Whatever happened to Larry Niven?
Lee Kelly
rather "how come all his recent stuff is such complete sh*te?"
Well, it is. I enjoyed the Dreampark novels, even though in hindsight
it's plain to see where he was going - firmly up his own asshole. This
was confirmed in "Fallen Angels," quite possibly the worst book I have
ever read. It's all one big LASFS mutual wankathon. I only recognised
some of the clumsy self-congratulatory in-jokes because I recognised
the little anecdotes from "N-Space.
Since then, what? He sucked all the pleasure I received from
reading "Legacy of Heorot" in the sequel, "Dragons of Heorot."
Likewise "Ringworld Throne." And then he went and did another sequel,
this time to "Flight of the Horse" - itself a cosmic waste of time. And
then there was that one about colonists. . . "Glory Road?" No, that was
Heinlein. "Eternity Road?" McDevitt. "Something Road," anyway.
Oh, yes, there were also signs of the rot in "The Moat around
Murcheson's Eye." And probably many others. His blathering about fandom
and filk and whatever else has left me never wanting to meet another SF
fan. Sure, I live with one, but that's different. Honest.
Sorry about this rant. I really used to like the guy's work. I've got a
whole bookshelf of his books. Whenever I'm feeling down I
read "Inconstant Moon." So it's rather depressing how bad his work has
gotten. . . anyone else have an opinion?
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Luke Webber
fall. And yes, Throne of Ringworld should be Thrown Off Ringworld.
An earlier series of his that I really loathed was the Integral Trees
drivel. On the whole, though, I loved his early work, and especially his
collaborations with Jerry Pournelle, like Lucifer's Hammer and Oath of
Fealty.
It feels like a betrayal when an old favourite cranks out so much crud. I
wonder how *he* feels about his recent work.
Luke
Lee Kelly <l.k...@rjw.co.uk> wrote in message
news:8q7mme$baj$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Louann Miller
wrote:
>It feels like a betrayal when an old favourite cranks out so much crud. I
>wonder how *he* feels about his recent work.
I had the good fortune to get insulted by Larry Niven (for the crime
of being a nineteen-year-old fan in costume, and making
hero-worshipping remarks like "it's really you," at a convention) at
just about the time his work started to slide. So my not reading
anything of his for 10 years came at the best possible time.
Louann
Luke Webber
news:56sessg9d21cfm1vj...@4ax.com...
> I had the good fortune to get insulted by Larry Niven (for the crime
> of being a nineteen-year-old fan in costume, and making
> hero-worshipping remarks like "it's really you," at a convention) at
> just about the time his work started to slide. So my not reading
> anything of his for 10 years came at the best possible time.
I've never really wanted to meet an author - even those whose work I've
enjoyed the most. I guess there are at least three reasons for that. First,
what the hell could I say to him/her that didn't sound stupid or insipid or
fawning? Second, what if he/she is some kind of jerk? Third, why the hell
would she/he want to meet me, anyway? It's not as if we're likely to have
much in common except my enjoyment of their output, and they've already
pocketed my meagre contribution to their royalties, so what's the
obligation.
Still, I was intrigued to see that Niven made the mistake of letting them
put his photo on the inside back cover of Destiny's Road (God, why did I
persevere with that turkey?). Did he deliberately pick out the lamest, most
demeaning photo he could find? You've met him - does he really look like a
failed folk singer interviewing for a public service job? The square
glasses, the crooked smile, the striped shirt with the off-centre tie? Why a
tie, anyway? What's a writer doing even *owning* a tie?
I guess now I should apologise for characterising somebody from their
appearance in a b&w photograph, but I'm not gonna, because he insulted my
good friend Louann. ;^)
Luke
Dorothy J Heydt
Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
>
>I had the good fortune to get insulted by Larry Niven (for the crime
>of being a nineteen-year-old fan in costume, and making
>hero-worshipping remarks like "it's really you," at a convention) at
>just about the time his work started to slide. So my not reading
>anything of his for 10 years came at the best possible time.
"'I thank the goodness and the grace/That on my birth have
smiled,'" Lord Peter said, "and taught me to be bestially
impertinent when I choose."
Niven doesnt have a title, though he might have if they had been
for sale back when his grandpa made his bundle, but he was, as
they say, gently reared. He was carefully taught how to be very,
very polite. As a sideline, he learned how to be very, very
rude. He's good at it.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Larry Weiss
> Still, I was intrigued to see that Niven made the mistake of
> letting them put his photo on the inside back cover of
> failed folk singer interviewing for a public service job? The square
> glasses, the crooked smile, the striped shirt with the off-centre tie?
Pournelle has collected some informal shots of Niven using
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/Pictures.html
as a table of contents.
Louann Miller
wrote:
>Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote in message
>news:56sessg9d21cfm1vj...@4ax.com...
>> I had the good fortune to get insulted by Larry Niven (for the crime
>> of being a nineteen-year-old fan in costume, and making
>> hero-worshipping remarks like "it's really you," at a convention) at
>> just about the time his work started to slide. So my not reading
>> anything of his for 10 years came at the best possible time.
>
>I've never really wanted to meet an author - even those whose work I've
>enjoyed the most. I guess there are at least three reasons for that. First,
>what the hell could I say to him/her that didn't sound stupid or insipid or
>fawning? Second, what if he/she is some kind of jerk? Third, why the hell
>would she/he want to meet me, anyway? It's not as if we're likely to have
>much in common except my enjoyment of their output, and they've already
>pocketed my meagre contribution to their royalties, so what's the
>obligation.
Niven was happily the exception, balanced against many authors who've
been gracious. My very first famous-person encounter was with CJ
Cherryh as a babbling fan of fourteen, literally ten feet past the
registration desk at my first-ever con. I tried to tell her how much
I'd enjoyed one of her books (to the point of building my own set for
a dice game found therein) and proved it by being unable to pronounce
her last name, remember the name of the book, or remember the name of
the dice game. She provided all three ('Cherry' silent h, "Serpent's
Reach," sej) and somehow gave every appearance of not considering me
an idiot.
Provided you don't act like an instant best friend/sworn enemy on the
basis of having read their books, authors are usually very enjoyable
to meet. They're people who like books, first and foremost. The better
your own social skills, the better it goes.
I got an unexpected bonus from being in fandom when I got out of
college and, for three years, wrote for a business magazine. When
you've gotten all your babbling-idiocy out of the way on _important_
people like Harlan and Mercedes Lackey, it's easy to behave with calm
adult decorum in dealing with people who merely own a billion-dollar
restaurant conglomerate or grocery store chain.
Louann
Michael D. Ward
and lifeless. His best work by far is "The Mote in God's Eye" with
Pournelle.
I know many people loved "Ringworld" put aside from the interesting idea of
a ringworld what does it really have going for it?
Michael
Nancy Lebovitz
Luke Webber <lu...@webber.com.au> wrote:
>
>I've never really wanted to meet an author - even those whose work I've
>enjoyed the most. I guess there are at least three reasons for that. First,
>what the hell could I say to him/her that didn't sound stupid or insipid or
>fawning? Second, what if he/she is some kind of jerk? Third, why the hell
>would she/he want to meet me, anyway? It's not as if we're likely to have
>much in common except my enjoyment of their output, and they've already
>pocketed my meagre contribution to their royalties, so what's the
>obligation.
>
non-famous authors. Famous authors might be overloaded--but the odds
are really in your favor with the folks that have only published a
book or two and haven't made a big splash.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
Geoduck
wrote:
>Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote in message
>news:56sessg9d21cfm1vj...@4ax.com...
>> I had the good fortune to get insulted by Larry Niven (for the crime
>> of being a nineteen-year-old fan in costume, and making
>> hero-worshipping remarks like "it's really you," at a convention) at
>> just about the time his work started to slide. So my not reading
>> anything of his for 10 years came at the best possible time.
>
>I've never really wanted to meet an author - even those whose work I've
>enjoyed the most. I guess there are at least three reasons for that. First,
>what the hell could I say to him/her that didn't sound stupid or insipid or
>fawning? Second, what if he/she is some kind of jerk? Third, why the hell
>would she/he want to meet me, anyway?
(snip)
If he didn't want to meet fans, what the hell was he doing at a sci-fi
convention?
--
Geoduck
http://www.olywa.net/cook
Lee Kelly
"Michael D. Ward" <mw...@ms.uky.edu> wrote:
> But really, was Niven ever that good of a writer. His character's
are flat
> and lifeless. His best work by far is "The Mote in God's Eye" with
> Pournelle.
>
> I know many people loved "Ringworld" put aside from the interesting
idea of
> a ringworld what does it really have going for it?
>
> Michael
Oh, I wouldn't say he's (rather, he was) completely talentless. But
Ringworld IS overrated. All the really interesting questions he raises
get ignored in favour of rishathra, rishathra and more bloody
rishathra. It's almost like the stereotypical image of an SF fan. "Have
sex outside your species? Try finding someone of your own species to
have sex with, dipshit."
Elf Sternberg
Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> writes:
>I had the good fortune to get insulted by Larry Niven (for the crime
>of being a nineteen-year-old fan in costume, and making
>hero-worshipping remarks like "it's really you," at a convention) at
>just about the time his work started to slide. So my not reading
>anything of his for 10 years came at the best possible time.
Well, I've had the good fortune to sit on a couch opposite
Mr. Niven while he slobbered all over my barely-covered-in-leather
wife. And he never knew I was there, or who I was, which is good
considering that I'm the guy he flames in the intro to MKzW4.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg, rational romantic mystical cynical idealist
http://www.halcyon.com/elf/
"Chaos rules the universe! Scientists call it entropy! Everything is
breaking down, tending towards greater and greater disorder!
It's great to be on the winning side!"
--- Grimmy
Dan Swartzendruber
> But really, was Niven ever that good of a writer. His character's are flat
> and lifeless. His best work by far is "The Mote in God's Eye" with
> Pournelle.
>
> I know many people loved "Ringworld" put aside from the interesting idea of
> a ringworld what does it really have going for it?
No one has said it did, I don't think. The point here is that he isn't
even doing what he used to be good at.
Dorothy J Heydt
>
>If he didn't want to meet fans, what the hell was he doing at a sci-fi
>convention?
Schmoozing with his friends the other pros.
James Nicoll
>and lifeless. His best work by far is "The Mote in God's Eye" with
>Pournelle.
>
>I know many people loved "Ringworld" put aside from the interesting idea of
>a ringworld what does it really have going for it?
>
the nasty New Wavers were destroying the field with their snafflings
from the literary fields[1] and Niven popped with competent-enough semi-
hard SF stories. Plus in the early days, he did try to stay on top
of cool ideas, being one of the first to play with black holes and
neutron stars in his fiction. Lots of technical errors but anyone
who reads SF to learn science is an idiot [You can learn a lot picking
holes in his stories, though].
Huh. When did Alderson die and how does that compare with
the down turn in Niven's output? Is it possible part of the problem
is that font of ideas from Alderson dried up?
James Nicoll
1: Insert the rant about basketball in _The Wanting of Levine_ here.
--
Much apologies but my return path is temporarily broken. Please
use jdni...@home.com instead.
