David "PiperFan" Johnson  05-30-2021
00:56 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> The negamatter was natural in The Answer, not an attack.
Ah,
ah, ah. In the "JimmyJoeJangles-verse" it's both, right? Plus several
others we haven't even thought of. Shoot, on one "JJJ-verse timeline"
Richardson and Pitov are just tied into some Matrix-like simulation. . .
.
Grüße,
David
--
"And there were the Australians,
picking themselves up bargains in real-estate in the East Indies at
gun-point, and there were the Boers, trekking north again, in tanks
instead of ox-wagons. And Brazil, with a not-too-implausible pretender
to the Braganza throne, calling itself the Portuguese Empire and looking
eastward." - Lee Richardson (H. Beam Piper), "The Answer"
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 05-29-2021
22:17 UT
|
I never said the "Paratimers did it" ever. I said everything is
happening in one multiverse, like Piper said multiple times. So yeah
all of it's in there even his list of guns that he got published because
it all ties into our common history. The negamatter was natural in The
Answer, not an attack. AS for the rest, you don't seem to know what
timeline means.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-29-2021
19:42 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> Either Verkan or Hartley or both, been a while since I
> read them, said that everything is always happening.
Well, whichever it was, they didn't say it in "~Omnilingual~."
> It was one of the first Piper works I read, so naturally
> I carried that ethos into all of his work, hence the
> Piper verse. Pointing at a Q and A where no one
> asked if they were connected and saying they aren't
> connected isn't enough for me. Piperverse.
That's
an interesting, if unorthodox approach. It would "solve" lots of
conundrums: how did inter-fertile humans get to Freya? Paratimers. How
did Fuzzies not suited to the local ecology get to Zarathustra?
Paratimers. What happened to the "Maxwell / Merlin Plan"? Paratimers.
What happened to Trask's "League of Civilized Worlds"? Paratimers. What
happened to faster-than-light communication using "micropositos"?
Paratimers.
Is "Rebel Raider" part of the "Piperverse" too?
"Flight from Tomorrow"? (What happened to linear time travel?
Paratimers.) "Operation R.S.V.P."? "Dearest"? "The Answer"? (What
happened to the negamatter-wielding extraterrestrials? Paratimers.) What
about the McGuire collaborations: ~Null-ABC~, "The Return," ~Lone Star
Planet~ and "Hunter Patrol"?
An "it's all Piperverse" premise
would still fail though to resolve the internal inconsistency which
arises with the new explanation for the differences in timelines
introduced by Beam in "Gunpowder God."
There's also this bit from
Beam's ~Zenith~ interview: "Nothing else, with the possible exception
of a novelette called "The Edge of the Knife," ~Amazing~, May 1957,
belongs to the History of the Future." I don't know but "nothing else . .
. belongs" seems like a pretty definitive statement, from Beam himself,
that the Terro-human Future History is a stand-alone setting. Neither
Verkan Vall or Allan Hartley appear in any of the Future History yarns
Beam mentions in that interview.
Remember Ashmodai! Remember Belphegor!
David
--
"I
don't know what plans you have for a next story project, but the
world-picture you've been building up in the Sword Worlds stories, or
Space Viking stories, or whatever you designate the series, offers some
lovely possibilities." -- John W. Campbell (to H. Beam Piper)
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 05-29-2021
18:57 UT
|
Either Verkan or Hartley or both, been a while since I read them, said
that everything is always happening. It was one of the first Piper
works I read, so naturally I carried that ethos into all of his work,
hence the Piper verse. Pointing at a Q and A where no one asked if they
were connected and saying they aren't connected isn't enough for me.
Piperverse.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-29-2021
15:03 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> Omnilingual is pretty explicitly supporting the
> Martian origins.
How so?
> IT means we have a common language. If we call
> iron iron and they call iron hufflepop, knowing
> that they call it hufflepop wouldn't lead us to a
> translation just by looking at the table.
Right,
but I don't think the expectation in the story is that they will be
able to "read Martian" simply by translating the Periodic Table. Rather,
once they have the words for elements in the Periodic Table--calcium,
copper, gold, iron, lead, mercury, oxygen, silver, sulphur, tin--they
will be able to use those words to translate other bits of writing.
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~
~
|
Gregg Levine 05-29-2021
02:10 UT
|
Okay thank you folks. Whilst I was aware of that book on our friend Mr.
Carr's press, I did find one by Wolf that completes his Fuzzy Trilogy
and proves to be a humdinger if the description is a good guide.
|
jimmyjoejangles 05-29-2021
01:52 UT
|
Omnilingual is pretty explicitly supporting the Martian origins. IT
means we have a common language. If we call iron iron and they call
iron hufflepop, knowing that they call it hufflepop wouldn't lead us to a
translation just by looking at the table.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-29-2021
01:49 UT
|
~
Gregg Levine wrote:
> I was suggesting that before things got to be that badly,
> it could have happened. In fact, being that it was a
> short story, I suspect a lot was left out by Piper. It would
> be interesting to see if any notes were made and
> survived during the time period in question when it
> was written.
