**************** *** 02-01-95 *** **************** From: david silberstein To: "d. k. moran list" Subject: K'Ailla and Societies -------- Daniel Keyes Moran said: >> >K'Ailla, a predatory alien; a telepath and Ola's pilot >> > Arrith is perfectly normal for a K'Ailla, meaning he is >> >bloodthirsty, dishonest, and bores easily. I (David Silberstein) said: >> I have great difficulty imagining a species in which the above qualities >> are the norm ever acheiving civilization, let alone a highly technological >> civilization that extends into space. A civlization needs members who are >> calm, cooperative, at least partly honest, and dedicated to their various >> tasks, if it is to last. I also said: > >That's why I have such trouble accepting seriously such concepts as the > >Klingon "warrior culture" - a society *can't* be made up of all warriors. And DKM responded: >Of course you're correct; it can't. But K'Ailla society isn't a "warrior >culture." Sorry, my statement wasn't too clear. I was thinking rather specifically about aliens being portrayed as being of only one type. All warriors, all greedy merchants, all one type of anything. Star Trek has improved in their portrayal of aliens recently, but I still feel that if there are aliens, they would be diverse in nature as we humans are. In fact, I'd add that to my requirements for a technological civilization: the higher the level of civilization, the more diverse the society needs to be. My objections were cleared up by DKM's followup: >Parents stay home, run the factories and the shipyards and the research >labs; and there are generally a lot more parents than there are males or >females. Females tend to get involved in government, and to run the >military; males tend to go out and fight. In other words, the above should have read: < Arrith is perfectly normal for a K'Ailla *male*, meaning he is This is of course, the human paradigm, based only on such evidence as >we have available. I was thinking of other paradigms as well: wolf packs, chimp and baboon troops, lion prides, hyena packs, naked mole rat colonies, bee hives, ant colonies, termite mounds, etc. What they all have in common is that individuals within the social group do cooperate with one another. They do also compete, but it is the cooperation that allows the group to survive. I'd say that the basic definition of a society would have to include the concept that the members of that society trust one another, to some degree. How can day-to-day life continue, let alone progress, when members cannot trust one another not to kill, cheat, or simply quit doing some vital task that the society depends on, such as food production or waste disposal? Greg again: >It may well be that such qualities are not at all required. Solomon Foster did suggest a possible alternative: >[...]they may well have been uplifted (useful word) by the Zaradin, so the >question of how they got starflight (and the like) without civilization >may be different. An uplifted race which has the basic needs of individuals provided for by automation (food production, and perhaps even technology (by Machine Intelligences (or Minds, to switch universes suddenly)) might thus come into existence. But if things start to break down (as a result of an attack by hostiles (such as the sleem), and the patron race is no longer available (as the Zaradin are not), how could the race survive if they don't take an interest and cooperate with one another? But there's no evidence that uplifting occurs in DKM's universe. ----- David S **************** *** 02-01-95 *** **************** From: andrew mccoll To: "d. k. moran list" , david silberstein Subject: Re: K'Ailla and Societies -------- On Tue, 31 Jan 1995, David Silberstein wrote: > What they all have in common is that individuals within the social group > do cooperate with one another. They do also compete, but it is the > cooperation that allows the group to survive. I dont agree with this. I believe its the competition which makes a people or a social group stronger and more cohesive. A perfect example of this is the United States which has almost since inception as a nation encouraged a dog eat dog stab your neighbour in the back sort of mentality. This has up until very recently made for a vibrant highly successful community. I not saying its one I want to live in but it is an example of a society based upon comptetion rather than cooperation. As for your comments on 'Warrior Cultures' ie Klingons and K'Ailla there's absolutely no reason why such cultures could not exist. How does that saying the Survivalist's are so fond of go "A well armed society is a polite society". Its entirely possible that such a society could come into being. Admittedly not everyone can go around killing everyone all the time. Some of the time some of the people have to work on better guns, enough food and Healing the sick and injured. However if these people want they can go and shoot at the enemy on their day off if they want to. And finally the comment that "...Arrith is perfectly normal for a K'Ailla, meaning he is bloodthirsty, dishonest, and bores easily." Could easily describe sizable portions of the American population. What is the attention of the average TV viewer in that country now? 25 seconds 30 maybe. And every Australian knows how they cheat a yacht racing :) > I'd say that the basic definition of a society would have to include > the concept that the members of that society trust one another, to some > degree. How can day-to-day life continue, let alone progress, when members > cannot trust one another not to kill, cheat, or simply quit doing some > vital task that the society depends on, such as food production or waste > disposal? What was that quote again "A well armed society is a ..... Skippy skippy@tartarus.uwa.edu.au University of Western Australia "Reasonable is for other people" Crawley WA 6907 -Skippy **************** *** 02-01-95 *** **************** From: greg wheatley To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: K'Ailla and Societies -------- > I dont agree with this. I believe its the competition which makes a > people or a social group stronger and more cohesive. A perfect example > of this is the United States which has almost since inception as a nation > encouraged a dog eat dog stab your neighbour in the back sort of > mentality. This has up until very recently made for a vibrant highly > successful community. I not saying its one I want to live in but it is > an example of a society based upon comptetion rather than cooperation. Andrew, you're possibly letting prejudice run away with you a little bit here. Not every American is the stereotypical American. Claim otherwise and they'll probably shoot you and claim it as exercising their right to free speech :) > And finally the comment that"... Arrith is perfectly normal for a K'Ailla, > meaning he is bloodthirsty, dishonest, and bores easily." Could easily > describe sizable portions of the American population. What is the > attention of the average TV viewer in that country now? 25seconds 30 > maybe. And every Australian knows how they cheat a yacht racing :) This bit isn't even argument, just blatantly inflammatory. Moreover, completely beside the original point. Also, thinking about it, it would seem to describe a certain Andrew McColl quite well. > > I'd say that the basic definition of a society would have to include > > the concept that the members of that society trust one another, to some > > degree. How can day-to-day life continue, let alone progress, when members > > cannot trust one another not to kill, cheat, or simply quit doing some > > vital task that the society depends on, such as food production or waste > > disposal? It can't, at least so far as we understand. Our understanding is linked to one planet, however, and the behaviour of only a few species on the planet. We can't speak for an alien race, especially if we don't know most of the significant facts of it's evolutionary, political, and social history. Basically, the universe is a real big place, and it just might happen. > Skippy Regards, Greg (who wishes to completely disassociate himself from the comments of a certain unstable individual) **************** *** 02-01-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Alien Society -- -------- David Silberstein said: >Sorry, my statement wasn't too clear. I was thinking rather specifically >about aliens being portrayed as being of only one type. All warriors, >all greedy merchants, all one type of anything. Star Trek has improved in >their portrayal of aliens recently, but I still feel that if there are >aliens, they would be diverse in nature as we humans are. >In fact, I'd add that to my requirements for a technological civilization: >the higher the level of civilization, the more diverse the society needs >to be. I hate to repeat myself, but try to remember the original target audience for the "FACE.ASC" file -- it wasn't you guys. The range of social variation in the United States, 1995, is vastly higher than the range of social variation in Egypt, 1000 B.C. I'd say this is an inevitable part of the growth of a civilized species; you learn different modes of behavior. The modes of behavior appropriate to an American member of the National Organization of Women aren't likely to go over terribly well in Saudi Arabia, or vice versa; but until either NOW or Saudi Arabia disappears, there is as yet no conclusive proof that either is a "better" way for society to conduct itself. (Though you may be sure I've got my preferences on that subject.) So, yes, the description of Arrith was simplistic; but short of putting in the 14 pages of Encyclopedia notes regarding the K'Aillae into the proposal, that was inevitable. >But being a male K'Ailla is not synonymous with being a "normal" K'Ailla. >I can believe in a society stratified along gender lines. In one sense being a male K'Ailla is (nearly) synonymous with being a "normal" K'Ailla, where humans are concerned. The majority of the K'Aillae humans ever see are male; the parents don't have the drive to get out there and explore, and females have positions of power in the culture that generally give them a reason to avoid exploration. When you see a female K'Ailla out traveling around, you're probably looking at a trouble-maker, or a failure, or an individual with exceptionally strong wanderlust. (There are several female and parent K'Aillae in the Camber Tremodian stories, including a female troublemaker who hasn't been home in a generation.) **************** *** 02-01-95 *** **************** From: "jim l. sather" To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: RE: K'Ailla and Societies -------- | From: David Silberstein | But there's no evidence that uplifting occurs in DKM's universe. No? I was under the impression that's how the Flame people and the other human variants the Zaradin had around came to be. Although maybe it wasn't truly an uplifting, but just a genengineered refinement/experimentation of already fully evolved organisms. Given the period of time when the exiles came back to earth, I've wondered if they can be considered the ancestral cro-magnons, whereas the evolutionary process on earth had produced the Neanderthals. E.g., did the Zaradin engineer/uplift Neanderthals into (what turned out to be) Cro-magnons? The con against this idea is that the Shield were so busy trying to kill anyone who seemed like an exile or descendant of exiles, that you have to wonder how many descendents would have escaped. If the new human race descended from a mixture of exiles and the primitive humans (who were on the earth all along, not of the stock the Zaradin took) then perhaps new humans are primarily descended from primitive humans, not exiles. Any ideas? I've been wondering about this. Jim S. **************** *** 02-02-95 *** **************** From: pilsang park To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Realtime question -------- Hi folks, I've been a net lurker and DKM fan for a long time. Fortunately, I first read DKM a while back when I was still able to find copies of his other novels in used books stores. The only one I don't have it _The Ring_, which I saw once in a store but didn't have enough money to buy at the time. When I went back...alas, it was gone. However, here's the real reason I'm mailing. There's a section in realtime where the Praxcelis unit is reading various books, and excerpts from the stories are displayed. I can easily tell what each of the stories is except for the last. It goes: "Mithras, Apollo, Arthur, Christ -- call him what you will," I said. "What does it matter what men call the light? It is the same light, and men must live by it or die." What is this from? Thanks in advance. PilSang **************** *** 02-02-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Realtime question -------- > "Mithras, Apollo, Arthur, Christ -- call him what you > will," I said. "What does it matter what men call the > light? It is the same light, and men must live by it or > die." It's from either Mary Stewart's "The Crystal Cave," or "The Hollow Hills." I think the first, but I wouldn't swear to it. Her three novels about Merlin, CC, HH, and "The Last Enchantment," are among my all-time favorite novels. I expect I'll be re-reading them until I'm an old man. ~~~~~~~~~~ On the subject of uplift, only two species in the Continuing Time that I've bothered to write about have been significantly uplifted; The Old Human Race, and the Dalmas. Both were done by the Zaradin; both uplifts were (relatively) trivial. The Dalmas were originally balloon sentients who filled their balloons with biologically separated hydrogen; every time they played with fire they blew up. The Zaradin removed their balloons, turning them into rather small land-bound sentients. The Zaradin had several servant species; the Old Human Race was only one of them. Of their servant species, the Tamranni are the oldest -- not as old as the Zaradin, but terribly old nonetheless. The Zaradin certainly never uplifted the Tamranni; the Tamranni were civilized when the Zaradin met them. Conceivably the Tamranni know where the Zaradin went when they left; they know a lot of stuff they don't talk about. If so, they're not saying. There are another dozen-odd intelligent races I've outlined at some length for the later CT books; but none of them are uplifted, and most of them have been civilized for, at most, only 100,000 years longer than humanity, somewhere in that range. During the Time Wars, the Zaradin had a tendency to wipe out competing technological civilizations, either outright, or by changing the time stream to eliminate them. **************** *** 02-02-95 *** **************** From: sean eric fagan To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Realtime question -------- >During the Time Wars, the Zaradin had a tendency to >wipe out competing technological civilizations, either outright, or by >changing the time stream to eliminate them. Ha! Confirmation about what some of the effects / intents of the Time Wars were! (Okay, so it was pretty obvious, but, hey... ;)) Sean. **************** *** 02-02-95 *** **************** From: "john r. snead" To: continuing-time@umich.edu, d.moran8@genie.geis.com Subject: Inskins and such -------- In 2070 the Tytan NN-II was the hot new thing, a combination radio inskin, and intelligence booster. It makes you wonder what the run-of-the-mill stuff will be like by Ola Blue or Tyrel November's time. There seems a distinct possibility that by the 24-2600s a significant fraction of the population might have similar, or likely, much improved implants. What would a society be like where, say, 30% of people were a lot smarter. Then