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Lensman
03-24-2010
00:03 UT
|
On PBS's /Nova/ tonite: "Cracking the Mayan Code". I haven't seen this
2008 episode, don't know if it's worth watching or not. But I thought
it might be interesting to watch a real-world analog of "Omnilingual".
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
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Jack Russell
03-23-2010
15:39 UT
|
John,
Thank-you for the clarification! David's point is well
received, of course, but in this case I feel vindicated. I think if
Piper hadn't taken to Science Fiction he would have been another Zane
Grey or Louis L'Amour cranking out Westerns where the bad guys
routinely go down in a hail of lead, or dance at the end of a rope.
Victor Grego is a surprising exception to the rule, but he cleaned up
nicely. However, I will add the book in the tagline from which the
line is referenced as it might incline people to get the book.
Jack Russell
"People shouldn't be shot for committing crimes. They should be shot for being the kind of people who commit them."
H Beam Piper - "Fuzzy Sapiens"
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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David Johnson
03-23-2010
13:57 UT
|
~
Lensman wrote:
>> I think we have to be careful when attributing the views of
>> Beam's characters to Beam himself, particularly when a given
>> quotation is slightly modified to remove the contextual
>> elements of characterization crafted by Beam.
>
> I think all the cases you cited would be the correct form, and
> that's how it's *done*. You seem to be trying to argue that we
> shouldn't ever quote anything from an author's writings because
> someone might be taken out of context.
No,
you have misunderstood me. My apologies for not being clearer. What
I am arguing is that we ought to be more cautious when we quote Beam
_out_of_context_, particularly if we paraphrase his actual words when
doing so.
There is a not-insignificant distinction between saying
that "Beam believed so-and-so" and saying that "Beam had one of his
characters say that _another_ of his characters believed so-and-so."
David
--
"'What would Piper think?' You don't know, and no one else but H. Beam Piper would know." - John F. Carr, April 20, 2008
~
|
|
David Johnson
03-23-2010
13:52 UT
|
~
Jack Russell wrote:
> The way I see it, no matter what character was quoted, it came
> from Beam's typewriter.
Are
you speaking generally, or just in this instance? I agree this
particular sentiment fits my own, subjective sense of Beam but I would
not attribute everything he wrote as being representative of his
personal opinions.
> He repeated the quote in the third
> book, though the wordage was a bit different. Since he felt it
> bore repeating, I can't help but think he felt that way
> himself.
Well,
as Lensman points out, Beam repeats a lot of sentiments in his work
that I wouldn't guess were his own, so repetition in and of itself
doesn't seem to be enough to make the claim that a given sentiment
expressed by his characters represents his personal views.
On the
other hand, I think, for example, a pretty compelling case can be
made, _on_the_evidence_ from Beam's work, that he was extremely
critical not just of government but also of large, commercial
enterprises--a view some might find surprising or even object to.
Monster Ho!
David
--
"'What would Piper think?' You don't know, and no one else but H. Beam Piper would know." - John F. Carr, April 20, 2008
~
|
|
Otherwhen@aol.com
03-23-2010
07:13 UT
|
CRIME & PUNISHMENT
Beam was quite intolerant of
crime and criminals; Jerry Pournelle recounted to me that in his
encounter with the mugger in Washington D.C. that, when Piper pulled
out his cane sword, he was disappointed that blood wasn't spilled.
Piper had little, or no, toleration for fools or villains; and, he did
put a lot of his own views into the mouths of his protagonists. It's
no accident that Jack Holloway keeps a diary, as Piper did, and has a
drink before retiring... Plus, Piper -- like Jack -- was a sucker for
cute little fuzzies...
The quote: "People shouldn't be
shot for committing crimes. They should be shot for being the kind of
people who commit them," certainly sounds like pure Piper. He had
little toleration for the flaws of others (or himself, for that
matter); and would have had no hesitation at personally providing such
a "punishment."