Lots of info about Beam's writing process here:
https://www.pequodpress.com/book_info.php?id=PP_26
Cheers,
David
--
"I
was going to write like James Branch Cabell, which would have taken a
lot of doing. Before that, I was going to write like Rafael Sabatini,
and like Talbot Mundy, and like Rider Haggard, and even, God help us
all, like Edgar Rice Burroughs. . . . Eventually I decided to write
like H. Beam Piper, only a little better. I am still trying." - H. Beam
Piper, "Double: Bill Symposium" interview
~
|
Gregg Levine 05-29-2021
01:42 UT
|
Um David "PiperFan", I am only asking. Nothing was indeed described
there, because they were performing an examination of the former city of
these Martians. I was suggesting that before things got to be that
badly, it could have happened. In fact, being that it was a short story,
I suspect a lot was left out by Piper. It would be interesting to see
if any notes were made and survived during the time period in question
when it was written.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-28-2021
23:50 UT
|
~
Tim Tow writes:
> So what do the Paratime levels represent then?
> Maximum genetic diversity.
I
think they're arbitrary, mostly just subjective choices (both
in-setting and out) about the differences in variation (which is likely
why Beam never discussed this point in detail). It's not like First
Level geneticists--or archaeologists--have uncovered the details of the
actual genetic accidents--or Martian colonization outcomes--on timelines
on each of the Levels.
For example, there is likely not much
variation between the "last" Second Level timeline and the "first" Third
Level one (or between the "last" Third and the "first" Fourth), whether
you're using the "Martian colonization" heuristic or the "generic
accidents" one. . . .
> Would it be true at all levels that the Martians did
> make it to Earth but lost all of their technology a la
> Genesis?
Well,
if you're talking about just the Paratime setting then there is First
Level in which, at least until "Gunpowder God," it is understood that
the Martian colonization attempt was "successful." After "Gunpowder God"
there is no Martian colonization attempt and First Level is just the
timeline where paratemporal transposition happened to be invented. . . .
(A
"Martian origin" ~could~ be "true" in both the Paratime and Terro-human
Future History settings too but to make this assumption you have to
ignore what Beam wrote in "Gunpowder God" ~and~ assume that "Genesis" is
both a Paratime yarn and a Future History yarn which ties the two
settings together while overlooking the fact that Beam doesn't mention
this when he lists the Future History yarns in his ~Zenith~ interview.)
> If so then the Martians in Omnilingual are the
> ancestors of Earth people.
There
is nothing explicit from Beam to support a "Martian origin" in the
Terro-human Future History. Indeed, if you read the Future History
without considering Paratime this idea should never even occur to you.
One
can get there by making several ~assumptions~ about various bits of
what Beam wrote, including things which he himself didn't mention when
he identified his Future History yarns in his ~Zenith~ interview, but
then you've wandered away / beyond from what Beam left us.
Cheers,
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"
~
|
Tim Tow 05-28-2021
16:34 UT
|
So what do the Paratime levels represent then? Maximum genetic
diversity. Would it be true at all levels that the Martians did make it
to Earth but lost all of their technology a la Genesis? Then any variation in Paratime levels is due to genetic diversity? If so then the Martians in Omnilingual are the ancestors of Earth people. Edited 05-28-2021 18:20
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-28-2021
14:28 UT
|
~
Gregg Levine wrote:
> What about the remains of the Martians in the work
> "Omnilingual"? I'd always thought that the ones who
> survived, before the bitter end was described there,
> did move someplace else.
I
don't recall anything in "Omnilingual" which suggested the ancient
Martians had even attempted any space travel. Perhaps I've overlooked
it. . . .
Cheers,
David
--
"She raised her head, to
see a big man . . . in Space Force green, with the single star of a
major on his shoulder, sitting down." - Martha Dane point-of-view (H.
Beam Piper), "Omnilingual"
~
|
Gregg Levine 05-26-2021
02:54 UT
|
What about the remains of the Martians in the work "Omnilingual"? I'd
always thought that the ones who survived, before the bitter end was
described there, did move someplace else.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-26-2021
02:31 UT
|
~
John "Calidore" Anderson wrote:
> He had made the Martian origin explicit in 4 out of 5
> Paratime stories over 7 years. It was a firmly established
> feature of the series, so that by the time he wrote the Lord
> Kalvan tales, Piper may have felt it unnecessary to state it
> yet again.
I
agree wholeheartedly that Beam portrayed the Paratimers as originating
on Mars when he sold "Police Operation" in 1948 and when he sold "Last
Enemy" and "Temple Trouble" in 1950 and when he sold "Time Crime" in
1954 but it's also clear he was no longer portraying the Paratimers as
originating on Mars a decade later when he sold "Gunpowder God" in 1964.
Beam
doesn't simply fail to mention any "Martian origin" in his final
Paratime work he also ~introduces~ the concept of differences in
timelines being due to ~genetic~ factors. Whatever the differences in
timelines are in "Gunpowder God"--"variations" or "accidents"--their
causes are ~genetic~. Beam has replaced one explanation--differences in
timelines due to different outcomes of the Martian colonization
attempt--with another explanation--differences in timelines due to
different outcomes which have their origins in ~genetics~.
