David "PiperFan" Johnson  03-27-2021
03:22 UT
|
~
Tim Tow wrote:
> Regarding the 10,000 refugees who founded the Sword
> Worlds. Perhaps that was a figurative 10,000 when the
> number was much higher.
Agreed
it's a "round number" and perhaps actually may have been as many as
nearly 20,000, but I doubt it was 50,000 and--unless there was a
typo--it certainly wasn't 100,000.
Remember Ashmodai! Remember Bephegor!
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~
~
|
Tim Tow 03-26-2021
15:47 UT
|
Regarding the 10,000 refugees who founded the Sword Worlds. Perhaps that
was a figurative 10,000 when the number was much higher. 10,000 might
be reflective of that minimum genetic diversity requirement or an
allusion to the song 10,000 men of Harvard.
|
Tim Tow 03-26-2021
13:16 UT
|
Just read the latest anthology of stories by Ken Liu, The Hidden Girl
and Other stories. The penultimate story in the collection, The Message,
is thematically similar to Omnilingual with its own spin on it.
Originally published in 2012 in Interzone, http://ttapress.com/1397/interzone-242/. He's one of the contemporary writers that I will buy his books in hardcover these days.
Omnilingual
was often reprinted in many of the secondary school science fiction
texts so wouldn't be surprising if it had influenced other works. Anyone
recall others about using this idea?
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-24-2021
04:49 UT
|
~ "There was no calendar in sight, and he could find no
newspapers or dated periodicals, but he knew that it was prior to July
18, 1946. On that day, his fourteenth birthday, his father had given him
a light .22 rifle, and it had been hung on a pair of rustic forks on
the wall. It was not there now, nor ever had been. On the table, he saw a
boys' book of military aircraft, with a clean, new dustjacket; the
flyleaf was inscribed: To Allan Hartley, from his father, on his thirteenth birthday, 7/18 '45.
Glancing out the window at the foliage on the trees, he estimated the
date at late July or early August, 1945; that would make him just
thirteen." - H Beam Piper, "Time and Time Again" It's March 23rd. Happy birthday, Beam. Cheers, David -- "In
my 'teens . . . 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 ~ Edited 03-24-2021 04:51
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-19-2021
00:42 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> They found a planet that the Federation wasn't going to
> find in a long time, settled it, named it Excalibur - and
> then their grandchildren left an settled not one other, but
> three other planets.
[snip]
> The timing of those colonies seems odd to me - after
> two generations, the population would probably be less
> than a hundred thousand, a lot less - that's a small-ish
> city on one great big plenty-of-elbowroom planet,
It's always seemed a bit premature to me too, but we have what we have from Beam, so . . .
> no idea why three different groups would bolt off for
> other worlds,
Not sure why either, but there must have been some reason(s).
> and if they did, would any of them be genetically viable
> without artificial assistance?
Well,
I'm guessing the biology Beam had in high school was a bit less certain
about this sort of thing. Again, what we know is that it "worked out,"
regardless.
Remember Ashmodai! Remember Belphegor!
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 03-18-2021
05:23 UT
|
> That's a good possibility . . . though of course a second, religious language is never subsequently mentioned.
True,
but perhaps it was like latin was in the middle ages - if you were an
educated person, it was expected you knew it in a lot of regions. And
obviously these newcomers would have looked rich enough to be well
educated, which could have prompted the exasperation when she realized
it wasn't working.
Just a guess.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-18-2021
03:33 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> The possibly different language could have been 'Old High
> Church Sosti'. The emphasis has slipped a bit in these
> modern times.
That's a good possibility . . . though of course a second, religious language is never subsequently mentioned.
Pity
is this scene doesn't appear in ~Lord Kalvan~ and there's no
description of a single language there (though, of course, the Zarthani
civilization is also not the only one on the continent in that yarn).
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~
~
|
Jon Crocker 03-17-2021
18:56 UT
|
The possibly different language could have been 'Old High Church Sosti'. The emphasis has slipped a bit in these modern times.
But
speaking of the Sword Worlds - the story was ten thousand men and women
took what was left of the System States Alliance navy and headed out
for parts unknown. They found a planet that the Federation wasn't going
to find in a long time, settled it, named it Excalibur - and then their
grandchildren left an settled not one other, but three other planets.
One
of the very few things I remember from biology was that if you're going
to settle another star system, you'd need ten thousand unrelated
individuals as a bare minimum, so that makes it just over the wire. The
timing of those colonies seems odd to me - after two generations, the
population would probably be less than a hundred thousand, a lot less -
that's a small-ish city on one great big plenty-of-elbowroom planet, no
idea why three different groups would bolt off for other worlds, and if
they did, would any of them be genetically viable without artificial
assistance?
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-16-2021
14:15 UT
|
~
Languages of Freya?
Here are three excerpts from "When in the Course--"
First, here's Fitzurse, commenting on the original orbital imagery:
"[This
civilization is] confined to one river valley about the same area as
the Mississippi-Missouri system in North Terra. There is nothing outside
that except a small and apparently unrelated patch at the northern
corner of the continent."
And here's Barron's first encounter with Rylla:
"She
said something in a sharp, demanding voice. He smiled at her and asked
her if she'd ever thought of going into tele-movies. She spoke
again--different intonation, probably different language. He shook his
head and replied from the Iliad in the original. She said something
exasperated and quite possibly unladylike."
And here's something from a bit later:
"The
language, they found, was called Sosti; it was spoken all over the
river-valley system to which the Freyan civilization was confined."
