{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2757", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 2757, "subject": "Son of Scattered Shots", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2001-08-03T10:48:25+00:00", "last": "2001-08-06T08:46:28+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2001-08-03T10:48:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Son of Scattered Shots", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "To John Bishop:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Personally, of the Narnia books I prefer _The_Magician's_Nephew_,\nbecause it has that wonderful vision of a dying world, and because\nthe Empress castigates the English, \"You treat your slaves poorly\",\nto which they reply \"But they aren't slaves\". That exchange could\nmake a middle-class child of the time _think_ about the status of\nthe working class." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That was my favorite when I first read them, at age -- well, third\ngrade or so, wossat, about 9? Something like that. Perhaps I reread\nit too many times, perhaps it has palled as I discovered the more\nsubtle stuff in the two books I mentioned, and just maybe it's a\nhidden resentment at the renumbering of the books that puts TMN at\nthe front, where it clearly does not belong. But it's a good'un." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But which ever book is your favorite, they're clearly in the\nshort list of \"possible best juvenile fantasy of the 1900s\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I concur. It manages to, as Alga says, push an agenda, but does\nit without direct preaching. Translation: It's _about_ something.\nIf Pullman (or Alga) happens not to like what it's about, if it\nain't philosophically correct, well, tough. I never cease to be \namazed at the closed minds of many (what used to be called) \n\"free-thinkers.\" \n\n\nTo Alex David Groce [re what-if alternate histories]:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I fail to see why they are silly; " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Please note I said I considered _most_ of them silly; that's just\na specific application of Sturgeon's Law. I mentioned one specific\ncounterexample (THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE), I could mention others\n-- you for example mentioned PAVANE, which is also not-silly. (It\nbarely escapes silliness by sheer brutal force of being so damn \ngood.) And I also like and admire the work of Howard Who, but I \n_do_ consider much, maybe most, of it silly, in a good way, like \nMonty Python at their very silly best. (Hint: My favorite Waldrop\nstory is \"Save a Place in the Lifeboat for Me.\") Silliness is not\na bad thing when it is intentional, when it is used for humor --\nConnie Willis does this brilliantly (i.e., \"Spice Pogrom,\" \"Blued\nMoon,\" TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG, etc.)\n\nWhat I consider almost-always irredeemable silliness is a writer \nwho begins by making a fairly dramatic, major change in the past, \nand then, decades or centuries later, floating the same people, \nwith the same names and (more or less) personalities, to the \nforeground that we had in our nominally-real history. \n\nIt's easy to dismiss this as \"the crushed butterfly theory,\" \na name that clearly derives from Bradbury's \"The Delicate Sound\nof Thunder.\" But if you actually think things through, it's much \nharder to ignore the basic fact that _actions have consequences_, \ndammit. If Nietzsche hadn't written _Also Sprach Zarathustra_, \nwould Hitler [whom Nietzsche, who detested anti-Semites quite as\nmuch as he detested Jews, would have detested] have risen to power?\nProbably. But if some time-traveller were to strangle Hitler in his\ncrib, I'm willing to bet the Holocaust would turn out not to have \nhappened, at least not in the form and to the extent it actually \ndid. (\"Horror, We Got.\")" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "considering them to be science-fiction rather than fantasy\nstrikes me as odd, but that's another story. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I tend to agree, except that I question the distinction. The \ntwo are not mutually exclusive; this distinction comes from a \ntendency to treat genre as a pigeonhole rather than an \nadjective, a tendency I suspect of coming from the innate\nconservatism of the SF community, its desire to preserve the\n\"purity\" of SF, a purity which (simply) never existed and never\nwill exist. You can't have pure SF any more than you can have\npure blue. It has to be blue _something_, even if it's blue\nlight.\n\nAlternate-history can be SF depending on how the writer thinks\nof (and, possibly, justifies textually) the existence of the \nalternate world -- is it one of them ol' debbil quantum manifold\nthings? Then it's science fiction. (But only if the fact that\nit is a quantum manifold thingy actually has some effect on the\nstory -- whether it be style or plot or whatever.) Are we just \nplaying make-believe, what-if? Then the terms \"sf\" and \"fantasy\" \n(at least in the sense of generic fantasy) are pretty much \nirrelevant." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The examples I came up with and (how on earth did I not think \nof this?) _There are Doors_ are not perhaps in worlds as \nradically different as Pullman's, but they're not simple \"Ghandi\nbecomes a car salesman\" stuff, " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Agreed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "which often _is_ silly (I'm thinking of some Baby Boomers\nobsession with putting JFK and other historical figures through\nevery possible profession, " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "... and so am I. To me, most alt-history books seem to be more or\nless this sort of thing.\n\nOkay, there's a kind of blurry line. Is TGC, is TAD an alternate\nhistory? I think TAD isn't and TGC shouldn't be but is, which is\nprecisely my point. For all its many and varied flaws, at least \nTAD doesn't try to make its alternate world look as much like ours\nas possible: I think it should have been _more_ different, but the\nfailure is of degree, not kind. In TGC, the failure is of kind; \nPullman can almost be seen bending over backwards to make his \notherworld as much like ours as he can get away with, given the\ndifferences and the points he wants to make." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Expecting fantasies to follow a rigorous logic that (a) is in a\nsense as hypothetical as the logic of these stories and (b) would\ndestroy the fictional aim of the author and much of the enjoyment\nof the story for many people strikes me as unfair." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I do not expect fantasies to follow the logic of our world; I expect\nthem to follow the logic of the world the writer has created, \nwhatever that is. If the writer chooses to create a world where\nthere are no rational numbers, I can go with that, but I want to see\nthe consequences. If the writer wants to create a world where the\nconcepts of \"true\" and \"false\" statements are not useful, I can go\nwith that too. (In fact, that may be _our_ world.)\n\nBut if the writer wants to create a world that is radically different\nfrom our world, and then make it so much like our world that the\ndifferences almost seem not to have made a difference -- no, I won't\nbuy that.\n\nSee my response to Tony Ellis below for an example of the kind of \nlogic I am talking about." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That [Pullman] disdains fantasy except for Terry Brooks is what\nshould really worry me..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If this is true, I'm ... shocked. That is one of the most astounding\nlapses of taste I have ever heard of. I mean, the man _clearly_ has\na sensitive ear for style; he clearly understands plot and character.\n(The only possible conclusion is that he has not read _The Lord of the\nRings_.)\n\n\nTo Joel Sieh:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I noticed that a few people listed _A_Wizard_of_Earthsea_ as \none of their best books. I was just curious why.... " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Personally: because I found it incredibly engaging; because the\nwhole trilogy (again I implicitly condemn myself for judging TGC\non its own!) is, perhaps, the best demonstration I have ever seen\nthat one can write for children about serious matters (growing \nup, responsibility, identity, love, death, impermanence, \nbalance...) without preaching or talking down -- better at that, \nin fact, than the Narnias; and, while it suffers from Le Guin's \ncharacteristic humorlessness, that's actually a relief when \ncompared to the Narnias' broad, guffawing humor (which I have \nnever found terribly funny; I think it must be a British thing). \n\nAlso because, though a Christian, I have always been deeply drawn\nto the Taoist view of life, which I consider to be the highest\nform of \"natural\" wisdom to which humanity has ever aspired, and\nLe Guin's work (especially here, and in her three great adult\nbooks of the same period [THE LATHE OF HEAVEN - a glorious \nexception to her humorlessness - THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS and \nTHE DISPOSSESSED]) beautifully encapsulates the Taoist view. No,\nnot \"encapsulates,\" you can't do that -- illustrates? Demonstrates?\nI dunno. If I could find the right word for it, it probably \nwouldn't be the right word." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "... I didn't feel like I could get close to the characters or\neven really know them or see them as anything more than \n2-dimensional. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How odd. I felt quite the opposite; I felt that I knew Ged\nbetter than many of the people I was going to school with when\nfirst I read it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I did read Susan Cooper's _The_Dark_is_Rising_, however, and at\nthe time was more impressed with some of the books, most notably\n_The_Grey_King_ than I later was with _A_Wizard_of_Earthsea_. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "They are darn good books. Now go read KING OF SHADOWS; it's much,\nmuch better." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I guess I'd put _The_Hobbit_ and maybe even the rest of LotR,\neven though LotR is probably better suited for adults. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The reason I excluded THE HOBBIT is that (a) it is full of awful\nmoments when he talks down to his reader and (b) it isn't really \na twentieth-century novel at all, it's a Victorian fairy-story.