there is also the possibility of what the 2600 AD model of the Elite Cyborgs will be like... Thoughtfully yours -Heron jsnead@netcom.com **************** *** 02-02-95 *** **************** From: marcus eubanks To: continuing time mailing list Subject: Re: Inskins and such -------- On Thu, 2 Feb 1995, John R. Snead wrote: > In 2070 the Tytan NN-II was the hot new thing, a combination radio > inskin, and intelligence booster. > What would a society be like where, say, 30% of people were a > lot smarter. I was under the impression that `all' the Trent's inskin did was basically allow him to speed some processes like modelling, and sort data more quickly. Do these things really boost the user's native intelligence or simply make the use of what they have more efficient? Marcus Eubanks (n3etr) Temple Med '96 Philadelphia, PA USA "A person with an inconvenient value-system." **************** *** 02-03-95 *** **************** From: wesley mcdermott To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Inskins and such -------- Sounds like a built in Garbage-In-Garbage-Out amplifier for the run of the mill populace. Opportunity for insanity, no less. (: Wesley **************** *** 02-03-95 *** **************** From: andrew mccoll To: continuing time mailing list , marcus eubanks Subject: Re: Inskins and such -------- On Thu, 2 Feb 1995, Marcus Eubanks wrote: > I was under the impression that `all' the Trent's inskin did was basically > allow him to speed some processes like modelling, and sort data more > quickly. Do these things really boost the user's native intelligence or > simply make the use of what they have more efficient? There is a theory of intelligence which suggests that speed of information processing is all that intelligence is. You get correlations between 0.4 and 0.6 between Inspection Time and Intelligence Tests. Inspection Time measures are generally perceived to be a measure of Information processing. If your Information Processing is being handled mechanically or even if a part of it is then its going to make you more intelligent. Of course by 2060 they may have worked out better ways to test intelligence than how fast you do the test. Skippy skippy@tartarus.uwa.edu.au University of Western Australia "Reasonable is for other people" Crawley WA 6907 -Skippy **************** *** 02-03-95 *** **************** From: "simon b. cardinale" To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Inskins and such -------- On Thu, 2 Feb 1995, John R. Snead wrote: > In 2070 the Tytan NN-II was the hot new thing, a combination radio > inskin, and intelligence booster. It makes you wonder what the > run-of-the-mill stuff will be like by Ola Blue or Tyrel November's time. > > There seems a distinct possibility that by the 24-2600s a significant > fraction of the population might have similar, or likely, much improved > implants. What would a society be like where, say, 30% of people were a > lot smarter. Then there is also the possibility of what the 2600 AD > model of the Elite Cyborgs will be like... > > Thoughtfully yours > > -Heron jsnead@netcom.com I imagine by 2600 the technology will have changed enough to be almost unrecognizable. Maybe you take a pill full of nanorobots that restructure your brain on more efficient lines. It would be like a sailor of 1400 supposing that by the year 2000 we'd have much improved sail design. He'd be right, of course, in a limited way. However he's missing the point. We've moved on to other methods of serious transportation and sailing is mainly for fun. In a similiar way we would be misleading ourselves to ask "Will computers be much faster by 2600?" Of course they will be... if we use them at all. Maybe they use themselves by that time. Maybe they'll be as far beyond my 486 as my 486 is beyond an abacus. It's often the complaint of hard sf lovers that a show like Star Trek relies too much on technology that is just a bunch of scentific jargon that produces devices that may as well work by magic. In some ways I think it's one of the shows ONLY believable aspects (though it does look corny, I know). Sure it's bologna, but the true technology of the future will seem even more like magic than the Star Trek writers can imagine. Unless there's a Jules Vern among them (and even he didn't predict quite that far ahead). To bring it back to DKM's works (sorry I rambled) I'll be interested to see what he does with technology in the centuries ahead. I guess I'll believe anything as long as it's unbelievable. :) However if M. Moran sticks with the time honored tradition of transporting 20th century americans into the 26th century he'd certainly have company. Heinlein's Lazarus Long lived 2000 years (if I remember correctly) and never had to change his table manners to drastically from what I've read. :) Which brings up changes in society, which are just as dramatic and even harder to predict. On the other hand cultures and their technologies have remained fairly static for long periods before. The Chinese did it for a long time before outside influences forced new attitudes. I'd be willing to believe this could happen again, but only with some explanation (like Niven's technology suppression during the "Golden Years" in Known Space, then the change when the Kzin were discovered). I'm going to stop now. I almost never post, but when I do I lose control. -Simon **************** *** 02-03-95 *** **************** From: greg wheatley To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Inskins and such -------- > I was under the impression that `all' the Trent's inskin did was basically > allow him to speed some processes like modelling, and sort data more > quickly. Do these things really boost the user's native intelligence or > simply make the use of what they have more efficient? > > Marcus Eubanks (n3etr) Temple Med '96 Philadelphia, PA USA > "A person with an inconvenient value-system." Trent's inskin basically sits in his head and models parts of his brain. He can upload certain operations to it, which basically allows him to do two or more things at once. Think of it as multi-tasking for people. It probably also has distinct advantages when performing certain types of calculations, but as to what these may be, who knows? Also, since it's directly modelling his brain (or something like that), and has a couple million more connections than a normal inskin, it makes him a hell of a lot faster than someone using a normal inskin. Probably easiest to think of this in terms of Trent having a baud rate around 28.8k, and everyone else being stuck at 2400. Oh yeah, it can moderate sensory input. This can be a good thing, in terms of seeing in the dark, but has some horribly nasty possibilities if one considers viruses getting in there (which would seem very possible, seeing as Trent got his image code in). As far as everyone else having such hardware goes, the possibilities are pretty much limitless, but usage may be moderated by certain external factors. It's impossible to say how well the NN-II works for those that don't have Trent's unique genetic heritage, and also difficult to guess what effect the Source will have on certain uses of such hardware. If you need the help of an AI to get most of the benefits, and there's only one of them... Regards, Greg **************** *** 02-03-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Intelligence -------- Various people said the following: >There is a theory of intelligence which suggests that speed of >information processing is all that intelligence is. You get correlations >between 0.4 and 0.6 between Inspection Time and Intelligence Tests. Certainly some part of intelligence consists of simple quickness; if you can come to the correct conclusion in half the time of the other guy, you're smarter. If, on the other hand, you come to the wrong conclusion in half the time as the other guy, *he's* smarter. At some point quantitative improvement becomes a qualitative improvement; but there are qualitative measures of intelligence that are not dependent upon information processing or retrieval speed. >I imagine by 2600 the technology will have changed enough to be almost >unrecognizable. Maybe you take a pill full of nanorobots that restructure >your brain on more efficient lines. It seems plain to me that humanity is on the verge of splintering. I am reasonably confident that there will always be humans like "us" -- they're the "Left Behind" in "Lord November." Tyrel is a biological machine taken several steps further in perfectly reasonable evolutionary directions; but in fact he's a relatively conservative design in a lot of ways. Bhodisatva in some ways is more interesting; he's an unreconstructed human -- but he's also tapped and is heavily dependent on the information systems that make it possible for him to function at speeds "modern" humans find socially tolerable. A step further along the curve, we find an avatar of the Source. He shows up toward the end of Book One of "Lord November." He looks human, on the outside; get under the skin and he's not, not remotely. His "brain" is about the size of a walnut and has nearly as much computing power packed into it as can be found on all of Earth during Trent's lifetime. Finally, there's the Source itself. "Where" it's located is a reasonable question; nobody knows. It's used tachyon technology quite extensively in its circuitry; many of its processes occur at significant multiples of the speed of light. It's not just smarter than a human being; it's smarter than And then there are various AIs & aliens and machine intelligences -- Here are some restrictions: The universe is a quantum device. The Source can't predict the future with any precision, though it can and does produce broad statistical pictures that are relatively accurate. The Source is limited in its ability to acquire information. (So is everyone and everything else in the universe.) Working with insufficient information, it makes its best decisions; but sometimes it's wrong anyway. As a very good example of this, the Source has no idea whether Trent the Uncatchable was an Envoy, or indeed whether there really are such things as "Envoys of Balance." Insufficient data. It doesn't know whether Trent "came back," as the Church of His Return claims; it's assigned a very low probability to it, though. >To bring it back to DKM's works (sorry I rambled) I'll be interested to >see what he does with technology in the centuries ahead. I guess I'll >believe anything as long as it's unbelievable. :) One of the things that's going to happen is that the stories will take on a "hard fantasy" edge in later years. I think that's inevitable, given Clarke's law. It won't stop me from telling good stories -- rules is rules, and as long as the rules are clear and unambiguous (as fantasy tends not to be) I don't think that'll be a problem. >However if M. Moran sticks with the time honored tradition of transporting >20th century americans into the 26th century he'd certainly have company. >Heinlein's Lazarus Long lived 2000 years (if I remember correctly) and >never had to change his table manners to drastically from what I've read. :) It's interesting to note how successful writers are, and to chart it against the types of stories they tell. Universes where humans are powerful & important *sell better*, and isn't that a surprise? And an awful lot of fiction is 1950-In-Space (1970 in space, in Larry Niven's case.) But the stories with those biases are the *successful ones*! Probably the individual who's done the best job over the years of depicting aliens, and "alien human" societies, is Jack Vance. Who's never sold as well as I'd like to sell. So it makes for an interesting problem. I *can't* get too far away from relatively present-day concerns; I'll lose my readers. But at the same time any even near-accurate description of "the future" is going to produce something that looks a *lot* different from today. I have ideas on how to address these problems; we'll just have to see how it plays out. BTW, if you want to see the best job I've ever seen of the depiction of an "alien" society -- read "The Tale of Genji," by the Lady Murasaki. She lived in 10th Century Japan, and "Tale of Genji" is indisputably the first modern novel -- and I've never read an SF society that was as alien to me as that in "Genji." **************** *** 02-03-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: "The Last One Standing" -------- I completed "The Last One Standing," from STAR WARS: Tales of the Bounty Hunters. It is, briefly, the story of Boba Fett's life, and lifelong relationship with Han Solo. Good story, if I do say so. I'm not sure when the first Star Wars anthology is due out; I'll let you know when I know. I've got "Empire Blues" in that one. **************** *** 02-03-95 *** **************** From: mace@lum.esd.sgi.com (rob mace) To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Inskins and such -------- > Trent's inskin basically sits in his head and models parts of his > brain. He can upload certain operations to it, which basically allows > him to do two or more things at once. Think of it as multi-tasking for > people. If you think the human brain is not capable of multi-tasking you don't know a lot about the human brain. You are right in that Trent's inskin lets him do more multitasking. > It probably also has distinct advantages when performing certain > types of calculations, but as to what these may be, who knows? As I understand it, the NN-II is enough hardware to support an AI. And it provides a massively parallel interface between that hardware and the brain. As to the question of it increasing intelligence, I think it depends on how you answer the following question. Is the entity in the inskin the same as that in the wet portion of the brain? Rob Mace **************** *** 02-03-95 *** **************** From: sean eric fagan To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Intelligence -------- DKM wrote: >Finally, there's the Source itself. "Where" it's located is a reasonable >question; nobody knows. It's used tachyon technology quite extensively in >its circuitry; many of its processes occur at significant multiples of the >speed of light. It's not just smarter than a human being; it's smarter than > >And then there are various AIs & aliens and machine intelligences -- Things got cut off again for those last two lines of text. >One of the things that's going to happen is that the stories will take on a >"hard fantasy" edge in later years. I think that's inevitable, given >Clarke's law. It won't stop me from telling good stories -- rules is rules, >and as long as the rules are clear and unambiguous (as fantasy tends not to >be) I don't think that'll be a problem. Iain M. Banks, in his Culture novels, has this as a background. The technology is such that, really, there is almost nothing the Culture can't do. It's got Minds in it, which are millions of times more intelligent than a human being, and sentient ships that hold millions of human beings. One nice quote from Banks about is, "even the Culture prefers to use alread-existing matter" -- it being implied that the Culture could make matter, if it felt it necessary. With the exception of the power source (Banks postulates a way to pull energy from between universes, giving the Culture an infinite supply of energy), almost everything is just an extrapoloation of what we have now: computers getting smaller and faster; eventually, computers will design computers; eventually, we'll end up with sentient computers; eventually, sentient computers will design smarter computers; and so forth. Banks' novels end up being about people, which is what I currently like. _Use of Weapons_ is about the only book