Why John Ringo Threatens Science Fiction's Future
Randy McDonald
the latest novel of John Ringo <http://www.johnringo.com/aldind.htm>,
_Watch on the Rhine_
<http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743499182/qid=1123384370/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1_1/701-9736022-9129159>,
co-authored with Tom Kratman. _Watch on the Rhine_ is another novel in
Ringo's Posleen series, until now notable for the massive carnage
inflicted upon the Earth by alien-aided humans set up against the
cannibalistic Posleen hordes. _Watch on the Rhine_ is notable mainly for
featuring rejeuvenated Waffen SS as heroes, as a Germany rendered
decadent turns to its greatest military heroes in the time of its
greatest need.
It's difficult to underestimate just how repellent--and also,
repellently stupid--this book is. Anyone who isn't a far-right extremist
is a enthusiastic collaborator with aliens willing to eat everyone;
almost anyone who is such is a noble person unfairly tarred classified
as belonging to the ranks of the _génocidaires._ Of course, outside the
morally-akimbo Ringoverse this is because the Waffen SS
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS> was a criminal organization
deeply implicated in the worst crimes of Nazi Germany. It's difficult to
understand why a military body most noted for its ability to round up
and massacre Jews and other _untermenschen_ by the hundreds of thousands
could ever be treated as an institution capable of redemption, or how a
military formation most notable for its successes against unarmed
civilians would even be capable of any sort of headway against sixty
years after its formation. But then, the whole Posleen series can best
be understood as a series of books inspired by the same factors which
motivated the Nazis, of a final confrontation between the good people of
the world and the barbarian inferiors who surround them, a conflict that
must be fought if only for the honour of the great and good. Ringo and
Kratman make this point explicitly in their afterword, directly
connecting the ruthlessness of their book's chosen heroes to the War
against Terror (tm) and the need for the West to be strong in the
defense of its prerogatives after (one logically concludes) the fashion
of the Waffen SS.
It's a sad, sad day for science fiction when some of its most popular
books potentially have the same sort of relationship to as the Western
novels of Karl May do to Hitler's dreams of a great German empire on the
vast open spaces of Europe, the main difference being that the Posleen
novels do so much more directly and dangerously and with rather less
empathy save much more directly and dangerously and with much less
empathy for their real-world victims. Germany's interest in the novels
of Karl May is reflected in a broad vein of sympathy for the First
Nations of the New World
<http://www.uwec.edu/Geography/Ivogeler/w188/articles%5Ckarlmay.htm>,
after all.
The utter moral nihilism aside, _A Watch on the Rhine_ and other books
of its ilk reflect a worrying trend in science fiction, as military
science fiction books start to crowd out more worthy and interesting
titles. Military science fiction is as valid a subgenre as any, and when
done well can be good. Haldeman's _Forever War_ comes most immediately
to mind, though others more interested in this sub-genre can doubtless
name other candidates, titles marked by strong characterization, good
plotting, effective writing styles and an appreciation for the costs of
war. Too often, though, this popular sub-genre lacks any sort of
appreciation of the requirements of good fiction and is simply
interesting in describing a future devoid of anything but killing on
galactic scales, a universe of civilizations distinguishably mainly by
the calibres of their weaponries, an existence offering nothing but
death on a massive scale.
Science fiction is a threatened genre, perhaps a dying one, lacking the
large markets and much of the potential for critical respect enjoyed by
other genre fictions. The decision of a recent reviewer of a major
science fiction novel in the Toronto _Globe and Mail_ to note in passing
that this title's awkward writing style was about as badly written as
other titles and that this was normal says it all. Who is going to be
attracted to science fiction if some of the most popular titles are
marked by nothing but an immorally amoral fascination with death? There
are other genres out there, after all, perhaps more respectable ones in
the eyes of some. Genres have lost their popular audiences before. If
there ever comes a time when science fiction is intrinsically less
deserving of respect, science fiction deserves to follow suit. Ringo,
bless his soul, is doing his best to ensure that this day comes.
--
R.F. McDonald
r_f_mc...@yahoo.ca
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rfmcdpei/
"What! call a Turk, a Jew, and a Siamese, my brother? Yes, of course;
for are we all not children of the same father, and the creatures of
the same God?"
- Voltaire, from _Treatise on Tolerance,_ 1763
David Bilek
>
>Unpacking books at work the other day, I was surprised to come across
>the latest novel of John Ringo <http://www.johnringo.com/aldind.htm>,
>_Watch on the Rhine_
><http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743499182/qid=1123384370/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1_1/701-9736022-9129159>,
>co-authored with Tom Kratman. _Watch on the Rhine_ is another novel in
>Ringo's Posleen series, until now notable for the massive carnage
>inflicted upon the Earth by alien-aided humans set up against the
>cannibalistic Posleen hordes. _Watch on the Rhine_ is notable mainly for
>featuring rejeuvenated Waffen SS as heroes, as a Germany rendered
>decadent turns to its greatest military heroes in the time of its
>greatest need.
*snip rightful excoriation of Ringo and Kratman*
Let me say first that I'm right with you on the topic of Baen's recent
editorial decisions. I'd like to get that major point of agreement
right up front since the rest of my post is so disagreeable!
Look... Kratman clearly has issues. And I thought Ringo. while being
someone I disagree with on a lot of things, knew better that to
collaborate with this sort of thing. But the rest of your post is
kind of out there.
>Science fiction is a threatened genre, perhaps a dying one,
I'm not sure where you get the idea that SF is dying. It's more
vibrant and popular than it has ever been, at least from where I'm
sitting. Far from dying out, it is increasingly embraced by the
mainstream.
>lacking the
>large markets and much of the potential for critical respect enjoyed by
>other genre fictions.
Um, what? What other genre fiction? Westerns? Jimmy Hoffa has more
presence these days. Horror? Pining for the fjords. Romance? SF
certainly loses on the "large markets" count but you can't possibly
argue that romance is critically respected. Mysteries? Nah. What am
I missing?
>The decision of a recent reviewer of a major
>science fiction novel in the Toronto _Globe and Mail_ to note in passing
>that this title's awkward writing style was about as badly written as
>other titles and that this was normal says it all. Who is going to be
>attracted to science fiction if some of the most popular titles are
>marked by nothing but an immorally amoral fascination with death?
I am unclear where you get the idea that _Watch on the Rhine_ is one
of SFs more popular titles. Not that I'm defending the bestsellers
(mostly media tie ins and such) as the best SF has to offer, but I
don't think _Watch_ will even come close to those kind of sales.
Bottom line, Baen has become a total joke^H^H^H niche publisher. They
are essentially a ghetto for unknowns looking for a shot, has-beens
churning out mediocrity and getting their backlists into print, and
raving right wing loonies. Almost all of their best authors
eventually defect to other publishers. (See Bujold, L.M and Stirling,
S.M. for examples. Weber appears to be an exception. Don't get me
wrong; Baen serves a real purpose as a sort of professional slush
pile. It gives people like Bujold, or even our own Sea Wasp, a chance
at making it in SF.
But very few people except the Baeniacs at Baen's Bar will ever take
them seriously with guys like Kratman headlining for them.
>If there ever comes a time when science fiction is intrinsically less
>deserving of respect, science fiction deserves to follow suit. Ringo,
>bless his soul, is doing his best to ensure that this day comes.
Because of a couple of books from a slushpile publisher whom almost no
one takes seriously? Come on. When Patrick Nielsen Hayden and TOR
publish something like this, then we'll talk.
-David
Randy McDonald
>
> [deletia]
>
> >Science fiction is a threatened genre, perhaps a dying one,
>
> I'm not sure where you get the idea that SF is dying. It's more
> vibrant and popular than it has ever been, at least from where I'm
> sitting. Far from dying out, it is increasingly embraced by the
> mainstream.
It has been co-opted. Is Michael Cunningham writing science fiction if
his latest novel features interstellar travel and alien species?
> [deletia]
>
> Um, what? What other genre fiction? Westerns? Jimmy Hoffa has more
> presence these days.
One of the genres that have disappeared, I suppose.
> Horror? Pining for the fjords.
My writing teacher at UPEI was bemused despite herself to note that
Stephen King's _On Writing_ was the best book on the fiction-writing
process she'd read, and noted further that King was an effective writer.
> Romance? SF
> certainly loses on the "large markets" count but you can't possibly
> argue that romance is critically respected.
Yes, I can. Take _Bridget Jones' Diary,_ say.
> Mysteries? Nah.
Writers like Ian Rankin, Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell, and Henning Mankell
have received quite a lot of positive literary attention, and they
aren't exceptions to the rule.
> [deletia]
>
>
> I am unclear where you get the idea that _Watch on the Rhine_ is one
> of SFs more popular titles. Not that I'm defending the bestsellers
> (mostly media tie ins and such) as the best SF has to offer, but I
> don't think _Watch_ will even come close to those kind of sales.
As I mentioned, I work at a bookstore. Our inventory system tracks books
and their authors, ordering in copies of specific titles based on past
sales of the title and the author's broader popularity, along with
attention from the popular press. We ended up receiving what is, for the
science fiction section, a rather large number of hardcovers. Getting
science fiction hardcovers at all is a fairly rare phenomenon, something
associated to date only with top sellers like Clarke and Turtledove. If
we got a lot of copies of this book in, then our inventory system
expects we'll sell a lot of them.
> [deletia]
>
> >If there ever comes a time when science fiction is intrinsically less
> >deserving of respect, science fiction deserves to follow suit. Ringo,
> >bless his soul, is doing his best to ensure that this day comes.
>
> Because of a couple of books from a slushpile publisher whom almost no
> one takes seriously?
I'm curious as to why you say that no one would take Baen seriously.
They do sell well, after all--people do pay attention to these authors
and this publishing firm, even if they aren't the people that you know.
> Come on. When Patrick Nielsen Hayden and TOR
> publish something like this, then we'll talk.
Hayden and TOR don't need to jump off the rails for things to go badly.
The possibility that science fiction, as a genre, could become
associated with people possessing technologically-assisted genocide
fetishes has to be taken into consideration.
> -David
David Dyer-Bennet
> Randy McDonald <rfmcd...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> >Science fiction is a threatened genre, perhaps a dying one,
>
> I'm not sure where you get the idea that SF is dying. It's more
> vibrant and popular than it has ever been, at least from where I'm
> sitting. Far from dying out, it is increasingly embraced by the
> mainstream.
Yes. That's why it's dying. What's being published is being dragged
out of interesting territory and more and more into mediocrity and
mundanity by the possibility of mundane-level sales. The real science
fiction is harder and harder to find.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/> Much of which is still down
Damien Neil
David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> Yes. That's why it's dying. What's being published is being dragged
> out of interesting territory and more and more into mediocrity and
> mundanity by the possibility of mundane-level sales. The real science
> fiction is harder and harder to find.
Yep. Gosh darn it, authors like Banks, Bujold, McCarthy, McLeod,
Morgan, Reynolds, Stross, Vinge, and Wilson are a sure sign of the
corruption and failure of modern science fiction.
- Damien
Gene Ward Smith
Randy McDonald wrote:
> It's difficult to underestimate just how repellent--and also,
> repellently stupid--this book is.
Of course it is. Ringo got Kratman to help him write it.
> Who is going to be
> attracted to science fiction if some of the most popular titles are
> marked by nothing but an immorally amoral fascination with death?
Idiots, of course. Given the vast supply, the future of sf seems
secure.
