The Vent and Rant Thread

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It's probably because for many sites, it's the same category: science fiction/fantasy. As if they're interchangeable. I don't read a lot of science fiction, to be honest. If I read it, it's mostly fantasy with science fiction elements (such as the later Shannara books, for example), or science fiction with strong fantasy elements.

There have been lots of discussions here and elsewhere about what the definitions of SF and fantasy are and where you draw the line between them. I don't believe you can, and can name half a dozen series offhand where the answer to "Is this SF or fantasy?" is "Yes".

Personally, I read both, and consider them to be subsets of an overall field of "fantastic fiction". But then, I recall seeing a case made years back that "mainstream" fiction was a subset of fantastic fiction, with a particular set of constraints applied to what made it the subset it was.

And whether something is SF or fantasy can change. The usual restriction placed on SF is that you can speculate on things we don't know, but are expected to get what we do know right. So Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books qualified as SF when he wrote them. Even then, his notions of Barsoom, and a Martian civilization of humanoids existing in a period when the seas had long since dried up and water was the scarce resource was seen as unlikely, but we hadn't been to Mars, and couldn't categorically state it wasn't possible. Now we have been to Mars through robot explorers, and know Barsoom is impossible, so the Mars books change from Science Fiction to Science Fantasy.

Another example is Henry Kuttner's Fury (and prequel novelette "Clash by Night".) Kuttner's story is set on Venus in one of the popular speculations when it was written - that under the cloud cover was a tropical environment. Kuttner's protagonists live in domed cities under the Venusian seas, because the surface is uninhabitable. Higher solar radiation has triggered extremes in evolution, and every surface life form on Venus is at all times actively attempting to kill and eat every other surface life form. The limited surface habitations belong to military mercenary companies, who are hired by cities having disputes to fight it out in naval engagements, with the winner in position to attack the loser's city, forcing settlement to occur on the winning city's terms.

Earth was destroyed in a nuclear accident, humanity on Venus is all that's left, use of atomic power is the one thing everyone agrees is unacceptable, and anyone who tries will live only as long as no one else discovers that they are trying.

The biology is nonsense, even by the standards of the period, but the story is affecting. But like Barsoom, we've been to Venus through machine intermediaries, and know the tropical climate and planet wide oceans aren't possible, so it, too, is now science fantasy.

I've never been a Shannara fan. I read the first book and passed on further volumes, but another case like that might be Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. It's normally considered pure fantasy. But the premise postulates that the Age in which WoT is set in one of an ongoing cycle, there are scattered memories of the Golden Age that preceded the one WoT is set in, and dim legends of one before that in which the nations of Merk and Mosc fought it out with lances of fire. In the Age in which WoT is set, there are legends that in the previous Age, man had traveled to other worlds, and the mystical One Power that is a critical element was the power source used to do it. So it's another candidate for "Is this fantasy or SF?" "Yes".
______
Dennis

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by issybird

Follow-on rant: I also resent the gender profiling on display here. My Goodreads friend whose reading dovetails closest to mine is a man. I bet they're not suggesting cowboy romances to him.

You know what really frosts my cookies?

1. Every time we get an email, wanting us to take on more debit (credit card), you know who it's addressed to? Mr. H, not Ms/Mrs. H. I'm the wage-earner, PERIOD.
2. Mr. H gets this spammy snailmails, telling him about how former servicemen can get this or that or buy this or that. Mr. H was 4F (severe allergies to a ziilion things, particularly plant life...oy.) during Viet Nam. Who served, during Viet Nam????? ME, not hubby.

The list goes bloody on. It's freaking endless. And profiling as shit.

Hitch

[Blossom]

Argh!!!! I've had it. It's warm today so I have the AC on what does he do? Puts the fan on his room blowing, yes blowing hot air out of the room combating my AC. He won't let me put a bigger fan on to blow cold air into his room to cool his room down.

He threw a tantrum like a two year old. "Me smash your things because I'm not getting my way!" (Sarcasm)

So he rather blow hot air into my room making the AC stay on longer running up the electric bill than doing it the right way which would cool both rooms down.
I tried to reason with him logically but it's impossible right now. So now he's irritable because he's hot and it's his own stupidly.

I told him off. Something I don't usually do.

Sent from my XT1528

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by issybird

What I don't understand is why they can't market to me books I might actually read.

Don't worry. I've bought a lot of books at Kobo in 2011-2014.

