SF-LOVERS Digest            Tuesday, 6 Aug 1991       Volume 16 : Issue 345

Today's Topics:

     Books - Niven (8 msgs) & Reviews

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Date: 15 Jul 91 18:13:41 GMT
From: doug@netcom.com (Doug Merritt)
Subject: Re: Niven's characters *spoiler*

sheepsqueezer@kcbbs.gen.nz (Colin Jones) writes:
>IMO Teela's Protectorhood can be seem a slightly different way - what her
>'luck gene' has been bred for is the survival of her 'genetic heritage',
>not Teela herself (although these would normally be similar) (shades of
>Dawkins :).

To clarify for people who haven't read Dawkins (please run right out and do
so), genes can propagate themselves by sacrificing one body in which they
appear for the benefit of the other bodies in which they appear. A father
who has a gene that causes him to sacrifice himself to save his children
will have already passed on that gene to them, and that behavior will help
ensure that that gene continues on to more generations.

Similar arguments apply to self-sacrifice for siblings and even larger
social groups, although for the case of Teela the argument needs to take
into account that her "luck gene" would be sacrificing her for the benefit
of the other copies of the luck gene in other people, not necessarily for
the entire human race. The latter is more difficult (but perhaps not
impossible) to argue, since it gets more and more indirect.

Richard Dawkins' book for the general public is The Blind Watchmaker, his
first and mildly technical book is The Selfish Gene, now out in a revised
second edition, and his most technical book on the subject is The Extended
Phenotype, which answers some criticisms from his colleagues.

All excellent books, extremely influential. I thought I understood
evolution until I read Selfish Gene; then I realized I'd really previously
only had the vaguest of ideas how it worked, by comparison with afterwards.
An absolute must-read for anyone with any interest in evolution and
genetics.

Doug Merritt
doug@netcom.com
apple!netcom!doug
sun.com!jfrank!doug
doug@eris.berkeley.edu

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Date: 15 Jul 91 18:09:02 GMT
From: C31801SE@wuvmd.wustl.edu
Subject: Re: Niven's characters (future Known Space stories)

Of course there is another way to solve the problem of Teela Genes Meet the
Core Explosion: reveal that there is no such thing as a luck gene, that
with so many humans running around Known Space, a few of them are bound to
LOOK like statistical anomalies.  Then go on to say that Teela's chances
for survival at any given time were the same as any other human's would
have been, no matter how many times she had already survived at incredible
odds.  From this point of view, Teela is like a fair coin which, thus far,
has always landed heads BUT which still has a 50-50 chance of heads the
next time you flip it.  Louis Wu and various puppeteers simply *think* the
coin is lucky.  Or weighted :) This is probably not an original theory, but
I haven't seen it here yet (yes, and how long have I been reading this
group?:)

Bridget Spitznagel

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Date: 15 Jul 91 06:25:40 GMT
From: boyajian@ruby.dec.com (The Film Fan Man)
Subject: Re: Leshy Circuit

jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (James Davis Nicoll) writes...
>This question keeps coming up. If I was smart, I'd save this list to make
>reposting easier.

>       Title                   Type            Collection
[...]
>       Rammer                  Short Story     A Hole in Space
>       Children of the State   Short Story     Galaxy Magazine, 1976
>A World Out of TimeNovelN/A
[...]
> A World Out of Time was a fix-up of 'Rammer', and 'Children of the
>State'.

First, there is another story that falls in between "Rammer" and "Children
of the State" called "Down and Out", also published in GALAXY in 1976
(February issue, if memory serves).

Secondly, "Children of the State" wasn't a short story, but a novel-length
serial. Basically, "Rammer" was the first chapter of A WORLD OUT OF TIME,
"Down and Out" was the second (possibly second and third) chapter, and
"Children of the State" was the rest.

 --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian)
boyajian%ruby.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM
...!decwrl!ruby.enet.dec.com!boyajian

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Date: 16 Jul 91 03:36:04 GMT
From: 003@pnet16.cts.com (Lcdr Smith)
Subject: Lucifer's Hammer--Slaves?

Hmm, it has been awhile since I read this book (about 2 years) but as I
remember it, they discussed a choice between execution, enslavement, and
imprisonment.  They nixed the first two choices, and went for the latter.
The "angels" were imprisoned on an island in the middle of the San Joaquin
Sea, with the communist astronaut placed in charge.  The really bad guys
died, and Sergeant Hook in particular died an ugly death by mustard gas.
Moreover, don't forget it was the _black_ astronaut who led the impassioned
plea at the end to save the nuclear power plant, while the white leaders
sat around speechless.  Remember, too, that this book was written at least
10 years ago (not sure, but might be more) when race relations were at an
even worse state than currently.

Personally, as a female, I took umbrage with the bits about the immediate
squelching of women into second class citizens.  The bits about Maureen (?)
being the "princess" with 3 "heroes" fighting for her hand, and the
position of heir-apparent to the Senator really torqued me off.

But, as an abashed end-of-the-world book lover, I rate LH pretty high on my
list of preferred books.