\n\nMind you, I love it, but it's deeply flawed in a number of ways...\n\n\n\nTo Tony Ellis (who quotes Michael Straight):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "All of human history and society would be very, very, very\ndifferent if men died immediately after having intercourse." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Different, certainly. \"Very, very, very different\" is conjecture." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ummmm... no. For example, the following things are absolutely \ntrue of such a world:\n o There would be none of the historical contests between two \n sons of one king by different mothers. \n o While there might (possibly) be some concept of marriage, \n they would certainly not have the concept of marriage \n as a chattel ownership of the woman's sexuality that \n protects the \"right\" of the father to make sure that all \n her children are his.\n o In fact, the concepts of legitimacy and bastardy, as we \n know and hate or love or ignore them, would not evolve. \n o No father would ever raise his children.\n o The entire concept of the Oedipal conflict (however you \n choose to interpret it) would be missing from the culture.\n (The psychology of sex and sexual competition would be\n very, very different in general.)\n o There would be no, or very few, old men. (These would \n probably be either revered (as wise) or reviled (as\n cowards who didn't perform their \"duty\").)\n o Hell -- _marketing_ would be radically different 8*).\n o The classic problem of a (straight) woman trying to find\n a \"good man\" would be greatly exacerbated. (On the other\n hand, men probably wouldn't worry very much about \n whether they were \"good in bed.\")" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Would the changes you describe necessarily all work in the\nsame direction, and shift history onto a completely different\ntrack, or would half of them cancel out the other half, and \nthe overall shape of history remain more or less the same?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Possibly there would be some \"cancellation,\" but given the \nabsolute differences that _must_ follow from the premise, I\ncan't see history simply healing over. \n\nMythology, literature -- all the arts except music and maybe\npainting would be very different in their form and content." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't see how dismissing two of these theories in favour\nof a third, when in fact no one knows what happens when\nhuman history is altered, has anything to do with logic at\nall." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, it's like this. If you postulate something, you have to\naccept what follows from the postulate, or you are not playing\nthe game honestly. If you create a world of the sort Wolfe\ncreates in TAD and then show a father raising his children\nin that world, you are either stupid or dishonest\n\n_Unless_, of course, you have something more in mind (he's not \nfrom that world, a la Green in TAD; or he's some kind of mutant \nor other bushwah -- though I should think that simply exploring \nthe ramifications of the differentia would be interesting enough \nwithout having to screw around with an additional improbable\nmutation; or something of that general sort...).\n\nI am trying to hold a space open for that \"something else in\nmind\" in Pullman's case. If the subsequent books convince me\nthat Lyra's world is so similar to ours because they influence\neach other, I'm jiggy with it. If not, then I will conclude that\nPullman is cheating his readers and -- more importantly -- his\nwork.\n\n\nTo Spectacled Bear:\n\nI have always suspected that the climax of NOVA was influenced \nby the shower scene in PSYCHO.\n\n--Dan'l" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "2001-08-06T00:51:48+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Son of Scattered Shots", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 10:48 AM -0700 8/3/01, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nIt's easy to dismiss this as \"the crushed butterfly theory,\"\na name that clearly derives from Bradbury's \"The Delicate Sound\nof Thunder.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is interesting. When I read the above title, I said to myself, \n\"No, that's not it. It's 'The Sound of Distant Thunder'.\"\n\nBut I thought I had better confirm the title before I posted \nanything. And I couldn't. The actual title is \"A Sound of Thunder\" \nwhich is found in the collection _R is for Rocket_ by Ray Bradbury.\n\nWhat makes it interesting is that it seems that Dan'l* and I are not \nthe only ones who misremember the title slightly. While I was \nsearching the Internet in an attempt to confirm my recollection, I \nfound people who recalled it as \"A/The Sound of Distant Thunder\" and \n\"A/The Distant Sound of Thunder.\"\n\nAlthough the story made quite an impression on me when I first read \nit when I was quite young, I have to say that I now regard the \npremise as almost completely flawed.\n\nBelow is a long quote from the story that explains the premise. This \nis from (Apparently \nHollywood is thinking of turning \"Thunder\" into a film, which raises \nsome questions: Will the film get made? If it does, will it bear as \nlittle resemblance to the original story as _Total Recall_ did to the \nPhilip K. Dick story \"We Can Remember It For You Wholesale\" that it \nwas based on? Will any of us care either way?)