Tanith in Oz  07-31-2017
17:29 UT
|
Wow David.
You found a post I'd long forgotten about way back
from 2002. The Hour of Indecision. Whatever became of that? Did that
ever see the light of day or was that just wishful thinking?
Regards
Terry
|
Tanith in Oz 07-31-2017
17:29 UT
|
~
pennausamike wrote:
> The problem with classic piracy in
the Piper-verse is that pirates of old rely on the isolation of a ship
at sea to conduct their
> raids. In Piper's stories, as I recall,
a ship in hyperspace is sort of in its own universe, traveling in a
field it generates. I
> don't think another ship can come along
side and knock at the door, so to speak. So Piper's space pirates/ space
vikings are
> mostly port raiders.
Yes that's a valid
point too. Piracy then would be port based as you say, or could
possibly occur when ships are preparing to jump or even when coming out
in some cases. This would then mean pirates would have to be good at
hiding and evading detection to pull this off. Tackling that
restriction would be the crunch, but if done well it would work really
well in a story, in my opinion.
Regards
Terry
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 07-31-2017
16:17 UT
|
~
Terry "Tanith in Oz" Glouftsis wrote:
> So yeah that's my tale. I'm a bit of a Johnny come lately to this
> website, though I was a member of it many years ago in the early
> noughties.
Welcome, Terry. Glad to have you back:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080310063213...-l&T=0&F=&S=&P=5315
Cheers,
David
--
"Why not everybody make friend, have fun, make help, be good?" - Diamond Grego (H. Beam Piper), ~Fuzzy Sapiens~
~
|
pennausamike 07-31-2017
14:48 UT
|
The problem with classic piracy in the Piper-verse is that pirates of
old rely on the isolation of a ship at sea to conduct their raids. In
Piper's stories, as I recall, a ship in hyperspace is sort of in its own
universe, traveling in a field it generates. I don't think another
ship can come along side and knock at the door, so to speak. So Piper's
space pirates/ space vikings are mostly port raiders.
|
Tanith in Oz 07-31-2017
13:14 UT
|
Absolutely Jon. And yes I notice the Aussie character, thanks on that score.
You're
talk about piracy is something I've always wondered about. For someone
like Piper who believed so much in history repeating itself it is
interesting we haven't seen someone pick up the pen and write a story
about that yet. A future Blackbeard, if you will.
Certainly it
can be argued that Space Viking is exactly this anyway, but having some
type of piracy in the Terran Federation years has always left me
wondering. It's not inconceivable that piracy has always reared its
head, like here on Terra. We've had the Caribbean pirate period, but
we've also had the Asian 18th century one and the recent Somali one too.
So periods of piracy are very possible.
So where Space Viking
tells a piracy like tale, other periods could have occurred. There's
absolutely no reason why in the declining years of the Federation (lets
say within one hundred to two hundred years after Little Fuzzy) piracy
could have begun. Let's then say the Federation (who always had a large
fleet just in case of aliens) used the fleet to wipe out a large
gathering of pirates. This would put the encounter within the years
leading up to the System States War. So perhaps some disaffected
governments began backing piracy to pin prick the Federation? A testing
of the defenses if you will before the Hot War.
I could see that happening and I'd love to read that. Perhaps I should write that one too? LOL
Just
like with the fall of the Roman Empire (which I've always seen an
analogy with the Terran Federation) numerous barbarian invasions,
revolts and uprisings eventually led to the demise. The same would
apply to the Federation with the pirates cast as the Barbarians (like
Attila or Hannibal or even Vortigern). I would envision numerous pirate
wars, and other uprisings in and around the System States War
eventually bleeding the Federation of blood and treasure.
Planets
would secede and the collapse would come culminating in Terra being
sacked. Yeah the next anthology opens up the possibility of tales on
these ideas. There's definitely something there....
Terry
|
Jon Crocker 07-31-2017
05:50 UT
|
Greetings Tanith -
Best of luck with the story! I just had a
story in Rise of the Federation, and I had an Australian character,
admittedly minor, but I, too, saw the need.
I admit that the
historical European colonial powers generally had large navies, but they
had each other to fight. Until the Federation breaks up, we never hear
of starship combat. The navy ships are carrying teams from the
Colonial Office [Naudsonce] or their base is policing the nasty
Chartered Company planning to trap out the Fuzzies.
I'm sure
there would be a few factors in the large "Golden Age" Federation Navy.
Jobs, military-industrial complex, maybe some hints that there was
someone else out there - even if there were no physical artifacts found,
by the time they can do a DNA test, I'd submit they'd find Freyans and
Terrans were one and the same, therefore someone moved Freyans from
Terra, therefore there was a prior spacefaring race. Keep the powder
dry, and keep pushing out seems to have been the motto.
And yes,
in the Ministry of Disturbance the Emperor is not concerned by anything
outside the boundaries of Empire. Then again, one could argue that was
just one part of the plan, and the jobs etc with the rest of it would be
a good complement, or cover story. Of course, there's also that
throwaway line about how many sapient races are in the Empire - plus the
Fuzzies, which were almost ready to call sapient under the
talk-and-build-a-fire rule. [I always hated that line.] So obviously
the Empire had lost some information.
Or maybe the reason we don't hear about piracy in Golden Age Federation was because of the large Navy.
There are a lot of factors, I guess we'll get to pick which ones we like and see how they work.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 07-31-2017
04:54 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> It seems that colonialism and Navies go hand in hand. I seem to
> remember a certain large colonial empire having a rather robust
> and Impressive navy at about the same time.
Sure,
these are Beam's historical models, but those colonial empires were
competing against each other. Whether it was the Portuguese and the
Spanish fighting in (what became) Uruguay or the French and the British
(and the Portuguese and the Dutch before them) fighting in (what became)
India there were plenty of reasons why "imperial" military forces made
sense. Indeed, George Washington got his combat experience fighting for
the British against the French and their Indigenous allies in North
America.
The Terran Federation faced no such competition (at
least not until the System States rebelled) and yet by all accounts the
Federation Army and Navy were sizeable forces.
Remember Ashmodai! Remember Belphegor!
David
--
"Let's see yours. Draw--soul! Inspection--soul!" - Foxx Travis (H. Beam Piper), "Oomphel in the Sky"
~
|
Tanith in Oz 07-31-2017
04:52 UT
|
Hi again.
I just saw a post asking me to give my actual name.
Sorry about that, internet can be kind of slow here in oz sometimes.
Terry
|
Tanith in Oz 07-31-2017
04:52 UT
|
I was just thinking about everyone's comments about the size of the Federation Navy.
They're
all good points but there is something that people aren't considering
too. Economics. The best way to keep control is to keep people happy.
And how do you do that? You provide jobs. It does occur to me that to
keep planets in line you have them building ships, staffing them and
providing the support infrastructure that help keep the ships running.
Therefore
the size of the fleet could also have a lot to do with Terran
Federation economic policy. Perhaps one of the contributing factors to
the decline and fall of the Federation has a lot to do with the
Federation scaling back on this type of production. It makes sense to
me that once you have "enough" ships you'd need less of them. This
would lead to a scale down in production. The spin on effect would be
just like we have all sent in place like in Flint-Michigan, and even
here in Elizabeth-South Australia.
Lack of jobs leads both to
unrest and former manufacturing sites having to retrain their workforce
for something else. Hence this then causes new industries that on some
worlds that would be beneficial, whilst on others it destroys them
leaving them open to the hollow promises of demagogues. This then
causes a two fold effect. The rise of worlds who grow in power and in
rivalry to the Federation, and the ascendancy of regimes on others that
passionately dislike the Federation. Mix them together and things like
the System States War happen.
I'm not suggesting I'm right, but I can see how economics could be a large factor in this too.
What do the rest of you think?
|
Tanith in Oz 07-31-2017
03:17 UT
|
Hi all.
I'm a longtime fan of all things Piper, and that has
now moved on to include Carr and those of you dabbling in the
Terro-Human universe.
Piper has always been the foundation
stone upon which I have built my own ideas. I remember being 10 years
old and begging my mother to let me buy Space Viking from a remainder
table in Tea Tree Plaza Target. I loved the idea of vikings in space,
the very idea captured my juvenile mind.
Then I read the book. I
loved the concept. I loved the story of Trask. I looked for other
Piper works. Back in the late 80s here in sleepy Adelaide they weren't
easy to come by. All I could find was Little Fuzzy, Federation and
Empire. So I read what I could find.
And my mind was blown.
Piper wrote about Adelaide! The master himself had mentioned my
unimportant town and from there I became a lifelong fan.
I have
since spent some money tracking down everything Piper. Then I
discovered John Carr was continuing the legacy with help of some of the
good people on this website. Getting anything new was a lock. And I'm
truly excited for Carr's completion of Return of Space Viking.
Pournelle teased it, but Carr's done it. It will be awesome.
So
yeah that's my tale. I'm a bit of a Johnny come lately to this website,
though I was a member of it many years ago in the early noughties. But
you can expect to hear from me more now. I'm working on a story myself
for a future anthology that Carr has in mind. I won't spoil it, but to
say I'm going to finally let some Aussies shine in the Terro-Human
universe.
More on that later.
Regards
|
jimmyjoejangles 07-31-2017
02:21 UT
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson wrote.
The fact remains that the Federation
did seem to have a rather out-sized military when all it seemed to need
to be able to do was to police colony planets that were mostly dwarfed
by Terra.
It seems that colonialism and Navies go hand in hand. I
seem to remember a certain large colonial empire having a rather robust
and Impressive navy at about the same time.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 07-31-2017
01:23 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Maybe that's one of the reasons the Terran Federation has this
> big space-navy when there really isn't anyone else in charted
> space? There would have been "The Sample" and a few other
> artifacts here and there, I'm sure, and enough of the top echelons
> aware that there had been at least one other spacefaring race in
> the region. Better to find other things to do with a navy in the
> meantime, than to have to suddenly create a navy from scratch
> if you really really needed one.
That's
an intriguing point! It might have been a tough sell though. (Perhaps
all that whining about the "socialists" on Terra was just clever
rhetorical cover for a very powerful military-industrial complex.) The
fact remains that the Federation did seem to have a rather out-sized
military when all it seemed to need to be able to do was to police
colony planets that were mostly dwarfed by Terra. This explanation
would account for it.
On the other hand, it doesn't seem that
Paul XXII and Yorn Trevann are at all concerned about the potential of a
military threat from beyond the Empire. (It also seems fairly
reasonable to conclude that no descendants of "ancient starfarers" had
returned to Terran space at any time prior to the events of "Ministry of
Disturbance.") That suggests either that any evidence about "ancient
starfarers" may have been lost in the barbarism which prevailed after
the collapse of the Old Federation or that the Empire leadership had
concluded long before Paul XXII came to the throne that the likelihood
of any such encounter after so much time had passed was negligible.
It's
an interesting conundrum, really. I imagine the Terran Federation had a
big military simply because that's what the historical analogues Beam
was using had (and thus, that it doesn't really make any genuine
in-setting sense) but it would be good to develop a rationale that fit
with what we find in Beam's work. Your idea here goes a long way toward
doing that.
Yeek!
David
--
"Good things in the long run are often tough while they're happening." - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper), ~Space Viking~
~
|
Jon Crocker 07-31-2017
00:20 UT
|
(I had tried to post this a couple weeks ago, I guess it didn't go through.)
>
Besides, that presents the possibility of Star-faring Fuzzies showing
up in Terro-human Space at some distant point in the future!
Maybe
that's one of the reasons the Terran Federation has this big space-navy
when there really isn't anyone else in charted space? There would have
been "The Sample" and a few other artifacts here and there, I'm sure,
and enough of the top echelons aware that there had been at least one
other spacefaring race in the region. Better to find other things to do
with a navy in the meantime, than to have to suddenly create a navy
from scratch if you really really needed one.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 07-06-2017
02:58 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> - and one of their ships came to a sad end at Baldur, and 'The
> Sample' broke off from it and was found by geologists from
> the University of Paris-on-Baldur, millennia later. There's
> more of it still up in the hills somewhere, I'm sure.
So,
I'll take that as a "yes" about there being another Baldur yarn in our
future! The interesting hook here would seem to be the explanation for
why we don't find any mention of the discovery of the "Sample Builders"
on Baldur in any of Beam's subsequent Terro-human yarns.
(FWIW,
I've always been comfortable with the "inter-fertile" Freyans being
indigenous. I mean, the moment we accept hyperdrive we have already
wandered outside what our contemporary scientific understanding tells us
is possible in "the real world," right? If one _must_ account for the
inter-fertility of Freyans and Terrans in some fashion then I think you
(and Wolf) have it right, that some sort of "ancient astronauts" must
have gotten one group from one planet to another. Pushed in that
direction, I would opt for the Fuzzies as the lost descendants of those
"ancient astronauts," relying upon Beam's own presentation of them as
seemingly alien to Zarathustra's biosphere--which is what Tuning ran
with in ~Bones~. Besides, that presents the possibility of Star-faring
Fuzzies showing up in Terro-human Space at some distant point in the
future!)
Yeek!
David
--
"Considering the one author
about whom I am uniquely qualified to speak, I question if any reader of
H. Beam Piper will long labor under the misunderstanding that he is a
pious Christian, a left-wing liberal, a Gandhian pacifist, or a
teetotaler." - H. Beam Piper, "Double: Bill Symposium" interview
~
|
Jon Crocker 07-06-2017
01:14 UT
|
Thanks, David!
The background to 'The Sample' started in part
with Uller Uprising - Paula Quinton said "one of my great-grandmothers
was a Freyan." Uller Uprising was published in 1952, and the next year
they discovered DNA.
Of course now, over sixty years later, we
know the only way Freyans and Terran humans could have kids is with
either massive medical intervention, or they're really the same species.
So I decided to go with 'same species'.
Which meant that
someone had to transplant humans from Terra to Freya. Local technology
not being up to the task, I decided someone else did the deed - and one
of their ships came to a sad end at Baldur, and 'The Sample' broke off
from it and was found by geologists from the University of
Paris-on-Baldur, millennia later. There's more of it still up in the
hills somewhere, I'm sure.
The unexpected part of it is, Second
Genesis in the same book goes in a completely different direction! So
as a bonus, this book presents solutions from two near-adjascent
timelines of Paratime.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 07-04-2017
19:05 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> I'm enjoying your stories in "Rise of the Terran Federation", David.
> Great stuff!
Thanks,
Jon. I enjoyed "The Sample" too and was pleased to see your work in
the collection. Was great to learn a bit more about the early years on
Baldur. But I want to know _where_ did "the Sample" come from? Is
there another Mercedes Lee yarn in our future?
For those of you who haven't yet heard the news, ~The Rise of the Terrran Federation~ is now available at Pequod Press:
http://www.h-beampiper.com/book_info.php?id=HBP_19
John F. Carr's latest collection of Beam's work and new Terro-human Future History material includes:
"Terro-human Future History Chronology" (an updated version)
"Preface: The Terro-Human Future History" by John. F. Carr
"Genesis" by H. Beam Piper
"Second Genesis" by Wolfgang Diehr
"The Early History of the Terran Federation" by John Anderson
"The Condottieri" by H. Beam Piper and David Johnson
"The Edge of the Knife" by H. Beam Piper
"The Spine of the Knife" by David Johnson
"Omnilingual" by H. Beam Piper
"The Satchel" by David Johnson
"Grandfather Encounter" by David Johnson
"The Chartered Companies of the Terran Federation" by John Anderson
"The Sample" by Jonathan Crocker
The book has a wonderful dust jacket illustration by Alan Gutierrez:
http://alangutierrezart.deviantart.com/art...ederation-615378060
Enjoy!
David
--
"Ideas
for science fiction stories like ideas for anything else, are where you
find them, usually in the most unlikely places. The only reliable
source is a mind which asks itself a question like, 'What would happen
if--?' or, 'Now what would this develop into, in a few centuries?' Or,
'How would so-and-so happen?' Anything at all, can trigger such a
question, in your field if not in mine." - H. Beam Piper, "Double: Bill
Symposium" interview
~
|
Jon Crocker 07-01-2017
23:26 UT
|
I'm enjoying your stories in "Rise of the Terran Federation", David. Great stuff!
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 06-05-2017
01:15 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> makes a good point though about no satellites throughout. HE
> came pretty damn close in Uller Uprising though, when they fit
> orbital repair unit with sensors and send it up.
That
converted spacecraft was originally used to repair satellites which
were part of a telecommunications network. (The Kragans have a
telecast-station at Kankad Town which communicates with the satellites.)
It may be that these are surplus devices which the Company has brought
to Uller from Niffelheim (where artificial satellites are, of
necessity, ubiquitous).
Jon Crocker wrote:
> I checked the copyright dates of the stories, hoping to see Uller
> Uprising written after Four Day Planet - which would make sense,
> satellites would have been around longer and a better idea of
> their capabilities would have gotten out to people, but from
> what I see, they were actually written in the other order.
Yes,
~Uprising~ being the first Terro-human Future History yarn makes the
paucity of satellite technology in later yarns especially awkward. That
does tend to support linkage to the unusual situation on Niffelheim,
though why the Uller Company didn't sell more of those satellites on
other planets still seems odd.
Znidd Suddabit!
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~
~
|
Jon Crocker 06-05-2017
00:53 UT
|
>I think more than just a convenient plot device, satellites were simply a sort of technology that Beam never envisioned.
I
think you're right - and I was going to point out that Uller Uprising
is where he came closest to having them, but someone beat me to the
punch!
I checked the copyright dates of the stories, hoping to
see Uller Uprising written after Four Day Planet - which would make
sense, satellites would have been around longer and a better idea of
their capabilities would have gotten out to people, but from what I see,
they were actually written in the other order. Someone please correct
me if I'm wrong.
Shrug. This won't be the first time we've
noticed technical inconsistencies between stories - I think Piper was
more concerned about the storytelling angle than technical uniformity.
|
jimmyjoejangles 06-04-2017
16:02 UT
|
Could be the Fenris company never got around to putting them up.
There was still a large portion of uncharted land. Or maybe they were
something the company could pluck out of orbit to recoup some of the
losses. Maybe some enterprising freighter captain stole them to sell on
another planet. But the state that Fenris is in when our story takes
place is a poor planet that may not be able to support a satellite
system. This was not what my original post was about but I got a convo
going at least. DAvid makes a good point though about no satellites
throughout. HE came pretty damn close in Uller Uprising though, when
they fit orbital repair unit with sensors and send it up. Edited 06-04-2017 16:15
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 06-04-2017
16:01 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> > but I'll be darned if I can explain why a planet like Fenris
> > doesn't seem to have any satellite telecommunications
> > technology. . . .
>
> Plot requirements probably cover that one. Fenris having a
> satellite makes far too much sense for it to be otherwise.
Sure,
I can see that (like the haphazard-but-plot-convenient transporter
malfunctions on ~Star Trek~), especially given the state of disrepair
into which Fenris had fallen.
But there is little or no satellite
technology throughout the Terro-human Future History. The crew of the
~Stellex~ seems to have surveyed Fenris from their ship. Even the
Empire task force that attacks Aditya relies primarily upon its
starships for "situational awareness."
If I were a Space Viking
one of the first things I'd do when raiding a planet like Beowulf would
be to throw out a swarm of satellites (orbital versions of the
"snoopers"--we'd call them "drones" today--that the crew of the ~Hubert
Penrose~ used to keep tabs on the Svant village and that Conn Maxwell
used to scout pirate-held Barathrum Spaceport). Even though the
missiles and "counter-missiles" of the Viking era are able to transmit
imagery back to the ship, adversaries still disappear "behind the
planet" in the midst of battles because no one thinks to deploy a few of
these things in orbit (especially defenders who could deploy them ahead
of time thereby allowing them a fair chance of stealthily avoiding
detection by "satellite killers").
I think more than just a convenient plot device, satellites were simply a sort of technology that Beam never envisioned.
Monster Ho!
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~
~
|
Jon Crocker 06-04-2017
15:23 UT
|
>but I'll be darned if I can explain why a planet like Fenris doesn't
seem to have any satellite telecommunications technology. . . .
Plot requirements probably cover that one. Fenris having a satellite makes far too much sense for it to be otherwise.
|
David Sooby 06-04-2017
03:36 UT
|
David Johnson wrote:
> Even putting aside the ubiquitous mobile communications
> we take for granted today, telecommunications technology
> generally is one of the places where Piper's writing
> seems the most clunky to the contemporary sci-fi reader."
It's
the underlying electronic tech that hasn't been miniaturized, as it has
been in our culture. I'd argue they're still using analog circuits. The
words "digital" and "transistor" appear nowhere in THE COSMIC COMPUTER.
I'd argue their entire tech has no use of transistors, and there is a
limit to how far you can miniaturize vacuum tube tech.
Cell
phones in our culture remained much too expensive for widespread use
until cheap microprocessors were developed. With no transistor tech,
that will never happen in the Piperverse.
THE COSMIC COMPUTER
mentions "positronic brains and neutrino-circuits" (ch. II), and it is
specified in chapter XXI that Merlin is a positronic computer. I'm not
sure what a "positronic" computer is -- Asimov invented that term,
naming them after the (at the time) newly discovered positrons, to give
his robots a "high tech coolness" factor. But exactly what a
"positronic" computer is in the Piperverse... who knows?
It think
it is a big mistake to try to describe Piperverse electronics as if
they are similar to what we use today. The lack of cell phones, and the
size of Merlin, are easy to understand if things can never be
miniaturized. Piperverse robots are certainly far more capable than
ours, so in many respects their computer tech is more advanced than
ours. This is pure speculation, not supported by the canon, but perhaps
their "neutrino-circuits" are the electronic equivalent of human brain
neurons, and perhaps their computers use advanced analog circuits which
don't need the massive amount of coding in their software that our
computers use. Our digital computers are thought to have an advantage
because they're universal, and can be programmed to do anything. But
perhaps Piperverse robots achieve greater ability and sophistication
because they can be given more general instructions, leaving it to the
analog circuits to interpret and carry out those instructions, rather
than having to have millions of individual instructions in the robots'
programs.
* * * * *
The lack of using satellite
communications is not as easy to explain. There is no good reason why
they wouldn't use that for high-priority messages, and to maintain
communications with a survey team down on a planet. The Piperverse
equivalent of a satellite phone might not be man-portable, but any
scientific outpost should have one, the Navy should use them as a matter
of course, and any corporation that can afford a computer (see Victor
Grego's company in FUZZY SAPIENS) should be able to afford one, too.
All just my opinion, of course, but what is not arguable is that in the Piperverse, computers remain large and rare:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Conn, from what you've learned of computers generally, how big would Merlin have to be?" old Professor Kellton asked.
"Well,
the astrophysics computer at the University occupied a volume of a
hundred thousand cubic feet. For all Merlin was supposed to do, I'd say
something of the order of three million to five million."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--THE COSMIC COMPUTER chapter II
-------------------------
Clear ether!
Lensman (aka David Sooby)
|
jimmyjoejangles 06-01-2017
13:36 UT
|
I'm saying that they used the camera to make blue films.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 06-01-2017
05:22 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> So just finished Four Day Planet. I couldn't help but notice that
> Oscar and the bachelor officers of the Pequod were the only guys
> who had video equipment on board. SO my real question is did
> Ralph Boyd run a special Channel for "home videos"?
Well,
given that ~Four-Day Planet~ was a "young adult" yarn, I'm not sure I
understand your question . . . (but I think the guy you have in mind is
Adolf Lautier, the entertainment promoter).
The interesting thing
about Boyd's (and Lautier's) telecasts was that they were broadcast
from a telecast station--the way Beam would have watched television in
Williamsport. No cable and no satellite feeds. (When the ~Javelin~ was
lost in Hermann Reuch's Land there was no satellite transmission
available.) Even putting aside the ubiquitous mobile communications we
take for granted today, telecommunications technology generally is one
of the places where Piper's writing seems the most clunky to the
contemporary sci-fi reader.
I can offer in-setting explanations
for why Merlin was so large--remnant electromagnetic pulse shielding
"locked in" from the days of the Atomic Wars--and for why everyone
smokes--the vegetable equivalent of carniculture that produces tobacco
without carcinogens--but I'll be darned if I can explain why a planet
like Fenris doesn't seem to have any satellite telecommunications
technology. . . .
Monster Ho!
David
--
"A girl can
punch any kind of a button a man can, and a lot of them know what
buttons to punch, and why." - Conn Maxwell (H. Beam Piper), ~Junkyard
Planet~
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 05-30-2017
02:47 UT
|
So just finished Four Day Planet. I couldn't help but notice that Oscar
and the bachelor officers of the Pequod were the only guys who had video
equipment on board. SO my real question is did Ralph Boyd run a
special Channel for "home videos"?
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-20-2017
03:23 UT
|
~
John "Calidore" Anderson wrote:
> You do not state, David, your timeline of events as to how the
> Thirty Days' War could happen in 1973. I believe I can make a
> good guess, but unless you can provide some evidence to
> support your reasoning, a 1973 date for the Thirty Days' War
> appears to be untenable. . . .
Really?
"Untenable"? You say that like it matters what my opinions about the
inconsistencies in "The Edge of the Knife" might be. It most assuredly
doesn't, at least not to anyone but me.
You've done a good job of
laying out many of the inconsistencies in the yarn which leaves us in
agreement on that point: the story contradicts itself, repeatedly,
leaving us to make our own assumptions and draw our own conclusions
about several points. I wouldn't make some of the same assumptions
you've made about some of the inconsistencies being instances of Beam's
intentional signalling of Chalmers' confused mental state but I can't
say your assumptions about this are wrong (much less "untenable"). We
merely have different opinions.
I think you'll find a fairly
consistent perspective from me, going back many years to our time
together on the old, defunct PIPER-L mailing list, which tends to resist
efforts to read more into the story, or the collection of stories, than
what is there explicitly from Beam. You seem to prefer a different
approach and that's a-okay with me.
As I mentioned in my last
message on this topic, whether the Thirty Days' War occurs in 1973 CE,
or 1974 (or even 1975) is fairly inconsequential. It doesn't really
help us connect the Terro-human Future History to the Hartley yarns
because the character of the Third World War / World War III itself is
so very different in the two settings, despite their proximity in
Christian Era dating. And as you rightly point out, the difference of a
year or two (or three) is essentially meaningless in the millennia
which comprise the Terro-human Future History.
Be well,
David
P.S. Fifty-three years ago today, Calvin Morrison accidentally stumbled into a paratemporal transposition conveyor.
P.P.S. I'm sorry I will miss the Irregulars' Muster tomorrow in State College. Best wishes to all who rendezvous in Hostigos.
--
"Considering
the one author about whom I am uniquely qualified to speak, I question
if any reader of H. Beam Piper will long labor under the
misunderstanding that he is a pious Christian, a left-wing liberal, a
Gandhian pacifist, or a teetotaler." - H. Beam Piper, "Double: Bill
Symposium" interview
~
|
Calidore 05-19-2017
17:54 UT
|
David wrote,
>A close reading of “The Edge of the Knife” suggests there are several
>inconsistencies in the internal dating, as Beam mentions specific years,
>months, seasons, and university terms. One has to ignore some of these
>whether one decides the “Thirty Days’ War” occurs in 1973 or 1974 but
>my choices lead me to settle on 1973.
I
must respectfully disagree; a close reading of “The Edge of the Knife”
very strongly points to 1974. Almost all of Piper’s inconsistencies of
internal dating are easily explained, and don’t really matter, anyway.
Let’s look at the references; and if I’ve missed anything relevant,
please let me know.
Professor Chalmers precognitively states to
his class that Khalid ib’n Hussein is assassinated “In 1973, at Basra.”
(Empire, p. 13)
“Nineteen seventy-three—why, that was this year.
He looked at the calendar. October 16, 1973. At very most, the Arab
statesman had two and a half months to live.” (ibid., p. 15)
The
next day, which would be October 17, Dean Whitburn summons Professor
Chalmers to his office, where he requests his “immediate resignation”,
believing him to be insane. (ibid., pp. 19, 20)
A month later,
at the large roundtable conference discussing Chalmers’ precognition of
the assassination, which occurred just as predicted, Whitburn confirms
the date. “Yes, I demanded this man’s resignation on the morning of
October Seventeenth, the day after this incident occurred.” (ibid., p
45)
So the story opens in the fall of 1973. There seems to be
no question about that. Khalid is assassinated a month later (ibid., p.
30), making it mid-November, 1973.
After that occurs, the
future information that comes to Chalmers is “The period of anarchy
following Khalid’s death would be much briefer, and much more violent,
than he had previously thought…The revolt at Damascus would break out
before the end of the month [meaning late November 1973]; before the end
of the year [late December 1973], the whole of Syria and Lebanon would
be in bloody chaos, and the Turkish army would be on the march.” (ibid.,
p. 54)
“The period of anarchy following Khalid’s death” refers
to the Middle East, not the whole world, as evidenced by the subsequent
events in the quote, all of which refer to that region. In fact,
earlier on Chalmers said just that. “…period of anarchy in the Middle
East; interfactional power-struggles; Turkish intervention.” (ibid., p.
16) But though peace soon returns, and the murdered Khalid is
“eventually” succeeded as head of the Caliphate by his son Tallal
(ibid., pp. 16-17), it doesn’t last too long. For the short but
“general war in the Middle East” (ibid., p. 36), which presumably lasts
from late 1973 into the early months of 1974, is just a precursor to the
also-brief, but much more serious, Third World War.
“There
would be an Eastern-inspired uprising in Azerbaijan before the middle of
the next year [meaning before July 1974]; before autumn [early to
mid-September 1974], the Indian Communists would make their fatal
attempt; the Thirty Days’ War would be the immediate result.” (ibid., p.
55)
“And Blanley College was at the center of one of the areas
which would receive the worst of the thermonuclear hell to come. And it
would be a little under a year…” (ibid., p. 56) A little under a year
from the story’s current date of mid-November 1973 would be about
mid-October 1974. This squares with WWIII beginning “before autumn”,
because it means the Thirty Days’ War lasts from about mid-September to
mid-October 1974.
In sum, we have two specific references placing
“The Edge of the Knife” in the fall of 1973, and two specific
references placing the Thirty Days’ War in the following year, which is
1974.
Now let’s look at the inconsistencies.
1) Ed tells
his attorney, Stanley Weill, that his ability to prehend future events
“started a little over three years ago…Just after New Year’s, 1970.”
(ibid., p. 21) That would seem to suggest “Edge” begins in February or
March, 1973, rather than October.
2) This appears to be
supported by “He came into his office that morning tired and unrefreshed
by the few hours’ sleep he had gotten the night before, edgy from the
strain, of trying to adjust his mind to the world of Blanley College in
mid-April of 1973.” (ibid., p. 29) If Chalmers predicted in mid-March
that Khalid would be murdered, then a month later would indeed be
mid-April.
3) As well as, “But I knew, in the spring of 1970,
that the first unmanned rocket would be called the Kilroy, and that it
would be launched sometime in 1971…I knew about it over a year in
advance.” (ibid., p. 22) This seems to hint that Ed received the
information about the Kilroy only a few months after his precognitive
gift appeared, and this is roughly three years before “Edge” begins,
placing the story likewise in the spring.
4) At the end of the
story, Chalmers tells Max Pottgeiter, “you remember what I told you
about the Turks annexing Syria and Lebanon?...When that happens, get
away from Blanley.” (ibid., p. 59) This makes it sound like the
thermonuclear hell will hit the Blanley area not long afterward, rather
than nine months later.
So, what gives? Are we in the fall of 1973, or the spring of 1973?
The
important point here is that it doesn’t really matter. Because
Chalmers quite clearly states, not once but twice, that the Thirty Days’
War occurs in the NEXT year, not the current one.
Nevertheless, let’s see if we can explain the inconsistencies.
2)
Even if we grant Chalmers’ “mid-April of 1973” reference, “a little
under a year” from that time would place WWIII in mid-March 1974. So
the Thirty Days’ War occurs in 1974 either way. However, mid-March is
late winter, which does not square with his clear statement that WWIII
begins in late summer.
The mid-April reference therefore appears to be erroneous.
That
this is so is supported by the fact that, at this point in the story,
Professor Chalmers is at his lowest ebb. Right after the “mid-April of
1973” quote, Marjorie asks Ed if he has seen the morning paper
(describing the assassination of Khalid, which has just happened). “He
shook his head. He ought to read the papers more, to keep track of the
advancing knife-edge that divided what he might talk about from what he
wasn’t supposed to know, but each morning he seemed to have less and
less time to get ready for work.” (ibid.)
The strain of being
thought of as insane by the Dean, by the students, some of the faculty
and even his lawyer—and not being sure they aren’t right, since he
couldn’t find the note on the Kilroy, which would have proven that his
precognitive ability was real (ibid., p. 27)—have caused Ed to lose more
and more sleep, and drink more and more heavily. He fears he may have
become deluded, and tries to suppress his precognitive gift, even to the
extent of seriously considering destroying all the future history notes
he made; not once, but twice. (ibid., pp. 27, 28)
This
combination of pressures has caused Ed to become detached from the
everyday world. Indeed, it may have “become unreal and illusory”, just
as Weill warned him. “But I’ll say, now, that you’re losing your grip
on reality. You are constructing a system of fantasies, and the first
thing you know, they will become your reality, and the world around you
will become unreal and illusory. And that’s a state of mental
incompetence that, as a lawyer, I can recognize.” (ibid., p. 24)
So
Ed is simply confused, disoriented, because he’s so tired and worn
down. It’s not mid-April, it’s mid-November. (This seems to be based
on Piper himself, who kept odd hours, and so occasionally became
confused. “Got up around noon, and back to bed—seemed to have forgotten
what day it was.” PBIO, p. 105) Chalmers is therefore LOSING TOUCH
WITH TIME ITSELF, as suggested by the fact that he is not keeping “track
of the advancing knife-edge that divided what he might talk about from
what he wasn’t supposed to know”. Ironically, though, it was Ed’s
attempt to suppress his precognitive ability that caused his slide into
mental detachment, not his harboring of it. This confirms he was sane
to begin with.
That Ed has become confused is supported by
his two mistakes on the page just previous to the April 1973 quote.
There, he mentions “the space-pirates in the days of the dissolution of
the First Galactic Empire, in the Tenth Century of the Interstellar
Era”, and that the Uller Uprising in the Beta Hydrae system occurs “in
the Fourth Century of the Atomic Era.” (ibid., p. 28) Both of these
statements contain errors.
The Interstellar Era begins circa AE
200, just after the “First expedition to Alpha Centauri, 192 A.E.”
(PBIO, p. 213) Ten centuries after that would be the Twelfth Century
AE, which is a couple of centuries after the Second Terran Federation
begins breaking up, not the First Galactic Empire. (Alternately, if the
Galactic Empire is indeed meant, then it should presumably read “in the
Tenth Century of the Imperial Era”, not Interstellar.)
And Uller Uprising takes place in AE 526 (ibid.). This is the Sixth Century AE, not the Fourth. (1)
Thus,
at Ed’s lowest point in the story, he not only doesn’t know what month
it is, he has even become confused about his memories of the future.
But the confirmation of Khalid’s assassination quickly brings him back
from the edge of mental incompetence, and from then on, Chalmers is his
normal, rational, precognitive self.
“At least, this’ll be the
end of that silly flap about what happened a month ago in Modern Four.”
(ibid., p. 30) Placing the story at this point, as stated, in
mid-November 1973.
In the case of Khalid, “It gratified him to
see that his future “memories” were reliable in detail as well as
generality.” (ibid., p. 37) Ed’s vindication is a spectacular
prediction of “uncanny accuracy” (ibid., p. 38), being correct in ten
primary details. “Event of assassination, year of the event, place,
circumstances, name of assassin, nationality of assassin, manner of
killing, exact type of weapon used, guards killed and wounded along with
Khalid, and fate of the assassin.” (ibid., pp. 45)
Notice that
if we turn it around, Ed’s memories of the future are ‘reliable in
generality as well as detail’. This supports his two references placing
WWIII in 1974, particularly since he is perfectly rational again when
he makes them.
3) As for the reference to knowing about the
Kilroy over a year in advance, Chalmers does not actually state that
this is exactly three years before “Edge”. The reference therefore
works just as well with the fall 1973 date, and does not contradict it.
4)
This is also true for the reference about Max Pottgeiter. Chalmers
does not explicitly say he wants Max to leave because the nukes are
about to fall. There are a number of good reasons to get him (and
Marjorie Fenner) away from Blanley as soon as possible, many months
before WWIII occurs. Moreover, since the Turks invade Syria and Lebanon
“before the end of the year”, that means Pottgeiter leaves Blanley in
late December 1973 or early January 1974. Thus, if WWIII were to break
out soon afterward, it would still occur in 1974; running from, say,
mid-January to mid-February.
1) Now, as for the “a little over
three years ago…Just after New Year’s, 1970” inconsistency, that one is a
puzzler, I admit. Chalmers is completely rational at that point in the
story, so he should have said “a little over three years and nine
months ago”, or “a few months less than four years ago”. My feeling is
that this is an example of Piper ‘muddying the waters’ (perhaps in
concert with the other inconsistencies); thereby throwing out false
leads to confuse his readers. This was something of a habit with him.
As Mike Knerr once said of Beam, “Like an old Indian scout, he was
forever covering his back-trail.” (PBIO, p. 97)
In sum, the
second inconsistency is erroneous, being easily explained by the fact
that Professor Chalmers was confused and disoriented at the time, due to
heavy drinking and lack of sleep (supported by the adjacent errors in
his memories of the future); the third is not really an inconsistency,
as it is not specifically related to the time of “Edge”; nor is the
fourth, since it is not specifically related to the date of WWIII. This
leaves the first as the only real inconsistency. And this one
reference to early 1973 is heavily outweighed by the two references
placing “Edge” in the fall of 1973, plus that they give specific dates
through two different characters (October 16 by Chalmers and 17 by
Whitburn), and—most importantly—that there are two references placing
WWIII in the following year, 1974, while none place it in the current
year, 1973.
You do not state, David, your timeline of events as
to how the Thirty Days’ War could happen in 1973. I believe I can make a
good guess, but unless you can provide some evidence to support your
reasoning, a 1973 date for the Thirty Days’ War appears to be untenable,
not to mention directly contradictory to clear dates and indications of
dates in Piper. Perhaps I’ve missed something, but the references in
“The Edge of the Knife” very strongly suggest—indeed, I believe they
prove—that the Thirty Days’ War occurs in fall 1974.
>Another complication is that in the essay “The Future History” Beam places
>the Thirty Days’ War in 32 AE which, according to the conversion he offers
>in that article would be 1975. But a close reading of “The Future History”
>itself suggests that Beam also may have “had to count on his fingers to
>transpose to Christian Era, and…usually remembered too late that there
>was no C.E. Year Zero.”)
I
agree that the AE 32 reference in “The Future History” is incorrect.
It should be AE 31. And you’re probably right that Beam simply
miscounted; another possibility is that he forgot 1975 was the date for
WWIII in the Hartley Future History, not the Terro-Human one. But there
are several other suspect dates in that document. (2)
We
therefore need to be careful when applying “The Future History”. It is a
summary of many events over many centuries, and by their very nature,
summaries are prone to include errors, or at least misrepresentations,
due to compression. In judging Piper’s dates, I believe we should give
precedence to the ones in his published stories, which are almost
certainly more accurate than the summary of “The Future History”.
(While keeping an eye out, of course, for his false trails.)
John
(1)
That the Sixth Century is correct is confirmed by the inclusion of
Kent Pickering, who was on Uller during the Uprising, in First Cycle.
(FC, p. 199) First Cycle was intended as a sequel of sorts to Uller
Uprising—being written close in time and slated to be published in the
next Twayne Triplet (PBIO, p. 103)—and takes place “in the 572nd year of
the Primary Dispersion” (FC, p. 4). Primary Dispersion seems to refer
to the primary dispersion of electrons, or ‘first chain reaction’.
Thus, Primary Dispersion is an alternate name for Atomic Era, which
begins when Enrico Fermi initiates the first chain reaction at the
University of Chicago, on December 2, 1942. (PBIO, p. 212)
Kent
Pickering is therefore on Uller in AE 526, and Thalassa in AE 572,
placing both stories in the Sixth Century. Incidentally, the difference
of 46 years should make Pickering an old man in First Cycle, but this
is probably alleviated by the “time-differential for hyperspace trips”.
(Fuzzy Sapiens, p. 85) For men like Jack Holloway, who has been on
many planets, the alleviation can be a lot. Jack is 74, but doesn’t
look “much over sixty.” (ibid.) His actual age is therefore about ten
years less than his numerical age. (Perhaps not coincidentally making
Holloway close in age to Piper himself, who turned sixty in 1964, the
year Fuzzy Sapiens came out.)
(2) One is the date for Four-Day
Planet, which Beam says takes place in the “Mid-IV Century” (PBIO, p.
213). It does not; it takes place in the late-V Century. Walter Boyd
says that Fenris was colonized “at the end of the Fourth Century A.E.”,
or about AE 399. (FDP, p. 6) The first city the colonists built was
“conventional…the buildings all on the surface. After one day-and-night
cycle, they found that it was uninhabitable. It was left unfinished.
Then they started digging in. The Chartered Fenris Company shipped in
huge quantities of mining and earth-moving equipment…and they began
making burrow-cities”. (ibid., p. 31)
That had to have taken at
least a year; sixth months to Terra, and sixth months back with the
equipment. (ibid., p. 6) Port Sandor is one of the burrow-cities, and
was therefore built circa AE 400. According to Walt, this was “close to
a hundred years ago” (ibid., p. 30), making the date of Four-Day Planet
circa AE 497. That’s the late-Fifth Century, not mid-Fourth.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-12-2017
17:20 UT
|
~
Found the reference for Jack Holloway's hyperspace time-differential effect:
"Seventy-four: I was born in 580. I couldn't even estimate how much to allow for on time-differential for hyperspace trips."
This
is from ~Fuzzy Sapiens~, when they're trying to sort out if the
veridicator will work on a Fuzzy. Doesn't really give any details yet
on what the time-differential is at this stage of hyperdrive technology
but does make clear that Beam still considered hyperspatial
time-dilation to be an important element of the Future History setting
at the late stage at which ~Sapiens~ was written.
'Ware the damnthings!
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 05-12-2017
05:56 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> Is there other stuff? Fuzzy stuffed animals or something?
This was amusing:
http://www.leviathanstudios.com/figures/fuzzy.html
Yeek!
David
--
"Why not everybody make friend, have fun, make help, be good?" - Diamond Grego (H. Beam Piper), ~Fuzzy Sapiens~
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 05-11-2017
23:44 UT
|
~
David "Piperfan" Johnson wrote:
"I have to admit that's one of the most unusual bits of Piper-abilia I've seen in a while."
Is there other stuff? Fuzzy stuffed animals or something?
Also grandma(my) was a Johnson from New Brunswick, Canada. Probably doesn't mean much though.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-11-2017
15:03 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> Just was browsing through ebay in search of any interesting
> Piperabilia and came across a metal sign with the cover of Cosmic
> Computer on it. Kind of cool, not the Ace the original.
Here is is:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/122469881503
I
have to admit that's one of the most unusual bits of Piper-abilia I've
seen in a while. It's a reproduction of the cover art from the 1964 Ace
publication with Ed Valigursky's illustration (as opposed to the 1980s
reprint with the Whelan cover illustration).
Good luck.
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, The Pennsy interview, 1953
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 05-11-2017
01:04 UT
|
Just was browsing through ebay in search of any interesting
Piperabilia and came across a metal sign with the cover of Cosmic
Computer on it. Kind of cool, not the Ace the original. Also it seems
like someone stumbled into an old Ace warehouse. There are a number of
the Ace eighties aditions on ebay now being billed as new and unread.
So if that interests you, and you would like to pay seventy dollars or
so go check them out on EBay. Edited 05-11-2017 01:30
|
jimmyjoejangles 05-06-2017
18:42 UT
|
I knew it wasn't that kind of forum. Thanks though.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-06-2017
16:43 UT
|
~
[A bit of List housekeeping here.]
James,
> David Johnson wrote:
>
> > James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> --
> "And just how do you define the term 'fool', Mr. Melroy?"
> -- Doris Rivas (H. Beam Piper), "Day of the Moron"
I
want to be clear that this quote was not meant to be any sort of a
response to what you had written. It was just the only Hartley yarn
quote I had handy. Looking at it in hindsight I can see that it might
have been interpreted differently than it was intended and I apologize
for any offense which might have been taken. Please rest assured no
offense was intended.
