In a message dated 2/1/2003 1:29:54 AM Eastern Standard Time,
thiophene@... writes:


> If Ellison is the sort of person I think
> he is, he probably loves feeding bogus information like this, then
> laughing when people distribute it without checking it.

Other people have asked if maybe Ellison's absurd stories are just his way of
screwing with people's minds.  I don't think so.  Ellison telling audiences
in his speeches that he punched out Charles Platt doesn't sound like someone
introducing a strange story just to see if it will start to circulate.  It
sounds like someone who's so desperate for approval that they will tell
stories to make themselves look better.  Platt is a decade younger, a foot
taller, and in much better shape than Ellison, incidentally.

In a message dated 2/1/2003 1:29:54 AM Eastern Standard Time,
thiophene@... writes:


> "Who?"
> ("Christopher Priest and Charles Platt?")
> "Who?" (or maybe, "Any relation to Christopher Guest and Oliver Platt?")
>

Priest and Platt are writers who are well known in the science fiction
community.  Priest is definitely a better writer than Ellison.  Neither has a
reputation for dishonesty.  They're also more professional in their attitude
to their work than Ellison is.  Ellison hasn't actually written that much
given how long he's been in the field.  He has a habit of promising books
which never get written.

Wendell Wagner


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 2/1/2003 12:00:46 AM Central Standard Time,
WendellWag@... writes:


> "Adrift
> Just off the Islets of Langerhans, Latitude Something or Other, Longitude
> Something Else."  (I'm too tired to look up the exact numbers in the
> title.)
> He said that they were mentioned in the move _King Kong_ as being the
> location of Skull Island.  Apparently he made up this up on the spot,
> because
> there's no such mention in the movie and, besides, the address is actually
> about 50 feet south of the corner of 2nd and H Street NE in Washington, DC.
>

Where the Islets of Langerhans probably ARE found from time to time.



Diamond Proudbrook



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Lisa that is such a great story!  Do you have pictures of this outfit ?

Lizzie Triano
lizziewriter@...
amor vincit omnia

Not from that con, but from another one. We won for "Best Star Trek
Nostalgia" at the 1977 Westercon, since everyone had become Star Wars
fans by then <g>.

But it is only a photograph, and we haven't scanned all those into the
computer - yet. So there is no way to share it long distance.

Mythically yours,

Lisa

Elizabeth Apgar Triano wrote:

>Lisa that is such a great story!  Do you have pictures of this outfit ?
>
>
>
>

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003 17:29:07 -0800, "David S. Bratman"
<dbratman@...> said:

> In this position,
> I'd be cautious about what I said about a story I might not remember
> well, and leave it at that.

I can't go the rest of my life either appending qualifications to my
opinions or rushing out to reread every story and rewatch every movie I
might feel moved to comment on.  If I were writing for publication of course
I'd hew to a different standard, but this is an informal group.

> The guy terrifies me, frankly, and I've spent nearly 30
> years in fandom trying to stay out of his way.

Well, what's he done?  If I thought that he might a take a swing at me or
broadside my car, I'd be wary, but if the worst that he'd do is treat me to
a ten-minute tongue-lashing, I'd probably be mortified and too embarrassed
to go out in public for a day or two, but then I'd have one great story to
tell for the rest of my life.

> It's been 20 years or more since I've been au courant with current sf:
> just looking at the most famous names on recent Hugo nominee lists, I have
> never read a single novel by Ken McLeod...

Heard of him, anyway.

> ...Robert J. Sawyer...

Who?

> ...Vernor Vinge...

He taught Computer Science at SDSU whence I graduated, and once paid him a
visit and asked him to sign my copy of _A Fire Upon the Deep_, which I
liked, but not for the same reasons that everyone else did, at least on
r.a.sf.written.  I didn't take any of that Singularity ("the Rapture for
atheists" someone called it once) and Transcendence stuff a bit seriously,
but apparently it's Vinge's _idee fixe_ and the reason a lot of geeks think
him a good writer.

> ...Greg Bear...

I got halfway through _Moving Mars_, then stopped.  It wasn't bad; I just
didn't feel like reading more.  I do that too often these days, and feel
guilty about it every time.

> ...Robert Charles Wilson...

Any relation to Robert Anton Wilson?

> ...Michael Swanwick...

Barbara Stanwyck?

> ...Walter Jon Williams...

I admired his story story "Daddy's World", then tried to read _Aristoi_
because a friend gave it me.  Ugh!  I have rarely built up such a resistance
to reading a book I knew nothing about within so few pages.  (By comparison,
I stopped reading _Starship Troopers_ about ten pages in, but my opinion of
Heinlein had already been fatally poisoned, partly by exposure to his fans.)
I think I mentioned in another post that _Aristoi_ was one of those
books--Delany's _Triton_ another--which started out portraying a society
which, if I lived in it, would leave me within a week clawing at the asylum
gates for entry.

> ...Dan Simmons...

_Endymion_ is his, right?  Only sampled it in a store or something.

> ...Stephen Baxter...

