More Porn

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:28:17 -0700, Don Bruder <dakidd.TakeThisOut@sonic.net> wrote:

>In article <sc0ju3hggusko2aod36pqjvm6h1t132lii.TakeThisOut@4ax.com>,
> William George Ferguson <wmgfrgsn.TakeThisOut@newsguy.com> wrote:

>> Just to straighten out a minor error, the first part of Dragonflight was
>> serialized in Analog as "Weyr Search", and won the Hugo award for Best
>> Novella. The second half was serialized in Analog as "Dragonrider" and won
>> the Nebula the following year. McCaffrey wasn't an unknown quantity
>> however, she had already earned major street cred from the Helva stories.
>
>Yah, can't forget about Helva. Although for me, those were discovered
>about the time White Dragon came out as I started hunting for her "back
>catalog" (Desperately hoping to find more dragons, of course!)
>
>Sadly, it's my opinion that the "shell people" stories went down the
>chute quite rapidly when she started doing more of them - One or two of
>them were OK, but for the most part, it was too obviously a "make a few
>bucks and support an upcoming author" thing.

You'll notice I said 'the Helva stories', not the shell-person stories or
the B/B stories.

The Ship Who Sang
The Ship Who Mourned
The Ship Who Killed
Dramatic Mission
The Ship Who Dissembled

I read all the later collaborations, and to the best of my memory, ML,
Sterling, Margerat Ball, and Jody Lynn Nye never got to play with Helva,
they all created their own shell-persons.

>The... Well, "heart", for
>lack of a better way to put it, just wasn't there for me. However I did
>quite enjoy seeing her link the Shell People and Crystal Singer
>universes (Um... pedant judgement call requested: "universi"?) together.
>I'm pretty sure she did the same thing with the "Dinosaur Planet/Planet
>Pirates/Death Of Sleep" books, as well, but I can't recall the exact
>mechanism - Something to do with Lunzi catching a ride on a BB ship?
>Having her main universes "clump together" they way she eventually did
>was, for reasons I can't quite explain, "the icing on the cake" for me.

the way I think of this is that just because the same background types are
present, it isn't necessarily the same universe. Andre Norton established
basic background institutions and parallels that fit into virtually all of
her science fiction (as opposed to fantasy, not inclusive in this specific
case) stories, the Patrol, Central Control, the Guild, Free Traders and so
on, with the same races (especially the Zacathans) appearing widely in the
background. However, it's clear that not all these take place in the same
universe. The Earth of The Stars Are Ours (and Starborn) and the Earth of
Beastmaster (and sequels) have clearly different histories, although
Hosteen Storm imports some Astran duocorns as breeding stock. We see how
this works most clearly in Android At Arms, where the protagonist moves
between two universes, both with the same institutions, but subtly
different.

The same thing applies (for me) with the Helva universe, the Kallishandra
universe, the Planet Pirates universe, and Pern universe. They can
cross-pollinate and still each be in their own universe.

--
I have a theory, it could be bunnies

On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:42:49 -0700, "m_thomas[numBksInLastHrldMage]"
<"m_thomas[numBksInLastHrldMage]"@earthlink.net> wrote:

>I may not read much of McCaffrey's later work, but I'm still blown away by
>the idea that she publishes anything at all at 90+ years of age.

She still has a way to go for that. She turns 82 in about a week.

Now Andre Norton wrote her last novel (Three Hands For Scorpio) at 90, and
Jack Williamson wrote his last novel (The Stonehenge Gate) at 96

--
I have a theory, it could be bunnies