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Jackson Russell
06-30-2015
23:43 UT
|
That was addressed in Little Fuzzy. In that era, six months travel,
objectively, time was three weeks subjectively in hyperspace. I have no
idea if that is affected by the speed at which the ship travels
through hyperspace.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
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David "Lensman" Sooby
06-30-2015
20:37 UT
|
Jackson Russell wrote:
> In Little Fuzzy, Zarathustra is 500 light years from Terra, and hyperspace speed is around 1 LY per
> 6.5 hours. So, it would actually take three months to go there directly, yet Piper describes it as
> taking six months. This is because of the stops it makes along the way; Baldur, Marduk, Odin, Thor,
> etc...
Actually,
there is another way to resolve that discrepancy. The time duration
experienced by passengers on a ship in hyperspace apparently does not
match the time duration of people in normal space.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...Gus wanted to know how old he really was.
[Jack
Holloway replied] "Seventy-four: I was born in 580. I couldn't even
estimate how much to allow for on time-differential for hyperspace
trips."
"That's the truth," Gus said. "I didn't think you were much over sixty."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--FUZZY SAPIENS, ch. VIII
This
seems to suggest that the passage of time during hyperspace travel is
slower than time passage outside it. I submit the difference could
easily be a 2-to-1 ratio.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
David "Lensman" Sooby
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David "Lensman" Sooby
06-30-2015
20:14 UT
|
"When in the Course--" also states that a ship's speed is dependent on,
or partly dependent on, the mass/power ratio, which indicates that
different ships have different hyperspace speeds. This is pretty
strongly contradicted in every other Piperverse story, in which ships
are stated to have a fixed hyperspace speed. Note that in SPACE VIKING
they consistently use the number of hours a ship has been in hyperspace
as the measure of how far it has traveled. It seems quite clear to me
that it wouldn't be the standard yardstick if some ships were faster
than others.
"When in the Course--" was not published in Piper's
lifetime. I suggest the correct approach is to treat that story as only
semi-canonical; interesting to see what the author's ideas were when he
wrote that, but certainly not anything which should be allowed to
contradict published Canon. As with Piper's notes in his "The Future
History" article, we can treat the events of "When in the Course--" as
accurate where they do not contradict what is in published canon, but
anything there should be disregarded where it actually contradicts what
Piper later wrote.
I realize, of course, this doesn't help any
with the other contradictions between stories, such as between the
speeds given in FOUR-DAY PLANET and other stories. But at least we can
throw "When in the Course--" out of the mix when trying to come up with
something consistent.
There have been a lot of posts, here and on
the Piper-Worlds discussion list, about the inconsistencies in various
travel times, distances, etc. given in the various stories. I don't
think there is any rational way to reconcile them. It seems pretty clear
that Piper did not care enough about such things to make notes and use
the same numbers from story to story. If we need an in-story reason to
explain away the discrepancy, I suggest the easiest thing is to point
out that these stories are translated into English from whatever
language they're speaking in the future, and that various translators
and/or editors were unfamiliar with the distance units in use at the
time, so did not translate them accurately.
I realize this is a
"Solution Unsatisfactory", but in this case I don't see a better way to
explain away what was almost certainly carelessness on the part of the
author. It's fun to discuss the Canon as if it represents reality in
some alternate universe, but the sad truth is that authors simply don't
have the obsessive attention to detail that fans like us do. That is not
unique to the Piperverse, of course; anyone who has read THE ANNOTATED
SHERLOCK HOLMES knows that it applies to other fictional universes, too.
Was Dr. John Watson shot in the arm/shoulder or leg in Afghanistan?
Doyle seems confused on the matter, altho you'd certainly think that Dr.
Watson would not be likely to forget! :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
|
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David Johnson
06-30-2015
15:02 UT
|
~
Jackson Russell wrote:
> Actually, if you read the
text closely in "When In The Course-" they say very early on that the
ship is on its last legs. You simply can't expect a worn out old
engine to perform as well as a newer one.
Yes, there are
different speeds described for the old ~Stellex~ and the newer
~Voortrekker~ but there is still a discrepancy between the
times/distances given for ~Stellex~ to travel to Yggdrasil as opposed to
Terra.
> Another thing to consider is if there are any other stops along the way.
Sure,
for a regular commercial ship in another context (or another yarn), but
it's clear in "Course--" that they are talking about the ~Stellex~ (or
~Voortrekker) making direct voyages.
> In Little Fuzzy,
Zarathustra is 500 light years from Terra, and hyperspace speed is
around 1 LY per 6.5 hours. So, it would actually take three months to
go there directly, yet Piper describes it as taking six months. This is
because of the stops it makes along the way; Baldur, Marduk, Odin,
Thor, etc...
Sure, this sort of thing adds some uncertainty
to the calculated hyperspace speeds but at the end of the day this isn't
going to account for the order of magnitude scale variations we see. A
ship taking "six months" to travel from Terra to "Planet X" might have
spent half of that time stopping at other planets along the way but it's
doubtful it spent _90%_ of the time not traveling in hyperspace. . . .
> It is probably better not to get too hung up on the math.
Won't
argue there. As Jon's allusion to Whedon suggests, it seems like
Beam's "standard" was pretty much "six months" to just about everywhere.
This makes great dramatic sense: close enough that folks are never
truly "on their own" but far enough away that they pretty much have to
deal with crises themselves.
What I don't understand is why Beam
bothered adding the details that allowed him to get "caught out." It
would have been easy simply not to mention any distances (even in
~Uprising~ where he actually changed the name of the star!) and just
talk about travel times.
> Piper even had the speed as 1 LY every 60 odd hours, which is considered apocryphal, now.
Really? By whom? That seems to be the reference from ~Four-Day Planet~. I hadn't realized that was considered "apocryphal."
Jumping!
David
--
"A
lot of technicians are girls, and when work gets slack, they're always
the first ones to get shoved out of jobs." - Sylvie Jacquemont (H. Beam
Piper), ~Junkyard Planet~
~
|
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Jonathan Crocker
06-30-2015
05:44 UT
|
When I was looking into this a few weeks back, I came across one story
where it flatly said "1 light year in X hours", I don't remember which
story or how much, but when you worked out the math from the value given
in the story, it looked like Piper had slipped a decimal point. Of
course, we have calculators and he didn't, so I'm not going to hold that
against him.