Since then, Kobo is sending me "Recommended for you", and the only things these e-mails contain, are books I already own TROUGH KOBO THEMSELVES. You'd think they'd at least pick books I *DON'T* own.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Don't worry. I've bought a lot of books at Kobo in 2011-2014.

Since then, Kobo is sending me "Recommended for you", and the only things these e-mails contain, are books I already own TROUGH KOBO THEMSELVES. You'd think they'd at least pick books I *DON'T* own.

They do the same thing to me. I made a new account when I got my Kobo ereader and it still happens.

Sent from my XT1528

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

There have been lots of discussions here and elsewhere about what the definitions of SF and fantasy are and where you draw the line between them. I don't believe you can, and can name half a dozen series offhand where the answer to "Is this SF or fantasy?" is "Yes".

You know, in my former life (when I was reviewing books commercially, as something to do recreationally, between building gigs), I came to claim a correspondence-type acquaintance with Anne McCaffrey. As many readers of both sci-fi and fantasy know, if you call her Pern series "fantasy," she'll rip you a new one. And I mean, RIP YOU.

(n.b.: if it's not obvious, I love Anne. She's a bloody hoot.)

Personally, I read both, and consider them to be subsets of an overall field of "fantastic fiction". But then, I recall seeing a case made years back that "mainstream" fiction was a subset of fantastic fiction, with a particular set of constraints applied to what made it the subset it was.

Dennis, my voracious reader sweetie, do you happen to remember where you read that? I'd be interested in reading that myself. It's an interesting construct argument.

And whether something is SF or fantasy can change. The usual restriction placed on SF is that you can speculate on things we don't know, but are expected to get what we do know right. So Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books qualified as SF when he wrote them. Even then, his notions of Barsoom, and a Martian civilization of humanoids existing in a period when the seas had long since dried up and water was the scarce resource was seen as unlikely, but we hadn't been to Mars, and couldn't categorically state it wasn't possible. Now we have been to Mars through robot explorers, and know Barsoom is impossible, so the Mars books change from Science Fiction to Science Fantasy.

To me, in many ways, this is what's great about sci-fi. Someday, Blade Runner (DADOES) will be looked on in large part as not-sci-fi. (Okay...I don't necessarily mean the humanoid robots. I mean the sort of dismal, over-crowded megacity with a true melting pot with various sorts of patois spoken).

<snippage>

The biology is nonsense, even by the standards of the period, but the story is affecting. But like Barsoom, we've been to Venus through machine intermediaries, and know the tropical climate and planet wide oceans aren't possible, so it, too, is now science fantasy.

Hmmm. Do you think that's really so? That just because time wipes out the possibility, it's regaled to fantasy? Isn't the general idea of sci-fi that the basis of whatever "magical" thing happens has to have some (some) basis in a scientific explanation? That someone built something from someone who engineered it, rather than waving the ubiquitous magic wand and saying "Abracadabraliamus!" No? I mean...Shannara is patently fantasy, like LOTR, its...inspiration. They have magical critters (elves) dwarves, Trolls, wizards/druids (who cast spells), and so on. Pern, on the other hand, has "magical" dragons that can teleport...but the earliest settlers genetically created them, from indigent flying lizards. Genetic engineering=Sci Fi, rather than fantasy (as in, "oh, yeah, where did them teleporting flying fire-breathing lizards come from in the first damn place?")

Just because we now KNOW that the scenario on Venus is impossible, does that make it fantasy?

I've never been a Shannara fan. I read the first book and passed on further volumes, but another case like that might be Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. It's normally considered pure fantasy. But the premise postulates that the Age in which WoT is set in one of an ongoing cycle, there are scattered memories of the Golden Age that preceded the one WoT is set in, and dim legends of one before that in which the nations of Merk and Mosc fought it out with lances of fire. In the Age in which WoT is set, there are legends that in the previous Age, man had traveled to other worlds, and the mystical One Power that is a critical element was the power source used to do it. So it's another candidate for "Is this fantasy or SF?" "Yes".
______
Dennis

As does Shannara, as it happens. So, you can argue that Shannara has magic-but the past of same comes from a destroyed world. At one point, one of the bands of questers runs across a ruined city of skyscrapers. The planet is inarguably a post-apocalyptic Earth. Nonetheless, the elves and the Druid/wizards have "powers" of a sort. (At one point, a tree is communicating with an elf, telepathically. Call me a cynic, but to me, that's pure old magical fantasy, not some scientific experiment run amok and gone awry.)

