David "PiperFan" Johnson  10-31-2018
01:25 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> As for Loki - all of the points you raise make sense.
> Some places never seem to catch a break.
>
> Part of it could be the same sort of factor that make
> every place 'six months travel time' away from every
> other place - it exists more to drive home the point
> than for its own sake.
Perhaps.
One thing about those "faun-like" Lokians: that hardly sounds like a
race which evolved on a planet that was "too hot" or "too cold" for
Terrans. In ~Fuzzies and Other People~, Jack Holloway mentions "Bush
Dwanga" on Loki--whether that's a type of native sophont or just some
sort of hunting animal is unclear--and a "Fa'ansare River" which rivals
the Amazon. Loki sounds like a planet that would be pretty temperate
for Terrans.
Perhaps the problem with the ecosphere is something
else. If it had a weird orbit-rotation combination like Fenris--or even
like Kwannon--that also would tend to suggest a rather "intemperate"
climate, so that's likely not it.
That leaves some sort of
chemical or biological problem, perhaps like Kwannon where Terrans can't
eat the local food. So, perhaps the Terrans made due with imports and
artificial substitutes while the enslaved Lokians were working the mines
but once that ended and they had to pay the Lokians--or Terrans--to
mine the gold the profit model no longer worked. Terran society on Loki
ends up looking something like Fenris before the "Monster Hunter
Revolution."
And then, eventually, the Federation collapses and,
perhaps, the Terran settlement on Loki dies out. Loki is never
mentioned in any post-Federation era yarn.
Cheers,
David
P.S.
Anton Gerrit, it seems, may have been the head of the Chartered Loki
Company. In ~Fuzzies and Other People~ Leslie Coombes tells Victor
Grego, "The Chartered Loki Company was dissolved by court order, for
violation of Federation law. The stockholders lost completely."
--
"Good things in the long run are often tough while they're happening." - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper), ~Space Viking~
~
|
Jon Crocker 10-31-2018
01:00 UT
|
Thank you very much!
As for Loki - all of the points you raise make sense. Some places never seem to catch a break.
Part
of it could be the same sort of factor that make every place 'six
months travel time' away from every other place - it exists more to
drive home the point than for its own sake.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-30-2018
02:49 UT
|
~
10th Anniversary Winners!
Congratulations to Jon Crocker,
winner of the Garland hardcover edition of ~Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen~,
and to John Anderson, winner of the the Garland hardcover edition of
~Space Viking~, in the Zarthani.net Piper Mailing List 10th Anniversary
raffles.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the raffles; your support for Piper content at Zarthani.net is much appreciated.
Cheers,
David
--
"Why not everybody make friend, have fun, make help, be good?" - Diamond Grego (H. Beam Piper), ~Fuzzy Sapiens~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-28-2018
23:37 UT
|
~
What's Wrong with Loki?
Loki seems to start out as a rather
typical "Class-IV" inhabited planet, settled in the same era as Thor and
Yggdrasil. It gets a Chartered Company and a Native Commission. Then
there are the Loki enslavements, Anton Gerrit and his gang's
"enslavement of from twenty to thirty thousand Lokian natives, gentle,
harmless, friendly people, most of who were worked to death in the
[gold] mines." The natives of Loki never seem to recover.
By the
time the Fuzzies are discovered on Zarathustra, Jack Holloway claims
the Lokians have "turned into a lot of worthless Native Agency bums."
That's not surprising in the aftermath of mass slavery, especially if it
were primarily the "most advanced" Lokians who had been enslaved.
But
the Terran society on Loki seems to have problems too. It seems
reasonable to assume Beam's original model for Loki was a "gold rush"
society but Terran society on Loki never seems to evolve into a more
stable, civilized place. Even as the Federation era is winding down,
Loki is still understood to be a "rough and tumble" place. When Rodney
Maxwell warns Yves Jacquemont and his crew to arm themselves when
returning to Storisende from Koschchei--just before the assassination
attempt with the aircar bomb--Jacquemont responds, "I know the drill;
I've been in Port Oberth on Venus and Skorvann on Loki. Any law we
want, we make for ourselves."
It may be that most of the gold was
"mined out" on Loki, leaving a planet with a native population which
had been enslaved and an economy in ruins, with little else of value to
the interstellar economy of the Federation. Perhaps, despite the
presence of a native sophont race, Loki's ecosphere isn't particularly
hospitable to Terrans, more Klondike or Siberia than California or
Witwatersrand.