that I had to, when I got to a certain point, sit down and say, "Wow. Oh my god. Wow." (And I reread it a year or so later, and had forgotten this point, and when I came to it again, I had the same reaction.) (As another aside, _Small Gods_, by Terry Pratchett, is my favorite Pratchett novel, and, again, because a large part of it deals with the growth and changing of one character.) When the technology allows you to do anything, you get back to telling stories about *people*, and their conflicts and growth. Tying it back in, tLR deals a lot with Trent's internal thoughts, and how he is making his affect on society. tLD deals a lot with Denice's attempts to define herself -- and I don't think she succeeds as well as Trent has, and that lack of growth may be why I can identify more with Trent than Denice. Or maybe it's the fact that I'm a programmer, not a telepath ;). Sean. **************** *** 02-03-95 *** **************** From: dave@tso4a.can.cdc.com (dave weil) To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Intelligence -------- Quoting DKM: > It's interesting to note how successful writers are, and to chart it > against the types of stories they tell. Universes where humans are > powerful & important *sell better*, and isn't that a surprise? And an > awful lot of fiction is 1950-In-Space (1970 in space, in Larry Niven's > case.) But the stories with those biases are the *successful ones*! Have you read any of the books in the series with _Great Sky River_ by Gregory Benford? Reasonably realistic future portrayal, at least as far as I can remember. A bit bleak perhaps, but definitely not 20th Century does Space. I can't speak to how well they've sold... - Dave **************** *** 02-04-95 *** **************** From: "j.c. duval" To: continuing-time@umich.edu, d.moran8@genie.geis.com Subject: Re: Intelligence -------- Lotsa stuff deleted;). > It's interesting to note how successful writers are, and to chart it > against the types of stories they tell. Universes where humans are > powerful & important *sell better*, and isn't that a surprise? And an > awful lot of fiction is 1950-In-Space (1970 in space, in Larry Niven's > case.) But the stories with those biases are the *successful ones*! > > Probably the individual who's done the best job over the years of > depicting aliens, and "alien human" societies, is Jack Vance. Who's > never sold as well as I'd like to sell. Being a self-professed Vance scolar, I hereby disagree. Vance never depicted aliens as protagonists in his stories and rarely as anything more than plot devices. Most of Vance did, in S.F., might be better termed as a type of 'sociological extrapolation': take one societal aspect and run with it as far as possible (the ultimate communist society, the ultimate elitist society and so on). Vance never sold very well for one simple reason: his stuff is not of a page-turner type as he gets bogged down in details and explainations behind his imaginary universe. To get back to the other point, this is basically what I would like to call the 'Star Trek' problem. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction hesitates to call Star Trek SF as it argues that most of the stories could be told in another genre. Then I personally would start to doubt that Resnick's stuff is SF and I could continue with others. There has to be some reflection of the reader's self in the novels. For some reason, I never could connect with the dolphin's P.O.V. in Startide Rising so I stopped reading after a few pages. Star Trek *was* successful because of its simply established relationship with our own contemporary society and it would be snobbish not to consider it as SF merely because that relationship is so easily seen by its public. **************************************************************************** |J.C. DuVal | M.A. English | University of Montreal *Brand new sig!* | |duvaljc@tornade.ere.umontreal.ca | **************************************************************************** **************** *** 02-04-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Benford -------- Dave Weil, Greg Benford is a wonderful *negative* example of what I just mentioned, the popularity of 1950-In-Space. "Great Sky River" is easily on my list of 10 Best SF Novels Ever. (Pretty high on the list, too.) The year this book was out, when to my mind it was undeniablythe finest book I'd read in years, that year the Nebula and Hugo Awards were won by "Falling Free," by Lois McMaster Bujold, which was pleasant and unthreatening 1950-In-Space. I'm trying to do -- well, something original -- but if I had to describe it in a sentence I'd call it an SF version of Tolkien's Silmarillion/Lord of the Rings. I think, across that span, there is room to describe alien societies and the potential range of human evolution, without losing my readers. My main characters *have* to be individuals who can be identified with; but in subsidiary characters I can do more interesting work. Sean, Haven't read the "Culture" books, but they sound like the sort of thing I like. I'll take a look for them. As to your identifying with Trent, rather than Denice ... I'd guess that it's because you're a young man, more than anything else. My female fans appear to have liked her quite a bit. I don't know what to say about the garbled transmissions. The missing lines are there in the text file on my end. (Trivial stuff, but there.) **************** *** 02-05-95 *** **************** From: ap007@freenet.hsc.colorado.edu (maureen s. obrien) To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: "The Last One Standing" -------- >I completed "The Last One Standing," from STAR WARS: Tales of the Bounty >Hunters. It is, briefly, the story of Boba Fett's life, and lifelong >relationship with Han Solo. Cool! I've loved to hate Boba Fett ever since I sent away for him with the proofs of purchases off the back of the other figures. I can even remember when they showed him in the little Rebel-propaganda animation that Chewie's little brother watched on the Star Wars live action holiday special. Those were the days.... -- Maureen S. O'Brien ap007@freenet.HSC.colorado.edu "You must begin printing books again." **************** *** 02-05-95 *** **************** From: jhewett@ix.netcom.com (jerry hewett) To: d.moran8@genie.geis.com, continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Jack Vance (was: Intelligence) -------- >> Probably the individual who's done the best job over the years of depicting >> aliens, and "alien human" societies, is Jack Vance. Who's never sold as >> well as I'd like to sell. > Being a self-professed Vance scolar, I hereby disagree. Vance never depicted > aliens as protagonists in his stories and rarely as anything more than plot > devices. What about the Planet of Adventure series??? The Chasch, the Whankh, and the Pnume (along with their genetically altered sub-men) might not be viewpoint characterizations, but they're certainly not "plot devices"! All three races are unique and separate creations, with vivid characteristics and personali- ties that are quite different from the human(oid) races depicted in the series. The key words in the snippet above are _"alien human" societies_ -- a segment of SF that Vance practically created, and definately excels at. What you said about sociological SF... > Most of Vance did, in S.F., might be better termed as a type of > 'sociological extrapolation': take one societal aspect and run with it as > far as possible (the ultimate communist society, the ultimate elitist > society and so on). .. is partially true, but it's only one view of the complete picture! What Vance has always done -- and done better than anyone else in the field -- is create stories that have their own unique style and flair; a singular form of prose and execution that is envied and often imitated by other F&SF writers. Although most of his novels have a strongly stereotypical society as a foundation, it's the dialog and the interaction between his characters that has created such a large and loyal following (yep -- I include myself among the fanatics :-). > Vance never sold very well for one simple reason: his stuff is not of a > page-turner type as he gets bogged down in details and explainations behind > his imaginary universe. Regarding your opinion about sales; I have to scratch my head and wonder how you arrived at this conclusion. Vance has been translated into at least a dozen different languages, with a minimum of one new edition a month appearing somewhere around the world. _The Dying Earth_ alone has gone through at least 30 reprints in eleven languages (English, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Greek, Swedish, and Spanish) that I'm aware of. And some editions, like the Japanese translations of the Planet of Adventure series, have been reprinted at least fourteen times by the same publisher!!! Underwood-Miller got into the publishing business just to make hardcover editions of Vance's work available to the collectors market. And they made enough money doing it to survive quite comfortably for 20 years. (Tim and Chuck are still in the publishing business, btw, but are no longer issuing books under the U-M imprint). English-language editions of new Vance novels, and reprints of his older work, are always available in bookstores around the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and other countries. Three publishers in the U.S. alone are currently publishing new novels and reprints. And your statement about "bogged down in details and explanations"... all I can say to this is "huh?" Details abound in the appendicies of some novels, but the stories themselves are *never* overwhelmed by trivial detail or explanation! Vance is one of the *few* authors that knows the value of polishing a phrase, and is one of the best at trimming the extra fat from his work -- he never lets a scene go on for more than a page or two, unlike most of todays authors that devote entire *chapters* to a single conversation between two characters! > Being a self-professed Vance scolar Perhaps a refresher course is in order? :-) Jerry H. compiler of _The Work Of Jack Vance_ (U/M, June 1994) As an aside to DKM: I've always wondered what kind of influence Jack Vance had on your "formative years" -- especially since one of the key characters in The Continuing Time is named Mohammed Vance... ;-) **************** *** 02-05-95 *** **************** From: ap007@freenet.hsc.colorado.edu (maureen s. obrien) To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Benford -------- >"Great Sky River" is easily on my list of 10 Best SF Novels Ever. (Pretty >high on the list, too.) The year this book was out, when to my mind it was >undeniablythe finest book I'd read in years, that year the Nebula and Hugo >Awards were won by "Falling Free," by Lois McMaster Bujold, which was >pleasant and unthreatening 1950-In-Space. Aaaahhhhhh! _Now_ I understand why some folks were getting so anti-Bujold for a while there.... (I'm a Bujold fan -- we like her combination of humor & pain, her tightly constructed plots, and her very involving characters. But while she does good worldbuilding on a small scale, I can see where the contrast with _Sky River_ could be a problem.) Actually, I never got a chance to find out whether I liked Benford's characters _or_ worldbuilding. I started reading that tachyon novel and got stuck about the middle of Chapter 2, as I recall. Like Cherryh, in that -- you start wondering, why should I keep reading? And you put it down, and since there's no reason to pick it up again.... I guess I should try him again sometime; some Cherryh _can_ keep you from falling asleep long enough to get you to the worldbuilding set and archetypal storylines -- and when you reread her, you know what's coming so the boring bits seem shorter. And no, I don't need a person getting shot every chapter. I just need some prose that makes me want to keep moving the pages across my field of vision instead of falling asleep. Bujold is _fun_ to spend time with, even if she's describing the waste-disposal systems or the daycare. >the Rings. I think, across that span, there is room to describe alien >societies and the potential range of human evolution, without losing my >readers. I should think so! :) >My main characters *have* to be individuals who can be identified >with; but in subsidiary characters I can do more interesting work. You don't have to _identify_ with them -- just like them. Or at the least -- not _despise_ them. >Haven't read the "Culture" books, but they sound like the sort of thing I >like. I'll take a look for them. And Iain Banks can describe sewer systems, too! >As to your identifying with Trent, rather than Denice ... I'd guess that >it's because you're a young man, more than anything else. My female fans >appear to have liked her quite a bit. Well, I like her. But I don't identify with her. Didn't identify with Jalian, either. I _do_ identify with Miles Vorkosigan -- and he's a guy! Makes it difficult to talk with the Miles fans who want his bod.... :) I guess it depends on whether the character reminds you of you in some way, or just seems like a person you might meet. -- Maureen S. O'Brien ap007@freenet.HSC.colorado.edu "You must begin printing books again." **************** *** 02-05-95 *** **************** From: "john r. snead" To: continuing-time@umich.edu, Subject: 50's in space -------- I had a fun and possibly even useful idea for folks here to discuss. I, like DKM and several other folks on this list prefer non-50's in space sf (I like that phrase). Anyway, for our mutual reading pleasure why don't we compile a list. Here's mine _Carve the Sky_ by Alexander Jablokov _Eon_, _Eternity_, and _Moving Mars_ all by Great Bear _The Use of Weapons_, _Consider Phlebas_, and _Player of Games_ by Iain M. Banks Lord of Light and Creatures of Light and Darkness by Roger Zelazny The Alchemists and The Pathfinders both by Geary Gravel a number of books by Sydney J. Van Scyoc Aristoi by Walter Jon Williams Web of Angels by John M. Ford Any of Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality books And of course everything by DKM Any others? Obligatory CT reference (and bad Highlander III joke) What did the proto- Source say to its' rivals during the AI war? "There can be only One!" I hope this wasn't too off topic for anyone. -Heron jsnead@netcom.com **************** *** 02-05-95 *** **************** From: "rebecca a. drayer" To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Benford -------- On Sat, 4 Feb 1995, Maureen S. OBrien wrote: > Actually, I never got a chance to find out whether I liked Benford's > characters _or_ worldbuilding. I started reading that tachyon novel > and got stuck about the middle of Chapter 2, as I recall. Like Cherryh, > in that -- you start wondering, why should I keep reading? And you put > it down, and since there's no reason to pick it up again.... I guess > I should try him again sometime; some Cherryh _can_ keep you from falling > asleep long enough to get you to the worldbuilding set and archetypal > storylines -- and when you reread her, you know what's coming so the > boring bits seem shorter. The first time I tried to read _Timescape_ (the tachyon novel), I couldn't finish it either. But since the damn blurb looked so good, and it seemed to be the type of book I like (time travel, eco disasters), I eventually tried it again. I enjoyed it much better the second time, and started to read almost non-stop by the time I was about 100 pages from the end. (BTW, that ending was one of the better ones I've seen in a time travel story. I'm not sure I agree with Benford's view of history, but I liked the way he set things up). I guess in this case, it's