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Messages 846-844 deleted by author 03-26-2011 12:57 PM |
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Tim Tow
03-22-2011
09:48 UT
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> I going to have to rent ~The Box~ now
Tell me what you think after you see it.
---Spoilers----
The
movie does also touch upon psycho-history and a lost Martian race too,
adding a bit more science fiction backdrop to Mattheson's original
story.
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David Johnson
03-20-2011
16:26 UT
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login:
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~
Tim Tow wrote:
> Does anyone know if the director/screenwriter Richard Kelly is a
> Piper fan.
I've no idea. Perhaps the "death's head" on the cover of that issue merely suited the mood.
In any event, I going to have to rent ~The Box~ now! Thanks for the tip!
David
--
"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
~
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Jackson Russell
03-19-2011
19:57 UT
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This just came in on the Little Fuzzy Facebook page:
John H Reiher Jr
So
we have two new Fuzzy novels coming out, one by Unka Wolf, AKA Wolfgang
Diehr, entitled "Fuzzy Ergo Sum", and is a direct sequel to the first
three novels.
Then we have "Fuzzy Nation" by John Scalzi, a
darker reimagining of the first book, "Little Fuzzy". Just reading the
blurb for it, makes it seem like it's going to go the way of the
reimagined Battlestar Galactica, not the new Trek movie.
7 hours ago &#B7; Jay Hailey - Darker and Edgier Fuzzies? I am going to opt out of that one.
Randy McDonald
I
read _Little Fuzzy_ at Project Gutenburg last night. Thanks, Stephen
Voss, for pointing me to it! Great stories, nice group. :-)
Looks
like people are taking notice of the Fuzzyverse. I agree with Jay
Hailey. Not everything needs to be remade dark and gritty. That was
fine for The Dark Knight Returns, but Fuzzies shouldn't be done dark.
Still, I'll probably get the book just to see what Scalzi did with it.
Is John Scalzi or Wolfgang Diehr a member of this group? I would like to hear their thoughts on the matter.
Jack Russell
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David Johnson
03-17-2011
20:54 UT
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~
Jon Crocker writes:
>I looked up Bathurst one time.
Oh, surely the Paracops are editing Wikipedia all the time! ;)
(Besides,
aren't those details which suggest Bathurst was killed--his lost coat,
etc.--just the sort of "evidence" the Paracops would plant after
tracking down his originating timeline? Like Calvin Morrison's cap and
gun. . . .)
Down Styphon!
David
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David Johnson
03-17-2011
20:50 UT
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Jon Crocker writes:
>I wonder why he never had a story about President Hartley the
>son...
Allan
Hartley--not yet President but son of President Blake Hartley--is
mentioned briefly and plays a very small part in "The Mercenaries."
It
looks though like Beam had moved into the Terro-human Future History
(with ~Uller Uprising~) soon after the last "Hartley yarn" ("Day of the
Moron") and was also focused on his first novel (~Murder in the
Gunroom~) and his collaborations with McGuire.
Drink Evri-flave!
David
~
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Spam deleted by QuickTopic 01-24-2014 06:09
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Jon Crocker
03-17-2011
13:43 UT
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Good stuff - it's interesting to see how the themes changed over the time he was writing.
I wonder why he never had a story about President Hartley the son...
And thanks for the link to the Poul Anderson bit, as well!
Jon
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David Johnson
03-16-2011
06:03 UT
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John Carr wrote:
> So you consider Crossroads of Destiny to be in the Paratime
> universe?
Yes.
I realize there are no Paracops nor even any mention of any sort of
"paratemporal transposition" in the yarn but the interloper-- the
oddly-dressed man with the pseudo-French accent--is clearly someone
from a universe parallel to the one in which the yarn is set (which
itself is parallel to the universe in which Calvin Morrison was born).
So, even though there are no specific ties to the
Paratime setting I think the story fits in Paratime and there is nothing about it which conflicts with the Paratime setting.
That
interloper might very well be someone who has been accidently dragged
from a parallel universe by some intersecting conveyors, like Tortha
Karf did with Benjamin Bathurst and as happened to Calvin Morrison.
Down Styphon!