No wonder Holloway doesn't want the Fuzzies to turn out like the Lokians. The Lokians though never seemed to have a chance.
Cheers,
David
--
".
. . this has happened on other Class-IV planets we've moved in on. We
give the natives a reservation; we tell them it'll be theirs forever,
Terran's word of honor. Then we find something valuable on it--gold on
Loki, platinum on Thor, vanadium and wolfram on Hathor, nitrates on
Yggdrasil, uranium on Gimli. So the natives get shoved off onto another
reservation, where there isn't anything anybody wants, and finally they
just get shoved off, period." - Jack Holloway (H. Beam Piper), ~Fuzzy
Sapiens~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-24-2018
03:40 UT
|
~
Last Chance Almost Here: 10th Anniversary Celebration!
Zarthani.net's Piper Mailing List (and Discussion Forum) celebrated its 10th anniversary on October 4th:
42/H/tnfVKeAH3s4T/p0001.0001
In
celebration of this anniversary Zarthani.net is holding a fundraising
"virtual raffle." One each of the 1975 Garland hardcover editions of
~Space Viking~ (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?263267) and ~Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen~ (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?20650)
will be given away as raffle "prizes." These hardover facisimiles of
the respective original Ace paperback editions are both used books in
very good condition.
Virtual raffle "tickets" are US$10 each, submitted via PayPal using the two buttons here:
http://www.zarthani.net/anniversary.htm
You
can purchase as many "tickets" as you want. The raffle "drawings" will
be held later this week so get your tickets before midnight (Pacific
Time) on Thursday for your chance to own one of these rare Piper items!
Cheers,
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 10-23-2018
02:34 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> I think Piper would be rolling over in his grave if he
> knew you were trying to justify smoking in his novels.
Sorry
for the confusion. I don't believe anyone is trying to justify the
choices Beam made in his writing, around smoking or anything else.
Rather, what we're trying to do is to make sense of them for a
contemporary reader--who is unlike anyone Beam likely imagined reading
his work--while trying to remain _true_to_the_spirit_ of his work.
Beam
would have never had his characters using a crank-handle on the front
of their aircars to get them started. Similarly, if he was writing
today and yet chose to portray 25th Century (Christian Era) teens
smoking in ways that seemed odd to contemporary readers he'd offer some
sort of "in context" explanation so that his readers weren't yanked out
of the "willing suspension of disbelief" required for the yarn to work.
> I mean the fact that in the future you say the nanny
> state made tobacco harmless would be even worse.
No
one's said anything about any "nanny state." What's been offered is an
explanation that lets a contemporary reader be able to make sense of
Beam's depiction of the future within the context of their own,
contemporary sensibilities.
> Cigarettes are still a major industry today, even
> after half a century of anti smoking ads. Smoking
> isn't going away.
No,
it's not, but as Jon points out it is a _lot_ less common today than it
was in the era when Beam's first readers were reading his yarns,
especially for teens hanging out in hospitals.
As I've suggested
smoking isn't the greatest challenge here by far. Why in the world is
Martha Dane carrying around a case full of mechanical drafting tools
while wearing her environmental suit on the surface of Mars? Wouldn't
she have some some sort of portable electronic device to use for
sketching archaeological finds instead?
Or why is Merlin's
presumed _size_ such an important aspect of the search for its location?
No one today expects a "super-computer" to be the size of a building.
If Beam were writing that story today he'd either not have Merlin be so
large _or_ he'd offer an in context explanation for its unexpected
size. (You can find my explanation for Merlin's size in the list
archives.)
There's an interesting comment from Beam in his essay
"The Future History" where he mentions having "sworn off" writing
near-future fiction after much of what he wrote about early space
exploration in "The Edge of the Knife" was superseded by actual
developments in space exploration. Beam understood the challenge here
and would have been just as diligent about trying to make his stories
make sense to readers in 2020 as he wanted them to make sense to readers
in 1960--if he somehow was able to understand the expectations of the
2020 readers as well as he understood those of his 1960 readers.
I
don't believe these efforts at making sense of his work for
contemporary readers would trouble Beam at all (much less having him
rolling in his grave).
YMMV,
David
--
"It is not . .
