often
listed as one of the top Star Trek books. For example, Goodreads'
list of 330 Star Trek books has it ranked 2.
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1970.Best_Star_Trek_Books

Many,many people think this particular book is "worth reading".

Chris

[Andrew McDowell]

I found Mirabile a very enjoyable fix-up/collection of stories. I don't think the background is to be taken seriously, but that doesn't make the stories any less fun. From memory, a colonisation and partial terraforming ship saves space by engineering plants and animals to give rise to a large variety of different species often quite unlike their parents. This includes both Earth animals and strange monsters which seem to be a side effect of this clever idea. Unfortunately, the colonisation landfall was sufficiently chaotic that the later inhabitants of the planet have little control or even understanding of the process, and have to deal with the resultant animal and vegetable chaos as they find it.

[Chrysi Cat]

On 12/22/2020 7:26 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
> Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan
> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/emergency-cases
>

>>Just don't expect us to be around in a thousand years<<

Ummm...how much of a spoiler is it to say that it's likely that gur
ragvergl bs gur svefg gjb frnfbaf bs Fgne Gerx: Qvfpbirel jrer NYJNLF
vagraqrq gb whfg or cebybthr frggvat hc vgf ERNY fgbel nep nf "Naqebzrqn
qbar evtug"?

Naq ab, vgf perj ner abg gur bayl uhznaf va gur 31fg Praghel, gubhtu
Rnegu yrsg gur Srqrengvba whfg haqre n praghel orsber gurl tbg gurer...

--
Chrysi Cat
1/2 anthrocat, nearly 1/2 anthrofox, all magical
Transgoddess, quick to anger.
Call me Chrysi or call me Kat, I'll respond to either!

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 22 Dec 2020 17:04:23 GMT, Chris Buckley <al...@sabir.com> wrote:

>On 2020-12-22, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> On Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 7:26:15 AM UTC-7, James Nicoll wrote:
>>> Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan
>>> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/emergency-cases
>>
>> From your description, it sounds like the book is a textbook example of
>> an "idiot plot"; that is, the author tried too hard to set up a situation
>> that would drive conflict and plot developments, with the result that the
>> situation appears contrived.
>>
>> In that case, were the author to write stories set in her own universe,
>> rather than stories based on Star Trek, it would seem to me that she would
>> have even _more_ opportunity to take this mistake to even greater lengths.
>>
>> Even if she appears to be a talented writer in other respects, this is a flaw
>> she would need to overcome in order to write books worth reading.
>
>John, your opinion might actually mean something if you had read the book.
>But knowing nothing about the book except James' review, it's quite worthless.

The fact that he doesn't know who Janet Kagan was... why is he even
reading an SF group?



--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.ethshar.com/StoneUnturned.shtml

[Jack Bohn]

Chrysi Cat wrote:
> On 12/22/2020 7:26 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
> > Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan
> > https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/emergency-cases
> >
> >>Just don't expect us to be around in a thousand years<<
>
> Ummm...how much of a spoiler is it to say that it's likely that gur
> ragvergl bs gur svefg gjb frnfbaf bs Fgne Gerx: Qvfpbirel jrer NYJNLF
> vagraqrq gb whfg or cebybthr frggvat hc vgf ERNY fgbel nep nf "Naqebzrqn
> qbar evtug"?
>
> Naq ab, vgf perj ner abg gur bayl uhznaf va gur 31fg Praghel, gubhtu
> Rnegu yrsg gur Srqrengvba whfg haqre n praghel orsber gurl tbg gurer...

I'd say that's the long game to be playing, but this is the show that took 3 episodes to get to the title ship!

--
-Jack

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <e1460272-7069-4c3b...@googlegroups.com>,

In _Uhura's Song_ she had to work, not only with a universe and a
set of characters she did not create, but with a ready-made
audience to whose tastes she had to cater.

_Hellspark_ is full of representatives from so many different
worlds, each with its own language, culture, *body language*, and
taboos, that it's a wonder that they haven't ...

... actually, they *have* started killing each other. And that's
before we get to the local flora, fauna, and indigines on the
planet they're exploring.

_Mirabile_ is a fixup of four novellae, all set on a planet with
its own flora and fauna, some of it useful to the human
colonists, some not; but the real problem is with the Earthborn
flora and fauna that they brought with them. They don't mutate,
exactly, ....

I recommend them both. I don't know whether they're still in
print, but that's what usedbookstores (on land or online) are
for.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <27j4ufdnctutieh4j...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

Lawrence Watt-Evans <misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 22 Dec 2020 17:04:23 GMT, Chris Buckley <al...@sabir.com> wrote:
>
>>On 2020-12-22, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 7:26:15 AM UTC-7, James Nicoll wrote:
>>>> Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan
>>>> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/emergency-cases
>>>
>>> From your description, it sounds like the book is a textbook example of
>>> an "idiot plot"; that is, the author tried too hard to set up a situation
>>> that would drive conflict and plot developments, with the result that the
>>> situation appears contrived.
>>>
>>> In that case, were the author to write stories set in her own universe,
>>> rather than stories based on Star Trek, it would seem to me that she would
>>> have even _more_ opportunity to take this mistake to even greater lengths.
>>>
>>> Even if she appears to be a talented writer in other respects, this is a flaw
>>> she would need to overcome in order to write books worth reading.
>>
>>John, your opinion might actually mean something if you had read the book.
>>But knowing nothing about the book except James' review, it's quite worthless.
>
>The fact that he doesn't know who Janet Kagan was... why is he even
>reading an SF group?

Well, she died (vide supra) in 2008, and her books may or may not
be easily available. Note that I have never read any John Ford,
not having been able to find any.

[James Nicoll]

In article <qLrE9...@kithrup.com>,

I believe Baen has recently reprinted Kagan (save maybe for the Trek,
which would be from Pocket), while Tor is reprinting Ford beginning
next year. y

[James Nicoll]

In article <qLrE6...@kithrup.com>,

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

>In article <e1460272-7069-4c3b...@googlegroups.com>,
>Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>On Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 8:15:04 AM UTC-7, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>
>>> She died of COPD in 2008.
>>
>>That is tragic; I based my post only what I read in his review. I am
>>glad to hear that her other novels were not as flawed as apparently
>>the one reviewed was.
>
>In _Uhura's Song_ she had to work, not only with a universe and a
>set of characters she did not create,

Which she was not familiar with before being asked to write the book.

[J. Clarke]

Amazon lists "Uhura's Song", "Hellspark", "The Collected Kagan", and
"Mirabile" all available as Kindle ebooks for $4.99 each, except
Uhura's Song is 8.99. Publisher for "Uhura's song" is listed as Simon
and Schuster Digital Sales, the others as Baen.