It's like the ship in Firefly, Joss Wheadon said that it would always travel at "the speed of plot."
In general, yes, you can trace the general improvement of the Dillinghams, but there are a lot of variables.
|
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Jackson Russell
06-30-2015
04:38 UT
|
Actually, if you read the text closely in "When In The Course-" they say
very early on that the ship is on its last legs. You simply can't
expect a worn out old engine to perform as well as a newer one.
Another thing to consider is if there are any other stops along the
way.
In Little Fuzzy, Zarathustra is 500 light years from Terra,
and hyperspace speed is around 1 LY per 6.5 hours. So, it would
actually take three months to go there directly, yet Piper describes it
as taking six months. This is because of the stops it makes along the
way; Baldur, Marduk, Odin, Thor, etc...
It is probably better
not to get too hung up on the math. Piper even had the speed as 1 LY
every 60 odd hours, which is considered apocryphal, now.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
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David Johnson
06-30-2015
01:38 UT
|
~
Hyperspace Speeds in the Early Federation Era
In "When
in the Course--," set sometime in the mid-Third Century, AE (still early
in the "Interstellar Era"), Beam tells us that it will take the
~Stellex~ about three months to make the 40 light-year, round-trip to
Yggdrasil from Freya. That works out to about 150 times the speed of
light.
On the other hand, in the same story, Beam also tells us
that it would take the ~Stellex~ about six months to make the 700
light-year trip to Terra from Freya. That works out to an order of
magnitude faster than the speed calculated for the round-trip to
Yggdrasil, about 1500 times the speed of light. (The ~Voortrekker~ is
described as having better performance than the old ~Stellex~, making
the trip to Terra in about four months, which works out to about 2000
times the speed of light.)
So, internally, the hyperdrive speeds described in "When in the Course--" are not consistent.
The
date of ~Four-Day Planet~ is already problematic, but let's assume it
takes place late in the Fifth Century, AE. Beam tells us in ~Planet~
that a "spaceship can log a light-year in sixty odd hours," which works
out to about 150 times the speed of light, or about the same as the
"slower" speed described in "When in the Course--" set more than two
centuries before ~Four-Day Planet~ (and much slower than the "higher"
speeds described in ~Planet~).
On the other hand, Beam also
tells us in ~Planet~ that it takes about six months to travel the 650
light-years between Fenris and Terra, which works out to about 1300
times the speed of light. This is about the same order of magnitude as
the "higher" speeds of "When in the Course--" two centuries earlier.
So,
internally again, the hyperdrive speeds described in ~Four-Day Planet~
are not consistent _and_ they don't seem to be consistent externally
with those in "When in the Course--."
~Uller Uprising~ is set
early in the Sixth Century, perhaps less than fifty years after
~Four-Day Planet~ and nearly three centuries after "When in the
Course--." Beam is pretty consistent in telling us it takes about six
months to travel between Terra and Uller but he also mentions the
distance as being the 21 light-years described in the "Introduction" by
John D. Clark as being the distance from Terra to the Beta Hydri system
(even though Beam consistently describes Uller as being located in the
Beta ~Hydrae~ system). Still, this gives us a hyperdrive speed of about
40 times the speed of light, much slower than the speeds of ~Four-Day
Planet~ or "When in the Course--."
On the other hand, if we
assume that Uller is in fact in the Beta Hydrae system, at a distance of
approximately 370 light-years from Terra, the "six months" travel time
gives a hyperdrive speed of about 750 times the speed of light. This is
faster than both the "slower" hyperdrive speed from "When in the
Course--" and the "slower" speed from ~Four-Day Planet~. And yet, it is
_slower_ than the "faster" hyperdrive speeds from both earlier years.
So,
internally, ~Uller Uprising~ isn't so much inconsistent as it is
unclear about the actual distance to be used in any hyperdrive speed
calculations. And regardless of the speed used, it is inconsistent
externally with all of the hyperdrive speeds described in both "When in
the Course--" and ~Four-Day Planet~ (i.e. "too fast" for the "slower"
speeds and "too slow" for the "faster" speeds).
Finally, in the
Fuzzy novels, set in the mid-Seventh Century, AE, Beam pretty
consistently tells us it takes about six month to travel the 500
light-years between Terra and Zarathustra. This works out to about 1000
times the speed of light.
And so, yet again, the Fuzzy yarns
are externally inconsistent with the "faster" hyperdrive speeds
described in both "When in the Course--" and ~Four-Day Planet~, though
it might work with the "slower" hyperdrive speeds in these two yarns
(and with the "faster" speed calculated for ~Uller Uprising~ too, though
there would have to have been some big improvement in hyperdrive
technology between ~Four-Day Planet~ and ~Uller Uprising~).
I
haven't looked closely at hyperdrive speeds in the yarns set later in
the Terro-human Future History from the Fuzzy novels. We know that
hyperdrive speeds pick up a lot by the Space Viking era and in the early
Empire era. If we ignore the "faster" speeds described in both "When
in the Course--" and ~Four-Day Planet, and assume that Uller is indeed
located in the Beta Hydrae system (rather than the Beta Hydri system),
then it is possible at least to draw a line that has a positive slope
for hyperdrive speeds in all four "early Federation" yarns. It's not
pretty, it explicitly ignores some of the internally inconsistent
information in several of the yarns, but it does "work" in a sense if we
have hyperdrive speeds gradually increasing through the hundreds of
times the speed of light to about one thousand times the speed of light
by the time of the Fuzzy yarns.
Jumping!
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 "PiperFan" Johnson  06-20-2015
15:29 UT
|
~
"Today, in 1965, there might have been a few wandering
tribesmen in Somaliland or the Kirghiz Steppes who had never heard of
the Western Union's Philadelphia Project, or of the Fourth Komintern's
Red Triumph Five-Year Plan, or of the Islamic Kaliphate's Al-Borak
Undertaking, or of the Ibero-American Confederation's Cavor Project, but
every literate person in the world knew that the four great power-blocs
were racing desperately to launch the first spaceship to reach the Moon
and build the Lunar fortress that would insure world supremacy." - H.