Joe "Nuke Me Xemu" Foster
> How do you feel about this?: Once in a while Lucifer approaces an
> aspiring new author and offers him or her X number of years of
> brilliance. Not in exchange for a soul or anything else.
> Free and clear. A gift.
Then the author damn well knows when to retire, doesn't ve? (not a typo:
see <http://www.urticator.net/essay/0/30.html>; though I still prefer
"s/h/it" for spammers, etc.)
> Then he laughs at the suffering caused when the gift expires and
> the fans slog through the output the author produces for the
> remainder of his or her life.
Maybe his cultivated rudeness skills have driven away everyone who's
willing to criticize his work *before* it reaches print?
--
Joe Foster <mailto:jfo...@ricochet.net> Space Cooties! <http://www.xenu.net/>
WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above They're coming to
because my cats have apparently learned to type. take me away, ha ha!
Richard Harter
>Not as in, "I don't see much by him anymore, is he dead?" but
>rather "how come all his recent stuff is such complete sh*te?"
[snip the usual complaints]
I have two theories.
The first is that his writing went down hill when he quit smoking.
This seems to have been a traumatic thing (it is for a lot of people)
and is hinted at in N-space iirc.
The other is that he was rather shy and less on top of the world when
he was younger. He played with ideas more. Part of Niven's success
in his early years was due to a puppyish enthusiasm for ideas and
gadgets. The difficulty with getting by on puppy charm is that one
grows up to become a dog.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net
http://www.tiac.net/users/cri
"It was half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold"
Hunter S Tolkien "Fear and Loathing in Barad Dur" - Iain Bowen
Galen A. Tripp
>
> Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote in message
> news:56sessg9d21cfm1vj...@4ax.com...
> > of being a nineteen-year-old fan in costume, and making
> > hero-worshipping remarks like "it's really you," at a convention) at
> > just about the time his work started to slide. So my not reading
> > anything of his for 10 years came at the best possible time.
>
> enjoyed the most. I guess there are at least three reasons for that. First,
> what the hell could I say to him/her that didn't sound stupid or insipid or
> fawning? Second, what if he/she is some kind of jerk? Third, why the hell
> much in common except my enjoyment of their output, and they've already
> pocketed my meagre contribution to their royalties, so what's the
> obligation.
I wrote an essay about being a young wide-eyed fan and meeting a Big
Name Science Fiction Author. (Not Larry Niven) The meeting did not go
well. The essay is called "The Stupid Fan" and can be found at
<http://www.morbius-tripp.com/SFan.html>
Some years ago I was in charge of a LASFS project that was attempting to
get kids interested in reading generally, and reading imaginative
fiction specifically. Larry Niven was hostile to the project. Children
were writing to LASFS with various questions about SF. Larry Niven was
attending LASFS regularly back then. I had hoped that if a child asked
a question that called for the in-put of a professional writer, Mr.
Niven would be of help. But he refused to answer even the briefest of
questions. He said answering a child's question would be a waste of his
time.
I don't think he was helping himself in the long run. But I also don't
think he cares about the long run.
>
> Still, I was intrigued to see that Niven made the mistake of letting them
> put his photo on the inside back cover of Destiny's Road (God, why did I
> persevere with that turkey?). Did he deliberately pick out the lamest, most
> demeaning photo he could find? You've met him - does he really look like a
> failed folk singer interviewing for a public service job? The square
> glasses, the crooked smile, the striped shirt with the off-centre tie? Why a
> tie, anyway? What's a writer doing even *owning* a tie?
>
> I guess now I should apologise for characterising somebody from their
> appearance in a b&w photograph, but I'm not gonna, because he insulted my
> good friend Louann. ;^)
>
Here is a photo of Mr. Niven:
<http://www.lasfs.org/who/photos/photo35.htm>
What do you think of that one?
內躬偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,
Galen A. Tripp Galen A. Tripp Galen A. Tripp Galen A. Tripp
�虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌
-- Galen A. Tripp
President for Life
International Organization Of People Named Galen A. Tripp
(If your name is Galen A. Tripp, ask about our dues!)
<http://www.morbius-tripp.com/>
> Luke
Jorj Strumolo
LW> I've never really wanted to meet an author -
> even those whose work I've enjoyed the most.
I might even say "*especially* those...". I don't see that
meeting, or even knowing more about, an author is going to add
anything to my appreciation of the work, but it's quite possible
it can detract from it. I'm sorry, but I can't compartmentalize
perfectly, and learning that an author is a rude jerk, or a
bigot, or whatever, is going to negatively influence my
reaction to that author's stories. I read that Wagner was an
anti-semite practically canonized by the Nazis. Somehow I don't
think learning this made me appreciate his music more....
Mark Reichert
> rather "how come all his recent stuff is such complete sh*te?"
Could we include John Varley. Another whose best days were long ago.
> was confirmed in "Fallen Angels," quite possibly the worst book I have
> ever read. It's all one big LASFS mutual wankathon. I only recognised
> some of the clumsy self-congratulatory in-jokes because I recognised
> the little anecdotes from "N-Space.
Sorry, but I liked _Fallen Angels_ as an ode to all SF fans, and as a
diatribe against the anti-tech, especially anti-space, people.
--
Please respond only in the newsgroup. I will not respond
to newsgroup messages by e-mail.
Stevens R. Miller
> I don't see that
> meeting, or even knowing more about, an author is going to add
> anything to my appreciation of the work, but it's quite possible
> it can detract from it.
I feel the same way, Jorj. I've met many authors, some of whom were
very nice folks (some weren't; guess authors are just people, after
all). But, never has meeting an author done anything to make me enjoy
that person's work more than before I met them.
How do you feel about learning an author's own interpretation of their
work? Does that help you appreciate or enjoy it more? Some people say
that an author's statements about their work are definitive. Others
(including me) say an author's comments about their own work carry no
more weight than those of anyone else, at least with respect to deciding
what the work itself means. (There is a third group, which says that
people with my view are wrong because one can't draw conclusions about
an author just from that author's books, but that group doesn't
understand what the question was.)
Michael Hargreave Mawson
<na...@unix3.netaxs.com> writes
>It's definitely a kindness to say good things about their books to
>non-famous authors. Famous authors might be overloaded--but the odds
>are really in your favor with the folks that have only published a
>book or two and haven't made a big splash.
>
recommended that I read something that I had in fact written!
The same goes for performing artists. The happiest smile I have ever
seen was on the face of a young lady who stopped her car to ask me for
directions, and whom I recognised from her first ever TV appearance, the
night before. She had been a backing vocalist for years before going
solo, and I was the first stranger ever to have recognised her. (It
would be nice to say that this was someone who went on to become
massively famous, but that did not turn out to be the case. She had a
couple of minor hits and then vanished into obscurity. Anyone remember
Julia Fordham?)
ATB
--
Mike
"His wish was to become a historian - not to dig out facts and store
them in himself... but to understand them, call the dead back to life
and let them speak through him to their descendants. She sometimes
wondered who would pay for it and who would heed."
- from "Harvest of Stars" by Poul Anderson.
Geoffrey A. Landis
morbiu...@home.com writes:
>Some years ago I was in charge of a LASFS project that was attempting to
>get kids interested in reading generally, and reading imaginative
>fiction specifically. Larry Niven was hostile to the project. Children
>were writing to LASFS with various questions about SF. Larry Niven was
>attending LASFS regularly back then. I had hoped that if a child asked
>a question that called for the in-put of a professional writer, Mr.
>Niven would be of help. But he refused to answer even the briefest of
>questions. He said answering a child's question would be a waste of his
>time.
In this case, unless I have some further information, I think I have to
side with Niven. I expect that if he wanted to spend time answering
questions from children, the hundred or so fan letters he gets per week
will include plenty of opportunities to do so, and he won't need to also
volunteer to answer letters that weren't even addressed to him.
Conversely, assuming he decided *not* to spend two or three hours a day
replying to the letters that were addressed to him, why should he then
say, well, I don't answer my own mail, but I'll answer LASFS mail?
--
Geoffrey A. Landis
http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis
jere7my tho?rpe
<ma...@messagelink.com> wrote:
*Could we include John Varley. Another whose best days were long ago.
Huh? _Golden Globe_ was excellent.
----j7y
******************************* <*> *******************************
jere7my tho?rpe "Art immolates life."
c/o kesh...@umich.edu (734) 769-0913
Mark Reichert
news:keshlema-C674B1...@news.itd.umich.edu...
> In article <ssfgucs...@corp.supernews.com>, "Mark Reichert"
> <ma...@messagelink.com> wrote:
>
> *Could we include John Varley. Another whose best days were long ago.
>
> Huh? _Golden Globe_ was excellent.
Haven't read it due to a severe reaction to Steel Beach. Varley made SB
incompatible with all those Invaded Earth stories of the 70's and knocked
_The Ophiuchi Hotline_ completely out of the loop. I resented that.
Luke Webber
news:39c7942b...@news.olywa.net...
> If he didn't want to meet fans, what the hell was he doing at a sci-fi
> convention?
Deliberately offending them, apparently. Way to make book sales, Larry.
Luke
Stevens R. Miller
>
> jere7my tho?rpe <kesh...@umich.edu> wrote in message
> news:keshlema-C674B1...@news.itd.umich.edu...
> > In article <ssfgucs...@corp.supernews.com>, "Mark Reichert"
> > <ma...@messagelink.com> wrote:
> >
> > *Could we include John Varley. Another whose best days were long ago.
> >
> > Huh? _Golden Globe_ was excellent.
>
> Haven't read it due to a severe reaction to Steel Beach. Varley made SB
> incompatible with all those Invaded Earth stories of the 70's and knocked
> _The Ophiuchi Hotline_ completely out of the loop. I resented that.
I would have had a similar reaction, probably, if I had finished the
thing. I thought it was a failed attempt at self-imitation. There were
a few good scenes, but mostly it bored me. And, when he started making
references to "the Heinleiners," I felt he was going for the cheap votes
of approval. Very disappointing, especially since I had loved "Hotline"
and his other early stuff.
Lee Kelly
Michael Hargreave Mawson <O...@46thFoot.com> wrote:
> In article <8q83rd$n...@netaxs.com>, Nancy Lebovitz
> <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> writes
> >It's definitely a kindness to say good things about their books to
> >non-famous authors. Famous authors might be overloaded--but the odds
> >are really in your favor with the folks that have only published a
> >book or two and haven't made a big splash.
> >
> I'll never forget the first time someone who didn't know who I was
> recommended that I read something that I had in fact written!
>
> The same goes for performing artists. The happiest smile I have ever
> seen was on the face of a young lady who stopped her car to ask me for
> directions, and whom I recognised from her first ever TV appearance,
the
> night before. She had been a backing vocalist for years before going
> solo, and I was the first stranger ever to have recognised her. (It
> would be nice to say that this was someone who went on to become
> massively famous, but that did not turn out to be the case. She had
a
> couple of minor hits and then vanished into obscurity. Anyone
remember
> Julia Fordham?)
Actually, I do. Nice voice, bit of a babe too. Wonder what happened to
her?
John Ringo
> non-famous authors.
I don't know anything about PC Hodgell except that she's a low or midlist
author that quite a few of the Baen fans think would be a good Baen author.