\n\n\n--------------------------------------------------\nHowever, as we all know, going back in time is a risky proposition, \nas Eckels' guide, Travis, explains: \"Say we accidentally kill one \nmouse here. That means all the future families of this one particular \nmouse are destroyed, right?...And all the families of the families of \nthe families of that one mouse! With a stamp of your foot, you \nannihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a \nbillion possible mice!...Well, what about the foxes that'll need \nthose mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of \nten foxes a lion starves. For want of a lion, all manner of insects, \nvultures, infinite billions of life forms are thrown into chaos and \ndestruction. Eventually it all boils down to this: fifty-nine million \nyears later, a caveman, one of a dozen on the entire world, goes \nhunting wild boar or saber-toothed tiger for food. But you, friend, \nhave stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one \nsingle mouse. So the caveman starves. And the caveman, please note, \nis not just any expendable man, no! He is an entire future nation. \n From his loins would have sprung ten sons. From their loins one \nhundred sons, and thus onward to a civilization. Destroy this one \nman, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of life. It \nis comparable to slaying some of Adam's grandchildren. The stomp of \nyour foot, on one mouse, could start an earthquake, the effects of \nwhich could shake our earth and destinies down through Time, to their \nvery foundations. With the death of that one caveman, a billion \nothers yet unborn are throttled in the womb. Perhaps Rome never rises \non its seven hills. Perhaps Europe is forever a dark forest, and only \nAsia waxes healthy and teeming. Step on a mouse and you crush the \nPyramids. Step on a mouse and you leave your print, like a Grand \nCanyon, across Eternity. Queen Elizabeth might never be born, \nWashington might not cross the Delaware, there might never be a \nUnited States at all. So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never step \noff!\" Needless to say, Eckels does \"step off the path\" with chilling \nresults.\n--------------------------------------------------\n\n(The whole story is on line here \n. What copyright \nviolations or that lack thereof may be involved, I have no idea.)\n\nAnyway, here's the flaw. If you kill a mouse or any other animal** in \nthe past, you will wipe out all of its descendents, perhaps many \nbillions of mice, if you are far enough back in time. But will this \ncause an avalanche of changes to thunder down the corridors of time? \nI don't think so. More of the descendants of all of the other \ncontemporaneous mice will live and the mouse population will will be \nvirtually (or even absolutely) unchanged, so the mouse predators and \nthose who prey on them will see no difference. Mice are pretty much \ninterchangeable, at least as food, so, unless you kill the \"first\" or \nthe only mouse (or a mouse that is unique in some other way), it \nreally won't make much of a difference.\n\nNow we would like to think that all human beings are unique, and \ncertainly killing a person rather than a mouse would seem to have a \nmuch greater potential for changing history, but I think in most \ncases that that same argument can be applied. History will be \nconserved***, but at least some of the individuals involved will be \ndifferent and the details will very probably be different as well!\n\nSo, Pullman's alternate world which is so completely different from \nours in so many ways but still has a recognizable Oxford in it and a \nJohn Calvin, still in a prominent, church-related role, strikes me as \nbeing just plain silly." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "William Ansley\n\n*Dan'l, there was a Pink Floyd concert film released in 1989 called \n\"Delicate Sound of Thunder\". Might you have been thinking of this?\n\n**The creature actually killed in the story was a butterfly, hence \nthe name \"the crushed butterfly theory.\"\n\n***How many of you remember Fritz Leiber's \"Law of Conservation of \nReality\"? This was a definite attempt to counter \"the crushed \nbutterfly theory.\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2001-08-06T08:46:28+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Son of Scattered Shots", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, William Ansley wrote:\nNow we would like to think that all human beings are unique, and \ncertainly killing a person rather than a mouse would seem to have a \nmuch greater potential for changing history, but I think in most \ncases that that same argument can be applied. History will be \nconserved***, but at least some of the individuals involved will be \ndifferent and the details will very probably be different as well!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Have we so soon forgotten Castleview? \"We are all Arthur's descendents.\"\nGo back far enough, and killing one person could effect most of the gene\npool of a 20th century continent. All the individuals will be different.\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }