The World of Computer Software/World_Of_Computer_Software-02-387-Vol-3of3.iso/s/sf018039.zip/SF018039.TXT

Text File | 1993-02-05 | 19KB | 459 lines

SF-LOVERS Digest            Friday, 15 Jan 1993        Volume 18 : Issue 39

Today's Topics:

             Books - Asimov & Brin (2 msgs) & Brust (3 msgs) &
                     Card (2 msgs) & Clarke & Kay (3 msgs) &
                     McCaffrey & O'Donnell & Roberson &
                     Robinson & Zelazny

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Date: 13 Jan 93 21:36:09 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Robert Hearn)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Asimov

[e-mail] (Alan Kelly) wrote:
> I know Isaac Asimov died last April or May or thereabouts, but I
> definitely recall hearing that he had written the seventh of his
> Foundation series before he died. I also heard that it was to be
> published the month following his death.  Could anybody possibly back up
> my claims? If so, I would dearly like to hear any information on a
> publishing timetable.

Uh, that's the sixteenth book, if you're counting evrything in the extended
Foundation series.  That's counting _The_Rest_of_the_Robots_, but not
counting _The_End_of_Eternity_, which connects pretty well, IMO.

Apparently, Asimov had not finished _Forward_the_Foundation_ when he died,
and it required some editing before publication.  Parts of it were
published before he died in his science fiction magazine.

The latest I've heard is that it will be out this Spring or Summer.  I
don't know why the delay is so long.  I'm pretty annoyed; as a personal
tribute, I reread the entire extended series after he died, slowly, hoping
to be able to read the new one at the appropriate time, but no luck.

Bob Hearn
Spartacus Software

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Date: 14 Jan 93 22:21:54 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Wilson Heydt)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: How do you lose a planet? (was Questions about Pern...)

[e-mail] (Andrew Solovay) writes:
>>I question that final assumption.  You are assuming that no dinosaurs
>>(for instance) had Uplift Potential.  There should have been a constant
>>trickle of such species over at least the last 200 million years.  For
>>Earth to be marked as 'lifeless, with a reducing atmosphere', the last
>>visit would ahve had to have been nearly 4 *billion* years ago.
>>Granted, it probably wouldn't have looked like much until about 650
>>million years ago, but still...
>
>Dinosaurs are irrelevant. It's entirely possible that Galactics visited
>Earth during the age of the dinosaurs, and they might even have uplifted
>some species. Remember, Galactics take pains not to leave permanent marks
>on their planet.

And yet...  The Streaker crew had no trouble detecting the remains of
high-tech civilization on the planet they were forced down on in _Startide
Rising_.  It would be trivially easy for the Galactics to make such checks
on Earth immediately after Terrans made contact and would be considered
solid proof that *something* funny was going on (besides the stuff they're
already het up about).

>To me, this isn't a mystery. The galactics probably declared Earth fallow
>at some point, and Earth just slipped through the cracks. The Library is
>*big*, after all, and it's apparently poorly-organized. The Earth was left
>alone a little longer than intended, that's all.

On the contrary, the evidence is that the Library is *very* well organized.
So well organized that the Terrans (and probably other young species) have
been given deliberately flawed copies to hide things that older species
don't want them to know about yet.  (Indeed, I would contend that it is
likely that a species becomes important in the Galactic Community when it
goes to the Librarians and raises hell about the condition its copies are
in.)

>Or, another possibility: A powerful race wanted to see what a sophont
>would be like if left unattended. So, it uplifted humans to minimal
>sentience, to a point from which we could bootstrap ourselves (i.e. a
>point where sentience starts to show adaptive value, so selection acts on
>it).

Since accidentally letting a Client species go feral is viewed as a Major
Crime, and all the records in the Library state plainly that abandoned
Clients universally go bad, this is highly unlikely.

>It then made sure the Library's information about Earth got lost. (These
>patrons probably would have timed it so the uplifting was done just about
>the time the H-lifeforms were coming into ascendancy in this area; this
>would've made it easier to cover their tracks.)