There
is ~no~ mention of this ~genetic~ causal phenomenon in any of the
earlier Paratime works. It's a ~new~ concept, introduced in "Gunpowder
God" a decade after he last wrote about the Martian origins of the
Paratimers. (Beam mentions "genetics" in "Last Enemy" but not in
relationship to the differences in timelines--so it's obvious he was
familiar with the concept when he was writing the early Paratime yarns;
he just wasn't using it to explain the differences in timelines.)
Beam
wasn't being "vague" in "Gunpowder God"; he was quite specific. He
didn't write "'generic' accidents" but rather "~genetic~ accidents."
A
"genetic accident" is not a way simply in which "accidents" might
"happen differently." Beam is describing these accidents as being the
result of ~genetic~ factors, of biological variations which give rise to
differences in outcomes through evolutionary processes. To say that on
one timeline a colonization attempt was successful while on another it
was less so and then describe this difference in outcomes as a "genetic
accident" misunderstands the words that Beam has left us.
Beam
didn't just fail to repeat the "Martian origins" explanation for
differences in timelines in "Gunpowder God"; he also introduced a ~new~
and ~different~ explanation.
Cheers,
David
--
"Science
fiction entertains the type of reader who enjoys speculation on
different hypothetical, philosophical, scientific, sociological,
military, economic, technological etc. possibilities. This type of
reader is not inferior or superior to others, but he is _different_." -
H. Beam Piper, "Double: Bill Symposium" interview
~
|
Calidore 05-24-2021
18:17 UT
|
David “Piperfan” Johnson wrote,
>But what's key here is that it seems ~Beam himself~ abandoned the "Martian origins"
>of the First Level Paratime civilization by the time he was writing "Gunpowder God"
>and ~Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen~.
>Anyone who wants to claim that the Terrans of Beam's Terro-human Future History
>had ~their~ origins on Mars must reconcile that claim with the facts of Beam's own
>ultimate choices for Paratime.
My
response is, those who want to claim that the Paratimers ~do not~ have
their origins on Mars are basing this conclusion, not on facts, but on
statements by Beam that are not at all explicit. They are vague, and in
addition can be reconciled with previous stories in which the
Paratimers ~are~ from Mars.
>Instead, the Paratimers [in “Gunpowder God”] originate from an "exhausted planet"
>--presumably First Level Terra--and the various Levels, Sectors, Sub-sectors and
>Timelines are explained as arising from "genetic variations" rather than being due
>to the different outcomes of disastrous attempts of ancient Martians to colonize Terra.
Yes,
the “exhausted planet” Tortha Karf mentions is First Level Terra. But
on Terra, the Paratime civilization simply repeated what their ancestors
did on Mars. Beam makes this explicit in “Time Crime”. “Twelve
millennia ago, the world of the First Level had been exhausted; having
used up the resources of their home planet, Mars, a hundred thousand
years before, the descendants of the population that had migrated across
space had repeated on the third planet the devastation of the fourth.”
(Paratime, p. 239)
The Old Martians exhausted the resources of
Mars, then their descendants exhausted the resources of Terra. This is
true of Home Time Line, and also other First Level sectors, like Abzar.
(See below.)
Now let’s look at that “genetic variations” angle.
I believe that’s a misquote; Tortha Karf says “Fourth Level was the big
one. The others had devolved from low-probability genetic accidents;
Fourth had been the maximum probability.” (PPC2, p. 12) Lord Kalvan of
Otherwhen says almost exactly the same thing. “Fourth Level was the big
one. The others had devolved from low-probability genetic accidents;
it was the maximum probability.” (LKO, p. 3)
But whether
variations or accidents, this is an ambiguous statement whose meaning is
unclear. You appear to believe that it means all the human races of
the Paratime levels evolve on Terra. But that is not necessarily so. I
think it simply has to do with the differing probabilities of success
resulting from the Martian attempt to colonize Terra, and how this
relates to the Martians’ adaptation to their new world.
Thus, for
First Level the genetic accident seems to be that their colony was a
“complete success, and colony fully established”. (Paratime, p. 53) The
chances of complete success are low, so this is a low-probability
outcome of the Martian attempt to colonize Terra. On First Level, the
Martians kept their highly advanced technology and civilization, and so
they never had to adapt to the natural environments of Terra. They
stayed the same; they did not evolve. Their only fight for survival
occurred when they exhausted the resources of the planet, after which
they fortuitously developed the Paratime transposition field, which
enabled them to save their civilization by exploiting the many Terras of
alternate probability.
On Fifth Level, the genetic accident
seems to be that the Martian colonization attempt was a “complete
failure—no human population established on this planet”. (ibid.). Here,
too, the chances of complete failure are low, so this is another
low-probability outcome of the Martian attempt to colonize Terra. In
the Fifth Level, no Martians make it to Terra alive, and the human race
on Mars slowly loses its fight for survival, finally becoming extinct.