John F. Carr
The way I see it, no matter what character was quoted, it came
from Beam's typewriter. He repeated the quote in the third
book, though the wordage was a bit different. Since he felt it bore repeating, I can't help but think he felt that way
himself. I would even say that a recurring theme in his books
was that bad guys were good for target practice.
Jack Russell
"People shouldn't be shot for committing crimes. They should be shot for being the kind of people who commit them."
H Beam Piper
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Lensman
03-23-2010
06:20 UT
|
QT - David Johnson wrote:
> You mean, for exampe, like this: "Government should not be
> guilty of shedding the blood of its people." - H. Beam Piper,
> _Space_Viking_?
> Or perhaps: "Psychological tests imposed on union members are a
> fraudulent pretext for dismissing workers, and, in any case,
> the practice of compelling workers to submit to such tests is
> insulting, degrading, and not a customary condition of
> employment." - H. Beam Piper, "Day of the Moron"?
>
> Or maybe: "Colonial armed force are a gang of bloody-handed,
> flint-hearted, imperialistic sons of bitches." - H. Beam
> Piper, _Uller_Uprising_?
>
> I think we have to be careful when attributing the views of
> Beam's characters to Beam himself, particularly when a given
> quotation is slightly modified to remove the contextual
> elements of characterization crafted by Beam.
I
think all the cases you cited would be the correct form, and that's
how it's *done*. You seem to be trying to argue that we shouldn't ever
quote anything from an author's writings because someone might be taken
out of context. I don't agree, but you're entitled to your opinion.
If
you *really* want to take something from Piper out of context, you
should find one of those passages in /Uller Uprising/ or /Oomphel in the
Sky/ where Piper has a "soft-headed liberal" expounding a straw-man
argument.
But anyone reading a quote from Shakespeare should be
aware that it might be one of the villains or "village idiots" who are
being quoted, and not necessarily Shakespeare's personal opinion; and
the same goes for Piper.
"...do not forget to specify, when time and place shall assert, that I am an ass." --Shakespeare, "Much Ado about Nothing"
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
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Jack Russell
03-23-2010
05:50 UT
|
The way I see it, no matter what character was quoted, it came from
Beam's typewriter. He repeated the quote in the third book, though the
wordage was a bit different. Since he felt it bore repeating, I can't
help but think he felt that way himself. I would even say that a
recurring theme in his books was that bad guys were good for target
practice.
Jack Russell
"People shouldn't be shot for committing crimes. They should be shot for being the kind of people who commit them."
H Beam Piper
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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David Johnson
03-23-2010
04:40 UT
|
~
Back on February 24th, David "Lensman" Sooby wrote:
> I think it's too bad that this discussion list is so restrictive
> of considering Piper's works within a larger context, and even
> tries to suppress discussion of SF in general,
Lensman
and I have had a discussion about this criticism off-list. In
particular, I've asked him to point to specific examples of
moderation
that "restricted" or "suppressed" discussion that was, in fact, about
Piper and his work--and not just about some other writer or
speculative fiction more generally, having wandered away from Beam's
efforts. Our private conversation came to end without the
identification of any such examples.
To paraphrase some of my
private comments to Lensman: folks are certainly entitled to their
opinions and I'm open to a discussion about moderation on the list but
what troubled me about Lensman's post was that his complaint was
unsupported. Obviously, we're never going to find a balance that
meets the tastes of everyone but I like to believe that we could point
to a given bit of discussion and say, _this_ is across the line, or
_that_ was acceptable, and thus come to a shared understanding on
where the line _will_ be drawn even if we don't all agree on where the
line _should_ be drawn.
I'm interested in hearing what others
think about the moderation here--please see the text at the top of the
discussion forum Web page--and if there are specific examples where
it seemed off-the-mark I'd be happy to discuss them so that we all
might develop a shared understanding of the scope of the discussion
that is appropriate here.