. the business of an author of fiction to improve or inspire or educate
his reader, or to save the world from fascism, communism, racism,
capitalism, socialism, or anything else. [The author's] main objective
is to purvey entertainment of the sort his reader wants. If he has done
this, by writing interestingly about interesting people, human or
otherwise, doing interesting things, he has discharged his duty and
earned his check." - H. Beam Piper, "Double: Bill Symposium" interview
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 10-22-2018
14:02 UT
|
I submit that reporters and fisherman are two of the people who will
always be smokers, as are many of his characters. AS for cigarette in
the hospital, I always thought it was an act of friendship, not
necessarily condoned or allowed. I mean the poor kid had burns on
ninety percent of his body, he needed a cigarette.
|
Jon Crocker 10-22-2018
05:45 UT
|
True, people smoked a lot at the time, but now it's not as common.
Which
is where the discussion about 'contemporary' comes in - at one point,
people used horse and carriage for transport, or used snuff a lot more
than now, or they drank absinthe, or they powdered their wigs, or if you
want to go all the way back to an Early Dynasty period of Old Kingdom
Egypt, compounded goose fat and crushed scarab beetle bits to make eye
shadow for upper class women.
I submit that if you had
characters doing any of those things frequently it would help date which
period the piece was from, just as having teenagers smoke in the
hospital helps date the era that scene was written in.
|
jimmyjoejangles 10-21-2018
22:29 UT
|
I think Piper would be rolling over in his grave if he knew you were
trying to justify smoking in his novels. I mean the fact that in the
future you say the nanny state made tobacco harmless would be even
worse. Cigarettes are still a major industry today, even after half a
century of anti smoking ads. Smoking isn't going away. Look at all the
vaporisers and other "safe" ways to still use tobacco that are just
becoming popular. His depictions of smokers is what makes his worlds so
real, smokers exist. Its clear that not many of you are smokers, and
neither am I.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-21-2018
16:07 UT
|
~
John Carr writes:
> In my Terro-Human Future History novels, I
> mention that the health problems associated
> with smoking have been eliminated. Having
> characters smoking pipes and such is totally
> in character with Piper's work.
This seems like the most appropriate choice: keep what Beam wrote but find ways to make sense of it to contemporary readers.
A
reasonable rationale for the continued prevalence of smoking is
relatively straightforward but it gets a bit more challenging with
something like Martha Dane's case of portable drafting tools. . . .
> At one point -- shortly after Ace purchased
> the Piper Literary Estate -- Jim Baen wanted to
> have Jerry Pournelle edit, removing smoking
> and other anachronisms, [snip] . . . as well as
> update Piper's technology.
I
get the impulse here. Baen was doing what a good editor should do:
sorting out ways to (re)sell the work to as many buyers as possible.
(This
is pretty much the approach taken by Scalzi in ~Fuzzy Nation~.
Unfortunately, that novel ends up seeming like something other than
another Terro-human Future History yarn. More importantly _his_ "fixes"
will seem just as "out of date" in a few decades. Someone reading
~Fuzzy Nation~ in the second half of this century will find a yarn that
both seems anachronistic _and_ that doesn't fit with Beam's work. It is
an effort that mostly "strip-mines" Beam's work, extracting what profit
might remain in the "intellectual property" and discarding the
rest--which is likely why, of course, they began with ~Little Fuzzy~.)
> That deal fell through when Jerry wanted a
> percentage of all future Piper sales; Baen
> couldn't put it through upper management.
Seems like a reasonable request, though I imagine Scalzi is only getting paid on sales of ~Nation~.
> and in return for copies of Piper's short stories
> (which had conveniently left with Baen) I finagled
> my way into editing the already named (by Jim
> Baen) Piper short story collections, starting with
> Federation.
Which is what (re)introduced me and many other Piper fans to Beam's work.
Thanks again!
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
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-20-2018
19:16 UT
|
From: John Carr
Date: October 20, 2018 at 10:45:45 AM PDT
Beam
was both a cigarette and pipe smoker, and enjoyed both. A lot of
writers from that era, in both books and film, showed their characters
smoking -- as a bit of business, displaying mood or agitation.
The
downside of smoking was downplayed in the 1950's, but there was
significant evidence of the link between smoking and lung cancer even
then. I remember (in '59) when our high school principal died of lung
cancer and everyone was shocked when it was learned he was a non-smoker.
In
my Terro-Human Future History novels, I mention that the health
problems associated with smoking have been eliminated. Having characters
smoking pipes and such is totally in character with Piper's work. In
one of the Baen Book revivals -- of Chris Anvil or James Schmitz -- the
editors removed all the smoking and such to numerous complaints.