Sheri
UUCP: humu!nctams1!pnet16!003
ARPA: humu!nctams1!pnet16!003@nosc.mil
INET: 003@pnet16.cts.com

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Date: 16 Jul 91 02:56:10 GMT
From: boyajian@ruby.dec.com (The Film Fan Man)
Subject: Re: Leshy Circuit

jimcat@itsgw.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak) writes:
>Now here I have some problems. These are the stories set in the Universe
>of "The State". How do you reconcile these with the Leshy Circuit
>Universe?  I never noticed any obvious connections within the stories; the
>two milleux seem to be independent of each other. Did Niven himself say
>that the State stories belong to the Leshy Circuit Universe? (I really
>should take a look at the bibliography in _Tales of Known Space_ for the
>answer to that.)

Actually, that's the *wrong* thing to do. No one that I know ever believed
that the State series and the Leshy series had anything to do with each
other. I *think* that the reason this "idea" got started was because
"Rammer" was listed (incorrectly) in the bibliography in TOKS. There wasn't
any hard evidence to discount the connection, so everyone just went along
with it.

(And don't blame me for the error in that bibliography. I worked on the
TOKS timeline, but not the bibliography.)

 --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian)
boyajian%ruby.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM
...!decwrl!ruby.enet.dec.com!boyajian

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Date: 17 Jul 91 09:32:52 GMT
From: burns@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Jonathan Burns)
Subject: Re: Lucifer's Hammer

Pardon please if I skip the attributions: many and good, but too deeply
buried in the threads.

Given Niven & Pournelles' point that technology keeps us from many hard
social choices, it seems to me they take it too far in _Lucifer's Hammer_.

Compare the white settlement in Australia. The first convict settlements
had a corps of gaolers and a majority of convicts.

In the first years there was dire privation and reliance on re-supply from
Britain. Presently there were crops being raised, chain-gangs making roads,
manacles and floggings, and some really lovely stone houses built by
convicts with masonry experience.

The intent of His Majesty's Government was to build a colony, however; the
gulag was instrumental. As convicts survived their sentences, they were
granted small amounts of money, and title to large amounts of land if they
could settle it.

The Lucifer colony would have obvious incentives to go the same way. Why
burden the new society with a majority who stand to gain nothing from it?
Why make a permanent caste of gaolers? Would you trust them ultimately any
further than the convicts? The colony does not seem forced to slavery so
much as to peasant farming. (But this would begin to make the picture of
post-technological society look a little too rosy for N&Ps' stern moral
:-))

A longer view would emphasize that if the society could capitalize on
experience in settling and scavenging, then it could offer the rudiments of
life to other survivors, and improve the labour pool and skills base.
Rather than living in fear of the (very temporary) marauders in their keep,
they only have to disarm them and then point out the obvious mutual
benefits.

N&P are historically uncurious when it comes to medieval models.  They
think of feudalism as the default condition, with a Duke and a corps of
hard men owing him fealty. True Hobbesians, with a deep, deep lack of
social trust. They might have considered the Swiss model of cantonal
democracy. They might also have explored their own libertarian leanings,
with an eye to the worst case.

The other unlikelihood is that these people would be running a gulag when
they have an industrial base to reclaim. Here they have a reactor going,
they're the only ones in a thousand miles with hot water. But how long will
that reactor keep going, before the insulation frays, the pipes corrode,
etc.? They're in the position of Vernor Vinge's castaways in _Marooned in
Realtime_: there's a chance they can restart technology _as long as they
can keep the free allegiance of a sufficient number of intelligent people_.
In the situation of LH, I'd be sending my Angels far and wide to scavenge
machine tools and manuals, before the rain got to them. And how am I to do
that, if I can't let them out of my sight?

Given the knowledge that there is such a thing as technology, slavery looks
like the least promising choice; frontier-style capitalism looks better;
and I'm not sure I wouldn't go for a collectivist meritocracy, or
syndicalist guild system.

Finally, to the argument that technology is what makes slavery not worth
the trouble, there's always the Draka...

Jonathan Burns
Computer Science Dept
La Trobe University
burns@latcs1.lat.oz.au

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jul 91 16:06:50 GMT
From: hobbit@ac.dal.ca
Subject: Re: Lucifer's Hammer

burns@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Jonathan Burns) writes:
> Compare the white settlement in Australia. The first convict settlements
> had a corps of gaolers and a majority of convicts.
[text deleted]

I think your analogy is very inappropriate on one important score -
Australia was virtually empty, while post-Hammer California is bursting
with refugees.  You can't run a colonization system on crowded land. And
you point out yourself that a forced labour/slavery system was used in the
first years of hardship. Also, there is no suggestion of a "permanent caste
of gaolers", and there were only fifty prisoners, which I do not think
constituted a majority.

> would begin to make the picture of post-technological society look a
> little too rosy for N&Ps' stern moral :-))

Post-holocaust society, you mean. The mountain enclave was setting out to
rebuilt the technology.

> A longer view would emphasize that if the society could capitalize on
> experience in settling and scavenging, then it could offer the rudiments
> of life to other survivors, and improve the labour pool and skills base.
> Rather than living in fear of the (very temporary) marauders in their
> keep, they only have to disarm them and then point out the obvious mutual
> benefits.