That requires enough control over the Library that you can cover your
tracks in *every* extant copy.  I can think of only one species that can do
that, and they're believed to have been extinct long before there was
anything of interest on Earth.

Hal Heydt
Analyst, Pacific*Bell
510-823-5447
[e-mail]

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Date: 14 Jan 93 22:33:32 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Wilson Heydt)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: How do you lose a planet? (was Questions about Pern...)

[e-mail] (Dani Zweig) writes:
>[e-mail] (Wilson Heydt):
>>I agree that that's probably *why* there was no recent investigation but,
>>it begs the question: Why isn't Earth in the Library.
>
>To make the Uplift story work, we only need to make the weaker assumption
>that its library entry hasn't been updated in the past few million years.
>Do we have reason to believe that Earth is not in the Library at all?

I recall it being mentioned explicitly in _Sundiver_ that there is no
Library entry on the Solar System at all.  I may be wrong, but I have this
strong sense of having read that.

>(I'm hesitant to accept theories that call for the Library to have been
>corrupted.  If that were the case, the discovery of Earth would likely
>have triggered a much more general war, and far sooner, possibly bringing
>down the Institute.)

That's an excellent point.  In _Startide Rising_ it's made fairly plain
that Terran problems getting information out of the Library isn't an
accident and has nothing to do with our not using a Galactic language.
There is similar material in _Uplift War_.

>>I question that final assumption.  You are assuming that no dinosaurs
>>(for instance) had Uplift Potential.  There should have been a constant
>>trickle of such species over at least the last 200 million years.
>
>Again, it depends how rare presentience is.  It's consistent with Brin's
>writing for presentience to be *very* rare: The Garthlings were the first
>new clients in three hundred years, for the entire galaxy.  This would
>shed more light on the chagrin of Galactics who had to allow Humans two
>client races and weren't about to allow several more.

It's also noted that Earth has an amazingly *rich* biosphere with Potential
all over the place.

>(Just to toss numbers into the air, if we assume a new Client race every
>five-hundred years, on average, and an average species life expectancy of
>a million years, counting those that get wiped out, we get a steady-state
>Galactic population of about 20,000 races trying to keep track of a
>hundred billion stars.)

Also keep in mind that each of those races will be managing several planets
(on average).  Even the very poor and backward Terrans have a few.  Aren't
there at least 3 outside the Solar system mentioned?  If one assumes a
fairly modest 10 planets per race, then there are 200,000 high tech planets
active.  That leaves 500,000 planets "per planet" to keep track of.  Given
our present recordkeeping abilities we could manage the data.  Look what
was done earlier this century, before the use of computers, to keep track
of people on a larger scale than this.

>Fair enough; I was being sloppy.  Mass extinctions might make a planet
>temporarily unpromising, but it doesn't follow that the planet has a
>fragile ecosystem.  We are specifically told, in fact, that Galactics
>regard such planetary mishaps as a healthy part of the process.

There are broad hints that Earth is *spectacularly* fecund.  So much so
that even if there were no sophonts here at all it would be a crown jewel
for any species that got control of it.

>>Possibly but, Earth had a very active ecology in the Late Cretaceous.
>>Earth would have been in hot contention.
>
>Active ecologies may be a dime a dozen: It's sentience that's the prize,
>and the Galactics have yet to discover a formula for making that happen.

And, as noted, most planets do not have nearly the breadth and depth of
species Earth has, even *after* our own depredations.

Hal Heydt
Analyst, Pacific*Bell
510-823-5447
[e-mail]

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Date: 14 Jan 93 07:12:20 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Nathan Bardsley)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: New Brust novels

=Agyar= is scheduled for release in March, from Tor.  It's a dark fantasy
with bits of vampirism and, of course, Hungarianism.

=Athyra= is the new Vlad Taltos novel, set about two years after =Phoenix=
April release, Ace.