Isn't he, along with Greg Egan, supposed to be the darling of readers who
like their science fiction harder (and tougher to chew) than a frozen chunk
of brisket?  "Stylish prose, characterization, drama?  Screw that, we want
_science_!"  Or scientism, rather.  If I want science I'll read the Journal
of the American Chemical Society.  I admit though that I like my science
fiction to have as little science as possible.  _Cyteen_ for example is a
wonderful example, and one of my favorite novels; Cherryh explains hardly
anything about the technology of cloning or of "taping" the personalities of
the clones; she explains enough to get the story going, gives us her cast of
characters, and sets _them_ going.  If Cherryh started spitting out
half-digested technical concepts from texts and articles on biology, I
wouldn't have lasted two chapters.

> (Asimov's "Foundation's Edge", Gibson's "Neuromancer", and
> Haldeman's "Forever Peace", only the last of which I liked at all, and
> that not very much).

:-b  Asimov ran "Foundation" into the ground, no question.  (And when he
tried to sex his writing up, oy!)  It's fashionable to deride _Neuromancer_,
and it's not a great novel, but I like it still.  Gibson knew how to do
something which all of his cyberpunk imitators, however much more
technologically literate they might have been, could not do, which was write
memorable prose.  He also (perhaps because he was _not_ technologically with
it) did something I haven't seen in any other book; he created an artificial
intelligence that actually seemed alien, not just like some computer geek's
wish-fulfilment fantasy of what they want their computer to do.  Mycroft
Holmes and "Jane" from _Speaker for the Dead_ are cute; Wintermute scared
the crap out of me.

> And yet, I'm a fan, I socialize with fans all the time, I regularly
> attend Potlatch which is as book-oriented an sf con as there is (much more
so
> than Boskone)...

Potlatch, that's local, isn't it?  I mean, local to me, here in Seattle, at
least part of the time; maybe it jumps around the West Coast.  At least, I
remember or think I remember it met once at a hotel in Wallingford.

> That might explain it.  .written is a place where people do talk about sf.

It was depressing after a while; hundreds of posts and hardly a one of them
about something I'd actually read.  I made a few friends there--one was kind
enough to put me up in Seattle when I first moved here, while I looked for a
job and an apartment--but none lasting.

> As for Lewis, while he took a kind of perverse pride
> in not being au courant...

A man after my own spirit, Lewis.  Take the music I listen to; most of it
was written and performed either by guys who are now old fogies in their
fifties (classic rock) or guys who are long, long dead (classical.)  I'm not
yet thirty and I know practically nothing of the music of the last fifteen
years.  I know how to use a slide rule (and own a couple), would
occasionally type out papers on a manual typewriter even in my last couple
years of college, and own an "All-American Five" radio (i.e. a five-tube
superheterodyne AM radio.)

> his scorn was directed at those who kept up to be
> fashionable, not at those who kept up to be knowledgable.

This is true.  But it's hard for me to think of ploughing determinedly
through mediocre (but classic, so-called) novels like Larry Niven's
_Ringworld_ or some of Asimov's Foundation stories as contributing much to
my knowledge.  "Everyone" had read them, so I felt I had to read them, too.

> Dropping in to a large con at which you know
> nobody and just attending the program items is not the way to do it.  I
> didn't get much out of my first large con either.

But I _did_ know some people there, at least through e-mail, and that was
partly what made the affair such a disappointment.  I went there chiefly to
meet Jo Walton and her fiance, and ended up conversing with them for maybe a
couple of hours in a noisy hotel-room gathering.  I knew a few others less
well through Usenet and e-mail (and in one case found out that it was
probably just as well he lived thousands of miles away in Toronto, because
he was a scary customer in person.)

No, I'm just not a convention person.  My idea of a good party is maybe a
half-dozen people at most, not hundreds.

Ernest.

At 10:06 PM 2/2/2003 -0800, Ernest wrote:

>On Fri, 31 Jan 2003 17:29:07 -0800, "David S. Bratman"
><dbratman@...> said:
>
> > In this position,
> > I'd be cautious about what I said about a story I might not remember
> > well, and leave it at that.
>
>I can't go the rest of my life either appending qualifications to my
>opinions or rushing out to reread every story and rewatch every movie I
>might feel moved to comment on.  If I were writing for publication of course
>I'd hew to a different standard, but this is an informal group.

Did you think I was asking you to?  I advised being cautious, nothing more.


> > The guy terrifies me, frankly, and I've spent nearly 30
> > years in fandom trying to stay out of his way.
>
>Well, what's he done?  If I thought that he might a take a swing at me or
>broadside my car, I'd be wary, but if the worst that he'd do is treat me to
>a ten-minute tongue-lashing, I'd probably be mortified and too embarrassed
>to go out in public for a day or two, but then I'd have one great story to
>tell for the rest of my life.

Somehow I've never considered tongue-lashings to be pleasurable
experiences, even long afterwards.


You know more about most of those recent SF authors than I do.


>Asimov ran "Foundation" into the ground, no question.  (And when he
>tried to sex his writing up, oy!)