okay to judge a book by its cover! ObCT reference: One line in EE always gets me laughing. It's when Carl is talking to Suzanne after being attacked in his car. He says something to the effect of, "They shot at me, almost killed Malko, and destroyed my car." (pause) "I'm really pissed about the car." Never fails. ****************************************************************************** Rebecca A. Drayer * radrayer@stud.med.cornell.edu First Year Medical Student * radrayer@panix.com Cornell University Medical College * How come every time I see the light at the end of the tunnel, it turns out to be a Metroliner? ****************************************************************************** **************** *** 02-05-95 *** **************** From: sean eric fagan To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Benford -------- >>My main characters *have* to be individuals who can be identified >>with; but in subsidiary characters I can do more interesting work. >You don't have to _identify_ with them -- just like them. Or at the least >-- not _despise_ them. That's not true. Ask anyone who's read Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series. >>As to your identifying with Trent, rather than Denice ... I'd guess that >>it's because you're a young man, more than anything else. My female fans >>appear to have liked her quite a bit. I don't really think that's why, because there have been female protagonists I've identified with before. Talia, from Mercedes Lackey's "Arrows of the Queen" series (the first Herald trilogy), springs to mind; McCafferey's Crystal Singer books is another one. No, I do think that the reason I didn't like the character of Denice as much was because Denice doesn't know who she is. Now, that's not a fault of the *writer* -- if that is what was being aimed for, it was a fantastic job. Trent *does* know who he is. He's a man with a Purpose, and he's got a well-defined sense of ethics ("Killing is wrong"). I would like to read more about Melissa, because she is going through some of the same problems Denice is, trying to find out who and what she is anymore. Her and Vance are very similar, in that respect, to Denice and Trent: Vance, like Trent, is a man with a Purpose, and a well-defined sense of ethics. (DKM's comments indicate that Vance is going to have a lot of changes coming along, and *that* will be interesting as well.) Melissa, like Denice, needs to define herself (it looks like she will, actually, and I assume she'll be one of the more important people for the Church of His Return). The problem was that Denice never did define herself, by the end of tLD. Or maybe it's that she redefined herself so many times I got lost. Denice strikes me as someone who mostly just drifts along in life. I think she knows that, too, because it does go well with her desire to *do something* -- she just doesn't know what, so is just making time until she figures it out. And, given who she is and who her friends are, odds are that the events will force her into a situation that will help her figure it out. I wonder if I'll identify more with her afterwards? >Well, I like [Denice]. But I don't identify with her. Didn't identify with >Jalian, either. Now that's interesting, because I can identify with Jalian, and I like her a lot. She's ruthless, and dangerous, but is very... honorable, I guess is the word. Although I wouldn't be safe with her, having too many Y chromosones ;). Sean. **************** *** 02-05-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Jack Vance -------- I got all girded up to go defend my comments about Vance, and then Jerry Hewett did it for me. Thanks. Vance was a great influence on me; I've been hearing people for any number of years now tell me that William Gibson is the greatest stylist SF has ever produced. I don't like Gibson's stories much, but I concede the man writes beautifuly ... but "greatest stylist?" A comment that can only have come from individuals who've never read Dying Earth, or Showboat World, Moon Moth or The Last Castle. Incidentally, I never said Vance sold badly; I said he hasn't sold as well as I wanted to. Heinlein, Clarke, Vance, Herbert, and Gibson have all outsold him; and those are the numbers I'm aiming at. Mohammed Vance was named for Jack Vance, yep. ~~~~~~~~~~ James Millar, now I'll *definitely* go and look up the Culture novels. **************** *** 02-05-95 *** **************** From: colomon To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: 50's in space -------- >I had a fun and possibly even useful idea for folks here to discuss. > >I, like DKM and several other folks on this list prefer non-50's in >space sf (I like that phrase). Anyway, for our mutual reading pleasure >why don't we compile a list. Ack. Probably the appropriate way to do this would be to compile a list by sending private e-mail to one person, who would then post the list to this mailing list. (I have this horrible picture of flame wars over what belongs on this list --- see the "Fantasy Canon" discussion on RASFW, for example.) Also, defining the terms better might be worthwhile. -Sol **************** *** 02-05-95 *** **************** From: fzimmerm@ciesin.org (frederick zimmerman) To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: looking to buy anything before TLD -------- I'm looking to buy books by Daniel Keys Moran. Anything except The Last Dancer, which I already have. Please send quotes via e-mail. --fred Frederick Zimmerman CIESIN, 2250 Pierce Road, University Center, MI 48710 e-mail: Frederick.Zimmerman@ciesin.org **************** *** 02-05-95 *** **************** From: colomon To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Long Run Movie -------- After posting what shouldn't be on this list, thought I'd better post something that should be on it to make up. I'm assuming most of us have now read the Long Run screenplay. I'm curious as to what others thought of it. I had fun reading it. And I guess it would be a good movie. But I think it isn't nearly as good as it should be. Some specific comments: The Emerald Eyes material. A good hunk of it doesn't really have anything to do with the main story of the movie. At the same time, it doesn't really do justice to the book Emerald Eyes. I think I'd jettison every thing from the beginning that doesn't directly touch on Trent or Vance. Trent running with mushroom cloud in background. Great visual. If the opening scenes can be squeezed enough, this should be where the title flashes. Killing Johnny Johnny. Very dumb. How the hell does Trent beat the Watchdog without an image? Nathan. Sad to loose him, but understandable. The news conference. Probably shouldn't have lost this. -Sol **************** *** 02-05-95 *** **************** From: david silberstein To: "d. k. moran list" Subject: Bantam: Wavelength newsletter -------- Want to send mail to someone at Bantem, telling them to be a little more enthusiastic about promoting DKM? Well, I picked up a sort of newsletter, titled "Wavelength" from a local bookstore a while back. It's Bantam/Spectra's SF letter, and it's Vol 1, issue 1, for Winter/ Spring 1995. It's a 5 page freebie, consisting of an interview with Connie Willis, (and info on her new book, _Remake_), an interview with Barbara Hambly (and info on her new Star Wars book), and info on Neal Stephenson's _The Diamond Age_. And of course, there is info on Bantam's upcoming SF for Jan-Apr 1995. Now: names. The Executive Editor is Jennifer Hershey, the Senior Editor is Tom Dupree, and a Contibuting Writer is David Morgan. I just grepped my continuing time log file, and apparantly Tom Dupree is DKM's current editor, and he has been sent a copy of the older log files. Maybe this isn't necessary. Still, here's a first draft of a letter I'm thinking of sending, in the hopes of getting some response from the publishing house. I'd appreciate thoughts and inputs, and I am wondering if perhaps a round of letters arriving from the various members of the list might help emphasize DKM's popularity. One thing I'm unsure of is how familiar Ms. Hershey would be with DKM, but I thought I'd put in that brief paragraph of info, given that (part of) Bantam did not know that DKM was a Bantam author! Has anyone else seen this newsletter? --------------------------------------------------- Attn: Jennifer Hershey Spectra Division Bantam Books 1540 Broadway New York, NY 10036 Dear Ms. Hershey, I read with interest the first issue of _Wavelength_, and I noticed that you suggested setting up a Reading Group in order to discuss a given author's work. I'd like to tell you about a Reading Group which currently exists on the Internet to discuss the writings of one Daniel Keys Moran, a Bantam author. Daniel Keys Moran is an ambitious author who has garnered a dedicated following of science fiction fans. At least part of the reason for his popularity is his excellent characterization, marvelous storytelling and well-thought-out plotting. The reason I describe him as "ambitious" is because of his long range plans - he has mapped out a "Future History", comparable to that of Robert A. Heinlein, stretching many thousands of years into the future, wrapping around thousands of years into the past (via time travel), and extending sideways in time as well. These are the tales of the "Continuing Time", (which is the main timeline he focuses on), and of the Great Wheel of Existence (which is the entire multiverse). I mention all this simply as introduction to a writer you may not be familiar with. Daniel Moran can describe his vision of the future much better, and I understand Tom Dupree, as his editor, should have Mr. Moran's proposals and summaries for his novels on file. The Reading Group I mention above is an Internet e-mail list. An e-mail list is probably the simplest method of distributing information to a large group of people on the Internet. A participant simply sends electronic mail to a "list server", which in this case is continuing-time@umich.edu, and the mail is sent on to all members on the mailing list. The received message can then be edited and commented on, and the response can be sent on in turn. In this manner, various topics can be discussed in a round-robin of commentary. The continuing-time list has been going since 1993, discussing all of Daniel Moran's works. Sadly, Bantam has let his earlier books, (_Armageddon Blues_, _The Ring_, _Emerald Eyes_ and _The Long Run_) go out of print, and some of the messages mailed to the list are along the lines of "Where can I find these earlier works?". The list membership is currently at least 71 people, [ NOTE: I got this figure by getting a unique, sorted list of everyone in my continuing-time logs. Obviously, this is only the people who posted messages to the list. Sol, could you please let me know exactly how many people are on the list? Thanks. ] and the volume of postings has been greatly increased by Daniel Keys Moran himself joining in! As a result of his donating some tantalizing first chapters, story fragments, outlines, and complete stories, we now have more to talk about than ever. What I'd like to suggest is for an issue of _Wavelength_ to have an interview with Daniel Moran, discussing his vision of the future. An interesting additional topic might be the Internet, and Mr. Moran's interaction with it, or Internet speculative fiction resources in general. I'm not saying that Bantam should create a gopher site or World Wide Web page, as Del Rey and Tor have done, but the Internet is a hot new topic, and it can be used to benefit both science fiction readers, writers, and publishers. In closing, I'd just like to say that I believe Bantam/ Spectra is doing both itself and Daniel Keys Moran a disservice by not promoting his works and allowing his books to go out of print. The fans are out there - many in the U.S. and Canada, but also quite a few in places as far away as Australia - and if as much emphasis was given to Daniel Moran's works as was given to, say, Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_, the sales generated would certainly justify the advertising outlay. Yours for better speculative fiction, David Silberstein --------------------------------------------------- So whaddaya think? ------- David S. **************** *** 02-05-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Bantam & other stuff... -------- Jennifer Hershey was my fiancee Heather's boss at Bantam. She's a charming young lady (younger than me -- how's that for success at an early age?) and of course she does *does* know who I am; she'll quite likely be invited to our wedding. She & Tom Dupree & I sat down a couple two-three months back and went through the Continuing Time, and they both came away quite impressed. That aside, the letter looks fine to me. ~~~~~~~~~~ I said: >>>My main characters *have* to be individuals who can be identified >>>with; but in subsidiary characters I can do more interesting work. Maureen said: >>You don't have to _identify_ with them -- just like them. Or at the least >>-- not _despise_ them. Sean said: >That's not true. Ask anyone who's read Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series. There are no rules that can't be broken; but that said, I think that being able to empathize with a character (to identify with him/her) is a lot more important than being able to like or admire that character. If that weren't true, no fiction with anti-heroes would ever succeed. For some readers (Maureen, quite possibly) being able to like the main character is the most important factor. I'm going to lose those readers, in some stories -- Tyrel November is *not* likable. (Though Bodhi is.) ~~~~~~~~~~ I like John Snead's idea regarding a collection of "non-1950s in space" stories; I'd certainly find it of use in guiding my reading. But I think Sol was correct in how it should be handled. ~~~~~~~~~~ Jina Chan (I like your name) said: >I think that Denice may well have defined herself by the end of tLD. Yes. >It's just that we don't know *how*, because we see so little of her by >that point (after all, it's very nearly the end of the book when she >decides to become a Dancer). TLD is a book, very simply, about Denice growing up. You'll get to see her as an adult in "AI War," and "Crystal Wind." Jina again: >So I'm glad you see your works in the same way [like Tolkien's]. >Maybe you'll achieve it; your accuracy can only be as good as your aim. My goal is to be the best science fiction writer in the world; to create a work of art so huge and so finely detailed and so brilliantly written that it will by common acclaim stand above any other piece of SF ever put on paper. I don't know how likely I am to accomplish this, but that's no reason not to try; and if I don't accomplish it it own't mean that I've failed, merely that I didn't succeed to the degree I wanted. You only live once. Live big. Jina: >I'm curious: did your female fans actually say they liked Denice >*more* than Trent? What's the sample size here? I'm really surprised >that people would like Denice more. Good question. I'd have to go back and look over my fan mail. Certainly the gender split is very real; 90% of my fan mail on tLR was male; about 50% of my fan mail on tLR is female. Do women (in general) like Denice better than Trent? I'm not sure. ~~~~~~~~~~ I don't really disagree with anything Sol has to say about the screenplay, though I'm not going to defend it at length; were reasons for the way things were done. You might be right about my killing Johnny being dumb; I wasn't happy doing it, but I had to trim several dozen pages from my first draft, and that was one of the things I trimmed. The screenplay's still too long, though. **************** *** 02-06-95 *** **************** From: colomon To: "d. k. moran list" Subject: Bantam: Wavelength newsletter -------- david silberstein writes: > The continuing-time list has been going since 1993, discussing all >of Daniel Moran's works. Sadly, Bantam has let his earlier books, >(_Armageddon Blues_, _The Ring_, _Emerald Eyes_ and _The Long Run_) go >out of print, and some of the messages mailed to the list are along the >lines of "Where can I find these earlier works?". I'd say "quite a few of the messages" . . . stronger statement and perfectly true. >The list membership is currently at least 71 people, I just checked, and there are 99 names on the list. >and if as much emphasis was given to Daniel Moran's works as was given >to, say, Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_, the sales generated would >certainly justify the advertising outlay. I don't know about justify the outlay (was it worthwhile for Snow Crash?). But I've just finished _Snow Crash_, and I'd imagine that given the same exposure, _Long Run_ would do better. (Not a judgement of quality, but of accessibility.) -Sol **************** *** 02-06-95 *** **************** From: david silberstein To: "d. k. moran list" Subject: The Source and taps -------- (DKM replied to my comment on Lord November thus:) >>>Tyrel was tapped, but his tap was designed for November's net, not Sol >>>System's Source; the Source's Place lacked the equipment to >>>decode the signal from Tyrel's tap [...] > >>Would the Source really stand for such a situation? I should think > >Consider a couple of reasons why the Source might not want people to think >it had access to their taps ... the Face of Night takes lessons in paranoia >from the Source. I still have problems with this - if I, a relatively ignorant individual, thinks that there is something odd in this situation, wouldn't a native of the Source's time, who has a much better grasp of the sophistication of the Source, find something very suspicious in the Source's "inability" to interface with something from what is, after all, another human-derived computer net? After, all I should think that duplicating the equipment would be a trivial matter of resource allocation, and duplicating the protocols used would be an even more trivial matter of computing power. "I'm sorry Dave. I cannot do that." just doesn't sound right, at least when it has anything to do with computing or data communications. On the other hand.... If Tyrel were to deliberately disable his tap, on the grounds that (say) he had heard odd rumors about OutSystemers who had allowed the Source to talk to their taps, and had suddenly started making turnaround decisions favorable to UEI (Shades of Vinge's Blight, eh?) - that I could believe. "What are you doing, Dave?" "Turning off my tap." "Why are you doing that, Dave?" "Using my tap gives me, um, a headache. And I find it more pleasant to talk." Paranoia on the part of those who deal with the Source is easier to accept than naivete or stupidity. Given that a "mere" avatar of the Source is described like this: >A step further along the curve, we find an avatar of the Source. He >shows up toward the end of Book One of "Lord November." He looks human, >on the outside; get under the skin and he's not, not remotely. His >"brain" is about the size of a walnut and has nearly as much computing >power packed into it as can be found on all of Earth during Trent's >lifetime. and the Source is described like this: >Finally, there's the Source itself. "Where" it's located is a reasonable >question; nobody knows. It's used tachyon technology quite extensively in >its circuitry; many of its processes occur at significant multiples of the >speed of light. ...believing *any* sort of limitation is dangerously naive. And stupid. ---- David S **************** *** 02-06-95 *** **************** From: colomon To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Long Run Movie -------- DKM writes: >You might be right about my killing Johnny being dumb; I wasn't happy >doing it, but I had to trim several dozen pages from my first draft, and >that was one of the things I trimmed. The screenplay's still too long, >though. Agreed. Perhaps a radical rethinking is in order. --Throw out everything before Trent's arrest. Just throw the audience straight into the action. You loose a lot of the subtleties, but I think the plot will remain intact. (Heck, you basically get rid of lots of characters who aren't important to the main action story.) --Make two movies: The Long Run and The Wall. Go direct to video. -Sol >From the Internet Top 100 SF list: >^67 The Long Run Daniel Keys Moran 6.41 (10) Moving up in the world. **************** *** 02-06-95 *** **************** From: pilsang park To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Speedfreaks -------- Howdy all, I was just wondering if anyone's read the latest issue of _Time_ magazine? There's an article in it under the Business section titled, I think, "Automobiles That Think." Read it. Then compare w/DKM's carcomps and you gotta wonder...is DKM really a Jalian D'Arsennette in disguise? :) PilSang **************** *** 02-06-95 *** **************** From: mike giroux To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Elite vs. Cobras -------- Am I the only one who sees a great similarity between the PKF Elites and Zahn's Cobras? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, I'd just wondering if DKM wrote his Elites as better (or more realistic) Cobras, or if he came up with the enhancements indepently. I remember reading another "enhanced soldier" book several years ago, but I can only remember fuzzy details. These soldiers were designed to fight in vacuum. The hero winding up addicted to pleasure steroids, and most of the action taking place on one of the gas giant moon, maybe Titan. Anybody have any idea what book I'm talking about? I'd like to find it and re-read it. -- Mike Giroux, mikeg@llc.org Charny, Quebec, Canada **************** *** 02-06-95 *** **************** From: bryant durrell To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Bantam: Wavelength newsletter -------- Solomon Foster writes: > david silberstein writes: > >and if as much emphasis was given to Daniel Moran's works as was given > >to, say, Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_, the sales generated would > >certainly justify the advertising outlay. > I don't know about justify the outlay (was it worthwhile for Snow > Crash?). But I've just finished _Snow Crash_, and I'd imagine that > given the same exposure, _Long Run_ would do better. (Not a judgement > of quality, but of accessibility.) Um, not to burst bubbles, but does anyone know how much exposure was given to Snow Crash *before* it became a cult hit? It came out in trade paperback, just like Stephenson's first two books, and as I recall it wasn't advertised terribly hard or any such; I'm a big Stephenson fan, so I snapped it up asap and then realized a month or two later that everyone was *talking* about it. Frankly, Stephenson is a hot writer who managed to tap into a fair number of cultural touchpoints. Snow Crash made it big without a lot of push for Bantam. Part of this was just luck, of course, and it's likely that Long Run and the Continuing Time in general has the potential to be as big a success, but please don't fall into the trap of assuming Snow Crash made it because Bantam hyped it if we aren't sure it did. It's kind of refreshing, actually -- I like knowing that a book can make it without having to get the publicity machine behind it. -- Bryant Durrell ( http://pft.com/~durrell ) durrell@pft.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Excuse me. This life isn't working. I want to exchange it." "Have you tried plugging it in?" **************** *** 02-06-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Various -------- Various people said: >Read it. Then compare w/DKM's carcomps and you gotta wonder...is DKM >really a Jalian D'Arsennette in disguise? :) Nope. You predict enough of anything, you're liable to hit the target in a few places; but "carcomps" is hardly original with me. Dozens of others got there first. I am kind of proud of my Images, though. I believe I got there first with that; and I believe they're pretty damn accurate. >Am I the only one who sees a great similarity between the PKF Elites and >Zahn's Cobras? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, I'd just The Elite existed long before I ever read anything about the Cobras; there's a draft of tLR from 1978 or thereabouts with Elite described much as they are in EE. That said, I've sure read the Cobra books; Zahn does great action. He's not one of the people who's influenced my writing much, though. And for that matter, his Cobras (and my Elite) are not terribly original in a lot of ways. Military cyborgs are a longtime staple of SF. >I remember reading another "enhanced soldier" book several years ago, but >I can only remember fuzzy details. These soldiers were designed to fight >in vacuum. The hero winding up addicted to pleasure steroids, and most of I read that book -- Karl Wagner? That's probably wrong (I may be thinking of a New Age musician with that name, for all of me; I'm not even sure there's such a peson who writes SF) but it's the name that comes to mind. The blurb on the back was something about it making Starship Troopers look like a bunch of grade school children, or some such. Re Snow Crash: >It's kind of refreshing, actually -- I like knowing that a book can >make it without having to get the publicity machine behind it. The publicity machine was behind that book -- which may simply reflect Bantam's belief that the book would do well. These are very much self- fulfilling prophecies, in a lot of ways. The publicity machine is likely to take a shine to "AI War," upcoming -- This is not to say Snow Crash is not a good book; it's one of my favorite cyberpunk SF novels. (One of very few.) At any rate, it might not be the best idea to specifically compare TLR or anything else to Stephenson's work; I don't know how Snow Crash sold, but TLR might well have outsold it. That book did pretty well. "Dancer" didn't do so well by comparison; but Bantam didn't think anyone was going to remember me after a four-year break (almost two years of that, of course, being time on their end; after I missed my deadline by a year, I imagine they figured, No hurry.) They were wrong; they know they were wrong; "AI War" will surely get better treatment. **************** *** 02-06-95 *** **************** From: sean eric fagan To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Various -------- DKM said: >Various people said: >>Read it. Then compare w/DKM's carcomps and you gotta wonder...is DKM > >really a Jalian D'Arsennette in disguise? :) >Nope. You predict enough of anything, you're liable to hit the target in a >few places; but "carcomps" is hardly original with me. Dozens of others got >there first. >I am kind of proud of my Images, though. I believe I got there first with >that; and I believe they're pretty damn accurate. carcomps will happen. Probably not as quickly as they do in DKM's books, but they will. And after they've been around for a while, I can see them being made mandatory. CMU has a van that can drive on roads at about 35MPH; it does pretty good. It is controlled by three or five computers, running neural net software; the software was trained to drive, and then did so. (Incidently, apparantly it follows the yellow line on the street ;).) Glowpaint will happen, probably. I already described to the mailing list how somebody has come up with paint that, when an electric current is passed through it, produces heat. It's not too much a stretch to go from that to producing visible light instead. The question is... would this be something used? And I'm not sure about that. I don't know if DKM ever got my letters, but I sent him an article or two on General Magic's tools, which seem (to me) to be one of the first steps in getting towards an Image. DKM sent out an excerpt, a while back, describing the evolution of the InfoNet, and Trent's culmination as an AI. I was very impressed with that, because I thought it was dead-on accurate. The "Splintering" he described, for both the New Human Race and the Old Human Race, will probably happen. Cyborgs will probably happen, if the technology ever allows for it. (I don't know how likely they are to be like the Elite, since it's pretty hard to speed up the eyes that much without speeding up the rest of the brain, which is also a pretty hard thing to do...) And, of course, AI's. I think AI's are probably inevitable, and I'm a bit worried about them. There's a line in _Neuromancer_ that says some AI's are nothing more than very expensive pets -- I think that one of the first, wide-spread commercial applications for an AI will be to have an artificial pet, something that can be affectionate, and learn, and play. And, of course, once you've got even an stupid AI, you can then go to an intelligent AI pretty quickly. >"AI War" will surely get better treatment. Good. Whenwhenwhenwhenwhenwhenwhen? ;) Sean. **************** *** 02-06-95 *** **************** From: bryant durrell To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Various -------- d.moran8@genie.geis.com writes: > >I remember reading another "enhanced soldier" book several years ago, but > >I can only remember fuzzy details. These soldiers were designed to fight > >in vacuum. The hero winding up addicted to pleasure steroids, and most of > I read that book -- Karl Wagner? That's probably wrong (I may be thinking of > a New Age musician with that name, for all of me; I'm not even sure there's > such a peson who writes SF) but it's the name that comes to mind. The blurb > on the back was something about it making Starship Troopers look like a > bunch of grade school children, or some such. _Armor_, by John Steakley? (My spelling may be off.) I think that's it. An OK book. (Karl Edward Wagner is a heroic fantasy/horror writer, btw. Trivia R Us. He wrote the Kane series about a Conanesque semi-immortal mage-warrior, very Cthuloid.) > Re Snow Crash: > >It's kind of refreshing, actually -- I like knowing that a book can > >make it without having to get the publicity machine behind it. > The publicity machine was behind that book -- which may simply reflect > Bantam's belief that the book would do well. These are very much self- > fulfilling prophecies, in a lot of ways. The publicity machine is likely to > take a shine to "AI War," upcoming -- And do note that if DKM sez Bantam was pushing Snow Crash from the moment it came out, I believe him. He's in touch; I'm not. I'd love to know *why*, Stephenson certainly didn't look like a hot author from the perspective of previous sales, and his second book did worse than his first. But I can believe that publishing companies are weird. -- Bryant Durrell ( http://pft.com/~durrell ) durrell@pft.