Beam Piper, "The Mercenaries" (1950)
Man, was Beam good at his research:
http://www.oei.es/isoei.htm
"The
[Organization of Ibero-American States] was born in 1949. . . . In
1954, the [Second Congress], held in Quito, decided to transform the
[organization] into an intergovernmental, organization integrated by
sovereign estates."
David
--
"You either went on to the
inevitable catastrophe, or you realized, in time, that nuclear armament
and nationalism cannot exist together on the same planet, and it is
easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." - H.
Beam Piper, ~Uller Uprising~
~
|
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David "Lensman" Sooby
06-18-2015
02:06 UT
|
Jackson Russell asked:
> How would the Fuzzies survive as a race without the Extee-three that allows them to procreate? Either they
> evolved the NFMp hormone out of their systems (maybe) or there are still Big Ones on Zarathustra that didn't
> sink completely back into barbarism.
Even
if every human on Zarathustra fell dead overnight, the Fuzzies probably
wouldn't all die off in just the few centuries between the end of the
Federation and whenever the Empire rediscovered Zarathustra*. According
to FUZZIES AND OTHER PEOPLE, the environmental change which started the
Fuzzy species on the decline happened "...about the time Terran humans
were starting civilizations in the Nile and Euphrates valleys..." Looks
like that would have been about 3500 B.C., which means they survived as
a species for about (3500 + 2600 =) 6100 years without any human help,
altho they weren't very happy about the high infant mortality rate. They
survived by getting a tiny amount of titanium from eating landprawns.
So long as landprawns are still around, there's a good chance that
Fuzzies can continue to survive (altho, again, with declining numbers)
for a few centuries without any help from Terro-humans.
However,
I'd argue that at least some Fuzzies remained in contact with humans.
Obviously humans have a powerful psychological urge to adopt Fuzzies,
and I don't see that going away. Even during our dark ages, some people
kept pets. Odds are that when ships from the Empire showed up at
Zarathustra, they found humans and Fuzzies together. If Fuzzies remained
in contact with humans, then they would have retained the ability to
make human speech. But the humans would likely have preserved at least
enough records to show that when discovered, the Fuzzies had no use of
fire. No need for the Empire to conduct new research on the subject. By
the Empire's rules, the question of sapience was already answered:
Fuzzies fail the talk-and-make-fire test.
Alternatively, as
someone pointed out, it's possible the Fuzzies were not rediscovered on
Zarathustra, but rather on some other planet where a breeding population
had been transferred. (But then, why were they still called "Fuzzies"
if the Empire had no records of the previous discovery and adoptions of
Fuzzies on Zarathustra?)
At any rate, even aside from the rather
doubtful possibility that the species was named "Fuzzies" twice
independently, if we postulate the Empire discovered Fuzzies living in
the wild, with no humans around, then again they'd fail the
talk-and-build-a-fire test. Specifically, "Ministry of Disturbance"
says:
"Zarathustran Fuzzies, who were almost able to qualify under the talk-and-build-a-fire rule."
Seems
to me the most straightforward implication here is that the Empire knew
Fuzzies could talk, but not build a fire without using human
assistance. Contrariwise, if the Empire didn't even know Fuzzies could
talk, then it seems to me they would not even come close to qualifying;
they would fail both parts of the "talk-and-build-a-fire" test.
*Yes,
I know the Empire of "Ministry of Disturbance" wasn't the First Empire.
The same situation applies for every recurrence of a few centuries of
Dark Ages between interstellar empires or federations or whatever. So
long as Fuzzies can get even tiny amounts of titanium, whether it's from
landprawns or a from few valuable pieces of titanium metal salvaged
from the ruins of human civilization, handed down through generations of
Fuzzies, who would use them like a salt lick, then Fuzzies could
continue to survive. In fact, if the latter was fairly common, Fuzzies
could thrive and increase their numbers, altho salvaged pieces of
titanium would gradually disappear over the centuries, lost due to
accident, entropy, etc.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
David "Lensman" Sooby
|
|
Jackson Russell
06-17-2015
01:32 UT
|
Hmmmm....maybe I should try to find this Wolfgang Diehr and suggest this
line of reasoning. Maybe he can put it into a future book?
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
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David Johnson
06-17-2015
01:19 UT
|
~
Jackson Russell wrote:
> However, there is something we keep overlooking. How would
> the Fuzzies survive as a race without the Extee-three that
> allows them to procreate? Either they evolved the NFMp
> hormone out of their systems (maybe) or there are still Big
> Ones on Zarathustra that didn't sink completely back into
> barbarism.
"Overlooked"
or not, I think you're spot on with this point. That Fuzzies survive
into the Empire era, whether or not they are officially recognized as
sapient, suggests some sort of robust, sustainable solution to their
deficiency was found, and the post-Federation maintenance of some sort
of industrial society on Zarathustra seems the most likely possibility.
What's
also clear is that, at least as far as the Empire knows, no
space-faring Fuzzies from "Fuzzyhome" ever showed up again either. . . .
Cheers,
David
--
"Why not everybody make friend, have fun, make help, be good?" - Diamond Grego (H. Beam Piper), ~Fuzzy Sapiens~
~
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Jackson Russell
06-16-2015
14:45 UT
|
Not at all. Rediscovering the Fuzzies could have happened just weeks
earlier. It would take a little time to observe Fuzzy behavior before
making a ruling. Sure, some Fuzzies could eat raw food when out on a
hunt, then bring back the kill and cook up the rest of it. Fuzzies
would be highly adept at hiding and escaping, making observations
tricky if they were skittish.
However, there is something we
keep overlooking. How would the Fuzzies survive as a race without the
Extee-three that allows them to procreate? Either they evolved the NFMp
hormone out of their systems (maybe) or there are still Big Ones on
Zarathustra that didn't sink completely back into barbarism. They
could have retained enough civilization to operate at, say, 21st
century level. No hyperspace ships, but they would still have
contragravity and manufacturing. The humans, proven to be very
protective of their Fuzzy friends, would keep up the hokfuzine
production in some form.