But at WorldCon I was talking to her, trying desperately to remember where
I'd seen the name, and one of the Barflies mentioned the thread. There had
been about four hundred posts begging Jim to pick up Hodgell if he could.
When a couple of the other Barflies came over to see what the commotion was
("Look everybody! It's PC Hodgell!" this in a room with Larry Niven and
David Brin being more or less overlooked) she got very shy but I could tell
she was also happy that there _were_ people who had read her books and
cared.
Writers are people too. Whereas pouring fandom on me or Stirling is like gas
on a flame, it's a virtual shot of oxygen for some.
John
--
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad
girls live.
-- George Carlin
See sample chapters for my upcoming book "A Hymn Before Battle" at:
http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200007/0671319418.htm?blurb
Available in October from Baen Publishing wherever fine books are sold!
:-)
www.johnringo.com
"Nancy Lebovitz" <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> wrote in message
news:8q83rd$n...@netaxs.com...
> In article <z2Lx5.13889$tj4.1...@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
> Luke Webber <lu...@webber.com.au> wrote:
> >
> >I've never really wanted to meet an author - even those whose work I've
> >enjoyed the most. I guess there are at least three reasons for that.
First,
> >what the hell could I say to him/her that didn't sound stupid or insipid
or
> >fawning? Second, what if he/she is some kind of jerk? Third, why the hell
> >would she/he want to meet me, anyway? It's not as if we're likely to have
> >much in common except my enjoyment of their output, and they've already
> >pocketed my meagre contribution to their royalties, so what's the
> >obligation.
> >
> It's definitely a kindness to say good things about their books to
> non-famous authors. Famous authors might be overloaded--but the odds
> are really in your favor with the folks that have only published a
> book or two and haven't made a big splash.
>
>
pal...@hiwaay.net
"Michael D. Ward" <mw...@ms.uky.edu> wrote:
> But really, was Niven ever that good of a writer. His character's
are flat
> and lifeless. His best work by far is "The Mote in God's Eye" with
> Pournelle.
I used to like Niven's books, but when I go back and re-read them now,
even the "good" ones aren't all that great. I always thought that
Niven and Pournelle made a great team -- Niven has cool ideas, but
hasn't the slightest skill in character and plot. Pournelle is a
decent, sometimes unimaginative author. Combined, they make a pretty
good author.
I tried to read Destiny's Road. At about page 100 I realized that I
had no earthly idea who the characters were or what they were up to.
There were several pages of dialog without any "he said/she said"s, so
you couldn't tell who was saying what (not that it mattered). I was
desperate for a book on a trip, so I picked up whatever that paperback
with the expanded Flight of the Horse stuff was. It was worse that
Destiny's Road. The last at least partially Niven book I liked was
Legacy of Heorot and I have the feeling that Niven himself wrote very
little of it.
I did meet him at Chattacon many years ago and he seemed a nice enough
guy. I sat by him at the Masquerade and we made a bit of small talk.
Maybe he's gotten more bitter since then over the fact that he has
written so many poor books recently.
Joe Slater
> Well, I've had the good fortune to sit on a couch opposite
>Mr. Niven while he slobbered all over my barely-covered-in-leather
>wife. And he never knew I was there, or who I was, which is good
>considering that I'm the guy he flames in the intro to MKzW4.
Can you refresh my memory about the intro?
jds
--
I die. The rasfw posters all ask "Where are Joe's entertaining messages?"
Frustration builds among the posters until they get coronary aneurisms.
All die.
O, the embarrassment.
jere7my tho?rpe
<ma...@messagelink.com> wrote:
*jere7my tho?rpe <kesh...@umich.edu> wrote in message
*> Huh? _Golden Globe_ was excellent.
*
*Haven't read it due to a severe reaction to Steel Beach. Varley made SB
*incompatible with all those Invaded Earth stories of the 70's and knocked
*_The Ophiuchi Hotline_ completely out of the loop. I resented that.
Hm. Well, I suppose that's understandable; I can't really say how
badly or how well GG fits in with the Opiuchiverse. Nevertheless, GG is
a darn fine story in its own right -- much less muddled than _Steel
Beach_, and related only tangentially to it.
J.B. Moreno
> I think they're wrong even on the question they think they saw,
> at least given enough works. While an author's views may not be
> visible in a single novel, if xe's written ten books and the
> same themes keep coming up, I don't think one's out of line to
> say that the author has a strong interest in those themes, and
> likely visible views on them.
And those people that make a living writing porn? Are they just looking
for 3 members of the opposite sex, a hamster, a roll of duck tape and
lightbulb in order to have a really good time?
I'd say it's normal for there to be some weak correlation between themes
and opinions, but it's not mandatory that such exists.
--
JBM
"Moebius strippers only show you their back side." -- Unknown
Douglas Muir
> Hm. Well, I suppose that's understandable; I can't really say how
> badly or how well GG fits in with the Opiuchiverse.
It doesn't. It's basically in a similar but altogether separate universe.
In the introduction, Varley apologizes, but IIRC he doesn't really offer an
explanation beyond "there were still a lot of things from that continuity that
I wanted to play with".
> Nevertheless, GG is
> a darn fine story in its own right -- much less muddled than _Steel
> Beach_, and related only tangentially to it.
I'd agree with that, actually.
_Beach_ was indeed muddled, if not garbled. Part of the problem was that it
began life as two or three separate novellas, which he tried to hammer into a
single novel.
GG has some major flaws, but it hangs together tolerably well on several
levels -- as satire, as a picaresque adventure story, and as a coming-of-age
novel (after a very protracted adolescence).
In fact, IMO the points where it broke down were the ones where it overlapped
with _Steel Beach_ -- the Heinleiners, and the irritating reporter.
I've recommended GG to friends. I wouldn't recommend _Beach_.
Doug M.
creepygirl
<jo...@yifan.net> wrote:
> Brett O'Callaghan:
> > Most authors seem to go totally crap at a certain point,
> > which I attribute to dead brain cells and lack of interest.
> > Not all authors though - I think Silverberg is still doing
> > very nice stuff, "The Alien Years" was magnificent
>
> That didn't work for me. I dunno, it seemed to boil down to
> "sometimes things happen, for no particular reason, and people
> deal with it or they don't, and then things change, but not
> because of anything anyone did". It seemed like the stereotype
> of a bad mainstream novel. I don't demand exploding spaceships,
> but I do like my fiction to pretend that its characters matter
> more than they seemed to here. And getting some reasons why
> the aliens came, etc, wouldn't be taken amiss, either. Fiction
> is not real life: I expect more of it than the pointless
> stuff one has to endure there.
I think Silverberg took three good short stories ("Beauty in the Night",
"The Pardoner's Tale" and one whose name escapes me . . . something about
Babylon. . . "Against Babylon"?) and cobbled them together with _much_
less interesting connecting material. (I didn't care about the umpteen
generations of Carmicheals, for instance.) All of the high points of
_Alien Years_ (like characters I found interesting) are contained in
those stories, so the rest of the novel feels like a waste of time and
words. Not only that, but a major virtue of "The Pardoner's Tale", the
strong POV, is weakened by Silverberg changing the narration from first
person to third person in the novel.
I'd have preferred a collection of short stories set in the Entity
universe to the novel.
-cg
--
"Shameless scone slut"--My boyfriend's description of me
Thomas
Luke Webber wrote:
>
> I agree completely. From the Known Space series to Destiny's Road is a huge
> fall. And yes, Throne of Ringworld should be Thrown Off Ringworld.
>
> An earlier series of his that I really loathed was the Integral Trees
> drivel. On the whole, though, I loved his early work, and especially his
> collaborations with Jerry Pournelle, like Lucifer's Hammer and Oath of
> Fealty.
>
> It feels like a betrayal when an old favourite cranks out so much crud. I
> wonder how *he* feels about his recent work.
How do you feel about this?: Once in a while Lucifer approaces an
aspiring new author and offers him or her X number of years of
brilliance. Not in exchange for a soul or anything else.
Free and clear. A gift.
Then he laughs at the suffering caused when the gift expires and
the fans slog through the output the author produces for the
remainder of his or her life.
<snip>
Niall McAuley
> e...@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg) wrote:
[Niven]
> Can you refresh my memory about the intro?
Was this the fuss about gay Kzin?
--
Niall [real address ends in net, not ten.invalid]
Jorj Strumolo
> How do you feel about learning an author's own interpretation
> of their work? Does that help you appreciate or enjoy it more?
In general (or maybe "abstract") terms, no. That is, if an
author says "I wrote this in reaction to my mother's death,
and X represents Y, which means....". Stuff about philosophical
or emotional meanings the author had in mind isn't going to make
me feel or think the same way. Data about *points* can be
interesting. ("The unnamed character in chapter ten is the
younger version of the hero in my previous novel," say.) I
don't think it will change my view from dislike to like,
but it can give me a little in-the-know feeling.
> Some people say that an author's
> statements about their work are definitive.
I can't go with that. They're really too close to a work to see
it. They view it in light of the background details that never
made the final draft, or the plans for the sequel. You can
*say* "the jury will disregard," but does it really happen?
I don't think an author can objectively view a work.
> (There is a third group, which says that people with
> my view are wrong because one can't draw conclusions
> about an author just from that author's books, but
> that group doesn't understand what the question was.)
I think they're wrong even on the question they think they saw,
TLambs1138
>
>Luke
>
On the other hand, he was one of the few Big Names at Confrancisco in 1993 to
cruise the fan hotel and fan parties, rather holing up in the Monteleone as a
largish number did. From what little I know, he is actually extraordinarily
shy. This does not excuse his reaction to Louann (hi, Louann!); but we've all
had our bad moments, and from what I have heard he does not make a habit of it.
Jean Lamb, tlamb...@cs.com
Now working 40+ hours a week to finance my daughter's college career...but it's
still cool.
Simon Hayns
organize pub outings every so often, a few people from around the UK and
Europe would get together and drink lots. They invited Iain and he actually
showed up, now that's a down to earth author!
I guess the danger with a guy like that, is thinking he's your best mate
straight away. It must get tiresome when people automatically assume they
have some sort of connection with you, just because they like your books and
have heard that you're a decent sort of guy.
Still, imagine if you did get on with Iain. Chatting to a guy with a
staggering imagination like his, especially after a few ales, would be a
hoot. Ahh the questions...
Simon
"Galen A. Tripp" <morbiu...@home.com> wrote in message
news:39C7BDBA...@home.com...
> Luke Webber wrote:
> >
> > Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote in message
> > news:56sessg9d21cfm1vj...@4ax.com...
> > > I had the good fortune to get insulted by Larry Niven (for the crime
> > > of being a nineteen-year-old fan in costume, and making
> > > hero-worshipping remarks like "it's really you," at a convention) at
> > > just about the time his work started to slide. So my not reading
> > > anything of his for 10 years came at the best possible time.
> >
> > I've never really wanted to meet an author - even those whose work I've
> > enjoyed the most. I guess there are at least three reasons for that.