And a great shame, too.  Pre-1980s Asimov is by far my favorite of all the
SF writers of his generation (the ones who arrived in the 1937-49
Campbellian period).  Yes, I like that old Foundation trilogy, but it was
the first book-length SF I ever read, at age 15.  Some of his later books
are much better.  But even at its best, I cannot judge his fiction on the
same scale that I'd use for Tolkien: it just wouldn't register, and neither
would virtually any other SF, even much that I like a great deal.


>It's fashionable to deride _Neuromancer_,
>and it's not a great novel, but I like it still.  Gibson knew how to do
>something which all of his cyberpunk imitators, however much more
>technologically literate they might have been, could not do, which was write
>memorable prose.

Is it fashionable to deride _Neuromancer_?  Not anywhere that I've been,
but perhaps I don't get out much.  I thought I was a lone curmudgeon in
complaining that this novel was all setting and no plot.  When I read it, I
thought I was missing something because not much seemed to be
happening.  Then I learned from reviews that I was right: the plot is very
sketchy.  Nor did I find the prose too memorable, and I really feel like
some bumpkin on whom fine wine is being wasted, because I heard the author
(whom I knew personally, at least before he was famous) read part of the
book aloud, over a year before it was published, to a very small gathering
at an SF con in Vancouver.  Of the New Ace Specials, of which it was part,
I far preferred Kim Stanley Robinson's _The Wild Shore_.


>Potlatch, that's local, isn't it?  I mean, local to me, here in Seattle, at
>least part of the time; maybe it jumps around the West Coast.  At least, I
>remember or think I remember it met once at a hotel in Wallingford.

It jumps between the Bay Area and Seattle, with occasional stops in
Portland or Eugene.  Last year's was at a Best Western off Denny, near the
Seattle Center, but previous Seattle Potlatches were (all, I think) at the
University Plaza, the hotel on NE 45th overlooking I-5.


>A man after my own spirit, Lewis.  Take the music I listen to; most of it
>was written and performed either by guys who are now old fogies in their
>fifties (classic rock) or guys who are long, long dead (classical.)

Do you like classical music?  I gathered from an earlier post of yours
mentioning it that it had been stuffed down your throat by your parents and
you wound up disliking it.  Classical music is, along with Tolkien and a
few other revered fantasy authors, my prime artistic passion, but not all
of my favorite composers of it are long-dead, or even dead at all, far from
it.  I'd be curious to compare favorites, but if you're willing, let's do
that privately, since it'd be way off-topic here.


>I'm not
>yet thirty and I know practically nothing of the music of the last fifteen
>years.  I know how to use a slide rule (and own a couple), would
>occasionally type out papers on a manual typewriter even in my last couple
>years of college, and own an "All-American Five" radio (i.e. a five-tube
>superheterodyne AM radio.)

You beat me, then.  I didn't give up on popular music entirely until I was
about 27 (which was 1984, so it's hardly comparable), took immediately to
pocket calculators and electric typewriters (neither of which were
available, at least to me, when I first could have used them), and prefer
FM radio to AM because there's more classical music on it.


> > his scorn was directed at those who kept up to be
> > fashionable, not at those who kept up to be knowledgable.
>
>This is true.  But it's hard for me to think of ploughing determinedly
>through mediocre (but classic, so-called) novels like Larry Niven's
>_Ringworld_ or some of Asimov's Foundation stories as contributing much to
>my knowledge.  "Everyone" had read them, so I felt I had to read them, too.

Still, you can't say that books of that sort are mediocre until you've read
at least some of them.  I find it very useful to have actually read a few
Tolclones, so that when I denounce them, I'm speaking with some knowledge
and not from sheer ignorance.  I'm not going to keep on reading them,
though, especially when the favorable reviews are from people who liked
previous books that I hated.


>No, I'm just not a convention person.  My idea of a good party is maybe a
>half-dozen people at most, not hundreds.

Sure, I agree.  But sometimes you need to go to a gathering of hundreds of
people to find the worthwhile half-dozen.  Carving out one's own
personally-tailored convention from a huge gathering is an art, and a
worthwhile one.  But it's not necessary at Potlatch and Mythcon, which both
run about 100-150 people, and finding smaller groups to talk with is
easy.  At the Tolkien and Lewis centenary conferences, we had over 300
each, and thought they were huge.


- David Bratman

On Sun, 2003-02-02 at 22:06, Ernest Tomlinson wrote:
> > ...Greg Bear...
>
> I got halfway through _Moving Mars_, then stopped.  It wasn't bad; I just
> didn't feel like reading more.  I do that too often these days, and feel
> guilty about it every time.

Urk; I wouldn't call _Moving Mars_ his better work.  Try _Eon_ for
hard SF (and don't expect _Eternity_ to be up to the quality of
_Eon_), _Blood Music_ for biotech that Vernor Vinge would think
nifty, _Songs of Earth and Power_ (aka _The Infinity Concerto_ and
_The Serpent Mage_) for fantasy.

> > ...Michael Swanwick...
>
> Barbara Stanwyck?

Try _The Iron Dragon's Daughter_ or _Stations of the Tide_.  Should
be available in a used bookstore for cheap.

> > ...Dan Simmons...
>
> _Endymion_ is his, right?  Only sampled it in a store or something.