Sorry,
David
--
"Why not everybody make friend, have fun, make help, be good?" - Diamond Grego (H. Beam Piper), ~Fuzzy Sapiens~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-06-2017
16:27 UT
|
~
John "Calidore" Anderson wrote:
> But as [Carr] points out, “Piper is clearly working out
> some of the background he used in later TFH stories.” (FED,
> pp. xxiv-xxv) So I consider the Hartley yarns to be a sort of
> ‘proto-Future History’. A preliminary attempt, superceded by
> the more firmly grounded and thought-out THFH.
I
agree this is a reasonable assumption. Beam was writing lots of
different stuff in the period when he wrote the Hartley yarns including
the first several Paratime yarns and even they went through some
"growing pains." (I'm thinking here of things like the multiple
"para-peeping" Verkan Valls in "Police Operation" and the way the origin
of the different Paratime Levels changes from that yarn to ~Lord
Kalvan~.)
> As a proto-THFH, Piper could have easily adapted certain
> elements from the ‘Hartley Future History’ (or HFH, if I may
> call it that) into his main Future History at some later date.
Another reasonable assumption.
> Particularly because, as you noted in your post, the
> Philadelphia Project has the same name in the THFH as in
> the HFH. In the HFH, the Philadelphia Project is presumably
> begun under President Hartley, who hails from Pennsylvania,
> and therefore steered the project to his home state.
Perhaps.
Or, perhaps as Beam often did, he simply placed the Hartleys _and_ the
Philadelphia Project in _his_ home state. (I am reminded here of the
Penn State scientist in "Omnilingual" and, of course, of a particular
Pennsylvania state trooper.)
> > but "The Edge of the Knife" dates this war in 1973.
>
> It actually dates it in 1974. According to Professor Chalmers’
> calendar, “Edge” begins on “October 16, 1973” (EMP, p. 17).
A
close reading of "The Edge of the Knife" suggests there are several
inconsistencies in the internal dating, as Beam mentions specific years,
months, seasons and university terms. One has to ignore some of these
whether one decides the "Thirty Days' War" occurs in 1973 or 1974 but my
choices lead me to settle on 1973.
(Another complication is that
in the essay "The Future History" Beam places the Thirty Days' War in
32 AE which, according to the conversion he offers in that article would
be 1975. But a close reading of "The Future History" itself suggests
that Beam also may have "had to count on his fingers to transpose to
Christian Era, and . . . usually remembered too late that there was no
C.E. Year Zero.")
Bottom line, I think, is that the dating of the
"Third World War" is one place where the Hartley yarns might be
shoehorned into the Terro-human Future History (though the _character_
of the Wars in each setting is much more difficult to reconcile).
> I agree about the significant lack of linkages in the THFH to
> the HFH, but would discount the lack of linkages in the other
> direction. The Hartley stories were written, and take place,
> before Piper’s acknowledged THFH tales. It is therefore not
>surprising that these earlier tales don’t mention future events
> and projects, especially those which are classified.
Actually,
Beam was pretty good at this sort of thing. Consider, for example, his
depictions of the Sword Worlds and the Space Vikings in "Ministry of
Disturbance" and "A Slave is a Slave," both written before ~Space
Viking~ and yet both set _after_ that yarn in the Future History.
YMMV,
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~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-06-2017
04:56 UT
|
~ James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote: > THe Mercenaries deals directly with collapsed matter. IT's one of > the secrets they are trying to protect because they invented it. What? There's _science_ in "The Mercenaries"? I guess I missed that trying to figure out the mystery. ;) I stand corrected. David -- "As
to Heisenberg compensators . . . I'd rather rely on reversing the
polarity of the neutron flow." - Tom Rogers, H. Beam Piper Mailing List
and Discussion Forum, July 15, 2015 ~ Edited 05-06-2017 04:57
|
Calidore 05-06-2017
01:34 UT
|
A delayed response to David Johnson’s earlier post on the Hartley stories.
David wrote,
>>Some
enthusiasts argue that Piper's Hartley yarns are part of his
Terro-human Future History despite the fact that Piper himself does not
mention any of the Hartley yarns in his delineation of the Terro-human
yarns in the article "The Future History." The principal reason one
might be inclined to include Piper's Hartley yarns in his Terro-human
Future History is the mention of an "Islamic Caliphate" in the
Terro-human yarn "The Edge of the Knife" and the mention of an "Islamic
Kaliphate" (sic) in "The Mercenaries." But the Islamic Caliphate of "The
Edge of the Knife" is friendly to the United States and eventually
joins the U.S.-led Terran Federation while the Islamic Kaliphate of "The
Mercenaries" is an adversary of the U.S.-led Western Union. (These two
different U.S.-led blocs, Terran Federation and Western Union, suggest
distinct settings too.)
Your post is a very good summary of the
differences, and similarities, between the Hartley tales and the THFH. I
agree that, as published, the three Hartley tales do not belong in the
Future History. John Carr says as much in his Introduction to
Federation. But as he points out, “Piper is clearly working out some of
the background he used in later TFH stories.” (FED, pp. xxiv-xxv) So I
consider the Hartley yarns to be a sort of ‘proto-Future History’. A
preliminary attempt, superceded by the more firmly grounded and
thought-out THFH.
As a proto-THFH, Piper could have
easily adapted certain elements from the ‘Hartley Future History’ (or
HFH, if I may call it that) into his main Future History at some later
date. And since he names no American presidents in the THFH (nor
Federation presidents, for that matter), this could actually include the
Hartleys themselves. Particularly because, as you noted in your post,
the Philadelphia Project has the same name in the THFH as in the HFH.
In the HFH, the Philadelphia Project is presumably begun under President
Hartley, who hails from Pennsylvania, and therefore steered the project
to his home state. This parallels how Mission Control ended up in
Houston because Vice President Johnson was a Texan, as well as, not
coincidentally, the head of NASA. It is therefore not outside the realm
of possibility that, in the THFH, the Philadelphia Project is a Hartley
creation as well.
Incidentally, given the fact that the Hartley
tales were written and published in chronological order, one might infer
that Beam’s original intent was to write all his future history stories
in order, from the near to far future. But if so, this changed when he
was approached with the idea of contributing a story to a Twayne
Triplet, based on Dr. John D. Clark’s essay. A story which became Uller
Uprising, the first true tale of the THFH, and in which Beam ‘jumped
ahead’ several centuries.
>>Another possible commonality
between the Hartley Yarns and the Terro-human Future History is the
Third World War, which occurs in Allan Hartley's "original timeline" in
1975. A Third World War is also mentioned in several Terro-human Future
History yarns but "The Edge of the Knife" dates this war in 1973.
It
actually dates it in 1974. According to Professor Chalmers’ calendar,
“Edge” begins on “October 16, 1973” (EMP, p. 17). Khalid ib’n Hussein
is assassinated a month later, in mid-November, 1973. In the months
that follow, the UN falls apart, there is “general war in the Middle
East”, the Terran Federation is organized, and finally Tallal ib’n
Khalid brings the Islamic Caliphate into the Federation just about when
the Thirty Days War breaks out. (ibid., pp. 30, 36) This occurs in
mid-September, 1974. “There would be an Eastern-inspired uprising in
Azerbaijan by the middle of the next year [around June 1974]; before
autumn [which begins around September 20], the Indian Communists would
make their fatal attempt; the Thirty Days’ War would be the immediate
result.” (ibid., p. 55) WWIII would then roughly run from mid-September
to mid-October, 1974.
>>Another possible connection
between Piper's two future history settings is the centrality of the
U.S. Philadelphia Project, an effort to launch a spaceship to the Moon
and build a lunar missile base. In "The Edge of the Knife" the
Philadelphia Project was also the name of the effort by the United
States to launch a spacecraft to the Moon. The successful launch of the
Philadelphia Project's _Kilroy_ spacecraft leads to an effort to
construct a lunar missile base and, ultimately, enables the U.S. to
prevail in the Third World War. Likewise, the Philadelphia Project is
mentioned in both "The Mercenaries" and "Day of the Moron" and is
described in "The Mercenaries" as a U.S.-led effort to launch a
spaceship to the Moon and to build a lunar military base. But there is
an important difference. While several competing Moon efforts by U.S.
adversaries are mentioned in "The Mercenaries" (even the Islamic
Kaliphate has one) there is no mention of any competing efforts in "The
Edge of the Knife." Indeed, one of the provocations that lead to the
Third World War in "The Edge of the Knife" are protests on the part of
its adversaries about U.S. efforts to build a military base on the Moon.
One would hardly expect such protests if those adversaries, as is the
case in "The Mercenaries," were themselves involved in their own lunar
base undertakings.
His four power-blocs in “The Mercenaries” may
have been intended to clearly differentiate his fictional proto-future
history from the real world, while also giving him more room to
creatively maneuver. Four competitors going to the Moon certainly makes
the race more interesting than two. Or, perhaps he had a historical
model in mind which he never revealed. But in the later THFH, he
brought his near-term future history more closely in line with the
bipolar real world, in which the West and East (US and USSR) were
dominant.
I fear I must disagree with your last sentence
about protesting the US lunar base. In light of the fact that getting
there first allows the winner to annex the Moon (WHBP, p. 54), and thus
all its resources; and, even more importantly, the lunar base insures
world supremacy over all the nations of Terra (which is why the four
power-blocs are “racing” to get there and build it in the Hartley
yarns), one would expect just such protests from the losers.
Particularly because in the THFH, the United States wins, and the loser
is its main enemy, the Soviet Union. It is therefore highly probable
that the Axis did in fact have its own lunar project, just as the Fourth
Komintern does in the HFH (and just as the USSR did in the real world,
though they denied it). But once the Kilroy won the race for the United
States—and presumably enabled America to annex the Moon, as in the
HFH—they were forced to change tactics. With Luna in American hands,
the Eastern Axis began its two-pronged political campaign at the UN “for
the demilitarization and internationalization of the United States
Lunar Base”. (EMP, p. 30) These are “demands” (ibid.), not requests,
and they certainly wouldn’t demand demilitarization if they didn’t
consider the US Lunar Base a serious military threat—which supports its
‘world supremacy’ aspect.
The Axis may reckon with the
possibility that the demilitarization demand will fail; that’s where the
second prong, internationalization, comes in. If successful, that
would place the base under UN control, which would give the USSR veto
power over its use—thereby politically neutralizing the military threat
it poses. UN control would certainly also entail allowing other
countries to station personnel at the base. Thus, the Soviets could get
some military officers and other agents up there. Even if the base
were politically neutralized, however, its military importance—world
supremacy—would remain. So the Soviet personnel could have a hidden
agenda—to take over the base themselves. And if they did seize control,
it would transfer world supremacy to the Eastern Axis at a stroke.
>>Other
than the Philadelphia Project, nowhere in the Terro-human Future
History yarns Piper identifies in his essay "The Future History" do we
see references to any of the characters or events portrayed in the
Hartley Yarns. No mention of Allan Hartley or his father Blake. No
mention of the MacLeod Research Team nor of the "free scientists"
phenomenon more generally. No mention of the Melroy Engineering Company
nor the disaster at the Long Island Nuclear Reaction Plant. And the
Islamic Kaliphate notwithstanding, there is no mention of the Western
Union or its other competitors: the Fourth Komintern or the
Ibero-American Confederation. Likewise, there is no mention in any
Hartley yarn of the Terran Federation, the Thirty Days War, the secret
U.S. "Operation Triple Cross" plan to build redundant launch facilities
to supply the Lunar Base, nor the lunar spaceship _Kilroy_ from "The
Edge of the Knife." The absence of such linkages, which are so very
characteristic of Piper's Terro-human Future History yarns, confirm what
Piper himself implies in "The Future History": the Hartley yarns are
distinct from his Terro->human Future History.
I agree about
the significant lack of linkages in the THFH to the HFH, but would
discount the lack of linkages in the other direction. The Hartley
stories were written, and take place, before Piper’s acknowledged THFH
tales. It is therefore not surprising that these earlier tales don’t
mention future events and projects, especially those which are
classified. For example, the last Hartley story, “Day of the Moron”,
takes place in 1968, but in the 1973 of “The Edge of the Knife”, Major
Cutler says that the Terran Federation and Operation Triple Cross are
“hush-hush” topics. (EMP, pp. 47-48) So the TF and OTC could exist in
the Hartley Future History, but are simply unknown to the general
public; plus there was no reason to mention them in “Day of the Moron”,
which is a story about civilian nuclear power, not geopolitics. They
might have been mentioned later, had Piper written a fourth HFH tale set
in the 1970s. A story, by the way, which could have answered the
question of whether Allan Hartley was actually successful in preventing
WWIII. And one which Beam probably intended to write, given that he
included the Hartleys in three consecutive tales.
And
finally, the Philadelphia Project is probably an outgrowth of Allan’s
statement to Blake in “Time and Time Again” that “I think President
Hartley can be trusted to take a strong line of policy.” (WHBP, p. 28)
This implies that in Allan’s ‘first’ life, the American president
elected in 1960 took a weak line of policy, which enabled the Fourth
Komintern to gain the strategic upper hand. Thus, the lack of an
American lunar base can help explain why the communist invasion in
Allan’s ‘first’ life was successful, at least as far as Buffalo. By
extension, it suggests the Soviets don’t have one either, just as in the
THFH. Otherwise, they could have simply issued an ultimatum to the
capitalist West: “Surrender, or be destroyed.”
Thus, possessing a
Lunar base would have saved the US in Allan’s ‘first’ life, and may
well do so in his second. This matches “The Edge of the Knife”, in
which the US will be saved by missiles from the Lunar fortress, which
obliterate the USSR. (EMP, p. 56) Though Piper has Dean Whitburn say
“Operation Triple Cross…saved the country” (EMP, p. 47), OTC is simply a
triplicate set of rocketports which keep the Lunar fortress supplied,
and therefore keep its world supremacy role intact. OTC is an extension
of the Philadelphia Project, which is what really saved the country.
John
|
jimmyjoejangles 05-05-2017
13:04 UT
|
THe Mercenaries deals directly with collapsed matter. IT's one of the
secrets they are trying to protect because they invented it.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-05-2017
03:56 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> Also I would have to say that the Hartley yarns are firmly outside
> THFH. No mention of collapsium in all the elaborate shielding of
> Nif space craft in Uller Uprising.
I
agree that the Hartley yarns are not Terro-human Future History yarns
but I'm not sure collapsium is a good indicator because all of the
Hartley yarns occur before collapsium would have been invented anyway.
I
think perhaps the best indicator of the difference is the Islamic
Caliphate/Kaliphate. The Caliphate of "The Edge of the Knife" is an
ally of the U.S.-led first Terran Federation while the Kaliphate of "The
Mercenaries" is an adversary of the U.S.-led Western Union.