Thus, they get no chance to adapt (evolve) to the natural environments
of Terra. Moreover, “on most of [Fifth Level Terra], nothing even
vaguely humanoid had appeared”. (LKO., p. 3) On the majority of
timelines, evolution on Terra had failed to produce a humanoid race
(another low-probability), so when the Paratime Martians of First Level
arrive, they find plenty of worlds completely empty of the Neanderthals
(and presumably any other primates), and therefore fully and easily
exploited.
This leaves the Second and Third Levels. Here, the
question is whether these genetic accidents happen to humans who have
evolved on Terra, or are they genetic accidents among Martians who
evolve after they arrive on Terra? And guess what—Piper actually
provided an example of the latter. In “Last Enemy”, the Second Level
Akor-Neb Sector is peopled by a dark-brown race “which evolved in its
present form about fifty thousand years ago”. (Paratime, p. 86) That
is, roughly 50,000 years ~after~ their Martian ancestors arrived on
Terra.
My sense is that First and Fifth Level have the fewest
timelines and sectors (lowest probability because they are the extreme
outcomes in which no evolution occurs), while Second and Third have more
timelines and sectors (yet still not that many), because a Martian
presence was solidly established. The Second and Third Level
civilizations are not as ancient as First Level, and moreover go through
dark age interludes. (PPC2, p. 12, Paratime, p. 86) So on their
timelines, ~some~ new races and ethnic groups evolve (like the
dark-skinned Malayoid Akor-Neb), but nothing close to the amount that
occurs on Fourth Level.
Fourth Level is the maximum probability
because only a handful of Martian colonists survived, and were reduced
to savagery. This means they had to start all over again as cavemen,
slowly increasing, spreading, adapting and evolving in different
climates, and eventually creating the wide variety of races and ethnic
groups seen on modern Terran timelines like our own.
Now, to get the full context of Beam’s statements on the Paratimers, let’s put them in chronological order.
1. Piper in “Police Operation” (1948): Paratimers are from Mars. (Paratime, p. 53)
2. Piper in “Last Enemy” (1950): Paratimers are from Mars. (ibid., pp. 85, 86)
3.
Piper in “Temple Trouble” (1951): Nothing mentioned one way or the
other, but no reason to believe Beam had changed his mind, because in
the next two stories they are still from Mars.
4. Piper in “Genesis” (1951): Paratimers are from Mars. (Worlds, pp. 147-170)
Parenthetically,
while “Genesis” is not explicitly named as a Paratime story by Beam,
there can be little doubt that it is the actual story of the Martian
colonization of Earth, mentioned in his first two Paratime tales. It
chronicles the creation of the Fourth Level, as John Carr notes in his
introduction to the story. “The Euro[po]-American Sector—our own
timeline—is located on…the Fourth Level. It is on this level that a
disaster occurred of such magnitude that all Martian technology and
civilization were completely lost. Most Fourth Level inhabitants
believe they are an indigenous race with a long history of savagery.
“Genesis” is the long-unavailable story of the disaster that struck
these Martian colonists, and their fight for survival.” (ibid., p. 147)
5. Piper in “Time Crime” (1955): Paratimers are from Mars. (Paratime, pp. 166, 239)
This
tale mainly takes place on Third Level Esaron Sector and Home Time
Line, but Beam also mentions the First Level Abzar Sector. To reiterate
from above, “Twelve millennia ago, the world of the First Level had
been exhausted; having used up the resources of their home planet, Mars,
a hundred thousand years before, the descendants of the population that
had migrated across space had repeated on the third planet the
devastation of the fourth.”
6. Piper in the Lord Kalvan stories
(1964-1965): Paratimers are from an “exhausted planet” (First Level
Terra; their earlier Martian origin is not mentioned), and Paratime
levels 1, 2, 3 and 5 are due to “low-probability genetic accidents” (a
vague statement which could mean a Terran origin, but which can be
explained by the complete success of First Level colonization (no
evolution), the complete failure on Fifth Level (no evolution), and the
qualified success of colonization on Second and Third (which includes
some evolution, as evidenced by the Second Level Akor-Neb people in
“Last Enemy”)).
Seen in this light, it is not at all certain
that Beam was moving away from a Martian origin in Paratime. He ~may~
have been, but it is much more likely that he wasn't, and was just being
vague. He had made the Martian origin explicit in 4 out of 5 Paratime
stories over 7 years. It was a firmly established feature of the
series, so that by the time he wrote the Lord Kalvan tales, Piper may
have felt it unnecessary to state it yet again.
In
sum, we have at least 4 definitive statements (including one full
story) that the Paratimers are from Mars, and one vague statement in
which they may or may not be from Mars. I do not believe this is enough
evidence to conclusively assert that Beam was making a change. So for
you to say “Piper: Paratimers are not from Mars” is inaccurate, since he
makes no explicit statement to that effect; and to add that “Beam
abandons the idea of the Paratimers originating on Mars” is a premature
assertion based on very little, and ambiguous, evidence. Evidence,
moreover, which as we’ve seen can be explained in the context of Piper’s
earlier tales, in which the Paratimers are unquestionably from Mars.
