David "PiperFan" Johnson  04-21-2018
16:04 UT
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Expanded, original "The Return" on eBay
There is a
well-priced--for now, I imagine it will sell at a higher price--copy of
~The Science-Fictional Sherlock Holmes~ currently at auction on eBay:
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/332627334659
This seems to be a copy of the third binding of this limited-edition book, without the original dust cover.
This anthology includes an expanded version of "The Return" by Piper and McGuire.
Good luck!
David
(not the seller)
--
"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
~
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 04-21-2018
04:08 UT
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~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> When I meant bigger, though, I meant on a grander scale - he
> is the Emperor, after all. I was thinking there would be big full
> length portraits, like the one you see of the guy standing, but
> the bigger-than-life size that you see of some of the old
> european royalty. And higher ceiling, etc etc - but of course,
> then you wouldn't get the full effect of all the portraits so I can
> see why the artist went that way.
I
see what you're saying but I think the problem you've identified has
more to do with Beam's description than with Van Dongen's illustration
(which seems to correspond well to what Beam wrote).
These
portraits are in a relatively private area, where the emperor is moving
from the living space to the working space in the palace. I'm not sure
one would expect these formal portraits of _all_ the former rulers in
that sort of space. But Beam used this interlude to make his point
about the continuity and stagnation of the empire through the dramatic
device of the portraits. That bit with the portraits would have worked
better in one of the scenes with the Adityan and Durandalan leaders but
other stuff was going on then, including other things in Paul's "inner
dialogue."
Basically, I agree with your point, I just see the shortcoming as Beam's rather than Van Dongen's.
> I see the point about the failing optimism - another way of
> looking at it is that the spotlight just wasn't on those areas,
> as Piper wanted to show more of his universe, not just one
> world for ever and ever. True, we never see Ullerans (well,
> at least Kragans) as full citizens, but we never see Uller again
> anyway. One could argue it happened off-camera.
Agreed.
Those have always been my assumptions: Ullerans--Kragans, as you
note--in their own starships; Walt Boyd comes back to a prosperous life
on Fenris; it's not so much that Poictesme "disappears" as it is that
Merlin is "hiding;" and Trask's League is some sort of at least informal
precursor to the Empire--all happening "off-stage." There's lots of
space in the Future History for things like "Fuzzy enclaves" on planets
other than Zarathustra and other "minor states" in the Viking era Old
Federation which might challenge the emerging Mardukan empire.
> And The Keeper - it was mostly concerned with small-unit
> tactics, so the interstellar communications setup never really
> came up.
Yes.
Still, those "micropositos, if real, are pretty revolutionary in the
Future History universe. I'm guessing the Empire of Prince Salsavadran
and Lord Dranigrastan looks very, very different from that of Paul and
his son Rodrik. So different that it would seem just as unusual to a
Lucas Trask or a Conn Maxwell as the late Federation or Viking eras
would seem to an ancient Roman or Mayan.
Cheers,
David
--
"Britain
was a great nation, once; the last nation to join the Terran
Federation. . . ." - Lord "Dranigo" Dranigrastan (H. Beam Piper), "The
Keeper"
~
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 04-20-2018
23:29 UT
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Is Irminsul a "civilized planet"?
In the Space Viking era,
Irminsul was an Old Federation planet but apparently not a trade planet
of Tanith or Marduk. Trade goods brought to Tanith from Irminsul by
Gilgamesh traders included "vegetable-amber and flame-bird plumes."
Irminsul
was discovered by the ~Hubert Penrose~ expedition later in the
Federation era. It was "covered with forests of gigantic trees" and was
known for its hostile fauna, including "a race of subsapient
near-humanoids who had just gotten as far as clubs and ~coup-de-poing
axes~" at the time of discovery.
By the time of the late
Federation era, settlers on Irminsul were seen as likely customers of
salvaged military arms and ammunition from Poictesme. The second voyage
of the Poictesme trading starship ~Ouroboros II~ was planned for
Irminsul with "a cargo of arms, machine tools and contragravity
vehicles." Wade Lucas and Flora Maxwell planned to travel to Irminsul
for their honeymoon aboard ~Ouroboros II~.
In the early Empire
era, Irminsul is one of the major worlds of the Empire included in the
Imperial annexation presentation to the leadership of Aditya.
All
of this suggests that Irminsul was well-equipped for independent
survival when the Federation collapsed. And early in the Empire era it
was a major planet. It's not specifically identified any time any of
the "dozen and a half" civilized planets described by Harkaman are
mentioned but there are several of those "civilized planets" which go
unmentioned.
Might Irminsul be one of them?
Cheers,
David
--
"There
aren't a dozen and a half planets in the Old Federation that still have
hyperdrive, and they're all civilized." - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam
Piper), ~Space Viking~
~
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Jon Crocker 04-16-2018
02:26 UT
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I like the complete image. Thanks!
When I meant bigger, though, I
meant on a grander scale - he is the Emperor, after all. I was
thinking there would be big full length portraits, like the one you see
of the guy standing, but the bigger-than-life size that you see of some
of the old european royalty. And higher ceiling, etc etc - but of
course, then you wouldn't get the full effect of all the portraits so I
can see why the artist went that way.
Off to Gimli? As long as it's under that revered professor Vann Evaratt I should be fine!
I
see the point about the failing optimism - another way of looking at it
is that the spotlight just wasn't on those areas, as Piper wanted to
show more of his universe, not just one world for ever and ever. True,
we never see Ullerans (well, at least Kragans) as full citizens, but we
never see Uller again anyway. One could argue it happened off-camera.