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Excuse me. This life isn't working. I want to exchange it." "Have you tried plugging it in?" **************** *** 02-06-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Lord November -- -------- Was re-reading LN earlier today, and took a look at the scene that caused David Silberstein trouble, and I think he's right. Scene needs to be revised. Regardless of the levels of paranoia involved there the implications don't hold true, and it needs to be fixed. **************** *** 02-06-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Book selling -- -------- My fiancee (& former editor at Bantam) was glancing through my mail & she made the valuable and accurate point that Bryant Durrell's correct at one level -- books *do* take off sometimes without much in the way of promotion or backing. Snow Crash wasn't one of those, though. Why did Snow Crash get pushed? It was a good novel, in the right place at the right time. Luck is always an element -- John Grisham's first novel sold for $15,000; his second novel sold for $600,000. Was "The Firm" really forty times better than "A Time To Kill?" Hardly; if anything it was an inferior book. But they could describe it to the sales reps and chain buyers in one very interesting sentence. Snow Crash may or may not be a better book than, say, tLR; but it was certainly a good, accessible, and amusing novel (purchased by Bantam's Executive Editor, I believe, as opposed to TLR, which was purchased by a junior editor -- and all this stuff makes a difference, folks.) **************** *** 02-07-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Some fun stuff -- -------- Here's some fun talking stuff from later on in AI War: "Being rich is a bitch," said Trent. "You're rich, now," said Chandler. "Nobody's rich by comparison with you," said Trent. "They say you're a billionaire." Chandler laughed. "Yes, I am." "What's funny about that?" The amused look did not leave him. "When I was a boy, there were billionaires all over the place. Couldn't take a leak without splashing one. Of course, those were billionaires in pounds, or dollars, or some such, not Credit Units." "Dollars and pounds," said Trent doubtfully. "Those are like ozzes, right?" Chandler said, "Ozzes?" Trent said, "Ozzes. Like, a man would weigh thirty stone and eighteen ozzes?" "No," said Chandler slowly, holding a chunk of bread in one hand, "pounds were money. English money. Well, they were also a kind of weight_" "Like ozzes." "Ounces." "Sure, those too." "An `oz'," Chandler explained carefully, "was an ounce. It was an abbreviation for ounce." "Oh . . . nothing to do with Dorothy, then?" Trent asked curiously. "Not that I know of." Chandler paused. "You could look all this stuff up, you know. In your case it wouldn't be hard." "Sure," Trent agreed. "But then what? There I'd be, with my head crammed full of useless information." He shook his head, that was not crammed full of useless information. "Limited protein storage capacity, Frank. You have to keep these things in perspective." And then a little later ... Somewhere around his eighth GoodBeer, Jimmy Ramirez said, "So humanity is doomed, huh?" Jimmy shook his head. "That seems a little pessimistic." "I didn't use that word," said Trent carefully. His lips were numb. "Doomed. I didn't say that." Jimmy Ramirez nodded wisely. "Ah." He stared out across the Martian tundra. He and Trent sat together in Trent's hospital room, out on the patio, working their way through the GoodBeer. The patio was enclosed by a bubble that gave them a panoramic view of the Martian landscape. Olympus Mons soared up before them, off to the northwest, striking up into the darkening sky as night fell around them. Stars were beginning to come out. They . Trent hadn't seen twinkling stars in six years, not since leaving Mars. Trent sipped at his GoodBeer. "I miss Earth. I miss good coffee. I miss the feel of the wind on my face. I miss ." "You really think the AIs are going to wipe us out?" Trent blinked, a touch drunkenly. "Did I say that? I don't think I said that, either. You're putting words in my mouth," he accused. "You said they were going to try to." "I don't think I said that, either. What I said was . . ." Trent tried to remember. "Something about dragons? There were dragons in it, I remember that. The dragons were a good bit." "Check your inskin," Jimmy suggested. "Uhm . . ." Trent thought about it. "All right." A moment later he said, "I didn't say the the race was going to get wiped out. Just that it was going to stop mattering, one way or another, in the sweep of history. Either we're going to destroy ourselves, or we're going to survive; and if we survive, our children will amazing. didn't know what it was doing; today we almost do. We could make supermen. We could make children better than ourselves. And that doesn't even take nanotech into account. The AIs are getting better hardware all the time; and they're already smarter than we are. The day is coming, Jimmy, sooner than you think, when reality on the other side of Interface will be more complex -- more real -- than reality on this side of Interface. Our children aren't going to look like us, Jimmy, but that doesn't mean they won't be our children." Jimmy shook his head. "My children are gonna look just like me. Brown skin, muscles, and handsome as Hell." Trent took a swallow of his cold beer, staring out at darkening slopes of the huge mountain. "Something better than us is coming." **************** *** 02-07-95 *** **************** From: david silberstein To: "d. k. moran list" Subject: Re: Elite vs. Cobras -------- On Mon, 6 Feb 1995 08:24:41 -0500 (EST) you said: >Am I the only one who sees a great similarity between the PKF Elites and >Zahn's Cobras? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, I'd just >wondering if DKM wrote his Elites as better (or more realistic) Cobras, >or if he came up with the enhancements indepently. Cyborgs have been aroung a *long* time. Just think - wasn't there this man, I think his name was Steve Austin, who was barely alive? Didn't they rebuild him? :-) But on a more serious note - I think the concept of the improved soldier can be traced back to the days of the armored knights. Just think - he was bigger and faster than your average man (by virture of being mounted on a powerful warhorse), he was (sort of) proof against most missiles (because of the armor, of course), and he usually had better weapons (the noble classes could afford the time and money necessary to hire the best swordsmiths, and buy the best metal for the swordsmith to use). He even had some of the same problems (he didn't fall very well). Humans are tool users. Integrating tools with the body is even more obvious than genetically engineering the body to be a better tool. And those who wage war will want their soldiers to have the best weapons, and be the best at using the weapons. The cyborg soldier is an almost inevitable concept. --- David S I'm a sort of cyborg: I wear glasses. :-) **************** *** 02-07-95 *** **************** From: marcus eubanks To: continuing time mailing list Subject: Re: Elite vs. Cobras -------- On Mon, 6 Feb 1995, David Silberstein wrote: > was bigger and faster than your average man (by virture of being mounted > on a powerful warhorse), he was (sort of) proof against most missiles > (because of the armor, of course), and he usually had better weapons ...but boy, did he have a rough time with folks sporting cross-bows or a good long-bow. Sorta like the elite versus those xray lasers... Marcus Eubanks (n3etr) Temple Med '96 Philadelphia, PA USA "A person with an inconvenient value-system." **************** *** 02-07-95 *** **************** From: vescovo@netcom.com (victor l. vescovo) To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Cover art in The Continuing Time Series -------- Just curious. Would like to take a poll of the group here on how they felt about the cover art of Sen Moran's various books. Would also like His description of how the artwork gets done/chosen and his degree of influence upon it. Of all the books, I think Emerald Eyes had the best cover art by a significant margin, with the Long Run coming in second. I was actually a bit disappointed by the cover of The Last Dancer. It was far too busy and what in the hell was that on Denice's forehead? Was that supposed to be an inskin? And why the Uzi? I never remember her having an Uzi, a vari-laser, maybe, but not an Uzi. The cover of A. Blues was okay, I guess, but could have been much better by focusing on Jalian and her exotic features as opposed to the doorway in time. Anyway, just my opinions. Would like to hear those of others, given, I think, that cover art can play perhaps a significant role in getting new readers attracted to an author. But perhaps I'm wrong. Bad cover art can definiteyl hurt you. And what should the cover art for the AI War look like? I would actually like to see something *very* simple and perhaps a little abstract. No persons depicted, just something like a panel of blinking, binary lights that might spell out the name of an AI in ASCII or something. Black cover, silver letters. Or maybe that's a bit too dark. *** vescovo@netcom.com *** *** Victor Lance Vescovo *** "Live every day as if it's going to be your last -- one day, you're sure to be right." - Lt. Harry "Breaker" Morant **************** *** 02-07-95 *** **************** From: sean eric fagan To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Some fun stuff -- -------- >Here's some fun talking stuff from later on in AI War: And here are some comments ;). > "Being rich is a bitch," said Trent. [...] > "Sure," Trent agreed. "But then what? There I'd be, with my head crammed > full of useless information." He shook his head, that was not crammed full > of useless information. "Limited protein storage capacity, Frank. You have > to keep these things in perspective." Right off the bat, this reminded me, strongly, of a similar conversation between Chandler and Carl, in EE... >And then a little later ... > > Somewhere around his eighth GoodBeer, Jimmy Ramirez said, "So humanity is [...] > Trent took a swallow of his cold beer, staring out at darkening slopes of > the huge mountain. "Something better than us is coming." My second thought is that both of these passages are related. Trent's comment about "limited protein storage" is what makes me think that. Other thoughts that have flittered through my head are due to knowing some of the outcome -- about the coming of the Source. I had initially assumed that the AI Wars were between the AIs and Datawatch; Jimmy's comment makes me think that it could be between some of the AIs and humanity as a whole (but that's hard to picture, because Ring wouldn't allow any AI to survive long if it thought said AI was a potential threat to Americans -- unless, of course, Ring is sufficiently warped and damaged that it has become, well, insane). But now I'm wondering if the AI Wars aren't between a new AI -- the Source -- and the rest of the AIs, with humanity just being caught in the middle. If so, where does the Source come from? (Again, back to initial thoughts -- I had originally thought that the Source was just the result of all of the remaining AIs banding together towards the end of the AI Wars, and the new entity had been formed. But that's not necessarily the case.) Six months until August. Too long. I want _The AI War_ now :(. Sean. **************** *** 02-07-95 *** **************** From: dave@tso4a.can.cdc.com (dave weil) To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: Cover art in The Continuing Time Series -------- > Would also like His > description of how the artwork gets done/chosen and his degree of influence > upon it. "His?" Are we elevating him perhaps a bit too much, or is there something I missed? :) > Of all the books, I think Emerald Eyes had the best cover art by a > significant margin, with the Long Run coming in second. I was actually a > bit disappointed by the cover of The Last Dancer. It was far too busy and > what in the hell was that on Denice's forehead? Was that supposed to be an > inskin? And why the Uzi? I never remember her having an Uzi, a vari-laser, > maybe, but not an Uzi. Actually, I haven't been thrilled by any of it. The cover of _EE_ may look good, but does not match the story. _tAB_ and _tLR_ had covers that were (relatively) meaningful w.r.t. the story, and I like them for that. I like the cover of _tLR_ because it's the most accurate, despite it not being visually exciting. (Do the Aerosmiths *really* look like they're screaming through the air at a few hundred km/h?) I also appreciate clean (as opposed to busy or cluttered covers) so that may have some influence. I agree about the cover of _tLD_. Were it not a buy-on-sight author I would not have purchased a book with that cover. Looks too much like too many "military SF" novels I've been dodging over the years... And even once I got into the book, it took me a while to accept the fact that it _was_ most likely Denice on the cover and not Callia or Melissa. Ick. > The cover of A. Blues was okay, I guess, but could have been much better by > focusing on Jalian and her exotic features as opposed to the doorway in time. Um, no. I disagree there. I can remember seeing, but never picking up, _tAB_ many times before I finally bought it (and I have no idea why I finally did so, though I'm really glad I did.) Had the cover focused exclusively on Jalian, it would have run smack into my bimbo-filter and stayed on the shelf forever. Fair or not, you can't avoid judging new stuff by the cover... (Hell, I picked up my first Tom Holt book 'cause it had the same art Pratchett's books had and then looked decent when I browsed chapter 1.) 'Sides, Jim Burns does good art (when he's not drawing women with huge breasts); that's probably my favourite cover. > Anyway, just my opinions. Would like to hear those of others, given, I > think, that cover art can play perhaps a significant role in getting new > readers attracted to an author. But perhaps I'm wrong. Bad cover art can > definiteyl hurt you. Both are true. PNH was having a discussion with various people on r.a.sf.w, wanting to know what was good and what wasn't. Topic came up because some people were complaining about the cover of (I believe) _China Mountain Zhang_ (sp?). As PNH pointed out, no publisher wants to sell a book with a bad cover, but as the discussion revealed, there are various groups to which various cover designs are attractive. The goal is to match the cover to the desired audience... (Actually, maybe they _should_ put art we don't like on the books - we'll grumble, but buy the books anyway, and it might attact some new readers... :) > And what should the cover art for the AI War look like? I would actually > like to see something *very* simple and perhaps a little abstract. No > persons depicted, just something like a panel of blinking, binary lights > that might spell out the name of an AI in ASCII or something. Ew! *ASCII*? Ick! No, we were just discussing not doing the 20th-century- in-space. Nothing worse than dated in-jokes, and we can't presume that ASCII will be in use forever. Actually, wait a minute. _BLINKING LIGHTS_?! My computer has one light on it - a power light. The server upstairs has a little panel that displays a histogram (in lights) of utilisation of the various CPUs, but that's a pure marketing gimmick, there only because some marketroid thought that a fridge-sized computer wouldn't sell without a few blinking lights. Blinking lights are _already_ passe. Much better would be a scene from a Player's POV of Images playing or fighting in the Wind. > Black cover, silver letters. > Or maybe that's a bit too dark. Absolutely. Forget black. Too overused anyway, and I automatically de-rate books in black covers, just like I tend to ignore books that use the jagged "horror" fonts... But if the books due out in less than a year, won't they already have commissioned the art? Isn't this discussion a bit late? - Dave **************** *** 02-07-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Cover art for "AI War" -------- The AI War cover art is completed. It's from the same artist who did "The Last Dancer," San Julian. It shows Trent, Mohammed Vance, and Denice on the cover; the painting of Trent is very nice. The images of Denice & Vance are a little off (for my imagination) but I expect that sort of thing is inevitable. One for three is probably something to be grateful