To what category, then, belongs steampunk? (One of my faves, fwiw). We are largely talking science fiction, of course; that's a fundamental part of steampunk, are the creative devices and inventions and weaponry--but it's set in an alternate reality, which is always (pretty much) fantasy.

It's an interesting discussion! (Albeit, not very ranty.)

Hitch

[Rumpelteazer]

Having finished the excellent Department Q series I'm in the mood for some more Scandinavian crime. I came across the Inspector van Veeteren series, which were originally published between 1993 and 2003. The English translations were published between 2006 and 2014. What I hate about translations is that they are often published out of order. This series they translated first book 2, then book 3 and finally book 1, before publishing the rest of the series in the right order.

Who in their right mind would think "let's translate this series to English, let's start with book 3". Most series have a storyline that spans multiple books (usually the personal life of the main characters), if not the full series and then there is character development. Sure, it's probably because they think another book than the first will grab the attention of potential readers more than the first in the series, but still.

My local book store has a similar tendency to stock most books of a popular series, except the first couple of books. You would think they make sure they will have book 1 in stock for people starting with the series. To top it off, when you want to order the first book they give you a hard time because it can take a "long while" (usually about a week) before they will receive it (in other words, they don't trust you to pick it up). This is one of the main reasons why I switched to ebooks; no waiting and no nagging.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

You know, in my former life (when I was reviewing books commercially, as something to do recreationally, between building gigs), I came to claim a correspondence-type acquaintance with Anne McCaffrey. As many readers of both sci-fi and fantasy know, if you call her Pern series "fantasy," she'll rip you a new one. And I mean, RIP YOU.

The problem is that while Pern is SF - it's a "lost colony", whose human inhabitants got there by starship, and the telepathic dragons are products of genetic engineering on the indigenous fire lizards - it got more popular and acquired greater readership as it went on. People coming in mid-series don't know the back story, see a medieval social structure and fire breathing dragons, and say "Aha! Fantasy!" because it has the fantasy tropes.

The confusion is understandable.

(n.b.: if it's not obvious, I love Anne. She's a bloody hoot.)

Well, was a hoot. She died in November 2011.

I knew her, back when. She lived on the East Coast and attended East Coast SF conventions before emigrating to Ireland.

Dennis, my voracious reader sweetie, do you happen to remember where you read that? I'd be interested in reading that myself. It's an interesting construct argument.

The notion that mainstream fiction was a subset of fantastic fiction was proposed by the late John W. Campbell, SF writer and long time editor of Astounding/Analog magazine.

But John loved to argue, and was known to make outrageous statements that would provoke an argument. That was one of them.

I'll have to poke around and see if I can find the original statement.

To me, in many ways, this is what's great about sci-fi. Someday, Blade Runner (DADOES) will be looked on in large part as not-sci-fi. (Okay...I don't necessarily mean the humanoid robots. I mean the sort of dismal, over-crowded megacity with a true melting pot with various sorts of patois spoken).

The latter is a very common trope in SF.

Bill Gibson's "Sprawl" series (Neouromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive), is set is set in the Sprawl, a term applied to the result when Boston through Washington DC expanded to become one huge metropolis covering a good bit of the East Coast.

Robert Silverberg's "The Tower of Glass" shares a concept with Bladerunner - androids created to be slaves who are unhappy about their status. And his The World Inside (a collection of related novellas) takes place in a world where population growth was encouraged, and most people live in titanic megascrapers holding millions of inhabitants in each to leave maximum available land on which to grow food.

Alfred Bester had the notion of a common vernacular called Black Spanglish in a later novel (The Computer Connection, I believe) where you get dialogue like "gemmum, ah gone esplain any pagunta you ax"

Hmmm. Do you think that's really so? That just because time wipes out the possibility, it's regaled to fantasy? Isn't the general idea of sci-fi that the basis of whatever "magical" thing happens has to have some (some) basis in a scientific explanation? That someone built something from someone who engineered it, rather than waving the ubiquitous magic wand and saying "Abracadabraliamus!" No? I mean...Shannara is patently fantasy, like LOTR, its...inspiration. They have magical critters (elves) dwarves, Trolls, wizards/druids (who cast spells), and so on. Pern, on the other hand, has "magical" dragons that can teleport...but the earliest settlers genetically created them, from indigent flying lizards. Genetic engineering=Sci Fi, rather than fantasy (as in, "oh, yeah, where did them teleporting flying fire-breathing lizards come from in the first damn place?")