Thanks,
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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David Johnson
03-23-2010
04:19 UT
|
~
David "Lensman: Sooby wrote:
> It's just as right, or just as wrong, as attributing a quote
> from one of Shakespeare's plays to Shakespeare himself. In
> such a case, one generally gives the name of the play. So for
> the Piper quote, it would be appropriate to include the name of
> the book,
You
mean, for exampe, like this: "Government should not be guilty of
shedding the blood of its people." - H. Beam Piper, _Space_Viking_?
Or
perhaps: "Psychological tests imposed on union members are a
fraudulent pretext for dismissing workers, and, in any case, the
practice of compelling workers to submit to such tests is insulting,
degrading, and not a customary condition of employment." - H. Beam
Piper, "Day of the Moron"?
Or maybe: "Colonial armed force are a gang of bloody-handed, flint- hearted, imperialistic sons of bitches." - H. Beam Piper,
_Uller_Uprising_?
I
think we have to be careful when attributing the views of Beam's
characters to Beam himself, particularly when a given quotation is
slightly modified to remove the contextual elements of
characterization crafted by Beam.
Znidd Suddabit!
David
--
"You know any kind of observation that doesn't contaminate the thing observed, professor?" - Tortha Karf (H. Beam Piper),
_Lord_Kalvan_of_Otherwhen_
~
|
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Lensman
03-23-2010
03:22 UT
|
QT - David Johnson wrote:
> Is it accurate to assume that Beam shared the views of (all of)
> his characters? Would it make sense, for example, also to
> paraphrase something said by Andray Dunnan or Steve Ravick
> (aka Anton Gerrit) and then attribute it to Beam as well?
>
> How do we decide which characters are expressing Beam's views
> and which are simply speaking _in_character_? It is _fiction_
> after all. Perhaps this comment tells us nothing whatsoever
> about Beam's views, but instead only tells us about (Fane's
> assessment of)
> Janiver's views. . . .
It's
just as right, or just as wrong, as attributing a quote from one of
Shakespeare's plays to Shakespeare himself. In such a case, one
generally gives the name of the play. So for the Piper quote, it would
be appropriate to include the name of the book, thus:
"He
doesn't think people should be shot for committing crimes; he thinks
they should be shot for being the kind of people who commit them. He
thinks shooting criminals is like shooting diseased veldbeest. A
sanitation measure." --H. Beam Piper, /Fuzzy Sapiens/.
Paraphrasing is always fraught with peril... as hopefully we all know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
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David Johnson
03-23-2010
01:17 UT
|
~
Jack Russell wrote:
> I paraphrase a bit in my tagline.
[snip]
> "I know Janiver's attitude on death penalties," Fane said. "He
> doesn't think people should be shot for committing crimes; he
> thinks they should be shot for being the kind of people who commit
> them.
[snip]
> "People shouldn't be shot for committing crimes. They should be
> shot for being the kind of people who commit them."
> H Beam Piper
I
wonder if it's all together accurate to paraphrase Fane's comment in
this manner and thereby attribute it to Beam himself. In this quote,
Fane--one character--is attrbuting this view to Janiver--yet another
character. That's not quite the same thing as Beam making the
statement himself; rather it's framed as part of the development of
one--or perhaps even two--of his characters.
Is it accurate to
assume that Beam shared the views of (all of) his characters? Would
it make sense, for example, also to paraphrase something said by
Andray Dunnan or Steve Ravick (aka Anton Gerrit) and then attribute it
to Beam as well?
How do we decide which characters are
expressing Beam's views and which are simply speaking _in_character_?
It is _fiction_ after all. Perhaps this comment tells us nothing
whatsoever about Beam's views, but instead only tells us about (Fane's
assessment of)
Janiver's views. . . .
Yeek!