JJ Karhu
<rfmcd...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>as belonging to the ranks of the _génocidaires._ Of course, outside the
>morally-akimbo Ringoverse this is because the Waffen SS
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS> was a criminal organization
>deeply implicated in the worst crimes of Nazi Germany. It's difficult to
>understand why a military body most noted for its ability to round up
>and massacre Jews and other _untermenschen_ by the hundreds of thousands
>could ever be treated as an institution capable of redemption, or how a
>military formation most notable for its successes against unarmed
>civilians would even be capable of any sort of headway against sixty
>years after its formation. But then, the whole Posleen series can best
Methinks you're giving the Waffen-SS a bit too harsh a rap here. Sure,
some divisions committed atrocities, but the link to the Holocaust and
them being a "criminal organization" comes from being inside the same
command structure that organized the Holocaust.
Now, if he had used Einsatzgruppen veterans as heroes...
// JJ
willre...@yahoo.com
That would have been worse, sure. However, whitewashing the Waffen SS
doesn't fly. They were huge supporters of everything the Nazi party
stood for. Demonizing them as actually carrying out the Holacaust is
innacurate but closer in spirit to what they were than denying their
support of it.
I can see cutting some slack for Wehrmacht veterans. The Kreigsmarine
actually tried to keep some its Jewish officers and, in the late
Thirties, let Jewish seamen go ashore in foreign ports when anyone
would KNOW that they would go AWOL. It was possible in those days to
wear a German uniform and not be a villain. Even in the Waffen there
were probably a few people trapped by stupid youthful decisions. That
isn't the way the smart money would bet though.
Will in New Haven
--
"You don't like sitting next to hitters. They don't like to talk about
pitching and golf. They like to talk about hitting and other stuff."
- Greg Maddux
Randy McDonald
These aren't the only authors who sell, alas.
> - Damien
Randy McDonald
>
> Randy McDonald <rfmcd...@sympatico.ca> wrote in
> news:42F599...@sympatico.ca:
>
> [deletia]
>
> >> Horror? Pining for the fjords.
> >
> > My writing teacher at UPEI was bemused despite herself to note that
> > Stephen King's _On Writing_ was the best book on the fiction-writing
> > process she'd read, and noted further that King was an effective
> > writer.
>
No problem. It really is quite good.
> >> Romance? SF
> >> certainly loses on the "large markets" count but you can't possibly
> >> argue that romance is critically respected.
> >
> > Yes, I can. Take _Bridget Jones' Diary,_ say.
>
> That's another case of co-opting. BJD usually gets labelled "chick lit"
> instead of "romance" when people don't lump those two genres together.
I'm not so sure about that. Certainly, the two are marketed as kindred
genres and there is a lot of authorial mobility between this areas (Nora
Roberts, for example). What is the equivalent relationship for science
fiction? Atwood and Cunningham, for instance, don't benefit from the
same sort of mobility.
Randy McDonald
>
> On Sat, 06 Aug 2005 23:53:33 -0400, Randy McDonald
> <rfmcd...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> >as belonging to the ranks of the _génocidaires._ Of course, outside the
> >morally-akimbo Ringoverse this is because the Waffen SS
> ><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS> was a criminal organization
> >deeply implicated in the worst crimes of Nazi Germany. It's difficult to
> >understand why a military body most noted for its ability to round up
> >and massacre Jews and other _untermenschen_ by the hundreds of thousands
> >could ever be treated as an institution capable of redemption, or how a
> >military formation most notable for its successes against unarmed
> >civilians would even be capable of any sort of headway against sixty
> >years after its formation. But then, the whole Posleen series can best
>
> Methinks you're giving the Waffen-SS a bit too harsh a rap here.
A bit, I agree. As you pointed out, it isn't as if they were the
_Einsatzgrüppen._ Then again, it isn't as if they weren't a military
force with an ideologically-screened membership chosen for their
unquestioning loyalty to Naziism and Nazi goals. It certainly isn't as
if Ringo and Kratman weren't aware of this!
Joseph T Major
One of the SS "elite" divisions, the Totenkopfdivision, was in fact
made up of concentration camp guards, and its first commander was the
inspector-general of concentration camp guards, Theodor Eicke.
But the SS "elite" divisions in general had a bad reputation. Think
Malmedy (Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler), Oradour (Das Reich), Le Paradis
(Totenkopf), Audie (Hitler Jugend) --- and these were just on the
Western front.
I'm not even going to mention some of the other units. Don't
mention the "Prinz Eugen" division in the former Yugoslav states, for
example, unless you have a really strong stomach
Joseph T Major
Sea Wasp
> David Bilek wrote:
>
>>[deletia]
>>
>>
>>>Science fiction is a threatened genre, perhaps a dying one,
>>
>>I'm not sure where you get the idea that SF is dying. It's more
>>vibrant and popular than it has ever been, at least from where I'm
>>sitting. Far from dying out, it is increasingly embraced by the
>>mainstream.
>
>
> It has been co-opted. Is Michael Cunningham writing science fiction if
> his latest novel features interstellar travel and alien species?
Yep. No idea who Mr. Cunningham is, but if that's in the novel,
that's SF.
If he's a mainstreamer, it may be BAD SF -- a lot of people who
aren't into SF who try to write it often make the silly mistakes --
but it's still SF.
>>Horror? Pining for the fjords.
>
>
> My writing teacher at UPEI was bemused despite herself to note that
> Stephen King's _On Writing_ was the best book on the fiction-writing
> process she'd read, and noted further that King was an effective writer.
King's stuff is on the decline and has been for years. His book on
writing is interesting for some people. I never found any book
particularly useful in that arena myself.
King CAN be an effective writer, though his best work appears to be
short stories, at least IMCGO.
>
> As I mentioned, I work at a bookstore. Our inventory system tracks books
> and their authors, ordering in copies of specific titles based on past
> sales of the title and the author's broader popularity, along with
> attention from the popular press. We ended up receiving what is, for the
> science fiction section, a rather large number of hardcovers. Getting
> science fiction hardcovers at all is a fairly rare phenomenon, something
> associated to date only with top sellers like Clarke and Turtledove. If
> we got a lot of copies of this book in, then our inventory system
> expects we'll sell a lot of them.
Expectations can be wrong. That's where large amounts of remainders
come from.
I worked at Borders for over 7 years. The only way to tell for sure
is to wait until several months AFTERWARD and see what the numbers say.
And hardcovers in SF are a lot more common than you imply; there are
even some NEWBIE authors who've gotten HC publication. Hell, Jim was
considering putting Digital Knight out in HC at one point.
The fact is that the current market makes hardcovers actually better
propositions than paperbacks. For a number of reasons, mostly the
consolidation of the distribution approach, the paperback market is a
fraction of the size it used to be for everyone except the very, very
top selling authors and maybe one or two people a year who get lucky.
So it is, right now, much more probable that a given title will be put
out in HC than it would have been say, 10 - 15 years ago.
>
> I'm curious as to why you say that no one would take Baen seriously.
> They do sell well, after all--people do pay attention to these authors
> and this publishing firm, even if they aren't the people that you know.
Speaking AS a Baen author, no one DOES take us seriously -- in the
areas you're talking about. Aside from Bujold, I don't think any of us
have been accused of being accepted literarily; "best book" surveys in
the industry rarely include Baen materials unless they're talking
about sales or popularity.
Fortunately, I don't think very many Baen authors have any literary
ambitions or pretensions. My interest is to write my stories. If
someone likes them and pays me money for them, that's even better.
>>Come on. When Patrick Nielsen Hayden and TOR
>>publish something like this, then we'll talk.
>
>
> Hayden and TOR don't need to jump off the rails for things to go badly.
> The possibility that science fiction, as a genre, could become
> associated with people possessing technologically-assisted genocide
> fetishes has to be taken into consideration.
Not really. SF is mostly associated with, and will CONTINUE to be
associated with, lightsabers, phaser beams, funny-forehead aliens, and
so on. Fantasy is mostly associated with, and will CONTINUE to be
associated with, hobbits, elves, and dragons.
I think Ringo and Kratman, in addition to obviously disagreeing with
your political position, would be laughing themselves sick at the idea
that their book might influence the perception of the entire genre.
Not that they'd mind, as that would probably translate to immense
crossover sales.
Seriously, stuff like that is niche. Baen itself ISN'T, despite Dan's
statement, a niche publisher; it's a MULTIPLE-niche publisher. Baen
tries to find authors that have a clear audience and let that audience
find them. They can then sit there and write to the people who want to
read "that kind" of stuff, and make a living. I'm kinda an exception
as it's not clear there's a particular "niche" for my stuff yet.
Ringo and Kratman don't appear to be writing stuff I want to read,
but as long as they keep SELLING, they'll keep writing. If they tank,
that may change what they write. However, in neither case do I think
that they're going to transform the entire genre perception.
The main genre perception is driven (A) by TV and Movies, and (B) by
the PREVIOUS generation's authors who survive in popularity.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
James Nicoll
Randy McDonald <rfmcd...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>The utter moral nihilism aside, _A Watch on the Rhine_ and other books
>of its ilk reflect a worrying trend in science fiction, as military
>science fiction books start to crowd out more worthy and interesting
>titles. Military science fiction is as valid a subgenre as any, and when
>done well can be good. Haldeman's _Forever War_ comes most immediately
>to mind, though others more interested in this sub-genre can doubtless
>name other candidates, titles marked by strong characterization, good
>plotting, effective writing styles and an appreciation for the costs of
>war. Too often, though, this popular sub-genre lacks any sort of
>appreciation of the requirements of good fiction and is simply
>interesting in describing a future devoid of anything but killing on
>galactic scales, a universe of civilizations distinguishably mainly by
>the calibres of their weaponries, an existence offering nothing but
>death on a massive scale.
This is actually a throw-back to the olden days of SF, when
genocide and its cousin, negative eugenics, were core values for the
genre. In a lot of ways Baen deliberately attempts to emulate older
SF, so it isn't that suprising that a bit of fondness for state-
sanctioned mass murder turns up here and there.
In fact, I just read two Edmund Hamilton books, a collection
and a novel[1], in which vitrually every story had the format "Alien
race doomed by entropy, attempts to deal with this, either accidentally
or deliberately menaces humanity and its allies, heroes drive off or more
often exterminate the aliens, often by turning the aliens' own tools
against them." In the first story, the aliens had no idea the solar
system was occupied and they lacked FTL. Given FTL and the ability
to relocate, there's no need for them to do whatever it was they are
doing (I think these were the "ram the Sun with their sun to restart
their sun" guys) and so the crisis could have been averted with no loss
of life. That option never comes up.
It's also probably a bad sign that the other two galaxies that
the heros contact both seem to be dominated by a single race. In one
case that race is Evile and has exterminated all rivals but the Andromedans,
who seem to be benevolent, also have no competators. Why this is is never
explained.
1: Published in the 1960s by Donald Wollheim in a reaction against something
Wollheim angrily called "slide-rule science fiction".
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Jim Battista
news:87r7d67...@gw.dd-b.net:
> Yes. That's why it's dying. What's being published is being
> dragged out of interesting territory and more and more into
> mediocrity and mundanity by the possibility of mundane-level
> sales. The real science fiction is harder and harder to find.
If science-fiction-and-fantasy can survive Gor, it can survive Kratman.
--
Jim Battista
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
Laura Burchard
Omixochitl <omixoch...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Wasn't there at least one youth trapped there a la in hiding? Solomon
>Perel was in an army unit before they returned to Germany and some
>official decided he was too young and told him to join the Hitler Youth
>instead.
The Waffen-SS isn't the German Army; it was the descendent of the early
Nazi Party's paramilitary forces. While there were some conscripts later
in the war, the vast majority were ideological volunteers; and while there
were some units that distinguished themselves in genuine battle, they were
overall known more for their war crimes then their military skill.