At
one point -- shortly after Ace purchased the Piper Literary Estate --
Jim Baen wanted to have Jerry Pournelle edit, removing smoking and other
anachronisms, (which is humorous since at that time Jerry was both a
pipe and cigarette smoker!) as well as update Piper's technology. That
deal fell through when Jerry wanted a percentage of all future Piper
sales; Baen couldn't put it through upper management. Ironically,
Charter Communications (Ace's new owner) was still hurting from the Ace
Audit which Pournelle had orchestrated and had cost them a bundle! I
suspect that may have played a part in that decision.
Then,
Baen left to head up Tor's new SF division, and in return for copies of
Piper's short stories (which had conveniently left with Baen) I
finagled my way into editing the already named (by Jim Baen) Piper short
story collections, starting with Federation.
Personally, I don't smoke and never have. But I always felt it was an integral part of Piper's work.
John Carr
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-20-2018
17:29 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Perhaps the smoking in the hospital room was an example of
> keeping the audience happy?
Oh,
I'm sure it seemed to add to the verisimilitude for Beam's contemporary
"juvenile" readers. Even someone who might have looked askance at a
seventeen-year-old lighting-up would have understood it to be yet
another indicator of the "rough" society on Fenris. In that sense, it's
a great bit of detail.
But for someone reading it half a century
later it's as jarring as those "dials" and "verniers" on Beam's
computer displays and controls.
Cheers,
David
--
"In
my 'teens, which would have been the early '20's, I decided that what I
really wanted to do was write; I wasn't quite sure what, but I was
going to write something. About the same time, I became aware of
science fiction, such as it was then, mostly H.G. Wells, and fantasy,
Bram Stoker, H. Rider Haggard, and then I began reading newer science
(more or less) fiction--Burroughs, Merritt, Ralph Milne Farley, Ray
Cummings, _et_al_. This was the Neolithic, or Hugo Gernsback Period of
science fiction, and by this time I was a real 200-proof fan." - H. Beam
Piper, "Double: Bill Symposium" interview
~
|
Jon Crocker 10-20-2018
07:00 UT
|
Perhaps the smoking in the hospital room was an example of keeping the
audience happy? The 50s was the era of the actor-dressed-as-doctor
cigarette tv commercial, saying how delicious and nutritious cigarettes
were, so I hear.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-19-2018
18:29 UT
|
~
Last Few Days: 10th Anniversary Celebration!
Zarthani.net's Piper Mailing List (and Discussion Forum) celebrated its 10th anniversary on October 4th:
42/H/tnfVKeAH3s4T/p0001.0001
In
celebration of this anniversary Zarthani.net is holding a fundraising
"virtual raffle." One each of the 1975 Garland hardcover editions of
~Space Viking~ (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?263267) and ~Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen~ (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?20650)
will be given away as raffle "prizes." These hardover facisimiles of
the respective original Ace paperback editions are both used books in
very good condition.
Virtual raffle "tickets" are US$10 each, submitted via PayPal using the two buttons here:
http://www.zarthani.net/anniversary.htm
You
can purchase as many "tickets" as you want. The raffle "drawings" will
be held next week (on or shortly after October 25th) so don't miss your
chance to own one of these rare Piper items!
Cheers,
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 10-19-2018
18:27 UT
|
~
Ah, the 1950's, er . . . I mean, 480's (Atomic Era, that is)
Here
is almost-eighteen Walt Boyd with his recently-turned eighteen friend
Tom Kivelson, in Kivelson's hospital room near the end of ~Four Day
Planet~.
"[Tom] finished his lunch, such as it was and what there
was of it, and I relieved him of the tray and set it on the floor
beyond his chair. I found an ashtray and lit a cigarette for him and
one for myself, using the big lighter."
There they are, two
eighteen-year-olds, smoking in a hospital room. This is the sort of
anachronistic element in Beam's work which Scalzi's ~Fuzzy Nation~ was
intended to address. (I'll leave it to others for the moment to decide
whether or not Scalzi was successful in doing that.)
The
prevalence of smoking in Beam's science-fiction is one of the more
difficult items for contemporary readers to overlook. Smoking hasn't
fallen out of fashion merely because it's . . . fallen out of fashion.
Smoking in Beam's stories is out-of-place in a futuristic setting in a
way that's similar to the way the "radiation immunity" in "Flight from
Tomorrow" makes no sense: it's now understood to be poor science.