For John M Ford, they list "The Dragon Waiting", "The Final
Reflection", and "How Much for Just the Planet" as being available and
"The Scholars of Night" for pre-order with expected delivery 21 SEP
2021. Publishers are Simon & Schuster for the two Treks and McMillan
for the others.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Tuesday, 22 December 2020 at 21:42:51 UTC, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <qLrE6...@kithrup.com>,
> Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> >In article <e1460272-7069-4c3b...@googlegroups.com>,
> >Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >>On Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 8:15:04 AM UTC-7, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> >>
> >>> She died of COPD in 2008.
> >>
> >>That is tragic; I based my post only what I read in his review. I am
> >>glad to hear that her other novels were not as flawed as apparently
> >>the one reviewed was.
> >
> >In _Uhura's Song_ she had to work, not only with a universe and a
> >set of characters she did not create,
>
> Which she was not familiar with before being asked to write the book.

That's extraordinary, unless she had a great deal of time
to undertake research. She's got Spock pretty well.
He's casually brilliant, occasionally misunderstands
humans and Sivaoans and is misunderstood, there's
a mind meld scene, and Kagan justifies giving him
a case of aspirant pneumonia.

And except for being called "Dr Spock" a lot of the time,
the character is widely known.

[Chris Buckley]

_The Scholars of Night_, a Ford novel I hadn't even heard of; I thought I
owned all of his novels. This is evidently a high-tech spy thriller, non-sf.
Thanks! Pre-ordered.

The other Ford on my Favorites bookcase is _The Last Hot Time_ , which is
a very quirky, post-apocalyptic, thirties gangster, elvish novel. Not for
everybody's taste, but I liked it.

Chris

[J. Clarke]

I think people somehow conflate him with the guy who wrote the (in the
'60s) famous baby book.

[Chrysi Cat]

I'd say "two" myself, since it picks Burnham up ten minutes into the
third one, buuut on the other hand...

...that's still a big deal in an era when the season of a streamed TV
show is likely fewer than 11 episodes.

[David Goldfarb]

In article <a5cd06b3-6836-47c2...@googlegroups.com>,
Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
[Star Trek: Discovery]

>I'd say that's the long game to be playing, but this is the show that
>took 3 episodes to get to the title ship!

I read somewhere that the originally intended airing order put the first
episode with Captain Lorca on Discovery ("Context is for Kings") as
the first actual episode, with the two-parter that established just
how Michael Burnham was cashiered for mutiny coming later as a prequel.
I still think that would have been a more effective order.

--
David Goldfarb |"...with very few exceptions, nothing lasts
goldf...@gmail.com | forever; and among those exceptions no thought
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | or work of man is numbered." -- Iain M. Banks

[Leif Roar Moldskred]

Lawrence Watt-Evans <misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The fact that he doesn't know who Janet Kagan was... why is he even
> reading an SF group?
>

SF _is_ a pretty big country.

--
Leif Roar Moldskred

[Bill Gill]

I found both "Hellspark" and "Mirabile" to be quite good. I didn't
finish "Uhuru's Song", but I am not a Star Trek fan.

Bill

[Quadibloc]

It is reasonable that the science officer of the Enterprise would hold a
Ph.D., though, although as a serving officer, his rank would be his title.

So he should have been Lieutenant Commander Spock where formality
was desired.

John Savard

[Kevrob]

Anybody know what an equivalent academic title would be
from a Vulcan educational institution? Will Starfleet Academy
grant terminal degrees? Will there be an equivalent to the
US Naval War College or the Naval Postgraduate School?

--
Kevin R

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <e3351994-ebe8-45db...@googlegroups.com>,

If you want to write a lot of fanfic answering that question,
feel free. I've done mine.

[Quadibloc]

I'd kind of expect the Vulcan Science Academy to grant him one
of those _honoris causa_ degrees somewhere along the line, to
prove that Vulcans really aren't bigoted against people with
half-human ancestry.

Since TOS, of course, the whole Star Trek universe has been
falling apart at the seams... still a very entertaining program,
yes, even Star Trek: Discovery, but Earth and the Federation
keep getting more and more flawed.

John Savard

[Robert Carnegie]

Teacher? Isn't that what Dr Biden has*... And Dr Bova...

Very vaguely remembering... this might be specifically
for philosophy or religion or telepathy, but I think one of the
books says that you go into study as, well, I forget, say
"student novice", and you can work up to "student adept"
or maybe higher, but you keep "student" throughout, probably
even if you (also) teach. I think they said T'Pau decided for and
about herself latterly to just say "student", but another book
seems to have upgraded her to "First Student"... maybe that's
what she went to "student" /from/?

* There's lines of argument that either "Dr Jacobs" or
"Dr Jacobs-Biden" is substantially more correct, but I
suppose "Doctor" is good enough and "Biden" also is
good enough and adult characters in _Uhura's Song_
get to choose their own name, within reason.

...usually involving your home, or heart place, or some
such formula, which neatly gets Jim's Sivao name to be
"James Tiberius Kirk to-Enterprise".

[Kevrob]

On Wednesday, December 23, 2020 at 8:36:52 PM UTC-5, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Wednesday, 23 December 2020 at 16:00:28 UTC, Kevrob wrote:
> > On Wednesday, December 23, 2020 at 10:22:39 AM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 5:47:37 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 22 Dec 2020 16:16:45 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie
> > > > <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > >And except for being called "Dr Spock" a lot of the time,
> > > > >the character is widely known.
> > >
> > > > I think people somehow conflate him with the guy who wrote the (in the
> > > > '60s) famous baby book.
> > > It is reasonable that the science officer of the Enterprise would hold a
> > > Ph.D., though, although as a serving officer, his rank would be his title.
> > >
> > > So he should have been Lieutenant Commander Spock where formality
> > > was desired.
> > >
> > Anybody know what an equivalent academic title would be
> > from a Vulcan educational institution? Will Starfleet Academy
> > grant terminal degrees? Will there be an equivalent to the
> > US Naval War College or the Naval Postgraduate School?
> Teacher? Isn't that what Dr Biden has*... And Dr Bova...
>

"Doctor" has the meaning of "teacher" or "scholar" in the original
Latin, so that should be alright.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/doctor