And The Keeper - it was mostly concerned with small-unit tactics, so the interstellar communications setup never really came up.
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 04-15-2018
19:30 UT
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~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> After the story, do you think that the emperor's son 'Rod' will
> break with tradition, introduce a third name into the annals of
> emperors when it's time to name his own child?
Whoa, that's crazy talk! Off to the University of Brannerton on Gimli for you! ;)
It's
an interesting question. We get no clear indications from Beam either
way, especially because "Ministry" is the last Terro-human Future
History yarn until "The Keeper." It seems apparent from the yarn that
Paul XXII and his boyhood friend Travann are intent upon making some
substantive changes to the stagnant Empire. One would expect these
would be continued by young Rodrik when he succeeds his father.
On
the other hand, Beam's yarns suggest repeatedly that such optimistic /
hopeful impulses will ultimately fail. We never see Ullerans as
full-members of the Federation after ~Uller Uprising~. Fenris never
becomes an important Federation planet. Poictesme disappears from
post-Federation history. The Space Vikings degenerate into barbarism
and are ultimately swallowed by the Empire. Trask's "League of
Civilized Worlds" never seems to materialize--morphing instead into an
Empire led by Marduk. Even the apparent "faster-than-light"
communication discovered in "Ministry" seems to have been lost by the
time of "The Keeper."
Still, that's long term. In the near term,
perhaps young Rodrik assumes a different name when he ascends the
throne, as symbolic indication of his aspiration to continue the changes
initiated by his father--and names his own son something other than
"Paul."
If Piper had lived to write more first Empire era yarns,
I'm guessing these same reforms would ultimately encourage an usurper
who would one day topple Paul's and Rodrik's line. . . .
Cheers,
David
--
"It's
all pretty hush-hush, but this term Terran Federation is a tentative
name for a proposed organization to take the place of the U.N. if that
organization breaks up." - Major Cutler (H. Beam Piper), "The Edge of
the Knife"
~
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 04-15-2018
18:53 UT
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Here's the two-page spread of Van Dongen's original illustration combined into a single image.
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Jon Crocker 04-15-2018
18:49 UT
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I like that drawing, it's very evocative. I must admit, I'd pictured
the hall as larger, but this gets the point across. Too bad we can't
see more of the Thoran, though.
After the story, do you think
that the emperor's son 'Rod' will break with tradition, introduce a
third name into the annals of emperors when it's time to name his own
child?
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 04-14-2018
17:07 UT
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~
Turns out we do have an illustration of a Thoran from the time Piper was writing!
That
image I just uploaded is a detail from H.R. Van Dongen's interior
illustration for the original publication of "Ministry of Disturbance"
in the December 1958 issue of ~Astounding Science Fiction~.
The
image is pretty pixilated. You can tell he's wearing a kilt but you'd
never guess he wasn't human from this image. It's from the scan of Van
Dongen's interior illustration at Greg Weeks's archive of the original
Piper works he used to create the Project Gutenberg collection of Beam's
work:
http://durendal.org/hbp.html
The actual scanned image is here:
http://durendal.org/bpmd/bpmd009.gif
If you have a copy of the original ~Astounding~ issue I encourage you to have a look.
Cheers,
David
--
"They
were turning into the main hallway, between the rows of portraits of
past emperors, Paul and Rodrik, Paul and Rodrik, alternating over and
over on both walls." - H. Beam Piper, "Ministry of Disturbance"
~
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 04-14-2018
16:59 UT
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Thoran by H.R. Van Dongen
(From "Ministry of Disturbance," ~Astounding~, Demember 1958)
~
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 04-12-2018
03:32 UT
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~
Milk Runs: Six Months to Everywhere
I've been looking again at this "star map" from Rogue Games' ~Transmissions from Piper~:
https://html1-f.scribdassets.com/9teuazv4l...es/1-35358eb923.jpg
As
we've discussed before, it's an excellent illustration of Piper's "milk
runs" where it seems like the travel between Terra and many different
colony worlds ends up being "six months," even across centuries of time
where hyperspace travel times presumably increase with improvements in
hyperdrive technology. If a "milk run" between Terra and Svantovit (in
this case), is designed to make total travel time to be about "six
months" while traveling to each of the intermediate worlds, the direct
route between Terra and Svantovit might be a shorter distance which
would take a correspondingly less amount of travel time.
What's
interesting though about this particular map is that it also provides
the distance between each star system (in the small boxes). If we
assume, for the sake of estimation, that the shortest, "one unit"
distance between Svantovit and "Kosharoth" (a fanciful name invented by
the map creator, not Piper) occurs in the (x) plane of the illustration
we can also calculate the "z-axis" distance into--or out of--the
illustration. (We don't know, in any given instance, whether the
"z-axis" distance is "positive"--out of the page--or "negative"--into
the page--but we can still calculate it.) This also is a fanciful
exercise but it does illustrate the "milk run" circumstance even more
sharply by showing that the travel distance along the "milk run" can be
substantially more than the direct-line distance between Terra and
Svantovit.
Again, this is all illustrative. We don't actually
know all of the individual star systems between Terra and Svantovit,
much less the actual, intermediate distances between each of them.
(Again, some of the star system names in this map were invented by the
map illustrator.) Bottom line though is that it would seem possible to
make Beam's "six months to everywhere" narrative descriptions "fit" to
realistic Federation/Empire astrography--and perhaps even give us some
sense, in some cases of the locations of variously-mentioned star
systems "along the way" (or otherwise "nearby").
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~
~
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