Cheers,
David
--
"And just how do you define the term 'fool', Mr. Melroy?" -- Doris Rivas (H. Beam Piper), "Day of the Moron"
~
|
Jon Crocker 05-05-2017
00:39 UT
|
I think you`re right, it`s not a consistent trend.
|
jimmyjoejangles 05-04-2017
21:08 UT
|
Also I would have to say that the Hartley yarns are firmly outside THFH.
No mention of collapsium in all the elaborate shielding of Nif space
craft in Uller Uprising.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-04-2017
14:44 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> Just finished Junkyard Planet. Nothing there.
Sort of makes sense because most of the story takes place entirely within the Gartner Tri-System.
Thanks for checking!
David
--
"A
girl can punch any kind of a button a man can, and a lot of them know
what buttons to punch, and why." - Conn Maxwell (H. Beam Piper),
~Junkyard Planet~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-04-2017
14:41 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Ha, found one. Uller Uprising, p. 67 in my copy, in chapter five.
>
> "Well, it takes six months for a ship to go between here and Nif
> [Niflheim]," Prinsloo considered. "Because of the hyperdrive
> effects, the experienced time of the voyage inside the ship, is of
> the order of three weeks."
Three-weeks-to-six-months
is awfully difficult to reconcile with "about double" from ~Four-Day
Planet~, especially given that the yarns occur relatively near to each
other in the Future History timeline (though Beam wrote them nearly a
decade apart).
Thanks for this one!
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~
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 05-03-2017
22:02 UT
|
Just finished Junkyard Planet. Nothing there.
|
David Sooby 05-02-2017
05:01 UT
|
Jon Crocker said:
> With a little rounding, the 6 months above equals one hundred eighty days compared to 21 days, so a factor of nine?
Depends
on where you do the rounding. If you take a "month" as exactly 4 weeks,
then a 6 months to 3 weeks ratio would be exactly 8:1, not 9:1.
But
in either case, it's rather distant from the "...everything speeds up
about double in hyperspace" reference. And anyway, what does that
actually mean? Is it the hyperspace travelers who experience everything
at double the rate, or is it that everything in normal space seems
speeded up to them? A straightforward reading suggests the former, but
what Piper writes in the stories seems to suggest the latter.
Seems
like a real can of worms. We might suggest that the hyperdrive used in
different periods had different ratios of time dilation. Those who argue
that different ships have different hyperdrive speeds (I am definitely
*not* one of them, but there are those firmly in the other camp) might
suggest that the time dilation depended on the speed of the individual
ship.
Stepping back and looking at it from the outside, it looks
like one of many cases where Piper didn't think it was important enough
to be consistent about it.
|
David Sooby 05-02-2017
05:00 UT
|
David "PiperFan" JohnsonPerson said:
> Ah, yes, the "whisper mouthpiece." Clever, that.
I'm
not even sure that's science fiction anymore. Note the "throat
microphone" used by US. Special Forces. That picks up throat vibrations,
and will indeed pick up whispers.
Not quite the same idea, but similar in effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_microphone
|
Jon Crocker 05-01-2017
23:31 UT
|
Ha, found one. Uller Uprising, p. 67 in my copy, in chapter five.
"Well,
it takes six months for a ship to go between here and Nif [Niflheim],"
Prinsloo considered. "Because of the hyperdrive effects, the
experienced time of the voyage inside the ship, is of the order of three
weeks."
It would probably be a fairly straightforward conversion
factor - people are noted to have to stop and think to have to convert,
but no one reaches for pencil and paper to do square roots or the like.
With a little rounding, the 6 months above equals one hundred eighty
days compared to 21 days, so a factor of nine?
I can't think of any other explicit statement of timescales, maybe Piper got tired of it?
Hope this helps plot the tech curve.
|
Jon Crocker 05-01-2017
03:39 UT
|
That time dilation will take some checking.
Oh no, another excuse to look through my Piper books...
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 04-29-2017
15:34 UT
|
~
Tim Tow wrote:
> There's also the Whisper Phone from Day of the Moron, an invention
> that would find great utility in call centers and open office spaces
> nowadays!
Ah, yes, the "whisper mouthpiece." Clever, that.
I
wonder if that was something Beam had heard about in some speculative
fiction piece--though obviously it may simply have been invented to fit
the needs of that scene.
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 "PiperFan" Johnson 04-29-2017
15:24 UT
|
~
". . . everything speeds up about double in hyperspace."
That's
Oscar Fujisawa, in ~Four-Day Planet~, explaining that Leo Belsher
likely spent enough time aboard the ~Peenemunde~ with Glenn Murell to
figure out he that wasn't really "a famous author."
It's also
Beam signalling that there is time dilation for hyperspace travel. I
seem to remember a few other references in Future History works--I
believe Jack Holloway mentioned at some point how it made sorting out
his age a bit of a challenge--and wonder if some of you might help me
track them down.
We know that hyperspace travel speeds varied
across the Future History, as Dillingham technology improved--and
declined--and I would expect that the effects of hyperspace time
dilation varied with these changes in hyperdrive speeds. So, having
some sense of what the time dilation effects were at different points in
the Future History might help to sort that out.
Any pointers to additional references are appreciated.
Thanks,
David
--
"As
to Heisenberg compensators . . . I'd rather rely on reversing the
polarity of the neutron flow." - Tom Rogers, H. Beam Piper Mailing List
and Discussion Forum, July 15, 2015
~
|
Tim Tow 04-14-2017
01:49 UT
|
There's also the Whisper Phone from Day of the Moron, an invention that
would find great utility in call centers and open office spaces
nowadays!
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 04-13-2017
03:47 UT
|
~
Piper's Sci-Fi Technology
This seems to be an interesting exercise:
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorTotalAlphaList.asp?AuNum=3
I
especially enjoy the entry on "contragravity armor." It's shame the
Federation era folks never seemed to see such things as having military
applications.
Znidd Suddabit!
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~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-22-2017
01:30 UT
|
~
"It had been two hours to Litchfield when the Countess Dorothy rose from the airship dock at Storisende." - H. Beam Piper, Junkyard Planet
".
. . the face of Dorothy altered . . . and she became the Countess
Dorothy whom Jurgen remembered as Heitman Michael's wife." - James
Branch Cabell, Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice
I've often
wondered who was the namesake of the airship which brings Conn Maxwell
the last leg of his journey home from Terra. The answer, it seems,
rests again with old Genji Gartner and his fascination with Cabell's Jurgen.
Obviously, "Gartner's" appreciation of Cabell must reflect that of
Beam himself. It would take more than a casual familiarity with
Cabell's work to pull that sort of detail for the name of an airship.
A close reading of Junkyard Planet
makes clear that Beam was using bits and pieces of Cabell's work
throughout the novel. What's fascinating is not so much what this tells
us about Gartner's--and Beam's--appreciation for Cabell but rather what
it also suggests about Gartner's place in Poicstesme's history. Sure,
it makes sense that the many planets and moons of the Gartner Trisystem
got their names from Cabell (via Gartner) but here are Gartner's
descendants, two centuries later, still naming ships for characters from
Cabell's work. (True, the Countess Dorothy might be decades old but surely it must have been laid down decades after Genji Gartner's body began "mouldering" in his tomb!)
Remember Ashmodai! Remember Belphegor!
David
--
"A
girl can punch any kind of a button a man can, and a lot of them know
what buttons to punch, and why." - Conn Maxwell (H. Beam Piper), Junkyard Planet
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-14-2017
02:15 UT
|
~
Dale Ridder wrote:
> In the book on the science fiction background to the Traveller
> science-fiction role-playing game, two of Piper's books are
> mentioned at 2 and 3: The Cosmic Computer and Space Viking.
> The Space Viking is pretty obvious based on the presence of
> Sword Worlders in the game.
My
favorite Piper connection in Traveller is the "Casual Encounter"
article by J. Andrew Keith (writing under the pen name Keith Douglass)
which appeared in ~Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society~ No. 20. It
features Gamaagin Kaashukiin, the former Baroness of Klavos (on the
planet Adabicci in Lunion subsector), who sells her barony to raise the
funds to purchase a ~Broadsword~ class "mercenary cruiser"--much smaller
than Trask's ~Nemesis~ but very much the same concept--to go hunting
the Sword Worlders who killed her husband.
As you mention,
Traveller's Sword Worlds were clearly inspired by ~Space Viking~ but
I've had more difficulty finding Traveller linkages to ~Junkyard
Planet~/~The Cosmic Computer~.
Happy Travelling,
David
--
"Ideas
for science fiction stories like ideas for anything else, are where you
find them, usually in the most unlikely places. The only reliable
source is a mind which asks itself a question like, 'What would happen
if--?' or, 'Now what would this develop into, in a few centuries?' Or,
'How would so-and-so happen?' Anything at all, can trigger such a
question, in your field if not in mine." - H. Beam Piper, "Double: Bill
Symposium" interview
~
|
Dale Ridder 03-13-2017
16:59 UT
|
Greetings All,
Jon Crocker mentioned a computer game in the 1990s
that may have used Piper. In the book on the science fiction
background to the Traveller science-fiction role-playing game, two of
Piper's books are mentioned at 2 and 3: The Cosmic Computer and Space
Viking. The Space Viking is pretty obvious based on the presence of
Sword Worlders in the game. I suspect that Piper's direct conversion of
nuclear energy to electricity also plays a big role in having
fusion-powered vehicles about the size of existing ones. Oddly enough,
collapsium is not used in the game.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-13-2017
14:58 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> It had Fort Huachuca on it of course, and at that scale it looks
> close to the Mexican border.
I
think, ". . . we're from Arizona, near the old Mexican border . . ."
would have been an even better way to locate Fort Ridgeway (but also
leaves me doubting that Piper and McGuire really had an actual place in
mind).
'Ware the Scowrers!
David
--
"Altamont sat in
silence, smoking his pipe and trying to form some conception of the
wealth under that concrete floor. It was no use. Jim Loudons probably
understood a little more nearly what those books would mean to the world
of today, and what they could do toward shaping the world of the
future." -- H. Beam Piper, "The Return"
~
|
Jon Crocker 03-13-2017
03:39 UT
|
Great stuff - I always thought it was just a fictional place, never thought it would map to a real location.
I
have a copy of a 1942 Union Pacific "Military Map of the United States"
that shows dozens of military posts, then has the nearest station and
postal information for each. It had Fort Huachuca on it of course, and
at that scale it looks close to the Mexican border. Of course, the map
states, "censorship prevents listing of many newer facilities. Keep 'em
rolling for Victory!"
Around 1989 or so, there was a computer
game called Wasteland, a post-WW3 adventure where the heros hailed from
an old US Army base, and once I read that story I wondered if the game
writers had read Piper.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-09-2017
03:03 UT
|
~
". . . we're from Arizona. A place called Fort Ridgeway."
- Jim Loudons (H. Beam Piper & John J. McGuire), "The Return," 1954
Throughout
the decade I lived in Arizona I always wondered where Fort Ridgeway
might have been but Piper and McGuire give us few clues. They tell us
that Fort Ridgeway was originally "a military research and development
center" but give no details about where "in what had once been Arizona"
it might be.
Fort Ridgeway seems to be a fictional name. There
has never been a military base with that name in Arizona. It seems
likely that Piper and McGuire named the fort after General Matthew
Ridgeway, who commanded UN forces in Korea after MacArthur was relieved
of command. Ridgeway was U.S. Army Chief of Staff--after a post-Korea
assignment as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (taking over from
Eisenhower)--when "The Return" was published in January 1954.
(Intriguingly, Ridgeway retired to suburban Pittsburgh--where the events
depicted in "The Return" take place--in 1955, though whether or not
Piper or McGuire knew that was in the works when they were writing their
yarn is anyone's guess.)
The largest military base in Arizona at
the time Piper and McGuire were writing "The Return" was Davis-Monthan
Air Force Base near Tucson. Davis-Monthan had primarily been a bomber
base rather than a research and development center. Luke Air Force Base
near Phoenix, was (and remains) primarily a fighter training facility.
Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona was an Army construction engineering
facility during the Korean War and did not begin its transition to an
electronic warfare research and development facility until 1954, after
"The Return" was published. The former Williams Air Force Base, also
near Phoenix, was another fighter training facility but did have a brief
role as a gunnery research and development site early in the post-WWII
period.
There are don't seem to be any immediately likely
candidates for Fort Ridgeway among these bases. There were other
military facilities in Arizona at the time Piper and McGuire must have
been writing "The Return" but there's nothing about any of them to
suggest it might be the site of Fort Ridgeway either.
One last
clue is the war which has devastated the former United States in "The
Return." Events depicted in the yarn take place two hundred years after
this war, which occurred in 1996--some 40+ years into the future from
the time Piper and McGuire were writing. Given the scale of the
apparent destruction it seems less likely that Fort Ridgeway would have
been on the site of Tucson's Davis-Monthan or of Luke or Williams in
metropolitan Phoenix. This would seem to leave Fort Huachuca--renamed
for General Ridgeway and far from a major population center--as the most
likely site of Fort Ridgeway.
It's elementary. ;)
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~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-05-2017
18:56 UT
|
~
Dale Ridder wrote:
> What city and state is this Waffle House located in? I am guessing
> that the state is Pennsylvania, but the city is not possible to guess.
State
College, Pennsylvania. I've been twice--though it's been a few years
now--and it's always been a great time. You can see a bit about a few
previous Irregulars' Musters here:
http://hradzka.dreamwidth.org/290128.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20090109135721...lvan/muster2008.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20080819174120...an/Hostigos2004.htm
Down Styphon!
David
--
"I
have heard it argued that fandom tends to make a sort of cult of
science fiction, restricted to a narrow circles of the initiated. This I
seriously question." - H. Beam Piper, "Double: Bill Symposium"
interview
~
|
Dale Ridder 03-05-2017
18:49 UT
|
Greetings Mr. Carr,
My apologies for my ignorance, as I am new to
the forum. What city and state is this Waffle House located in? I am
guessing that the state is Pennsylvania, but the city is not possible to
guess.
Sincerely Yours,
Dale R. Ridder
Hi Folks,
This
year's Irregulars Muster will take place on Saturday, May 20, 2017. We
will be meeting at the Waffle House located on 1229 North Atherton
Street at 10:00 a.m.
Dennis Frank will take us on a tour of
"Hostigos" and places important to H. Beam Piper canon -- including the
Kalvan transposition site. Time and erosion have taken their toll on
the transposition site. In a few years, the turn-around will be nothing
more than a small gap along the roadside. I suggest, if you'd like to
see it, this is the time to visit.
All Piper fans are
welcome to join us for a day of good company, great food, congenial chat
about our favorite author and a tour of Piper Country.
John F. Carr
|
John F. Carr 03-05-2017
00:36 UT
|
Hi Folks,
This year's Irregulars Muster will take place on
Saturday, May 20, 2017. We will be meeting at the Waffle House located
on 1229 North Atherton Street at 10:00 a.m.
Dennis Frank
will take us on a tour of "Hostigos" and places important to H. Beam
Piper canon -- including the Kalvan transposition site. Time and erosion
have taken their toll on the transposition site. In a few years, the
turn-around will be nothing more than a small gap along the roadside. I
suggest, if you'd like to see it, this is the time to visit.