Which is what makes the choice so disgusting; there really isn't any
reason to pick the Waffen-SS instead of the German Army (given the
extremely stupid and tortured premise of 'revitalizing past military
heroes') than a wish to whitewash them. Not that Kratman's past wingnuttia
isn't already freaky, but at least Hillary Clinton can speak for herself.
To use the ghosts of the unnumbered and helpless dead in this way, and
then to gleefully announce that anyone who objected was merely being "PC",
as Ringo did on this forum a few weeks ago... Well, it makes me wish that
the ghosts of Oradur-sur-Glane could walk. And show Ringo and Kratman
exactly the loving mercy of the Waffen-SS.
Charming, isn't it, that Kratman is the the sort of person has teaching at
the Army War College?
--
Laura Burchard -- l...@radix.net -- http://www.radix.net/~lhb
"Good design is clear thinking made visible." -- Edward Tufte
Sea Wasp
> Sea Wasp <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote in news:42F623E0.1080107
> @obvioussgeinc.com:
>
>
>> Not really. SF is mostly associated with, and will CONTINUE to be
>>associated with, lightsabers, phaser beams, funny-forehead aliens, and
>
>
>
Oo, and trenchcoats and impossible bullet shots.
Elf M. Sternberg
> > > My writing teacher at UPEI was bemused despite herself to note that
> > > Stephen King's _On Writing_ was the best book on the fiction-writing
> > > process she'd read, and noted further that King was an effective
> > > writer.
> >
> > Thanks for the OW recommendation. :)
>
> No problem. It really is quite good.
I found it rambling and ineffective. Compared to _Bird by
Bird_, it deserves the remaindered status in which I found it.
Elf
Gene Ward Smith
Laura Burchard wrote:
> To use the ghosts of the unnumbered and helpless dead in this way, and
> then to gleefully announce that anyone who objected was merely being "PC",
> as Ringo did on this forum a few weeks ago... Well, it makes me wish that
> the ghosts of Oradur-sur-Glane could walk. And show Ringo and Kratman
> exactly the loving mercy of the Waffen-SS.
"PC" is a useful thing to whine when you point out that someone is both
a bigot and a moron, because it serves to distract attention from the
"moron" part. Ringo did that to me when I pointed out that Kratman
drools. I even had angry, unsolicted email from him, defending the man.
But whatever you may think of his paleolithic politics, that Kratman is
an idiot is clear. It might be simpler, when dealing with characters
like this, to leave it at that, or you'll end up with defenses along
the lines of saying Kratman is not as big a lunatic as Fred Phelps, and
that some of his best friends are gay and Jewish.
> Charming, isn't it, that Kratman is the the sort of person has teaching at
> the Army War College?
It's when he gets defended with the claim that if he really was an
idiot and a nutjob the army would have nothing to do with him that I am
forced to scratch my head.
Still, one may look at the bright side. When I suggested that Kratman
probably represents the bottom of the Baen barrel a while back, someone
came up with an example of arguably worse idiocy. Baen therefore
represents a publisher who can make your work, whatever its problems
may be, look intelligent by comparison; so submit that manuscript.
Dr. Dave
> David Bilek wrote:
> >
> > [deletia]
> >
> > >Science fiction is a threatened genre, perhaps a dying one,
> >
> > I'm not sure where you get the idea that SF is dying. It's more
> > vibrant and popular than it has ever been, at least from where I'm
> > sitting. Far from dying out, it is increasingly embraced by the
> > mainstream.
>
> It has been co-opted. Is Michael Cunningham writing science fiction if
> his latest novel features interstellar travel and alien species?
Yes, he is -- at least by the rules you establish below.
[...]
> > Romance? SF
> > certainly loses on the "large markets" count but you can't possibly
> > argue that romance is critically respected.
>
> Yes, I can. Take _Bridget Jones' Diary,_ say.
_Bridget Jones's Diary_ is Romance only if your Michael Cunningham
example above is Science Fiction. That is, only if you're looking at
the contents instead of the marketing label.
If you're looking only at contents, then Science Fiction is a
vigorously healthy genre, and you have no case.
If you're looking at marketing categories, you can't count Bridget as a
point in favor of critical acclaim for other marketing ghettoes.
David Tate
har...@missinglink.com
<rfmcd...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
SF survived Hubbard.
It will survive 'John Ringo', whoever that is.
Dr. Dave
>
> King's stuff is on the decline and has been for years. His book on
> writing is interesting for some people. I never found any book
> particularly useful in that arena myself.
I hereby nominate this as Most Geodesic Straight Line of the Decade for
rec.arts.sf.written. I can't imagine anything else will come close.
;^D
David Tate
Sea Wasp
You couldn't even think of a good line to take advantage of it? C'mon.
Patrick Banks
David Dyer-Bennet
Non-sequitur; I made no claim that *no* interesting SF was being
published.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/> Much of which is still down
leoch...@gmail.com
>latest novel of John Ringo <http://www.johnringo.com/aldin d.htm>, _Watch on
>the Rhine_ co-authored with Tom Kratman. _Watch on the Rhine_ is another novel
>in Ringo's Posleen series, until now notable for the massive carnage inflicted
>upon the Earth by alien-aided humans set up against the cannibalistic Posleen
>hordes.
Yep. The invasion of Earth by alien bad guys was, until now, so rare in
SF that a story about it is notable.
> _Watch on the Rhine_ is notable mainly for featuring rejeuvenated Waffen SS
>as heroes, as a Germany rendered decadent turns to its greatest military
>heroes in the time of its greatest need.
Wow, you read the blurb. I'm impressed you were willing to gather that
much information about the book. Too bad you didn't read any more of
it; you might have learned something.
>It's difficult to underestimate just how repellent--and also, repellently
>stupid--this book is. Anyone who isn't a far-right extremist is a enthusiastic
>collaborator with aliens willing to eat everyone; almost anyone who is such is
>a noble person unfairly tarred classified as belonging to the ranks of the
>_génocidaires._
It's difficult to underestimate just how repellent - and also,
repelllently stupid - your worldview is. Anyone who isn't a nihilistic
socialist is an enthusiastic warmonger; almost anyone who is such is a
noble person who, despite committing such acts as murder and attempted
treason, should be held up as an example of what we should aspire to
become.
Let me try to grasp your point here:
The SS, a majority of which did *not* have an active role in Hitler's
genocide, are repellently evil in this book as they try to save
humanity.
The Posleen, a race of aliens whose stated objectives include
completely wiping out the human race, are *not* genocidal.
>Of course, outside the morally-akimbo Ringoverse this is because the Waffen SS
>was a criminal organization deeply implicated in the worst crimes of Nazi
>Germany.
No, the organization deeply implicated in the worst crimes of Nazi
Germany would have been... the Nazi Party, followed closely by the SA,
which was a related but different organization to the SS. 'Waffen SS'
refers primarily to the SS's combat divisions, which committed
atrocities but a considerable amount fewer of them than, say, the Red
Army or the Imperial Japanese Army, both of which were never dissolved
and exist in their present form today.
Of course, I suppose since the Red Army were communists and the
Imperial Japanese Army were liberating the natives from their racist
white colonial oppressors, anything they did was justified.
>It's difficult to understand why a military body most noted for its ability to
>round up and massacre Jews and other _untermenschen_ by the hundreds of
>thousands could ever be treated as an institution capable of redemption, or
>how a military formation most notable for its successes against unarmed
>civilians
You mean unarmed civilians like Patton's men, or the unarmed civilians
in the Red Army?
>would even be capable of any sort of headway against sixty years after its
>formation.
If you'd read the book, you might have noticed that those issues were a
major part of the plot.
>But then, the whole Posleen series can best be understood as a series of books
>inspired by the same factors which motivated the Nazis, of a final
>confrontation between the good people of the world and the barbarian inferiors
>who surround them, a conflict that must be fought if only for the honour of
>the great and good.
Oh, the horror of a series in which good people must defend civilians
from bad people.
So when Germany defends itself from a genocidal invasion, and when
Germany invades other nations with the purpose of permanent conquest,
it is motivated "by the same factors" in both cases?
When you say that Germans defending themselves from genocidal invasion,
and Germans invading other nations to commit genocide, are "motivated
by the same factors", you are drawing a moral equivalence between a
gang of armed thugs shooting their way into a house and
beating/raping/murdering the inhabitants, and an armed individual
defending his house from such thugs.
I feel sorry for the soldiers who put their lives on the line to defend
scum like you alongside the rest of us. Of course, I suppose you feel
sorry for those poor brainwashed militarists from the bottom 10% of the
intelligence pool too, right?
I know I feel sorry for such people: you and your friends have my
deepest sympathies and contempt.
>Ringo and Kratman make this point explicitly in their afterword, directly
>connecting the ruthlessness of their book's chosen heroes to the War against
>Terror (tm) and the need for the West to be strong in the defense of its
>prerogatives after (one logically concludes) the fashion of the Waffen SS.
So the West should not be strong in the defense of its prerogatives?
Of course not, I suppose. You have already made it clear that you see
no moral distinction between the terrorists who killed thousands of
civilians on September 11th, and the soldiers fighting now who *take
casualties* to *avoid* hurting civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, even
when the terrorists - I'm sorry, the brave Islamics fighting for their
freedom to fly more airplanes into US skyscrapers - are hiding behind
such civilians.
>It's a sad, sad day for science fiction when some of its most popular books
>potentially have the same sort of relationship to as the Western novels of
>Karl May do to Hitler's dreams of a great German empire on the vast open
>spaces of Europe, the main difference being that the Posleen novels do so much
>more directly and dangerously and with rather less empathy save much more
>directly and dangerously and with much less empathy for their real-world
>victims.
It was a sad, sad day for science fiction when people such as yourself
began to consider themselves qualified to write about it. What *you*
are saying is that it was a 'sad, sad day for science fiction' when HG
Wells wrote 'War of the Worlds', in which Earth was invaded by
human-eating aliens who sought to exterminate humanity.
The difference between War of the Worlds and the Posleen series is that
in the former, humanity is saved through factors we have no control
over (germs), while in the Posleen books, we successfully defend
ourselves. Is the notion of self-defence something that you have a
problem with?
Evidently it is, as evidenced by your apparent assertion that we should
not have reacted in any way to the September 11th attacks except
perhaps to provide some kind of consolation to the poor Islamic
Fundamentalists of the world who have become so distraught by our
existence that they saw fit to commit suicide.
>Germany's interest in the novels of Karl May is reflected in a broad vein of
>sympathy for the First Nations of the New World
><http://www.uwec.edu/Geography/ Ivogeler/w188/articles%5Ckarlm ay.htm>, after
>all. The utter moral nihilism aside,
Fighting in defense of one's country is moral nihilism, while objecting
to such a defense and placing one's life in the hands of fate *isn't*?
>_A Watch on the Rhine_ and other books of its ilk reflect a worrying trend in
>science fiction, as military science fiction books start to crowd out more
>worthy and interesting titles.
You mean as people start to decide that military science fiction books
are worthy and interesting, and read them? I suppose this would be a
worrying trend to deconstructionists like yourself, who object to
principles such as control of one's fate and self-defense.
>Military science fiction is as valid a subgenre as any, and when done well can
>be good. Haldeman's _Forever War_ comes most immediately to mind,
Which would be nice if _Forever War_ *was* military science fiction.
Most people I know consider it to be political/social science fiction,
since far more time is spent describing social changes than combat or
military details.
>though others more interested in this sub-genre can doubtless name other
>candidates, titles marked by strong characterization, good plotting, effective
>writing styles and an appreciation for the costs of war.