> Very vaguely remembering... this might be specifically
> for philosophy or religion or telepathy, but I think one of the
> books says that you go into study as, well, I forget, say
> "student novice", and you can work up to "student adept"
> or maybe higher, but you keep "student" throughout, probably
> even if you (also) teach. I think they said T'Pau decided for and
> about herself latterly to just say "student", but another book
> seems to have upgraded her to "First Student"... maybe that's
> what she went to "student" /from/?
>
> * There's lines of argument that either "Dr Jacobs" or
> "Dr Jacobs-Biden" is substantially more correct, but I
> suppose "Doctor" is good enough and "Biden" also is
> good enough and adult characters in _Uhura's Song_
> get to choose their own name, within reason.
>

“A PhD is like a nose — everyone has one. It’s only conspicuous
if you don’t have one.” - Miss Manners, quoting her professor uncle.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/miss-manners-graduation-cake-is-to-be-eaten-not-reserved/2014/05/20/924f347c-dd23-11e3-b745-87d39690c5c0_story.html OR

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yK-C488gbA8J:https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/miss-manners-graduation-cake-is-to-be-eaten-not-reserved/2014/05/20/924f347c-dd23-11e3-b745-87d39690c5c0_story.html&client=firefox-b-1-d&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0

Quoted at:

https://reason.com/volokh/2020/12/14/who-should-be-called-dr-probably-not-jill-biden-just-as-lawyers-like-me-arent/

Doctor Biden has an Ed.D. During my late Dad's 3-decade-long
teaching career he would refer to his district superintendent as
"Doctor Dingbat."* There's many a clergyperson in the US who
goes by "Dr Buncombe" or "The Rev Dr Buncombe."

My rule of thumb would be to let others decide whether to use
the honorific or not. Insisting on it, especially in the wrong
context, can be seen as boorish. There's the perhaps
apocryphal story of the PhD in English Lit who makes a
dinner reservation under "Doctor Thus-and-so" and has to
beg off when a fellow diner has a medical emergency and
the maitre d' calls on him for help.

> ...usually involving your home, or heart place, or some
> such formula, which neatly gets Jim's Sivao name to be
> "James Tiberius Kirk to-Enterprise".

He is "married to the ship," isn't he?

* OK, only the first 4 letters of that name are accurate.
We kids changed it a bit. :)
--
Kevin R

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <ca8da3ab-56e2-4a51...@googlegroups.com>,

Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>Doctor Biden has an Ed.D. During my late Dad's 3-decade-long
>teaching career he would refer to his district superintendent as
>"Doctor Dingbat."*

Heh. My father, who also had an Ed.D., held in low esteem one
Dr. Basil Peterson, the head of the local junior college that I
attended for two years. He called him "Dr. Basal Metabolism."

Only behind his back, I suspect, because when I came up to
Berkeley and found that my transcript from the junion college had
not arrived in the Admissions Office, I called home and my father
got hold of Dr. Met^H^H^HPeterson and expedited the matter.

[J. Clarke]

>https://youtu.be/RFXQS01U4EoOn Thu, 24 Dec 2020 05:13:45 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

>In article <ca8da3ab-56e2-4a51...@googlegroups.com>,
>Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>
>>Doctor Biden has an Ed.D. During my late Dad's 3-decade-long
>>teaching career he would refer to his district superintendent as
>>"Doctor Dingbat."*
>
>Heh. My father, who also had an Ed.D., held in low esteem one
>Dr. Basil Peterson, the head of the local junior college that I
>attended for two years. He called him "Dr. Basal Metabolism."
>
>Only behind his back, I suspect, because when I came up to
>Berkeley and found that my transcript from the junion college had
>not arrived in the Admissions Office, I called home and my father
>got hold of Dr. Met^H^H^HPeterson and expedited the matter.

One presumes that your mother was wiser than mine. Mine would repeat
to her friends things that my father said to her. The trouble is that
her friends were married to people who got to make decisions about his
career.

Annapolis Plebes have to memorize a bunch of stuff. One of them that
sticks is "Take heed what you say of your seniors, be your words
spoken softly or plain, lest a bird of the air tell the matter, and so
shall ye hear it again".

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <94a8ufpob61v4d0gm...@4ax.com>,

J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>https://youtu.be/RFXQS01U4EoOn Thu, 24 Dec 2020 05:13:45 GMT,
>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>>In article <ca8da3ab-56e2-4a51...@googlegroups.com>,
>>Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>Doctor Biden has an Ed.D. During my late Dad's 3-decade-long
>>>teaching career he would refer to his district superintendent as
>>>"Doctor Dingbat."*
>>
>>Heh. My father, who also had an Ed.D., held in low esteem one
>>Dr. Basil Peterson, the head of the local junior college that I
>>attended for two years. He called him "Dr. Basal Metabolism."
>>
>>Only behind his back, I suspect, because when I came up to
>>Berkeley and found that my transcript from the junion college had
>>not arrived in the Admissions Office, I called home and my father
>>got hold of Dr. Met^H^H^HPeterson and expedited the matter.
>
>One presumes that your mother was wiser than mine. Mine would repeat
>to her friends things that my father said to her. The trouble is that
>her friends were married to people who got to make decisions about his
>career.

Oh, dear. No, my mother was not much for gossiping. Whether she
ever met Dr. Peterson is someth ing I do not know.

>
>Annapolis Plebes have to memorize a bunch of stuff. One of them that
>sticks is "Take heed what you say of your seniors, be your words
>spoken softly or plain, lest a bird of the air tell the matter, and so
>shall ye hear it again".
>

That's a good one.

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 24 Dec 2020 16:09:31 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J

Here's a link to the whole poem of which it's a stanza, in its
original publication:

<https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/arttopic/titles/law-navy.htm>

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <nii9ufhoalefnbbib...@4ax.com>,

Hmm. I observe that Admiral Hopwood was channeling Kipling. The
stanza you quoted is, I think, the best of the lot.

[Joel Polowin]

On 2020-12-22 4:42 PM, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <qLrE6...@kithrup.com>,
> Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>In _Uhura's Song_ she had to work, not only with a universe and a
>>set of characters she did not create,
>
> Which she was not familiar with before being asked to write the book.

That's not quite correct. Per this (search for the bit about that
book):
https://www.amazon.com/Voyages-Imagination-Star-Fiction-Companion-ebook/dp/B000OVLKP4/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0#reader_B000OVLKP4,
she was somewhat familiar with the show but hadn't watched it "for
some sixteen to seventeen years" at the time that David Hartwell put
pressure on her to write a Trek novel. She did do a lot of research.

According to the afterword for _Uhura's Song_ which was published in
recent reprints of _Hellspark_, Hartwell wanted to publish _Hellspark_
but wasn't allowed to buy manuscripts from first-time authors *except*
for the Trek novel line. So by getting _Uhura's Song_ published, he
would then be able to publish _Hellspark_.