>"You know, it's never a mistake to take a second look at anything that everybody
>believes." - Rodney Maxwell (H. Beam Piper), "Graveyard of Dreams
Well,
you and Rodney/Beam are right. And after taking a second (more like
twentieth) look at what everybody believes about the Paratimers, I am
more convinced than ever. Piper’s “ultimate choice” for the Paratimers
is not absolutely certain, but to me, what is absolutely certain is that
there is insufficient evidence to justify abandoning his oft-repeated
view that they are from Mars.
John
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-23-2021
23:52 UT
|
~
Tim Tow wrote:
> I've going to get ahold of the two Carr anthologies now!
Hopefully you've seen my post now pointing to the Pequod Press editions (which are the editions I have).
> I had read the original version of Kalvan Kingmaker in
> the Alternatives collection and recall it had very little
> 1st level content, though it has been awhile.
Yes, the expanded version in ~Chronicles II~ adds "First Level" material which did not appear in the original version.
> I think Great King's War was also focused pretty wholly
> on Kalvan's timeline too, though it's been a long time.
Keep in mind that there was an expanded version of this too (from the original Ace paperback published in 1985):
https://www.pequodpress.com/book_info.php?id=PP_3
> By the way, the wikipedia article on Paratime still
> states the Martian origin of the 1st level.
Hopefully, whomever is editing the Wikipedia page will make it reflect the contradictions in Beam's actual work.
Down Styphon!
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 05-23-2021
23:27 UT
|
~
Previously, I wrote:
> Review: ~The Paratime Police Chronicles,
> Volume II~
>
[snip]
>
> https://www.amazon.ca/review/R12S7W3IZPWL5X/
It
turns out the Kalvan novellas are not included in the Amazon editions.
All Piper stories from both original collections have been removed from
the e-editions due to Amazon's new restrictions regarding public domain
material.
The hard cover edition I read (and reviewed), which
includes Beam's three Kalvan novellas, is available directly from Pequod
Press here:
https://www.pequodpress.com/book_info.php?id=PP_37
And,
of course, the first volume (which also has the Piper public domain
stories removed in the Amazon edition) is also available in hard cover
from Pequod Press:
https://www.pequodpress.com/book_info.php?id=PP_35
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~
~
|
Tim Tow 05-23-2021
14:15 UT
|
Are there plans for audio versions of these Paratime or other Piper sequels? Most of my book consumption is audio these days.
|
Tim Tow 05-23-2021
14:15 UT
|
Great review! I've going to get ahold of the two Carr anthologies now! I
had read the original version of Kalvan Kingmaker in the Alternatives
collection and recall it had very little 1st level content, though it
has been awhile. I think Great King's War was also focused pretty wholly
on Kalvan's timeline too, though it's been a long time.
By the way, the wikipedia article on Paratime still states the Martian origin of the 1st level. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paratime_series
S.M.
Stirling's 2003 Conquistador novel also postulates an alternative
Alexander timeline. Wonder if it's related to the Alexander Affair?
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-23-2021
01:56 UT
|
~
Review: ~The Paratime Police Chronicles, Volume II~
I've posted my review of John Carr's second Paratime Police anthology--which is called ~Paratime Wars~ there--at Amazon:
https://www.amazon.ca/review/R12S7W3IZPWL5X/
Enjoy!
David
--
"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." - Edward Chalmers
(H. Beam Piper), "The Edge of the Knife"
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-22-2021
05:14 UT
|
~
Tim Tow wrote:
> I haven't read many of the post-Piper sequels to
> Gunpowder God, but I was under the impression
> they were mostly centered on Kalvan and the
> Paratimers were not around much. Is that right?
No,
actually. Most of the sequels, as began in ~Great Kings' War~, have
substantial "Paratimers" plot threads, both on Kalvan's timeline and on
First Level.
> I thought that the Paratimers wanted to leave
> Kalvan alone and see what effect his presence
> had on the world as an experiment of sorts. If
> the Paratimers were aiding him, then that would
> sort of affect their experiment.
The
researchers definitely want to study the new timeline but Verkan Vall,
like a stalking ex-boyfriend, can't seem to give up his relationship
with Kalvan (or maybe it's just an excuse to go "out-time" to escape the
responsibilities of his Paratime Police position).
And then there are other First Level players with other agendas. . . .
> Interesting about the change from the Martian
> origins of Paratime as well as the elimination of
> the multiple Paratime timelines that was teased
> by the "shower scene" in one of the first Paratime
> stories...
Yeah,
that was a cutely risqué scene in "Police Operation"--especially when
you consider the audience reading it in 1948. But the "multiple First
Level timelines" concept has unmanageable dramatic implications once you
start thinking about it beyond that single, initial story (which is why
I think Beam himself never returned to the concept in subsequent
yarns).
> Are any of the Paratime sequels not about Kalvan?
