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Spam deleted by QuickTopic 01-24-2014 06:09
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David Johnson
12-28-2008
20:55 UT
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~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> I would like to know how, exactly, how it got placed in the
> "Family Saga" category. Still, #37 isn't bad...
Yeah,
there are some apparent kinks to be worked out in Amazon's Sales Rank
system but what scares me the most about this is the price: 80 cents!
The entirety of Beam's Future History (less
"Graveyard of Dreams," the two Fuzzy sequels, and "When in the
Course--")
for less than a dollar. Obviously, to Amazon public domain material
like this is little more than a marketing device for Kindle.
David
--
"You
know, it's never a mistake to take a second look at anything that
everybody believes." - Rodney Maxwell (H. Beam Piper),
"Graveyard of Dreams"
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Jon Crocker  12-28-2008
19:28 UT
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Yes, that would be a good lure.
I would like to know how, exactly, how it got placed in the "Family Saga" category. Still, #37 isn't bad...
Happy New Year all!
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Spam deleted by QuickTopic 01-24-2014 06:09
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David Johnson
12-24-2008
22:27 UT
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Piper's "Notebooks" - The Lost Gold Mine?
One of the most
fascinating things about John Carr's biography is the way it dispels
so many of the myths which have surrounded Piper and corrects much of
the hyperbolic and appreciative overstatement which has been proffered
by Beam's admirers over the years. Take for example, Jerry
Pournelle's claim, made in his preface to
_Federation_, that Beam
"kept a well-organized set of loose leaf notebooks with entries
color-coded; a star map of Federation and Empire, a history of the
System States War; and other materials including some of my own
letters which answered historical questions he posed. Somewhere out
there is a gold mine."
It clear from John's reporting of Beam's
writing process over the years that he usually spent a great deal of
time "pre-writing" his stories, developing often extensive notes which
then served as the basis for his prose writing. But there doesn't
seem to be evidence that Beam collected and organized these notes.
Indeed, on many occasions Beam reports having discarded them--often
along with a draft of the story itself--as he rethought or reworked
the story-line he was working on.
At one point, John reports on
Beam's original work in February 1964-- just nine months before his
suicide--on the essay "The Future
History" which was first
published in Peter Weston's fanzine _Zenith_ and is reprinted in the
appendix of John's biography. Beam writes in his diary, "Started to
write a letter and outline of my History of the Future for an English
fan who wrote me c/o _Analog_ three months ago." It seems unlikely
that Beam would have had to put much work at all into such an outline
if he had at hand "a well-organized set of loose leaf notebooks with
entries color-coded" and "a history of the System States War." And
one wonders why, if a "star map of
Federation and Empire" actually existed, Piper makes no mention of it in "The Future History."
Alas, it would seem that there never was a "gold mine" of missing Piper notebooks.
David
--
"_Space_Viking_
itself is . . . a yarn that will be cited, years hence, as one of the
science-fiction classics. It's got solid
philosophy for the
mature thinker, and bang-bang-chop-'em-up action for the space-pirate
fans. As a truly good yarn should have!" - John W. Campbell, 1962
~
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David Johnson
12-14-2008
22:21 UT
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Mike/Tom,
It was "POYK-tes-mee" for years for me too and I still have to think twice to remember "PWA-tem."
David
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Tom Rogers
12-14-2008
04:47 UT
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Mike Robertson wrote:
>Just like I've always said
"Poik-tez-mee" in my head rather than "pwa->tem", but then I don't
speak Cabell, or should I say "Cab-ul".
Mike, you have NO idea
how glad I am to learn that I am not the only one who thinks
"poik-tez-me"! I have never been able to shake it :)
Not to mention how I mentally mangle most other Cabell names...
Tom
(pronounced "Taw-m")
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Mike Robertson 12-13-2008
23:12 UT
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David Johnson writes on Xochitl;
"SO-cheet" is how the Philly
restaurant pronounces its name. For years I've been saying "zock-IH-tel"
in my head, but then I don't speak any Nahuatl.
Just like I've
always said "Poik-tez-mee" in my head rather than "pwa-tem", but then I
don't speak Cabell, or should I say "Cab-ul".
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David Johnson
12-11-2008
23:35 UT
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Tom Rogers wrote:
> Neat scan of the menu!
It's actually a postcard that's for sale on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360106739311
> There is a restaurant of the same name in
> Philly (sounds like a road trip for Hostigos '09!).
Yeah,
I thought this might have been the relocated Manhattan original but
it seems this place was started in just the past few years. Still, I
agree it would be a great place to visit at the next Muster.
> Xochitl can be pronounced several different ways, depending on
> which Nahuatl dialect one uses. "So-cheet" certainly works, but
> a more common and/or traditional pronunciation would be
> "so-chee-tul" or "zho-chee-tul."
"SO-cheet"
is how the Philly restaurant pronounces its name. For years I've
been saying "zock-IH-tel" in my head, but then I don't speak any
Nahuatl.
> Such a warrior did not fear death, he courted it. His death fed
> the gods, ensured the continued existence of the current Sun and
> World, and his soul joined the retinue of the Sun god. It was
> the ultimate life of a warrior.
>
> Sounds like a Space Viking to me :)
I'm convinced!
David
--
"Our rulers are the barbarians among us. There isn't one of
them
. . . who is devoted to civilization or anything else outside
himself, and that's the mark of the barbarian." - Otto Harkaman (H.
