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H. Beam Piper @ Zarthani.net

Welcome to the Zarthani.net H. Beam Piper mailing list and discussion forum. Initiated in October 2008 (after the demise of the original PIPER-L mailing list), this tool for shared communication among Piper fans provides an e-mail list and a discussion forum with on-line archives.

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1854 Jon Crocker 06-30-2018 02:09 UT	That's a good suggestion, thanks - I'll check the local used book store first, but I might look into that online.
1853 David "PiperFan" Johnson 06-27-2018 17:05 UT	~ Jon Crocker wrote: > I'd noticed that the SF category was severely lacking, so I > picked up . . . yes, "Little Fuzzy" at a used book store and > donated them to the library, so I hope some people enjoy > those. Nice bit of Piper evangelizing, Jon! This might make a good addition too, if you come across a copy: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=9780448474960 Cheers, 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~ ~
1852 David "PiperFan" Johnson 06-27-2018 16:53 UT	~ Well met in Tsawwassen Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting fellow Piper fan Mike Robertson. Mike and his family were vacationing in Vancouver. I took the ferry over to the mainland and Mike graciously treated me for dinner at a restaurant on the Tsawwassen First Nation. We had a wonderful, wide-ranging conversation about Piper and his work and a bit about our careers, which have taken similar courses at times. Mike is a great guy and one of our most successful Piper follow-on authors. If you've not yet read his collaborations with John F. Carr, ~The Last Space Viking~: https://www.amazon.com/Last-Space-Viking-John-Carr/dp/0937912123/ and ~Space Viking's Throne~: https://www.amazon.com/Space-Vikings-Thron...Carr/dp/0937912190/ I encourage you to do so. These tales of David Morland at the end of the Space Viking era are well worth your time (and money). Cheers, David P.S. Mike has also been a long-time, consistent financial supporter of Zarthani.net and its Piper discussion forum and mailing list, which I also very much appreciate. -- "Why not everybody make friend, have fun, make help, be good?" - Diamond Grego (H. Beam Piper), ~Fuzzy Sapiens~ ~
1851 Jon Crocker 06-24-2018 22:54 UT	Changing the vector from 'deadly radiations' to 'deadly pathogens' would definitely be an improvement, plus would keep most of the rest of the plot the same. To shift topics slightly, outside my daughters' school they just put up a 'free library', a (hopefully!) weatherproof cabinet with bunches of books inside, for people to take & replace once finished. I'd noticed that the SF category was severely lacking, so I picked up copies of "Asimov's Mysteries" and "The Sentinel", a collection of short stories by Arthur C Clarke and yes, "Little Fuzzy" at a used book store and donated them to the library, so I hope some people enjoy those.
1850 David "PiperFan" Johnson 06-09-2018 17:33 UT	~ Salvaging "Immunity"? While "Flight from Tomorrow" ("Immunity" was Beam's original title) is an engaging yarn it is rendered unbelievable by the explanation offered for its central premise: the idea that humanity eventually became "immune" to atomic radiation. While that idea might have been tenable--barely--when "Flight" was published (just five years after the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki--and Trinity) it makes no sense to contemporary readers. There is though an interesting possibility within the yarn itself which might suggest a potential resolution of this shortcoming. Here's Hradzka musing on what might explain his apparent toxicity to the people and other living things he encounters in the early years of the First Century of the Atomic Era: "During the early centuries of the Atomic Era, he knew, there had been great wars, the stories of which had survived even to the Hundredth Century. Among the weapons that had been used, there had been artificial plagues and epidemics, caused by new types of bacteria developed in laboratories, against which the victims had possessed no protection. Those germs and viruses had persisted for centuries, and gradually had lost their power to harm mankind. Suppose, now, that he had brought some of them back with him, to a century before they had been developed. Suppose, that was, that he were a human plague-carrier. He thought of the vermin that had infested the clothing he had taken from the man he had killed on the other side of the mountain; they had not troubled him after the first day." I've not looked closely at the rest of the yarn, but I wonder if it might be "rebooted" in a way which would utilize this "bacteriological immunity" as an alternative, more believable explanation for Hradzka's ultimate fate in his past (and for the "Ancient Spaceport" of his original era). Cheers, David -- "You know how atomic energy was first used? There was an ancient nation, upon the ruins of whose cities we have built our own, which was famed for its idealistic humanitarianism. Yet that nation, treacherously attacked, created the first atomic bombs in self defense, and used them." - Kradzy Zago (H. Beam Piper), "Flight from Tomorrow" ~

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