David
--
"I
remember, when I was just a kid, about a hundred and fifty years
ago--a hundred and thirty-nine, to be exact--I picked up a fellow on
the Fourth Level, just about where you're operating, and dragged him a
couple of hundred parayears. I went back to find him and return him
to his own time-line, but before I could locate him, he'd been
arrested
by the local authorities as a suspicious character, and got himself
shot trying to escape. I felt badly about that. . . ." - Tortha Karf,
"Police Operation"
~
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Otherwhen@aol.com
03-16-2011
02:00 UT
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login:
fromIP: E127.0.0.1
Nicely done, David!
Very helpful, especially seeing the big gap in the Paratime series.
So you consider Crossroads of Destiny to be in the Paratime universe?
Best,
John
Been working on a little addition to my bibliography of Piper's first publications here:
http://www.zarthani.net/bibfirst.htm
And have added a graphical presentation showing when Beam's
stories were first published by series. The direct link to
the file is here:
http://www.zarthani.net/Images/firstpubs.pdf
Let me know what you think.
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Jackson Russell
03-13-2011
14:36 UT
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Little Fuzzy is on Facebook! He is listed as Lo'shta Holloway and has a
Little Fuzzy Group. They have mentioned the upcoming Fuzzy books
"Fuzzy Nation" by John Scalzi and "Fuzzy Ergo Sum" by Wolfgang Diehr.
Frankly, I never heard of either writers before this list mentioned
Scalzi a couple months back. Diehr must be a complete novice as all I
can find on him are mentions to a computer game called The Devil
Whiskey and the short story on Zarthani.net "Second Genesis." I
already friended (is that a real word?) Lo'shta Holloway and thought
you all would like to know about this.
Jack Russell
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David Johnson
03-13-2011
05:29 UT
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login:
fromIP: E127.0.0.1
~
Been working on a little addition to my bibliography of Piper's first publications here:
http://www.zarthani.net/bibfirst.htm
And
have added a graphical presentation showing when Beam's stories were
first published by series. The direct link to the file is here:
http://www.zarthani.net/Images/firstpubs.pdf
Let me know what you think.
David
--
"Do
you know which books to study, and which ones not to bother with? Or
which ones to read first, so that what you read in the others will be
comprehensible to you? That's what they'll give you [at
university] on Terra. The tools, which you don't have now, for
educating yourself." - Bish Ware (H. Beam Piper), _Four-Day_Planet_ ~
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David Johnson
03-11-2011
13:22 UT
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Jon Crocker wrote:
> The obvious fix to that? When you survey everything in First
> Level, start from Fifth Level Police Terminal.
This is exactly what Verkan believes the Wizard Traders are doing to get to their "clustered" base timelines on Abzar Sector:
"I
think they have a lot of these Abzar time lines close together, and
they get from one to another via some terminal on Fifth Level."
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
~
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David Johnson
03-11-2011
13:22 UT
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~
Jackson Russell wrote:
> Isn't there something in the canon stating that the Paratime
> conveyer jumps something like 5 levels at a time?
Ah, you were right. Here it is (from "Time Crime"):
"It was impossible to make a transposition of less than ten
parayears--a hundred thousand time lines. It was impossible that the field could build and collapse that soon."
But Jon's already pointed out how to get around this: transpose "back" from Fifth Level.
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
03-10-2011
20:27 UT
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>>Isn't there something in the canon stating that the Paratime
>>conveyer jumps something like 5 levels at a time?
>Hmm,
don't recall that . . . maybe something in "Time Crime" when the
>ParaCops are trying to chase down the Slave Traders?
I do
recall that there was a minimum time taken for the field to form and to
collapse, and because of that you couldn't go from one timeline to an
adjoining one, or any within 'X' of your starting point.
The obvious fix to that? When you survey everything in First Level, start from Fifth Level Police Terminal.
I
really can't see any Chief of Paratime Police not ordering a complete
survey of at least Frist Level just to make certain no one else would be
travelling Paratime.
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David Johnson
03-10-2011
19:18 UT
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~
Gilmoure writes:
>For a GURPS space based game I had a few years ago (+10 years
>ago), I went with a few System States ships heading out in a
>different direction than the rest (that became space vikings).
>That way, I had Piper tech to play with, without having to get
>too canon restrictive.
Sounds like that would have been a cool campaign to play in!
David
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David Johnson
03-10-2011
19:16 UT
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~
Jon Crocker writes:
>I
>was idly contemplating that 'Infinite Worlds' book from GURPS
>I'd mentioned a while back, and if I were to start a campaign,
Hope you make this choice! ;)
>how I'd explain it to the players. Obviously the
>Mars-colonizes-Earth angle would be a tougher sell today than
>when the stories were written, and there's no point in making it
>a harder sell than possible, so I'd want to avoid that. I have
>no problem with that sitting in the background [or not] of some
>of the stories, but I don't think it would work for my purposes.