Watch on the Rhine has individuals the reader has come to like - a main
character's love interest, for instance - killed. It has other
characters, such as the young German soldier the French doctor's wife
takes care of as he dies, killed. It has the massacre of civilians and
the grief of soldiers who are unable to stop this.
How does it not have an appreciation of the costs of war?
Wait - Kratman also has an appreciation of the costs of *not* fighting
a war, or not adequately preparing for one. This, therefore, makes it
disgusting. Characters in military science-fiction should not fight
wars, after all. They should give peace a chance and surrender at the
first opportunity.
I suppose at least then they'd be characters *you* could empathize
with.
>Too often, though, this popular sub-genre lacks any sort of appreciation of
>the requirements of good fiction
Right. They display this lack of appreciation by having plot,
characters whose actions readers most would *not* be ashamed of doing
themselves, quality writing, in-depth research and some level of
intelligence.
This thoroughly disqualifies work in this subgenre from being
considered by you as good fiction.
>and is simply interesting in describing a future devoid of anything but
>killing on galactic scales, a universe of civilizations distinguishably mainly
>by the calibres of their weaponries, an existence offering nothing but death
>on a massive scale.
Having already admitted that you know very little about the genre, you
then proceed to define it. Brilliant.
What you did not describe was military science fiction; what you
described was what the world would look like if nihilists had their
way. Which is why I oppose people like you at the ballot box as well as
online.
>Science fiction is a threatened genre, perhaps a dying one, lacking the large
>markets and much of the potential for critical respect enjoyed by other genre
>fictions.
SF novels regularly make it onto the New York Times bestseller list,
and six-figure sales are common. If 'potential for critical respect' is
defined as 'willingness of book reviewers, writing for an audience of
intellectuals, to devote column inches to material that their audiences
are not interested in', then such respect is irrelevant.
>The decision of a recent reviewer of a major science fiction novel in the
>Toronto _Globe and Mail_ to note in passing that this title's awkward writing
>style was about as badly written as other titles and that this was normal says
>it all.
Yes; it says that the reviewer was an idiot. I suppose it takes one to
know one.
>Who is going to be attracted to science fiction if some of the most popular
>titles are marked by nothing but an immorally amoral fascination with death?
Apparently quite a lot of people. The Star Wars movies, in which
billions die off-screen (just like the Posleen books, in which billions
die off-screen) have been tremendous successes. For that matter,
present-day 'mainstream' military fiction often describes quite
gruesome wars.
I think the question you were really asking is 'How many self-absorbed
nihilist intellectuals of the type whose idea of wisdom consists of
proving there is no such thing as knowledge, are going to be attracted
to science fiction?'
I can give you an answer: the fewer the better. These people don't buy
books, they steal them. Since concepts such as 'property rights' and
'having a job' are too plebian for their tastes.
>There are other genres out there, after all, perhaps more respectable ones in
>the eyes of some.
Another evasive double-qualifer. Perhaps in the eyes of some, your
opinion of this is meaningless.
>Genres have lost their popular audiences before. If there ever comes a time
>when science fiction is intrinsically less deserving of respect, science
>fiction deserves to follow suit.
The science fiction that you appear to be a fan of, deserves no respect
whatsoever. Thankfully it never had much of a popular audience to begin
with.
>Ringo, bless his soul, is doing his best to ensure that this day comes.
For which I am grateful to him. The more SF along these lines that is
produced - where good guys fight bad guys, as opposed to surrender to
them or ignore their existence - the better. It drives the garbage off
the shelves. That it makes imbeciles like you unhappy is only a
pleasant side-effect.
Leo
W. Citoan
> Damien Neil <neild-...@misago.org> writes:
>
> > In article <87r7d67...@gw.dd-b.net>, David Dyer-Bennet
> > <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> > > Yes. That's why it's dying. What's being published is being
> > > dragged out of interesting territory and more and more into
> > > mediocrity and mundanity by the possibility of mundane-level
> > > sales. The real science fiction is harder and harder to find.
> >
> > Yep. Gosh darn it, authors like Banks, Bujold, McCarthy, McLeod,
> > Morgan, Reynolds, Stross, Vinge, and Wilson are a sure sign of the
> > corruption and failure of modern science fiction.
>
> Non-sequitur; I made no claim that *no* interesting SF was being
> published.
You said it "is harder and harder to find." He gave perfectly valid
examples of science fiction that is not hard to find. That's not a
non-sequitur.
- W. Citoan
--
The middle of the road is where the white line is - and that's the worst
place to drive.
-- Robert Frost
Steve Coltrin
David Bilek <dtb...@comcast.net> writes:
> Almost all of [Baen's] best authors eventually defect to other
> publishers [...] Weber appears to be an exception.
<meow>No; Weber stopped being good.</meow>
--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Tom Cruise can kiss my ass
"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
David Bilek
>>
>> vibrant and popular than it has ever been, at least from where I'm
>> sitting. Far from dying out, it is increasingly embraced by the
>> mainstream.
>
>It has been co-opted. Is Michael Cunningham writing science fiction if
>his latest novel features interstellar travel and alien species?
Depends on whether you are discussing SF as a marketing label or not.
I've run into trouble talking about "genre" fantasy before. Some
people can't wrap their head around the idea of marketing labels.
>
>> [deletia]
>>
>> Um, what? What other genre fiction? Westerns? Jimmy Hoffa has more
>> presence these days.
>
>One of the genres that have disappeared, I suppose.
>
>> Horror? Pining for the fjords.
>
>My writing teacher at UPEI was bemused despite herself to note that
>Stephen King's _On Writing_ was the best book on the fiction-writing
>process she'd read, and noted further that King was an effective writer.
Absolutely. I've heard lots of praise for _On Writing_. Horror as a
genre is still taking the dirt nap, though.
>
>> Romance? SF
>> certainly loses on the "large markets" count but you can't possibly
>> argue that romance is critically respected.
>
>Yes, I can. Take _Bridget Jones' Diary,_ say.
>
Flag on the play! _Bridget Jones' Diary_ is to romance as things like
the Cunningham or _Never Let Me Go_ are to science fiction. You can't
use it as an example of respected romance if you don't accept people
like Kazuo Ishiguro as writing science fiction. _BJD_ is "co-opted"
romance, by your own definitions.
>> [deletia]
>>
>> I am unclear where you get the idea that _Watch on the Rhine_ is one
>> of SFs more popular titles. Not that I'm defending the bestsellers
>> (mostly media tie ins and such) as the best SF has to offer, but I
>> don't think _Watch_ will even come close to those kind of sales.
>
>As I mentioned, I work at a bookstore. Our inventory system tracks books
>and their authors, ordering in copies of specific titles based on past
>sales of the title and the author's broader popularity, along with
>attention from the popular press. We ended up receiving what is, for the
>science fiction section, a rather large number of hardcovers. Getting
>science fiction hardcovers at all is a fairly rare phenomenon, something
>associated to date only with top sellers like Clarke and Turtledove. If
>we got a lot of copies of this book in, then our inventory system
>expects we'll sell a lot of them.
Your bookstore is a very, very, very small piece of a big pie. The
very fact that you say "getting science fiction hardcovers at all is a
fairly rare phenomenon" tells me that you aren't seeing the big
picture. Far from being restricted to bestselers, hardcovers are
becoming the standard way to publish. Mass market paperbacks are not
cost effective anymore.
So I think you are generalizing from a non-representative sample. Do
you work at a big chain or an independent? Are you in a big city, a
suburb, or a small town? Etc. All of these things make a difference.
>
>> [deletia]
>>
>> >If there ever comes a time when science fiction is intrinsically less
>> >deserving of respect, science fiction deserves to follow suit. Ringo,
>> >bless his soul, is doing his best to ensure that this day comes.
>>
>> Because of a couple of books from a slushpile publisher whom almost no
>> one takes seriously?
>
>I'm curious as to why you say that no one would take Baen seriously.
>They do sell well, after all--people do pay attention to these authors
>and this publishing firm, even if they aren't the people that you know.
A certain subset of readers take them seriously. Not the reviewers,
not the other publishers, and not serious SF readers. As an analogy,
millions and millions of people watch professional wrestling or
monster truck rallies. But would you argue that they are taken
seriously by critics and most TV viewers? It is not.
Baen - The monster truck rally of SF.
>
>> Come on. When Patrick Nielsen Hayden and TOR
>> publish something like this, then we'll talk.
>
>Hayden and TOR don't need to jump off the rails for things to go badly.
>The possibility that science fiction, as a genre, could become
>associated with people possessing technologically-assisted genocide
>fetishes has to be taken into consideration.
>
Because TOR publishes far more SF than anyone else. Compare Tor's
output to Baen's. And critics and serious readers actually pay
attention to TOR.
-David
David Bilek
>begin fnord
>David Bilek <dtb...@comcast.net> writes:
>
>> Almost all of [Baen's] best authors eventually defect to other
>> publishers [...] Weber appears to be an exception.
>
><meow>No; Weber stopped being good.</meow>
I suppose I meant "successful" rather than "best". I'm with you on
the snark, though. My review of _The Shadow of Saganami_ says it all
about my opinion of his recent work.
-David
Wayne Throop
: Let me try to grasp your point here:
: The SS, a majority of which did *not* have an active role in Hitler's
: genocide, are repellently evil in this book as they try to save
: humanity.
: The Posleen, a race of aliens whose stated objectives include
: completely wiping out the human race, are *not* genocidal.
Near as I can tell, that's not even close to what he meant.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Dr. Dave
> Dr. Dave wrote:
> > Sea Wasp wrote:
> >
> >> King's stuff is on the decline and has been for years. His book on
> >>writing is interesting for some people. I never found any book
> >>particularly useful in that arena myself.
> >
> > I hereby nominate this as Most Geodesic Straight Line of the Decade for
> > rec.arts.sf.written. I can't imagine anything else will come close.
>
> You couldn't even think of a good line to take advantage of it? C'mon.
Honestly, corny as it sounds, I rejected the obvious one-word rejoinder
as being too unkind. I *like* you, Wasp, even though we disagree on
most things and your fiction is not my preferred cup of Lapsang
Souchong. No need to say mean-spirited things, even in jest.
David Tate
Bill Snyder
wrote:
>: leoch...@gmail.com
>: Let me try to grasp your point here:
>: The SS, a majority of which did *not* have an active role in Hitler's
>: genocide, are repellently evil in this book as they try to save
>: humanity.
>: The Posleen, a race of aliens whose stated objectives include
>: completely wiping out the human race, are *not* genocidal.
>
>Near as I can tell, that's not even close to what he meant.
You expect a kook to care?
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
willre...@yahoo.com
leoch...@gmail.com wrote:
> >Unpacking books at work the other day, I was surprised to come across the
> >latest novel of John Ringo <http://www.johnringo.com/aldin d.htm>, _Watch on
> >the Rhine_ co-authored with Tom Kratman. _Watch on the Rhine_ is another novel
> >in Ringo's Posleen series, until now notable for the massive carnage inflicted
> >upon the Earth by alien-aided humans set up against the cannibalistic Posleen
> >hordes.
>
> Yep. The invasion of Earth by alien bad guys was, until now, so rare in
> SF that a story about it is notable.
I thought that the notable thing about the Posleen books was that it
had some interesting characters and situations despite the fact that
the central concept, an interstellar invasion, is so unlikely. One
other thing I liked about it was that some of the people who have
suffered the most from the Posleen have begun to gain an insight that
the Posleen are not really all that bright and might not be the cause
of the problem at all.
