Quote:Hey, I liked Philosophical Strangler. I liked it the same way I liked the Discworld books. It was fun.--
It's crap. It really really is.
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
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 Christopher Angel, aka JPublic The Works of Christopher Angel
Quote:All of them? Years back. I've read at least one within the last year, I think within the last six months, and I've read most of them several times each; I think I'm fairly familiar with the series. Quote:What do you mean by "absolute"? I don't think I argued that the Lensman universe doesn't involve absolute good-and-evil archetypes. I was arguing that that is not all there is. By nature, the more ordinary and/or less extreme-end-of-the-spectrum people wouldn't tend to do anything which would need to appear in the story being told; also, I would find it highly implausible (even on a different-rules-for-different-universes level) for every single random man-on-the-street to be absolute good or absolute evil, or even necessarily absolutely neutral. A universe of absolute concepts does not in my mind imply that nothing in that universe is not absolute. I could provide examples (though not many) of initial bad guys who wind up good, and at least one solid example of an ordinary person who doesn't seem to be strongly one thing or the other, but I didn't manage to fit them into the previous post without making it more awkward and bulky than it needed to be. Quote:He didn't say that "The Philosophical Strangler" was bad. He said that its sequel, "Forward the Mage", was bad. From the little I've read of the latter, that being the teaser chapters available through the Baen Website (I severely lack money), it didn't seem bad to me, and in fact I was disappointed in not being able to read more... but opinions can validly differ on such matters. Kokuten? How does it come to be legal to distribute those copies of those books? I know that a couple of the Baen authors have included complete do-with-as-you-please collections of their previous works on CD with their latest novels, but I didn't think Eric Flint was one of them...  Quote:But none of them are specifically sitcoms, which is what we were talking about. Still, I think Doug would have fun in U.N.C.L.E., if only because the UN body that directly oversees the Warriors is the United Nations Committee on Law Enforcement... But yeah, WWW would be fun, too, as long as it's the original version and not DJ Jazzy Kevin and the West Prince. -- Bob --------- There is no spork. Quote:Okay, I'm grabbing them now; thanks. I'll read them at my next opportunity. -- Bob --------- There is no spork. Quote:I thought Kline did an excellent Artemus Gordon, although it wasn't the "Riverboat Gambler" sort of character that Russ (Ross?) Martin made so enjoyable. I think Gordon was orginally an actor/confidence man, but I forget. It's been a long time since I've watched that show. As for Will Smith, well ... I don't really need to say anything about that. Ebony the Black Dragon Senior Editor, Living Room Games www.lrgames.com Ebony the Black Dragon http://ebony14.livejournal.com "Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."
sorry, I may have misspoken.. Philosophical Strangler was Excellent.
Forward the mage was crap. ![[Image: kokbanner.jpg]](http://www.tertiary.net/Torvus/kokbanner.jpg) --- Kokuten Daysleeper, Retired Epicced Officered DorfWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979 
The Lensman series is about two absolute archetypes. The Arisians are portrayed as absolute good and the Boskonians as absolute evil.
BUT! If you read carefully, you start to pick out inconsistencies. The Arisians first of all, caused the Boskonian galaxy to slip out of whatever universe they occupied and into this one. The galaxy was then as a result of their actions on a collision course with the Milky Way. The Boskonians took exception to this. Now, they were also portrayed as pure, unadulterated evil, so it isn't hard to hate them. But on a purely moralistic level, the Arisians are the *real* bad guys. Not only have they destroyed an alien galaxy, but when they realize the Boskonians are immune to their power, they begin a millenia-long process of selective breeding to genetically create super-races to fight their wars for them. The first book in fact deals with several Earth histories, which keep being rolled back and rewritten as the Arisians take humanity's toys away from them. Finally, they decide the only way humanity can be useful is if they never develop anything more sophisticated than the vacuum tube, which is why their technology is so clunky. They weren't given a choice. Whenever I read the Lensman books, I get a completely different slant from them. Here's a race of near-godlike intelligences that tried to swat an aggressive alien race, accidentally pulled their galaxy into the same universe as the Arisians, then when the Arisians couldn't *do* anything about it, set about to create themselves a subordinate army which would kill Boskonians without a second thought. Frankly, if I met an Arisian on the street, I'd pull out a gun, say, "You hypocritical *bastard*!" and empty the clip into him. I don't think Doug would like that universe at *all*, and not for the conventional reasons...
Actually,putting bullets into either an Arisian or Boskonian,even if the entity is in humanoid form,doesn't do any good- "an exercise in futility" in other words.(Gharlane once tried the same thing upon Bergenholm.As Bergenholm was energised by an Arisian (Mentor,if memory serves) Bergenholm survived.(If I remember correctly,this encounter took place in First Lensman."There's only one kind of monster that uses bullets""There's only one kind of monster that uses bullets"
No. Normal weapons wouldn't work on the two godlikes.