I
think you've hit the key point: it's not really central to many
Paratime campaigns set 10,000 years after the discovery of paratemporal
transposition--unless you're on a Second or Third Level timeline that
takes their Martian origins seriously. . . .
Enjoy!
David
~
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David Johnson
03-10-2011
19:11 UT
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~
Jackson Russell writes:
>Isn't there something in the canon stating that the Paratime
>conveyer jumps something like 5 levels at a time?
Hmm, don't recall that . . . maybe something in "Time Crime" when the ParaCops are trying to chase down the Slave Traders?
>Assume that . . . they become aware of each other and
>maybe destroy each other because they would fight over the
>accessible time-times, or something to that effect.
I think you begin to see why Beam stopped talking about multiple Home Timelines in subsequent yarns. . . .
Down Styphon!
David
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Gilmoure
03-10-2011
18:09 UT
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That's right. I got the paths mixed up. I have a problem with Mars
origin (growing up with Mariner/Viking/etc) so I guess I was trying to
bend things to fit my outlook. Still, an extra-solar origin of humans...
or maybe on Minerva, before it blew up and the majority recoelesed as
Mars...
I think this counts as out-of-bounds for Piper.
G
On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 10:27 AM, QT - Jackson Russell <
qtopic-42-tnfVKeAH3s4T@quicktopic.com> wrote:
>
--
G
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Jackson Russell
03-10-2011
17:27 UT
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It's been a while since I read that one, but the main premise was that
Humans and Freyans were interfertile because they were both descended
from Martians. That made more sense than convergent evolution on two
very different planets.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Gilmoure
03-10-2011
17:08 UT
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Yup, that's the one.
On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 10:02 AM, QT - Jackson Russell <
qtopic-42-tnfVKeAH3s4T@quicktopic.com> wrote:
>
--
G
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Jackson Russell
03-10-2011
17:02 UT
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Isn't that "Second Genesis" by Wolfgang Deer, the one posted on
Zarthani.net? I heard something else about the writer, but forget what it was.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Gilmoure
03-10-2011
16:47 UT
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There was that fan work by someone linking Freya and Mars 1st level by
colony ship crashes on both worlds. Of course, the Mars folks had to get
to Earth as fast as possible. Might be worth while RPG background.
For
a GURPS space based game I had a few years ago (+10 years ago), I went
with a few System States ships heading out in a different direction than
the rest (that became space vikings). That way, I had Piper tech to
play with, without having to get too canon restrictive.
G
On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 9:20 AM, QT - Jon <
qtopic-42-tnfVKeAH3s4T@quicktopic.com> wrote:
>
--
G
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Jon
03-10-2011
16:20 UT
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Wow, lots of replies, thanks everyone.
I should start by
admitting 'quaint' wasn't the right word. I was idly contemplating that
'Infinite Worlds' book from GURPS I'd mentioned a while back, and if I
were to start a campaign, how I'd explain it to the players. Obviously
the Mars-colonizes-Earth angle would be a tougher sell today than when
the stories were written, and there's no point in making it a harder
sell than possible, so I'd want to avoid that. I have no problem with
that sitting in the background [or not] of some of the stories, but I
don't think it would work for my purposes.
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Jackson Russell
03-10-2011
15:42 UT
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Isn't there something in the canon stating that the Paratime conveyer
jumps something like 5 levels at a time? There could be eight other
1st Level civilizations that would go unnoticed by the middle one and
vice verse. In fact, those civilizations could either die out, revert
to barbarism, or have discovered the Paratime secret and do the same
thing as the one we are familiar with, but on the lines innacessable to
the others. Assume that the one we read about is #5 out of nine
possible 1st Levels. #5 would be incapable of visiting the other
eight, but #1 could cross #6, they become aware of each other and maybe
destroy each other because they would fight over the accessible
time-times, or something to that effect. Now, what would happen if one
of the levels designed a new conveyer with a tighter jump control?
Instead of hitting every fifth line, they hit every third? Now there is
greater potential to bump into one of the other 1st Level time-lines.