One
way to address this is to assume that "future tobacco" isn't the same
thing as contemporary tobacco. If it were chemically reconstructed in
some manner to remove the carcinogens then it might make sense for two
eighteen-year-olds to be smoking in a hospital room. That's easy enough
to imagine in a society with "carniculture."
Cheers,
David
--
"The
amount of intermarriage that's gone on since the First Century, any
resemblance between people's names and their appearances is purely
coincidental." - Walt Boyd (H. Beam Piper), ~Four-Day Planet~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-11-2018
17:24 UT
|
~
Last Week: 10th Anniversary Celebration!
Zarthani.net's Piper Mailing List (and Discussion Forum) celebrated its 10th anniversary on October 4, 2018:
42/H/tnfVKeAH3s4T/p0001.0001
In
celebration of this anniversary Zarthani.net is holding a fundraising
"virtual raffle." One each of the 1975 Garland hardcover editions of
~Space Viking~ (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?263267) and ~Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen~ (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?20650)
will be given away as raffle "prizes." These hardover facisimiles of
the respective original Ace paperback editions are both used books in
very good condition.
Virtual raffle "tickets" are US$10 each, submitted via PayPal using the two buttons here:
http://www.zarthani.net/anniversary.htm
You
can purchase as many "tickets" as you want. The raffle "drawings" will
be held on or shortly after October 25, 2018, so buy your raffle
tickets now!
Cheers,
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 10-11-2018
00:01 UT
|
~
Thanks, gentlemen. I'm convinced. The guy with the grizzled beard must be Lourenço Gomes.
Now,
of course, I'm confused about the younger, khaki-short-wearing guy with
the candy. Seems we agree he's not named, his role is unclear and he
doesn't seem to show up later, like Quinton, Murillio and Gomes (because
he stays on Uller). He does seem sort of superfluous to the activity
at hand--though he seems to know a lot about how the nuclear prospecting
works. If I didn't know better, I might suggest he was an Uller
Company ~commissar~. . . .
It does leave me wondering what Beam
what up to there. I imagine Jon is correct that some of this was
editing. You can see that in the way this scene changes from the
~Petrified Planet~ version to the (shorter) ~Space Science Fiction~
version. Perhaps the "prologue" was added after the original draft of
the novel was submitted, in haste late in the publication process.
I suppose we'll never know.
Cheers,
David
--
"The
Quintons had to leave France about the same time; they were what was
known as collaborationists." - Paula Quinton (H. Beam Piper), ~Uller
Uprising~
~
|
Calidore 10-10-2018
23:15 UT
|
I agree that the man with the beard is Dr. Lourenco Gomes. It’s the guy
with the bag of candy that’s unnamed. I always assumed that Dr.
Murillo was in charge of the group performing the A-bomb operation, but
also agree that Beam doesn’t make it clear.
The main relevant
quote is on pages 2-3 of the Prologue, broken here into sequential
installments, as Piper describes the characters in “The big
armor-tender” floating a thousand feet above Niflheim.
“The
chief engineer sat at his controls, making the minor lateral adjustments
in the vehicle’s position which were not possible to the automatic
controls.”
That’s one character.
“One of the radiomen was
receiving from the orbital base; the other was saying, over and over, in
an exasperatedly patient voice, “Dr. Murillo. Dr. Murillo. Please
come in, Dr. Murillo.” ”
That’s two more characters, the speaking radioman being identified as Ahmed on page 3.
“At
his own panel of instruments, a small man with grizzled black hair
around a bald crown, and a grizzled beard, chewed nervously at the stump
of a dead cigar and listened intently to what was—or for what
wasn’t—coming in to his headset receiver.”
That’s another character, separate from the chief engineer and the radiomen.
“A couple of assistants checked dials and refreshed their memories from notebooks and peered anxiously into the big screen.”
That’s two more characters, one of them identified as de Jong on page 5.
“A
large, plump-faced, young man in soiled khaki shirt and shorts, with
extremely hairy legs, was doodling on his notepad and eating candy out
of a bag.”
And that’s another character, separate from the
others, and particularly from the bearded man mentioned previously.
This seems certain, because he is a “young man”, while the man with the
beard must be much older, as his head is bald on top. In addition, the
bearded man is “small”, while the young man is “large”.