Joel

--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Ha! I did a similar trick -- I wanted to do a Predator novelization
under a pen name, but the Predator people insisted on no new authors,
so I wrote a Trek novel as Nathan Archer (Deep Space Nine: Valhalla)
to get the necessary credit to write Predator: Concrete Jungle.

I hadn't realized Janet did that.



--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.ethshar.com/StoneUnturned.shtml

[Quadibloc]

Now I'm wondering if this is a common measure used by many new
authors to enter the genre (as opposed to having short stories
published in science-fiction magazines, the old way to become a
published author).

For example, did Diane Duane, who wrote both Trek novels and
novels built around her own world do this?

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, December 31, 2020 at 4:45:35 PM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:

> For example, did Diane Duane, who wrote both Trek novels and
> novels built around her own world do this?

No, she didn't: The Door into Fire is from 1979, and her first Star Trek
novel is from 1983.

John Savard

[Joel Polowin]

On 2020-12-31 2:11 PM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Dec 2020 00:21:51 -0500, Joel Polowin
> <jpol...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>According to the afterword for _Uhura's Song_ which was published in
>>recent reprints of _Hellspark_, Hartwell wanted to publish _Hellspark_
>>but wasn't allowed to buy manuscripts from first-time authors *except*
>>for the Trek novel line. So by getting _Uhura's Song_ published, he
>>would then be able to publish _Hellspark_.
>
> Ha! I did a similar trick -- I wanted to do a Predator novelization
> under a pen name, but the Predator people insisted on no new authors,
> so I wrote a Trek novel as Nathan Archer (Deep Space Nine: Valhalla)
> to get the necessary credit to write Predator: Concrete Jungle.

I'm not following you. _Valhalla_ was (per W'pedia) published in 1995,
and you'd written a number of other novels before that. Or are you
referring specifically to media tie-in stuff? Or to that particular
pen name?

[Dimensional Traveler]

He wanted to write the Predator book under the name "Nathan Archer" but
since he hadn't written under than name before and one assumes the
Predator people didn't know it was a pen name they rejected "Nathan
Archer"'s submission until after "Nathan Archer" had written 'Valhalla'
first.


--
I like living in the suburbs of Sanity. I can commute there when I need
to be serious or mature but otherwise I can do as I please.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Oh, they knew it was a pen name. They would have been happy to have
Lawrence Watt-Evans write their novelization, but I wanted to write it
as Nathan Archer.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Okay, my mistake. But if they knew it was a pen name for you, how were
they justifying calling you a "new author"? Or was that just a petty
attempt to make you use your real name for them?

[Jack Bohn]

That's my confusion, too. I figure an editor would want an established author known to be able to produce to deadline, and to length, and to quality. But the name on the cover? Well, look at the cover:

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?26562

The author's name is in larger print than the blurb, but a later edition with a cleaner look:

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?176341



How extreme can it get? Example from Star Wars:

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?32735

And Star Trek:

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?200633

There is smaller print under Peter David's name pointing out who he is, which goes to my point. ("Bestselling author of Imzadi" a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel.)

The thing is, up to this point, Stackpole has been the only author of X-Wing books, and David of the New Frontier series of which the EXcalibur trilogy was part. It would seem the publisher would want people looking for "some more like those others" to look for the trademark.

--
-Jack

[Paul S Person]

Name recognition. Authors have /fans/, and /fans/ by books by authors
they know.

My copy of /The Satan Bug/ clearly states it is by "Ian Stuart", and
IIRC the movie follows suit, but it is in fact by Alistair Maclean, as
the editions whose covers Bing brings up clearly state.

I read, at some point, an article in which Maclean explained that he
used the psuedonym because his fans had come to expect a different
type of story (WW2 action/adventure) and he didn't want any of them to
buy this one and them be disappointed because it was something
completely different. Or so I recall.

Fans can have major impacts on authors. Fleming brought Bond back to
life after /From Russia, With Love/ because the fans insisted. Or so I
recall having read.

/Misery/, of course, carries this to extremes ...


--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, January 2, 2021 at 10:38:42 AM UTC-7, Paul S Person wrote:

> Fans can have major impacts on authors. Fleming brought Bond back to
> life after /From Russia, With Love/ because the fans insisted. Or so I
> recall having read.

Of course, the most well known case of this is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
bringing Sherlock Holmes back to life after the events which took place
at the Reichenbach Falls in _The Final Problem_.

And I didn't have to go further than Wikipedia to find out that your memory
was right about _From Russia with Love_; the first draft of the novel ended
with Bond and Romanova enjoying some (com)passionate leave, and Fleming
noted at the time in a letter to Raymond Chandler that he was having a hard
time writing more Bond works because of losing interest.

Apparently, Raymond Benson's book _The James Bond Bedside Companion_
has more information about Fleming's desire to abandon his literary creation.

John Savard

[J. Clarke]

On Sat, 2 Jan 2021 10:35:06 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
wrote:

At least Fleming didn't go the route of some authors and allow someone
else to continue the series to its detriment.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <9dcbc927-47bc-445d...@googlegroups.com>,

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Saturday, January 2, 2021 at 10:38:42 AM UTC-7, Paul S Person wrote:
>
>> Fans can have major impacts on authors. Fleming brought Bond back to
>> life after /From Russia, With Love/ because the fans insisted. Or so I
>> recall having read.
>
>Of course, the most well known case of this is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
>bringing Sherlock Holmes back to life after the events which took place
>at the Reichenbach Falls in _The Final Problem_.
>

I doubt that, Thomas!
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Fri, 1 Jan 2021 22:52:21 -0800, Dimensional Traveler

They didn't care who actually wrote the book; I could have had my
daughter (who was, if I recall correctly, nine at the time) write it.
They just wanted a NAME that had been published before.

You have no idea how book marketing works, do you? The person who
actually puts words on the page is the writer, but the AUTHOR -- which
is all the marketing people care about -- is the name on the cover,
regardless of who the writer was. Fox had handed down an edict
saying, "No new authors" (not "no new writers"), so Nathan needed
another credit before they would let me do the Predator novelization.

Paramount was happy to have new authors write Trek, though, because a
lot of Trek authors started out writing fan fiction. There were cases
like L.A. Graf -- originally a team of four Trek fans who
collaborated, though three of them dropped out after a book or two and
let the fourth keep the name. "LAGRAF" stands for "Let's All Get Rich
And Famous."