>
>
> > _Watch on the Rhine_ is notable mainly for featuring rejeuvenated Waffen SS
> >as heroes, as a Germany rendered decadent turns to its greatest military
> >heroes in the time of its greatest need.
>
> Wow, you read the blurb. I'm impressed you were willing to gather that
> much information about the book. Too bad you didn't read any more of
> it; you might have learned something.
>
>
> >It's difficult to underestimate just how repellent--and also, repellently
> >stupid--this book is. Anyone who isn't a far-right extremist is a enthusiastic
> >collaborator with aliens willing to eat everyone; almost anyone who is such is
> >a noble person unfairly tarred classified as belonging to the ranks of the
> >_génocidaires._
>
> It's difficult to underestimate just how repellent - and also,
> repelllently stupid - your worldview is. Anyone who isn't a nihilistic
> socialist is an enthusiastic warmonger; almost anyone who is such is a
> noble person who, despite committing such acts as murder and attempted
> treason, should be held up as an example of what we should aspire to
> become.
>
> Let me try to grasp your point here:
>
> The SS, a majority of which did *not* have an active role in Hitler's
> genocide, are repellently evil in this book as they try to save
> humanity.
The SS entusiastically supported the Nazi party. I would find it very
hard to swallow any story that made them into heros. I KNOW that SS
units fought very well in WWII. It would have been comforting to some
if they had turned out to be poor combatants. Nothing about their
combat record makes me think that they would not be repulsive bastards
or that I wouldn't rather kill them than depend on them to do any
fighting for me.
>
> The Posleen, a race of aliens whose stated objectives include
> completely wiping out the human race, are *not* genocidal.
The Posleen are certainly genocidal. Anyone who had read the previous
books in the series and accepted that they really act as they do in the
books would have no sympathy for taking it easy on them.
>
>
> >Of course, outside the morally-akimbo Ringoverse this is because the Waffen SS
> >was a criminal organization deeply implicated in the worst crimes of Nazi
> >Germany.
>
> No, the organization deeply implicated in the worst crimes of Nazi
> Germany would have been... the Nazi Party, followed closely by the SA,
> which was a related but different organization to the SS. 'Waffen SS'
> refers primarily to the SS's combat divisions, which committed
> atrocities but a considerable amount fewer of them than, say, the Red
> Army or the Imperial Japanese Army, both of which were never dissolved
> and exist in their present form today.
Waffen SS divisions were INTIMITELY involved in plenty of atrocities.
They were chosen because of their strong afinity with ALL the goals of
the Nazi party. No rehabilition of their reputation can survive even a
cursory look at the facts.
> Of course, I suppose since the Red Army were communists and the
> Imperial Japanese Army were liberating the natives from their racist
> white colonial oppressors, anything they did was justified.
"Those guys are shit too" is no argument. It is a version of "look,
Halye's Comet" and has no validity.
>
> >It's difficult to understand why a military body most noted for its ability to
> >round up and massacre Jews and other _untermenschen_ by the hundreds of
> >thousands could ever be treated as an institution capable of redemption, or
> >how a military formation most notable for its successes against unarmed
> >civilians
>
> You mean unarmed civilians like Patton's men, or the unarmed civilians
> in the Red Army?
>
> >would even be capable of any sort of headway against sixty years after its
> >formation.
>
> If you'd read the book, you might have noticed that those issues were a
> major part of the plot.
Sorry, I am somewhat a fan of the series but I don't think I will be
able to read the damn book.
>
>
> >But then, the whole Posleen series can best be understood as a series of books
> >inspired by the same factors which motivated the Nazis, of a final
> >confrontation between the good people of the world and the barbarian inferiors
> >who surround them, a conflict that must be fought if only for the honour of
> >the great and good.
>
> Oh, the horror of a series in which good people must defend civilians
> from bad people.
The fact that this commentator is going off the deep edge now does not
mean that the basic problem with the book doesn't exist.
However much I want the human race to defeat the Posleen, however
little I sympathise with those who think that the West should not have
defended itself against Communism or against the militant enemies of
today, I don't think I can get around the nature of the Waffen SS.
Will in New Haven
--
"First your money, then your clothes" -Doyle Brunson
David Bilek
>On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 23:30:27 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
>wrote:
>
>>: leoch...@gmail.com
>>: Let me try to grasp your point here:
>>: The SS, a majority of which did *not* have an active role in Hitler's
>>: genocide, are repellently evil in this book as they try to save
>>: humanity.
>>: The Posleen, a race of aliens whose stated objectives include
>>: completely wiping out the human race, are *not* genocidal.
>>
>>Near as I can tell, that's not even close to what he meant.
>
>You expect a kook to care?
Hey, Leo Champion posted that rant? Weird, I just replied to him on
Baen's Bar and he seemed like a regular guy. Maybe because he felt
safe in his natural habitat? Usenet is a scary wilderness for
prey^H^H^H sheltered moderated web board readers.
-David
Sea Wasp
> Sea Wasp wrote:
>
>>Dr. Dave wrote:
>>
>>>Sea Wasp wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> King's stuff is on the decline and has been for years. His book on
>>>>writing is interesting for some people. I never found any book
>>>>particularly useful in that arena myself.
>>>
>>>I hereby nominate this as Most Geodesic Straight Line of the Decade for
>>>rec.arts.sf.written. I can't imagine anything else will come close.
>>
>> You couldn't even think of a good line to take advantage of it? C'mon.
>
>
> Honestly, corny as it sounds, I rejected the obvious one-word rejoinder
> as being too unkind.
Well, possibly, but your more, um, florid approach simply seems like
a bit of "protest too much", don't you think? Sort of like "Well, *I*
would NEVER take cheap shots... but for all you guys who would, QUICK,
LOOK, HERE'S A GREAT CHANCE!!! :)
I *like* you, Wasp, even though we disagree on
> most things and your fiction is not my preferred cup of Lapsang
> Souchong. No need to say mean-spirited things, even in jest.
But... but... you're on USENET! You're going against many years of
tradition!
James Nicoll
willre...@yahoo.com <willre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>leoch...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>>
>> Oh, the horror of a series in which good people must defend civilians
>> from bad people.
>
>The fact that this commentator is going off the deep edge now does not
>mean that the basic problem with the book doesn't exist.
>
read one but I remember a scene where an entire city was infiltrated
by the enemy and written off as lost rather casually. Do I misremember?
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Wayne Throop
: Are civilians in fact protected in the Posleen books? I only
: by the enemy and written off as lost rather casually. Do I misremember?
No, that matches my memory also.
However, the set of civilians protected is not the empty set, either.
Of course, the set would have had more members, if not for <spoiler>
and that fact that our allies <spoiler>.
leoch...@gmail.com
> Hey, Leo Champion posted that rant? Weird, I just replied to him on
> Baen's Bar and he seemed like a regular guy. Maybe because he felt
> safe in his natural habitat? Usenet is a scary wilderness for
> prey^H^H^H sheltered moderated web board readers.
>
> -David
On Baen's Bar I mostly am a regular guy, because idiocy of this nature
- people vehemently and *very* stupidly attacking books written by
friends of mine that they haven't read - isn't something I normally
come across there.
Usenet is a bit different; the IQ range is much wider. Which is why I
normally prefer to stay on the Bar.
Leo
willre...@yahoo.com
leochamp...@gmail.com wrote:
> David Bilek wrote:
>
> > Hey, Leo Champion posted that rant? Weird, I just replied to him on
> > Baen's Bar and he seemed like a regular guy. Maybe because he felt
> > safe in his natural habitat? Usenet is a scary wilderness for
> > prey^H^H^H sheltered moderated web board readers.
> >
> > -David
>
> On Baen's Bar I mostly am a regular guy, because idiocy of this nature
> - people vehemently and *very* stupidly attacking books written by
> friends of mine that they haven't read - isn't something I normally
> come across there.
I haven't attacked the book but I HAVE said what I think of one of the
concepts in the book. I won't attack the book unless I read it. It
would be the first book in this series that I don't read and I haven't
made up my mind NOT to read it but that concept is really going to be
hard to take.
I think that the OP on this thread went WAY overboard but I don't see
how I will be able to read this book.
>
> Usenet is a bit different; the IQ range is much wider. Which is why I
> normally prefer to stay on the Bar.
>
> Leo
Opening yourself up to several kinds of nasty rejoinders but that's ok.
It's UseNet. Fucken Waffen SS. Sheesh.
Will in New Haven
--
A man cannot have too many books, too many wines, or too much
ammunition.
-- Jeff Cooper
Elf M. Sternberg
> King's stuff is on the decline and has been for years. His
> book on writing is interesting for some people. I never found any book
> particularly useful in that arena myself.
I've bought a few "how to write" books in my time. None of them
ever made as much sense as actually reading the masters.
Elf
Wayne Throop
: On Baen's Bar I mostly am a regular guy, because idiocy of this nature
: - people vehemently and *very* stupidly attacking books written by
: friends of mine that they haven't read - isn't something I normally
: come across there.
Possibly so, but I'd still recommend refuting things he actually said
(such as the bits about lack of combat experience against non-civilians),
rather than what seem to be straw critters (such as the bit about the
criticism being "the SS are repellently evil in this book")
Hint: that wasn't the criticism; whether accurate or not, the actual
criticism seems to be that they were repellently evil in real life,
and whitewashing this by choosing them as exemplars might have been in
poor taste.
( Again: they may or may not have been repellently evil in real life;
I hold no brief on that point. But he certainly didn't say that
they were portrayed as evil in the book, nor that saving humanity
was a Bad Thing; that's just Not Even Close. )
:::: Ringo and Kratman make this point explicitly in their afterword,
:::: directly connecting the ruthlessness of their book's chosen heroes
:::: to the War again= st Terror (tm) and the need for the West to be
:::: strong in the defense of its prerogatives after (one logically
:::: concludes) the fashion of the Waffen SS.
::: So the West should not be strong in the defense of its prerogatives?
You don't suppose the actual "so" here was intended to be
"there's a limit to how much ruthlessness is a good thing", do you?
Nah, that couldn't have been it. They must have been saying that
being weak and wishy washy is a good thing. Sure, that's the ticket.
Bill Snyder
Whereas here on Usenet we *like* IQ's that exceed room temperature.
onyx...@gmail.com
on the books you stock, it would save you from looking like a total ass
if you actually read the books too.
In war, or other endeavors, you play to win. In war, especially war
against an overwhelming opponent you get the most efficient killers you
can. This _saves_ lives, or at least the lives of the people who should
count most, your troops and your civilians. If you aren't gonna fight
to win you might as well just shoot your troops in boot camp, then go
out and kill your civilians greybeard to newborn.
leoch...@gmail.com
> I haven't attacked the book but I HAVE said what I think of one of the
> concepts in the book. I won't attack the book unless I read it. It
> would be the first book in this series that I don't read and I haven't
> made up my mind NOT to read it but that concept is really going to be
> hard to take.
Hey, your call. I can understand the decision - I had a hard time with
the concept myself. If I didn't know Kratman personally - and if the
Posleen series hadn't been responsible for bringing me into SF - then I
likely wouldn't have touched the book with a ten-foot pole.
> I think that the OP on this thread went WAY overboard but I don't see
> how I will be able to read this book.
The OP was a numbskull, but the fact that one numbskull didn't like the
concept of the book (which he OBVIOUSLY hadn't read), isn't proof that
only a moron could dislike reading the book.
The concept is probably the worst part of it - the SS *were* scum,
although I reiterate that other organizations did worse things in WW2
and don't have nearly as bad a reputation. (For instance, the USAF's
bombing raids- they killed more civilians than any combat arm of the
Waffen SS, but nobody curses out the USAF.)