First,
> > what the hell could I say to him/her that didn't sound stupid or insipid
or
> > fawning? Second, what if he/she is some kind of jerk? Third, why the
hell
> > would she/he want to meet me, anyway? It's not as if we're likely to
have
> > much in common except my enjoyment of their output, and they've already
> > pocketed my meagre contribution to their royalties, so what's the
> > obligation.
>
> I wrote an essay about being a young wide-eyed fan and meeting a Big
> Name Science Fiction Author. (Not Larry Niven) The meeting did not go
> well. The essay is called "The Stupid Fan" and can be found at
> <http://www.morbius-tripp.com/SFan.html>
>
> Some years ago I was in charge of a LASFS project that was attempting to
> get kids interested in reading generally, and reading imaginative
> fiction specifically. Larry Niven was hostile to the project. Children
> were writing to LASFS with various questions about SF. Larry Niven was
> attending LASFS regularly back then. I had hoped that if a child asked
> a question that called for the in-put of a professional writer, Mr.
> Niven would be of help. But he refused to answer even the briefest of
> questions. He said answering a child's question would be a waste of his
> time.
>
Brett O'Callaghan
>Not as in, "I don't see much by him anymore, is he dead?" but
>rather "how come all his recent stuff is such complete sh*te?"
My belief is that it's simply age. Most authors seem to go totally
crap at a certain point, which I attribute to dead brain cells and
lack of interest. Not all authors though - I think Silverberg is
still doing very nice stuff, "The Alien Years" was magnificent, which
gives me hope that maybe even Niven has another great book in him.
But I doubt it.
Jorj Strumolo
> Most authors seem to go totally crap at a certain point,
> which I attribute to dead brain cells and lack of interest.
> Not all authors though - I think Silverberg is still doing
Nancy Lebovitz
Douglas Muir <dougla...@yale.edu> wrote:
>jere7my tho?rpe wrote:
>
>
>> Hm. Well, I suppose that's understandable; I can't really say how
>> badly or how well GG fits in with the Opiuchiverse.
>
>It doesn't. It's basically in a similar but altogether separate universe.
>
>In the introduction, Varley apologizes, but IIRC he doesn't really offer an
>explanation beyond "there were still a lot of things from that continuity that
>I wanted to play with".
>
put continuity together.
Jorj Strumolo
> And those people that make a living writing porn?
More yes than no, I'd think. If a person had absolutely no
interest in it, I doubt the person would write it, even if it
paid well. First, because I tend to think dislike or even
boredom would show fairly quickly, which means that writer's
porn wouldn't sell as easily. Second, because I don't think
porn is a get-rich-quick goldmine that would attract an
uninterested writer over all other genres or jobs.
> Are they just looking for 3 members of the
> opposite sex, a hamster, a roll of duck tape and
> lightbulb in order to have a really good time?
This is possibly more more than one can tell. If the fashion
in SF is trilogies, a writer might do one, even if, given xer
druthers, xe'd rather do singletons. But even within the broad
fashions, I'd think interests would show through. A writer who
likes jazz might have characters who like jazz, when any or no
music at all would work as easily.
Galen A. Tripp
>
> In article <39C7BDBA...@home.com> Galen A. Tripp,
> morbiu...@home.com writes:
> >get kids interested in reading generally, and reading imaginative
> >fiction specifically. Larry Niven was hostile to the project. Children
> >were writing to LASFS with various questions about SF. Larry Niven was
> >attending LASFS regularly back then. I had hoped that if a child asked
> >a question that called for the in-put of a professional writer, Mr.
> >Niven would be of help. But he refused to answer even the briefest of
> >questions. He said answering a child's question would be a waste of his
> >time.
>
> side with Niven. I expect that if he wanted to spend time answering
> questions from children, the hundred or so fan letters he gets per week
> will include plenty of opportunities to do so, and he won't need to also
> volunteer to answer letters that weren't even addressed to him.
>
> Conversely, assuming he decided *not* to spend two or three hours a day
> replying to the letters that were addressed to him, why should he then
> say, well, I don't answer my own mail, but I'll answer LASFS mail?
>
More information on the project can be found at
<http://www.morbius-tripp.com/kidlit.html>
All of this was years ago.
In fact, I've mostly stopped telling the Niven story because I find
people uniformly agree with you on this subject. I seem to be alone in
being disappointed that the author would rather wander aimlessly around
the LASFS clubhouse than spend something like thirty seconds a month
answering a question from some kid.
The problem, of course, is that I can never make clear how much work
Larry Niven would actually have to do. Like you, everyone assumes it
would be three hours a day, or some such. But I was the guy who *was*,
in fact, responding to the questions that the kids asked. I knew that
if I were allowed to ask Mr. Niven a question, it would take about
thirty seconds. Because they were questions from young children, the
answers would be simple and take about thirty seconds. A question like
that might come in once every two or three months at the most. Mr.
Niven told me that answering such questions would be an "inefficient
use" of his time (his words). I often thought about that as I watched
him wander aimlessly around the clubhouse. I always thought it sad, but
it looks like I, alone, hold this opinion.
I work with children. I value them more than most people do. I feel,
however, that Mr. Niven values them *less* than most people do (with, of
course, the possible exception of Geoffrey A. Landis).
內躬偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,
Galen A. Tripp Galen A. Tripp Galen A. Tripp Galen A. Tripp
�虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌
-- Galen A. Tripp
President for Life
International Organization Of People Named Galen A. Tripp
(If your name is Galen A. Tripp, ask about our dues!)
<http://www.morbius-tripp.com/>
> --
Michael Hargreave Mawson
writes
>In article <TYXFizA9...@hargreave-mawson.demon.co.uk>,
> Michael Hargreave Mawson <O...@46thFoot.com> wrote:
>>The happiest smile I have ever
>>seen was on the face of a young lady who stopped her car to ask me
>>for directions, and whom I recognised from her first ever TV
>Actually, I do. Nice voice, bit of a babe too. Wonder what happened to
>her?
>
This prompted me to have a quick look on Google. Would you believe
there are 2,120 results for "Julia Fordham"?
It appears that she is still about, and has a solid fan-base. She has
her own mailing list:
Contact: list...@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM
Purpose: For discussion relating to the singer-songwriter Julia
Fordham, a British artist, from Portsmouth, England. Julia's
music can be described as many things; her sound is distinctive
and contains elements of pop, folk, rock, soul and jazz. She
has a wonderfully clear voice, that pierces the heart and speaks
to the soul.
To subscribe, send email to
list...@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM
and in the body of the message, put
subscribe julia-fordham
And apparently released a ten-year retrospective album a couple of years
ago - details at http://eden.vmg.co.uk/juliafordham/
Her home page is at:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Cabaret/8080/JF_index.html
and includes details of concerts she was doing in Los Angeles last
month.
We now return you to your normal programming.
(That's one...)
William December Starr
Lee Kelly <l.k...@rjw.co.uk> said:
> Sorry about this rant. I really used to like the guy's work. I've
> got a whole bookshelf of his books. Whenever I'm feeling down I
> read "Inconstant Moon."
Anecdote: When I read "Inconstant Moon," in the publication it was in
(the _All the Myriad Ways_ collection, probably) the formatting was
such that, by pure coincidence, a right-hand page ended precisely at
the sentence "There was something wrong with the Sun." I didn't
realize that that _wasn't_ the end of the story, and -- until I
turned the page -- I thought that Niven had written something damned
close to the ultimate horror sf story. The rest of the text was
quite a disappointment, really.
-- William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Jordan S. Bassior
>Was this the fuss about gay Kzin?
"Scream and leap," eh?
--
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
--
"Whoever would be a man must be a non-conformist" (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
--
Jens Kilian
> Can you refresh my memory about the intro?
Elf refers to the bit about Niven being opposed to fan fiction because
there was a piece of fan fiction involving Kzinti in a homosexual gang rape.
That story is Elf's "The only fair game" (IIR the title C).
--
mailto:j...@acm.org phone:+49-7031-464-7698 (HP TELNET 778-7698)
http://www.bawue.de/~jjk/ fax:+49-7031-464-7351
PGP: 06 04 1C 35 7B DC 1F 26 As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish,
0x555DA8B5 BB A2 F0 66 77 75 E1 08 so is contempt to the contemptible. [Blake]
Lee Kelly
"Stevens R. Miller" <steve....@loudoun.com> wrote:> > news:keshlema-C674B1...@news.itd.umich.edu...
> > > In article <ssfgucs...@corp.supernews.com>, "Mark Reichert"
> > > <ma...@messagelink.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > *Could we include John Varley. Another whose best days were long
ago.
> > >
> >
made SB
knocked
>
> thing. I thought it was a failed attempt at self-imitation. There
were
> a few good scenes, but mostly it bored me. And, when he started
making
> references to "the Heinleiners," I felt he was going for the cheap
votes
> of approval. Very disappointing, especially since I had
loved "Hotline"
> and his other early stuff.
And that's another thing. What is it with this worship of all things
Heinlein, something Niven especially is guilty of, in a particularly
fawning manner. The guy's totally over-rated. He's become THE SF Great
above all other, to some. Asimov? Jewish. Clarke? A Brit. And maybe a
child-molester. And he nicked the credit for inventing Radar before the
Americans could do it. Well, maybe that's the reasoning behind it all.
I seem to remember hearing some tale when both Heinlein and Clarke were
guests at some sort of do at Niven's, all about space exploration or
whatever. Heinlein objected to Clarke's wishes for a peaceful use of
space, in opposition to Heinlein's military high ground plans; Heinlein
then proceeded to vilify Clarke while the so-called host sat at his
feet in helpless puppylike adoration.
Lee Kelly
Watch the "Outer Limits" dramatisation. That'll restore your faith in
the original story. 8)
Nancy Lebovitz
>
>And that's another thing. What is it with this worship of all things
>Heinlein, something Niven especially is guilty of, in a particularly
>fawning manner. The guy's totally over-rated. He's become THE SF Great
>above all other, to some. Asimov? Jewish. Clarke? A Brit. And maybe a
>child-molester. And he nicked the credit for inventing Radar before the
>Americans could do it. Well, maybe that's the reasoning behind it all.
I can't remember what Niven said about Heinlein, so I'm not speaking
to that.
Heinlein (especially in his juveniles) was a brisk, clever writer with
an amazing ability to choose and invent good details. His tone of moral
certainty may not have *quite* as much to back it up as it sounds like
it's got, but some people find it attractive--and some of his advice
is good. He also has the "lovable curmudgeon" thing down pat--he'll
say rude things about people in general, but he's capable of liking
and respecting a remarkable range of personality types.
This hardly means that he had all the literary virtues, but he had
more than enough to make him an entertaining writer.
I really don't think that Asimov's fading popularity has anything to
do with his Jewishness. I'm Jewish myself, and I've always liked
Heinlein better. I'm not sure exactly what Heinlein's advantage is,
but it's possible that he simply has more going on in his stories.
Imho, Clarke's big fault is that he really doesn't want things to
happen. His books have too many anti-climaxes.
Which writers do you like?
>I seem to remember hearing some tale when both Heinlein and Clarke were
>guests at some sort of do at Niven's, all about space exploration or
>whatever. Heinlein objected to Clarke's wishes for a peaceful use of
>space, in opposition to Heinlein's military high ground plans; Heinlein
>then proceeded to vilify Clarke while the so-called host sat at his
>feet in helpless puppylike adoration.