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Sat, 2 Jan 2021 06:02:12 -0800 (PST), Jack Bohn
<jack....@gmail.com> wrote:

>Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>> On 1/1/2021 8:52 PM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>> > On Fri, 1 Jan 2021 18:55:08 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
>> > <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >> On 1/1/2021 4:01 PM, Joel Polowin wrote:
>> >>
>> >> He wanted to write the Predator book under the name "Nathan Archer" but
>> >> since he hadn't written under than name before and one assumes the
>> >> Predator people didn't know it was a pen name they rejected "Nathan
>> >> Archer"'s submission until after "Nathan Archer" had written 'Valhalla'
>> >> first.
>> >
>> > Oh, they knew it was a pen name. They would have been happy to have
>> > Lawrence Watt-Evans write their novelization, but I wanted to write it
>> > as Nathan Archer.
>> >
>> Okay, my mistake. But if they knew it was a pen name for you, how were
>> they justifying calling you a "new author"? Or was that just a petty
>> attempt to make you use your real name for them?
>
>That's my confusion, too. I figure an editor would want an established author known to be able to produce to deadline, and to length, and to quality. But the name on the cover? Well, look at the cover:
>
>http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?26562
>
>The author's name is in larger print than the blurb, but a later edition with a cleaner look:
>
>http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?176341

It wasn't the editors who made the "no new authors" rule. It was the
suits at Fox.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <9dcbc927-47bc-445d...@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

From Heinlein's _The Rolling Stones_: Hazel has just signed up to
write another year's worth of _The Scourge of the Spaceways._*

"Why did you let them sign [you] up again?"

"Because they waved too much money under my nose, as you know
full well. It's an aroma we Stones have hardly ever been able to
resist."
_____
*Referred to in the family as _The Scum of the Waste Spaces._

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2 Jan 2021 19:16:51 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
wrote:

You doubt what? For once, Quadi has it right.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <i5bv52...@mid.individual.net>,

Well, many female fans of the series, unsure where the line could
be drawn between fiction and real life, sent hate mail to Conan
Doyle, some missives beginning, "You Beast!"

But I don't think he brought Holmes back to life out of sympathy
for the fans' tender feelings. I think the publishers waved too
much money under his nose.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <hmh1vfl8725asq9np...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

Hmmmm. Did they want to own and control the pseud, like
Harlequin Romances?

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <3bi1vfh0egubk6u3l...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

Lawrence Watt-Evans <misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 2 Jan 2021 19:16:51 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <9dcbc927-47bc-445d...@googlegroups.com>,
>>Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>On Saturday, January 2, 2021 at 10:38:42 AM UTC-7, Paul S Person wrote:
>>>
>>>> Fans can have major impacts on authors. Fleming brought Bond back to
>>>> life after /From Russia, With Love/ because the fans insisted. Or so I
>>>> recall having read.
>>>
>>>Of course, the most well known case of this is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
>>>bringing Sherlock Holmes back to life after the events which took place
>>>at the Reichenbach Falls in _The Final Problem_.
>>>
>>
>>I doubt that, Thomas!
>
>You doubt what? For once, Quadi has it right.
>

Apparently I am more subtle than I thought. Perhaps I should try again
after three days.

[Joel Polowin]

On 2021-01-02 2:17 PM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> You have no idea how book marketing works, do you? The person who
> actually puts words on the page is the writer, but the AUTHOR -- which
> is all the marketing people care about -- is the name on the cover,
> regardless of who the writer was. Fox had handed down an edict
> saying, "No new authors" (not "no new writers"), so Nathan needed
> another credit before they would let me do the Predator novelization.

I hadn't been aware of that distinction between "author" and "writer".
That seems to me to be bizarrely arbitrary for this purpose, and
potentially counterproductive. They might have lost good work by a
skilled professional by insisting on it, if you hadn't been willing
to do that other book. And I doubt if the people who bought the
Predator novelization (a distinct but overlapping set from the people
who *read* it, I know) would have cared much if "Nathan" had a single
previous writing credit to "his" name, in the DS9 franchise.

Did the Predator book even mention "Nathan"'s DS9 book? That is,
in an "about the author" blurb or "Also by Nathan Archer" list, etc.?

[Dimensional Traveler]

Didn't claim I did. Thank you for the insight.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Sat, 2 Jan 2021 19:51:12 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
wrote:

No. They specifically did NOT want new names.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Nope.

You're assuming far more common sense than exists in licensing
franchises, and far more communication between the editorial
department at Dark Horse and the suits at Fox than actually existed.

Fox had made it a rule: No new authors. They did not want their
franchise to be seen as accepting work by beginners. They felt, with
some justification, that some spin-offs and novelizations were seen as
amateur-level work and places where fannish wannabes could break into
publishing (as in fact some franchises, such as "Magic: the
Gathering," really were). They did not want to be seen that way, and
therefore did not want to entrust their product to total unknowns.
Thus the rule.

The editorial folks at Dark Horse didn't give a damn who wrote the
books, as long as the quality was acceptable and they met the
deadlines and other specifications. Failing to follow the rules set
down by Fox meant losing a profitable licence, so they followed the
letter of the rule regardless of whether it made any sense. If it had
meant losing a particular author, so what? They were paying enough
that it wouldn't be hard to find a replacement. Everyone knew it was
the "Predator" logo on the cover that would sell the book, not the
author's name.

Bothering the suits about any specifics would have endangered an
editor's job, because the suits didn't want to be bothered. There was
the rule: Follow it. Period.

I don't understand why people are having trouble with any of this.
20th Century Fox was a huge corporation subcontracting out a tiny part
of one successful product line; since when have huge corporations
behaved logically or paid any attention to what their contractors or
customers want?

Should I mention that the one editorial change demanded by Fox on any
of the books I wrote for them was that I was told to remove an
"X-Files" joke, because they did not want to take any chance of being
seen as mocking one of their OTHER hot franchises? (I replaced it
with a "Melrose Place" joke. They didn't own "Melrose Place," so they
were completely cool with that.)

[Quadibloc]

Of course, if any of Holmes' injuries had not fully healed, Dr. John Watson
would have been qualified to examine them...

John Savard

[Paul S Person]

On Sat, 2 Jan 2021 10:35:06 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
wrote:

The following book was /Dr No/, and it begins with Bond being forced
to use a different gun because his preferred model jammed on him,
allowing Kleb to get her knitting needles into him. (It also credited
Mathis with saving him).

Ironically, the movie /Dr No/ starts with the "new gun or else" scene,
even though it was filmed before /From Russia With Love/. Such are the
vagaries of film production.

[Paul S Person]

The estate did, but not to its detriment. IMHO, of course.