But, if you can get past the concept - and the fact that even though
the good guys win victory, of a sort, tens of millions of civilians
nontheless die - it's a surprisingly good piece of military fiction.
It's going to be bloody controversial, of course... and Kratman is
going to be known for probably the next ten years as "the guy who wrote
a book glorifying Nazis"... but if the same book had been written
starring some other unit... I don't know, maybe an elite Polish
organization or something... it'd be considered absolutely first-rate
military SF.
But, the concept; I can *definitely* see your point. The mindless
rantings of an illiterate deconstructionist aside, the concept of the
book *is* kinda problematic. I'll give you that.
Leo
Gene Ward Smith
leoch...@gmail.com wrote:
> Usenet is a bit different; the IQ range is much wider.
Not everyone at the bar is stupid, so I think you may be exaggerating.
Wayne Throop
: In war, or other endeavors, you play to win. In war, especially war
: against an overwhelming opponent you get the most efficient killers you
: can. This _saves_ lives, or at least the lives of the people who should
: count most, your troops and your civilians. If you aren't gonna fight
: to win you might as well just shoot your troops in boot camp, then go
: out and kill your civilians greybeard to newborn.
Hence, it is quite important to get efficient killers who will kill the
right people, avoid killing the wrong people, and who's values match
yours, and who, as a cure, won't be as bad as the disease.
It's an interesting tightrope. It's not clear I want to go get
atilla the hun to work crowd control.
David Dyer-Bennet
> David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> > Damien Neil <neild-...@misago.org> writes:
> >
> > > In article <87r7d67...@gw.dd-b.net>, David Dyer-Bennet
> > > <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> > > > Yes. That's why it's dying. What's being published is being
> > > > dragged out of interesting territory and more and more into
> > > > mediocrity and mundanity by the possibility of mundane-level
> > > > sales. The real science fiction is harder and harder to find.
> > >
> > > Yep. Gosh darn it, authors like Banks, Bujold, McCarthy, McLeod,
> > > Morgan, Reynolds, Stross, Vinge, and Wilson are a sure sign of the
> > > corruption and failure of modern science fiction.
> >
> > Non-sequitur; I made no claim that *no* interesting SF was being
> > published.
>
> You said it "is harder and harder to find." He gave perfectly valid
> examples of science fiction that is not hard to find. That's not a
> non-sequitur.
Nothing is hard to find these days if you know the name of the
author. However, the proportion of the published SF and fantasy
that's of any intereste is smaller and smaller, it seems to me, so
it's harder and harder to find the good part.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/> Much of which is still down
Gene Ward Smith
leoch...@gmail.com wrote:
> If I didn't know Kratman personally - and if the
> Posleen series hadn't been responsible for bringing me into SF - then I
> likely wouldn't have touched the book with a ten-foot pole.
By "sf" can I presume you do not mean "science fiction" in any very
rigorous sense?
> The concept is probably the worst part of it - the SS *were* scum,
> although I reiterate that other organizations did worse things in WW2
> and don't have nearly as bad a reputation. (For instance, the USAF's
> bombing raids- they killed more civilians than any combat arm of the
> Waffen SS, but nobody curses out the USAF.)
I'd say the concept of resurrecting any group of long dead people to
fight an alien invasion is fantasy, not science fiction. The idea of
resurrecting the Waffen SS rather than some group more likely to prove
useful is, politics aside, just silly. But stupidity never stops most
writers and certainly not Ringo or Kratman, who specialize in it.
onyx...@gmail.com
onyx...@gmail.com
best no matter how slimy.
: "onyxha...@gmail.com" <onyxha...@gmail.com>
Wayne Throop thro...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
willre...@yahoo.com
leoch...@gmail.com wrote:
> willre...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > I haven't attacked the book but I HAVE said what I think of one of the
> > concepts in the book. I won't attack the book unless I read it. It
> > would be the first book in this series that I don't read and I haven't
> > made up my mind NOT to read it but that concept is really going to be
> > hard to take.
>
> Hey, your call. I can understand the decision - I had a hard time with
> the concept myself. If I didn't know Kratman personally - and if the
> Posleen series hadn't been responsible for bringing me into SF - then I
> likely wouldn't have touched the book with a ten-foot pole.
Well, I like the series and I like Ringo but there is a great deal of
better SF out there.
>
> > I think that the OP on this thread went WAY overboard but I don't see
> > how I will be able to read this book.
>
> The OP was a numbskull, but the fact that one numbskull didn't like the
> concept of the book (which he OBVIOUSLY hadn't read), isn't proof that
> only a moron could dislike reading the book.
>
> The concept is probably the worst part of it - the SS *were* scum,
> although I reiterate that other organizations did worse things in WW2
> and don't have nearly as bad a reputation. (For instance, the USAF's
> bombing raids- they killed more civilians than any combat arm of the
> Waffen SS, but nobody curses out the USAF.)
I have cursed the concept of strategic bombing for many years, mostly
to deaf ears. The gain, compared to the cost in collateral damage, has
never seemed enough. The one exception I see, oddly enough, is the
bombing that took Japan out of the war. I have never cursed the men of
the Eigth Air Force.
> But, if you can get past the concept - and the fact that even though
> the good guys win victory, of a sort, tens of millions of civilians
> nontheless die - it's a surprisingly good piece of military fiction.
> It's going to be bloody controversial, of course... and Kratman is
> going to be known for probably the next ten years as "the guy who wrote
> a book glorifying Nazis"... but if the same book had been written
> starring some other unit... I don't know, maybe an elite Polish
> organization or something... it'd be considered absolutely first-rate
> military SF.
For me, "absoulutely first-class military SF" is a limiting factor. The
best SF goes beyond the categories like military SF. Still, the choice
of units to be glorified IS pertinent.
The Germans, if the front had to be in Germany, are not without an army
today. The German military had many honorable units in past wars. Some
might object to, say, the Afrika Corps, but they would be wrong.
Watching 90 light lure the Posleen onto a screen of guns and Italian
infantry would be quite entertaining. Von Paulus' Sixth Army being
allowed to rehabilitate itself from that surrender. Now, THAT would be
a story. My ancestors served in the German and Austrian military and my
family sent two Iron Crosses to the proper authorities in Austria the
day after the Anschluss.
>
> But, the concept; I can *definitely* see your point. The mindless
> rantings of an illiterate deconstructionist aside, the concept of the
> book *is* kinda problematic. I'll give you that.
>
> Leo
*Deliberately* problamatic. Pissing off leftists and pacifists is one
thing but making me decide not to read that book took EFFORT.
Will in New Haven
--
"If I listened long enough to you,
I'd find a way to believe it was all true,
KNOWIN' that you lied, straight-faced while I cried,
Still I'd try to find a reason to believe."
Tim Hardin - "Reason to believe
James Nicoll
In article <1123466990.8...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Gene Ward Smith <gws...@svpal.org> wrote:
>
>I'd say the concept of resurrecting any group of long dead people to
>fight an alien invasion is fantasy, not science fiction.
Unless the dead had been recorded in some way before they died.
Physical law doesn't seem to forbid this.
In fact, I read something recently, THE ETERNITY BRIGADE, where
someone signs up as a frozen soldier. He serves in a free future wars
but wakes up after one sleep to discover that technology has marched on
and he got stored as software, software that will be freely shared amongst
warring states for thousands of years. After a few hundred causally
linked incarnations, the thrill begins to pall but what can he do? He's
effectively immortal.
Randy McDonald
>
> While it is deeply gratifing to know that you can read the cover blurbs
> on the books you stock, it would save you from looking like a total ass
> if you actually read the books too.
I did, twice. I still feel dirty. That execution scene where the SS
decimated a unit that hadn't been sufficiently vigourous was remarkably
nihilistic, particularly as it featured the soldier pleading on behalf
of his wife and young child just before he was hung.
--
R.F. McDonald
r_f_mc...@yahoo.ca
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rfmcdpei/
"What! call a Turk, a Jew, and a Siamese, my brother? Yes, of course;
for are we all not children of the same father, and the creatures of
the same God?"
- Voltaire, from _Treatise on Tolerance,_ 1763
onyx...@gmail.com
Pull your thong out of your ass, put down your favorite Dr Phil book,
and _think_ about it . Don't _emote_, think, you know that hard thing
that makes your face screw up like you've had one to many burrirtto's
and makes your head hurt after 10 or more seconds (assuming that much
concentration isn't beyond your means) .
Military discipline inclueds the prospect of being shot/hung/execute by
your officers for failing to live up to it. This is something /anyone/
with the wit of retarded gnat (about three times what you've displayed)
knows. Failure to do so in the face of the enemy can earn you a summary
execution, no trial, just *bang* "anyone else gonna fail to follow
orders?"
Paul Howard
were executed to show the others of that unit and any other unit that might
run in the future, the price of running. How many other people's wives and
children were eaten because that unit ran?
--
*
Paul Howard
*
Drak Bibliophile (Bane Of Book Rustlers)), Yahoo Id DrakBibliophile
*
Sometimes The Dragon Wins! (That's why there are still Dragons Around)
[Polite Dragon Smile]
*
"Randy McDonald" <rfmcd...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:42F6BD...@sympatico.ca...
Randy McDonald
>
> [deletia]
>
> > The Posleen, a race of aliens whose stated objectives include
> > completely wiping out the human race, are *not* genocidal.
>
> books in the series and accepted that they really act as they do in the
> books would have no sympathy for taking it easy on them.
What I'm most concerned about is Ringo and Kratman's attempts to make
the Posleen story directly relevant to the War against Terror, with
Muslims in the position of the Posleen.
> [deletia]
>
> > >But then, the whole Posleen series can best be understood as a series of books
> > >inspired by the same factors which motivated the Nazis, of a final
> > >confrontation between the good people of the world and the barbarian inferiors
> > >who surround them, a conflict that must be fought if only for the honour of
> > >the great and good.
> >
> > Oh, the horror of a series in which good people must defend civilians
> > from bad people.
>
> The fact that this commentator is going off the deep edge now does not
> mean that the basic problem with the book doesn't exist.
I concede the point that I went over the edge when I was talking about
the imminent doom of science fiction. I don't think that I'm going over
the edge with the above paragraph, though, especially when the authors
make the linkage so explicit (the SS as humanity's saviours),
particularly with their explicit arguments about their book's relevance
to modern-day problems.
> [deletia]
>
> Will in New Haven
>
> --
>
> "First your money, then your clothes" -Doyle Brunson
Gene Ward Smith
James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <1123466990.8...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> Gene Ward Smith <gws...@svpal.org> wrote:
> >
> >I'd say the concept of resurrecting any group of long dead people to
> >fight an alien invasion is fantasy, not science fiction.
>
> Unless the dead had been recorded in some way before they died.
> Physical law doesn't seem to forbid this.
Or unless you just rejuvinate whatever pitiful remnants remain, but
that doesn't seem what's being talked about. As for recording them, who
did that? Is this some kind of Tipleresque eschaton?
I struggled through the first part of the first Posleen book, which I
vote thumbs down on, and then skimmed to the end. I thought I'd better,
because most sf authors don't send me angry email, and I felt this was
a nice personal touch on Johnny Ringo's part. Alas, as science fiction
it wasn't locally hard, and as writing it just stank, but I don't
recall any recordings, just rejuvinations.
Randy McDonald
>
> [deletia]
>
> I'd say the concept of resurrecting any group of long dead people to
> fight an alien invasion is fantasy, not science fiction. The idea of
> resurrecting the Waffen SS rather than some group more likely to prove
> useful is, politics aside, just silly. But stupidity never stops most
> writers and certainly not Ringo or Kratman, who specialize in it.