>
That's a pretty vague rumor to be attaching to someone's reputation.
Luke Webber
teens and even the occasional story that is still readable for the mature
audience. They're mostly adventures, and almost all of them are
entertaining. Bet of all, they rarely tax the grey matter. He has credible
villains and heroes who aren't always saints, but are always likeable.
A young reader can start with Heinlein and keep on reading Heinlein on and
off for decades. When s/he has kids, what are they going to recommend? And
why not? Sure, it's not "literature", but it's a good read.
My biggest problem was with his later work. I'm pretty broad-minded, but did
anybody else get disturbed when Lazarus Long humped his own mother in Time
Enough For Love? While it was written in the sweetest possible way, it
couldn't be clearer that LL was really RAH in a kilt, and this was the most
transparent form of wish fulfillment. Ugh.
And then he nearly died and got patched back up by his female clones who
were also his effective daughters, and he then allowed himself to be
oh-so-nicely seduced by them as well! Phooey!
Never mind. Maybe he was honestly trying to portray a society where morals
were based on different standards. Where we really parted company was with
the publication of The Number of the Beast. Senile, maundering nonsense,
bringing in everybody from TikTok to fellow SF writers as characters.
Totally unreadable.
As for the anecdote, it sounds fairly, um, anecdotal. If Clarke is a child
molester, it's unproven, but I'll stand up and say that he's a pompous, self
important twonk who'd claim he invented sex if he could get away with it.
Asimov was Asimov, and he had a hugely successful and prolific writing
career. I don't get the Jewish angle at all.
Luke
Lee Kelly <l.k...@rjw.co.uk> wrote in message
news:8qa4u5$84a$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> And that's another thing. What is it with this worship of all things
> Heinlein, something Niven especially is guilty of, in a particularly
> fawning manner. The guy's totally over-rated. He's become THE SF Great
> above all other, to some. Asimov? Jewish. Clarke? A Brit. And maybe a
> child-molester. And he nicked the credit for inventing Radar before the
> Americans could do it. Well, maybe that's the reasoning behind it all.
>
ma...@my-deja.com
> Heinlein, something Niven especially is guilty of, in a particularly
> fawning manner. The guy's totally over-rated. He's become THE SF Great
> above all other, to some. Asimov? Jewish. Clarke? A Brit. And maybe a
> child-molester.
I think it's a generational thing. The people who really love Heinlien
are usually Boomers who read him while growing up. And there's the New
Age aspect, which made him more accessible in the Sixties, than Asimov
or Clarke.
By today's standards, they all seem outdated because of either bland
prose, cliched dialogue, or cardboard characters.
Dorothy J Heydt
Luke Webber <lu...@webber.com.au> wrote:
>
>My biggest problem was with his later work. I'm pretty broad-minded, but did
>anybody else get disturbed when Lazarus Long humped his own mother in Time
>Enough For Love? While it was written in the sweetest possible way, it
>couldn't be clearer that LL was really RAH in a kilt, and this was the most
>transparent form of wish fulfillment. Ugh.
I assume everyone here has read "Casey Agonistes." Even if
somebody hasn't, I'm not going to reveal the ending. But early
on in the story there's a conversation between two sailors, both
dying. One says to the other, "When you get to this stage, you
find there's something you didn't do that you really regret not
having done. For example, I could've bedded Singapore Suzie back
in 1931, and I didn't, and now I'm sorry. What about you?"
The other guy says, "Hmmm, well, in 1937 I could've punched
Dead-Eye Pete in the nose and I didn't, and I really should've."
"And you just thought of that now?"
"Hell no, I thought of it the next day, and I've regretted it
ever since."
"No, that doesn't count, you'll think of something."
I get the feeling that Heinlein, his health failing, started
thinking of *all* the bizarre sexual things he could've done.
Never mind that in his youth he probably didn't want to; he
certainly couldn't do them now and that was enough to make him
dream about 'em.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Lee DeRaud
>On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 12:37:37 GMT, Lee Kelly <l.k...@rjw.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Not as in, "I don't see much by him anymore, is he dead?" but
>>rather "how come all his recent stuff is such complete sh*te?"
>
>[snip the usual complaints]
>
>I have two theories.
>
>The first is that his writing went down hill when he quit smoking.
>This seems to have been a traumatic thing (it is for a lot of people)
>and is hinted at in N-space iirc.
>
>The other is that he was rather shy and less on top of the world when
>he was younger. He played with ideas more. Part of Niven's success
>in his early years was due to a puppyish enthusiasm for ideas and
>gadgets. The difficulty with getting by on puppy charm is that one
>grows up to become a dog.
"Beowulf Shaeffer, the Later Years", in which the plucky space pilot
becomes a curmudgeon...coming soon to a bookstore near you :-)
Lee
PJL
Lee Kelly wrote:
>
> Not as in, "I don't see much by him anymore, is he dead?" but
> rather "how come all his recent stuff is such complete sh*te?"
>
He has a new Kzinti story in Asimov's and the blurb says he's
written a few more short stories.
And didn't this same discussion take place a few weeks ago?
--
/////////////////////
þ@† £µñЮ¡gãñ
change $ to S to email
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Nancy Lebovitz
>teens and even the occasional story that is still readable for the mature
>audience. They're mostly adventures, and almost all of them are
>entertaining. Bet of all, they rarely tax the grey matter. He has credible
>villains and heroes who aren't always saints, but are always likeable.
>
>A young reader can start with Heinlein and keep on reading Heinlein on and
>off for decades. When s/he has kids, what are they going to recommend? And
>why not? Sure, it's not "literature", but it's a good read.
>
>anybody else get disturbed when Lazarus Long humped his own mother in Time
>Enough For Love? While it was written in the sweetest possible way, it
>couldn't be clearer that LL was really RAH in a kilt, and this was the most
>transparent form of wish fulfillment. Ugh.
Possibly, but we really don't have access to the inside of his head.
I'm a lot more certain that he was fascinated by dominance--and I don't
mean sexually tinged dominance, I mean ordinary day-to-day "who's in
charge here?" stuff. I'll bet that he liked winning but didn't expect
total victory.
What actually gave me the creeps was tying TeFL to Greer Gilman's
"earth as lap, earth as grave". LL's mother had sent him off to be
(fairly likely) killed. (Let's just leave it as my emotional reaction
instead of starting a political thread, ok?)
Ha T. Nguyen
>
> Jorj Strumolo wrote:
>
> > I don't see that
> > meeting, or even knowing more about, an author is going to add
> > anything to my appreciation of the work, but it's quite possible
> > it can detract from it.
>
> I feel the same way, Jorj. I've met many authors, some of whom were
> very nice folks (some weren't; guess authors are just people, after
> all). But, never has meeting an author done anything to make me enjoy
> that person's work more than before I met them.
>
Actually for me, it does work. Whenever I meet an author at
the sci-fi convention and the person seems nice, I buy their
books and if I already have a copy of their book, I just like it
that much more.
OTOH, I have lost enjoyment in some of my favorite books because
the author ticked me off during a meeting.
It's not so much their viewpoint on the books that matter so much
as the total mental package that came up with the idea for the
books that makes a difference in my feelings.
--
Ha
Lee DeRaud
<O...@46thFoot.com> wrote:
>In article <8q83rd$n...@netaxs.com>, Nancy Lebovitz
><na...@unix3.netaxs.com> writes
>>It's definitely a kindness to say good things about their books to
>>non-famous authors. Famous authors might be overloaded--but the odds
>>are really in your favor with the folks that have only published a
>>book or two and haven't made a big splash.
>>
>I'll never forget the first time someone who didn't know who I was
>recommended that I read something that I had in fact written!
>
>The same goes for performing artists. The happiest smile I have ever
>seen was on the face of a young lady who stopped her car to ask me for
>directions, and whom I recognised from her first ever TV appearance, the
>night before. She had been a backing vocalist for years before going
>solo, and I was the first stranger ever to have recognised her. (It
>would be nice to say that this was someone who went on to become
>massively famous, but that did not turn out to be the case. She had a
>couple of minor hits and then vanished into obscurity. Anyone remember
>Julia Fordham?)
She's still around, AFAIK...at least her CDs are still on the shelf at
Tower Records, which is more than I can say for a lot of people :-).
I think I remember the TV bit you're talking about (very early
post-Carson 'Tonight' show, as I recall), being amazed at *that* voice
coming out of *that* face/body.
Lee
Per C. Jorgensen
> I think it's a generational thing. The people who really love Heinlien
> are usually Boomers who read him while growing up. And there's the New
> Age aspect, which made him more accessible in the Sixties, than Asimov
> or Clarke.
>
> By today's standards, they all seem outdated because of either bland
> prose, cliched dialogue, or cardboard characters.
>
I must admit that I (who was born in ’68) find Heinlein’s juveniles
quite a lot less dated than some other SF from the same period
(both juveniles and SF for grown-ups). I find the ideas interesting
and enjoy the language. I find (or think I find :-) more depth in
them than in at least a lot of Asimov.
Of, course, there are some things that jar, and I must admit that
I smile a bit when I read in _Space Cadet_ that the cadets have
formed several jazz combos (but this isn't necessarily more
silly than newer authors whose construction-workers-in-space
in 203x are all Deadheads, or suchlike... :-). I have sometimes
also wondered why families in the future all have the same
mores as they had (or were supposed to have) in 50ies
smalltown USA -- but then, as we have later been told, it
was not exactly easy to slip through juveniles in which
those mores were questioned...
-- Per
J.B. Moreno
> J.B. Moreno:
-snip can you tell a writers interest by his work-
> > And those people that make a living writing porn?
>
> More yes than no, I'd think. If a person had absolutely no
> interest in it, I doubt the person would write it, even if it
> paid well. First, because I tend to think dislike or even
> boredom would show fairly quickly, which means that writer's
> porn wouldn't sell as easily. Second, because I don't think
> porn is a get-rich-quick goldmine that would attract an
> uninterested writer over all other genres or jobs.
From what I understand it's a way to polish your craft and make money at
the same time while waiting for your real work to be bought.
It's like digging a ditch or pushing a broom -- something to do to make
money. It's generally not something they'd do as a hobby if they were
earning money in other ways.
(Not universally true as a lot of fanfic is either porn or almost, and
it *is* done as a hobby).
--
JBM
"Moebius strippers only show you their back side." -- Unknown
Captain Button
[ datedness of Heinlein ]
> I have sometimes
> also wondered why families in the future all have the same
> mores as they had (or were supposed to have) in 50ies
> smalltown USA -- but then, as we have later been told, it
> was not exactly easy to slip through juveniles in which
> those mores were questioned...
It is especially hard to do so when Alice Dangliesh (sp?) is
your editor.
She was wont to find Freudian sexual symbolism in all sorts
of things. And very concerned with setting proper moral
examples for young boys.
--
"You may have trouble getting permission to aero or lithobrake
asteroids on Earth." - James Nicoll
Captain Button - [ but...@io.com ]
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
> Brett O'Callaghan:
> > Most authors seem to go totally crap at a certain point,
> > which I attribute to dead brain cells and lack of interest.