Now, along comes these guys in big ships
saying, "You have to join the Empire. No, you don't get a choice."
How would these people react to that? They might worry that this Empire
would be bad for intelligent Fuzzies and tell them not to let on how
smart they are. The Fuzzies would revert to hypersonic speech, eat raw
food, and run whenever a strange Big One came around. The Empire reps
might want to take a few back to Marduk only to meet with opposition
from the Zarathustrans. Protected species! Other planets unhealthy
for them! We won't join you Empire if you threaten our Fuzzies!
Rather than go to war, they say "Fine, whatever." and leave the Fuzzies
be. Later, when the Zarathustrans decide the Empire isn't going to
hurt anybody, the Fuzzies start talking and making camp-fires and Rod
says they are in.
So many possibilities! Maybe the new writers
in Piper's universe will eventually address this discrepancy in a way
that doesn't turn the canon on its ear.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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David "Lensman" Sooby
06-16-2015
11:40 UT
|
Jackson Russell said:
> Now, after the collapse, entire worlds fell into barbarism. The Fuzzies likely got lost in the shuffle along the
> way. I think Zarathustra was rediscovered by the Empire, then Ol' Rod had to make the call about their sapience
> based not on what happened during Federation time (that info was likely lost) but on the evidence of their own
> eyes. Zarathustra could have been rediscovered a week or two before Rod's decision (plus travel time, of course.)
Sounds
reasonable. Of course, in that case we must stipulate that Little
Fuzzy's attempt to spread the knowledge of how to make fire didn't last.
But then, as I recall, that depended on technology provided by humans,
and presumably at some point that source dried up during the Dark Ages.
Since the Empire found the Fuzzies could not make fire, and thus did
not qualify as sentient, that suggests rather strongly that Fuzzies
never learned to make fire without the aid of human technology.
|
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David Johnson
06-16-2015
02:57 UT
|
~
Jackson Russell wrote:
> Now, after the collapse, entire worlds fell into barbarism. The
> Fuzzies likely got lost in the shuffle along the way. I think
> Zarathustra was rediscovered by the Empire, then Ol' Rod had
> to make the call about their sapience based not on what
> happened during Federation time (that info was likely lost) but
> on the evidence of their own eyes.
I
think you have it right. In fact, there are several interesting
stories here about the fate of sapient extraterrestrials in the
aftermath of the collapse of the Federation. Sure, some of their
home-worlds must have been lost and rediscovered in the Empire era (and
perhaps raided in the Viking era). But also, some of them had probably
made it off their home-worlds by the time the Federation fell. There
may have been non-Terro-human enclaves on some of those "civilized
worlds" which managed to survive the collapse of the Federation, and
perhaps some non-Terro-humans managed to survive on other worlds that
didn't manage to remain "civilized."
Thus, when the Empire
started putting civilization back together again from Marduk it likely
would have had direct experience of some non-Terro-humans while others
would have been only myths or stories from historical remnants. It's no
surprise then that even an Emperor would be unsure of--or at least
aware of the controversy about--the sapience of Fuzzies.
Yeek!
David
--
"You
had a wonderful civilization here. . . . You could have made almost
anything of it. But it's too late now. You've torn down the gates; the
barbarians are in." - Lucas Trask (H. Beam Piper), ~Space Viking~
~
|
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Jackson Russell
06-15-2015
21:50 UT
|
Once taught, the Fuzzies were able to teach others. That is very
sapient behavior. Besides, even if they didn't discover it on their
own, once they learned they had it down cold. I didn't discover fire
on my own, either. It was taught to me in the scouts. Does that make
me non-sapient? Now, after the collapse, entire worlds fell into
barbarism. The Fuzzies likely got lost in the shuffle along the way. I
think Zarathustra was rediscovered by the Empire, then Ol' Rod had to
make the call about their sapience based not on what happened during
Federation time (that info was likely lost) but on the evidence of
their own eyes. Zarathustra could have been rediscovered a week or two
before Rod's decision (plus travel time, of course.)
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
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David "Lensman" Sooby
06-15-2015
20:18 UT
|
(sorry, must have hit the wrong key)
...and that the citation in
LITTLE FUZZY about having been called Zarathustra for the last 25 years
actually refers to when the charter for colonization / exploitation was
issued. However, that still does contradict canon, which is why I prefer
my own explanation, that the word "Zarathustran" in FOUR-DAY PLANET
does not refer to the Zarathustra of LITTLE FUZZY.
|
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David "Lensman" Sooby
06-15-2015
20:14 UT
|
David Johnson said:
"...in ~Four-Day Planet~ itself, Walt Boyd
tells us, "The chartered company that colonized [Fenris], back at the
end of the Fourth Century A.E., went bankrupt in ten years. . . ." Walt
also tells us that the spaceport at Port Sandor "was built close to a
hundred years ago..."
Thanks for the citation, and I certainly
agree that published Canon must trump the author's notes. I see that the
Zarthani.net chronology places FOUR-DAY PLANET at "c480" AE. But
Piper's "The Future History" places LITTLE FUZZY in 654 AE. I submit
it's simply not reasonable to try to move the setting of FOUR-DAY PLANET
to a century and a half later merely to explain away the mention of
"Zarathustran veldtbeest" in FOUR-DAY PLANET, especially when it doesn't
seem to be the same animal as the one described in LITTLE FUZZY.
If
someone insists that they -are- the same animal, then we might
stipulate that Zarathustra was discovered and named centuries before the
events of LITTLE FUZZY
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David "Lensman" Sooby
06-15-2015
19:52 UT
|
Jackson Russell said:
> Actually, the emperor specifically states the talk and build fire rule. Fuzzies were talking up a blue streak by
> the end of the first book, and Little Fuzzy demonstrated his ability to make fire (rather dramatically, as it
> turned out) in the 3rd book. I have to go with the "lost knowledge" interpretation.
Fuzzies
did not discover / invent the use of fire on their own; they had to be
taught by humans. That wouldn't count by -any- anthropologist's
measuring stick. If you could teach a chimpanzee to start a fire, would
you "promote" them to a fire-using species? I don't think so!
But thank you for clarifying exactly why Fuzzies are not considered sapient by the Empire.
|
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David Johnson
06-15-2015
03:43 UT
|
~
<sigh>
David "Lensman" Sooby wrote:
> Surely we will do less violence to the Canon if we find some
> alternate explanation for the term "Zarathustran" used in
> FOUR-DAY PLANET than upending the order of the stories, or
> violating the continuity which Piper himself detailed in his
> "The Future History" article!
In
"The Future History" Beam places ~Four-Day Planet~ in the "Mid-IV
Century." And yet, in ~Four-Day Planet~ itself, Walt Boyd tells us,
"The chartered company that colonized [Fenris], back at the end of the
Fourth Century A.E., went bankrupt in ten years. . . ." Walt also tells
us that the spaceport at Port Sandor "was built close to a hundred
years ago. . . ." So, if the events portrayed in ~Four-Day Planet~ take
place a hundred years (or more) _after_ Fenris was colonized "back at
the end of the Fourth Century" then it can't be that ~Four-Day Planet~
also takes place in the mid-Fourth Century.
I'm not sure what the
best solution to placing ~Four-Day Planet~ in the Future History
timeline is, but it's pretty clear we're not getting a lot of help in
this instance from Beam (or perhaps his sloppy editors). </sigh>
Cheers,
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~
~
|
|
Jackson Russell
06-15-2015
03:22 UT
|
Actually, the emperor specifically states the talk and build fire rule.
Fuzzies were talking up a blue streak by the end of the first book, and
Little Fuzzy demonstrated his ability to make fire (rather
dramatically, as it turned out) in the 3rd book. I have to go with the
"lost knowledge" interpretation.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
|
David "Lensman" Sooby
06-15-2015
03:08 UT
|
Jonathan Crocker said:
> For the Emperor's mentioning the Fuzzies were almost ready to be regarded as sapient, I'd guess Piper was either
> making a deliberate point about how precarious some knowledge could be, or implying that the breakup of the
> Federation caused a lot of regression in some areas.
Seems
to me that the best interpretation, likely what Piper intended, is that
the Empire is not as liberal in its interpretation of "sapient" as was
the Federation. This isn't at all a discrepancy; it's an indication of
social change from one era to the next. It also seems to fit in
perfectly with the different attitudes between a young, growing
Federation that wants to be inclusive and to add new member planets and
new member species as quickly as possible, vs. a long-established Empire
concerned with maintaining long-term stability and quite willing to
make a sharp distinction between "full citizens" and "lesser beings".
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David "Lensman" Sooby
06-15-2015
02:52 UT
|
David "Piperfan" Johnson said:
> So here's the odd thing. In ~Four-Day Planet~, written (or at least, published) before ~Little Fuzzy~ and set some time
> _before_ ~Little Fuzzy~ in the Terro-human Future History, there are a handful of references to "Zarathustran
> veldtbeest" (note the common English spelling of "veldt" here). We don't get as many details in ~Four-Day Planet~ but
> what is there makes the "veldtbeest" sound a bit more like a Zarathustran _damnthing_ than like a Terran cow (or bull).
>
> The difficulty here is that the events of ~Four-Day Planet~, though not clearly placed in time, seem to occur well
> before the discovery of Zarathustra in the early Seventh Century, AE.
Surely
we will do less violence to the Canon if we find some alternate
explanation for the term "Zarathustran" used in FOUR-DAY PLANET than
upending the order of the stories, or violating the continuity which
Piper himself detailed in his "The Future History" article!
We
shouldn't ignore the hint here that the "Zarathustran Veldtbeest" in
LITTLE FUZZY and sequels is not, repeat -not- the animal which was the
source of meat sold on Fenris as "Zarathustran Veldtbeest". I see two
possibilities:
1. There is another planet closer to Fenris which
is colloquially known on Fenris as "Zarathustra", altho that is not its
official name. That is the source of what's sold on Fenris as
"Zarathustran Veldtbeest".
2. There is a company that uses
"Zarathustran" as a brand name, so the name "Zarathustran veldtbeest"
isn't used on Fenris as we'd use a name like "African water buffalo".
Rather, it's a name we'd use like "Jimmy Dean's breakfast sausage".
I submit either assumption will resolve the apparent discrepancy without doing violence to the Canon.
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Jackson Russell
06-15-2015
01:19 UT
|
Yes, but on the newer stuff. The Carr and Diehr books for example. Let
people know what it worth spending money on and what is not.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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David Johnson
06-15-2015
01:06 UT
|
~
Jackson Russell wrote:
> We should do our own book reviews on the new writers working
> in Piper's universe. It might help others decide whether or not
> to pick up the newer stuff out there.
You mean like this?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1EI1093WQNLCY
;)
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].
The tools, which you don't have now, for educating yourself." - Bish
Ware (H. Beam Piper), ~Four-Day Planet~
~
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Jackson Russell
06-15-2015
00:24 UT
|
We should do our own book reviews on the new writers working in Piper's
universe. It might help others decide whether or not to pick up the
newer stuff out there.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
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Tom Rogers
06-15-2015
00:11 UT
|
In Re /m1098 , David Johnson wrote,
>You can pick-up D'Ammassa's book here:
>http://www.amazon.com/Architects-Tomorrow-...assa/dp/0692441220/
>Though I hope he's given Beam's work a reread since he wrote some of the summaries here:
>http://www.dondammassa.com/ck_sfp.htm
Yes,
it is a "full" review of most of Piper's works. The second link you
posted seems to be a short (and very incomplete) bibliography.
The
article on Piper in the "Architects ..." is more than several pages
long. He basically reviews the Ace book titles (including the short
story anthologies like "Worlds of H. Beam Piper" and "Paratime" etc.),
with a little extra info where appropriate. In all, a fairly good survey
of Piper's oeuvre, but not a complete one. Still, it is nice to see
someone putting Piper's name out there again.
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Otherwhen@aol.com
06-14-2015
18:57 UT
|
Actually, Beam wrote "Little Fuzzy" first; he started work on it on
August 1, 1958. "Four-Day Planet," although it was published first,
wasn't begun until May of 1960, almost 2 years later. The difference
in publication dates is due to the fact that Piper's agent was unable
to sell "Little Fuzzy" until September of 1961, while "Four-Day Planet"
was sold immediately to Putnam's & Sons based on an outline and a
luncheon with Putnam's editor, Bill McMorris.