What happens is that Earth's alien allies gave us rejeuvenation
technology, so that the Bundeskanzler could order the rejeuvenation of
surviving Waffen SS soldiers as cadres for the new German army. Don't
worry, no reanimation of the long dead.
Randy McDonald
>
> Randy McDonald wrote:
> > David Bilek wrote:
> > >
> > > [deletia]
> > >
> > > >Science fiction is a threatened genre, perhaps a dying one,
> > >
> > > I'm not sure where you get the idea that SF is dying. It's more
> > > vibrant and popular than it has ever been, at least from where I'm
> > > sitting. Far from dying out, it is increasingly embraced by the
> > > mainstream.
> >
> > It has been co-opted. Is Michael Cunningham writing science fiction if
> > his latest novel features interstellar travel and alien species?
>
> Yes, he is -- at least by the rules you establish below.
Touché, on this and your other points. The facts remain that the science
fiction sections at the major Toronto bookstores are smaller than the
romance and mystery sections, that (according to my experience and that
of correspondents) this is a common trend among the megabookstores which
predominate in the bookselling market, and that the number of hardcover
copies of _Watch on the Rhine_ easily exceeds the number of new Niven,
Schroeder, and Clarke/Baxter hardcovers prominently displayed. Alas,
this book and its ilk do count in the bookselling market.
> David Tate
James Nicoll
Gene Ward Smith <gws...@svpal.org> wrote:
>
>James Nicoll wrote:
>
>> In article <1123466990.8...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>> Gene Ward Smith <gws...@svpal.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >I'd say the concept of resurrecting any group of long dead people to
>> >fight an alien invasion is fantasy, not science fiction.
>>
>> Unless the dead had been recorded in some way before they died.
>> Physical law doesn't seem to forbid this.
>
>Or unless you just rejuvinate whatever pitiful remnants remain, but
>that doesn't seem what's being talked about. As for recording them, who
>did that? Is this some kind of Tipleresque eschaton?
I mean in general, not in reference to the Posleen books. There
I would guess we are talking rejuvenation, not restoring the dead to
life.
>I struggled through the first part of the first Posleen book, which I
>vote thumbs down on, and then skimmed to the end. I thought I'd better,
>because most sf authors don't send me angry email, and I felt this was
>a nice personal touch on Johnny Ringo's part. Alas, as science fiction
>it wasn't locally hard, and as writing it just stank, but I don't
>recall any recordings, just rejuvinations.
>
Yes, I had expanded the field of discussion, which is why
I changed the subject line. To make it explicit, I am talking about
the entire field of stories where the dead come back to life in some
manner.
Resurrecting the dead doesn't seem impossible given certain
preconditions and therefore the mere fact that the dead come back
to life would not necessarily say "fantasy" to me. I'd have to
look at the details of how it was done.
Randy McDonald
>
> Randy McDonald wrote:
> > David Bilek wrote:
> >
> >>[deletia]
> >>
> >>
> >>>Science fiction is a threatened genre, perhaps a dying one,
> >>
> >>I'm not sure where you get the idea that SF is dying. It's more
> >>vibrant and popular than it has ever been, at least from where I'm
> >>sitting. Far from dying out, it is increasingly embraced by the
> >>mainstream.
> >
> >
> > It has been co-opted. Is Michael Cunningham writing science fiction if
> > his latest novel features interstellar travel and alien species?
>
> that's SF.
Fair enough.
> [deletia]
>
> > As I mentioned, I work at a bookstore. Our inventory system tracks books
> > and their authors, ordering in copies of specific titles based on past
> > sales of the title and the author's broader popularity, along with
> > attention from the popular press. We ended up receiving what is, for the
> > science fiction section, a rather large number of hardcovers. Getting
> > science fiction hardcovers at all is a fairly rare phenomenon, something
> > associated to date only with top sellers like Clarke and Turtledove. If
> > we got a lot of copies of this book in, then our inventory system
> > expects we'll sell a lot of them.
>
> Expectations can be wrong. That's where large amounts of remainders
> come from.
>
> I worked at Borders for over 7 years. The only way to tell for sure
> is to wait until several months AFTERWARD and see what the numbers say.
This is true. As things stand, we've got more hardcovers of this book
than of the new Clarke/Baxter, Niven, and Schroeder titles, and
displayed with equal prominence at the front of the section. Our new
inventory system can rightly be accused of many things, but if anything,
it's too wedded to linear projections based on past sales. I freely
acknowledge that this title may sell fewer titles than previous titles
in this series--indeed, I hope that it will--but if precedents are
anything to go by ...
> [deletia]
>
> I think Ringo and Kratman, in addition to obviously disagreeing with
> your political position, would be laughing themselves sick at the idea
> that their book might influence the perception of the entire genre.
> Not that they'd mind, as that would probably translate to immense
> crossover sales.
They don't have to get massive crossover sales, or general notice. All
that has to happen is for a potential SF reader to pop on by the
display, pick up a copy, take a look at the blurb, goggle at the idea
and then, quietly, carefully, put it back down and go over to our
mysteries section. I agree that my original post was a bit overheated,
but I don't think that I was wrong on the general trend: If a genre
features books which are expected to sell reasonably well that fetishize
war criminals, these books will influence the genre's image for the
worse.
> [deletia]
>
> --
> Sea Wasp
> /^\
> ;;;
> Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Randy McDonald
>
> [deletia]
>
> >> Romance? SF
> >> certainly loses on the "large markets" count but you can't possibly
> >> argue that romance is critically respected.
> >
> >Yes, I can. Take _Bridget Jones' Diary,_ say.
> >
>
> Flag on the play! _Bridget Jones' Diary_ is to romance as things like
> the Cunningham or _Never Let Me Go_ are to science fiction. You can't
> use it as an example of respected romance if you don't accept people
> like Kazuo Ishiguro as writing science fiction. _BJD_ is "co-opted"
> romance, by your own definitions.
You're right, of course.
> [deletia]
>
> So I think you are generalizing from a non-representative sample. Do
> you work at a big chain or an independent? Are you in a big city, a
> suburb, or a small town? Etc. All of these things make a difference.
I work at a local megastore that has some of the highest gross sales in
the Toronto area, directly located in the middle of a very high traffic
area.
> >> [deletia]
> >>
> >> >If there ever comes a time when science fiction is intrinsically less
> >> >deserving of respect, science fiction deserves to follow suit. Ringo,
> >> >bless his soul, is doing his best to ensure that this day comes.
> >>
> >> Because of a couple of books from a slushpile publisher whom almost no
> >> one takes seriously?
> >
> >I'm curious as to why you say that no one would take Baen seriously.
> >They do sell well, after all--people do pay attention to these authors
> >and this publishing firm, even if they aren't the people that you know.
>
> A certain subset of readers take them seriously. Not the reviewers,
> not the other publishers, and not serious SF readers. As an analogy,
> millions and millions of people watch professional wrestling or
> monster truck rallies. But would you argue that they are taken
> seriously by critics and most TV viewers? It is not.
>
> Baen - The monster truck rally of SF.
And yet, monster truck rallies are enormously popular outside the
cognoscenti.
> >> Come on. When Patrick Nielsen Hayden and TOR
> >> publish something like this, then we'll talk.
> >
> >Hayden and TOR don't need to jump off the rails for things to go badly.
> >The possibility that science fiction, as a genre, could become
> >associated with people possessing technologically-assisted genocide
> >fetishes has to be taken into consideration.
>
> Because TOR publishes far more SF than anyone else. Compare Tor's
> output to Baen's. And critics and serious readers actually pay
> attention to TOR.
One problem with this: What about casual readers?
> -David
leoch...@gmail.com
> I did, twice. I still feel dirty. That execution scene where the SS
> decimated a unit that hadn't been sufficiently vigourous was remarkably
> nihilistic, particularly as it featured the soldier pleading on behalf
> of his wife and young child just before he was hung.
Damned brutal, yes. But not nihilistic - the guy was being killed for a
reason, however coldly unpleasant.
Leo
Sea Wasp
> Sea Wasp <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> writes:
>
>
>> King's stuff is on the decline and has been for years. His
>>book on writing is interesting for some people. I never found any book
>>particularly useful in that arena myself.
>
>
> I've bought a few "how to write" books in my time. None of them
> ever made as much sense as actually reading the masters.
>
> Elf
Yes. I suppose the way I should modify the sentence is "I never found
any book on "how to write" useful." I learned how to write by reading,
and then by doing, and then by seeing what the difference was between
what I wrote and what other authors, getting the effect that I wanted,
were doing. Almost none of it a conscious process, either.
onyx...@gmail.com
Have you ever been published? Ever won any accolades outside the
special olymics?
I've met both Kratman and Ringo, and while we tend to disagree _a lot_,
neither is an idiot. Sure both of them do "bastard" at quite high
levels, but you musta missed a dose of your meds if you think either
one of them is an idiot. Personally i think you should get your doc to
switch your prescription to a couple grams of cianide three times a day.
leoch...@gmail.com
Bill Snyder wrote:
> Whereas here on Usenet we *like* IQ's that exceed room temperature.
And yet, you somehow seem to be tolerated...
Leo
Wayne Throop
: I struggled through the first part of the first Posleen book, which I
: vote thumbs down on, and then skimmed to the end. I thought I'd
: better, because most sf authors don't send me angry email, and I felt
: this was a nice personal touch on Johnny Ringo's part. Alas, as
: science fiction it wasn't locally hard, and as writing it just stank,
: but I don't recall any recordings, just rejuvinations.
Well, some of the effects in the prototype ability grafts implied
recording was possible; they can record them, they have the technology.
The capability wasn't pursued in any of the followons I'm aware of.
Which parts jumped out at you as locally non-hard?
The hypervelocity weapons? The Posleen ignoring artillery?
The alien zen construction methods? I thought mostly the tech
was not explained enough to demonstrate gaping flaws. Mostly.
Sea Wasp
>
> This is true. As things stand, we've got more hardcovers of this book
> than of the new Clarke/Baxter, Niven, and Schroeder titles, and
> displayed with equal prominence at the front of the section.
Which store are you working at? In my experience, the number of
incoming, aside from TRULY blockbuster titles (e.g., Harry Potter, a
new John Grisham, etc.) was tied to three things:
1) The PUBLISHER'S expectations and/or drive on the book. Want
another Baen example, I think the title is 1942? The one by Newt
Gingrich. Definitely wasn't driven by bookstore expectations directly.
2) Display space purchased. If a publisher (presumably driven by
expectations, see above) paid the chain for endcaps, cardboard dumps,
etc., a lot more stock got sent out to make sure those paid-for
marketing locations remained constantly stocked.
3) Events (expected signings, movies, other tie-in).
Most new hardcovers arrived singly or in groups of up to 5. A new
Vernor Vinge came in with 5. Clarke came in with 5-8. A new Star Wars
novel in HC, at 15. Bill Gates' "The Road Ahead" came in with dozens
or a hundred. And showed up in remainder piles, in hardcover, for the
next four years.
James Nicoll
It wouldn't have been a perfect parody of this sort of post
without that misspelling in the last time. Bravo.
James Nicoll
Gene Ward Smith
You have to publish to even get a PhD. Since you do not to graduate
from middle school, it seems to me the ball is in your court.
> I've met both Kratman and Ringo, and while we tend to disagree _a lot_,
> neither is an idiot.
By my standards, they are, sorry.
Sure both of them do "bastard" at quite high
> levels, but you musta missed a dose of your meds if you think either
> one of them is an idiot.
Ringo, having read him, is clearly not the sharpest knife in the
drawer, but Kratman is really really *really* STOOPID. Dumb. Fucking
moron.