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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Lensman
03-22-2010
15:02 UT
|
QT - Jack Russell wrote:
> [/Fuzzy Sapiens/] Book 2 chapter 10 ---
>
> "I know Janiver's attitude on death penalties," Fane said. "He
> doesn't think people should be shot for committing crimes; he
> thinks they should be shot for being the kind of people who
> commit them. He thinks shooting criminals is like shooting
> diseased veldbeest. A sanitation measure. So do I."
THANK YOU, JACK!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
David "Lensman" Sooby
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
Jack Russell
03-22-2010
05:34 UT
|
It did it again!
Lensman,
It actually appears in the
second book in the Fuzzy trilogy, and I paraphrase a bit in my tagline.
I'll see if I can dig up the correct ref.
Here we go.
Book 2 chapter 10 ---
"I
know Janiver's attitude on death penalties," Fane said. "He doesn't
think people should be shot for committing crimes; he thinks they should
be shot for being the kind of people who commit them. He thinks
shooting criminals is like shooting diseased veldbeest. A sanitation
measure. So do I."
There is a similar quote in book three but I can't find it just now. Gotta go shoot some sheep.
Jack Russell
"People shouldn't be shot for committing crimes. They should be shot for being the kind of people who commit them."
H Beam Piper
Jack Russell
"People shouldn't be shot for committing crimes. They should be shot for being the kind of people who commit them."
H Beam Piper
|
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Jack Russell
03-22-2010
05:32 UT
|
Lensman,
I don't know why, but my message was cut in half. I'll repost.
(Down there...)
|||
V
See?
It
actually appears in the second book in the Fuzzy trilogy, and I
paraphrase a bit in my tagline. I'll see if I can dig up the correct
ref.
(Shuffle-shuffle >>CRASH<< Bang! Wop-wop-wop-clink...)
Here we go.
Book 2 chapter 10 ---
"I
know Janiver's attitude on death penalties," Fane said. "He doesn't
think people should be shot for committing crimes; he thinks they should
be shot for being the kind of people who commit them. He thinks
shooting criminals is like shooting diseased veldbeest. A sanitation
measure. So do I."
There is a similar quote in book three but I can't find it just now. Gotta go shoot some sheep.
Jack Russell
"People shouldn't be shot for committing crimes. They should be shot for being the kind of people who commit them."
H Beam Piper
Jack Russell
"People shouldn't be shot for committing crimes. They should be shot for being the kind of people who commit them."
H Beam Piper
|
|
Jack Russell
03-22-2010
05:27 UT
|
Lensman,
It actually appears in the second book in the Fuzzy
trilogy, and I paraphrase a bit in my tagline. I'll see if I can dig
up the correct ref.
(Shuffle-shuffle >>CRASH<< Bang! Wop-wop-wop-clink...)
Here we go.
Book 2 chapter 10 ---
"I
know Janiver's attitude on death penalties," Fane said. "He doesn't
think people should be shot for committing crimes; he thinks they
should be shot for being the kind of people who commit them. He thinks
shooting criminals is like shooting diseased veldbeest. A sanitation
measure. So do I."
There is a similar quote in book three but I can't find it just now. Gotta go shoot some sheep.
Jack Russell
"People shouldn't be shot for committing crimes. They should be shot for being the kind of people who commit them."
H Beam Piper
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
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Lensman
03-22-2010
04:54 UT
|
QT - Jack Russell wrote:
> I find it far more likely that it was a miss by the original
> editor than never got corrected. Why would Piper purposely put
> in such a glaring error? That is the sort of thing one expects
> from an amature, or possibly from a re-write. Often a writer
> will go back and make changes mid-sentance without thoroughly
> re-reading it. Anybody who ever self-edited knows how easy it
> is to mentally gloss over such things when re-reading ones own
> work. That is why second party editors or so valuable; they
> have no preconceptions of what is on the paper so their minds
> aren't conditioned to miss as much. Piper was much too good for
> such silly games on purpose. I blame the editors, plain and
> simple.