I got the feeling that this was eventually how it would work. You must
remember, LH covers only the first year after Hammerfall.

> The other unlikelihood is that these people would be running a gulag when
> they have an industrial base to reclaim. Here they have a reactor going,
> they're the only ones in a thousand miles with hot water. But how long
> will that reactor keep going, before the insulation frays, the pipes
> corrode, etc.? They're in the position of Vernor Vinge's castaways in
> _Marooned in Realtime_: there's a chance they can restart technology _as
> long as they can keep the free allegiance of a sufficient number of
> intelligent people_. In the situation of LH, I'd be sending my Angels far
> and wide to scavenge machine tools and manuals, before the rain got to
> them. And how am I to do that, if I can't let them out of my sight?

I'm really puzzled at some of your perceptions of this book. You have read
it, right?

You make it sound like they set out to run a gulag as a priority of the
enclave, which of course is screwy. And they most definitely were running
scavenger missions, with the people like Harvey whatshisname that they
could trust.

"I'd be sending my Angels"???  They don't own the Angels, you know.
Remember, the Angels/New Brotherhood are religious fanatics opposed to
everything the enclave stands for. It'd be a little much to expect
unsupervised voluntary cooperation right away.  Probably they can be
"deprogrammed" eventually, to be released and made citizens, but not yet.

> Given the knowldge that there is such a thing as technology, slavery
> looks like the least promising choice; frontier-style capitalism looks
> better; and I'm not sure I wouldn't go for a collectivist meritocracy, or
> syndicalist guild system.

My god, these people are fighting to feed themselves, and you want to
discuss the merits of guild systems! :-)

Roald

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Date: 19 Jul 91 19:37:39 GMT
From: J_DELANO@unhh.unh.edu
Subject: Niven the weirdo.

   For those who want insight into Niven's personal beliefs, read "The
Return of William Proxmire" and "_Staying_ Rich".

   "tRoWP" shows just what Niven thinks about NASA, and "SR" tells just
what Niven thinks about the world.  In it is the following gem (not
necessarily verbatim):

   "It costs a lot to count votes. . .Which is the only nation in Africa to
let its citizens vote?  South Africa, the rich one."

   Although I can't agree since South Africa (at least, then) only let less
than a third (something like that) of its population vote.  Although if you
want to be really picky, the non-whites in South Africa weren't considered
citizens, so that's correct, but it's not right.

J_Delano@unhh.unh.edu

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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 91 11:34 EDT
From: eric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)
Subject: Reviews: short takes

Title: Alien Minds
Author: Keith Laumer
Publisher: Baen
Date: May 1991
Format: paperback, 326 pages US $4.50
ISBN: 0-671-72055-4

   Keith Laumer was never a writer of the first rank, but he did produce a
number of minor classics of the genre at one time (his Retief and Bolo
stories being perhaps the best known).  This anthology was evidently
intended as tribute, but it mainly highlights what a desperate wreck his
career has become.  The two new stories in this anthology ("The
Propitiation of Brullamagoo" and "Reverse English") are not merely bad,
they're embarrassingly awful make-you-wince bad.  The rest, including the
good ones ("Hybrid", "Dinochrome", "Doorstep") are all familiar anthology
fare from going on thirty years ago.  No reason to bother buying this one.

Title: The Host
Author: Peter R. Emshwiller
Publisher: Bantam/Spectra
Date: May 1991
Format: paperback, 358 pp, US$4.50
ISBN: 0-553-28984-5

   There's good news and bad news about Peter Emshwiller's novel, "The
Host."  The good news is that Emshwiller is unafraid to wrestle with and
take bold stands on controversial moral issues (his protagonist's
principles have interestingly Objectivist overtones).  The bad news is that
"The Host" features competent but unimaginative writing, derivative plot
elements (a culture where the rich live above ground, the poor below, and
the jaded rich hire poor folks to lend them their bodies for amusement),
unlikely slang, and credibility-straining coincidences (e.g., a female
doctor who has met the protagonist only once throws aside career and safety
to help him clear his name).  But the ingenuity and upbeat determination of
Emshwiller's male hero to become a "mother" add appeal to an otherwise
ordinary "read-once" novel. [CCO]

Title: Serpent Catch
Author: Dave Wolverton
Publisher: Bantam/Spectra
Date: May 1991
Format: paperback, 418 pp, US$4.99
ISBN: 0-553-28983-7

   "Serpent Catch" is a coming-of-age novel.  Unlike most such works, the
hero is a half-Neanderthal, half human hybrid, resident on a planet seeded
with various animal, plant, and human species thousands of years ago by an
advanced race as a sophisticated kind of nature preserve.  The hero's quest
is to capture a kind of sea serpent essential to preserving the ecology of
the country in which his people live; to succeed, he must come to grips
with both his human and Neanderthal heritage.  Both Wolverton's
world-building and characters are quietly convincing, though the inclusion
of a member of the advanced race that seeded the planet in the expedition
smacks too loudly of the "deus ex machina" nature and the happy ending
seems a bit forced. [CCO]

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