All
Piper fans are welcome to join us for a day of good company, great
food, congenial chat about our favorite author and a tour of Piper
Country.
John F. Carr
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-04-2017
04:22 UT
|
~
Welcome, Dale.
> Has anyone ever drawn or worked up pictures of the various
> animals mentioned in the Piper books? One I have been thinking
> of is the Colada Marsh Pigs, that Otto Harkonen hunted when a kid.
> I was thinking of them looking like a pygmy hippopotamus with a
> head resembling that of a wart hog, but broader. As for the
> Zarathustra Damnthing, more of a bad-tempered three-horned
> eland that wants meat.
Whelan's damnthing is the best, I think:
http://www.michaelwhelan.com/wp-content/uploads/runforcover.jpg
His Jarvis's sea-monster was also pretty good:
http://www.michaelwhelan.com/wp-content/uploads/fourdayplanet.jpg
though I think Eddie Jones did a good job too:
http://www.sf-hefte.de/BILDER_T/TERRA_ASTRA_505.JPG
Leo Morey did a nice job with the Svant's "cattle":
http://www.zarthani.net/Images/naudsonce-morey_p28.png
I like your description of Harkaman's marsh pigs.
Monster Ho!
David
--
"I
was born in Antarctica, on Terra. The water's a little too cold to do
much swimming there. And I've spent most of my time since then in
central Argentine, in the pampas country." - Glenn Murell (H. Beam
Piper), ~Four-Day Planet~
~
|
Dale Ridder 03-04-2017
03:48 UT
|
Has anyone ever drawn or worked up pictures of the various animals
mentioned in the Piper books? One I have been thinking of is the Colada
Marsh Pigs, that Otto Harkonen hunted when a kid. I was thinking of
them looking like a pygmy hippopotamus with a head resembling that of a
wart hog, but broader. As for the Zarathustra Damnthing, more of a
bad-tempered three-horned eland that wants meat.
|
Dale Ridder 03-03-2017
13:42 UT
|
A "Thank You" to David for inviting me to join the forum. I have been
reading Piper since the early 1960s when I first read "Little Fuzzy",
then the "Styphon" series in Analog, and "Space Viking" and "The Cosmic
Computer" when they came out. Piper is one of my favorite authors and
some of his military ideas are now common place, such at using TV drones
for reconnaissance. I have been working on adapting some of Piper's
ideas to the Traveller science-fiction role-playing game, so you might
start seeing some of that.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 02-27-2017
16:14 UT
|
~
Space Viking sequel reviews:
Stumbled across some reviews
Joseph Major has done of ~The Last Space Viking~, ~Prince of Tanith~ and
~Princess Valerie's War~ in his fanzine ~Alexiad~ here:
https://efanzines.com/Alexiad/Alexiad063L.pdf
Reviews begin on page 3. Anyone else read the Mancour sequels?
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~
~
|
Jon Crocker 02-23-2017
01:29 UT
|
These guys are digging in shale, not flint. Their diggers are on
caterpillar treads, not contragravity. But they dig up fossilized sea
creatures to be used as gemstones.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/ammo...nada-gems-1.3993105
They don't glow like sunstones, but they are very colourful!
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 02-19-2017
17:46 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> And I think you're right about the Hartley Yarns, looks like an
> offshoot of the fourth level Europo-American subsector.
That
seems to be John's take in his ~Time Crime~ expansion, though I think
it's also reasonable to treat the Hartley Yarns as a stand-alone
setting.
With a bit of work they might even be shoe-horned--some
more easily than others (the "time-shifting" of Hartley's consciousness
in "Time and Time Again" calls to mind Beam's own hesitation about "The
Edge of the Knife")--into the Terro-human Future History.
I have the honor, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,
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 (H. Beam
Piper), "Police Operation"
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 02-19-2017
17:34 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> It's interesting to see - I'd bet that the Whelan covers had better
> sales, though.
Yes, I think Whelan's work helped a great deal to introduce--or reintroduce--readers to Piper in the late '70s and early '80s
I'd
known about this Orbit (UK) edition of ~Sapiens~--it's in the
Zarthani.net bibliography--but I'd never seen the cover illustration
before. It's obviously the same artist who did the cover illustration
for the Orbit edition of ~Little Fuzzy~ but I've not been able to
identify a name.
Yeek.
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~
~
|
Jon Crocker 02-19-2017
17:25 UT
|
It's interesting to see - I'd bet that the Whelan covers had better sales, though.
And I think you're right about the Hartley Yarns, looks like an offshoot of the fourth level Europo-American subsector.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 02-18-2017
22:50 UT
|
Cover art for UK edition of Fuzzy Sapiens, Orbit/Futura 1977
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 02-13-2017
03:32 UT
|
~
The Hartley Yarns and Piper's Terro-human Future History
[Been working on this as part of a little project and thought I'd share it here.]
In
his Hartley yarns, H. Beam Piper began a future historical setting
which is somewhat different from his more fully-developed Terro-human
Future History. The setting begins with Piper's first published story,
the 1947 yarn "Time and Time Again" in which a dying Allan Hartley
"re-awakens" in his childhood past—and in his fourteen-year-old
body—with the intact memories of his life up to his apparent death in
the Third World War. Successfully convincing his father, Blake Hartley,
of the veracity of his future "memories," Hartley and his father begin
planning, in 1945, to take advantage of Allan's knowledge of the future
to avert the Third World War by getting the elder Hartley elected
President in 1960.
The Hartleys appear in two other Piper yarns.
In 1950's "The Mercenaries," set in 1965, Blake Hartley is now President
of the United States, a key member of the Western Union, and an adult
Allan Hartley is a wealthy former patron of the MacLeod Research Team.
The MacLeod Team is a band of "free scientists" beset by treachery while
working under contract on the super secret Philadelphia Project, aimed
at launching a spaceship to the Moon and building a lunar military base
which will enable the Western Union to dominate the world.
In
1951's "Day of the Moron," set in 1968, a Hartley, presumably Blake
still, is President when the Melroy Engineering Corporation, a
cybernetic-control systems company (which had worked previously on the
Philadelphia Project), becomes embroiled in a labor dispute while
contracted to support the Long Island Nuclear Reaction Plant. President
Hartley attempts to intervene in the labor dispute by ordering naval
technicians to the troubled nuclear power plant.
Some enthusiasts
argue that Piper's Hartley yarns are part of his Terro-human Future
History despite the fact that Piper himself does not mention any of the
Hartley yarns in his delineation of the Terro-human yarns in the article
"The Future History." The principal reason one might be inclined to
include Piper's Hartley yarns in his Terro-human Future History is the
mention of an "Islamic Caliphate" in the Terro-human yarn "The Edge of
the Knife" and the mention of an "Islamic Kaliphate" (sic) in "The
Mercenaries." But the Islamic Caliphate of "The Edge of the Knife" is
friendly to the United States and eventually joins the U.S.-led Terran
Federation while the Islamic Kaliphate of "The Mercenaries" is an
adversary of the U.S.-led Western Union. (These two different U.S.-led
blocs, Terran Federation and Western Union, suggest distinct settings
too.)
Another possible commonality between the Hartley Yarns and
the Terro-human Future History is the Third World War, which occurs in
Allan Hartley's "original timeline" in 1975. A Third World War is also
mentioned in several Terro-human Future History yarns but "The Edge of
the Knife" dates this war in 1973. The Third World War of "The Edge of
the Knife" is a brief conflict--the "Thirty Days' War"--consisting
primarily of strategic missile exchanges between the United States and
its foes. On the other hand, the Third World War in "Time and Time
Again" is a much more protracted conflict which includes a "transpolar
air invasion" of Canada, the fall of Ottawa to enemy forces, and an
eventual siege of Buffalo, New York (where the original Allan Hartley
meets his apparent demise). These very different portrayals suggest two
different wars and thus two distinct settings.
Another possible
connection between Piper's two future history settings is the centrality
of the U.S. Philadelphia Project, an effort to launch a spaceship to
the Moon and build a lunar missile base. In "The Edge of the Knife" the
Philadelphia Project was also the name of the effort by the United
States to launch a spacecraft to the Moon. The successful launch of the
Philadelphia Project's _Kilroy_ spacecraft leads to an effort to
construct a lunar missile base and, ultimately, enables the U.S. to
prevail in the Third World War. Likewise, the Philadelphia Project is
mentioned in both "The Mercenaries" and "Day of the Moron" and is
described in "The Mercenaries" as a U.S.-led effort to launch a
spaceship to the Moon and to build a lunar military base. But there is
an important difference. While several competing Moon efforts by U.S.
adversaries are mentioned in "The Mercenaries" (even the Islamic
Kaliphate has one) there is no mention of any competing efforts in "The
Edge of the Knife." Indeed, one of the provocations that lead to the
Third World War in "The Edge of the Knife" are protests on the part of
its adversaries about U.S. efforts to build a military base on the Moon.
One would hardly expect such protests if those adversaries, as is the
case in "The Mercenaries," were themselves involved in their own lunar
base undertakings.
Other than the Philadelphia Project, nowhere
in any of the Terro-human Future History yarns Piper identifies in his
essay "The Future History" do we see references to any of the characters
or events portrayed in the Hartley Yarns. No mention of Allan Hartley
or his father Blake. No mention of the MacLeod Research Team nor of the
"free scientists" phenomenon more generally. No mention of the Melroy
Engineering Company nor the disaster at the Long Island Nuclear Reaction
Plant. And the Islamic Kaliphate notwithstanding, there is no mention
of the Western Union or its other competitors: the Fourth Komintern or
the Ibero-American Confederation. Likewise, there is no mention in any
Hartley yarn of the Terran Federation, the Thirty Days War, the secret
U.S. "Operation Triple Cross" plan to build redundant launch facilities
to supply the Lunar Base, nor the lunar spaceship _Kilroy_ from "The
Edge of the Knife." The absence of such linkages, which are so very
characteristic of Piper's Terro-human Future History yarns, confirm what
Piper himself implies in "The Future History": the Hartley yarns are
distinct from his Terro-human Future History.
[Comments welcome, of course.]
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~
~
|
Calidore 02-08-2017
01:29 UT
|
David wrote:
>You've convinced me. But, wow, his uncanny near prediction of the eventual fate of "Nova >Zembla"
>almost leaves me wondering if Beam actually could "remember the future" like Ed Chalmers!
Yes, a fascinating coincidence—assuming it was!
>All possible, I suppose, but a great deal of speculation beyond what was in the yarn itself. It
>could just as well be that there wasn't a Second World War in this setting, leaving the battle
>between Communist and Nationalist Chinese forces to play out very differently--and with
>Nanking ending up being the capital of the UPREA.
And
>Again, this is another possibility that is nevertheless a rather large leap beyond what we see in
>the yarn. Indeed, one striking thing about this setting is the complete absence of any
>references to the United States (or Europe). That may have simply been part of the "schtick" of
>the yarn but it's telling if Beam actually had a well-considered alternate setting in mind here.
Right.
My speculations were based on the assumption that “Operation R.S.V.P”
is a timeline in the Paratime universe, and I tried to figure out how
the two Eastern blocs in Beam’s story could have arisen. Many different
permutations are of course possible. But though “Operation” can easily
fit into the Paratime universe, there is actually no evidence Piper
intended it as such. It feels more like a ‘stand alone’ story, which I
assume is why John Carr included it in the Worlds collection rather than
Paratime. Indeed, in his short introduction, John suggests it is
simply Piper’s take on the concept of nuclear brinkmanship.
>Some interesting postulating. It's a shame we don't have more from Beam to go on.
Thanks, and agreed!
And finally,
> Wolfgang "Calidore" Diehr wrote:
You
flatter me, but it’s really John “Calidore” Anderson. I tried to join
the Forum as myself, but was informed that the name was already taken.
Guess I should have signed my post!
John
|
jimmyjoejangles 02-04-2017
20:27 UT
|
"New Little Fuzzy Review"
I'd give the review one star.
The
reviewer spends half the time talking about how Piper goes into too much
detail, and the other half talking about details of his other works.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 02-04-2017
20:01 UT
|
~
New ~Little Fuzzy~ review
Over at Galactic Journey, where
they have already posted reviews of "Ministry of Disturbance," "Oomphel
in the Sky," and "Naudsonce" (as part of overall reviews of the
respective magazine issues in which they first appeared), there is a new
review of ~Little Fuzzy~:
http://galacticjourney.org/january-23-1962...ipers-little-fuzzy/
The review is written by someone who has larger perspective of Beam's work overall, which is a nice touch.
(Galactic
Journey is engaged in a rather interesting exercise, blogging "in the
past," such that the review is written as if ~Little Fuzzy~ has just
been issued. It's a perspective Ed Chalmers might have appreciated!)
Yeek!
David
--
"He
started for the kitchen to get a drink, and checked himself. Take a
drink because you pity yourself, and then the drink pities you and has a
drink, and then two good drinks get together and that calls for drinks
all around." - Jack Holloway (H. Beam Piper), ~Little Fuzzy~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 02-03-2017
01:20 UT
|
~
Wolfgang "Calidore" Diehr wrote:
> Operation R.S.V.P. was published in 1951. But according to
> wikipedia, Novaya Zemlya was not used as a nuclear test site
> until 1954. (And as a consequence was probably a secret
> installation.) So was Piper ahead of his time, or was there
> another reason for his choice? Looking at a map, "Nova Zembla"
> (to use his spelling) is almost directly north of Afghanistan,
> placing the Ameer's missile's flight path between Moscow and
> Nanking. And the distance traveled makes it plain that it could
> reach both cities. The Ameer was therefore giving both of his
> neighbors a "shot across the bow", which of course is explicit
> in the story.
You've
convinced me. But, wow, his uncanny near prediction of the eventual
fate of "Nova Zembla" almost leaves me wondering if Beam actually could
"remember the future" like Ed Chalmers!
> So another reason could be that Nanking is more centrally
> located. Beam does not define the member states of the UPREA,
> but one would guess that it includes Manchuria (separate from
> China in "Hunter Patrol"), Sinkiang (Xinjiang) and Tibet, with Han
> China being the "Russia" of this imitation Soviet Union. The UPREA
> could also include North Korea, Mongolia and North Vietnam,
> since they are East Asian peoples. The Russians might have
> something to say about the former two, but I assume history
> progressed a bit differently on this timeline, which after all is
> suggested by the "alternate" names Piper used.
I
suppose the "central location" makes sense but the capital at Nanking
also suggests a markedly different setting from our actual world. Korea
was divided between Soviet and American clients--erupting into war five
weeks after Beam sold "Operation R.S.V.P."--suggesting that it would be
an unlikely UPREA member unless this setting's history was rather
different from that of eastern Asia in the actual Second World War.
Mongolia was also balancing between China and Soviet Russia in this
period so it's tough to make any guesses there given its absence from
the story. (It could even possibly be in an "independent" position
similar to that of the Ameer's Afghanistan.) Vietnam was engulfed in
war with its former French colonizers in the period when Beam was
writing the yarn so again it's difficult to make a guess about its
relationship to the UPREA in the absence of any specific information.
