Collection of Internet

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Collection of Internet / Collection of Internet.iso / faq / rec / sf / written_ < prev

Wrap

Internet Message Format | 1994-03-31 | 40.3 KB

Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!hookup!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!news1.digex.net!digex.net!not-for-mail From: burchard@access1.digex.net (Laura Burchard) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.misc,news.answers,rec.answers Subject: rec.arts.sf.written FAQ Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 30 Mar 1994 22:45:58 -0500 Organization: YMBK Lines: 975 Approved: news-answer-request@mit.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <2ndh1m$f4t@access1.digex.net> Reply-To: burchard@digex.net NNTP-Posting-Host: access1.digex.net Keywords: FAQ, sf, answers Cc: Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu rec.arts.sf.written:44318 rec.arts.sf.misc:4475 news.answers:17018 rec.answers:4678 Archive-name: sf/written-intro Last updated: 28 Mar 1993 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the frequently asked questions (FAQ) list for rec.arts.sf.written. It is maintained by Laura Burchard (burchard@digex.net). Improvements to this list are welcome. Table of Contents 0. Introduction 1. Story identification requests 2. Spoilers 3. Author's name in the header 4. Common abbreviations 5. What books or stories are about X? 6. What books have been written by author X? 7. Does anyone want to talk about X? 8. Defining Science Fiction and/or Fantasy 9. Dividing line between Science Fiction and Fantasy 10. Science Fiction Archives * 11. List of the Hugo, Nebula, or World Fantasy Award winners * 12. The SF-LOVERS Digest 13. Star Trek 14. Genres and bibliographies .01 Cyberpunk stories .02 Steampunk stories .03 Alternate histories .04 Transformation stories .05 Gender issues in science fiction .06 Robin Hood and King Arthur .07 SF themes in music 15. Filking (Filksinging) 16. Kilgore Trout 17. Can the X beat the Y? 18. Clarke's Laws 19. HAL vs. IBM 20. Johnny Rico's ethnic group (Starship Troopers) 21. Science Fiction Book Club 22. When will Y by X be published? .01 The fourth book of Alexei Panshin's Anthony Villers series .02 The sequel to Stephen R. Boyett's ARCHITECT OF SLEEP .03 The Vanilla Needle story by David Brin .04 David Brin's next Uplift book ** .05 P.C. Hodgell's Seeker's Mask .06 The fourth book in Card's Alvin Maker series .07 The sixth book in Jordan's Wheel of Time series .08 The third book in Paul Edwin Zimmer's The Dark Border .09 The third book in Meredith Pierce's Darkangel trilogy * 23. PJF after Steven Brust's name 24. Oldest Living SF Authors 25. William Ashbless 26. Black SF authors 27. Publishing History of _State of the Art_ by Iain Banks 28. Pronunciation of Cherryh 29. Stephen Jay Gould and Steven Gould 30. Other frequent subjects 31. Good sf bookstores in town Z and ordering by mail 32. Help file for accessing the SF-LOVERS Archives. * Significant modification to this entry ** New entry ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 0. Introduction Rec.arts.sf.written is a newsgroup devoted to discussions of written science fiction and fantasy. It is a high volume newsgroup and this article is intended to help reduce the number of unnecessary postings, thereby making it more useful and enjoyable to everyone. If you have not already done so, please read the articles in news.announce.newusers. They contain a great deal of useful information about network etiquette and convention. Please keep in mind these points: - Always remember that there is a live human being at the other end of the wires. In other words, please write your replies with the same courtesy you would use in talking to someone face-to-face. - Try to recognize humor and irony in postings. Tone of voice does not carry in ASCII print, and postings are often snapped off quickly, so that humorous intent may not be obvious. More destructive and vicious arguments have been caused by this one fact of net existence than any other. It will help if satiric/ironic/humorous comments are marked with the "smiley face," :-) Also note that some people refuse to use the smiley. - The net is a highly asynchronous medium. It can take several days for an article to make it to all sites. It is also quite common for followups to messages to reach a site before the original. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Story identification requests "Does anyone know this story?" <plot summary follows> When making this kind of request, ask that all responses be e-mailed back to you. One way to encourage e-mail responses is to set the followup-to line to poster (i.e. Followup-To: poster). After having found out what it is, then post the correct answer to the net. If you know the answer but are unable to send a message to the requester, wait a few days. It's likely that someone else will post the correct answer, thus sparing you the effort. Do not post messages like "I want to know, too" to the net. E-mail the person who asked the question and request that they send you any information they get by e-mail. Only if you cannot reach the person by e-mail *and* no one has posted about the request after several days should you post. Three of the most common requested stories are: 1) There are some time travellers to the age of dinosaurs. They have to stay on a special floating path to avoid changing the future. However, one steps off the path. When they return to the future, things are subtly changed. The guy who steps off the path then looks at his shoe and finds a dead butterfly. == A SOUND OF THUNDER by Ray Bradbury 2) An expedition to a dead star discovers that the supernova had destroyed an entire civilization. When they compute the exact time the star exploded, they find that it was seen on earth at the right time to be the Star of Bethlehem. == THE STAR by Arthur Clarke 3) A special kind of glass has been invented where light takes years to pass through it. Panes of this glass are hung in scenic areas and then sold to be used as picture windows. == LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS by Bob Shaw ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Spoilers Any message which reveals significant details of the plot of a book should be flagged with "SPOILER" in its subject line (preferably) or at least in the body of the message. Be considerate to other readers, don't ruin the surprises. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Author's name in the header When discussing an author, a good practice to follow is the begin the subject line with the author's name followed by a colon. Example: Subject: Jordan: Yet another Jordan thread Be sure to change the subject if the topic shifts to a different author. This practice will allow those who do not care to read about that author to automatically "kill" (mark as already read) those threads they do not want to read. The colon is there to allow the news software to distinguish certain author's names (e.g. Julian May) from common English words. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Common abbreviations AFAIK -- "As Far As I Know" BTW -- "By the way" FTL -- "Faster than light" FWIW -- "For What It's Worth" FYI -- "For your information" IMAO -- "In my arrogant opinion" IMHO -- "In my humble (honest) opinion" ISBN -- "International Standard Book Number" ROTF -- "Rolling on the floor" ROFL -- "Rolling on the floor, laughing" RPG -- "Role playing games", like D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) RSN -- "Real Soon Now" (== within the next decade or two) SMOF -- "Secret Master Of Fandom" STL -- "Slower Than Light" wrt -- "with respect to" YMMV -- "your milage may vary" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. "What books or stories are about X?" When making these kind of requests, ask that all replies be e-mailed to you and that you will summarize (set the Followup-to to poster to encourage e-mail response). Note that a summary is not just concatenating all the replies together and posting the resulting file. Take the time to strip headers, combine duplicate information, and write a short summary. Also note below (section 14) the various bibliographies which have been assmbled and which are occasionally posted to the net or which are available by anonymous ftp. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. "What books have been written by author X?" "What books are in series Y?" A number of bibliographies have been compiled and posted to the net by John Wenn. These bibliographies also contain info on which books are in a series or in the same universe. The most up-to-date bibliographies are availiable via ftp from world.std.com (192.74.137.5) [user anonymous, any password], directory pub/jwenn. They are also in the sf archives (see entry 7. Science Fiction Archives below). In the archives, the bibliographies are in directory pub/sfl/authorlists. File names are generally LastName.Firstname (e.g. Niven.Larry). Case *does* count. Requests for more bibliographies may be made to John at jwenn@world.std.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. "Does anyone want to talk about X?" If nobody seems to be discussing what you want to talk about, post a (polite) message opening the discussion. Don't just say, "Does anyone want to talk about X" or "I really like X" however; try to have something interesting to say about the topic to get discussion going. Don't be angry or upset if no one responds. It may be that X is just a personal taste of your own, or quite obscure. Or it may be that X was discussed to death a few weeks ago, *just* before you came into the group. (If this is the case, you'll probably know, though, because some rude fool will probably flame you for "Bringing that up *AGAIN*!!!" Ignore them.