for. Aside from that it looks much like the "Last Dancer" cover. Of my covers, my favorite is probably still the cover of "Armageddon Blues." Weirdly enough, that painting shows hills & such that are very similar to the actual spot where I had Jalian come through that gate -- I wonder if Jim Burns has ever been to Pomona, California? If he didn't he lucked out in a very fascinating coincidence. **************** *** 02-08-95 *** **************** From: "mike rosenberg" To: continuing-time@umich.edu, d.moran8@genie.geis.com Subject: Re: Cover art for "AI War" -------- On Feb 7, 6:19pm, d.moran8@genie.geis.com wrote: > Subject: Cover art for "AI War" >The AI War cover art is completed. It's from the same artist who did >"The Last Dancer," San Julian. It shows Trent, Mohammed Vance, and >Denice on the cover; the painting of Trent is very nice. The images of >Denice & Vance are a little off (for my imagination) but I expect that >sort of thing is inevitable. One for three is probably something to be >grateful for. > >Aside from that it looks much like the "Last Dancer" cover. > >Of my covers, my favorite is probably still the cover of "Armageddon >Blues." Weirdly enough, that painting shows hills & such that are very >similar to the actual spot where I had Jalian come through that gate -- >I wonder if Jim Burns has ever been to Pomona, California? If he didn't >he lucked out in a very fascinating coincidence. is there any chance at all of _ai war_ being issued in hardcover? perhaps a limited edition pressing? mike **************** *** 02-08-95 *** **************** From: andrew mccoll To: continuing-time@umich.edu, dave weil Subject: Re: Cover art in The Continuing Time Series -------- I liked the cover art for the Long Run best I think its really cool. I have a poster sized version of it at home. The Emerald Eyes art work is great too. skippy skippy@tartarus.uwa.edu.au University of Western Australia "Reasonable is for other people" Crawley WA 6907 -Skippy **************** *** 02-09-95 *** **************** From: david silberstein To: "d. k. moran list" Subject: Cover Art -------- vescovo@netcom.com (Victor L. Vescovo) said: >Of all the books, I think Emerald Eyes had the best cover art by a >significant margin, with the Long Run coming in second. I was actually a >bit disappointed by the cover of The Last Dancer. It was far too busy and >what in the hell was that on Denice's forehead? Was that supposed to be an >inskin? And why the Uzi? I never remember her having an Uzi, a vari-laser, >maybe, but not an Uzi. True, but I think you're demanding too much of the artist. Denice *was* a bodyguard, after all, and she was used to a large variety of weapons. The artist may have been trying to depict an autoshot, which as I understand it, is the decendant of today's machine gun. I don't think it's the artist's fault that he (or she?) isn't a weapons designer. dave@tso4a.can.cdc.com (Dave Weil) says: >Actually, I haven't been thrilled by any of it. The cover of _EE_ may look >good, but does not match the story. _tAB_ and _tLR_ had covers that were >(relatively) meaningful w.r.t. the story, and I like them for that. I don't agree with you that the cover *has* to match the story - although I do definitely prefer it. I was looking at some Michael Whelan covers (I think he would do a great job with all of DKM's work), and I noticed, as one example, that the cover of Heinlein's _Job_ depicts Alex Hergensheimer/Graham, floating, with a large halo, surrounded by the various debris of his hectic adventures through alternate earths. It's "Not In the Story" - but it *works*. Maybe because _Job_ is a comedy - I think hectic covers with humor are appropriate. That being said - my complaint is not just that the cover was busy or cluttered or a not the best depiction of Denice. I think the whole thing was just too *disconnected*. There were people and things from throughout the book, but they had nothing to do with each other! My preference for the cover (and who knows? maybe for the next reprint) would have been a diptych: Front cover: Denice, dancing gracefully in F.X. Chandler's gym, eyes closed, with giant Dvan standing and staring at her in dumbfounded awe. Back cover: 1 of 2 possibilities 1) Sedon, dancing down the Flame in the time before his rebellion. 2) Denice, moving throught the vicious kata of nightways before her teacher, Robert Yo. The first possiblity would contrast the two Last Dancers of their respective eras. The second (which I prefer) would contrast Denice's two choices: shia or shiabre - the Dance of Life or the Dance of Death. And as for AI wars - I dunno. DKM's fragment of conversation between Trent & Jimmy, regarding the different sides of the Interface, made me think that perhaps a similar compare and contrast might work - One side would be Trent, sitting in lotus, apparantly serene - and (with some sort of connective artwork) show him as actually being furiously active in the Crystal Wind (i.e., doing a whole bunch of things at once - "talking" to different Players and AIs, eluding web angels, fighting other entities, breaking into systems, auditing information from all over Sol System, etc, etc). When you depict computer activity, I think you have to sacrifice realism for accessibility. Andrew McCOLL says: >I liked the cover art for the Long Run best I think its really cool. I >have a poster sized version of it at home. *Where* did you get *that*?! And in Australia, too! --- David S **************** *** 02-09-95 *** **************** From: "jim l. sather" To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: FW: Cover art in The Continuing Time Series -------- | From: Victor L. Vescovo | Of all the books, I think Emerald Eyes had the best cover art by a | significant margin, with the Long Run coming in second. I was actually a | bit disappointed by the cover of The Last Dancer. I really like the cover to EE. While one can object, as Dave Weil did, that the scene depicted doesn't occur in the book, it does give that feel of desperation/violence/protection that accurately characterizes the mood. Plus I like the art for its own sake. It was a large part of what attracted me to the book (EE was the first DKM book I'd seen). I've learned not to trust blurbs too much (seen too many that make what turns out to be a good book sound bad) but the fact that the blurb was ok helped seal it. I also liked the cover to LR. Nice perspective view of the spacescraper. I like the covers to EE and LR well enough to put them on a wall if I had the chance. (I've heard stories about sometimes prints to covers becoming available, but don't know if it's routinely possible; anybody know more?) The cover to AB was good, I liked it, just maybe not as much as the above two. I'm not indifferent, just not blown away. I didn't like the cover to LD much. I don't go for montage-type artwork very much. Though it does give a good sense of the breadth and multi-threadedness of the plot. Jim **************** *** 02-09-95 *** **************** From: andrew mccoll To: "d. k. moran list" , david silberstein Subject: Re: Cover Art -------- On Wed, 8 Feb 1995, David Silberstein wrote: > *Where* did you get *that*?! > And in Australia, too! Its really amazing what you get out here in the lucky country. I dont know if you've ever encountered them but some of the more prolific science fiction cover artists have released book/portfolio things of their work. They're about A3 paper sized and the cover art for The Long Run appears in one by Jim Burns? I not really sure on that name Ill have to check. Skippy skippy@tartarus.uwa.edu.au University of Western Australia "Reasonable is for other people" Crawley WA 6907 -Skippy **************** *** 02-09-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Jim Burns -------- >Its really amazing what you get out here in the lucky country. I dont >know if you've ever encountered them but some of the more prolific science >fiction cover artists have released book/portfolio things of their work. >They're about A3 paper sized and the cover art for The Long Run appears in >one by Jim Burns? I not really sure on that name Ill have to check. "Lightship, the Art of Jim Burns." I've got it. Nice book. The cover for "TAB" isn't in it, unfortunately -- that's the other Burns cover I've had. Almost had an opportunity to buy the TLR cover at the World SF Convention in San Francisco, a couple years back. Unfortunately I didn't know the painting was on sale ($3K, which was a lot, but I'd have paid it) until after someone had already bought it. **************** *** 02-09-95 *** **************** From: ap007@freenet.hsc.colorado.edu (maureen s. obrien) To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: What makes folks keep reading (IMO) -------- Good writing style. (and if that's all the writer's got, you get modern lit's genre) Good characters. Easiest -- likeable characters (say, Robin Hood) Harder -- likeable characters that you identify with Hardest -- unlikeable characters that you identify with anyway (but you'd better have a good reason, or folks won't _reread_ it) Good plot. (and a story with just that can live forever, at least as an urban legend or folktale. Now granted, the writer's name will be forgotten -- but hey, you get your immortality where you can.) The hardest thing to do is to bring all these elements (and a bunch more, like theme and conflict and all that good stuff) together in the proper proportions. Season to taste and serve to readers. I'd be interested to see how you folks would rank these elements in necessity for your reading pleasure.... -- Maureen S. O'Brien ap007@freenet.HSC.colorado.edu "You must begin printing books again." **************** *** 02-09-95 *** **************** From: matt hughes To: continuing-time@umich.edu, "maureen s. obrien" Subject: Re: What makes folks keep reading (IMO) -------- Hmmm ... I would add another (at least one) element - a background which works. By this, I mean the world the author portrays must be realistic or interesting or at the very least unobtrusive. The plot can't just take place in a vacuum (there are exceptions which work, but they are few and far between in my experience, and all that I can think of fall in the realm of "VERY experimental fiction"). The author must do a decent job of "world-building", as it is called in the SF/Fantasy genre. This is not enough to keep my interest for long, but it can turn a merely good book into a great book, in my opinion. > Good writing style. (and if that's all the writer's got, you get > modern lit's genre) That's certainly not how I would characterize much of modern lit (if you mean the same thing by that that I do). Good writing style is another thing that won't hold my attention on its own. It can, however, kill a book or, as with my addition above, turn an otherwise good book into a great book. I have started novels that were so badly written that I just couldn't read them. > Good characters. > > Easiest -- likeable characters (say, Robin Hood) > Harder -- likeable characters that you identify with > Hardest -- unlikeable characters that you identify with anyway > (but you'd better have a good reason, or folks won't _reread_ it) This is probably the most key element for me. I can enjoy a book with marginal writing, plot, and background but good characters. I may not go back to it too many times, but I can enjoy it. > Good plot. (and a story with just that can live forever, at least as > an urban legend or folktale. Now granted, the writer's name will > be forgotten -- but hey, you get your immortality where you can.) Probably the least important factor for me. Some of my favorite works have basically hackneyed plots or, in a few cases, no readily discernable plots at all. A good plot can't hurt, but it's not too important to me. Again, though, a good plot can raise a good book much higher in my estimation. Also, a truly bad plot may harm the characterisation, too - plot is what allows for character development. > The hardest thing to do is to bring all these elements (and a bunch > more, like theme and conflict and all that good stuff) together > in the proper proportions. Season to taste and serve to readers. And these are the true jewels, unfortunately rare ... Matt **************** *** 02-10-95 *** **************** From: john franklin To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: What makes folks keep reading (IMO) -------- Maureen writes: >Good writing style. (and if that's all the writer's got, you get >modern lit's genre) > >Good characters. > > Easiest -- likeable characters (say, Robin Hood) > Harder -- likeable characters that you identify with > Hardest -- unlikeable characters that you identify with anyway > (but you'd better have a good reason, or folks won't _reread_ it) > > Good plot. (and a story with just that can live forever, at least as > > The hardest thing to do is to bring all these elements (and a bunch > more, like theme and conflict and all that good stuff) together > in the proper proportions. Season to taste and serve to readers. > > I'd be interested to see how you folks would rank these elements > in necessity for your reading pleasure.... You're argument is true, but trivial. You've basically said that people will read a good book because it's good. What makes a plot good? What makes a (likeable/unlikeable) character good? What makes a writing style good? Personally, I'm less interested in ranking the elements as getting into what makes them work. When John Cleese was writing Faulty Towers episodes he would put in multiple plots and have them play off each other with an event in one setting up a comedic event in the other. At then end he'd try to get them to 'crash' into each other to give the story a nice clean close. jf -- John Franklin jfrankli@bev.net **************** *** 02-10-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Delays -- -------- Sorry ... only two weeks or so after announcing that the mail wasn't too much for me, I find myself getting swamped by it. The volume of mail hasn't actually changed much; I've just been exceptionally busy of late. If you find I'm not responding to mail quickly (or at all, in a couple of cases where I set letters aside to answer, and then forgot which ones they were), my apologies. ~~~~~~~~~~ I said: >Certainly some part of intelligence consists of simple quickness; if you can >come to the correct conclusion in half the time of the other guy, you're >smarter. If, on the other hand, you come to the wrong conclusion in half the >time as the other guy, *he's* smarter. Andrew McColl said: >No Sorry I Beg to Differ. If the problem takes for example ten seconds to >do and you do it in five. Then discover you have it wrong. You still >have 4-5 seconds to get it right. >...essentially a computer assisted brain >would probably work by simply outpacing a standard human brain. The human >brain is limited in what it can do per second. Synapses just cant fire any >faster than a certain speed. If you wanted to think faster than a human >you would need to offload that processing to something which did not have >the human constraints. All I'm saying here is that there are *real* qualitative differences in intelligence that have nothing to do with speed; otherwise we *could* teach calculus to pigs, if we were patient enough. Let's call it complexity vs. processing speed. >Sorry to put you on the spot like this but which tests are you referring >to. I almost have a Psych degree and Im trying really hard to think of a >test which doesnt have a time limit of some sort or another. I don't think I referred to *any* tests in that post; it certainly wasn't what I was talking about. Tests do a grand job of measuring how well you do at test-taking, but I'm skeptical