Just because we now KNOW that the scenario on Venus is impossible, does that make it fantasy?

See my earlier comments. As I said, the essence of SF is that you can speculate all you want about what we don't know, but must get what we do know right. SF must be at least possible.

As our knowledge increases and what we do know expands, a lot of what was considered possible when written we know to be impossible now. The general descriptor for stories we know aren't possible but enjoy anyway is fantasy.

Science Fiction (might be possible) becomes Science Fantasy (known to be impossible, but still a fun story.)

As does Shannara, as it happens. So, you can argue that Shannara has magic-but the past of same comes from a destroyed world. At one point, one of the bands of questers runs across a ruined city of skyscrapers. The planet is inarguably a post-apocalyptic Earth. Nonetheless, the elves and the Druid/wizards have "powers" of a sort. (At one point, a tree is communicating with an elf, telepathically. Call me a cynic, but to me, that's pure old magical fantasy, not some scientific experiment run amok and gone awry.)[/quote
Which is why I might call Shannara Scoence Fantasy.

Which makes Shanarra an example of stuff moving the other way, starting as outright fantasy but moving into the grey area where the sub-genres intersect. Because they do intersect, such movement is possible.

And the notion of such changes is another common trope. Fred Saberhagen's "Empire of the East" trilogy is is in a post apocalyptic world where the cause of the apocalypse was an event that altered natural law and permitted both science and magic to operate.

To what category, then, belongs steampunk? (One of my faves, fwiw). We are largely talking science fiction, of course; that's a fundamental part of steampunk, are the creative devices and inventions and weaponry--but it's set in an alternate reality, which is always (pretty much) fantasy.

Actually, alternate realities are SF staples, and the sub-genre of "alternate history" has arguably become an independent genre of it's own. You get things like Robert Harris's Fatherland, published as a mystery, where a German police inspector investigating a murder in contemporary Berlin gets unexpected interference from another government agency that wishes to take over the case.

But the contemporary Germany in which it is set is in an alternate time line where the Third Reich won in Europe, Germany dominates the continent, and the interfering agency is the Gestapo.

Steampunk is also becoming established as an independent genre. The underlying premise is that mechanical computing via descendants of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine and Analytical engine mix with steam power to fuel a highly developed technological society that developed on rather different lines than our own. It's all over the map, too, with things like Jay Lake's Escapement, set in a world where out solar system is (and is known to be by the inhabitants) an immense clockwork Orrery.

So you can now find Steampunk SF and Steampunk Fantasy, with steam power and mechanical calculating devices the common elements.
______
Dennis

[bookiebabe]

Ok, I'm on verge of throwing brand new bloody Asus Zenpad against wall, and hoping its microchips esplode in a blaze of glory that takes out me, my laptop, and the last 3 days of aggravation desperately trying to get my bloody books in huge Calibre library to show up as book covers on "My Shelf" in either Calibre Companion, Moon+Reader Pro, or FB Reader Premium.

Setting up a device for enjoyment should not be akin to having root canal surgery. Sheesh!

Extreme frustrations... and yes, I can see books by author in 'Calibre folder' format, but I don't want to have to search by author. If I was ok searching by author, I wouldn't have spent equivalent of year of my life updating Calibre metadata with series, cover, description etc. Graaaargh!!!

Ok, vent over. I shall no go curl up with vintage paper style book and decompress for a bit.

And huge thanks to montsnmags for evil bookseller rant on first page of thread. Laughed so hard I made rather un-ladylike snorting noise.

Rachel

[bookiebabe]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Thanks. I'm going to get some baking soda or do you know a better cleaner that removes charred blacken gunk from a stove burner?

We need a good things/happy thread. I'm just full of happiness today. Money came in today from unexpected source. Rent is paid and food money left over.

It feels as the weight of a brick wall has been lifted from my shoulders. I've been crying happy tears for the past few hours.

Sent from my XT1528

+1 on the baking soda paste... wipe off burner with damp sponge, sprinkle on baking soda, leave for a bit. Remove with sponge... if still evil gunked on mess, u may have to get nuclear with the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser thing (don't spend a fortune on them... can get at 99c store)... those are brilliant. My only worry is that combo of Magic Eraser and baking soda may score your metal, so if baking soda doesnt work I'd try Magic Eraser with plain water, before trying it with baking soda paste.