I'm now reading #43, /Solo/, by William Boyd. There is also a #44,
/Trigger Mortis/, by Anthony Horowitz, which will be up next. Prior
authors were: Robert Markham, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, and
Sebastian Faulks. Several would have made excellent movies (the three
film adaptations, of course, did, except that the film came first),
but that hasn't happened yet. Benson's /Zero Minus Ten/, with Bond
foiling a plot to nuke Hong Kong at the moment it is turned over to
China, would have made a really good one, IMHO.

There may be more: /Trigger Mortis/ was published in 2015, I'll have
to do a bit of searching. None written by others claim to be /by/ Ian
Fleming (except, maybe, /Trigger Mortis/, which claims to contain
"original material by" him -- whatever /that/ is supposed to mean).

[Paul S Person]

On Sat, 02 Jan 2021 11:29:12 -0800, Lawrence Watt-Evans
<misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 2 Jan 2021 19:16:51 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <9dcbc927-47bc-445d...@googlegroups.com>,
>>Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>On Saturday, January 2, 2021 at 10:38:42 AM UTC-7, Paul S Person wrote:
>>>
>>>> Fans can have major impacts on authors. Fleming brought Bond back to
>>>> life after /From Russia, With Love/ because the fans insisted. Or so I
>>>> recall having read.
>>>
>>>Of course, the most well known case of this is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
>>>bringing Sherlock Holmes back to life after the events which took place
>>>at the Reichenbach Falls in _The Final Problem_.
>>>
>>
>>I doubt that, Thomas!
>
>You doubt what? For once, Quadi has it right.

It's just a bit of antireligious propaganda.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <pj14vfdc26d1d9qk6...@4ax.com>,

Or, you know, a joke.

[Magewolf]

Not meaning to pry but if your works from Fox are still in print are you
getting royalties? Just wondering because of the problems Alan Dean
Foster is having.

Of course I was always under the impression that most franchise work did
not involve royalties in the first place but it might be different for
better known authors.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Sun, 3 Jan 2021 20:06:09 -0000 (UTC), Magewolf <Mage...@nc.rr.com>
wrote:

Generally, the bigger franchieses (Trek, Star Wars, etc.) do pay
royalties. Smaller ones are likely to be flat-fee.

I haven't gotten a royalty check from Dark Horse in ages, but I don't
actually know whether I'm owed any. The amounts in question, if any,
would be pretty small.

I should probably check, though.

[Paul S Person]

On 3 Jan 2021 18:25:16 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)

wrote:

>In article <pj14vfdc26d1d9qk6...@4ax.com>,
>Paul S Person <pspe...@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>>On Sat, 02 Jan 2021 11:29:12 -0800, Lawrence Watt-Evans
>><misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On 2 Jan 2021 19:16:51 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>In article <9dcbc927-47bc-445d...@googlegroups.com>,
>>>>Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>>>On Saturday, January 2, 2021 at 10:38:42 AM UTC-7, Paul S Person wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Fans can have major impacts on authors. Fleming brought Bond back to
>>>>>> life after /From Russia, With Love/ because the fans insisted. Or so I
>>>>>> recall having read.
>>>>>
>>>>>Of course, the most well known case of this is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
>>>>>bringing Sherlock Holmes back to life after the events which took place
>>>>>at the Reichenbach Falls in _The Final Problem_.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I doubt that, Thomas!
>>>
>>>You doubt what? For once, Quadi has it right.
>>
>>It's just a bit of antireligious propaganda.
>
>Or, you know, a joke.

It's strange how often anti-religious propaganda gets rebranded "a
joke" when identified.

But whatever.

[Robert Carnegie]

In the oldest copies of the oldest "canon" "gospel"
(biography of Jesus) - the book of Mark - Jesus doesn't
actually appear after his death. An angel says that he'll
meet the lads in Galilee. The End. Your edition probably
has the bit added where he shows up. So... credibly,
Jesus actually reappearing was added to the book
because the audience wanted it.

This isn't actually the book with "Doubting Thomas" in,
but that is what Thomas is mainly famous for, once the
gospel by "Thomas" (maybe "not really") didn't make
the cut. Apparently - rather interesting - animals attend
the Nativity in Thomas's version but are not mentioned
there in the actual bible. Anyway, Thomas /is/ famous
as the team's sceptic, and for a long time it's been
commonplace to call someone "a Doubting Thomas"
when they don't take your word for something.

[Joel Polowin]

On 2021-01-02 8:28 PM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> I don't understand why people are having trouble with any of this.
> 20th Century Fox was a huge corporation subcontracting out a tiny part
> of one successful product line; since when have huge corporations
> behaved logically or paid any attention to what their contractors or
> customers want?

Speaking only for myself: I'm trying to understand the "rules" of the
game, or at least to learn what they are. If nothing else, it's nice
to learn the definitions. I read dozens of Hardy Boys books when I was
young, with "Franklin W. Dixon" on the cover. I knew that that was
really just a pseudonym and that the books were written by many people.
Now, if I'm understanding you correctly, I know that "Franklin W. Dixon"
was really the author of the books -- i.e. the name on the cover. As
for corporations and marketing... well, I have my own experiences of
having had to try to create the things that marketers promised to
customers, so I'm not terribly surprised to hear about these examples of
highly sub-optimal marketing procedures.

(Frex, there was the time I managed to divert a salesthing *before* he
fully committed my then-employer to delivering a liquid which could
just be poured on rocks to make them quickly dissolve away. "You're a
chemist, right? I'm sure you can do this! And it would be a contract
for, like, a million dollars, and like a hundred thousand of that could
go towards funding the project you're working on now!" "For starters,
Terry, we're a *software company*. In the second place, rocks have a,
um, reputation for *durability*, for a good reason..." I never did
learn how the guy had managed to get us involved with that.)

[Juho Julkunen]

In article <fd04vf1r28uok9s5l...@4ax.com>, psperson1
@ix.netcom.invalid says...

No wonder _From Russia with Love_ went better for movie Bond.

_Dr No_ the movie also killed off a recurring character before his
first appearance, leaving his son to fill the role when _Live and Let
Die_ got filmed.

--
Juho Julkunen

[Juho Julkunen]

In article <okl6vfh03dfbpr22l...@4ax.com>, psperson1
@ix.netcom.invalid says...

If you think a reference to an event in scripture is anti-religious
propaganda, you can't think too highly of the religion in question.

--
Juho Julkunen

[Paul S Person]

Allow me to remind you that the discussion was about

characters that authors were forced by fans to bring back after
killing them off

It was not "a reference to an event in Scripture". It was a blatant
attempt to equate an event in Scripture with a character being killed
off and then brought back because of fan pressure.