Now getting ahold of one of the later Skylark ships on the other hand...... The Arisians and Boskonians would hate Doug. They are both logical and use mathmatics and logic to plan their moves. Doug's heroes are the Looney Toons. Chaos incarnate. The magic that Doug uses would refuse to be categorized by mathmatics. -------------------- Tom Mathews aka Disruptor Quote:??? According to the version of the story I read, the Eddorians (the super-race behind Boskone) - having exhausted their own universe, and seeking one in which there was or would be enough life for them to have Empire and Dominion - sent their *planet* hopping from one universe to another. They eventually arrived in ours, over in Lundmark's Nebula, which was already on a collision course with our own galaxy; realizing that this would result in the creation of a plethora of planets and hence (by the rules of that multiverse) sentient races, they decided to stay. The Arisians, having noticed Eddore's advent into their universe, went for a visit, assessed the Eddorians, realized that they could neither be coexisted with nor (by the Arisians) destroyed, sealed the newcomers' memories of that visit, and began the process of creating a race superior to themselves for the purpose of thwarting the ambitions of the fundamentally hostile interlopers - by the only means possible given the Eddorians' mindset, destroying them. Quote:Again, in the version of the story I read, the Arisians were trying to guide the rise of Civilization, and it was the Eddorians - specifically Gharlane, second most powerful of their race - who were responsible for knocking it back to the Stone Age so many times; he was also doing so elsewhere, in between times, intent on preventing any of the newly developing races from becoming even a potential threat to the Eddorians down the line. The Overlords of Delgon, bane of the Velantians, are also specifically stated to be his creatures. The only place I've seen any indication that the Arisians decided to prevent humanity from developing 'advanced' technology (meaning computers and the like) is in the backstory to a Lensman RP book, I think one for GURPS. It struck me as something of a retcon, written to explain away the technological discrepancy for the mind of the modern consumer; it's by no means necessary to the continuity. That the Arisians acted in a way which can easily be described as cold-blooded I don't dispute; things like the Nemian war, to cite one of the earliest on record (and to say nothing of the pre-interstellar-travel conflicts, even just in the Solarian system), involve horrific tragedies and could have been prevented. Since, however, if they had intervened at that stage then barring outside intervention by someone *else* the Eddorians would later have won, with results even *more* horrific, they took the long view. I'd note that the original versions of at least some of the Lensman stories were apparently written as serials in one or more of the SF magazines of the time, and later collected and rewritten (to allow them to be made part of the same universe) for publication in book form. This is why I don't just call bullshit; it's entirely possible that you have a version of the story in which things are quite different from the one I have.
Wanderer:
I see your point, and I guess I wasn't making mine properly. The universe of the Lensman books is absolute in that all the players of consequence in the stories (and by the philosophy espoused in the books, in the universe) are all absolutely good or evil. If you're not one of those, then you're not that important. So yes, there are people who aren't at one end of the scale or the other - they're just not that important. Even people who "start bad and go good" change from one extreme to the other, almost like a switch. Also, something to consider is that while we may view the "players" in the Lensman books as being not quite as pure or as vile as they claim, they were written in the 40's and 50's, so they must be read with the mindset of the day - while the concept of absolute good and evil are ridiculous to us today, they were very real, very concrete concepts to the people of the 40's and 50's, and very much so to EE Smith.-- Christopher Angel, aka JPublic The Works of Christopher Angel
Wanderer's right as far as I recall. I'm pretty sure that the Galactic Patrol-Grey Lensman-Second Stage Lensman arc was written seperately from the arc that incudes the second half of Triplanetary and First Lensman but I don't recall which. The first half of Triplanetary was written later I think, to flesh out the series when it was being published as books.
There is a certain amount of grey in the series - the various races all have their own codes of conduct and there's plenty of difference between them. OTOH it is a pretty clear cut good-bad scenario. Bear in mind that EE Doc Smith also wrote several other books. The Skylark books probably wouldn't be a very good choice for Drunkard's Walk, since their scope is actually larger than the Lensman universe. However, the Family d'Alembert features a bunch of insanely capable individuals acting as secret agents of a fairly benevolent empire threatened by a conspiracy. While the main threat was dealt with comprehensively by the end of the series, Doug might well find a great deal to do there. He might get along quite well with Pias Bavol for example. D for Drakensis You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Absolutely. You look at other books of the era. The endless martian pulp books (can't remember their names, found them too stilted to read through), Edgar Rice Burroughs novels and so on. Absolute good and evil are very straightforward, and unmistakable. But then again, historically, they were dealing either with the end of the first world war, or the second. Good and Evil were painted in broad strokes at that point in society's collective life.