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Defining Science Fiction and/or Fantasy Many people have attempted to define them and probably the best answer was given by Damon Knight: "Science Fiction is what I point at when I say Science Fiction." Please do not discuss this topic unless you feel you have a truly novel definition. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Dividing line between Science Fiction and Fantasy Many people have also attempted to pinpoint this and had no better success. Virtually every answer you give will fail to clearly indicate which category a large number of books belong to. Again, please don't discuss this topic unless you feel you have a truly novel answer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. Science Fiction Archives The SF-LOVERS archives are in gandalf.rutgers.edu. There are three ways of accessing them, one by direct ftp and two mail servers. The help file for accessing them is long, so it has been placed at the end of this list (see 32. Help file for accessing the SF-LOVERS Archives). For European readers, you may want to access the archives at the Lysator Computer Club, Linkoping University, Sweden. Its ftp address is ftp.lysator.liu.se (130.236.254.1). The administrator is Mats Ohrman (email: matoh@sssab.se). The bibliographies are in directory /pub/sf-texts. Persons with World Wide Web programs such as Mosiac can access gandalf, lysator, and other on line archives easily. Just try one of the following URLs: ftp://gandalf.rutgers.edu/pub/sfl/sf-resource.guide.html http://www.lysator.liu.se:7500/sf_archive/sf_main.html http://www.lysator.liu.se:7500/sf_archive/sf_menu.html The first item on the list is an sf resource guide prepared by Gareth Rees of Cambridge and points to many things not covered in the various sf FAQs, including further genre biographies and searchable indices of reviews archives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. List of the Hugo, Nebula, or World Fantasy Award winners Lists of award winners are in the Science Fiction archives on gandalf.rutgers.edu (see entry 10. Science Fiction Archives above). The lists are in directory pub/sfl with these file names: hugos.txt nebulas.txt world-fantasy-awards.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 12. The SF-LOVERS Digest The SF-LOVERS Digest is a service for those who cannot read the rec.arts.sf newsgroups directly. It is a compilation of the articles posted to sf.misc, sf.announce, sf.fandom, sf.movies, sf.tv, sf.written and sf.reviews which is sent out periodically via e-mail. The moderator, Saul Jaffe, does a certain amount of editing when compiling the Digest. Duplicate information is eliminated and the articles are organized by topic. Also, most meta-discussions are not included in the Digest. To subscribe, unsubscribe, report problems, etc., send e-mail to SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@RUTGERS.EDU. To post articles to the various newsgroups use the following addresses: Topic Address ----- ------- Written SF sf-lovers-written@rutgers.edu Sf on Television sf-lovers-tv@rutgers.edu Sf Films sf-lovers-movies@rutgers.edu General discussions that don't fit specifically in the other topic headings sf-lovers-misc@rutgers.edu Due to the high volume of mail, it's quite likely that administrative type messages sent to the wrong address will be ignored. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 13. Star Trek There is a hierarchy of newsgroups for Star Trek, rec.arts.startrek.*. If you have access to netnews, use it for discussions about any Star Trek subject (old series, new series, movies, novels, etc.). If you are absolutely sure you cannot access the startrek newsgroup, and you *must* post to sf.written, include the phrase "Star Trek" in the subject line. Do not post flames about people violating this guideline. Use e-mail to request they follow it. It's likely that this person is reading rec.arts.sf-lovers via the SF-LOVERS Digest and has no access to netnews or rec.arts.startrek. If so, that person will not see your flame because discussions of what's appropriate in the newsgroup are not included in the SF-LOVERS digest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 14. Genres and bibliographies Several bibliographies of various sf genres and themes have been assembled and are available through the net. Some are periodically posted to rec.arts.sf.written by their authors, but others are posted to other newsgroups or are only available by anonymous ftp or by e-mail. Many of these bibliographies were started as a result of a person's asking question #4 above. Quality of the various bibliographies varies; some list only names of appropriate stories and others provide plot synopses and publishing data. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 14.01 Cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of SF which (usually) combines high technology ("cyber") with an alienated, often criminal, subculture ("punk"). Some people consider cyberpunk to be a Literary Movement; others consider it a marketing gimmick. Arguing about which it is is pointless and not encouraged in this newsgroup. Probably the best definition parallels the one for Science Fiction (see 8. Defining Science Fiction and/or Fantasy above). There is a news group called alt.cyberpunk which is the best place to discuss cyberpunk. A comprehensive list of cyberpunk works can be gotten by sending e-mail to John Wichers at wichers@husc4.harvard.edu. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 14.02 Steampunk The term steampunk was coined by analogy to cyberpunk, and refers to sf stories set in the 19th century and involving technology of that era. Generally, these stories are alternate histories (technology that might have been, such as Gibson & Sterling's THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE) or secret histories (technology that we just don't know about). While there has been recent discusssion in r.a.s.w about what stories belong to the steampunk genre, we do not yet know of anybody who is providing a bibliography of such stories. Hint, hint. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 14.03 Alternate histories A large bibliography of stories involving history as it might have been is maintained by R.B. Schmunk (pcrxs@nasagiss.giss.nasa.gov) and is posted to r.a.s.w quarterly (Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct). It is also available by anonymous ftp from gandalf and lysator (question 10). If you are interested in ongoing discussions about alternate history, not necessarily attached to any specific story, try subscribing to the newsgroup alt.history.what-if. It's been fairly said that the level of knowledgeable discussion in this group is more consistent than what appears in soc.history. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 14.04 Transformation stories A large bibliography of stories involving changes in body shape (whether lycanthropy, nanotechnology, or whatever) may be found on gandalf (question 10). This list has in the past been posted to r.a.s.w, but not recently. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 14.05 Gender issues in science fiction A list of stories and novels which address gender issues through science fiction may be found on gandalf (question 10). This list has in the past been posted to r.a.s.w, but its author currently just posts an announcement whenever a new version is available. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 14.06 Robin Hood and King Arthur Two lists detailing stories, novels and books involving the Robin Hood and King Arthur legends are posted monthly to the newsgroups rec.arts.books and news.answers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 14.07 SF themes in music A list of songs which have science fictional themes is maintained by Rich Kulawiec. This list is posted to news.answers periodically. If you can not find it there, e-mail Rich at rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu. Alternate e-mail addresses for Rich are rsk@ecn.purdue.edu or pur-ee!rsk. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 15. Filking (Filksinging) Filking, or filksinging, is SF/Fantasy fan folk music. The term derives from a typo in the word "folksinging" made in a program for a convention many years ago. Filksongs are often parodies of popular tunes or folk songs. The newsgroup alt.music.filk is dedicated to discussion of filking. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 16. Kilgore Trout Kilgore Trout is a fictitious SF author that appears in several books by Kurt Vonnegut. VENUS ON THE HALF-SHELL by Kilgore Trout was written (with Vonnegut's permission) by Philip Jose Farmer. There are no other books by Kilgore Trout. After Venus was published, many people thought that Vonnegut had written it. Vonnegut did not care for this and refused Farmer permission to write any more. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 17. "Can the X beat the Y?" where X and Y are mighty ships or alien races from different space opera books/movies/series. These kinds of discussions are fairly pointless. Please keep them off the net. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 18. Clarke's Laws (This entry was written by Mark Brader.) Clarke's Law, later Clarke's First Law, can be found in the essay "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination", in the collection "Profiles of the Future", 1962, revised 1973, Harper & Row, paperback by Popular Library, ISBN 0-445-04061-0. It reads: # [1] When a distinguished but elderly scientist # states that something is possible, he is almost # certainly right. When he states that something # is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Note that the adverbs in the two sentences are different. Clarke continues: # Perhaps the adjective "elderly" requires definition. In physics, # mathematics, and astronautics it means over thirty; in the other # disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. # There are, of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher # just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for # nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out # of the laboratory! Isaac Asimov added a further comment with Asimov's Corollary to Clarke's Law, which he expounded in an essay logically titled "Asimov's Corollary". This appeared in the February 1977 issue of F&SF, and can be found in the collection "Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright", 1978, Doubleday; no ISBN on my copy. Asimov's Corollary reads: % [1AC] When, however, the lay public rallies round an % idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly % scientists and supports that idea with great fervor % and emotion -- the distinguished but elderly % scientists are then, after all, probably right. So much for Clarke's First Law. A few pages later on, in the final paragraph of the same essay, Clarke writes: # [2] But the only way of discovering the limits of the # possible is to venture a little way past them into # the impossible. To this he attaches a footnote: # The French edition of [presumably, the first edition of] this # book rather surprised me by calling this Clarke's Second Law. # (See page [number] for the First, which is now rather well- # known.) I accept the label, and have also formulated a Third: # # [3] Any sufficiently advanced technology is # indistinguishable from magic. # # As three laws were good enough for Newton, I have modestly # decided to stop there. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 19. HAL vs. IBM There is a relationship between HAL (the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey) and IBM. If you add 1 to each letter in HAL you get IBM. According to Clarke, this relationship is entirely accidental. In fact, he claims that if he had been aware of it, he would have chosen a different name for his computer. HAL stands for Heuristically-programmed ALgorithmic computer, although it's likely that this is a backformed acronym. That is, the name HAL was chosen and then a suitable phrase was found for it to be an acronym of. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 20. Johnny Rico's ethnic group (Starship Troopers) What ethnic group does Johnny Rico, the protagonist in Heinlein's STARSHIP TROOPERS, belong to? (The following answer is from a posting by Eric Raymond.) From page 205 of the 1968 Berkeley edition (end of Chapter XIII): I said, "There ought to be one named _Magsaysay_." Bennie said, "What?" "Ramon Magsaysay," I explained. "Great man, great soldier -- probably be chief of psychological warfare if he was alive today. "Didn't you study any history?" "Well," admitted Bennie, "I learned that Simo'n Bolivar built the Pyramids, licked the Armada, and made the first trip to the Moon." "You left out marrying Cleopatra," I said. "Oh, that. Yup. Well, I guess every country has its own version of history." "I'm sure of it." I added something to myself and Bennie said, "What did you say?" "Sorry, Bernardo. Just an old saying in my own language. I suppose you could translate it, more or less, as `Home is where the heart is.'" "But what language was it?" "Tagalog. My native language." "Don't they talk Standard English where you come from?" "Oh, certainly. For business and school and so forth. We just talk the old speech around home a little. Traditions, you know." "Yeah, I know. My folks chatter in Espan~ol the same way. But where do you--" The speaker started playing "Meadowland"; Bennie broke into a grin. "Got a date with a ship! Watch yourself, fellow! See you." There is no room at all left for misinterpretation. Johnny Rico is a Filipino; Tagalog is a Philippine language, Ramon Magsaysay is a hero in the Philippines, and many Filipinos have Spanish names. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 21. Science Fiction Book Club About once a year someone asks about the SFBC and the resulting discussion inevitably goes like this: A: I love it. I get hard cover books for about half the bookstore price. Plus they have these omnibus editions of various series so you can pick up several books in one volume. B: Yeah, but I keep losing the monthly cards and end up buying or having to send back books that I don't want. C: You should do like I did. I called them up and got on the "Preferred Member Plan". On this plan I only get books when I send back the card. D: But what about the quality of the books? A: They're printed on acid-free paper. The binding and general packaging are inferior to the regular hardbacks, but they will easily outlast a paperback. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22. When will Y by X be published? Below are some of the most frequently asked after 'missing' books. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22.01 The fourth book of Alexei Panshin's Anthony Villers series Three books were published in the Anthony Villers series: STAR WELL, THE THURB REVOLUTION, and MASQUE WORLD. A fourth book was promised at the end of the third book and was to be titled, THE UNIVERSAL PANTOGRAPH. It was never published. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22.02 The sequel to Stephen R. Boyett's ARCHITECT OF SLEEP This originally was to be the beginning of a multivolume series, the following books tentatively named _The Geography of Dreams_,_The Navigators of Fortune_, _The Corridors of Memory_, and _The Gravity of Night_. The manuscript of _The Geography of Dreams_ was in fact completed and turned in, and the first one hundred pages of _The Navigators of Fortune_ exist. However, the story was not to the liking of Berkley, and the changes they proposed were not to the liking of Boyett. He brought the manuscript back. The rights to _Architect of Sleep_ were tied up for several years, and by the time Boyett was free to take AoS and GoD to another publisher, he had lost interest in spending the years necessary to finish the series - as he put it "We're talking about (a) intelligent raccoons, and (b) ten years ago." At this point, it is unlikely anything further in the series will be published. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22.03 The Vanilla Needle story by David Brin In David Brin's novel, SUNDIVER, he make frequent mention of a previous episode involving Jacob Demwa saving the Vanilla Needle and his first wife falling to her death in the process. The details are sufficient that many suspect that this story was actually written. As far as anyone knows, if it has been written, it has not been published. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22.04 David Brin's next Uplift Book Brin has said that his next book in the Uplift universe will be titled BRIGHTNESS REEF, a sequel to STARTIDE RISING. He is currently working on it; don't expect it in stores for at least a year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22.05 P.C. Hodgell's Seeker's Mask This was just recently published in a 500 copy leather bound limited edition by Hypatia Press. Copies may be still available; Hypatia's number is 503-485-0947. Hypatia also published chapbooks of 'Bones' and 'Child of Darkness', two short stories in the same series. A mass market edition of the book may be forthcoming. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22.06 The fourth book in Card's Alvin Maker series An editor from Tor has stated on the net that he doesn't know when Card plans on submitting this book. However, rumor is that Card is currently more interested in finishing his Call of Earth series, and when that is done, he'll return to Alvin Maker. Thus, we're probably looking at 1995 or 96. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22.07 The sixth book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series Jordan has been very good at maintaining a regular publication schedule with the Wheel of Time. Consequently, the sixth book in this series can be expected to appear around early October 1994. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22.08 The third book in Paul Edwin Zimmer's The Dark Border series. There is no third book. Despite the somewhat cliffhanger ending, it is, and has always been intended to be, a duology. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 22.09 The third book in Meredith Pierce's Darkangel trilogy. This was in fact published, as _The Pearl of the Soul of the World_ by Joy Street Books, a division of Little, Brown & Co. There was apparently never a paperback edition, however; seek it in the juvenile section of your local library. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 23. PJF after Steven Brust's name The letters PJF are appended to Steven Brust's name in some of his books. What do they mean? PJF = Pre-Joycean Fellowship The name is modelled on that of an artist's group named the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. A number of writers have appended it including Brust, Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Jane Yolen, Pamela Dean and Neil Gaiman (this is not an exhaustive list). Many, but not all of them are members of Minneapolis Fantasy Writer's Group, the Scribblies. In the words of Pamela Dean, here is roughly what the PJF is trying to do: "... we are trying to undo the separation of the so-called popular values and traits in literature (which probably include straight- forward narration) and the so-called literary values and traits (which probably include stream-of-consciousness writing). We don't always succeed; we don't always try; we don't feel that writers doing other things are evil. But we are trying to reunite, in our work, the popular and the literary. Every one of us has a different definition of those terms and a different notion of how what we are trying to do should be accomplished." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 24. Oldest Living SF Authors Based on Tuck's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SF AND FANTASY, the oldest living SF writers are: L. Sprague De Camp, 27 NOV 1907 Jack Williamson, 29 APR 1908 Andre Norton, 1912 A. E. van Vogt, 26 APR 1912 R. A. Lafferty, 7 NOV 1914 Charles L. Harness, 29 DEC 1915 George Turner, 1916 Jack Vance, 28 AUG 1916 Arthur C. Clarke, 16 DEC 1917 Frederik Pohl, 26 NOV 1919 Sam Moskowitz, 30 JUN 1920 Ray Bradbury, 22 AUG 1920 Kurt Vonnegut, 11 NOV 1922 Note: Please take some care in posting that X is dead to the net. In general, stick to primary sources such as published obituaries, rather than 'I read in group X' or 'I heard from Y'. You are likely to distress a number of people needlessly if you are incorrect. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 25. William Ashbless Who is William Ashbless? Both Tim Powers (THE ANUBIS GATES) and James Blaylock (THE DIGGING LEVIATHAN) have him in their books. Is this the same character? William Ashbless was a penname that Powers and Blaylock used to publish cowritten poetry in college. When they both needed a name for a poet character in their books, they independently used the same name. After this had been pointed out to them by their editor, they got together and added details to make it look like it was the same guy. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 26. Black SF authors Are there any black SF authors? Yes. The three most prominent are Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler and Steven Barnes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 27. Publishing History of _State of the Art_ by Iain Banks _The State of the Art_ exists in two incarnations. First, there was a novella published by Ziesing, an American small press. The British edition, published by Orbit, is a collection of short stories containing the aforementioned novella and several more stories, two of which are Culture stories. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 28. Pronunciation of Cherryh C. J. Cherryh's original last name was Cherry. The terminal H is silent. The H was added because her first editor thought that Cherry sounded too much like a romance writer. Her brother, artist David Cherry, retains the original spelling. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 29. Stephen Jay Gould and Steven Gould These are two different people. Stephen Jay Gould is the well-known Harvard paleontologist and author of several non-fiction books about evolution. Steven Gould is the author of _Jumper_, an sf novel. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 30. Other frequent subjects Some subjects have generated long and acrimonious arguments (flamewars) in this group. Please think twice before posting anything on these subjects. 1. Robert A. Heinlein's attitudes towards women especially as reflected in his female characters. 2. Orson Scott Card's attitudes towards homosexuality. These attitudes are reflected in a column he wrote for Sunstone magazine. The column has been reprinted in _A Storyteller in Zion--Essays and Speeches_. Other subjects, while not generating flames, have been discussed numerous times in this group. Please consider carefully before starting dicussions on these topics. 1. The nature of time travel. 2. Asking everyone what the first sf they ever read was. 3. Casting your favorite book as a movie. The above topics are not forbidden--just be sure you know what you are doing if you bring them up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 31. Good sf bookstores in town Z and ordering by mail Evelyn C. Leeper (ecl@mtgpfs1.att.com) maintains several lists of bookstores in various North American and European cities and posts them monthly to r.a.s.w, typically around the 25th. These lists are *not* sf specific, but extensive commentary makes it pretty easy to sort those stores out from the rest. She also maintains a list of bookstores in various countries that will ship books by mail. It is published at the same time and in the same places as the above list. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 32. Help file for accessing the SF-LOVERS Archives. (This entry was provided by Saul Jaffe.) This is the "help" file for accessing the SF-LOVERS archives via FTP. Described in this document are three different methods of accessing the files. Please choose the method that is most appropriate for you. Please remember that the machine you are connecting to, GANDALF.RUTGERS.EDU, is a unix machine. As with all unix machines, filenames are case sensitive. This means that filenames and directory names *must* be entered as given. To use anonymous FTP interactively: To access the archives, you need to use the login function of ftp to connect to gandalf.rutgers.edu as an anonymous or guest user. Below is a sample session (The "%" and "ftp>" are prompts - yours may vary): % ftp gandalf.rutgers.edu Connected to gandalf.rutgers.edu. 220 gandalf.rutgers.edu FTP server Name (gandalf.rutgers.edu:<userid>): anonymous 331 Guest login ok, send ident as password. Password: 230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply. ftp> cd pub/sfl ftp> get <filename> ftp> quit To use BITFTP (BITNET users only): To access the archives, the principle is the same as that for Internet users described above. However, access is handled via a special email server since there is no way to run ftp interactively from many BITNET sites. You can send mail to BITFTP@PUCC.BITNET with the following as the text of the message: FTP gandalf.rutgers.edu USER anonymous CD pub/sfl GET <filename> You will get two mail messages back. One from the BITNET server itself informing you that the request went through and the other will be the actual file retrieved. Each file you request will be returned to you as a separate file. Instructions for the SF-Lovers FTP Mail Server: Installed on gandalf.rutgers.edu is a FTP Mail Server which will send you, via mail, files from the archives. To use the mail server, send email to: sf-lovers-ftp@gandalf.rutgers.edu with your commands in the body of the message. The currently supported commands for this server are: [key: [] encloses optional info <> a placeholder for an argument - substitute actual data {} encloses synonyms for a command ] Command Args Descriptions quit End session. help Get this message. info Get information about what's available. ls [-l -s <filename>] {dir} Get full listing of files. {index} connect <directoryname> Connect to subdirectory {cd} or, with no args, to top level directory. get <filename> Get specified file {send} backissue <volume> <issue> Get a back issue of the Digest from the archives. If <volume> is the special case '-' or '0' it indicates the current volume. All commands may be abbreviated to the fewest number of characters that uniquely identifies them. For instance, "backissue" may be abbreviated "b", "quit" may be abbreviated "q", etc. You may specify as many commands as desired in any order desired however, "quit" will always end the session and commands afterward will be ignored. If you want multiple files (or multiple back issues), you must specify one "get" (or "back") command for each file (or issue) desired. The command "backissue" may be used to get a copy of a back issue of the Digest from any volume including the current volume up to the last issue number produced. However, the server will NOT send back an entire volume of the Digest. Each file (or back issue) you request will be sent to you as a separate mail message. The commands "help" and "info" will instruct the server to send you the "help" and "info" files respectively. For each message you send to the server, you will also receive a log message indicating any errors encountered during processing as well as the number of files the server believes were requested and the number it sent. The FTP server may be used to obtain a complete listing of the files in the archives (via the "ls" command) as well as to retrieve files which have been compressed due to space considerations. The server will automatically uncompress files before shipping them to you so you do not need an uncompress tool to receive these files. Future enhancements to the software are currently being considered. If you have ideas or suggestions, please send them to sf-lovers-request@rutgers.edu. Below is a sample email message sent to the server with some commentary: Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 21:21:41 EDT From: jaffe@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Saul) Subject: test help [gets a copy of this message] info [gets a copy of the info message] ls [gets a list of the available files] ls -l [gets a list of the available files, their sizes and last date modified] ls -l world-fantasy-awards.txt [lists information about a specific file] get world-fantasy-awards.txt [gets the specified file from the archives] connect authorlists [connect to the authorlists subdirectory] get Asimov.Isaac [gets the authorlist for Isaac Asimov] cd [go back to top level directory] back 16 13 [get issue #13 of Volume 16] back - 26 [get issue #26 of the current volume] quit [end the session] -- -------------- Laura Burchard / burchard@digex.net ---------------- "It didn't take very much reductio to get right down to absurdium from where you started." --Mike Jones, jonesmd@crd.ge.com -- -------------- Laura Burchard / burchard@digex.net ---------------- "It didn't take very much reductio to get right down to absurdium from where you started." --Mike Jones, jonesmd@crd.ge.com