Piper's
agent submitted "Little Fuzzy" to Putnam's, but McMorris didn't think
it was right for them, and claims to have passed it on to Avon, where
it had already been rejected. Bill McMorris wrote me in an October 4th,
2005 e-mail: “Ken brought me Little Fuzzy. I really liked the book,
but it was too adult for the teenage market of those years and of no
interest to the adult trade department at Putnam’s. However, Janet
Carse (née Wood), wife of Bob Carse, one of the writers on our
juvenile list, was newly employed as an editor at Avon and was looking
for science fiction. With Ken White’s permission, I sent Little
Fuzzy to her, she loved it and got it published.”
Beam probably
just tossed in the Veldbeast as a link between planets, and likely
didn't check the dates. It's an easy mistake to make in the heat of
the writing a book. Putnam's was anxious to get the book and Piper
might have felt rushed, since he needed the final payment.
John Carr
Jonathan Crocker wrote:
> For the 'veldtbeast' question the simplest answer is that Piper
> had pre-plotted out where his stories were going to be set, and
> when, but forgot the time difference when he was writing Four-
> Day Planet.
I
suspect you're correct but it's an interesting goof considering how
close together the two novels were published. Given that ~Four-Day
Planet~ went to Putnam and ~Little Fuzzy~ to Avon, perhaps they were
actually written much farther apart in time even though they were
published within less than two years of each other.
> Also, I've got two copies of "The Fuzzy Papers" - an Ace
> paperback with the Whelan cover that has "for the last twenty-
> five million" and a hardback Book Club edition that has the more
> logical "for the last twenty-five".
Ah,
interesting! I hadn't thought to check the Book Club omnibus. It
seems then there was a bit better editing at Doubleday than at Ace
(which is no surprise). I wonder what _other_ differences there might
be between the Avon/Ace editions and the Book Club edition. (I'm
trying not to wonder what that might also mean about the copyright
status of some of the Piper works at Project Gutenberg. . . .)
> I had a quick flip through parts of both stories, hoping to find
> a distance-from-Terra from both and expecting Zarathustra to be
> farther away. But Fenris was listed at 650 light-years from
> Terra, and Zarathustra was less. It was in chapter 6,
> where the space-navy officers were having a meeting: "They're
> on Terra, five hundred light-years away, six months' ship voyage
> each way."
>
> Of course, both worlds are listed as a six-month voyage from
> Terra, despite Fenris being 1.3 times as far, and set several
> centuries earlier, so the distance could be a very vague
> approximation used as a conversational throwaway.
As
Jack points out, these sorts of calculations are complicated by the
fact that Beam did make an effort to portray improvements in hyperspace
speeds over the span of Federation / Space Viking / Empire history.
(An interesting analysis here would be to try to see if there was any
stagnation or regression during the Viking era.) I seem to remember
William Taylor (I believe--apologies if it was some other Piper fan)
posting a rather complicated text-based diagram that tried to show this
progression back on the old PIPER-L list.
And of course, there's
the fact that Jack Holloway isn't quite sure about his age due to what
apparently are the time dilation effects of hyperspace travel!
I
stumbled across another interesting tidbit in this regard a while back.
The essay by John Clark that introduces Uller in the original ~The
Petrified Planet~ publication of ~Uller Uprising~ says that Uller
orbits the star Beta Hydri (in the constellation Hydrus). But Beam's
yarn places Uller in the Beta Hydrae system (in the constellation
Hydra). Beta Hydrae is a quite a bit farther from Terra than is Beta
Hydri (which better fits with the location of Niflheim / Nifflheim in
the Nu Puppis system). Beam, it seems, was a bit better at his
astrography than was Dr. Clark.
> Finally, in the Fuzzy Trial, Gus Brannhard states for the
> record "...we should first establish, by testimony, just what
> happened at Halloway's camp, in the Cold Creek Valley, on the
> afternoon of June 19, Atomic Era Six Fifty-Four..."
Yeah,
that explicit date, combined with the confusing internal dating in
~Four-Day Planet~, leads me to lean toward moving ~Four-Day Planet~ a
bit later in the Future History (if one were going to try to "fix /
explain" the "veldtbeest / veldbeest" issue). Of course, that might
create other timeline problems with other Future History yarns. . . .
Cheers,
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
06-14-2015
16:54 UT
|
~
Jonathan Crocker wrote:
> For the 'veldtbeast' question the simplest answer is that Piper
> had pre-plotted out where his stories were going to be set, and
> when, but forgot the time difference when he was writing Four-
> Day Planet.
I
suspect you're correct but it's an interesting goof considering how
close together the two novels were published. Given that ~Four-Day
Planet~ went to Putnam and ~Little Fuzzy~ to Avon, perhaps they were
actually written much farther apart in time even though they were
published within less than two years of each other.
> Also, I've got two copies of "The Fuzzy Papers" - an Ace
> paperback with the Whelan cover that has "for the last twenty-
> five million" and a hardback Book Club edition that has the more
> logical "for the last twenty-five".
Ah,
interesting! I hadn't thought to check the Book Club omnibus. It
seems then there was a bit better editing at Doubleday than at Ace
(which is no surprise). I wonder what _other_ differences there might
be between the Avon/Ace editions and the Book Club edition. (I'm trying
not to wonder what that might also mean about the copyright status of
some of the Piper works at Project Gutenberg. . . .)
> I had a quick flip through parts of both stories, hoping to find
> a distance-from-Terra from both and expecting Zarathustra to be
> farther away. But Fenris was listed at 650 light-years from
> Terra, and Zarathustra was less. It was in chapter 6,
> where the space-navy officers were having a meeting: "They're
> on Terra, five hundred light-years away, six months' ship voyage
> each way."
>
> Of course, both worlds are listed as a six-month voyage from
> Terra, despite Fenris being 1.3 times as far, and set several
> centuries earlier, so the distance could be a very vague
> approximation used as a conversational throwaway.
