[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Well, I'm a little fuzzy on the details. It's the sort of mental self-defense move that someone who has to walk past the local Scientology centre in order to get to the central downtown library branch develops over time.

The story is that Hubbard created Dianetics in part to win a bet that he could con John Campbell. Campbell firmly believed there were all sorts of promising things that had been ignored or suppressed by the military/industrial establishment, and gave space to various of them, like the Dean Drive, in the pages of Astounding/Analog. Among other things, Hubbard told Campbell Dianetics could cure his chronic sinusitis. Campbell published his first article on Dianetics, and things took off from there.

Hubbard had also opined that a good way to get rich quick was to found a religion, and certainly proved his point.

I worked for a company owned and operated by Scientologists for a while. It was an interesting experience.

Thanks for the info on Verne and Wells. I've been starting the excellent annotated Barnes &Noble Classics versions with the essays and explanatory notes that B&N have offered as freebies recently, but I haven't dared read too much of the introductory material, because they have spoilers like whoa for people who haven't yet finished the story.

Verne was asked about Wells' work in an interview and was dismissive. Verne was careful to have his tales contain one scientific gimmick per story, and insisted that it be possible given what they knew at the time. His comment on Wells' invention of Cavourite, which got his protagonists to the Moon was "An anti-gravity paint? C'est tres joli pas. But where is this miraculous substance? Let him produce it!"

My personal favourite is finding a copy of Tintin in the Congo (version francophone) filed in with the younger childrens' books in the library.

Ahahahaha… even if the librarians who did that didn't speak French (unlikely, given the size and breadth of the French collection at that branch), a simple flipthrough of the comic would have shown violence and outdated racial stereotypes they certainly should have thought twice about shelving in the kiddie section.

It's not clear where else they might have shelved it. But I suspect they did not flip through it. It was, after all, a comic strip.

I've been meaning to read those. MZB mentioned it in one of her many anthologies and it always sounded very interesting to me. Plus, I not only love "sufficiently advanced technology" and its corollary, I'm also a sucker for alternate history.

They're a lot of fun. And if you read mysteries, too, you'll be tickled by _Too Many Magicians_, in which Darcy and Master Sean must deal with a thinly disguised Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

I did read Kennealy at one point. Unfortunately, her later works seem to have been a way of working out her personal issues via writing therapy, but the first six Keltiad books (the Aeron and Arthur trilogies) are still fairly decently entertaining and I quite liked them, despite a touch of Mary Sue-ness on both Aeron and Arthur's parts and that handwaviness on the tech/tradition mix that you mentioned.

I lost track after about the first six myself. These days, she's writing mysteries I haven't gotten to. The biggest stickler for me was the assertion that the star faring nations all agreed that combat must be mano a mano, and things like artillery could only be used against fixed fortifications, so she could have naked, blue painted, sword wielding Fian warriors charging into battle with the foe after being delivered by starship. I thought that agreement would last about as long as it took for one side or the other to realize they were about to be defeated, and decide to ignore the rules.

Well, I can see I'll have to at least check these out. Polyamory is yet another one of my fictional attractors. Thank you, Mr. Heinlein, for that and my redhead fetish.

I actually had a minor peeve over that. Silence spends a fair bit of time anxious about how she will deal with having two husbands when the idea of marrying them comes up, but it jumps from anxiety to all is well with no look at how she does come to terms with it. Melissa Scott is gay, and in a committed long term relationship with another woman. She once mentioned that if it wasn't otherwise specified, you could assume characters in her books were gay. It explained why Scott skipped over the details of exactly how Silence came to terms with having two husbands...

Sounds awesome. This was another one I was considering as a maybe at Baen's Webscriptions when I finally set a proper account up, and I'm still divided on whether to get the single-author bundle, or spend a little more and get the publisher monthly bundle and the cost of a couple of works I'm probably not really going to be interested in but might want to try anyway.

However it works out, I'll definitely have to get these. AH, near-future, sufficiently advanced magic, not-entirely-EU-based-cultural-backdrop, and sleuthing by agents meant to contain magical incursions?

The only way it could be better would be if the Chens were in an open relationship with hot, competent, gunslinging mathematical redheads and there was some time travel to an Important Historical Event, But Not As We Know It, Jim, involved. Also, dragons. Preferably fully intelligent, independent talking ones not being ridden by empathically bonded riders.

Chen isn't involved in an open relationship - being married to a demon is quite enough complexity. But there are dragons in the most recent book, _Precious Dragon_. Intelligent and talking. Lots of them.

Disclaimer: Liz is a friend, and we know lots of folks in common. But I recommend her because her work is good. That fact that I know her personally and can recommend work by a friend is a fringe benefit

Thanks so much for the recommendations. And for anyone else who was looking for more tech/magic mixes, a couple of the more entertaining ones that are probably still available:

Diane Duane's Wizard series. Two versions, YA with teens, and "adult" with cats. The magic system exists in our "real" world perfectly alongside tech, and is treated in a mostly scientific manner, with current physics-grounded explanations for much of it.

Margaret Ball's Mathemagics, and the accompanying stories in the Esther Friesner-edited Chicks in Chainmail anthologies, all from Baen. Math is the basis of spells on a parallel traditionally clichéd sword-and-sorcery world, and solving equations etc. produces magical effects. Intentionally silly, but fun stuff.

As a special bonus, Ball is a mathematician herself, and titles the chapters of The Novel with little in-jokes.

<smile> Esther is another old friend, and has been having a ball doing the Chicks anthologies. Seconded!
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Dennis