> > Not all authors though - I think Silverberg is still doing
> > very nice stuff, "The Alien Years" was magnificent
>
> That didn't work for me. I dunno, it seemed to boil down to
> "sometimes things happen, for no particular reason, and people
> deal with it or they don't, and then things change, but not
> because of anything anyone did".
Let me begin by saying that I liked the book, quite a bit. Much
better than most of what Silverberg has been doing, over the years.
SPOILERAGE for _The Alien Years_ up ahead!
Our inability to do anything about the aliens is sort of the point.
The main character -- Anson, IIRC -- cogitates upon this at the very
beginning. "What happens," he thinks, "if we face an enemy who is
totally beyond us?" He even reflects that Well's _War of the Worlds_
ducked the interesting issue. Obviously, this book is a reflection on
that issue. I absolutely loved the way there was a Big Alien
Weakness(tm) that didn't work! It struck me that _The Alien Years_
was to "alien invasion" novels the way _My Best Friend's Wedding_ was
to romantic comedies, or _Unforgiven_ was to Westerns.
I'm also intrigued by what happens _after_ the aliens leave. Do
humans lose their morale and sink into a sort of racial
depression/inferiority complex? Or do they build up science and
technology at a frantic pace, with "never again!" as the credo?
--
Pete McCutchen
Mark Atwood
> Joe Slater <joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> writes:
> > Can you refresh my memory about the intro?
>
> Elf refers to the bit about Niven being opposed to fan fiction because
> there was a piece of fan fiction involving Kzinti in a homosexual gang rape.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> That story is Elf's "The only fair game" (IIR the title C).
Well, you got 2 out of 3 words right.
--
Mark Atwood |
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Luke Webber
news:G16tE...@kithrup.com...
[snip]
> I get the feeling that Heinlein, his health failing, started
> thinking of *all* the bizarre sexual things he could've done.
> Never mind that in his youth he probably didn't want to; he
> certainly couldn't do them now and that was enough to make him
> dream about 'em.
That's exactly it. Or you could sum it up by calling him a "dirty old man".
You could take the stance that he was a well-known writer of juvenile
fiction, who one day started to spice things up a little beyond what some
parents might consider reasonable. "Honey, Jimmy's starting to come onto me
and his sister. Do you think he might be reading Heinlein?" <g>
I wonder whether some of RAH's books might not need to be classified? He
sure as hell went a lot further than Nabokov, but he did it "under the
radar" so to speak.
Luke
James Nicoll
>molester, it's unproven, but I'll stand up and say that he's a pompous, self
>important twonk who'd claim he invented sex if he could get away with it.
>Asimov was Asimov, and he had a hugely successful and prolific writing
>career. I don't get the Jewish angle at all.
I think Asimov suffered from taking twenty years off to write
a lot of nonfic books and from a late-career deline in the quality
of his fiction. "Suffered" in the author of fiction catagory, I mean.
Clarke...those charges were found to be false. Among other things,
his post-polio keeps any sexual orientation he might have from playing
an active role in his life, or so was my understanding.
--
Much apologies but my return path is temporarily broken. Please
use jdni...@home.com instead.
Mark Reichert
> By today's standards, they all seem outdated because of either bland
> prose, cliched dialogue, or cardboard characters.
I'm not sure that applies to _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_.
--
Please respond only in the newsgroup. I will not respond
to newsgroup messages by e-mail.
Mark Reichert
news:39C8331E...@yale.edu...
> I've recommended GG to friends. I wouldn't recommend _Beach_.
Encouraging, perhaps I'll get it out of the library.
I won't buy it since if Varley is too lazy to reread his own stories, I'm to
lazy to earn extra money to buy his books.<g>
Dan Swartzendruber
> Jens Kilian <Jens_...@agilent.com> writes:
>
> > Joe Slater <joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> writes:
> > > Can you refresh my memory about the intro?
> >
> > Elf refers to the bit about Niven being opposed to fan fiction because
> > there was a piece of fan fiction involving Kzinti in a homosexual gang rape.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > That story is Elf's "The only fair game" (IIR the title C).
>
> Well, you got 2 out of 3 words right.
which two? :)
Lee Kelly
na...@unix3.netaxs.com (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:
> In article <8qa4u5$84a$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Lee Kelly
<l.k...@rjw.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >And that's another thing. What is it with this worship of all things
> >Heinlein, something Niven especially is guilty of, in a particularly
Great
> >above all other, to some. Asimov? Jewish. Clarke? A Brit. And maybe a
the
> >Americans could do it. Well, maybe that's the reasoning behind it
all.
>
> to that.
Oh, Niven often finds excuses to hype up RAH as the Greatest SF Writer
Of All Time. His accomplishments are listed for no apparent reason
in "Oath of Fealty," he wrote a story called "The Return of William
Proxmire" which. . . but I suggest you read it for yourself! 8)
> Heinlein (especially in his juveniles) was a brisk, clever writer with
> an amazing ability to choose and invent good details. His tone of
moral
> certainty may not have *quite* as much to back it up as it sounds like
> it's got, but some people find it attractive--and some of his advice
> is good. He also has the "lovable curmudgeon" thing down pat--he'll
> say rude things about people in general, but he's capable of liking
> and respecting a remarkable range of personality types.
>
> This hardly means that he had all the literary virtues, but he had
> more than enough to make him an entertaining writer.
>
> I really don't think that Asimov's fading popularity has anything to
> do with his Jewishness. I'm Jewish myself, and I've always liked
> Heinlein better. I'm not sure exactly what Heinlein's advantage is,
> but it's possible that he simply has more going on in his stories.
OK, I was being facetious there. The point I was trying to make was
that Heinlein comes over as a bit of a fascist in a lot of his work,
and we all know that anyone who really dug that aspect of him was
unlikely to want to read anything by someone called Asimov.
> Imho, Clarke's big fault is that he really doesn't want things to
> happen. His books have too many anti-climaxes.
That's an interesting point. I'll have to think about it.
> Which writers do you like?
Here's a list I just cropped from an email I sent to someone else who's
commented on this thread:
Neal Stephenson
Stephen Baxter
Jack McDevitt
Michael Marshall Smith
Ken MacLeod
Iain M Banks
Tricia Sullivan
Allen Steele
Paul J MacAuley
Walter Jon Williams
Make of that what you will. . .
> >I seem to remember hearing some tale when both Heinlein and Clarke
were
> >guests at some sort of do at Niven's, all about space exploration or
> >whatever. Heinlein objected to Clarke's wishes for a peaceful use of
> >space, in opposition to Heinlein's military high ground plans;
Heinlein
> >then proceeded to vilify Clarke while the so-called host sat at his
> >feet in helpless puppylike adoration.
> That's a pretty vague rumor to be attaching to someone's reputation.
No, I'm sure I read it from an unimpeachable source. . . just can't
recall very much about it.
Lee Kelly
PJL <"DO$FERATU"@M$N.COM> wrote:
>
>
> Lee Kelly wrote:
> > =
>
> > Not as in, "I don't see much by him anymore, is he dead?" but
> > rather "how come all his recent stuff is such complete sh*te?"
>
> He has a new Kzinti story in Asimov's and the blurb says he's
> written a few more short stories.
>
> And didn't this same discussion take place a few weeks ago?
I've been on holiday. 8)
> /////////////////////
> =FE@=86 =A3=B5=F1=D0=AE=A1g=E3=F1
> change $ to S to email
> \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
>
--
Lee Kelly
IT Department
Russell Jones & Walker, Solicitors
London
Charlie Stross
as <lu...@webber.com.au> declared:
>As for the anecdote, it sounds fairly, um, anecdotal. If Clarke is a child
>molester, it's unproven,
Be careful where you point that allegation.
It first surfaced in "The News of the World", one of the most notoriously
seedy and downmarket wastes of dead tree you can find in the UK media.
It surfaced, moreover, when Arthur was about to come back from Sri
Lanka to accept a knighthood for services to literature: which suggests to
me that a journalist in search of a juicy expose got over-enthusiastic. As
he's confident enough of his ability to disprove it in court to have a
libel lawsuit in progress against that newspaper, I am inclined to take
it with more than just a pinch of salt.
It's widely believed What he left the UK in 1962 or thereabouts one jump
ahead of the police for the heinous crime of being homosexual -- which
was illegal in those days. It's likely that "The News of the World"
got hold of this and decided that any relationship with a man aged below
the then-current age of consent (which was 21 for gay men in England)
was tantamount to paedophilia, and decided to work that angle because it
was so much more sensational than "author skips country to avoid being
prosecuted for caught in cottage with 20-year-old".
If I sound biased, I am: I have friends who've been subjected to their
brand of "journalism", and it stinks. Think of the way SF cons typically
get reported. ("Ooh look, people dressed up as Mr Spock!") If the News
of the Screws covered a con, they'd be compelled by their house style
manual to graft on a SEX, DRUGS, ORGY OF THE NERDS story and run it as a
centre spread with an editorial explaining why the eeeevils of SF fandom
need to be BANNED!!!! to protect our children.
They're a vile homophobic rag at the best of times, and they're not above
pumping a story beyond the bounds of plausibility in order to increase
their circulation; I'm just glad that this time they picked on somebody
with the resources to nail them in court, as they so richly deserve.
-- Charlie
dbt...@sp2n23-t.missouri.edu
: On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 13:18:41 GMT, "Luke Webber" <lu...@webber.com.au>
: wrote:
: >It feels like a betrayal when an old favourite cranks out so much crud. I
: >wonder how *he* feels about his recent work.
: I had the good fortune to get insulted by Larry Niven (for the crime
: of being a nineteen-year-old fan in costume, and making
: hero-worshipping remarks like "it's really you," at a convention) at
: just about the time his work started to slide. So my not reading
: anything of his for 10 years came at the best possible time.
I got insulted too, but I think it was because a) he was drunk, b) I
wanted him to sign "Protector", and not the followup to "The Integral
Trees", which he was pushing at the time, c) he was drunk.
As far as the quality of his work goes, maybe he should start drinking
again.
dbt...@sp2n23-t.missouri.edu
: In article <%m2y5.626$Z06....@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
: Luke Webber <lu...@webber.com.au> wrote:
: >
: >As for the anecdote, it sounds fairly, um, anecdotal. If Clarke is a child
: >molester, it's unproven, but I'll stand up and say that he's a pompous, self
: >important twonk who'd claim he invented sex if he could get away with it.
: >Asimov was Asimov, and he had a hugely successful and prolific writing
: >career. I don't get the Jewish angle at all.
: I think Asimov suffered from taking twenty years off to write
: a lot of nonfic books and from a late-career deline in the quality
: of his fiction. "Suffered" in the author of fiction catagory, I mean.
: Clarke...those charges were found to be false. Among other things,
: his post-polio keeps any sexual orientation he might have from playing
: an active role in his life, or so was my understanding.
Interstingly enough, most of my circle prefer Asimov/Clarke/Heinlein in
that order. It's the juvies that made Heinlein's rep for most of us under
fifty, I suspect.
dbt...@sp2n23-t.missouri.edu
: In article <39C78F7E...@ms.uky.edu>,
: Michael D. Ward <mw...@ms.uky.edu> wrote:
: >But really, was Niven ever that good of a writer. His character's are flat
: >and lifeless. His best work by far is "The Mote in God's Eye" with
: >Pournelle.
: >
: >I know many people loved "Ringworld" put aside from the interesting idea of
: >a ringworld what does it really have going for it?
: >
: He had timing going for him. The perception at the time was that
: the nasty New Wavers were destroying the field with their snafflings
: from the literary fields[1] and Niven popped with competent-enough semi-
: hard SF stories. Plus in the early days, he did try to stay on top
: of cool ideas, being one of the first to play with black holes and
: neutron stars in his fiction. Lots of technical errors but anyone
: who reads SF to learn science is an idiot [You can learn a lot picking
: holes in his stories, though].
Hmmm . . . he might have had the timing going for him, but he was also
much more, er, playful then than he is now.
dbt...@sp2n23-t.missouri.edu
: On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 12:37:37 GMT, Lee Kelly <l.k...@rjw.co.uk> wrote:
: >Not as in, "I don't see much by him anymore, is he dead?" but
: >rather "how come all his recent stuff is such complete sh*te?"
: [snip the usual complaints]
: I have two theories.
: The first is that his writing went down hill when he quit smoking.
: This seems to have been a traumatic thing (it is for a lot of people)
: and is hinted at in N-space iirc.
: The other is that he was rather shy and less on top of the world when
: he was younger. He played with ideas more. Part of Niven's success
: in his early years was due to a puppyish enthusiasm for ideas and
: gadgets. The difficulty with getting by on puppy charm is that one
: grows up to become a dog.
Sigh. This is too accurate to be anything but depressing.
dbt...@sp2n23-t.missouri.edu
: I work with children. I value them more than most people do. I feel,
: however, that Mr. Niven values them *less* than most people do (with, of
: course, the possible exception of Geoffrey A. Landis).
So it's not just me then. I love answering kids questions btw, so
perhaps I'm biased in the same direction as you.
dbt...@sp2n23-t.missouri.edu
: In article <%m2y5.626$Z06....@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
: Luke Webber <lu...@webber.com.au> wrote:
: >
: >My biggest problem was with his later work. I'm pretty broad-minded, but did
: >anybody else get disturbed when Lazarus Long humped his own mother in Time
: >Enough For Love? While it was written in the sweetest possible way, it
: >couldn't be clearer that LL was really RAH in a kilt, and this was the most
: >transparent form of wish fulfillment. Ugh.
: I assume everyone here has read "Casey Agonistes." Even if
: somebody hasn't, I'm not going to reveal the ending. But early
: on in the story there's a conversation between two sailors, both
: dying. One says to the other, "When you get to this stage, you
: find there's something you didn't do that you really regret not
: having done. For example, I could've bedded Singapore Suzie back
: in 1931, and I didn't, and now I'm sorry. What about you?"
: The other guy says, "Hmmm, well, in 1937 I could've punched
: Dead-Eye Pete in the nose and I didn't, and I really should've."
: "And you just thought of that now?"
: "Hell no, I thought of it the next day, and I've regretted it
: ever since."
: "No, that doesn't count, you'll think of something."
: I get the feeling that Heinlein, his health failing, started
: thinking of *all* the bizarre sexual things he could've done.
: Never mind that in his youth he probably didn't want to; he
: certainly couldn't do them now and that was enough to make him
: dream about 'em.
The incomparable Richard McKenna.
Dan Swartzendruber
t.missouri.edu says...
>
> Interstingly enough, most of my circle prefer Asimov/Clarke/Heinlein in
> that order. It's the juvies that made Heinlein's rep for most of us under
> fifty, I suspect.
Certainly for me, yes.
Elf Sternberg
"Niall McAuley" <gnmc...@eircom.ten.invalid> writes:
>"Joe Slater" <joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote in message news:asvfssomq9sbbiasi...@4ax.com...
>> e...@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg) wrote:
>>>I'm the guy he flames in the intro to MKzW4.
>> Can you refresh my memory about the intro?
>Was this the fuss about gay Kzin?
Yes, it was. The story's still on my website, too. :-) I
also got a letter from one of the contributors to the MKzW series who
admitted that he liked the story, thought it justified itself well
from what was known about Kz*n at the time, fit into the MKzW
universe, and "was pretty hot all the same," even if said contributor
*was* straight.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg, rational romantic mystical cynical idealist
http://www.halcyon.com/elf/
"Chaos rules the universe! Scientists call it entropy! Everything is
breaking down, tending towards greater and greater disorder!
It's great to be on the winning side!"
--- Grimmy
Geoffrey A. Landis
>>
>> In this case, unless I have some further information, I think I have to
>> side with Niven. I expect that if he wanted to spend time answering
>> questions from children, the hundred or so fan letters he gets per week
>> will include plenty of opportunities to do so, and he won't need to also
>> volunteer to answer letters that weren't even addressed to him.
>>
>> Conversely, assuming he decided *not* to spend two or three hours a day
>> replying to the letters that were addressed to him, why should he then
>> say, well, I don't answer my own mail, but I'll answer LASFS mail?
In article <39C86374...@home.com> Galen A. Tripp,
morbiu...@home.com replied:
>...
>The problem, of course, is that I can never make clear how much work
>Larry Niven would actually have to do. Like you, everyone assumes it
>would be three hours a day, or some such. But I was the guy who *was*,
>in fact, responding to the questions that the kids asked. I knew that
>if I were allowed to ask Mr. Niven a question, it would take about
>thirty seconds.
Does the phrase "the camel's nose" mean anything to you?
There are roughly sixty million children in the U.S. You had printed, in
a book that could reasonably have had a circulation of tens of millions,
a statement that LASFS would answer questions written to them. I have to
repeat, Niven almost certainly gets as many fan letters to answer as he
can deal with (and probably more); I think he can be excused for not
volunteering to answer ones not even addressed to him.
>Because they were questions from young children, the
>answers would be simple and take about thirty seconds.
I am mulling over precisely what questions children were asking that you
were unable to answer at all, but Niven could answer in thirty seconds
FWIW, the only example questions you listed in your web site were:
"send me information about science fiction"
and
"Send pictures."
>...
>I work with children. I value them more than most people do. I feel,
>however, that Mr. Niven values them *less* than most people do (with, of
>course, the possible exception of Geoffrey A. Landis).
I apologize: had I noticed before I started responding that your post
concluded with ad-hominem innuendo, I would not have replied. Sorry.
Bye.
--
Geoffrey A. Landis
http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis
Charles Frederick Goodin
Douglas Muir <dougla...@yale.edu> wrote:
>jere7my tho?rpe wrote:
>
>
>> Hm. Well, I suppose that's understandable; I can't really say how
>> badly or how well GG fits in with the Opiuchiverse.
>
>It doesn't. It's basically in a similar but altogether separate universe.
>
>In the introduction, Varley apologizes, but IIRC he doesn't really offer an
>explanation beyond "there were still a lot of things from that continuity that
>I wanted to play with".
>
But that's fine. I mean, it's his novel, right? Why can he only write
things set in the same universe? I quite liked it myself, but thought
_Golden Globe_ was still better.
Now if only he could write/publish a little faster...
--
chuk
Charles Frederick Goodin
>In article <g6Tx5.2376$Bw1....@news.indigo.ie>
> "Niall McAuley" <gnmc...@eircom.ten.invalid> writes:
>
>>"Joe Slater" <joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote in message
>news:asvfssomq9sbbiasi...@4ax.com...
>>> e...@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg) wrote:
>
>>>>I'm the guy he flames in the intro to MKzW4.
>
>>> Can you refresh my memory about the intro?
>
>>Was this the fuss about gay Kzin?
>
> Yes, it was. The story's still on my website, too. :-) I
>also got a letter from one of the contributors to the MKzW series who
>admitted that he liked the story, thought it justified itself well
>from what was known about Kz*n at the time, fit into the MKzW
>universe, and "was pretty hot all the same," even if said contributor
>*was* straight.
>
definitely agree that it fit well into the universe and at-that-time
knowledge of Kzinti. Wasn't a particular turn-on, but YM(and SP)MV.
--
chuk
Mike Schilling
> jere7my tho?rpe wrote:
>
> > Hm. Well, I suppose that's understandable; I can't really say how
> > badly or how well GG fits in with the Opiuchiverse.
>
> It doesn't. It's basically in a similar but altogether separate universe.
>
> In the introduction, Varley apologizes, but IIRC he doesn't really offer an
> explanation beyond "there were still a lot of things from that continuity that
> I wanted to play with".
>
> > Nevertheless, GG is
> > a darn fine story in its own right -- much less muddled than _Steel
> > Beach_, and related only tangentially to it.
>
> I'd agree with that, actually.
>
> _Beach_ was indeed muddled, if not garbled. Part of the problem was that it
> began life as two or three separate novellas, which he tried to hammer into a
> single novel.
>
> GG has some major flaws, but it hangs together tolerably well on several
> levels -- as satire, as a picaresque adventure story, and as a coming-of-age
> novel (after a very protracted adolescence).
>
> In fact, IMO the points where it broke down were the ones where it overlapped
> with _Steel Beach_ -- the Heinleiners, and the irritating reporter.
>
> I've recommended GG to friends. I wouldn't recommend _Beach_.
>
A shame _Beach_ couldn't be broken back into novellas -- some of them would be
outstanding.
Per C. Jorgensen
and he struck me as courteous, but reserved. Our conrunners
told us that he was a bit fatigued and was troubled by some
back injury. It was therefore announced that he could not
do any autograph sessions. Still, he decided to have one
after all, on Saturday, and signed my old edition of Ringworld,
not problem.
Frankly, I haven't met any rude or bad-mannered author GoHs
at our Scandinavian cons. Some, of course, have been more
extrovert and talkative than others - for instance, Stephen
Donaldson at an Oslo con and Michael Swanwick at an
Uppsala con seemed to have an "wow! a three-day party!
abroad! for me!" attitude. ;-)
Also, my experience has been that if you are behave conservatively
and politely authors generally like being around you. The stand-
offish people I've met in fandom have rather been other fen who've
(at least in their own view) climbed up "one step of the ladder",
done a bit of pro work, had a bit of a career outside fandom, etc.
Luckily, I haven't had that many of those experiences, either.
My most embarrassing experience as a neo was when I attended
an Oslo con (which also was the yearly event when I met fans,
being from a small town on the South coast). I had also started
out young, at 13, and was about 15 at that time. I thought I
recognised some acquaintances (at least one of them, balding,
middle-aged, tweed jacket with patches, portly -- there were
quite a lot in that cathegory... :-), went up to them and joined
the conversation (not with something terribly inane, but
probably not mind-expanding, either). When one of them turned
towards me I realised that I did not know them after all, and
especially one of them gave me this "The lesser breeds without
the law" kind of stare that I still remember, now being 32...
Well, we Scandinavians are usually thought of as being at
the extreme end of the reserved scale, certainly "don't bother
someone who is by himself, he might simply want to be
left alone" memes run strong here... :-)
-- Per
Michael Hargreave Mawson
>And that's another thing. What is it with this worship of all things
>Heinlein, something Niven especially is guilty of, in a particularly
>fawning manner. The guy's totally over-rated.