All in all it seems to me that if Beam was writing on the basis of any
broad-ranging assumptions for this setting they were rather different
from actual history. Making Nanking the UPREA capital may simply have
been one way he was signalling that.
> In fact, "UEESR" suggests that the divergence occurred before the
> creation of our USSR in 1922.
>
> But back to China. Perhaps the Japanese crippled the Kuomintang
> during WWII (I assume the war happened here), so that the
> Communists were the only group powerful enough to continue the
> fight. With the defeat of its Nationalist ally, and the Japanese on
> the verge of conquering China, the United States would be forced
> to ally with Mao, as it did with Stalin (assuming these men are this
> timeline's leaders). Stalin was particularly brutal to the Germans
> who invaded his country, and Mao would be at least as brutal to
> the Japanese who invaded his. Particularly in order to repay
> the infamous Rape of Nanking. And that repayment could be
> symbolically hammered home with a triumphant Communist
> march into Nanking in 1945, rather than 1949, as in our timeline.
> The avenged and liberated city would be China's capital once again!
All
possible, I suppose, but a great deal of speculation beyond what was in
the yarn itself. It could just as well be that there wasn't a Second
World War in this setting, leaving the battle between Communist and
Nationalist Chinese forces to play out very differently--and with
Nanking ending up being the capital of the UPREA.
> Furthermore, with the Kuomintang out of the picture, the US
> could even give their Communist Chinese allies Taiwan, with the
> President's blessing. That could have been promised in a "Yunan
> Conference", paralleling the Yalta Conference in Europe. And
> assuming the alliance with Mao was an early one, the President
> could have also promised them Korea. South Korea might not
> exist on this timeline; the whole peninsula may be part of the
> UPREA.
Again,
this is another possibility that is nevertheless a rather large leap
beyond what we see in the yarn. Indeed, one striking thing about this
setting is the complete absence of any references to the United States
(or Europe). That may have simply been part of the "schtick" of the
yarn but it's telling if Beam actually had a well-considered alternate
setting in mind here.
Some interesting postulating, Wolf. It's a shame we don't have more from Beam to go on.
I have the honor, etc., etc., etc.,
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~
~
|
Calidore 01-24-2017
15:05 UT
|
“Operation R.S.V.P.” was published in 1951. But according to wikipedia,
Novaya Zemlya was not used as a nuclear test site until 1954. (And as a
consequence was probably a secret installation.) So was Piper ahead of
his time, or was there another reason for his choice? Looking at a
map, “Nova Zembla” (to use his spelling) is almost directly north of
Afghanistan, placing the Ameer’s missile’s flight path between Moscow
and Nanking. And the distance traveled makes it plain that it could
reach both cities. The Ameer was therefore giving both of his neighbors
a “shot across the bow”, which of course is explicit in the story.
The
flight path is closer to Moscow than Nanking, and only crosses Soviet
territory; probably because the USSR (sorry, UEESR) shares a long border
with Afghanistan, making it a greater threat to the country than China.
The more so because the Ameer states that both of his communist
neighbors are contesting over the right to conquer India, which for the
Russians would obviously entail rolling over Afghanistan along the way.
Why
is Nanking the capital of the UPREA? Possibly because Peking is too
close to the Russian border, making it vulnerable to conventional
attack. The two communist blocs are already at odds (the Khakum River
dispute), and for the Chinese to similarly threaten far-distant Moscow
would be next to impossible.
On the other hand, Russia and
China were communist allies at first, meaning the defense issue should
not have been an early concern. So another reason could be that Nanking
is more centrally located. Beam does not define the member states of
the UPREA, but one would guess that it includes Manchuria (separate from
China in “Hunter Patrol”), Sinkiang (Xinjiang) and Tibet, with Han
China being the ‘Russia’ of this imitation Soviet Union. The UPREA
could also include North Korea, Mongolia and North Vietnam, since they
are East Asian peoples. The Russians might have something to say about
the former two, but I assume history progressed a bit differently on
this timeline, which after all is suggested by the ‘alternate’ names
Piper used. In fact, ‘UEESR’ suggests that the divergence occurred
before the creation of our USSR in 1922.
But back to China.
Perhaps the Japanese crippled the Kuomintang during WWII (I assume the
war happened here), so that the Communists were the only group powerful
enough to continue the fight. With the defeat of its Nationalist ally,
and the Japanese on the verge of conquering China, the United States
would be forced to ally with Mao, as it did with Stalin (assuming these
men are this timeline’s leaders). Stalin was particularly brutal to the
Germans who invaded his country, and Mao would be at least as brutal to
the Japanese who invaded his. Particularly in order to repay the
infamous Rape of Nanking. And that repayment could be symbolically
hammered home with a triumphant Communist march into Nanking in 1945,
rather than 1949, as in our timeline. The avenged and liberated city
would be China’s capital once again!
Furthermore, with the
Kuomintang out of the picture, the US could even give their Communist
Chinese allies Taiwan, with the President’s blessing. That could have
been promised in a "Yunan Conference", paralleling the Yalta Conference
in Europe. And assuming the alliance with Mao was an early one, the
President could have also promised them Korea. South Korea might not
exist on this timeline; the whole peninsula may be part of the UPREA.
A
final reason for the choice of Nanking could be the fact that
communists are anti-monarchists. Lenin moved the Soviet capital to
Moscow at least partly because St. Petersburg was the Tsarist capital.
(Moscow was also more centrally located, like Nanking.) And since
Peking was the Imperial capital of China, Nanking would be a natural
choice for an anti-monarchist capital. Which in fact it already was,
being the capital of the Chinese Republic since 1912, after the last
Emperor abdicated. Assuming that event also occurred on this timeline,
that would place its divergence with ours somewhere between 1912 and
1922.
Very interesting connection between Piper’s story and real history, though. Thanks for the inspiration, David!
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 01-22-2017
23:05 UT
|
~
Operation R.S.V.P.: Nanking and Nova Zembla
Reread "Operation R.S.V.P." recently:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18261/18261-h/18261-h.htm
and noticed a couple of interesting items.
The
first is Beam's choice for the capital of the "United Peoples'
Republics of East Asia." Beam makes Nanking (Nanjing) the capital of
this East Asian communist federation, rather than Peking (Beijing),
which was the capital of the People's Republic of China at the time Beam
was writing "Operation R.S.V.P." This seems an odd choice, especially
because Nanking had been the capital of the Chinese Nationalist
government, before it was forced to Taiwan by the Communists. (It seems
especially odd because Beam leaves the capital of the "Union of East
European Soviet Republics" at Moscow. One wonders why he didn't also
place the quasi-Soviet federation capital at Leningrad/St. Petersburg.)
The
second interesting item is Nova Zembla (Novaya Zemlya), the Arctic
Ocean site of the Ameer of Afghanistan's demonstration of the new
"carbon-hydrogen cycle bomb." A bit over a decade after "Operation
R.S.V.P." appeared, Nova Zembla was the location of the most powerful
nuclear weapons test ever. Obviously, Beam understood that Nova Zembla
was a Soviet nuclear test site but it's uncanny that it ended up being
the site of the biggest nuke test ever.
I have the honor, etc., etc., etc.,
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~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 01-05-2017
02:12 UT
|
~
Garland hardcover of ~Lord ~Kalvan~ at ABEBooks.com
A reasonably-priced copy of the only hardcover edition of ~Lord Kalvan~ is available at ABE:
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=21414414204
Appears to be an ex-library book, which may explain the price. Still, I'd buy it if I didn't already have one. . . .
David (not the seller)
--
"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~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 01-04-2017
03:19 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> That might work towards why someone is naming fuzzies after
> characters in The Mikado. New Zealand, Australia, South Africa,
> all Commonwealth members...
Point taken. Though if I had undertaken an exercise like Scalzi's, I would have dumped "Ko-Ko" but kept "Government House."
Perhaps
I simply don't appreciate the appeal of ~The Mikado~ but it does seem
to me that one choice by Beam--Federation civilization modeled on the
remnants of Commonwealth civilization which endured in (parts of) the
Southern Hemisphere--was "intentional," while the other--naming a
tertiary character after a figure from his contemporary popular
culture--was happenstance.
Yeek!
David
--
"I was
born in Antarctica, on Terra. The water's a little too cold to do much
swimming there. And I've spent most of my time since then in central
Argentine, in the pampas country." - Glenn Murell (H. Beam Piper),
~Four-Day Planet~
~
|
Jon Crocker 01-04-2017
01:56 UT
|
That might work towards why someone is naming fuzzies after characters
in The Mikado. New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, all Commonwealth
members...
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 01-03-2017
14:34 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> he was a member of the British war cabinet during the
> first war, which is why I was confused.
You're in good company. Here's Ed Chalmers talking about that period:
"I
can't recall the exact manner in which I blundered into it. The fact
that I did make such a blunder was because I was talking
extemporaneously and had wandered ahead of my text. I was trying to
show the results of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First
World War, and the partition of the Middle East into a loose collection
of Arab states, and the passing of British and other European spheres of
influence following the Second. You know, when you consider it, the
Islamic Caliphate was inevitable; the surprising thing is that it was
created by a man like Khalid. . . ."
Though already in decline,
the British Commonwealth was a much more substantive entity in Beam's
lifetime than it has become in ours. This is why elements of
Commonwealth civilization survive, via Southern Hemisphere states like
(pre-apartheid) Smuts's South Africa, into the Federation era. It's
why, for example, Uller Company headquarters are at "Company House."
Znidd Suddabit!
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~
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 01-03-2017
11:52 UT
|
except that Smuts was prime minister of South Africa, not Britain. True but he was a member of the British war cabinet during the first war, which is why I was confused. Edited 01-03-2017 12:05
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 01-03-2017
03:40 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> So this may come as no surprise to you guys but Jan Christain
> Smuts was a British prime minister during the war. He attended
> the conference where the united nations charter was written.
> He also has the distinction of being the only person to attend
> both Versailles Peace conferences in 1919 and 1946.
I think that's mostly right, except that Smuts was prime minister of South Africa, not Britain.
> So the capital ships of the first empire are named after statespeople.
Well,
the ~Smuts~ was an Uller Company contragravity ship, but it does makes
sense that Federation era folks would be naming their ships after
prominent, historical Southern Hemisphereans. . . .
> I believe I had run into Harriet Barnes in the past but I can't remember.
I've
never been able to find an appropriate source for the Transcontinent
& Overseas contragravity ship's namesake, but I do wonder if Beam
had been thinking of this little contraption at the time he was writing
~Junkyard Planet~:
http://blogs.nybg.org/plant-talk/2011/08/a...y-the-floral-flyer/
It's patron's (Mrs. Harold Irving Pratt) maiden name was Harriet Barnes (still not quite right with the "s" but, who knows?).
Znidd Suddabit!
David
--
"You
know what Lingua Terra is? An indiscriminate mixture of English,
Spanish, Portuguese and Afrikaans, mostly English. And you know what
English is? The result of the efforts of Norman men-at-arms to make
dates with Saxon barmaids." - Victor Grego (H. Beam Piper), ~Fuzzy
Sapiens~
|
jimmyjoejangles 01-03-2017
02:45 UT
|
So this may come as no surprise to you guys but Jan Christain Smuts was a
British prime minister during the war. He attended the conference
where the united nations charter was written. He also has the
distinction of being the only person to attend both Versailles Peace
conferences in 1919 and 1946. So the capital ships of the first empire
are named after statespeople. I believe I had run into Harriet Barnes
in the past but I can't remember.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 01-02-2017
16:33 UT
|
~
Happy New Year, Piper fans.
Thank you to those who have made
contributions to support the Piper discussion forum and mailing list
for another year. Your generosity is very much appreciated.
David
--
"I always was a present-peeker [on] New Year's. . . ." - Elaine Karvall (H. Beam Piper), ~Space Viking~
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 12-24-2016
18:19 UT
|
Happy Holidays one and all! Edited 12-24-2016 18:19
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 12-24-2016
16:25 UT
|
~
Piper Fans:
I've just paid the annual fee ($70.00 Cdn)
required to keep this list/forum (and archive) free of advertisements
and to provide expanded functionality such as image posting. You can
support the continued ad-free availability of this shared resource by
making a contribution using the PayPal Donate link at the top of the
Discussion Forum page. (You don't need a PayPal account to make a
donation, just a credit card.) Thank you for whatever amount of support
you choose to provide.
Have a merry solstice holiday, however you celebrate it, and best wishes for the New Year.
David
--
"I always was a present-peeker [on] New Year's. . . ." - Elaine Karvall (H. Beam Piper), ~Space Viking~
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 12-12-2016
00:13 UT
|
> When I hear Koko I think of the gorilla with the cat. Jon has this one right. Oh
I agree I'm just saying that Koko means different things to people
hyphenated or not. Its funny that Koko knows sign language(she is still
alive!)and could communicate with humans, like Ko-Ko, but Koko didn't
rise to fame till well after Piper's unnecessary demise. Edited 12-12-2016 00:13
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 12-11-2016
22:06 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> But they have PAula put the Geek speaker in her mouth and say it.
> WHich made me think it was a Terran phrase that the Ullerans had
> picked up.
It seems some of the Terrans use the term ironically, as when Von Schlichten fights those Ullerans with a handy "riot-mace":
http://www.zarthani.net/Images/uller_uprising-orban_pX4.jpg
(BTW,
it may be that "suddabit" is Ulleran pidgin for "sonofabitch." At one
point, Kragans fighting alongside the Terrans cry, "Znidd geek!"
"Znidd" is the verb--"kill"--and "suddabit" is the object.)
> When I hear Koko I think of the gorilla with the cat.
Jon
has this one right. It's spelled "Ko-Ko" consistently throughout the
Fuzzy novels--though why anyone in the Sixth Century, Atomic Era, still
knows about ~The Mikado~ is beyond me. . . .
(On the other hand,
~The Mikado~, set in a "fanstastical" Japan, is meant to be a critique
of then-contemporary British society. Perhaps Beam was telling us a bit
about what he was up to himself.)
Yeek!
David
--
"You
know what Lingua Terra is? An indiscriminate mixture of English,
Spanish, Portuguese and Afrikaans, mostly English. And you know what
English is? The result of the efforts of Norman men-at-arms to make
dates with Saxon barmaids." - Victor Grego (H. Beam Piper), ~Fuzzy
Sapiens~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 12-11-2016
21:39 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> That's quite funny how the human ancestry bits got dropped. I
> guess when it first came out, it was still too soon.
I
think you're correct. It's unfortunate though because this is a key
way in which Beam is drawing attention to the enormous devastation which
occurs in the Terro-human Future History. To Terro-humans living after
the Third and Fourth World Wars and the complete devastation of human
civilization in the Northern Hemisphere, the political circumstances of
victor and vanquished in the Second World War will of necessity seem
quaint and irrelevant. It's like, say, contemporary people getting
upset because of whichever side someone's ancestor might have been on in
the War of the Austrian Succession. . . .