Well,
the "Time Crime" expansion / mash-up, which takes Beam's original
novella, combines it with the first "Hartley" yarn and adds some new
material isn't about Kalvan.
But the "Wizard Traders" plot line
which is further developed there is increasingly expanded in the First
Level portions of the subsequent Kalvan sequels.
I think ~Down
Styphon~ is the only Kalvan sequel that's "all Kalvan" with ~Paratime
Trouble~ showing how Verkan was preoccupied elsewhere in Paratime (with
nothing on Kalvan's timeline in it).
And then you're into the
non-Kalvan yarns in the first ~Paratime Police Chronicles~ and, finally,
a conclusion, of sorts, to the First Level thread which began in "Time
Crime" in the second ~Chronicles~ volume.
Down Styphon!
David
--
"Why, you--You parapeeper!" -- Morvan Kara (H. Beam Piper), "Police Operation"
~
|
Tim Tow 05-21-2021
17:44 UT
|
Are any of the Paratime sequels not about Kalvan? I found the stories
about Paratime itself more interesting me than the actions on that
single timeline.
|
Tim Tow 05-21-2021
13:34 UT
|
I haven't read many of the post-Piper sequels to Gunpowder God, but I
was under the impression they were mostly centered on Kalvan and the
Paratimers were not around much. Is that right? I thought that the
Paratimers wanted to leave Kalvan alone and see what effect his presence
had on the world as an experiment of sorts. If the Paratimers were
aiding him, then that would sort of affect their experiment.
Interesting
about the change from the Martian origins of Paratime as well as the
elimination of the multiple Paratime timelines that was teased by the
"shower scene" in one of the first Paratime stories...
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-21-2021
01:35 UT
|
~
Piper: Paratimers are not from Mars
Been reading John Carr's
second ~The Paratime Police Chronicles~ anthology which begins with
Beam's three novellas which were combined into the novel ~Lord Kalvan of
Otherwhen~. What's interesting about the first novella, "Gunpowder
God," originally published in ~Analog~ in November 1964, is that Beam
abandons the idea of the Paratimers originating on Mars, originally
introduced fourteen years earlier in "Police Operation," first published
in ~Astounding~ in July 1948.
Instead, the Paratimers originate
from an "exhausted planet"--presumably First Level Terra--and the
various Levels, Sectors, Sub-sectors and Timelines are explained as
arising from "genetic variations" rather than being due to the different
outcomes of disastrous attempts of ancient Martians to colonize Terra.
While
the "Martian origins" theme also appeared in "Police Operation" when it
was reprinted in Carr's original Piper collection ~Paratime!~, the
subsequent "genetic variation" theme was also preserved in both the
original Ace publication of ~Lord Kalvan~ and in the Ace reprint issued
in the same period as ~Paratime!~. (There are nevertheless other
variations between the three novellas and the combined novel.)
(John
preserved these conflicting versions when he reprinted "Police
Operation" in ~Chronicles I~ and "Gunpowder God" in ~Chronicles II~.)
But
what's key here is that it seems ~Beam himself~ abandoned the "Martian
origins" of the First Level Paratime civilization by the time he was
writing "Gunpowder God" and ~Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen~.
Anyone
who wants to claim that the Terrans of Beam's Terro-human Future History
had ~their~ origins on Mars must reconcile that claim with the facts of
Beam's own ultimate choices for Paratime.
(And if you haven't
yet, get your copy of John's ~The Paratime Police Chronicles, Volume
II~. I'll be posting a review to Amazon once I've finished the
collection but the short answer will be: it's another great book, with
old favorites, an unpublished original from Beam, and new and
unpublished versions of earlier Paratime work from John.)
Down Styphon!
David
--
"You
know, it's never a mistake to take a second look at anything that
everybody believes." - Rodney Maxwell (H. Beam Piper), "Graveyard of
Dreams"
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-19-2021
00:45 UT
|
~
Bryce Suderow wrote:
> Has anyone created a map that shows the alternative
> world where Trooper Calvin Morrison Ended up in
> the novel “Lord Kalvan of otherwhen”.
Welcome, Bryce!
There are some great maps in most of John Carr's sequels to ~Lord Kalvan~, beginning with the expanded ~Great Kings' War~:
https://www.pequodpress.com/book_info.php?id=PP_3
And local Hostigos guide Dennis Frank put together some "real world" maps here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080720085141...rd_Kalvan_page.html
Down Styphon!
David
--
"Unsolved
mysteries are just as good as explanations, as long as they're
mysterious within a normal framework." - Verkan Vall (H. Beam Piper),
~Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen~
~
|
Bryce A. Suderow 05-18-2021
05:33 UT
|
Has anyone created a map that shows the alternative world where Trooper
Calvin Morrison Ended up in the novel “Lord Kalvan of otherwhen”.