>
> Jack Russell
>
> "People shouldn't be shot for committing crimes. They should be
> shot for being the kind of people who commit them."
> H Beam Piper
Hey
Jack! I tried to find that quote not long ago, but failed. Would you
please tell me what chapter or what part of which story it's from? I
thought it was in /Little Fuzzy/ but couldn't find it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
David "Lensman" Sooby
|
|
Lensman
03-22-2010
04:50 UT
|
QT - David Johnson wrote:
> Jon Crocker wrote:
>
>> - but Little Fuzzy did open with "Some fifty million
>> years ago, when the planet that had been called Zarathustra
> [for
>> the last twenty-five *million*] was young..." emphasis added,
>> and that gave me pause on the first reading. Wow, this
>> Federation is *really* old...
>
> Piper fan William Taylor insists that's just one of many
> intentional errors Beam placed in his Future History works.
> (Most are associated with hyperdrive speeds and interstellar
> distances supposedly intended to disguise the true extent of
> Federation space.) I'm unconvinced but then I have to admit I
> never even noticed the millions of years of Terrohuman
> colonization of Zarathustra until it was pointed out to me.
>
> Yeek!
>
> David
I
am persuaded by the claim that Piper meant "...the last twenty-five"
but a copy-editor mistakenly "clarified" it to "twenty-five million".
Not sure which forum member it was who suggested that.
I
also am unconvinced by the argument that Piper *intentionally* put in
"errors". Authors of fiction generally write to entertain, or possibly
to educate and/or persuade. They don't write to satisfy the tiny
minority fans like us, who pore over the canon with a microscope. The
realities of professional writing make it impossible to spend that kind
of time on making sure the manuscript is completely free of
inconsistencies
and errors; and even if the author *did* turn in a perfect manuscript,
editors and copy-editors might introduce them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
David Johnson
03-22-2010
03:33 UT
|
~
Also picked up a German edition of _Lone_Star_Planet_, also known
as _Planet_for_Texans_ (which does not credit co-author John J.
McGuire):
http://www.zarthani.net/Images/lonestar80german.jpg
This illustration is much more interesting than that for the original Ace "double":
http://www.zarthani.net/Images/planetof58.jpg
David
--
"Why,
here on Odin there hadn't been an election in the past six centuries
that hadn't been utterly fraudulent. Nobody voted except the
nonworkers, whose votes were bought and sold wholesale, by
gangster
bosses to pressure groups, and no decent person would be caught
within a hundred yards of a polling place on an election day." -
Emperor Paul XXII (H. Beam Piper), "Ministry of Disturbance"
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson  03-22-2010
00:26 UT
|
~
Recently acquired a German edition of <i>Four-Day Planet</>:
http://www.zarthani.net/Images/fourday81german.jpg
This version of Jarvis's sea-monster is somewhat different from Michael Whelan's interpretation for the Ace paperback edition:
http://www.zarthani.net/Images/fourdayp79.jpg
Monster Ho!
David
~
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David Johnson
03-21-2010
23:08 UT
|
~
Jack Russell wrote:
> I find it far more likely that it was a miss by the original
> editor than never got corrected.
This
is my sense of the mistake about Zarathustra in _Little_Fuzzy_ but
William makes an interesting case when it comes to the other
galactographic errors.
> "People shouldn't be shot for committing crimes. They should be
> shot for being the kind of people who commit them."
> H Beam Piper
What's the source for this one? (I'm guessing _Null-ABC_ or
_Lone_Star_Planet_.)
David
--
"John Campbell . . . is almost as big a fascist sonofabitch as I am. . . ." - H. Beam Piper
~
|
|
Jack Russell
03-21-2010
22:57 UT
|
I find it far more likely that it was a miss by the original editor than
never got corrected. Why would Piper purposely put in such a glaring
error? That is the sort of thing one expects from an amature, or
possibly from a re-write. Often a writer will go back and make
changes mid-sentance without thoroughly re-reading it. Anybody who
ever self-edited knows how easy it is to mentally gloss over such
things when re-reading ones own work. That is why second party editors
or so valuable; they have no preconceptions of what is on the paper so
their minds aren't conditioned to miss as much. Piper was much too good
for such silly games on purpose. I blame the editors, plain and
simple.