_Hyperion_ is the place to start if you want to sample that universe
of his-- _Endymion_ and _Rise of Endymion_ aren't as good as
_Hyperion_ and _Fall of Hyperion_.  If you're browsing in a bookstore,
pick up a copy of _Prayers to Broken Stones_ and read the short story
"Vanni Fucci is Alive and Well and Living in Hell", particularly if
you've recently re-read _The Screwtape Letters_.

>                                                _Cyteen_ for example is a
> wonderful example, and one of my favorite novels; Cherryh explains hardly
> anything about the technology of cloning or of "taping" the personalities of
> the clones; she explains enough to get the story going, gives us her cast of
> characters, and sets _them_ going.

Cherryh does a really good job of making her aliens alien; I've
greatly enjoyed her Chanur and Foreigner universes.  And the knnn
can out-enigma the Vorlons and the Arisians together, with their
tentacles tied in knots.

--
%% Max Rible % slothman@... % www.amurgsval.org/~slothman/ %%
%% "Before enlightenment:  sharpen claws, catch mice.                %%
%%  After enlightenment:  sharpen claws, catch mice."                %%

-----Original Message-----
From: Elizabeth Apgar Triano [mailto:lizziewriter@...]
Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 7:53 PM
To: mythsoc@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [mythsoc] Ellison and fandom


What Earnest said, only with a slightly different flavor.  I'd be terrified
to meet half of the Mythies, cos I'd feel like a stammering or at least
incoherent fool.  Forgetful and over my head, but hopefully forgiven.  And
hearing folks hold out on fun creative subjects would be cool.  Thanks,
David, for your words about socializing.  I get terrified at going to big
events alone... but smaller things, or going with an angle or some group to
meet, makes it all the more fun.  And can you imagine how much fun it would
be to go to a used bookstore or shop and swap table together?  Wow....
I've been to a used bookstore with one other member of this list and dream
regularly of getting to do that again.  So much more fun than alone or with
non-interested pals.


****Don't be terrified!  At a recent Mythie, I have to say this is a very
welcoming group, and the size of the conference is far from intimidating.
In addition to the scholarly papers, there are also panel discussions and
talks with writers, and a dealer's room which usually includes booksellers..
And the way we take meals, with people drifting from table to table,
encourages getting to know people in a more casual way. So if you can get to
a Mythcon, please come!  Nashville this year, Ann Arbor in 2004, and I think
it's Birmingham, England, in 2005.

As for Ellison... I think I saw a picture of him (is he the scarred-looking
one?  Or is that the guy that died recently?  See, I told you I was
incoherent) on a book jacket.  Deliciously spooky !!

******Ellison's the really short one with the big ego....  I went through a
phase as a teenager where I read all his stuff, and thought his Dangerous
Visions anthologies were wonderful. But I now find New Wave SF unappealing.
I enjoy reading his invective, just because it's so over the top.  And I
always enjoyed reading Isaac Asimov's stories about their rivalry at cons.



Janet Brennan Croft
Dictator-for-Life, Normans Sällskap för Kaffedrickande Tolkienlärde
jbcroft@...
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/C/Janet.B.Croft-1/
<http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/C/Janet.B.Croft-1/>



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>    Date: 02 Feb 2003 23:59:36 -0800
>    From: Max Rible <slothman@...>
> Subject: Re: Ellison
>
> >                                                _Cyteen_ for example is a
> > wonderful example, and one of my favorite novels; Cherryh explains
hardly
> > anything about the technology of cloning or of "taping" the
personalities of
> > the clones; she explains enough to get the story going, gives us her
cast of
> > characters, and sets _them_ going.

Give me science fiction writers every time over "techno-thriller" authors.
Since my "day job" deals with genetics, I try to keep up with at least some
of the novels that use it in the story--and if that's where the public is
getting their information, no wonder there are so many misconceptions!
Follett's (sp?) _The Third Twin_ was a "New York Times best seller" that
ended up as a TV miniseries (why am I not surprised??).  It uses cloning
with such ridiculous outcomes that just growing up with my identical-twin
sisters would have been enough background to make it unbelievable.  And the
university-based research in the book--even that done by the "good"
researcher who uncovers the plot to take over the world with clones (of
course)--would never have gotten past the worst IRB! Some of the human
subject research she was doing was similar to what my department does, and
the lack of confidentiality/informed consent standards was egregious (oh,
that's a word I don't get to use very often!); I described it to our head
genetic counselor and the two of us LOL about it--but it could explain why
some people are reluctant to become involved in our research, if that's
where they've gotten their conceptions of it!  The author of another one (I
thankfully don't remember the name of the author or the book) had evidently
gone to great lengths to get the process and chemicals used for DNA
sequencing *exactly* correct, but also evidently had no idea of even the
basics of how DNA *works*.  I read one Robin Cook novel (_The Fifth
Chromosome_?) that basically got things right, and used some of the current
knowledge in a creative way (involving the histocompatibility complex: don't
worry, even though it's *fascinating*, I won't get into it here  8-)  )--but
that one I would almost classify as science fiction rather than
techno-thriller because it took the current knowledge into a "what if"
scenario beyond it.