And, no, it wasn't a joke. As his response clearly showed -- a
discourse on how the Gospels are constructed is /not/ the proper
response to show that the statement was a joke. It is a confirmation
of the antireligious nature of the the original statement.

[Paul S Person]

And then Felix's shark encounter was left out of the film of /Live and
Let Die/ and then used in /License to Kill/, which caused John Gardner
some trouble when he wrote the novelization, which had to reconcile
three different timelines:
-- the one in which Felix lost a leg in the early 50s
-- the one in which Felix lost a leg in the 90s
-- and his own, where Felix was retired
He managed it quite well.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <30ievf1d469vpto8a...@4ax.com>,

What? I didn't discuss any such thing, or indeed anything at all.
I simply asserted that it was a joke, which it was. I believe you
are thinking of another post by another poster.

[Scott Lurndal]

And really, what's wrong with antireligious, at least when the
religous in question are attempting to push their belief system
on others?

[Dimensional Traveler]

Isn't pushing their belief system on others part of the real world
definition of a "religion"?

[J. Clarke]

You might want to talk to a gentile who has for whatever reason set
out to take up Judaism.

[Quadibloc]

As long as he doesn't want to emigrate to Israel, or become Orthodox,
as opposed to Conservative or Reform, it shouldn't actually be _that_
difficult (after all, Sammy Davis Jr. managed it)...

but, yes, that is potentially an extreme example to illustrate that not
all faiths are like that of the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses.

John Savard

[Hamish Laws]

No, it's largely a Christian thing

[Quadibloc]

Many Christian denominations today eschew aggressive prosetylization.

Think of Episcopalians, or Presbyterians, for example.

John Savard

[Robert Carnegie]

Of course Jesus isn't the only person in the bible who dies
and gets better. <https://overviewbible.com/bible-resurrections/>

But he's probably the famousest.

It is not perfectly true to say that Jesus died in the first
draft and was brought back to satisfy public demand.
I would say that it's close enough for an acceptable joke.
It's accepted by scholars that "Matthew" and "Mark"
are based on previous texts, are written after Jerusalem
was flattened in 70 CE, I suppose because Jesus "predicts"
it, and, as I said, "Mark" seems to have been written at first
with Jesus not actually reappearing in the telling. It also
says that the women that apparently he left a message
for didn't tell anyone, which leaves the question of how
we know about it. (It's not hard to show possible answers,
but it is a loose end.) Of course almost all the rest of the
bible, the letters specifically, are older than the gospels,
some actually written by a person whose name is on the
letter, some absolutely not, and they present it as fact
that Jesus died, then un-died, and went to Heaven,
although they don't say much in detail about him
personally. But that means that he isn't /around/;
you can't go to hear him speak or meet him personally
or get his autograph. He goes out of the story, though
supposedly he has some big scenes coming towards
the end. Which is supposedly very soon.

I hold that early Christian writers encountered an
appetite for telling about the risen Christ /doing/
something, and being seen, and in response, they
produced that.

Incidentally, the four canonical gospels each have
an "empty tomb of Jesus" scene, but each of them
is different, specifically in who is in the scene.

[Robert Carnegie]

Wrong.

However, there are valid answers to "What's wrong with
antireligious".

I would approve of public education as a public good in
sceptical reasoning, that doesn't undermine traditional
religion - but traditional religion of most kinds is pretty
sure that it will. And they'd know best, wouldn't they.

[Paul S Person]

On 7 Jan 2021 18:00:49 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>)

In that case, you are entitled to an apology.

I apologize.

And it is still remarkable how many of these "hit and run"
antireligious comments are said to be "jokes" when called.

Now, if the discussion, instead of being about bringing back a
character because of fan pressure (Sherlock Holmes, James Bond), had
been about killing/resurrecting a character as part of the story
(Gandalf the Grey -> Gandalf the White in /Lord of the Rings/, for
exampe), your statement would have been /relevant/. And might arguably
have been a part of the discussion.

But, as things are, it was clearly not relevant. And so an intrustion,
not a joke.

[Paul S Person]

On Thu, 07 Jan 2021 19:15:49 GMT, sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
wrote:

But what "religion" is in question?

Hinduism in India?

Buddhism in Myanmar?

Islam in a lot of countries?

But perhaps you regard the fans who forced the return of Sherlock
Holmes and James Bond to be "pushing their belief system on others"?

[Paul S Person]

On Thu, 7 Jan 2021 11:37:17 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:

Interesting line of attack.

You do realize that some forms of atheism do this, right?

Congratulations! You have just made atheism a religion!

[Dimensional Traveler]

Skeptical reasoning is the anti-thesis of religious faith and
unquestioning acceptance of what you are told by religious leaders.

[Paul S Person]

Ah ... so, in whatever reality /you/ are from, Islam did not pour out
of Arabia and conquer the entire southern shore of the Mediterranean,
plus Spain and the Middle East. And eventually Anatolia and parts of
Eastern Europe.

That's a lot of conquest!

[Paul S Person]

<snippo remaining irrelevant material, however true it may be>

The problem here is that we were not discussing any "person ... who
dies and gets better" or anything like that.

We were discussing /characters/ whose /authors/ KILLED THEM OFF and
were then forced to bring them back by fan pressure.

It is the /irrelevance/ of the comment to the discussion that marks it
as a casual use of antireligious propaganda -- as opposed to a
legitimate contribution.

Now, if we had been discussing stories in which a "person ... who
dies and gets better", like Gandalf in /Lord of the Rings/, that would
be different.

[Paul S Person]

I want to make it clear that, in my other post, Gandalf's death and
return is /part of the story/ as intended by the author.

The return of a character by fan pressure is /not/ part of the story
as originally intended by the author.

The snippet of antireligious propaganda referred would have been
relevant to the first case -- but we were discussing the second.

It is this "fire when I see anything that remotely resembles a
relevant discussion" phenomenon, BTW, that marks the fanatic.

[Quadibloc]

Don't forget Persia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia.

John Savard

[J. Clarke]

The thing is, some religions don't demand "unquestioning acceptance".
Hell, even the Amish don't demand "unquestioning acceptance".

[Robert Carnegie]

I said that comparing the resurrection of Sherlock Holmes -
due to public popularity - to that of Jesus is "close enough
for an acceptable joke". Disagreeing with me doesn't make
that "irrelevant", but the opposite.

I also said that in the oldest of the accepted gospels,
resurrected Jesus does not actually appear, so was
included later. But that isn't required by my point.