And nothing else until =500 Years After= is shipped, probably around a year
and a half from now, rumor has it that the first draft is about halfway
complete.

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Date: 15 Jan 93 01:10:46 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Crow's Friend Timmy)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: New Brust novels

[e-mail] (Nathan Bardsley) writes:
>=Athyra= is the new Vlad Taltos novel, set about two years after =Phoenix=
>April release, Ace.

I've started reading it. Laurie's read the whole thing in galley. Both of
us feel it's rather disappointing for a Vlad novel. Not Steve's best, not
even close.

Chuq Von Rospach
[e-mail]

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Date: 15 Jan 93 04:33:49 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Elmo the Stunt Elk)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: New Brust novels

[e-mail] (Nathan Bardsley) writes:
> =Agyar= is scheduled for release in March, from Tor.  It's a dark fantasy
> with bits of vampirism and, of course, Hungarianism.  And nothing else
> until =500 Years After= is shipped, probably around a year and a half
> from now, rumor has it that the first draft is about halfway complete.

When is a paperback version of "The Gypsy" due out?

Elmo
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

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Date: 14 Jan 93 02:29:36 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Chua HakLien)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Card's The Lost Boys

Has anyone out there read Card's newest novel _The_Lost_Boys_? Does it have
any relation to his rather infamous short story of the same name?

Chua

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Date: 14 Jan 93 14:22:32 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Xenocide Sequel?

[e-mail] (Geoffrey A. Coulter) writes:
> In contrast, his _Memory_Of_Earth_ seems excellent.  I approached the
> book with trepidation, expecting something similar to to Chalker's
> _Rings_of_the_Master_, and was very pleasnatly surprised.  The culture
> being described is well developed and very entertaining, and the
> characters are plausible, as is the story's basic premise.  So despite
> downward slides in other works, the sparks of imagination and the skill
> are all still there.

I have just read "Memory" and I must say I agree.  It's not his best but it
was a very good read (once I got past the first few pages, which seemed
somewhat cliched).  I will definitely buy the continuation(s).

Bill Hyde
Department of Oceanography
Dalhousie University,
Halifax, Nova Scotia
[e-mail] or hyde@dalac

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Date: 14 Jan 93 02:37:38 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Dani Zweig)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Childhood's End

[e-mail] (J. Michael Tisdel):
>The 'utopia' of the Overmind, however, I consider one of the worst
>dystopia conceived.

Two questions:

1. Is it legitimate for an author to *posit* that a given utopia or society
or morality will be a good thing, in the same sense that an author can
posit, for story purposes, that ftl travel is possible?

2. Supposing pre-overmind Humanity would not wish to 'change', but that
once the change happened it was perceived positively.  Can we say that it
turned out to be a good thing?  Or does this put us in the position of
approving of any successful brainwashing or deprogramming?

Dani Zweig
[e-mail]

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Date: 13 Jan 93 13:37:29 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Louzon ronald g 410-765-4049)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Guy Gavriel Kay's A SONG FOR ARBONNE

I just finished Guy Gavriel Kay's A SONG FOR ARBONNE yesterday and I have
to say that it was absolutely wonderful.  This man has yet to let me down
in anything he's written. I liked this even better than TIGANA.  It's
billed as a fantasy, but magic is only hinted at and never seen.  I just
can't recommend this book enough.  Go out and buy it now, I guarantee you
won't regret it.

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Date: 14 Jan 93 18:17:15 GMT
From: [e-mail] (ere i am, jh)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Guy Gavriel Kay's A SONG FOR ARBONNE

[e-mail] (Louzon ronald g 410-765-4049) writes:
>I just finished Guy Gavriel Kay's A SONG FOR ARBONNE yesterday and I have
>to say that it was absolutely wonderful.  This man has yet to let me down
>in anything he's written. I liked this even better than TIGANA.  It's
>billed as a fantasy, but magic is only hinted at and never seen.  I just
>can't recommend this book enough.  Go out and buy it now, I guarantee you
>won't regret it.

While I hesitate to make such guarantees, I too loved the book.  Great
characters, action, setting, everything.  I wonder how he can top this, but
I thought the same thing of _Tigana_.

What's Guy up to these days?  Did he ever find a place to stay in Spain?  I
don't know if his "on location" jaunts actually help his writing, but they
sound like fun and I've no complaints with the results.

How anyone can say speculative fiction is dead with Kay and Powers both in
their prime is beyond my feeble understanding.

Michael L. Medlin
[e-mail]

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Date: 15 Jan 93 00:40:18 GMT
From: [e-mail] (andrew brian gross)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Guy Gavriel Kay's A SONG FOR ARBONNE

Why is everyone so high on Kay?  While I have yet to read
_A_Song_For_Arbonne_, I have read all of his work that is out in paperback,
and I have to say that I simply do not understand why he has such a large
and dedicated following.

Every look, every word, every sigh - they all have deep, intelligible
meanings to all of Kay's characters.  The amount of information that is
conveyed in a typical Kay novel just by one character gazing intently into
another's eyes is greater than the amount of information that a student
gets out of an entire course's worth of lectures.  What's more, all of
Kay's characters are entirely too deep; they suffer more from an imagined
slight than most folks do from having a spouse pack up and leave them out
of the blue, and they seem perfectly able to fall deeply, passionately in
love at the drop of a hat.

In short, it seems to me as if Kay is an above average author of above
average melodrama but, nothing to get too excited about.

What am I missing?

Andrew B. Gross
[e-mail]

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Date: 14 Jan 93 11:36:00 GMT
From: [e-mail] ("Irene R. Harrison  727-7415", 203)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Anne McCaffrey's Pern

  I believe that the Pern World is separate from the other McCaffrey
Worlds.  see DRAGONLOVERS GUIDE TO PERN, Nye & McCaffrey, for a Pern Time
line.  "Rescue Run" first appeared in the Aug 1991 Amazing,(back issues
~$4.50) Aug 1991, Wildside, hard cover, & Jan 1993 SFBC, hard cover with
jacket.

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Date: 14 Jan 93 21:53:42 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Euan Troup)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Kevin O'Donnell Jr.

Does anyone know what Kevin O'Donnell Jr. is up to these days? I've just
been re-reading the 'Journeys of McGill Feighan' and I'd like to read some
more of his books. The last book I've seen was out a couple of years ago.

Euan Troup
Australia Telescope
Parkes Observatory.
[e-mail]

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Date: 14 Jan 93 17:07:43 GMT
From: [e-mail] (SHER)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Tiger & Del -> Jennifer Roberson

Hi all, this is my first time posting for this newsgroup.  I was wondering
if any of you had heard about when Jennifer Roberson was going to finish
her Tiger and Del series.  She left us hanging at the end of her book.  I
really like the series and am looking forward to reading her next book
(whenever that may be).  Thanks!

Sher

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Date: 14 Jan 93 10:26:20 GMT
From: [e-mail] (S H L G Bisson)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: KSRobinson _Red Mars_... When?

[e-mail] (Patrick Nielsen-Hayden) writes:
>Actually, Evelyn, my understanding from Stan is that the novella "Green
>Mars" will not be part of the trilogy.  It will remain forever as a source
>of bibliographic confusion.  <g>

And just to cause further confusion, the characters in _Green Mars_ the
novella will be in _Green Mars_ the novel, which will chronologically
bracket the novella.

I think Stan's having fun with this one!

Simon H Le G Bisson

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Date: 14 Jan 93 20:47:19 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Thalie)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Zelazny

I have read _Creatures of light and darkness_ by Zelazny.  There is one
thing which disappointed me a lot: although there are characters with
Egyptian gods names (e.G. Horus, Osirir, Isis and Anubis), they have
nothing to do with the gods... So why did Zelazny give these names to his
characters?

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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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