As
Jack points out, these sorts of calculations are complicated by the
fact that Beam did make an effort to portray improvements in hyperspace
speeds over the span of Federation / Space Viking / Empire history. (An
interesting analysis here would be to try to see if there was any
stagnation or regression during the Viking era.) I seem to remember
William Taylor (I believe--apologies if it was some other Piper fan)
posting a rather complicated text-based diagram that tried to show this
progression back on the old PIPER-L list.
And of course, there's the
fact that Jack Holloway isn't quite sure about his age due to what
apparently are the time dilation effects of hyperspace travel!
I
stumbled across another interesting tidbit in this regard a while back.
The essay by John Clark that introduces Uller in the original ~The
Petrified Planet~ publication of ~Uller Uprising~ says that Uller orbits
the star Beta Hydri (in the constellation Hydrus). But Beam's yarn
places Uller in the Beta Hydrae system (in the constellation Hydra).
Beta Hydrae is a quite a bit farther from Terra than is Beta Hydri
(which better fits with the location of Niflheim / Nifflheim in the Nu
Puppis system). Beam, it seems, was a bit better at his astrography
than was Dr. Clark.
> Finally, in the Fuzzy Trial, Gus Brannhard states for the
> record "...we should first establish, by testimony, just what
> happened at Halloway's camp, in the Cold Creek Valley, on the
> afternoon of June 19, Atomic Era Six Fifty-Four..."
Yeah,
that explicit date, combined with the confusing internal dating in
~Four-Day Planet~, leads me to lean toward moving ~Four-Day Planet~ a
bit later in the Future History (if one were going to try to "fix /
explain" the "veldtbeest / veldbeest" issue). Of course, that might
create other timeline problems with other Future History yarns. . . .
Cheers,
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~
~
|
|
Jackson Russell
06-14-2015
16:52 UT
|
That was it! How the Nifflheim does one forget a name like that,
anyway? And his books are on Amazon, including a new one with John F.
Carr. As for the 25 million thing, that was just flat out bad editing.
It occurs to me that Zarathustra could also be the name of the ship
that discovered the planet of the veld(t)beests, hence it became a
brand name for the carniculture fixins. When the CZC took over, they
just slapped the Zarathustra name on the planet as a sort of brand
recognition.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
|
David Johnson
06-14-2015
16:23 UT
|
~
Jackson Russell wrote:
> I spoke with one of the writers of the new Fuzzy books at a
> convention and asked him about the Fenris/Zarathustra thing.
> His position was that Piper didn't worry himself too much
> on the continuity issue. After all, in "Ministry of
> Disturbance" the emperor was considering counting Zarathustran
> Fuzzies as the fifteenth sapient race, yet Little Fuzzy had
> them marked as smart much sooner.
I
agree it seems Beam wasn't a stickler for continuity (even if he was
adept at planting Easter eggs). It also seems that he was more
interested in making a sale than in adhering to a consistent setting.
(Consider the way some of the Hartley stories bleed into the Future
History, or the uncertain fit of "Genesis," and then, of course, there
is the whole "Gunpowder God"/"When in the Course--" situation.)
That
said, I think Jon is correct to point out that there are narrative
reasons for Paul's musings about the sapience of Fuzzies in "Ministry of
Disturbance."
> he then went on to say that some of these continuity errors
> was grist for future stories explaining how the events could
> have happened.
I
couldn't agree more! Consider, for example, what Tuning had to say
about the odd fact that the Fuzzies didn't seem to be ecologically
suited to Zarathustra. We've also seen this approach in several of the
follow-on Future History works that have appeared in the last few years.
> For instance, Zarathustra could have been discovered long
> before it was opened for colonization and named. A
> federation vessel could have tagged it FEW-1962 or something
> like that, then renamed when the planet was chartered to
> the CZC.
Perhaps,
but still, none of this would have been happening twenty-five _million_
years before Jack Holloway was mining for sunstones in the Zarathustran
outback. . . .
> That could explain how Veldt/veldbeest could have been
> harvested for carniculture decades sooner.
Still
doesn't work because they're specifically described as _Zarathustran_
"veldtbeest" in ~Four-Day Planet~. The issue isn't so much the
"veldtbeest/veldbeest" name--one could easily imagine similar animals on
different planets ending up with similar common names--as it is the
mention of them being from _Zarathustra_.
> He said there were some other things he planned on doing
> but didn't want to give it away before he got it into a book.
> His name escapes me at the moment but could have passed
> for Gus Brannhard.
Wolfgang Diehr perhaps?
Cheers,
David
--
"A
lot of technicians are girls, and when work gets slack, they're always
the first ones to get shoved out of jobs." - Sylvie Jacquemont (H. Beam
Piper), ~Junkyard Planet~
~
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Jackson Russell
06-14-2015
06:40 UT
|
Travel time is affected by a lot of variables. Hyperspace travel speed
grows as the centuries pass. In Little Fuzzy's time a light year is
traversed in a little over six hours. By Space Viking time the same
distance is covered in about an hour.
Next is the planets visited
en route. If you go directly to Zarathustra from Terra, the trip
would be about three months, or 10.5 days subjective time in
hyperspace. However, the Terra-Balder-Marduk space line hits every
planet between Terra and Zarathustra in both directions. Fenris, likely
on a different circuit, might hit fewer planets along the way, cutting
travel time down a notch.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
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Jonathan Crocker
06-14-2015
04:27 UT
|
For the Emperor's mentioning the Fuzzies were almost ready to be
regarded as sapient, I'd guess Piper was either making a deliberate
point about how precarious some knowledge could be, or implying that the
breakup of the Federation caused a lot of regression in some areas.
For
the 'veldtbeast' question the simplest answer is that Piper had
pre-plotted out where his stories were going to be set, and when, but
forgot the time difference when he was writing Four-Day Planet.
Other
possibilities involve a blue police box that was much larger on the
inside and a time lord; or perhaps a fanciful name for a grazer found on
an early Federation planet - "Zarathustran veldtbeest", and when they
found a very similar beast on a planet centuries later, gave the new
beast a similar name of "veldbeest" and called the planet Zarathustra.
I don't think either of the latter are very likely.