Jack Russell
"People shouldn't be shot for committing crimes. They should be shot for being the kind of people who commit them."
H Beam Piper
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
|
David Johnson
03-21-2010
22:44 UT
|
~
> Federation era timekeeping conventions
>
> At the opening of "Graveyard of Dreams," Conn Maxwell, upon
> the announcement that the airship is thirty minutes out from
> Litchfield, muses, "Thirty minutes--twenty-six and a fraction of
> the Terran minutes he had become accustomed to--until he'd
> have to face it." The presupposition here is that Federation
> colonial planets like Poictesme actually adjusted the
> measurement of time in order to match the timekeeping
> conventions of Terra (e.g. sixty minutes to an hour and
> presumably twenty-four hours to a local day).
Here's an except from early in _Four-Day_Planet_:
"The
Fenris year is a trifle shorter than the Terran year we use for
Atomic Era dating, eight thousand and a few odd Galactic Standard
hours. In that time, Fenris makes almost exactly four axial
rotations.
This means that on one side the sun is continuously in the sky for a
thousand hours, pouring down unceasing heat, while the other side is
in shadow. You sleep eight hours, and when you get up and go
outside--in an insulated vehicle, or an extreme-environment suit--you
find that the shadows have moved only an inch or so, and it's that
much hotter. Finally, the sun crawls down to the horizon and hangs
there for a few days--periods of twenty-four G.S. hours-- and then
slides slowly out of sight. Then, for about a hundred hours, there is
a beautiful unfading sunset, and it's really pleasant outdoors."
Obviously
we wouldn't expect Terrohumans on Fenris to divide the local "day"
into twenty-four hours but it does seem clear here that there is a
"galactic standard" for time measurement in the Federation era based
upon the _hours_ and (presumably twenty-four hour) _days_ of Terra.
Given this, it makes sense that Conn Maxwell, returning from four
years on Terra, will have gotten used to "Galactic
Standard" time and would notice how it varies from "local time" on Poictesme.
But
this leaves unanswered whether the locals on Poictesme would divide
their local day up into twenty-four "local hours" and each local hour
into sixty "local minutes" such that a "Poictesme minute" would be
slight longer than a Galactic Standard minute or would simply measure
their local day in Galactic Standard hours, even if this meant there
were more than twenty-four Galactic Standard hours in it. . . .
Monster Ho!
David
--
"We
talk glibly about ten to the hundredth power, but emotionally we
still count, 'One, Two, Three, Many.'" - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam
Piper), _Space_Viking_
~
|
|
David Johnson
03-21-2010
22:33 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> - but Little Fuzzy did open with "Some fifty million
> years ago, when the planet that had been called Zarathustra [for
> the last twenty-five *million*] was young..." emphasis added,
> and that gave me pause on the first reading. Wow, this
> Federation is *really* old...
Piper
fan William Taylor insists that's just one of many intentional errors
Beam placed in his Future History works. (Most are associated with
hyperdrive speeds and interstellar distances supposedly intended to
disguise the true extent of Federation space.) I'm unconvinced but
then I have to admit I never even noticed the millions of years of
Terrohuman colonization of Zarathustra until it was pointed out to me.
Yeek!
David
--
"You
know, most of the wars they've been fighting, lately, on the
Europo-American Sector have been, at least in part, motivated by
rivalry for oil fields." - H. Beam Piper, "Temple Trouble," 1951
~
|
|
David Johnson
03-18-2010
13:53 UT
|
~
Rare Piper work on eBay
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220565435256
The Science Fictional Sherlock Holmes was a very limited run
anthology which includes an expanded version of the original
Astounding publication of "The Return" by Beam and John J. McGuire. This item is exceptionally difficult to find.