I would hazard to say that there are maybe two to four other 1st level
time-lines with the one we know at the top (or beginning, if you
prefer). That would explain why they never bump into each other, yet
Verkan could get a para-peek at one of the others while in transit.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Lensman
03-10-2011
15:05 UT
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On 3/9/2011 10:33 PM, QT - David Johnson wrote:
> (It's not like the multiple, shower-peeping Verkan Vall's who
> appear in the first Paratime yarn, "Police Operation." Beam
> stopped referring to multiple First Level timelines in subsequent
> Paratime yarns but he never explicitly _contradicted_ the
> multiple First Level timelines described in "Police
> Operation.")
Piper
most certainly *did* specify in later stories that there was only one
First Level timeline. Multiple First Level timelines *is*
explicitly contradicted in later stories, which the Martian origin is not.
Furthermore,
a much stronger case can be made for background specified in *two*
stories than something mentioned in just one, and only the first one at
that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
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Lensman
03-10-2011
14:59 UT
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On 3/9/2011 10:11 PM, QT - David Johnson wrote:
> The "Martian origins" of First Level civilization
> appear in only two Paratime yarns: "Last Enemy" (published in
> 1950) and "Time Crime" (published in 1955).
<snip>
> Beam stopped writing Paratime yarns for some time after "Time
> Crime." Not counting "Crossroads of Destiny" published in 1959
> (which doesn't mention the Paratime Police or even a means of
> "paratemporal transposition"), he did not return to the Paratime
> setting until "Gunpowder God" (published in 1964) nearly a
> decade later. As noted in my last message, by that time Beam
> had abandoned the Martian origins of First Level civilization,
> attributing the differences in Paratime Levels to "genetic
> accidents" rather than ancient Martians. . . .
I
don't see this as a contradiction, nor do I think that just because
Piper did not choose to explain the Martian origin in every single
Paratime story, he had dropped the idea. Rather, the "genetic
accidents"
explains /why/ on some timelines, the Martians succeeded in colonizing
Earth, while on others, they did not. The genetically superior
Martians were the ones which succeeded, or at least tended to succeed.
Furthermore,
I submit that the reason Piper chose to specify "genetic variations"
as the basis of the variation between the timelines, instead of the
Martian origin, was because the Martian origin requires a more extended
explanation, and had no direct impact on later stories. In fact, one
can argue that it is bad storytelling to introduce the idea of the
Martian origin early in a story, but never mentioning it again, and it
having no impact on the story. I submit that *this* is the reason
Piper chose to omit it from later stories-- and not because he found the
idea to be "quaint".
I think when a Piper fan concludes that
Piper chose to omit the Martian origin from the later Paratime stories
because he abandoned the idea, that is the fan "projecting" his
distaste for the idea. If we were to omit everything from the canon
which was mentioned in "only two" stories, then we would be left with
very little indeed!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
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David Johnson
03-10-2011
04:33 UT
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~
Jackson Russell wrote:
> The point is, he did mention it more than once. Did he beat it
> into the ground? No, of course not. That would be bad
> writing. The point was made so he didn't harp on it.
It's
not just that Beam didn't mention the "Martian origins" after "Time
Crime." In "Gunpowder God" (and thus in ~Lord Kalvan~), he _abandons_
the Martian premise, offering a new, _different_
explanation for the differences in human civilization across the different Levels of Paratime.
(It's
not like the multiple, shower-peeping Verkan Vall's who appear in the
first Paratime yarn, "Police Operation." Beam stopped
referring
to multiple First Level timelines in subsequent Paratime yarns but he
never explicitly _contradicted_ the multiple First Level timelines
described in "Police Operation.")
Down Styphon!
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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Jackson Russell
03-10-2011
04:18 UT
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The point is, he did mention it more than once. Did he beat it into the
ground? No, of course not. That would be bad writing. The point was
made so he didn't harp on it.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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David Johnson
03-10-2011
04:11 UT
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~
Jackson Russell wrote:
> I like the Martian origin in
> Paratime. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Well,
apparently Beam himself came to the conclusion that it was "broke."
The "Martian origins" of First Level civilization appear in only two
Paratime yarns: "Last Enemy" (published in 1950) and "Time Crime"
(published in 1955).
("Genesis," Beam's yarn about a failed colonization attempt by
ancient
Martians who become the ancestors of humans, was published in 1951.
There is no mention of Paratimers or of alternate worlds in "Genesis"
but its publication in between "Last Enemy" and "Time Crime" suggests
that Beam was telling the story of the Martian origin of First Level
civilization.)