And I'm right there with ya on the 'please, please God send me a financial solution'.... sending good thoughts for us both. And yay! Whatever fortune fell unexpectedly from sky for you, at least you can breathe easy for few weeks. That is a GOOD feeling.

rachel

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by bookiebabe

Ok, I'm on verge of throwing brand new bloody Asus Zenpad against wall, and hoping its microchips esplode in a blaze of glory that takes out me, my laptop, and the last 3 days of aggravation desperately trying to get my bloody books in huge Calibre library to show up as book covers on "My Shelf" in either Calibre Companion, Moon+Reader Pro, or FB Reader Premium.

How did you get them onto the Zenpad?

My primary eBook viewer device at the moment is an HP Slate 7 4200en 7" tablet running Android 4.2 Jellybean (and it will stay there because HP isn't offering updates for this device.)

My eBook are on a microSD card, and I use a USB cable to connect to the desktop where Calibre is to transfer volumes, and use Calibre to do the transfer. I looked at Moon Reader+, but prefer FBReader, and use the Pro version.

My eBook cover show up fine in FBReader's Bookshelf view, but I prefer the Classic interface. Populating the Bookshelf view simply takes too long, and it's faster and easier to select from the Classic menu. (I have several thousand books on device, which affects the speed at which the Bookshelf display populates. It's easier and faster for me to select by author, title, series, or tags.)

I assume you have FBReader configured to know where to look for your books. You may need to tell it to rescan to pick them up and populate the Bookshelf display.

Setting up a device for enjoyment should not be akin to having root canal surgery. Sheesh!

I've had root canals. Fortunately, they were not nearly as unpleasant as they could have been.

Getting various Android tablets working as desired has provided a few challenges.

Extreme frustrations... and yes, I can see books by author in 'Calibre folder' format, but I don't want to have to search by author. If I was ok searching by author, I wouldn't have spent equivalent of year of my life updating Calibre metadata with series, cover, description etc. Graaaargh!!!

FBReader here picks up on the Calibre provided metadata, as long as it knows where to look for the transferred books.
______
Dennis

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

The problem is that while Pern is SF - it's a "lost colony", whose human inhabitants got there by starship, and the telepathic dragons are products of genetic engineering on the indigenous fire lizards - it got more popular and acquired greater readership as it went on. People coming in mid-series don't know the back story, see a medieval social structure and fire breathing dragons, and say "Aha! Fantasy!" because it has the fantasy tropes.

The confusion is understandable.


Well, was a hoot. She died in November 2011.

Yes, sorry, I should have used the past tense, but...well. You know.

About Pern, however--I have to disagree with that one. Actually, she did NOT interject genetic engineering until WELL into the series. If you read the series, as it was originally published, they were pretty damn magical for hell...7, 8 books? The first remotely science-y thing she did was in Moreta (vaccines, created the old way.). Other than that, all feudal, all fantasy. Magical dragons. Nothing like the Brains and the Brawns, for example, in her B&B ships in...To Ride Pegasus, I think, was the first one in that series? The B&B's weren't in that one...crap. Nope. Wrong genesis book. That one went on to be the telepaths in space. What was the name of the first B&B ship book? Anyone remember? (Sorry for dipsy memory; I think I bought that book second-hand...shit. God, 44 years ago? URHG! I think the cover on my [badly-beat-up] paperback still shows one of those 1950's-type ships, you know, the "stilettos" with the 3 fins as stabilizers. Hilarious.)

If you come to them now, of course, you can read them in the order in which they would have "taken place," but honestly....I think that takes such an element of surprise away from the series. Not to mention, such a great reveal, for so many things. By the time you get to "All the Weyrs of Pern," if you've read them in the order in which they have been published, you are dying to find out how the hell those dragons came to be. At least, long ago and far away, I was. I think reading them in the "chrono" order would really ruin huge bits. But, that's just my opinion.

I knew her, back when. She lived on the East Coast and attended East Coast SF conventions before emigrating to Ireland.

We had some things in common. Both had horses (of a particular Irish kind, which weren't ubiquitous, like Thoroughbreds) and a few other things. It was just one of those things. I really, really liked her. Of course...she didn't pull her punches, either.

The notion that mainstream fiction was a subset of fantastic fiction was proposed by the late John W. Campbell, SF writer and long time editor of Astounding/Analog magazine.

Of course it was. Shoulda known.