Beam Piper), _Space_Viking_
~
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Tom Rogers
12-11-2008
03:52 UT
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in re: /m102David: Neat scan of the menu! There is a restaurant of the same name in Philly (sounds like a road trip for Hostigos '09!). Xochitl
can be pronounced several different ways, depending on which Nahuatl
dialect one uses. "So-cheet" certainly works, but a more common and/or
traditional pronunciation would be "so-chee-tul" or "zho-chee-tul." In
terms of Piper's use of this name/goddess, Xochitl is indeed an Aztec
flower goddess, but it is instructive to recall that the word "flower"
in Nahuatl (or, rather, the glyph-sign used to denote "flower") carried
at all times a variety of meanings, including its use as a "euphemism"
for a warrior on the battlefield. The Aztecs believed that the
gods required constant sustenance, i.e. the hearts and blood of warriors
killed in battle or on the techcatl (the stone of sacrifice). Whenever
the Aztec world found itself at a time of relative peace, and thus was
confronted with a paucity of captives for sacrifice, the priests of the
various cults would appear before the ruler and complain that the gods
"were hungry." The ruler would then proclaim a "flower war" - another
euphemism for a ritualized "battle" between warriors from different
Aztec cities, conducted solely for the purpose of securing captives for
sacrifice. "Flower Wars" were bloody, awful affairs, highly
stylized and utterly lethal. The captured warriors (and the fallen ones)
were referred to as "flowers" - another euphemism that both disguised
the reality of the matter and which also refeenced the "precious"
quality of the warriors as sacrificial beings. The Aztec
glyph/word for war can be translated as, "divine liquid and burnt
things" - i.e. blood and death (burned bodies, burned weapons, burned
fields, burned cities, the "smell" of war and death) on the
battlefield). It is generally agreed that the form this glyph takes is
best described as either a flower or a stylized human heart spouting
streams of blood. As with many Nahuatl words and names, there are
double and triple concurrent meanings to most glyphs. "Flower"
sometimes just meant a flower, but more often it was a thinly veiled
reference to the role of the warrior as champion, as pious officiant and
as food of the gods. Such a warrior did not fear death, he
courted it. His death fed the gods, ensured the continued existence of
the current Sun and World, and his soul joined the retinue of the Sun
god. It was the ultimate life of a warrior. Sounds like a Space Viking to me :) Tom -- "Outside of a dog, a book is Man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx Edited 12-11-2008 04:19
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David Johnson
12-10-2008
20:57 UT
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> Beam's Midtown Xochitl
So how much do you want to bet that the maitre d'--or a waiter--here in the spring of 1955 was named Victor?
David
--
"Heinlein can do what he likes. I prefer to keep my heroine
_virgo_intacto_ until the end." - H. Beam Piper
~
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 12-10-2008
20:50 UT
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Beam's Midtown Xochitl
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Deleted by topic administrator 07-25-2009 07:15
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Gordon Johansen
12-08-2008
00:01 UT
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I think my first intro to Forry was when he was doing the Perry Rhodan
stuff for Ace and had a little editorial in most of the books. (I really
liked the continuity of that series and was upset to see it ended. Of
course, I was 18 or so at the time.) Sad to see another one of that era
passing.
Gord
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Tom Rogers
12-07-2008
17:10 UT
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Off topic for a moment...
Today's Washington Post reports that
Forry Ackerman passed away on Thursday, 12/05/08 at age 92. It is
incredible to think about all that he saw and participated in during his
long life, and his passing reduces by a significant level the remaining
first-hand contacts we have with the truly golden age of SF.
(raise a large glass of your favorite beverage)
Here's to you, Forry! Thanks for preserving the memories.
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Mike Robertson 12-06-2008
02:34 UT
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Beam Piper - Strikebreaker
It leaves me wondering if part of Beam's "night watchman" duties at the Pennsy included the occasional strikebreaking. . . .
David
That's
an interesting idea David. One wonders what other things Beam had to
do as a night watchman and whether he found them distasteful, or not.
Mike Robertson
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Jon Crocker
12-06-2008
00:53 UT
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Greetings all -
I'm having a re-read through 'Murder in the
Gunroom' and I was wondering what sort of prices some of those pistols
would command today. After a couple of quick searches, all I can find
are replicas that range from $250-ish up to almost $800 for a LeMat.
Which indirectly answers my question, but I wonder why I wasn't finding
any originals.
Does anyone follow such things more closely? Are the
originals that much more hard to come by? Did I just try the wrong
links off the Google search, and need to keep digging if I'm going to
find them? Or do the places that sell the real items not use the
internet?
Jon
_________________________________________________________________
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David Johnson
12-05-2008
19:55 UT
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Beam Piper - Strikebreaker?
I have finally found some time
to get back to Carr's biography of Beam and was struck by John's
reporting of some feedback John
Campbell gave to Piper on his original submission of "Day of the Moron":
"The thing to do is to make it clear that the union officials
_have_been_misled_
by misinformation from the two discharges, and are equally aware of
the necessity, once they get the true picture. In other words, the
_union_ isn't to blame, but the individuals are."
Now I've long
maintained that "Day of the Moron" is perhaps my least favorite Piper
yarn--with the possible exception of _Null-
ABC_/"Crisis in 2140
AD"--precisely because it is little more than an anti-solidarity
political screed masquerading as a science-fiction tale. But, given
Carr's reporting that Piper revised "Moron" after receiving Campbell's
feedback, I can hardly imagine what the original yarn must have been
like!
It leaves me wondering if part of Beam's "night watchman" duties at the Pennsy included the occasional strikebreaking. . . .
>
Down Styphon!
David
--
"John Campbell . . . is almost as big a fascist sonofabitch as I am. . . ." - H. Beam Piper
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