This is even more
important as the Future History moves forward. Part of why the life of
the Space Vikings doesn't seem to be as ruthless and bloodthirsty to
Lucas Trask as it might seem to Beam's readers is because Trask is
living in the aftermath of the destruction of Terro-human civilization
in the Interstellar Wars. What's a few "planet busters" here and there
when whole planets, with billions of people, were devastated long before
you were born?
Beam understood this. You can see him
illustrating these sorts of different-from-his-readers cultural
perspectives throughout the Future History. It's no small part of what
makes his work such great science-fiction (even when it's dated by
little, then-contemporary references to cultural markers like ~The
Mikado~).
Remember Ashmodai! Remember Belphegor!
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~
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 12-11-2016
20:45 UT
|
But they have Paula put the Geek speaker in her mouth and say it.
Which made me think it was a Terran phrase that the Ullerans had picked
up. When I hear Koko I think of the gorilla with the cat. Edited 12-11-2016 21:43
|
Jon Crocker 12-11-2016
20:35 UT
|
I've got the Ace '83 edition, in that one it's explained in chapter
4 on page 46. Znidd suddabit = kill (the) terrans. It's described as
Rakkeed the Prophet's whole gospel. I think the name Koko was
from Gilbert and Sullivan's the Mikado. I had to look it up, but the
name of the Lord High Executioner is Ko-Ko. So the fuzzy must have
really had a stylized technique on those land prawns. That's quite funny how the human ancestry bits got dropped. I guess when it first came out, it was still too soon. Edited 12-11-2016 20:36
|
jimmyjoejangles 12-11-2016
20:04 UT
|
Znidd Suddabit!
so what does that mean? "Stupid Son of a Bitch" is
what I always figured. but you never know it could be some old dead
saying we don't use anymore. LIke how in Little Fuzzy he names that
one Koko, and someone asks him why and he says look at how he does
whatever. I didn't get the reference. There is a few more little
things but I can't remember right now.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 12-11-2016
17:27 UT
|
~
Paula Quinton's Vichy Great-Grandmother?
One of the great
things about finding many of the old PIPER-L archives at the Wayback
Machine is being reminded about the insights of old Piper fans.
Recently, I stumbled across this 1997 message from Will Linden:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080310035359...-l&T=0&F=&S=&P=2190
One
of the things to remember about that time was that it was before most
of Beam's work ended up freely-available in electronic form at places
like Project Gutenberg. If you wanted to know the difference between
the version of _Uller Uprising_ which first appeared in ~The Petrified
Planet~ (which seems to be the version used for the 1983 Ace reprint)
and the version which appeared the next year in ~Space Science Fiction_
as "Ullr Uprising," you had to have physical copies of both of those
nearly-half-century-old works in your hands--and you had to sort out the
differences simply by comparing them page to page.
As it turns
out, "Ullr Uprising" is about 20% shorter than _Uller Uprising_. The
cut passage which Will mentioned back in 1997 not only drops Quinton's
Freyan great-grandmother but also the material about Von Schlichten's
Nazi ancestors and Quinton's French "collaborationist" ancestors who
fled to South American after the Second World War. My guess is the
editor at _Space Science Fiction_ was more troubled by Quinton's--and
Von Schlichten's--_human_ ancestors than her Freyan one.
Znidd Suddabit!
David
--
"Considering
the one author about whom I am uniquely qualified to speak, I question
if any reader of H. Beam Piper will long labor under the
misunderstanding that he is a pious Christian, a left-wing liberal, a
Gandhian pacifist, or a teetotaler." - H. Beam Piper, "Double: Bill
Symposium" interview
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-27-2016
04:56 UT
|
~
Tim Tow wrote:
> Where is the reference in Piper where he says that every type of
> government had existed at one time in the Italian City states
> around the Renaissance time period?
I think Jon has that one right with Harkaman's comment from ~Space Viking~.
Piper
likens an unemployed mercenary (acting as a secret agent for a
Hos-Harphax prince) to "the bravos of Renaissance Italy" in ~Lord
Kalvan~ and notes in "The Mercenaries" that some Free Scientist leaders
"acquired power greater than that of any _condottiere_ captain of
Renaissance Italy" but I've not been able to locate a reference to
Renaissance Italy in a Terro-human Future History work.
Oath to Galzar!
David
--
"Ravick
had been in power too long, and he was drunker on it than Bish Ware
ever got on Baldur honey-rum. As an intoxicant, rum is practically a
soft drink beside power." - Walt Boyd (H. Beam Piper), ~Four-Day Planet~
~
|
Mike Robertson 11-26-2016
17:47 UT
|
Jon Crocker asked if anyone has read Down Styphon.
Yes I have and its a very good read. I recommend it to everyone.
Mike Robertson
|
Jon Crocker 11-23-2016
00:49 UT
|
I couldn't find that quote, but in Space Viking in the opening party,
Harkamann says "You know, it's odd; practically everything that's
happened on any of the inhabited planets has happened on Terra before
the first spaceship."
Seperate question - has anyone read the new "Down Styphon" book, by John Carr? How is it?
|
Tim Tow 11-21-2016
18:50 UT
|
Interesting to see a minor Piper revival albeit unofficial apparently.
I
had a question. Where is the reference in Piper where he says that
every type of government had existed at one time in the Italian City
states around the Renaissance time period?
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-15-2016
00:45 UT
|
~
Dietmar Wehr's System States War?
Anyone read any of these books?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BOWHN7A
From
the descriptions, Wehr, co-author of ~The Merlin Gambit~, seems to have
made enough changes to keep him clear of any copyright laywers but with
even "sophisticated planning computers" fighting the war it sure sounds
familiar to me.
Looks like the final novel in the trilogy--after
the Federation defeats the System States--goes in a decidely different
direction.
Remember Ashmodai! Remember Belphegor!
David
--
"Ideas
for science fiction stories like ideas for anything else, are where you
find them, usually in the most unlikely places. The only reliable
source is a mind which asks itself a question like, 'What would happen
if--?' or, 'Now what would this develop into, in a few centuries?' Or,
'How would so-and-so happen?' Anything at all, can trigger such a
question, in your field if not in mine." - H. Beam Piper, "Double: Bill
Symposium" interview
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-13-2016
15:56 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> thanks for the heads up! how much expansion are we talking?
> I'm excited to read some new Piper(to me(possibly))!
The
~Sci-Fi Sherlock Holmes~ edition adds about a thousand words to the
11,000 words of "The Return" originally published in ~Astounding~. So,
we're not talking here about something like the expansion of "Graveyard
of Dreams" into ~Junkyard Planet~.
This book is rare, and
valuable, not so much for the Piper/McGuire yarn but because of its
(two) limited run(s) and special interest to Sherlock Holmes fans. But
it does nevertheless include the first publication of some original
Piper/McGuire material.
Good luck,
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~
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 11-13-2016
12:50 UT
|
thanks for the heads up! how much expansion are we talking? I'm excited to read some new Piper(to me(possibly))!
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-13-2016
04:15 UT
|
~
Expanded version of "The Return" at eBay
There is a very reasonably priced edition of ~The Science-Fictional Sherlock Holmes~ available on eBay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/302135867906
This
anthology includes the expanded version of Piper's "The Return." This
item is pretty rare and would be a great bargain if you can get it near
the starting bid price. (This is an auction, of course, so it's
possible it ends up selling for a lot more.)
Good luck,
David (not the seller)
--
"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~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-06-2016
01:32 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> the first day he saw her, she had jerkin, under-tunic,
> boots and hose, which seems better suited for riding in
> Pennsylvania in the fall. The second day was "a red and
> grey knit frock that could have gone into Bergdorf-
> Goodman's window with a $200 price tag any day..."
I
think Schoenherr and Freas captured it pretty well in their respective
illustrations for the original "Gunpowder God" and "Down Styphon!" You
can see them at the bottom of the Paratime Gallery page at Zarthani.net:
http://www.zarthani.net/paratime_gallery.htm
But sooner or later I'll add those Japanese "Carter of Mars-esque" illustrations too. ;)
Down Styphon!
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~
~
|
Jon Crocker 11-06-2016
00:10 UT
|
I looked up the reference from Lord Kalvan of what she was wearing - the
first day he saw her, she had jerkin, under-tunic, boots and hose,
which seems better suited for riding in Pennsylvania in the fall. The
second day was "a red and grey knit frock that could have gone into
Bergdorf-Goodman's window with a $200 price tag any day..."
From
the Dollar Times inflation calculator, that's about $1500 in today's
dollars. Bergdorf Goodman has a website, and that seems to be about
right.
I have no doubt that someone, had they been so inclined,
could have bought that outfit from the illustration in New York at the
time, but I don't think it would have been in Bergdorf Goodman's window.
But I wasn't there at the time, so you never know.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-04-2016
04:01 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> She looks like she fell out of Burrows' John Carter of Mars.
This page shows the frontispiece of that same edition of Lord Kalvan:
http://dejahthoris.la.coocan.jp/gr_haxx3.htm
That's
apparently Calvin Morrison leaping into the fray. The page is pointing
out the similarity of this illustration and Frazetta's Swords of Mars cover (at the top).
"Rylla-dad-Doorsha" it is!
Down Styphon!
David
--
"Oh,
my people had many gods. There was Conformity, and Authority, and
Expense Account, and Opinion. And there was Status, whose symbols were
many, and who rode in the great chariot Cadillac, which was almost a god
itself. And there was Atom-bomb, the dread destroyer, who would some
day come to end the world. None were very good gods, and I worshiped
none of them.” - Calvin Morrison (H. Beam Piper), ~Lord Kalvan of
Otherwhen~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-04-2016
02:29 UT
|
Martians crash-land on Terra (illustration by Yorimitsu Takashi for Japanese translation of "Genesis")
From online auction here: http://www.uneedbid.com.hk/yahoobid.php?id=h189423286&cid=190603)
|
Jon Crocker 11-02-2016
01:53 UT
|
I dunno, that looks a bit cool for a Tarr-Hostigos fall time... She looks like she fell out of Burrows' John Carter of Mars.
|
jimmyjoejangles 11-01-2016
20:29 UT
|
That's exactly as I always pictured her!
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-01-2016
14:28 UT
|
Princess Rylla as you've never seen her before
(from a Japanese edition of Lord Kalvan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E7%95%B0%E4%B8%9...3%BC/dp/4150103445/)
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-30-2016
18:09 UT
|
~
A little help with Little Fuzzy?
There is a Hungarian edition of Fuzzy Sapiens, Bundas nepseg,
published in 1993 by Mora (Budapest) and translated by Csaba Szummer.
(I'm dropping the accents from the European vowels in case they don't
render well; the details are in the Zarthani.net Future History
bibliography.) You can see the cover illustration by Jantner Janos
here:
http://www.szellemlovas.hu/webrend/images/...undasnepseg_lrg.jpg
What's odd though is that I've not been able to find a Hungarian translation of Little Fuzzy. One Google-translated review of Bundas nepseg even lists Hugo Ingermann as a "major character," which I suppose makes sense for someone who has never read Little Fuzzy.
If anyone runs across a Hungarian edition of Little Fuzzy I'd sure like to hear about it.
Yeek!
David
--
"Why not everybody make friend, have fun, make help, be good?" - Diamond Grego (H. Beam Piper), ~Fuzzy Sapiens~
~
|
David Sooby 10-29-2016
01:10 UT
|
jimmyjoejangles asked:
> Just curious about the prices going on ebay are they reasonable for these rare books?
A book collector's most valuable resource is:
http://used.addall.com/
It's
a meta-search site which searches dozens of used bookseller sites. All
but the most rare book will have multiple copies show up there. And
usually there is a wide range of prices. You can usually get a fair idea
of what is a reasonable price by checking there.
I won't try to
compare with buying a book off ebay, because I've never done that. I
have bought enough things off ebay to know it's a bit haphazard as to
whether the item you buy is accurately described or not. But with a
bookseller, you can be pretty sure that if they give a description of
the book's condition, it's accurate.
David Johnson is entirely
correct to say that those who sell things on ebay often don't appear to
know what the item is worth, and the initial bid price may be far too
high or amazingly low.
|
David Sooby 10-27-2016
04:10 UT
|
http://www.mondourania.com/urania/u281-300/u298.jpg
Looks like a Fuzzy in a cage on Luna, Terra's moon.
Funny, I don't remember any Piperverse story featuring such a scene...
;)
|
Jon Crocker 10-21-2016
05:09 UT
|
Thanks for posting those!
Some of the pictures in the gallery are really great. I really like the Freas and Whelan ones.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-17-2016
00:02 UT
|
~
Terro-human Future History illustrations by Karel Thole
I
recently stumbled across a couple of images of the Italian editions
which are large enough to recognize some excellent Piper-related art.
First is the cover illustration from the 1962 Mondadori (Urania) edition
of Little Fuzzy:
http://www.mondourania.com/urania/u281-300/u298.jpg
Thole's
illustration came well before Whelan started depicting Fuzzies in the
late '70s and seems to be heavily influenced by Victor Kalins' cover
illustration for the original Avon edition.
The second illustration by Thole is from a 1972 Mondadori (Urania) anthology which includes "Omnilingual":
http://www.mondourania.com/urania/u581-600/u593.jpg
Here
is Martha Dane coming into the room where the dead Martians have been
discovered. Dane's long hair here suggests that Thole never saw Kelly
Freas' cover illustration for the original publication in Astounding.
Both of these images are served by Mondourania:
http://www.mondourania.com/
and are now also posted at the Zarthani.net Future History Gallery:
http://www.zarthani.net/future_history_gallery.htm
Enjoy,
David
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-25-2016
04:16 UT
|
~
More old PIPER-L messages at Wayback Machine!
It turns out that some of the old PIPER-L mailing messages _are_ archived at the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080828073705...chives/piper-l.html
Not
every message is there. In fact, there seem to be some huge gaps. But
there are some gems, like the very first message (from Geoffrey
Edwards):
https://web.archive.org/web/19991222222249...=piper-l&F=&S=&P=57
Enjoy,
David
--
"I
have heard it argued that fandom tends to make a sort of cult of
science fiction, restricted to a narrow circles of the initiated. This I
seriously question." - H. Beam Piper, "Double: Bill Symposium"
interview
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-24-2016
05:43 UT
|
~
Found old PIPER-L message at Wayback Machine!
https://web.archive.org/web/20031124125927...l&T=0&F=&S=&P=17680
This
page was linked from Jimmy Simpson's old Piper website. PIPER-L had a
"no archive" feature so the List itself was not archived but it seems if
another page pointed to an individual post, it could be archived.
William Taylor's 2001 message which takes a stab at mapping the Federation may be the only surviving PIPER-L page on the Web!
David
--
"A
girl can punch any kind of a button a man can, and a lot of them know
what buttons to punch, and why." - Conn Maxwell (H. Beam Piper),
~Junkyard Planet~
~
|
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