> Personally i think you should get your doc to
> switch your prescription to a couple grams of cianide three times a day.
I think you should get lost, but I am notorious for not suffering fools
gladly and you qualify. Possibly other people find you amusing for the
same reasons some people like to go to the zoo to look at the monkeys.
Now is the time for your devoted fan base to step forward and beg you
to stay.
Gene Ward Smith
Wayne Throop wrote:
> Which parts jumped out at you as locally non-hard?
> The hypervelocity weapons? The Posleen ignoring artillery?
> The alien zen construction methods? I thought mostly the tech
> was not explained enough to demonstrate gaping flaws. Mostly.
The Doc Smith style inertialessness seemed pretty over the top to me.
It's fine for Doc, but that doesn't mean everyone gets to use it. Next
it will be Cavorite.
Wayne Throop
:: decimated a unit that hadn't been sufficiently vigourous was
:: remarkably nihilistic, particularly as it featured the soldier
:: pleading on behalf of his wife and young child just before he was
:: hung.
: leoch...@gmail.com
: Damned brutal, yes. But not nihilistic - the guy was being killed for
: a reason, however coldly unpleasant.
I'm sorry, but "to encourage the others" is not really a reason.
Which is what I think is meant by "decimate", is it not?
(I don't know that that's accurate, but still.)
Wayne Throop
: When your enemy is present _only_ in a military fasion the best is the
: best no matter how slimy.
But the enemy is not the only thing present.
James Nicoll
Sea Wasp <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
>Randy McDonald wrote:
>
>>
>> This is true. As things stand, we've got more hardcovers of this book
>> than of the new Clarke/Baxter, Niven, and Schroeder titles, and
>> displayed with equal prominence at the front of the section.
>
> Which store are you working at? In my experience, the number of
>incoming, aside from TRULY blockbuster titles (e.g., Harry Potter, a
>new John Grisham, etc.) was tied to three things:
>
> 1) The PUBLISHER'S expectations and/or drive on the book. Want
>another Baen example, I think the title is 1942? The one by Newt
>Gingrich. Definitely wasn't driven by bookstore expectations directly.
I thought it was, actually. My memory of the story as it was told
by the tribal elders is that the initial plans were for a print run in
keeping with a first time author of no standing in the genre and then
the stores ordered crap-loads of books. Baen printed them, sent them
off and then got 90-odd percent of them back, about the difference
between the print run he planned and the print run he got.
Mike Schilling
"Wayne Throop" <thr...@sheol.org> wrote in message
news:11234...@sheol.org...
Did they literally "decimate" the unit? (The literal and historically
accurate meaning is to kill one out of ten, though the word is generally
used nowadays as if it meant to destroy the vast majority.)
Gene Ward Smith
Wayne Throop wrote:
> I'm sorry, but "to encourage the others" is not really a reason.
It's why they shot Admiral Byng, more or less, leading to Voltaire's
famous line about "pour encourager les autres".
onyx...@gmail.com
Yeesh, i guess i've only met the right winger Canadiens who sould like
Americas left wing... you make Pelosi look like Vlad Tepes.
Mike Schilling
<leoch...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1123464464.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> David Bilek wrote:
>
>> Hey, Leo Champion posted that rant? Weird, I just replied to him on
>> Baen's Bar and he seemed like a regular guy. Maybe because he felt
>> safe in his natural habitat? Usenet is a scary wilderness for
>> prey^H^H^H sheltered moderated web board readers.
>>
>> -David
>
> On Baen's Bar I mostly am a regular guy, because idiocy of this nature
> - people vehemently and *very* stupidly attacking books written by
> friends of mine that they haven't read - isn't something I normally
> come across there.
>
> Usenet is a bit different; the IQ range is much wider. Which is why I
> normally prefer to stay on the Bar.
The range of opinions and points of view is much larger too. Most of us
consider that a good thing. It's more comfortable to talk only with people
who share your views, but you don't learn much that way. A view that you
can't defend, or can defend only with flames and ad hominem attacks isn't
really worth much.
Mike Schilling
<onyx...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1123471902.7...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Oooooh, you're a Canuck.
>
> Yeesh, i guess i've only met the right winger Canadiens who sould like
> Americas left wing... you make Pelosi look like Vlad Tepes.
Context, please. Without it we can't tell whom you're stupidly failing to
make any sort of points against.
James Nicoll
See, you're adding too many misspellings and it ruins the
effect. One or two, preferably at the end or in the middle of a
brag about your intelligence or education, works much better.
onyx...@gmail.com
smarter sock that you actually has a _hot_ wife and there fore like
myself, and unlike you actually has conjugal relations with actual
_humans_. You do know what "conjugal" means right? I'm not asking if
you've ever been conjugal, cause we all know the answer to that one.
But i digress, I'll try and remember in the future that when I'm
addressing 'people' who are condensation on the outside of the gene
pool that "Moron = anyone who doesn't agree with me." Which doesn't
appear to be the definition in any dictionary (a dictionary is a book
that tells you what words mean, alas there are few pictures in most so
they'll probably not interest you) I've ever seen. Odd that. As
someone who can't tell an admiration for the _ability_ of someone
despicable from admiration for the person or group themselves, how is
it that you suffer your own presence?
And what did you say your supposed PhD is in? Histrionics.? I didn't
know they gave degrees in that, musta been tough, kudos.
leoch...@gmail.com
> You have to publish to even get a PhD. Since you do not to graduate
> from middle school, it seems to me the ball is in your court.
Published outside the sense of "My name was in Who's Who of Students -
and I only paid them $200 for the privilege", is what I think he means.
> By my standards, they are, sorry.
I suppose you're qualified to know. ;)
> Ringo, having read him, is clearly not the sharpest knife in the
> drawer, but Kratman is really really *really* STOOPID. Dumb. Fucking
> moron.
Ok, *that* I have to disagree with.
Ringo isn't dumb. I haven't met him in person like OMike has, but he's
not stupid.
Kratman, I think I know a bit better, and I can assure you - the man
has his weaknesses, but he's not dumb or close to it. Some of his
politics RADICALLY differ to mine, and he thinks quite differently to
how I do, and presumably you... which again does not make him stupid.
He knows a vast amount about some wide-ranging fields, and he
understands - and is able to describe - an aspect of humanity that I
don't know at all well, but have seen enough that I can recognize it
being done right.
> I think you should get lost, but I am notorious for not suffering fools
> gladly and you qualify. Possibly other people find you amusing for the
> same reasons some people like to go to the zoo to look at the monkeys.
> Now is the time for your devoted fan base to step forward and beg you
> to stay.
Hey, OMike, stick around, alright? Oh, and: dude, for a
liberal-type-person, you realize that you just called a black guy a
monkey? ;)
Leo
onyx...@gmail.com
notice, apparently you all got some kids with Downs Syndrome to read
things too you?
In article <1123471902.744097.271...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
onyxha...@gmail.com <onyxha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Oooooh, you're a Canuck.
>Yeesh, i guess i've only met the right winger Canadiens who sould like
>Americas left wing... you make Pelosi look like Vlad Tepes.
See, you're adding too many misspellings and it ruins the
effect. One or two, preferably at the end or in the middle of a
brag about your intelligence or education, works much better.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/i mmigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/use rs/james_nicoll
Reply
onyx...@gmail.com
Wayne Throop
It's not _just_ to encourage others. It is a _valid_ punishment for the
perpatrators. And the historic meaning, dating back at least a couple
thousand years is to kill one man in every ten.
onyx...@gmail.com
Mr 100% Junk DNA called me a monkey. And i'm a _moderate_ not a liberal
type.
Wayne Throop
: Did they literally "decimate" the unit? (The literal and historically
: accurate meaning is to kill one out of ten, though the word is
: generally used nowadays as if it meant to destroy the vast majority.)
I assumed, in this context, it meant "let x be the fraction killed, where
most likely 0.1<=x<1, choosing them more or less at random". I could be
wrong, of course. Killing the same fraction of people, choosing them
such that all x were deserters, and all (1-x) were not, would not,
to me, be "decimating" them.
And this is the sort of thing up with which I will not....
um... put on a pedestal. Sorry folks. I *like* a little bit of ruth,
and I don't think this low a level of macho ruth is actually optimal
in the long run. YMMV, I suppose. Takes all kinds.
Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be
guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt.
Weinburg? I have more responsibility here than you could possibly
fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the marines. You have
that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That
Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And that my
existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.
--- Col. Jessup (and need I point out that Jessup wasn't
being held up as a good example in the movie?)
Laura Burchard
onyx...@gmail.com <onyx...@gmail.com> wrote:
(comedy snipped)
This is a troll, right? Or a parody?
--
Laura Burchard -- l...@radix.net -- http://www.radix.net/~lhb
"Good design is clear thinking made visible." -- Edward Tufte
Gene Ward Smith
onyx...@gmail.com wrote:
> And Kratman who's not only got
> smarter sock that you ...
So does one give points for "who's not only got smarter sock", and if
so, how many?
actually has a _hot_ wife and
> there fore like
All the letters seem to be in place. Does this count as a full spelling
error?
> myself, and unlike you actually has conjugal relations with actual
> _humans_. You do know what "conjugal" means right?
> I'm not asking if you've ever been conjugal...
Does strange diction count?
> But i digress, I'll try and remember in the future that when I'm
> addressing 'people' who are condensation on the outside of the gene
> pool that "Moron = anyone who doesn't agree with me."
I'm not sure how to classify this, but it seems clear that it ought to
be awarded at least a Nicoll. Unfortunately, we already seem to have
too many of those, but "condensation on the outside of the gene pool"
has that bizarre poetry which suggests we could be getting into genuine
alt.usenet.kooks territory. Obviously, this contestant needs more
seasoning before playing in the big leagues but the talent does seem to
be there.
onyx...@gmail.com
Extremely well trained.
more unlikely than most to let fear even cause them to _think_ of
hesitation.
Troops who know modern tactics, and can improvise.
troops who speak the same language as the command structure.
troops who had some attachment to the land they were defending ( So
calling up the band of brothers, the Tuskegee Airmen, George
Washington's Continental Army, or Simon Bolivar's boys is straight out
the door.)
Who the hell else does that leave?
Gene Ward Smith
I'd say the concept of resurrecting any group of long dead people to
fight an alien invasion is fantasy, not science fiction. The idea of
resurrecting the Waffen SS rather than some group more likely to prove
useful is, politics aside, just silly. But stupidity never stops most
writers and certainly not Ringo or Kratman, who specialize in it.
James Nicoll
Gene Ward Smith <gws...@svpal.org> wrote:
>
>I'm not sure how to classify this, but it seems clear that it ought to
>be awarded at least a Nicoll.
This is a use of Nicoll of which I was not previously aware.
David Dyer-Bennet
> : "onyx...@gmail.com" <onyx...@gmail.com>
> : In war, or other endeavors, you play to win. In war, especially war
> : against an overwhelming opponent you get the most efficient killers you
> : can. This _saves_ lives, or at least the lives of the people who should
> : count most, your troops and your civilians. If you aren't gonna fight
> : to win you might as well just shoot your troops in boot camp, then go
> : out and kill your civilians greybeard to newborn.
>
> Hence, it is quite important to get efficient killers who will kill the
> right people, avoid killing the wrong people, and who's values match
> yours, and who, as a cure, won't be as bad as the disease.
>
> It's an interesting tightrope. It's not clear I want to go get
> atilla the hun to work crowd control.
The gulf between "war" and "crowd control" is such that I really don't
think that's a useful example to introduce here.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/> Much of which is still down