Bryce
|
Dietmar Arthur Wehr 05-13-2021
01:43 UT
|
As promised, I'm letting everyone know that the first book in my new
Terro-human future history series, Phoenix Dawn, is now available
(ebook) for pre-order for publication on May 24th from Amazon. This
series will be taking Piper's future history in a new direction starting
at the end of the System States Alliance. So, it could be considered an
alternate universe Piper future history type of project. It's not a
sequel to any specific Piper novel and is not 'canon' but I think Piper
fans might like it's 'what if' point of view.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-09-2021
15:28 UT
|
~
From the Archives: "A Sunny Afternoon"
Twenty years ago this
month, the following recounting of the Los Angeles Times Festival of
Books was posted to the old PIPER-L mailing list.
---
Subject: A Sunny Afternoon
From: John Carr
Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 00:03:44 -0700
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, 2001
The LA Time Book Fair is a yearly bookseller's event held out in the open on
the UCLA campus. There are literally hundreds of booksellers, publishers
and magazines represented in outdoor booths-the Dangerous Visions stall was
number 441, and it wasn't even close to the end of the fair! Since the
Science Fiction Writers of America were in town for their annual Nebula
Awards Banquet, there were autograph sessions scheduled, with 3 and 4
writers at a time, all day Saturday and Sunday. My own autograph session
was scheduled for 2:00 to 3:00 on Sunday afternoon, April 29th, with David
Gerrold, Marc Levinthal and John Skipp.
The weather was close to perfect, a sunshiny 78 degrees, and my wife,
Victoria, and I arrived at the booth around 1:00 o'clock. It was the usual
chaos, Bob Sheckly had been scheduled at noon to sign autographs and still
hadn't shown up; half a dozen fans, arms loaded with books, were waiting
patiently for him to arrive. Apparently, Bob had checked in at eleven and
then disappeared. So the Dangerous Visions' people knew he was there, but
it was a huge fair and no one could find him.
We let Art Cover and Lydia, the owners, know we had arrived and quickly made
our exit. Our next destination was the food court to get drinks and then we
explored the Fair for an hour. There were booths with books catering to
every whim, taste and needs--some interesting, others just downright weird.
I saw JA Jance signing at the Women in Crime booth and a few self-proclaimed
'celebrities' I'd never heard of.
We returned to the Dangerous Visions' booth at 5 minutes to 2:00 and there
was good old Bob Sheckly, looking a little dazed and confused, signing
books. at 2:00 Art quickly cleared the decks and I took a seat between
David Gerrold, whom I hadn't seen in years, and Lee Killough, who was an
unscheduled guest. Lee's wheelchair bound so she took the end seat. David
and I had a nice chat and he told me about Ray Bradbury, who was one of the
speakers at the Nebula Banquets, and how he was healthier looking than he'd
expected. Ray's had some serious health problems in the last year. So
that was good news. There was already a long line of David Gerrold fans.
My first reader was already waiting with a copy of "Kalvan Kingmaker" and
the 'Analog' issue containing my article on H. Beam Piper. We had a nice
chat about the book and he asked when I was going to finish the Piper
autobiography.
I told him that I'd just recently made reestablished contact with the son of
an old friend of Beam's and that he'd recently (two weeks ago) sent me
another copy of their collected letters (Ferd and Beam's) that he's bound
together and tried to sell as a book about fifteen years ago. The last time
we'd corresponded in '96 he was still angry at Ace and at that time wouldn't
give me permission to quote from what he called "The Early Years" (very
reminiscent of Heinlein's "Grumbles From the Grave"). Last week, he not
only sent me another copy of "The Early Years" but gave me permission to use
it as source material. These letters are a major coup since they illuminate
a period of Beam's life (1926 to 1952) that were previously blank pages! So
I told him that "The Last Cavalier" was my next book project, after I
finished "Siege of Tarr-Hostigos." If "The Last Cavalier" does well enough,
I may even publish "The Early Years," if there was enough interest, as well.
During the hour at least a dozen readers come to the table, including one in
David Gerrold's line who overheard Mike Smith and myself talking about the
book and decided to buy one--after Victoria's glowing recommendation--on the
spot! Another reader, Trevin, was real helpful, telling me that he'd first
learned about the book from the ad in 'Locus,' and he made me promise there
wouldn't be another 15 year wait before "Siege of Tarr-Hostigos appeared! I
was explaining to him about the problems with Ace Books, when David
Hartwell, Senior Editor at Tor and former editor-and-chief of Pocket Books,
strode up. David listened and nodded his head when I told Trevin about
Ace's change of editorial direction in the late eighties--and how they
weren't interested in "Great Kings' War" despite very solid sales. I
explained that this was why I couldn't find another publisher for the
sequels, since no other publisher wanted to 'feather' Ace's next, so to
speak. So I'd decided to print them myself. David Hartwell looked over and
said, "I like what you're doing."
I was chatting with the next person in line, when I noticed several of the
other authors were looking at me strangely; then it hit me. Most of their
fans were waiting in line with stacks of books and their signings were as
ritualized, with very words exchanged, as baseball card signings! "My name
is (fill in the blank) and could you please sign these books." While here I
was speaking with my readers, not at them. And they were asking intelligent
questions about "Great Kings' War" and "Kalvan Kingmaker," including
discussions about characters, future books and minor plot points. One
reader wanted to know why Prince Ptosphes was still down in the dumps about
the Tenabra disaster, over a year later, and my answer was: that's what
Kalvan may think, but that's not what's bothering Ptosphes--more will be
revealed in "Siege of Tarr-Hostigos." This is what made my day! An
intelligent and informed readership: what more could any writer ask for?