Moreover,
the young man with the hairy legs and candy doesn’t seem very busy,
since he is idly doodling on a notepad, while the older bearded man
seems much busier at his panel of instruments. “The man with the
grizzled beard put his face into the fur around the eyepiece of the
telescopic-‘visor and twisted a dial.” (ibid.) That this is Dr. Gomes, a
nuclear engineer whose job is to set off the nukes on Niflheim, is
confirmed on page 5. “ “As soon as [Murillo] gets here, I’ll touch it
off,” the bearded man said. “Everything set, de Jong?” “Everything
ready, Dr. Gomes,” one of his assistants assured him.”…Gomes stabbed the
radio-detonator button in front of him.”
Though Piper left out
the ‘grizzled’ this time (probably because it would have been
redundant), Gomes is “the bearded man”, meaning the only one on the
armor-tender mentioned as having a beard. So the small, balding bearded
man is Dr. Gomes, while the young man with candy is the unnamed
character. This is also confirmed on p. 7, when “the large young man
with the hairy legs” (still unnamed) talks with the bearded Dr. Gomes,
who has joined the younger man’s conversation with Paula Quinton. The
young candy-man is also mentioned as bringing out a bottle for
celebratory drinks, while Gomes clears a space on his desk for the cups,
which Paula brings over. (p. 8) So all three of them have a drink—as
well as the others, “except [for] the chief engineer, who wanted a
rain-check on his”; plus Gorkrink of course, because of his people’s
“taboo against Ullerans and Terrans watching each other eat and drink”.
(p. 9)
In sum, I count 14 characters in the Prologue. The chief
engineer, the two radiomen (one being Ahmed), the bearded Dr. Gomes,
his two assistants (one of them de Jong), the young hairy-legged
candyman, Paula Quinton, the four men outside in personal-armors (one of
them Dr. Murillo), Gorkrink (also outside in a personal-armor at
first), and another assistant who helps the chief engineer keep the
armor-tender steady after the nukes are detonated. (p. 6) But since he
(or she) is mentioned as being “one of the assistants”, this last
character could be the other assistant helping Dr. Gomes along with de
Jong. If so, that would make the total 13.
Now for a little
speculation. During the time that Dr. Gomes is busy with his
instruments, making sure that everyone is back aboard before he fires
the nukes, the young man talks with Paula Quinton and offers her some of
his candy. Like him, she doesn’t seem busy either, since she “lounged
with one knee hooked over her chair-arm”. (p. 3)
Making a couple
of guesses, I would say that Paula’s idleness is probably because she’s
an extraterrestrial sociographer, not a nuclear scientist or technician.
She can’t help with any of the A-bomb stuff, as that is outside her
area of expertise. She’s undoubtedly there because of Gorkrink, the
native Ulleran working with the Terrans on Niflheim. (pp. 5, 8, 9) The
unnamed young candy-man’s job doesn’t seem to be specified, but he could
be a geologist, since he tells Paula a lot about the elements and
minerals underground, which will be brought up by the shots. (pp. 4-5)
And after the detonations, he tells her that when the shockwaves get
down far enough, they’ll really break things open, resulting in a
volcanic eruption “every bit as good as Krakatoa, on Terra, in 59
Pre-Atomic.” (p. 6) So if not a geologist, he could be a vulcanologist.
(Possibly a grad student in one of these disciplines, to bring in
Jon's idea.) But like Paula, the unnamed young man is not a nuclear
scientist, so he doesn’t have a lot to do while they place the bombs,
and Gomes sets them off.
Incidentally, Piper included a bit of
irony with regard to Dr. Gomes. He can’t wait to get off Niflheim.
“I’ve had about all of Niflheim I can take, now. The sooner I get onto a
planet where they don’t ration the air, the better I’ll like it.” (p.
7) The irony is that he travels to Uller, where, two weeks after his
first breath of unrationed air, he is killed in the native revolt.
General
von Schlichten says, “Where Dr. Lourenco Gomes, the nuclear engineer
who came in on the Pretoria, two weeks ago? Send out for him, and get
him in here at once.” There was another awkward silence. Then Kent
Pickering, the chief of the Gongonk Island power-plant, cleared his
throat. “Why, general, didn’t you know? Dr Gomes is dead. He was
killed during the first half hour of the uprising.” (p. 148) This is a
major blow to General von Schlichten, who was “counting heavily on Dr.
Gomes to design a bomb of our own.” (p. 149) And this exchange connects
Dr. Gomes’ setting off the nukes on Niflheim with the nukes they hoped
he would build for them on Uller.