But I'm getting off track, as I wanted to say something *positive*.  After I
read one of those books, I want to go out and hug a science fiction writer!
In general, even those who produce what could be called the
"green"/biological equivalent of hard sci-fi use the science as a
jumping-off point for their stories rather than as an end in itself.  Nancy
Kress's _Beggars in Spain_ series is a good example.  As with Cherryh, she
doesn't show the technology behind the genetic manipulation in her world,
but she makes it plausible--and available to those who can afford it, which
IMHO is a lot more likely than a government conspiracy.  While I don't agree
with her projections of the societal outcomes by the end of the series
(somehow, even if I didn't "have to" have a job, I think I'd still want to
learn how to read!), it's an interesting and thought-provoking trip--and I
wasn't distracted by really bad science.

It was the mention of _Cyteen_ that made me jump in here.  Absolutely one of
my favorite books, and not just for the reason already discussed (although
that's certainly one of them--we also get just enough of the "hormones vs.
genes" debate to make it an interesting part of the story without being
distracting).  The characters are wonderfully drawn, and complex enough that
I didn't always know what they'd do--but their actions would end up fitting
them.  Although I certainly wouldn't put it on the same level as _LotR_, I
think there are a couple of similarities between them--with _Cyteen_ having
the qualities on a much lower level.  First, it's one of the few books I've
revisited just because I wanted to be around the characters again.  Second,
it's one of the few books that I've found to have the quality of being
perfectly comprehensible on a first reading, but yet on a second and third
reading (that's all the further I've gone, so far) has still given me
"ah-hah" moments of,  "There's a plot connection I didn't notice before,"
or, "That tells me something about the character that I'd missed the first
time through."  That's the kind of book that gets my undying affection, and
it also says to me that the writer didn't take the easy way through the
story.

That was the first book by Cherryh I ever read, and it did lead me to sample
most of her universes [remember when "Define the universe and give three
examples" used to be a joke?].  Her _Fortress_ series is one of the *very*
few Medieval-European-style fantasies I've read (having been spoiled by
Tolkien, as some other people have), and I started it for the simple reason
that she wrote it.  I kept reading it because I liked it--it certainly
wasn't perfect (while I did like the characters, I thought some of them
seemed a bit too "contemporary" for the world they were in).  And throughout
the series she does with her magic what good sci-fi writers do with their
science--doesn't completely explain it, but shows us enough of it to let us
understand the story and to give the reader the feeling that it could be
real.  I especially liked that it seems exactly *right* that three distinct
types of supernatural power (to avoid getting into her definitions of the
various types here) could interact in the "gray space" without us having to
know just why or how (and also without knowing quite what the gray space
itself is).  And after four books there's enough mystery left about the main
protagonist's origins that I actually hope for a follow-up: something I
wouldn't say about too many books, let alone series.

The last part of the fourth book does suffer from the one characteristic
I've seen in each of Cherryh's stories that I've read, whether science
fiction or fantasy--the ending is very rushed.  In some books, like
_Cyteen_, she makes this work pretty well.  In others, like the end of the
_Fortress_ series, things seem to fall out of place a bit (IMHO).  My
biggest disappointment was that the concept of the gray space, which I loved
through the first 3.95 books, becomes a way-too-convenient "transporter
device" to move characters quickly around the map.  I would have liked to
have told her that I wouldn't have minded spending a bit more time getting
them where they needed to go, in order to have the ending less jarring and
more in synch with the tone of the rest of the series.


> Cherryh does a really good job of making her aliens alien; I've
> greatly enjoyed her Chanur and Foreigner universes.  And the knnn
> can out-enigma the Vorlons and the Arisians together, with their
> tentacles tied in knots.
>

As far as I know, Foreigner is the only one of her "universes" that I
haven't visited. I may have to try that one.

--Trudy

-----Original Message-----
From: Stolzi@... [mailto:Stolzi@...]
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 11:49 AM
To: mythsoc@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [mythsoc] Ellison


In a message dated 2/1/2003 12:00:46 AM Central Standard Time,
WendellWag@... writes:


> "Adrift
> Just off the Islets of Langerhans, Latitude Something or Other, Longitude
> Something Else."  (I'm too tired to look up the exact numbers in the
> title.)
> He said that they were mentioned in the move _King Kong_ as being the
> location of Skull Island.  Apparently he made up this up on the spot,
> because
> there's no such mention in the movie and, besides, the address is actually

> about 50 feet south of the corner of 2nd and H Street NE in Washington,
DC.
>

Where the Islets of Langerhans probably ARE found from time to time.


  *** But not always the same Islets.... Hundredes of different ones each
day, I should think.

8^)   Janet



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 2/3/2003 1:54:29 AM Eastern Standard Time,
dbratman@... writes:


> But it's not necessary at Potlatch and Mythcon, which both
> run about 100-150 people, and finding smaller groups to talk with is
> easy.  At the Tolkien and Lewis centenary conferences, we had over 300
> each, and thought they were huge.