From
context, I think Zarathustra having been settled for more than 25 years
is right out, there's a line in the first chapter about "Even the
oldtimers who'd been on Zarathustra since the first colonization..."
and Victor Grego thinking back to the log buildings when he'd arrived
fifteen years prior, now as he sat on the umpteenth floor of the Company
House skyscraper.
Also, I've got two copies of "The Fuzzy
Papers" - an Ace paperback with the Whelan cover that has "for the last
twenty-five million" and a hardback Book Club edition that has the more
logical "for the last twenty-five".
I had a quick flip through
parts of both stories, hoping to find a distance-from-Terra from both
and expecting Zarathustra to be farther away. But Fenris was listed at
650 light-years from Terra, and Zarathustra was less. It was in chapter
6, where the space-navy officers were having a meeting: "They're on
Terra, five hundred light-years away, six months' ship voyage each way."
Of
course, both worlds are listed as a six-month voyage from Terra,
despite Fenris being 1.3 times as far, and set several centuries
earlier, so the distance could be a very vague approximation used as a
conversational throwaway.
Finally, in the Fuzzy Trial, Gus
Brannhard states for the record "...we should first establish, by
testimony, just what happened at Halloway's camp, in the Cold Creek
Valley, on the afternoon of June 19, Atomic Era Six Fifty-Four..."
|
|
Jackson Russell
06-13-2015
20:25 UT
|
I spoke with one of the writers of the new Fuzzy books at a convention
and asked him about the Fenris/Zarathustra thing. His position was
that Piper didn't worry himself too much on the continuity issue.
After all, in "Ministry of Disturbance" the emperor was considering
counting Zarathustran Fuzzies as the fifteenth sapient race, yet Little
Fuzzy had them marked as smart much sooner. he then went on to say
that some of these continuity errors was grist for future stories
explaining how the events could have happened. For instance,
Zarathustra could have been discovered long before it was opened for
colonization and named. A federation vessel could have tagged it
FEW-1962 or something like that, then renamed when the planet was
chartered to the CZC. That could explain how Veldt/veldbeest could have
been harvested for carniculture decades sooner. He said there were
some other things he planned on doing but didn't want to give it away
before he got it into a book. His name escapes me at the moment but
could have passed for Gus Brannhard.
Jack
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 06-13-2015
20:04 UT
|
~
Zarathustran veldtbeest?
One of Beam's (editor's) more
infamous goofs comes at the very beginning of ~Little Fuzzy~ when he
writes, "Some fifty million years ago, when the planet that had been
called Zarathustra (for the last twenty-five million) was young. . . ."
There's no way this planet had been called Zarathustra "for the last
twenty-five million years." Still, the error was there in the original
Avon publication in 1962, is repeated in the Ace reprint of the late
1970s, and appears again in Ace's 1998 omnibus ~The Complete Fuzzy~.
John
Carr deals with this error appropriately in his "Terro-human Future
History Chronology" in ~Empire~, placing the discovery and settlement of
Zarathustra by Terro-humans in 629 AE, just _twenty-five_ years before
the events portrayed in ~Little Fuzzy~ and its sequels.
Throughout
~Little Fuzzy~ (and in its sequel, ~Fuzzy Sapiens~) there are multiple
references to a native animal called a "veldbeest" (note the traditional
Afrikaaner spelling of "veld" here) which is a domesticated meat animal
that is described in many ways that makes these creatures seem very
much like cattle.
So here's the odd thing. In ~Four-Day Planet~,
written (or at least, published) before ~Little Fuzzy~ and set some time
_before_ ~Little Fuzzy~ in the Terro-human Future History, there are a
handful of references to "Zarathustran veldtbeest" (note the common
English spelling of "veldt" here). We don't get as many details in
~Four-Day Planet~ but what is there makes the "veldtbeest" sound a bit
more like a Zarathustran _damnthing_ than like a Terran cow (or bull).
The
difficulty here is that the events of ~Four-Day Planet~, though not
clearly placed in time, seem to occur well before the discovery of
Zarathustra in the early Seventh Century, AE. Fenris is described as
having been originally settled at the end of the Fourth Century, AE, and
the events described in the novel occur approximately one hundred years
later (i.e. at the end of the Fifth Century, AE, more than a century
before the discovery of Zarathustra).
If it weren't for all those
those "veldbeest" running around in ~Little Fuzzy~ I suppose we could
simply attribute this to an error and assume that the "veldtbeest" of
~Four-Day Planet~ came from some other world that _had_ been colonized
at the time, like Thor or Loki or Yggdrasil or even Marduk. But that
seems a stretch with the almost-the-same creatures appearing in both
novels.
On the other hand, it doesn't make much sense to
interpret the "twenty-five million years" differently either (say to
assume that this should have been "twenty-five decades" which would
conveniently place the discovery of Zarathustra in the early Fifth
Century, AE) because part of the basic plot of ~Little Fuzzy~ assumes
that Terro-humans haven't been there long enough to have come across the
Fuzzies before.
Of course, the other possible solution would be
to move the events of ~Four-Day Planet~ a bit farther out in the Future
History, say to the end of the Seventh Century, AE. This might be the
least troublesome solution to this dilemma.
What do you think?
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
06-13-2015
19:23 UT
|
~
Tom Rogers wrote:
> There is a new book out by Don D'Ammassa called "Architects of Tomorrow,
> Vol. I" which has a nice review of Piper's works. Fairly critical of
> Piper's style and biases, given the period in which Piper wrote, but
> in all complimentary.
You can pick-up D'Ammassa's book here:
http://www.amazon.com/Architects-Tomorrow-...assa/dp/0692441220/
Though I hope he's given Beam's work a reread since he wrote some of the summaries here:
http://www.dondammassa.com/ck_sfp.htm
Down Styphon!
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].
The tools, which you don't have now, for educating yourself." - Bish
Ware (H. Beam Piper), ~Four-Day Planet~ ~
|
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Tom Rogers
06-13-2015
13:19 UT
|
There is a new book out by Don D'Ammassa called "Architects of Tomorrow,
Vol. I" which has a nice review of Piper's works. Fairly critical of
Piper's style and biases, given the period in which Piper wrote, but in
all complimentary.
|
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