There are jokes in the bible. Jesus, we read, made jokes.
Luke 13:33 for instance, when he is warned to get out of
town or be killed. KJV: "Nevertheless I must walk to day,
and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be
that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." In other words:
"I'm a prophet. Prophets get killed in Jerusalem.
It's my job." This is sarcastic. It's also inaccurate
inasmuch as not /all/ prophets are reported dying
in Jerusalem. Many did, but this may be the first
time that the rule was mentioned... It's legitimate for
a joke to use an analogy which is not precisely
accurate, /because it's a joke/. It's actually funnier.

Also we went from Sherlock Holmes to Jesus.
There's a Roman Catholic remark that it is
disrespectful to contemplate his Sacred Heart
and be reminded of a strawberry (you can't
un-see it), but not disrespectful to contemplate
a strawberry and be reminded of the Sacred Heart.

Jesus to Sherlock Holmes is possible, Jesus also
was a detective (in a way) and observant...

[Paul S Person]

On Fri, 8 Jan 2021 09:37:31 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:

Indeed. But "religious faith" includes all sorts of things --
including anti-religious propaganda.

The problem is /much/ more prevalent than you suppose.

[Paul S Person]

Shhhh -- you'll confuse him, by presenting facts inconsistent with his
beliefs. Beliefs he is, no doubt, required to accept without question.

This attempt to restrict "skeptical reasoning" to "religious faith" is
/very/ instructive. Actual skeptical reasoning applies to a lot more
than religion [1] -- and the Apocryphal book "Of Bel and the Dragon"
has Daniel applying skeptical reasoning to idol worship, showing that
the technique goes back a long long way.

[1] Unless, of course, one considers belief in Nessie to be a
religion. Or in UFOs. Or the various conspiracy theories, such as the
moon landing in the 60s. But then "religion" would come to mean
"anything skeptical reasoning can be used against", which would be an
unusual and novel definition.

[Paul S Person]

On Fri, 8 Jan 2021 12:44:35 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>

wrote:

>On Friday, January 8, 2021 at 10:38:54 AM UTC-7, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Thu, 7 Jan 2021 20:25:20 -0800 (PST), Hamish Laws
>> <hamis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On Friday, January 8, 2021 at 6:37:19 AM UTC+11, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>
>> >> Isn't pushing their belief system on others part of the real world
>> >> definition of a "religion"?
>
>> >No, it's largely a Christian thing
>
>> Ah ... so, in whatever reality /you/ are from, Islam did not pour out
>> of Arabia and conquer the entire southern shore of the Mediterranean,
>> plus Spain and the Middle East. And eventually Anatolia and parts of
>> Eastern Europe.
>
>> That's a lot of conquest!
>
>Don't forget Persia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia.

I'm not sure how many of those were deliberate conquest to gain
territory and how many more-or-less peaceful conversion of areas
recognized as "not ours".

[Paul S Person]

On Sat, 9 Jan 2021 03:08:20 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

I just want to point out that, by spending so much effort attempting
to defend an irrelevant comment, you have validated my assertion that
it is a part of antireligious propaganda, produced because the
producer could not help himself but was compelled to do so because his
mis-understood what was being discussed and thought an antireligous
jab was appropriate.

Face it: the person who did this read A, thought it was B, and reacted
without thinking. And then tried to evade responsibility by claiming
it was a joke. And he and others are now trying to /jusfify/ this by
presenting facts that are no more relevant to A than the offending bit
of idiocy was.

OTOH, it /is/ refreshing to not be discussing Trump's insurrection
attempt. Some of the ... stuff ... I am reading in the Win10 News
thingy (which, despite the recent changes, can still be used --
Microsoft is far from achieving its evident goal of making it
completely unusable) is getting /very/ strange. On all sides. At the
State and well as the Federal level.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

No, it isn't wrong. Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism are the only
major proseletyzing religions. You won't find Hindu, Shinto, animist,
or Jewish missionaries.




--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.ethshar.com/StoneUnturned.shtml

[Stephen Harker]

Look up, for example, the Battles of Qadasiiyya, Nihawand and Talas.
For Pakistan, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmud_of_Ghazni. For
Indonesia and Malaysia my vague memory is that you are correct: it was
largely through trade and marriage to Rajah's of various kingdoms.

--
Stephen Harker sjha...@netspace.net.au
was: http://sjharker.customer.netspace.net.au/
now: http://members.iinet.net.au/~sjha...@netspace.net.au/
or: http://members.iinet.net.au/~sjharker_nbn/

[Kevrob]

On Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 1:20:12 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:

[snip]

> You won't find Hindu, .....missionaries.

They are nowhere near a majority of Hindus, but there are
those annoying Krishna/ISKCONN people. Local airports
were able to set rules in such a way as to make solicitation
unprofitable for them, but I still regularly read a group where
a proselytizing troll will not stop his off-charter posts.

--
Kevin R

[J. Clarke]

On Sat, 9 Jan 2021 12:34:23 -0800 (PST), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
wrote:

I believe that "Hare Krishna" represents about 1/10 of 1 percent of
all Hindus. How far out in the fringe their beliefs are I have no
idea.

[Kevrob]

It wouldn't surprise me if that number were correct.

> How far out in the fringe their beliefs are I have no
> idea.

Neither do I. There is, in India, a considerable movement to
reconvert those who have given up Hinduism and related faiths
for "foreign" ones.

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

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

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

...and the Indian PM's party:

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

If I were an Indian resident who followed one of that country's
minority religion, or no creed, these outfits might bother me.

--
Kevin R

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 6:38:52 PM UTC-7, Kevrob wrote:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatiya_Janata_Party

> If I were an Indian resident who followed one of that country's
> minority religion, or no creed, these outfits might bother me.

The BJP bothers me, because I believe that freedom of religion
is a fundamental human right belonging to every person in every
land. Those who violate that right are evildoers in my sight.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 11:04:45 AM UTC-7, Paul S Person wrote:
> because his
> mis-understood what was being discussed and thought an antireligous
> jab was appropriate.

I refer to Doyle bringing Holmes back from the Reichenbach Falls...

someone then replies in jest by means of a reference to the 'doubting
Thomas' of the gospels,

and you claim this was an attack on Christianity rather than a joke.

If you wanted to claim that a joke of that nature was _disrespectful_
to Christianity, I could hardly argue with you, because many world
religions have rather high standards for the level of respect to which
they believe themselves entitled. (And I guess you _could_ call that
statement, however factual, an "antireligious jab"; make the most of
it.) But to call his remark an attack on Christianity would seem to
involve a more objective standard which is not met.

John Savard