If I remember the numbers correctly, the largest Mythcon so far was the
Tolkien Centenary Conference in Oxford in 1992, which had about 350 people.
But that wasn't just a Mythcon.  It was also an Oxenmoot, which is the
Tolkien Society's annual meeting, and it got a lot of the continental
European Tolkien people too.  I believe the next largest was the 1987 one in
Madison, which had about 300 people.  I think that did so well because
Christopher Tolkien was the guest.  I believe that the two Wheaton Mythcons
(in 1985 and 1998) and the Washington one in 1994 were a three-way tie for
third place with about 250 people.  The other 28 of the 33 Mythcons so far
have been under 200 people.  So if someone wants to come to a small, intimate
con, Mythcon is your place.

Wendell Wagner


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 11:59 PM 2/2/2003 , Max Rible wrote:

>> > ...Michael Swanwick...
>>
>
>Try _The Iron Dragon's Daughter_ or _Stations of the Tide_.  Should
>be available in a used bookstore for cheap.

Some of Swanwick's short stories are clever, and he's written some
halfway-decent fantasy criticism, but a few pages of _The Iron Dragon's
Daughter_ sent me away determined never to return.  A few people were
trying to promote that as the next great genre-defining fantasy.  It didn't
really take that role, but if it did, count me out.

- David Bratman

On Mon, 2003-02-03 at 08:46, David S. Bratman wrote:
> Some of Swanwick's short stories are clever, and he's written some
> halfway-decent fantasy criticism, but a few pages of _The Iron Dragon's
> Daughter_ sent me away determined never to return.  A few people were
> trying to promote that as the next great genre-defining fantasy.  It didn't
> really take that role, but if it did, count me out.

The only comparable book I can think of is Ian McDonald's _Desolation
Road_, which is a novel about the colonization of Mars done in a
magical-realism style.
--
%% Max Rible % slothman@... % www.amurgsval.org/~slothman/ %%
%% "Before enlightenment:  sharpen claws, catch mice.                %%
%%  After enlightenment:  sharpen claws, catch mice."                %%

Harlan is 5 foot two on tippy toes according to Asimov <g>.

Having met Harlan, the five foot two is probably accurate, but he
doesn't need tippy toes.

My husband, being a native New Yorker, got to see several encounters. He
says it was great fun! Isaac was always giving Harlan a run for his money.

Mythically yours,
Lisa

Croft, Janet B wrote:

>
>******Ellison's the really short one with the big ego....  I went through a
>phase as a teenager where I read all his stuff, and thought his Dangerous
>Visions anthologies were wonderful. But I now find New Wave SF unappealing.
>I enjoy reading his invective, just because it's so over the top.  And I
>always enjoyed reading Isaac Asimov's stories about their rivalry at cons.
>
>
>
>

For all of you Tolkien Collectors out there (from the serious to the
occasional), there's a great new forum for discussing Tolkien items,
giving tips, etc.  Whatever your interests - books, cards,
calendards - its a great place for discussion.  In addition, I just
searched the member list and only a few of the Lord of the Rings
names have been taken - since it's still a new forum.  So you could
be Frodo!  It would be great to get your expertise on this forum.

Here's the link.

http://www.tolkiencollector.com/forum/

Ernest:
Ernest> Potlatch, that's local, isn't it?  I mean, local to me, here
Ernest> in Seattle, at least part of the time; maybe it jumps around
Ernest> the West Coast.  At least, I remember or think I remember it
Ernest> met once at a hotel in Wallingford.

Potlach is, indeed, a migratory West Coast con.
[http://www.potlatch-sf.org/]  Potlach 9 (2000) was in Seattle, as was
Potlach 11 (2002).  That is, according to the Potlach website they
were.  I've never been, having found out about it about a wk after
last yr's con.

Looks like Potlach is in San Francisco this yr.





chris.
--
[ mail : wrdnrd@... ]
[ news : sff.people.wrdnrd ]
[ web : www.wrdnrd.com ]

----- Original Message -----
From: "David S Bratman" <dbratman@...>
To: <mythsoc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 02, 2003 10:53 PM
Subject: Re: [mythsoc] Ellison

[on the prospect of getting insulted by Harlan Ellison]
> Somehow I've never considered tongue-lashings to be pleasurable
> experiences, even long afterwards.

Who said anything about pleasurable?  Memorable, I said.  And great currency
at parties; a flaying from Ellison is probably worth ten stories about car
accidents or digging through the dumpster for my retainer in junior high
school.

> And a great shame, too.  Pre-1980s Asimov is by far my favorite of all the
> SF writers of his generation (the ones who arrived in the 1937-49
> Campbellian period).  Yes, I like that old Foundation trilogy, but it was
> the first book-length SF I ever read, at age 15.

The problem--one of the problems--with the Foundation stories is that
Asimov, often unable or unwilling to _show_ us the resolution of the crises
he has set up, resorts to long conversation scenes in which we're told,
rather than shown, that the crisis is resolved.  The last story in the
original _Foundation_ provides one of the most egregious examples:  Hober
Mallow invites his enemy Sutt over for tea and tells him, and us, at length
that he's solved the latest Seldon crisis--and that's that.  Also, Asimov
has a rather strange idea of psychology.

> Is it fashionable to deride _Neuromancer_?  Not anywhere that I've been,
> but perhaps I don't get out much.