Is he? I doubt it. Given the controversial nature of some of his
later works, I suspect that his reputation is actually less than his
best work deserves.
> He's become THE SF Great
>above all other, to some.
He is to me. Take any SF criterion you care to name, and Heinlein will
have fulfilled it, in spades, in the vast majority of his books and
stories. Characterisation, sense-of-wonder, plot, use of language,
excitement, enjoyability, re-readability, flow, innovation, mental
stimulation... He is the only author who forces you to think for
yourself. You can't help it - every time you think you understand The
Message, he changes it.
> Asimov? Jewish.
WTF? Are you seriously suggesting that Heinlein is more popular than
Asimov because the latter is *Jewish*? Doesn't seem very likely to me.
There can't be that many anti-Semitic SF fans out there (and certainly
not as a percentage of the whole). Asimov's work is always competent,
and often excellent, but for me, his characterisation leaves a little to
be desired. I can't seem to get as concerned about what happens to,
say, Hari Seldon, as I do about almost any character in Heinlein.
> Clarke? A Brit.
Don't be daft. I'm a Brit. I love Clarke's work. I prefer
Heinlein's.
> And maybe a
>child-molester.
And how would that change the value of his written work, even if it were
true?
> And he nicked the credit for inventing Radar before the
>Americans could do it. Well, maybe that's the reasoning behind it all.
You have some very strange ideas.
Seriously, I grew up reading Heinlein, and Asimov, and Clarke, and a
host of others. Without having been influenced by anyone's
recommendations (I simply read every book in the Library that had a
spaceship sticker on it - their symbol for SF), I came to the conclusion
that Heinlein was THE SF great of his era. That is not to say that
there won't be better writers along any day now, but I'm still
waiting...
ATB
--
Mike
"His wish was to become a historian - not to dig out facts and store
them in himself... but to understand them, call the dead back to life
and let them speak through him to their descendants. She sometimes
wondered who would pay for it and who would heed."
- from "Harvest of Stars" by Poul Anderson.
Paul Clarke
<O...@46thFoot.com> wrote:
>The same goes for performing artists. The happiest smile I have ever
>seen was on the face of a young lady who stopped her car to ask me for
>directions, and whom I recognised from her first ever TV appearance, the
>night before. She had been a backing vocalist for years before going
>solo, and I was the first stranger ever to have recognised her. (It
>would be nice to say that this was someone who went on to become
>massively famous, but that did not turn out to be the case. She had a
>couple of minor hits and then vanished into obscurity. Anyone remember
>Julia Fordham?)
Yes. I particularly remember an exchange between her and an
interviewer on British TV:
Interviewer: "How would you describe you music?"
Julia Fordham: "Available at a shop near you, now!"
Jorj Strumolo
TN> Actually for me, it does work. Whenever I meet an
> author at the sci-fi convention and the person seems
> nice, I buy their books and if I already have a copy
> of their book, I just like it that much more.
Questions: Would you buy the work of an author whom you hadn't
read after meeting one at a con? Would you *like* the books
of an author whose work you hadn't previously after seeing the
author at a con?
TN> OTOH, I have lost enjoyment in some of my favorite books
> because the author ticked me off during a meeting.
To me, this doesn't read as "it works," but as a gamble. You
risk having your enjoyment of works lessened by an author's
unfortunate personal qualities or comments.
Jorj Strumolo
PM> SPOILERAGE for _The Alien Years_ up ahead!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Our inability to do anything about the aliens is sort of
> the point. The main character -- Anson, IIRC -- cogitates
> upon this at the very beginning. "What happens," he thinks,
> "if we face an enemy who is totally beyond us?"
Then that makes it a "for people who like this sort of thing,
this is something you'll like." Apparently I'm no more one for
contemplations of impotency and inexplicability than I am for
novels with loads of battles in them.
PM> I'm also intrigued by what happens _after_ the aliens leave.
> Do humans lose their morale and sink into a sort of racial
> depression/inferiority complex? Or do they build up science and
> technology at a frantic pace, with "never again!" as the credo?
This, to me, would be more interesting. It skips the living in
the shadow of inscrutable powers and gets on to making a life.
It's more like phase-change novels, where magic starts working
again, or the solar system gets bobbled, or whatever. There's
much more potential for things to actually happen.
Michael Hargreave Mawson
<jo...@yifan.net> writes
> Ha T. Nguyen:
>TN> Actually for me, it does work. Whenever I meet an
> > author at the sci-fi convention and the person seems
> > nice, I buy their books and if I already have a copy
> > of their book, I just like it that much more.
>
> Questions: Would you buy the work of an author whom you hadn't
> read after meeting one at a con?
I am very likely to buy the work of any author I have met, and have
enjoyed meeting - whether at a Con, at a friend's house, or here in
rasfw - if I have not read their work before. I am still resonating
from Ms. Asaro's rebuttal here a few weeks ago, which began "I don't
consider what I write to be trash." Her post was quite extraordinarily
well-written, and appeared to come from a very pleasant person indeed.
I would never have read anything of hers from mere description, but I
intend to buy the next book of hers that I see.
> Would you *like* the books
> of an author whose work you hadn't previously after seeing the
> author at a con?
>You
> risk having your enjoyment of works lessened by an author's
> unfortunate personal qualities or comments.
Meeting Brian Aldiss, or Terry Pratchett, didn't affect my views of
their work one iota. Both of them are very nice guys, with amusing
conversation, but that didn't make me enjoy "Report on Probability A" as
much as "The Light Fantastic" (or indeed at all). I suspect that
Heinlein would have torn me to shreds if we had ever met, but that would
not have lowered my opinion of his writing.
Mark Reichert
news:8qavsi$eel$1...@morgoth.sfu.ca...
> But that's fine. I mean, it's his novel, right? Why can he only write
> things set in the same universe?
He doesn't. Titan, Wizard, Demon were in their own unique universe, as was
Air Raid/Millenium.
I just resented him making a shadow universe just off from his first
creation.
Mark Reichert
Sean Eric Fagan
Mark Reichert <ma...@messagelink.com> wrote:
>I just resented him making a shadow universe just off from his first
>creation.
I resented the fact that it just wasn't a very good book. Neither was _Steel
Beach_.
I tend to not like travelogues, though (it's why I didn't particularly like
_Use of Weapons_ -- although 2001 was an exception to that general rule), so
that may be why.
But probably not. Although there were some interesting bits in GG, it just
didn't seem workable or in any way plausible.
Luke Webber
news:8qamoi$teo$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> OK, I was being facetious there. The point I was trying to make was
> that Heinlein comes over as a bit of a fascist in a lot of his work,
> and we all know that anyone who really dug that aspect of him was
> unlikely to want to read anything by someone called Asimov.
You failed to make that point in your first post, but it's certainly very
valid. Some of his futures are straight out of the John Birch Society, but
they evidently meet with his own approval.
[snip]
> > >I seem to remember hearing some tale when both Heinlein and Clarke
> were
> > >guests at some sort of do at Niven's, all about space exploration or
> > >whatever. Heinlein objected to Clarke's wishes for a peaceful use of
> > >space, in opposition to Heinlein's military high ground plans;
> Heinlein
> > >then proceeded to vilify Clarke while the so-called host sat at his
> > >feet in helpless puppylike adoration.
>
> > That's a pretty vague rumor to be attaching to someone's reputation.
>
> No, I'm sure I read it from an unimpeachable source. . . just can't
> recall very much about it.
I don't think that's helping. <g>
Luke
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Reichert <ma...@messagelink.com> asserted
>Charles Frederick Goodin <cgo...@sfu.ca> wrote in message
>news:8qavsi$eel$1...@morgoth.sfu.ca...
>> But that's fine. I mean, it's his novel, right? Why can he only write
>> things set in the same universe?
>
>He doesn't. Titan, Wizard, Demon were in their own unique universe, as was
>Air Raid/Millenium.
>
>creation.
I had the same reservation about McLeod's _The Sky Road_, although
'resent' would be putting it a bit strongly.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Del Cotter
Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> wrote:
>Lee Kelly <l.k...@rjw.co.uk> wrote:
>>I seem to remember hearing some tale when both Heinlein and Clarke were
>>guests at some sort of do at Niven's, all about space exploration or
>>whatever. Heinlein objected to Clarke's wishes for a peaceful use of
>>space, in opposition to Heinlein's military high ground plans; Heinlein
>>then proceeded to vilify Clarke while the so-called host sat at his
>>feet in helpless puppylike adoration.
>
>That's a pretty vague rumor to be attaching to someone's reputation.
It's well documented by Gregory Benford, who was there, and on
Heinlein's and Niven's side. Congress invited Clarke to speak to them,
Heinlein thought Clarke should butt out of American affairs. Clarke was
quite shocked and shaken by the attack, and left the party at Niven's
house early.
I think that Benford was wrong to cheer, that Heinlein was wrong to
think he should decide who Congress invites to speak, but most of all,
that Niven was contemptible to set the ambush up under the guise of
hospitality. Hosts and guests have obligations to one another, and
Niven completely abused his responsibility to Clarke.
--
. . . . Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk . . . .
JustRead:ars:JohnBarnesApocalypses&Apostrophes:MichaelConeyHelloSummerGoodby
e:WalterMMillerJrStLeibowitz&TWHW:IainBanksWhit:DorothyDunnettTheGameOfKings
ToRead:SMStirlingAgainstTheTideOfYears:HBeamPiperSpaceViking:VernorVingeADee
Mark Atwood
> "Elf Sternberg" <e...@halcyon.com> wrote in message news:8qasjm$eqq$1...@brokaw.wa.com...
> > In article <g6Tx5.2376$Bw1....@news.indigo.ie>
> > "Niall McAuley" <gnmc...@eircom.ten.invalid> writes:
> > >Was this the fuss about gay Kzin?
>
> > Yes, it was. The story's still on my website, too. :-)
>
> Sternberg you fucking prevert!
ObSkeeve: Shouldn't that be "pervect"?
--
Mark Atwood |
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Brenda
Jorj Strumolo wrote:
> Ha T. Nguyen:
> TN> Actually for me, it does work. Whenever I meet an
> > author at the sci-fi convention and the person seems
> > nice, I buy their books and if I already have a copy
> > of their book, I just like it that much more.
>
> Questions: Would you buy the work of an author whom you hadn't
> read after meeting one at a con? Would you *like* the books
> of an author whose work you hadn't previously after seeing the
> author at a con?
I was at the recent Worldcon, on a panel about sorting one's
books. We mainly discussed library shelving and the importance of
having the shelves against the load-bearing walls. Nevertheless, a
fellow in the audience came up afterwards and said he wanted to buy
my book. And luckily I had one right there to sell him.
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough, author of DOORS OF DEATH AND LIFE
From Tor Books in May 2000
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
Phil Fraering
I'm looking at the title of this thread, and all I can think of is
the "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi" subthread in Babylon 5.
--
Phil Fraering "One day, Pinky, A MOUSE shall rule, and it is the
p...@globalreach.net humans who will be forced to endure these humiliating
/Will work for tape/ diversions!"
"You mean like Orlando, Brain?"