But John loved to argue, and was known to make outrageous statements that would provoke an argument. That was one of them.

a la Rex Stout's "Watson was a woman" address. ha!

I'll have to poke around and see if I can find the original statement.

I'd love that, thanks. I owe you a note, anyway.

The latter is a very common trope in SF.

Bill Gibson's "Sprawl" series (Neouromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive), is set is set in the Sprawl, a term applied to the result when Boston through Washington DC expanded to become one huge metropolis covering a good bit of the East Coast.

Yeah, I confess that typically, I'm not wild about dystopian fiction. I think I'm cynical enough, thanks.

Robert Silverberg's "The Tower of Glass" shares a concept with Bladerunner - androids created to be slaves who are unhappy about their status.

Isn't everyone?

And his The World Inside (a collection of related novellas) takes place in a world where population growth was encouraged, and most people live in titanic megascrapers holding millions of inhabitants in each to leave maximum available land on which to grow food.

Is it me, or is that utterly moronic?

Alfred Bester had the notion of a common vernacular called Black Spanglish in a later novel (The Computer Connection, I believe) where you get dialogue like "gemmum, ah gone esplain any pagunta you ax"

I gemmum du. Me eight dat spanglish.

See my earlier comments. As I said, the essence of SF is that you can speculate all you want about what we don't know, but must get what we do know right. SF must be at least possible.

As our knowledge increases and what we do know expands, a lot of what was considered possible when written we know to be impossible now. The general descriptor for stories we know aren't possible but enjoy anyway is fantasy.

To me, it seems rather sad, really. I mean...think of Verne. Surely, he patently wrote science fiction. Not fantasy as we think of it now. Today, he is simply Fantasy. Of course, this is surely true of much fiction, pulp or otherwise; the passage of time (and acquisition of knowledge) jettisons much of the value of the piece--in terms of the delight of fresh eyes to it, I mean. I'm pretty sure that young men today aren't reveling in Journey to the Center of the Earth, eh? Now it's hardly even fantasy. Sad.

Science Fiction (might be possible) becomes Science Fantasy (known to be impossible, but still a fun story.)


Which makes Shanarra an example of stuff moving the other way, starting as outright fantasy but moving into the grey area where the sub-genres intersect. Because they do intersect, such movement is possible.

Agreed.

And the notion of such changes is another common trope. Fred Saberhagen's "Empire of the East" trilogy is is in a post apocalyptic world where the cause of the apocalypse was an event that altered natural law and permitted both science and magic to operate.

Actually, alternate realities are SF staples, and the sub-genre of "alternate history" has arguably become an independent genre of it's own. You get things like Robert Harris's Fatherland, published as a mystery, where a German police inspector investigating a murder in contemporary Berlin gets unexpected interference from another government agency that wishes to take over the case.

But the contemporary Germany in which it is set is in an alternate time line where the Third Reich won in Europe, Germany dominates the continent, and the interfering agency is the Gestapo.

Steampunk is also becoming established as an independent genre. The underlying premise is that mechanical computing via descendants of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine and Analytical engine mix with steam power to fuel a highly developed technological society that developed on rather different lines than our own. It's all over the map, too, with things like Jay Lake's Escapement, set in a world where out solar system is (and is known to be by the inhabitants) an immense clockwork Orrery.

So you can now find Steampunk SF and Steampunk Fantasy, with steam power and mechanical calculating devices the common elements.
______
Dennis

And has migrated over to Romance, god help us all. I bought a book that I mistakenly thought was Steampunk--well, it was, inarguably, but then it turned into Romance. Who knew?

There you go, an official rant. Ladies of a certain disposition, keep your romance outta my damn Steampunk!

Hitch

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by bookiebabe

Ok, I'm on verge of throwing brand new bloody Asus Zenpad against wall, and hoping its microchips esplode in a blaze of glory that takes out me, my laptop,

So, not really Zen then?

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Alfred Bester had the notion of a common vernacular called Black Spanglish in a later novel (The Computer Connection, I believe) where you get dialogue like "gemmum, ah gone esplain any pagunta you ax"

Originally Posted by Hitch

I gemmum du. Me eight dat spanglish.

Excuse, but Spanglish is the name we give in Spain to a poor mix of Spanish and English

Originally Posted by Hitch

And has migrated over to Romance, god help us all. I bought a book that I mistakenly thought was Steampunk--well, it was, inarguably, but then it turned into Romance. Who knew?