Good luck,
David (again, not the seller)
--
"Why
Walt Disney bought the movie rights to ['Rebel Raider'], I've never
figured out. Will Colonel Mosby be played by Mickey Mouse, and General
Phil Sheridan by Donald Duck? It's baffling. However, I was glad to
get the check." - H. Beam Piper
~
|
|
David Johnson
03-18-2010
13:53 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Has anyone played the "Down Styphon" game? On the one hand I'm
> tempted, but on the other I've got a copy of the miniatures
> rules for both Traveller [Striker 2] and Space:1889 [Soldier's
> Companion], and neither sees as much use as I'd like. They both
> have muskets in the range tables.
Never
played it; mine is just a collector's piece. Someday though I hope
to at least get the wonderful internal illustrations up on
Zarthani.net
Good luck,
David
--
"Good things in the long run are often tough while they're
happening." - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper), _Space_Viking_
~
|
Jon Crocker 03-15-2010
04:29 UT
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Has anyone played the "Down Styphon" game? On the one hand I'm tempted,
but on the other I've got a copy of the miniatures rules for both
Traveller [Striker 2] and Space:1889 [Soldier's Companion], and neither
sees as much use as I'd like. They both have muskets in the range
tables.
I don't recall different lengths of time units used in
other stories - but Little Fuzzy did open with "Some fifty million years
ago, when the planet that had been called Zarathustra [for the last
twenty-five *million*] was young..." emphasis added, and that gave me
pause on the first reading. Wow, this Federation is *really* old...
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David Johnson
03-15-2010
02:50 UT
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~
Federation era timekeeping conventions
At the opening of
"Graveyard of Dreams," Conn Maxwell, upon the announcement that the
airship is thirty minutes out from Litchfield, muses, "Thirty
minutes--twenty-six and a fraction of the Terran minutes he had become
accustomed to--until he'd have to face it." The presupposition here
is that Federation colonial planets like Poictesme actually adjusted
the measurement of time in order to match the timekeeping conventions
of Terra (e.g. sixty minutes to an hour and presumably twenty-four
hours to a local day).
I'm not aware of this detail appearing in
any of the other Federation- era yarns but obviously this would have
tremendous timekeeping
implications across the entire
Federation-era Future History. (It would be unlikely that these same
conventions would hold in the Space Viking and Empire eras.) Anyone
run across anything similar in any other Future History yarn?
This detail does not appear in the later version of this scene
recounted in _The_Cosmic_Computer_ so perhaps Beam thought better of this convention himself.
Remember Ashmodai! Remember Belphegor!
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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David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-12-2010
16:49 UT
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Lord Kalvan wargame on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270543752435
This is a miniatures wargame based upon some of the battles from Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. The game booklet also has some wonderful illustrations.
Good luck,
David (not the seller)
~
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Gordon Johansen
03-06-2010
05:34 UT
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Very interesting stuff indeed. Thanks for posting that.
Gord
Gordon Johansen (Owner)
The Sentry Box (Canada's largest adventure gaming store)
1835-10th Avenue. S.W., Calgary, AB T3C 0K2
403-245-2121
www.sentrybox.com
----- Original message ----------------------------------------
From: "QT - Jim Rhino Sparr" <qtopic-42-tnfVKeAH3s4T@quicktopic.com> To: qtopic-subs@quicktopic.com
Received: 3/5/2010 8:49:58 PM
Subject: Zarthani.net's H. Beam Piper List
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr 03-06-2010
03:49 UT
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http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2052...the-multiverse.html
If it looks like Paratime, walks like Paratime, and quacks like Paratime......
Perhaps,
once upon a time, in one of the infinite number of universes, there was
a PA state trooper named Calvin Morrison.............
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