Before I knew it the hour was up and there was Harry Turtledove coming over
to chat, since he was in the next writer's group. We shook hands and he
left to take his spot behind a veritable wall of books--I hadn't realized
how prolific Harry was these days! I had just enough time to exchange a few
words with John, who was just returning with one of the last copies of
"Kalvan Kingmaker," I signed his copy and was about to leave when Harry
signaled me to sit next him. We chatted for a while, as he signed books,
and then it was time to go. All and all, a most enjoyable afternoon.
John F. Carr
-----
John's original message is available here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080310041512...er-l&T=0&F=&S=&P=49
Cheers,
David
P.S.
If I might intrude with a personal note, if you've been expecting to
hear from me directly but haven't, please check your junk mail--or
please follow-up and let me know. I have the sense that some of my
Piper-related e-mail hasn't been making its way to its intended
recepients.
--
"I have heard it argued that fandom tends to make a
sort of cult of science fiction, restricted to a narrow circle of the
initiated. This I seriously question." - H. Beam Piper, "Double: Bill
Symposium" interview
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 05-02-2021
21:59 UT
|
~
John "Calidore" Anderson wrote:
> If you prefer to only consider information in the
> story as presented, that is your right. My own
> preferred method is broader in scope. I like to
> look at all the evidence available, not just what
> is contained in any individual story.
Just
as a general matter, John, we have very little evidence ~other~ than
what Beam left us in his yarns. Yes, there are some tidbits--the
~Pennsy~ interview, Weston's transcription of Beam's comments in "The
Future History" interview, his "Double: Bill Symposium" interview, and
what John Carr has reported in various places, much of which is based,
to be honest, upon second-hand sources (including a great deal from Mike
Knerr's unpublished--and, given what little we know about Knerr, often
unreliable--Piper "biography")--but these sources seldom give us many
details about Beam's narrative intentions ("The Future History" being
the most notable exception).
Oftentimes, it seems to me that what
you've referred to as this "other evidence" is often someone else's
~interpretation~ of what Beam intended. That may still be "evidence," of
a sort, but it is much less reliable than what we get from Beam in his
actual work and is often unsuited to resolving apparent contradictions
or unexplained circumstances in the work itself.
> 1. There are no superior aliens in Piper's
> Future History, or indeed any of his fiction.
This
is true. The fact remains that not only did Beam give us
"inter-fertile" Freyans but he also gave us Fuzzies whose biochemistry
seems to be ~alien~ to Zarathustra. We get no resolving explanations for
either of these bits of ~evidence~ from Beam but both would support a
"superior (ancient) aliens" hypothesis (as Tuning seems to have
concluded, for example). Others, besides Tuning, have had different
~interpretations~ of what these bits of evidence might suggest but those
interpretations themselves are not "evidence." They are simply
alternative opinions.
> So to postulate a superior alien race of "seeders",
> who place proto-humanity on Freya, Terra and Old
> Mars, goes against what we know of Piper's fiction.
Sorry,
but this simply isn't true. The "ancient aliens" hypothesis may
contradict others' ~interpretations~ of Beam's intentions, but it
doesn't contradict Beam's actual work. (It is true that there is no
~confirming~ information about the "ancient aliens" hypothesis in Beam's
yarns but that does not constitute a ~contradiction~.)
> When Piper has Professor Chalmers state that he
> can see "the history of the world, at least in
> general outline, for the next five thousand years"
> (Empire, p. 21), I have always felt that this
> meant Beam had written "a general outline" of his
> Future History by that time.
The
fact remains, John, that no ~evidence~ of such notes has ever been
produced. All we have are second-hand reports of them. (We also have,
largely thanks to John Carr's extensive research and reporting, many
second-hand reports which indicate that "Horace" Beam Piper enjoyed
misdirecting folks about his life, work and intentions.) You're
certainly entitled to continue to believe that Beam produced these
notes--whatever may have subsequently happened to them--but that belief
does not enable you to draw any reliable conclusions about what they may
have contained.
I have long admired your Piper-related work,
John. But often it seems you are too generous in treating others'
~interpretations~ of Beam's work as being on par with what we get from
Beam himself. The extrapolations you make from this move are often quite
creative but what makes them interesting is that creativity, not any
particular alignment with Beam's supposed intentions. I often find
myself wishing that you'd simply begin your many extrapolations with a
statement like, "Suppose, for a moment, that Future History Terro-humans
are descended from the ancient Martians, who also managed to settle
Freya," and went on from there with your creative work, rather than
trying to convince us that your supposition is somehow "what Beam
actually intended."
Your work can be appreciated without it being necessary that the connection to Beam's "intentions" be conclusively established.
Cheers,
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
~
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