of their utility otherwise. In life, as opposed to in tests, how quickly you perform a task is not usually as important to your actual measurable success, as is how well you perform a task. (That's a generalization, and like all generalizations has some slack in it. But it seems to me to be fundamentally true.) ~~~~~~~~~~ Sol said: >--Make two movies: The Long Run and The Wall. Go direct to video. Quite possibly. >From the Internet Top 100 SF list: >^67 The Long Run Daniel Keys Moran 6.41 (10) >Moving up in the world. ~~~~~~~~~~ Sean said: >I don't know if DKM ever got my letters, but I sent him an article or two on >General Magic's tools, which seem (to me) to be one of the first steps in >getting towards an Image. DKM sent out an excerpt, a while back, describing >the evolution of the InfoNet, and Trent's culmination as an AI. I was very >impressed with that, because I thought it was dead-on accurate. Never saw the letter, Sean. If you're talking about the "intelligent agents" we keep hearing about, yeah, I had the same reaction. ~~~~~~~~~~ >I remember reading another "enhanced soldier" book several years ago, but >I can only remember fuzzy details. These soldiers were designed to fight >in vacuum. The hero winding up addicted to pleasure steroids, and most of Bryant Durrell added: >Armor_, by John Steakley? (My spelling may be off.) I think that's >it. Maybe -- you saw how close I was with "Karl Wagner" -- but I don't think so. Not that I have anything else to offer. ~~~~~~~~~~ Marcus Eubanks wrote, re "Terminal Freedom": >-I wonder if you have a round figure so I could make out a check Sorry, Marcus. Not yet. I got one bid back, I'm waiting on another; I'm still waiting for my sister to finish copy-editing the damn book, too. She decided to take a second pass through it, which has cost us a week. ~~~~~~~~~~ Victor Vescova wrote: >No disrespect intended, of course. You know, you can disagree with me without my taking it as having been disrespectful. There are writers with delicate egos, but I am not one of them. For that matter, you can disagree *disrespectfully* with me ... and I won't take it personally. (Aside from assuming a manners problem on the other end.) Very few of you know me, and I don't know most of you. In that regard, a fellow wrote me a letter a while back telling me I was his idol, and it made me very uneasy. There's a great track on the Eagles' new album, "Hell Freezes Over." Written by Don Henley: We are like sheep without a shepherd We don't know how to be alone So we wander round this desert And wind up following the wrong gods home The flock cries out for another And they keep answering that bell And one more starry-eyed messiah Meets a violent farewell Learn to be still Well, I am not going to answer that bell. I have a gift of eloquence that most people do not have; and the volume got pumped up on my personality a little bit, too -- I'd have made a great preacher. But there is a saying, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." We are all responsible for our own lives and our own enlightenments; and not one of us is worthy of being an idol for anyone else. And if you meet me on the road, don't feel obliged to kill me. **************** *** 02-10-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Writing -------- DISCLAIMER: There are no rules. There is nothing that anyone can say about the art of writing fiction to which there Are No Exceptions -- Here are some Basics, for me: Plot and character are virtually the same thing. A good plot takes an individual and *displays* his/her character. Most people (I think) read books to meet other characters and find out what lives other than their own are like. An attempt to write nothing but characterization will soon bog down; I for one don't want to have somebody *tell* me about someone else. I want to be shown -- and that's plot. A sequence of events. -- Synergy is terribly important. The word is suspect to me simply because businesses keep using it to explain why they do bone-headed things (A Paper-Manufacturing company: "Uh ... we bought this company that makes fax software because, you see, they have to *print* the faxes out. Synergy."), but if you can get by that phenomenon, in fiction it's very real. Having One Real Strength (Gregory McDonald writes the best dialog in the universe) is useless if other elements of storytelling aren't addressed so well. (There's no sense of place in Gregory McDonald's stories. His people are all amazingly shallow, and not because he intends them to be.) So if I steal my dialog writing from Gregory McDonald, I need to steal my characterization from John D. MacDonald. ("Travis McGee.") -- Your readers are Not Stupid. (This is merely a working principle -- some of your readers *are* Stupid. Big Plotting helps with those readers. But it's best to write as though Your Readers are Not Stupid, because the great majority of them are not, and some percentage of them will be smarter than you are.) When I was writing TAB my editor said that I should say everything Three Times ... because Readers Were Stupid. It was the first and probably worst of the fights we had while she was editing me; I said. No. *Hell No.* It's true that some readers will miss something if you only say it once ... but for the rest who are capable of paying attention, it makes it that much nicer when surprises are sprung, down the line, and they say, "So *that's* what he was setting up." -- Characterization is defined by How People Handle Problems. "Life," says Gallagher, "is a bitch. But it's how you *deal* with the bitch that gives you your Style." The example David Gerrold used for me once was that for Pee Wee Herman, getting back his bicycle was a Big Problem; it fit the character and helped define the character. For Big John Wayne, getting back his niece from the Apaches is a Big Problem, and it defines the problem. Give *either* of them the other's problem, and you have no story. "Hey there ... pilgrim. How about you ... uh-huh ... gimme back the bike." Doesn't work, does it? **************** *** 02-10-95 *** **************** From: greg wheatley To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Reading, book elements -------- > Good writing style. (and if that's all the writer's got, you get > modern lit's genre) Here, of course, we have a generalisation. It is, IMO, far too wide. Yes there are a lot of novels written today specifically to be postmodern (a term I really hate and will argue about for hours), and a lot of these are style and nothing much else. There are also a lot of serious novels that have style, characters, dialogue, and plot. Just check out _The Wasp Factory_ and _The Bridge_ by Iain Banks. Both are brilliant (far better than his sf IMO). > Good characters. My feeling is that all the elements you've mentioned can be important, but will be of varying importance to different people and can be possessed to differing degrees by good books. Basically, if a book is really strong in certain of the areas, then it can a good book regardless of whether it is weak in other areas. For example, I love Andrew Vachss' Burke novels, but they do have serious shortcomings. > Good plot. (and a story with just that can live forever, at least as > an urban legend or folktale. Now granted, the writer's name will > be forgotten -- but hey, you get your immortality where you can.) Plot is important, but as far as I'm concerned, a magnificent plot with poor characters and no style isn't really interesting at all. > The hardest thing to do is to bring all these elements (and a bunch > more, like theme and conflict and all that good stuff) together > in the proper proportions. Season to taste and serve to readers. Agreed, but I'd also like to stick in handling of dialogue as one of the elements, and (just to make this post relevant to where it is) consistency. This isn't a big thing normally, but I really like it in the CT. I also really like not being treated like an idiot. As far as novels that have succeeded in bringing all the necessary elements together, I can think of at least three that were released last year and that were sf/fantasy, those being: _A Night In The Lonesome October_ - Roger Zelazny _Five Hundred Years After_ - Steven Brust _Only Forward_ - Michael Marshall-Smith If anyone is really interested, I'd judge _Only Forward_ as being the best of those, mainly because it was the most entertaining, while still managing to be a serious novel with real characters and themes. I'd also advise everyone that hasn't read it to do so. Regards, Greg (somewhat incoherently since it's really hot and I'm tired) **************** *** 02-16-95 *** **************** From: kestrel To: *continuing time Subject: Matters of technology... -------- A quick question for DKM: When you create technology for use in your books, how do you envision it? That is, do you think of an item of tech only in reference to it's immediate use in the story (inskin better for WebDancing than 'trodes), to its full capabilities (Carl's laser/maser being an example of the latter), or something in between. Heck, do you have a 'tech manual' that you update and refer to? Inquiring minds want to know... :) -------------------------------------------------------------------- |kestrel@decster.uta.edu | "What do you *want*?" | |Casey McGirt | -Morden, talking to Ambassador G'kar | |AKA Kestrel | "Signs and Portents", Babylon 5 | -------------------------------------------------------------------- **************** *** 02-16-95 *** **************** From: windsor d williams To: continuing-time@umich.edu (dk_moran list) Subject: Found at last! -------- Finally! Pardon my raving here, but I finally (after _long_ searching) found a copy of _Emerald Eyes_ yesterday evening. I wasn't even at my local used book store for SF...I was looking for some economics material instead. I decided to check the SF section anyway, just in case (even though I've checked dozens of such sections in the past without luck). And there it was, just sitting in the rack. I know DKM has mentioned that EE might be re-printed sometime soon, but it is still great to find a copy. For one thing, I don't know if I trust his publisher (based on past trouble getting them even to admit they had _ever_ published DKM's books). For another, I finally can read the early part of the story of the telepaths, and maybe learn what people have been talking about concerning this material. So for everyone who is still searching for copies of DKM's books, keep up hope! There are a few copies still drifting around out there. And maybe they'll even be reprinted. (I'd like new copies for myself, and then extras to give/lend to friends who like SF, several of whom keep asking to borrow my copies. That makes about half a dozen of each book, just for me and my friends. Is anyone paying attention in Sales?) Off to read EE.... Windsor **************** *** 02-16-95 *** **************** From: joshua kronengold To: continuing-time@umich.edu (dkm list) Subject: New York Conspiracy '95 -------- New York's Own C O N S P I R A C Y March 4th, 1995--10am to 12 midnight GoH: Daniel Keyes Moran (brought to you by Columbia University's Games Club, Anime Club, and Science Fiction Society) Conspiracy '95 is a one-day relaxicon at Columbia University in New York City, featuring events such as gaming (both open and scheduled), videos, filking, anime, network games, demonstrations by NERO New York, and much more. Admission is $5 pre-registration or with CUID, $7 at the door. The convention will be held at Columbia's Ferris Booth Hall, at 115th St. and Broadway in Manhattan, easily reachable by taking the 1/9 train to the 116th St. stop. The M4 and M104 buses also stop on the same block. For further information, mail conspiracy@columbia.edu, call (212) 853-9037, or check out our WWW page at http://www.columbia.edu/~tori/con.html. Joshua Kronengold -- mneme@dorsai.org Programming is a race between programmers trying to create bigger and better idiot-proof programs and the universe trying to create bigger and better idiots -- Found on a Nancy Button **************** *** 02-17-95 *** **************** From: d.moran8@genie.geis.com To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Various. -------- ##############, >I cracked up when I read this. I actually *am* a Zen Buddhist, but I have >no violent tendencies whatsoever. So if I came across you upon a road, I >think I might just simply ask to shake your hand and tell you what wonderful >books you write. And of course, to thank you for allowing us to converse >with you on the 'net. My fiancee and I are getting married June 23rd by a Zen minister. ~~~~~~~~~~ Sean, >Can a human from, say, the Walks-Far timeline interbreed with, say, Denice? Yes. The Walks-Far are humans and are interfertile with the rest of us -- and Denice is not (genetically) *that* different from the rest of us. ~~~~~~~~~~ Casey McGirt, > When you create technology for use in your books, how do you >envision it? That is, do you think of an item of tech only in reference >to it's immediate use in the story (inskin better for WebDancing than >'trodes), to its full capabilities (Carl's laser/maser being an example >of the latter), or something in between. Heck, do you have a 'tech >manual' that you update and refer to? Inquiring minds want to know... :) I have a file in the Encyclopedia with tech notes in it. One of the things I did (Christ, a decade or more ago) was go through the yellow pages and try to figure out what stuff would still be around in a hundred years, what would change, and what wouldn't be there at all. It's a cool exercise. **************** *** 02-17-95 *** **************** From: "cheryl l. walker" To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Re: FW: Cover art in The Continuing Time Series -------- On Wed, 8 Feb 1995, Jim L. Sather wrote: > I didn't like the cover to LD much. I don't go for montage-type > artwork very much. Though it does give a good sense of the breadth and > multi-threadedness of the plot. > > Jim > When LD came out, I had never heard of DKM. I picked up the book, read the blurb, and *didn't* buy it because of the cover. I remember thinking, "Well, I'm glad someone's writing SF with asian women in it, but..." The elements on the cover didn't convey any sense of the story, or augment the title. They didn't even seem to create a narrative of their own. Never judge a book by its cover. :) I visited some friends in Minneapolis winter break, and one of them pushed LR & LD on me. I stayed up all night for two nights. My xmas gift to him was a two parter: one, I gave him a copy of AB that I ran across at Uncle Hugo's (go there, it's wonderful). Two, I *gave* him the book, instead of keeping it myself. Most people don't understand why that counts as two gifts, but I think y'all do. Scouring the Seattle area used bookstores, Cheryl Walker -- cw@u.washington.edu "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away." --Tom Waits **************** *** 02-18-95 *** **************** From: colomon To: continuing-time@umich.edu Subject: Reminiscing -------- Cheryl Walker writes: >Never judge a book by its cover. :) I visited some friends in >Minneapolis winter break, and one of them pushed LR & LD on me. I stayed >up all night for two nights. My xmas gift to him was a two parter: one, >I gave him a copy of AB that I ran across at Uncle Hugo's (go there, >it's wonderful). Two, I *gave* him the book, instead of keeping it >myself. Most people don't understand why that counts as two gifts, but I >think y'all do. And of course, the reason Brian didn't have a copy of AB (and still doesn't have a copy of EE) is that he read my copies. (After I pushed them on him, of course.) Over and over and over again during t