There you go, an official rant. Ladies of a certain disposition, keep your romance outta my damn Steampunk!

You're sooooooo late, sorry

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

About Pern, however--I have to disagree with that one. Actually, she did NOT interject genetic engineering until WELL into the series. If you read the series, as it was originally published, they were pretty damn magical for hell...7, 8 books?

I began reading the Pern stories when the earliest ones got serialized in Analog Magazine back when John W. Campbell was still the editor. Analog is the bastion of "hard" science fiction. Campbell had edited fantasy, producing the short-lived Unknown Worlds magazine as a companion to Astounding in the 40's, but that wasn't what Analog published.

You may be right about the sequence, which makes Anne's whapping of anyone who called it fantasy even more curious. How were the readers to know better, if she didn't get around to explaining how Pern came about till that late in the process?

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

(Mind you, Anne's "science" usually consisted of hand waving and talking fast. Anne was essentially a romance writer, but dressed her work in SF and fantasy trappings.)

a la Rex Stout's "Watson was a woman" address. ha!

Want a better one? Lester Del Rey presented a paper at a Tolkien Society conference on Lord of the Rings, where he said that history was written by the victors, Merry and Pippin had edited the Red Book of Westmarch, and Gollum had not died in Mount Doom when the ring was destroyed, but had instead survived and passed into the Wast, as the last of the Ringbearers.

You may imagine the response.

Yeah, I confess that typically, I'm not wild about dystopian fiction. I think I'm cynical enough, thanks.

It wasn't as dystopian as might be. The neat bit about it was what Gibson didn't say. Like we don't discover for a while that the political entities known as the United States of America and the Soviet Union no longer exist as such, and other things have filled the vacuum left behind.

A bit more dystopian take is Walter John William's Hardwired, in which Earth has lost a conflict with orbital habitats and the former United States is balkanized and mostly under external control. (Note to all: he who holds the high ground wins. Local opposition was shot out of the sky before it could reach orbital height to shoot back.)

Is it me, or is that utterly moronic?

Not really. Silverberg accepted a challenge to portray a world in which in which population growth was encouraged no matter what, and depicted a possible society that might result. (I don't recall who else also got the challenge.)

The publishing sequence was fascinating. The novelettes that became The World Inside were published in Galaxy Magazine when Eljer Jacobsen was editor. Galaxy serialized two of Silverberg's novels (Nightwings and Downward to the Earth) back to back and ran the novelettes at the same time. I got a chance to ask him about the "All Silverberg, all the time" sequence, and he explained that Eljer was supposed to buy another novel to run between the pair of his. But Robert A. Heinlein's "I Will Fear No Evil" became available for serialization, and had to be run before the impending Putnam hardcover release, so...

(Heinlein had come to a dramatic parting of the ways with John W. Campbell, and would no longer submit to him.)

A different take was Lester Del Rey's The Eleventh Commandment, in which a researcher from a human Mars colony comes to Earth, and discovers a hideously over populated world ruled by a descendant of the Catholic Church. Despite the problems, the Church still encourages people to be fruitful and multiply. At the end of the book, we discover the Church has an actual good reason for doing so.

To me, it seems rather sad, really. I mean...think of Verne. Surely, he patently wrote science fiction. Not fantasy as we think of it now. Today, he is simply Fantasy. Of course, this is surely true of much fiction, pulp or otherwise; the passage of time (and acquisition of knowledge) jettisons much of the value of the piece--in terms of the delight of fresh eyes to it, I mean. I'm pretty sure that young men today aren't reveling in Journey to the Center of the Earth, eh? Now it's hardly even fantasy. Sad.

Verne thought he was writing adventure stories for boys. What we think of as SF didn't even have a name then. And Verne was careful to limit himself to one wonder per story, and make his science something theoretical doable by the standards of his day. (Which is why the travelers in "From the Earth to the Moon" are shot out of a giant cannon to make the rip.)

Verne was contemporaneous with H. G. Wells, and commented on Well's lack of scientific rigor. "An anti-gravity paint? Where is this marvelous material? Let him produce it!"

And has migrated over to Romance, god help us all. I bought a book that I mistakenly thought was Steampunk--well, it was, inarguably, but then it turned into Romance. Who knew?

Everything has migrated to Romance. You name it, and there's a Romance crossover featuring it.

There you go, an official rant. Ladies of a certain disposition, keep your romance outta my damn Steampunk!

Good luck with that.
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Dennis