It's possible I read one of the serials that was mentioned earlier. I don't have a copy myself, more's the pity. They can't be found unless you're really *really* lucky. Something to do with EE Smith's widow hating the Lensman anime and deciding to pull any re-publications of the books for a full generation as punishment. Don't know if this is true or not, but I do know you can't find them anywhere... My references were from an old collection a friend of mine has. He's somewhat older than I am, and he treats the collection like it's written on gold leaf, so it's again very possible. But even if that's the way it is in the series when it went to print, you still have an Arisian race who elected to perform mass genocide on another species by deliberately *mind-controlling* entire CIVILIZATIONS to create these super-Arisians. And for the sole purpose of killing the Arisians' enemies. Imagine what would have happened if the Galactic Patrol, with their new Lensman-equipped members, meet an actual Boskone, who tells them, "Sure, I'm not a nice guy. But wait until I tell you about how the Arisians have screwed YOU!" The Arisians in general, and Kinnison in particular were a lot like the pulp heroes of the period. They were square-jawed, straight-shooting people who were unrelentingly honest and etc, etc, etc. But the fact that they committed horrendous crimes on people who just happened to be in the way was always overshadowed by the concept that what they were doing was in the Greater Good. A sequence that occurs to me is when Kinnison was zoned out near a Boskone base, trying to use mind-control to reach in and get into the minds of the people there. When he left, the place was a radioactive crater. It's all very pulp hero stuff, but it's also extremely callous and uncaring of the "little people" that get in the way. It's no surprise the characters in the story were all larger than life. No-one else mattered. In fact, they didn't matter so *much* that collateral death wasn't even a *concern* to those involved. It was just "the price of victory". Ho hum. On to the next base. I'm hardly a pacifist by any stretch of the imagination, but the sheer INhumanity the Lensman typically demonstrated really seemed beyond the pale to me. 
RE the lame Lensman anime, the way the story reached me was quite the opposite, that the holders of the ee smith estate hate the originals, but not being averse to being given large amounts of money sold the production rights with the caveat that only the names and concepts could be used, not the original story. So, you get a generic "boy meets girl/boy loses girl/boy recovers girl and they kis by the light of the moon, which explodes for no good reason" type plot. And really really bad CG starship sequences. There were two or three equally forgettable 'side story' novels published also, starring Worsel and a borged Lensman called 24 of 6, because his chassis is the 24th revision of the 6th frame design developed, or something. This is before the regeneration treatment discovered in one of the later books.
- CD -- "Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Just a couple of ideas, direct from my twisted mind:
The "Lord Darcy" universe by Randall Garrett. Picture a world where the practice of magic has been open and government-sanctioned since the time of Richard the Lionhearted. An entire planet of "scientific" mages...but as a result, what we think of as the "sciences" are either really stunted or non-existent. They probably wouldn't have any *answers* for Doug to complete the Walk...but they'd certainly be able to provide some pointers. Or, as an alternative, I have this picture in my head of Doug walking into Callahan's Bar, just as Jake triggers a certain A-bomb at the feet of a Cockroach...
One of these days I'm going to have to get my hands on the Lord D'Arcy books. I've heard of them for thirty years now, and have never gotten around to reading them.
Moving on, I never thought about Callahan's Place.... that would be fun for a short story, if I can figure out a good enough hook in the right flavor... -- Bob --------- There is no spork.
Odd thought... A short "Sliders" crossover. Doug finds these kids playing with a homemade D-Jaunt one of them built in a basement science lab while researching antigravity. Doug winds up with them for precisely two jumps. The first one makes him responsible for their welfare for some reason, thus *requiring* him to jump with them again.
This is important because of the place he winds up with them, and has to then jump out of with them before continuing on his search. Warrior's World... Quote:Cookie for you, that's exactly my point. It would be incredibly hostile to Doug.-- Christopher Angel, aka JPublic The Works of Christopher Angel
The Lord Darcy books were recently published in an omnibus edition (also e-book version available) by Baen...
Oh, cool, gotta get that, then. Thanks!
-- Bob --------- There is no spork. Quote:A case of, "nice place to look at, wouldn't want to live there". Okay, then, Lensman is right out. -- Bob --------- There is no spork. Quote:Actually, he wouldn't have to jump out again with them. There are people in WW who are far better at dimension travel than Doug is. He'd simply take the Sliders kids back to the Mansion, set them up with a place to stay nearby, and call in the experts to get them home. Meanwhile, he reports to Hexe and makes sure Maggie ain't lonely no mo'... -- Bob --------- There is no spork.
sounds like a typical SLIDERS plot, too.
I never did like the plotlines in that show. They tried too hard to make the episodes 'interchangeable', IMO --- Kokuten Daysleeper, Retired Epicced Officered DorfWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Re: Callahans:
You really need to make it a multi-world short story. Doug's trying to get out of some place and somehow walks into Callahan's. When he's done, he walks out, only to find he's somewhere else...  Offsides Drunkard's Walk Forum Moderator and Prereader At Large
Perhaps after using the 'Cheers' theme as a gate song?
--- Kokuten Daysleeper, Retired Epicced Officered DorfWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979 |
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