I'm thinking mostly of r.a.sf.written, where I don't think I saw a single
positive comment about _Neuromancer_ in three years.  Gibson was universally
derided for his computer illiteracy and his inability to follow up on the
success of _Neuromancer_.

> Nor did I find the prose too memorable...

I'll never forget many of the scenes from _Neuromancer_, particularly Case's
dream of knocking down the wasp's nest, and seeing the Tessier-Ashpool logo
embossed on the side.  (I'm not sure why that scene is the one I can least
forget.)  You're right, _Neuromancer_ is more style than story; individual
scenes work, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts.  But compare
_Neuromancer_ to _Snow Crash_--urgh, there's a _bad_ book.

> Do you like classical music?  I gathered from an earlier post of yours
> mentioning it that it had been stuffed down your throat by your parents
and
> you wound up disliking it.

Not disliking it, just not liking it as much.  About half my LP collection
is classical music, though these days I listen more to rock.  I'll elaborate
offlist.

> You beat me, then.  I didn't give up on popular music entirely until I was
> about 27 (which was 1984, so it's hardly comparable), took immediately to
> pocket calculators and electric typewriters (neither of which were
> available, at least to me, when I first could have used them), and prefer
> FM radio to AM because there's more classical music on it.

I liked the Selectric; that's a good typewriter, and I'm convinced that I
can type about 20 wpm faster on it than on any other machine.  I also own a
"Coronamatic" or similar Smith-Corona electric, with manual-style typebars
and shifting, but I don't like it as much.  Word processing, though, has
probably defiled my writing habits permanently, and it would be hard for me
now to return to typewriting.

Perhaps we can meet someday at Potlatch.  Probably not this year, because I
have no money to travel to San Francisco.

Cheers,

Ernest.

Anybody who thinks I've been hard on Peter Jackson should read this:

http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/kirst/index.ssf?/base/news-0/10360
68903109090.xml

I keep telling people that I'm one of the most pro-Jacksonian of Tolkien
scholars, but they don't believe me ...  This is the word as viewed by
someone who knows Tolkien's work at least ten times as well as I do, so you
should listen to him.

- David Bratman

"David S. Bratman" wrote:
>
> Anybody who thinks I've been hard on Peter Jackson should read this:
>
> http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/kirst/index.ssf?/base/news-0/10360
> 68903109090.xml

Tried, but it seems that I have to subscribe to get it.

Joan
******************************************
Joan Marie Verba
verba001@...
http://www.sff.net/people/Joan.Marie.Verba

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joan Marie Verba" <verba001@...>
To: <mythsoc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 6:49 PM
Subject: [mythsoc] Jackson comments, again


> "David S. Bratman" wrote:
> >
> > Anybody who thinks I've been hard on Peter Jackson should read this:
> >
> >
http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/kirst/index.ssf?/base/news-0/10360
> > 68903109090.xml
>
> Tried, but it seems that I have to subscribe to get it.

I swear that when I tried this link earlier in the day, I reached the
article, no problem.  I suspect that decided that some profit could be had
from a hot item.  It's not cached in Google either, that I can tell.

I was hoping to read the article again to refresh my memory, but I remember
enough to make two comments.  First, the professor is absolutely right when
he says that the films aren't even all that good as films, never mind their
fidelity to _The Lord of the Rings_.  I have gotten tired of the standard,
and unthinking, defence of Jackson's films that runs something like, "Well,
of course he changed the story, but he _had_ to change the story for it to
work as a movie, and you have to admit that it's great moviemaking."

Second, I agree that Eowyn was weakened.  Jackson and his collaborators may
be surprised at this charge, because they obviously thought to build her
character up into a rival against Arwen, but in enlarging her character they
also dissipated her.  She spends most of her scenes either gazing upon
Aragorn in watery adoration or consumed with wordless and stoic despair over
his apparent death.

Ernest.

I had no problem reaching the article today, either.  Good comments
throughout. I had been wondering -- is it just my familiarity with the text
that makes the moments quoted exactly from the book seem so much richer than
their surroundings, because I get a frisson of recognition?  Or are they
really that much better?  And yes, I think they are.  Jackson's added
dialogue is usually so banal.

I found this comment intriguing:  "In some respects [the films] seem to be
intended to stand independent of the book, but in others they depend upon it
for comprehension. One can't have it both ways."  Of course, that does lead
people to buy and read the books -- and then make comparisons, to the
movies' disadvantage.

"Sauron's eye over Bard-dur looks like an advertising sign" -- ROTFL!

Janet

Janet Brennan Croft
jbcroft@... <mailto:jbcroft@...>
http://libraries.ou.edu/ <http://libraries.ou.edu/>
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/C/Janet.B.Croft-1/
<http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/C/Janet.B.Croft-1/>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who need closure


> "David S. Bratman" wrote:
> >
> > Anybody who thinks I've been hard on Peter Jackson should read this:
> >
> >
http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/kirst/index.ssf?/base/news-0/10360
<http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/kirst/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1036
0>
> > 68903109090.xml
>
> Tried, but it seems that I have to subscribe to get it.