Beam stopped writing Paratime yarns for some time after "Time
Crime."
Not counting "Crossroads of Destiny" published in 1959 (which
doesn't mention the Paratime Police or even a means of
"paratemporal
transposition"), he did not return to the Paratime setting until
"Gunpowder God" (published in 1964) nearly a decade later. As noted
in my last message, by that time Beam had abandoned the Martian
origins of First Level civilization, attributing the differences in
Paratime Levels to "genetic accidents" rather than ancient Martians. .
. .
Down Styphon!
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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David Johnson
03-10-2011
03:56 UT
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~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Would there be any way to restate the "Levels" of Paratime
> without the, er, "quaint" colonization-of-earth-from-mars
> theory?
Sure. Here's the way Beam himself did it in ~Lord Kalvan~ (and in "Gunpowder God" before that):
"Twelve
thousand years ago, facing extinction on an exhausted planet, the
First Level race had discovered the existence of a second,
lateral,
time dimension and a means of physical transposition to and from a
near-infinity of worlds of alternate probability parallel to their
own. So the conveyers had gone out by stealth, bringing back wealth
to Home Time-Line a little from this one, a little from that, never
enough to be missed anywhen.
"It all had to be policed. Some
paratimers were less than scrupulous in dealing with outtime races. . .
. More often, somebody's bad luck or indiscretion would endanger the
Paratime Secret, or some incident- nobody's fault, something that just
happened' would have to be
explained away. But, at all costs, the
Paratime Secret must be preserved. Not merely the actual technique of
transposition--that went without saying--but the very existence of a
race possessing it. If for no other reason (and there were many
others), it would be utterly immoral to make any outtime race live
with the knowledge that there were among them aliens indistinguishable
from themselves, watching and exploiting. It was a big police-beat.
"Second
Level that had been civilized almost as long as the First, but there
had been dark-age interludes. Except for paratemporal transposition,
most of its sectors equaled First Level, and from many, Home Time Line
had learned much. The Third Level civilizations were more recent, but
still of respectable antiquity and
advancement. Fourth Level had
started late and progressed slowly; some Fourth Level genius was first
domesticating animals long after the steam engine was obsolescent all
over the Third. And Fifth Level on a few sectors, subhuman brutes,
speechless and fireless, were cracking nuts and each other's heads
with stones, and on most of it nothing even vaguely humanoid had
appeared.
"Fourth Level was the big one. The others had devolved
from low- probability genetic accidents; it was the maximum
probability. It was divided into many sectors and subsectors, on most
of which human civilization had first appeared in the valleys of the
Nile and Tigris- Euphrates, and on the Indus and Yangtze."
See? No Martians at all.
Down Styphon!
David
--
"In
a religious community, the village atheist keeps his doubts to
himself." - Rodney Maxwell (H. Beam Piper), ~The Cosmic Computer~ ~
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Jackson Russell
03-10-2011
02:54 UT
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I don't see how this is "quaint". Sci-fi writers create alternative
origin of the race stories on a daily basis. Piper's was more clever
than most of them. Yeah, today we know that Mars is quite
uninhabitable, sure, but hindsight is 20/20. Burroughs, Wells, Asimov,
Bradbury...the list goes on and on with Mars stories where the red
planet was inhabitable. The idea that they came here and set up house
as colonists is far more reasonable than anything Burroughs or Bradbury
cranked out. Even Asimov envisioned a Martian colony where people
adapted to the thinner atmosphere (totally ignoring the lower
air-pressure and hard radiation.) I like the Martian origin in
Paratime. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Jack Russell
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Jon Crocker  03-10-2011
02:37 UT
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Would there be any way to restate the "Levels" of Paratime without the, er, "quaint" colonization-of-earth-from-mars theory?
I
was think of a 'dart board' analogy - First Level would have the Home
Time Line, and a few dozen or hundred or thousand others. Home Time
Line would be the bulls-eye, the rest of the First Level would be the
center ring.
The next ring out would be Second Level - lots of ancient and learned timelines, but also a bunch that ended badly.
And so on.
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David Johnson
03-07-2011
03:16 UT
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~
Apologies if this is a repost but I just came across Fred Pohl's reminiscence of Beam from stashed away in an e-mail folder:
http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2010/01/h-beam-piper/
Eventually, I'll get it posted at Zarthani.net.
David
--
"John Campbell . . . is almost as big a fascist sonofabitch as I am. . . ." - H. Beam Piper
~
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