So
what "probably different language" (from Sosti) was Rylla using to try
to speak to Barron, after she realized he didn't understand her the
first time?
Down Styphon!
David
--
"And if he went
back, there was a warrant waiting for him from the Federation Member
Republic of Venus." - Roger Barron (H. Beam Piper), "When in the
Course--"
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-15-2021
14:33 UT
|
~
Tim Tow wrote:
> This idea of central government being increasingly oppressive
> and dismisive of colonials is repeated often. Before I discovered
> Piper, I had read Robert Silverberg's 1954 novel, Revolt on
> Alpha C, which had a similar premise.
and
> The American Revolution is the most obvious parallel historically
Perhaps these two circumstances are related. ;)
One
of the many things I enjoy about Beam's writing is the way he cast the
"oppressive and dismissive" central government as the "good guys" in its
early history.
Nobody on Fenris was troubled by Gonzalo Ware and
the "oppressive" T.F.N. destroyer ~Simon Bolivar~. (Why did a
Federation with no external enemies even ~have~ destroyers?) Likewise,
the Kragans weren't too troubled by the mustered-out Federation armed
forces folks who seized control of Uller after the Uprising.
Even
by the time of ~Junkyard Planet~, the folks on Poictesme likely would
have welcomed a rebuilt Federation base or other Federation investment
on their world, rather than trying to chart their own course under
Merlin's guidance.
And then, of course, both the Sword-Worlds and the Mardukan monarchy are "winding down" by time of ~Space Viking~.
All
in all a pretty pessimistic approach to human society--from a guy who
ended up killing himself after being divorced and losing his job but
apparently being too proud to wash dishes or clean bathrooms for a
living.
I mean, I love his work but his perspective seemed to lead to some bad choices in his life. . . .
Cheers,
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~
~
|
Tim Tow 03-15-2021
13:05 UT
|
Thanks for those references. It's been awhile since I've re-read Piper.
It'll be good to get back. This idea of central government being
increasingly oppressive and dismisive of colonials is repeated often.
Before I discovered Piper, I had read Robert Silverberg's 1954 novel,
Revolt on Alpha C, which had a similar premise. The American Revolution
is the most obvious parallel historically and perhaps the only
successful one.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-13-2021
05:20 UT
|
~
Tim Tow wrote:
> Can you refresh us on the System States Wars again?
"Conn,
that's a dangerous idea. That was what brought on the System States
War. The Alliance planets took themselves outside the Federation
economic orbit and the Federation crushed them." - Rodney Maxwell,
"Graveyard of Dreams"
"Then, ten years before anybody had
expected it, the rebellious System States Alliance had collapsed and the
war had ended." - Piper, "Graveyard of Dreams"
"There never was a
time when the Alliance could have taken the offensive against
Poictesme, even if an offensive outside our own space-area had been part
of our policy." - Klem Zareff, "Graveyard of Dreams"
"I have
locations and maps and plans of every Federation installation built here
between 842 and 854, the whole period of the War." - Conn Maxwell,
~Junkyard Planet~
"Then, without warning, the System States Alliance collapsed, the rebellion ended. . . ." - Piper, ~Junkyard Planet~
"The
Terran Federation had impoverished a hundred planets, devastated a
score, actually depopulated at least three, to keep the System States
Alliance from seceding. It hadn't been a victory. It had only been a
lesser defeat." - Piper, ~Junkyard Planet~
"You know, we were
really caught off balance when the War ended. It even caught Merlin
short; information lag, of course. The whole Alliance caved in all at
once." - Mike Shanlee, ~Junkyard Planet~
Cheers,
David
--
"It
looked like something from an old picture of the construction work on
one of the Terran space-stations in the First Century." - Conn Maxwell
(H. Beam Piper), ~Junkyard Planet~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-13-2021
03:36 UT
|
H. Beam Piper like you've never seen him before!
Piper fan Scott
Schad, who participated in the ceremony laying the new Piper Memorial
Stone on Beam's resting place in Altoona back in 2011, has provided the
new (version of an old) image of Beam now displayed here:
http://www.zarthani.net/h_beam_piper_biography.htm
It's
quite fascinating. Thanks to Scott (and to John Carr, who asked me to
display it) for this wonderful addition to Piper's memory.
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." - "Ministry of Disturbance"
|
Jon Crocker 03-03-2021
05:08 UT
|
Why, this is a perfect excuse to re-read a couple parts of his books -
there's a paragraph or two in the early part of Space Viking that
touches on it. It's on page 10 in my edition, Ace paperback.
The
first chapter or two of Cosmic Computer would have a better summary
than I could ever make. Or the first part of the short story Graveyard
of Dreams.
|
Tim Tow 03-02-2021
16:16 UT
|
This sounds great. Can you refresh us on the System States Wars again?
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 03-02-2021
01:58 UT
|
The Decline of the Terran Federation
I’m starting to put together a new Piper Terro-Human Future History anthology; a follow-up to The Rise of the Terran Federation.
What
I’m looking for are stories about the decline of the Federation, both
the creeping socialism and growing bureaucracy that set in place the
events that culminate in the System States War. I plan to include both
of H. Beam Piper’s stories, “Naudsonce” and “Oomphel” in the Sky.” Feel
free to set the stories on Earth, Baldur, Odin, or any of the lesser
worlds.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me
with them. Please send all submissions in Word doc. or rtf formats to
otherwhen@aol.com
John Carr
|
|
|
New Topic
My Topics
Views:
35306
(Unique:
9357
) / Subscribers:
27 | What's this?