The Mythopoeic Society website http://www.mythsoc.org
<http://www.mythsoc.org>

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service
<http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

A perhaps trivial nitpick:

In a message dated 2/4/2003 10:27:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,
thiophene@... writes:


> First, the professor is absolutely right . . .

Wayne Hammond is a librarian, not a professor.

Wendell Wagner


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hey now, he could be both!  My title is assistant professor!

Janet

Janet Brennan Croft
jbcroft@...
http://libraries.ou.edu/ <http://libraries.ou.edu/>
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/C/Janet.B.Croft-1/
<http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/C/Janet.B.Croft-1/>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who need closure

-----Original Message-----
From: WendellWag@... [mailto:WendellWag@...]
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 9:33 AM
To: mythsoc@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [mythsoc] Jackson comments, again


A perhaps trivial nitpick:

In a message dated 2/4/2003 10:27:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,
thiophene@... writes:


> First, the professor is absolutely right . . .

Wayne Hammond is a librarian, not a professor.

Wendell Wagner


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 2/5/2003 10:39:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, jbcroft@...
writes:


> Hey now, he could be both!  My title is assistant professor!
>

Why don't we just ask him, since he belongs to this mailing list?  Hey,
Wayne, are you a professor too?

Wendell Wagner


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I finally found it on the 14 day news archive.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/kirst/index.ssf?/base/news-0/103606890\
3109090.xml

Joan
******************************************
Joan Marie Verba
verba001@...
http://www.sff.net/people/Joan.Marie.Verba

MythSoc folks,

On the advice of one of your members I've joined the list in order to pass on
this information:

In conjunction with Wildside Press I'm editing an author study of C.J. Cherryh,
tentatively titled _The Cherryh Odyssey_.  The Call for Papers is located
here:

http://enigma.rider.edu/~ecarmien/

I look forward to seeing submissions soon!

--Ed Carmien
ecarmien@...

Thanks all!

Wendell asked:

>Why don't we just ask him, since he belongs to this mailing list?  Hey,
>Wayne, are you a professor too?

No, at Williams College only the chief College Librarian has faculty
status. Which is not to say that we librarians don't teach.

Wayne

In a message dated 2/4/2003 9:28:01 PM Central Standard Time,
thiophene@... writes:


> I swear that when I tried this link earlier in the day, I reached the
> article, no problem.

I reached it not by that link, which came up with a blank page, but by going
to the link for the paper's "14-Day Archive" and scrolling down.  I captured
the text and Listmistress Joan may tell me whether it is legit. to post it
here.  (It's a Letter to the Editor, anyway, not an article; I would think it
remains Wayne's property and that he wouldn't mind, but I don't know)

Diamond Proudbrook


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>I reached it not by that link, which came up with a blank page, but by going
>to the link for the paper's "14-Day Archive" and scrolling down.  I captured
>the text and Listmistress Joan may tell me whether it is legit. to post it
>here.  (It's a Letter to the Editor, anyway, not an article; I would think
it
>remains Wayne's property and that he wouldn't mind, but I don't know)

I don't know either: some letters sent to newspapers become the property of
the paper, but mine was a letter to a reporter in lieu of a telephone
interview, not a proper letter to the editor; at the same time, it's an
article, but wasn't written as one (the reporter made it so, to my
surprise), and it has a copyright notice by the Post-Standard. In any case,
it's easy enough to read the piece on site, just go from the link at
http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/kirst/index.ssf. No subscription
necessary. Just don't try to search for my name through the search box on
syracuse.com, for some reason it brings up only the related general article
about fans disagreeing about the films. The article in question disappeared
from the site for a few hours yesterday, apparently a system glitch, but
was restored early this morning.

Wayne

"Wayne G. Hammond" wrote:
>
> >I reached it not by that link, which came up with a blank page, but by
> >going to the link for the paper's "14-Day Archive" and scrolling down.
> >I captured the text and Listmistress Joan may tell me whether it is
> >legit. to post it here.  (It's a Letter to the Editor, anyway, not an
> >article; I would think it remains Wayne's property and that he wouldn't
> >mind, but I don't know)
>
> I don't know either: some letters sent to newspapers become the property
> of the paper, but mine was a letter to a reporter in lieu of a telephone
> interview, not a proper letter to the editor; at the same time, it's an
> article, but wasn't written as one (the reporter made it so, to my
> surprise), and it has a copyright notice by the Post-Standard. In any case,
> it's easy enough to read the piece on site, just go from the link at
> http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/kirst/index.ssf. No subscription
> necessary. Just don't try to search for my name through the search box on
> syracuse.com, for some reason it brings up only the related general article
> about fans disagreeing about the films. The article in question disappeared
> from the site for a few hours yesterday, apparently a system glitch, but
> was restored early this morning.

*sigh*  I would really like to read what Wayne had to say, but I
can't get either link to provide a download of the page in
anything like a reasonable amount of time.  (Just as an
indication, I tried the longer version of the link earlier today,
and sat there with a book until my screen saver came on -- and I
have it on a ten-minute delay.)  If some kind person has captured
it and could send me a copy by private email, that wouldn't
violate copyright, would it?


--Margaret Dean
   <margdean@...>