Thus, poor old, grizzle-bearded
Gomes is dead. That means his soul has departed. So does he end up in
heaven or in hell? Because it’s interesting that Beam makes Gomes the
one who says “They call Terra God’s footstool; well, I’ll give you one
guess who uses [Niflheim] to prop his cloven hoofs on.” (p. 7) One
would hope that the good doctor goes to heaven, but as a nuclear
engineer and the detonator of nuclear weapons which cause a
Krakatoa-size eruption (and “On Satan’s Footstool”, no less), Gomes is
certainly an expert on ‘hellfire’!
I agree that with Piper’s
wealth of characters, it can get confusing. Sometimes I actually draw
little sketch figures on a sheet of paper, to help me figure out who’s
who in a particular scene.
John
PS. When first mentioned,
Dr. Gomes has a “dead” cigar in his mouth. That's probably a
coincidence, but Beam just might have been including a deliberate
foreshadowing of the doctor’s death on Uller.
|
Jon Crocker 10-10-2018
01:42 UT
|
I think you're right, he's acting like the guy in charge of the tender.
I
think there might have been some edits at one point - early on, the
scene describes the "small man with grizzled black hair around a bald
crown, and a grizzled beard" and then a description of the man eating
the candy out of a bag, "large, plump-faced, young man in soiled khaki
shirt and shorts, with extremely hairy legs, was doodling on his notepad
and eating candy out of a bag."
A couple pages later, it states:
"As soon as he gets here, I'll touch it off," the bearded man said. "Everything set, de Jong?"
"Everything set, Dr. Gomes," one of his assistants assured him.
Then later:
"You
going on to Uller on the City of Canberra?" Lourenco Gomes asked. "I
wish I were; I have to stay over and make another shot, in a month or
so, and I've had about all of Nefelheim I can take, now. The sooner I
get onto a planet where they don't ration the air, the better I'll like
it."
"Well, what do you know!" the large young man with the hairy legs mock-marvelled.
I'd
guess that if the bearded man is Doctor Gomes, then the young man with
hairy legs is the mystery person. A young Company Exec? Sounds rather
casually dressed for that, even in that social environment. A grad
student, perhaps?
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-07-2018
20:33 UT
|
~
Who is the "man with the grizzled beard"?
I've read the prologue to ~Uller Uprising~, set on Niflheim, dozens of times:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19474/19474-h/19474-h.htm#PROLOGUE
but
I have never been able to sort out who the "man with the grizzled
beard" is. It isn't Lourenço Gomes. (He's the guy with the bag of
candy.) It doesn't seem to be the radioman communicating with Murillo's
party. His actions suggest he might be the commander of the
armor-tender--he's not the "chief engineer" who's operating the
craft--but he doesn't seem to get a name. That's odd given that Beam
was so good at giving so many minor characters names. Even the radioman
gets a first name at least: Ahmed.
The way the dialogue is
written it's difficult at times to tell whether it's the "man with the
grizzled beard" or Gomes who's speaking but there are clearly two
different characters present. It's just that one of them never seems to
get a name.
This scene is abbreviated in the ~Space Science
Fiction~ version ("Ullr Uprising"); the "man with the grizzled beard"
remains but still isn't named.
Any ideas?
Znidd suddabit!
David
--
"The
Federation Government owns a bigger interest in the Company than the
public realizes, too. . . ." - Carlos von Schlichten (H. Beam Piper),
~Uller Uprising~.
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-05-2018
04:22 UT
|
10th Anniversary Celebration!
Zarthani.net's Piper Mailing List (and Discussion Forum) celebrates its 10th anniversary ~today~:
42/H/tnfVKeAH3s4T/p0001.0001
In
celebration of this anniversary Zarthani.net is holding a fundraising
"virtual raffle." One each of the 1975 Garland hardcover editions of
~Space Viking~ and ~Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen~ will be given away as
raffle "prizes." These hardover facisimiles of the respective original
Ace paperback editions are both used books in very good condition.
Virtual raffle "tickets" are US$10 each, submitted via PayPal using the two buttons here:
http://www.zarthani.net/anniversary.htm
You
can purchase as many "tickets" as you want. The raffle "drawings" will
be held on or shortly after October 25, 2018, so buy your raffle
tickets now!
Cheers,
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~
~
|
|
|
New Topic
My Topics
Views:
35310
(Unique:
9358
) / Subscribers:
27 | What's this?