Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Remember the proposal for the nuclear ramjet bomber that used liquid sodium sprayed onto an atomic pile? Weehawken!

That'll teach them Rooshins!!! Or, if you will, the proposal to dig the sea-level canal from the Pacific to the Caribbean across Nicaragua with nuclear explosions? Or Project Orion, which involved launching very large payloads into orbit with a series of nuclear detonations?

Ah. me' Those where the days, weren't they? And we haven't even touched on the "Davy Crockett", yet...

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

I found them both utterly inane; Episode I, Robert E. Howard, is "Somebody writing in 1930 didn't have 21st century sensibilities!"

No shit, Sherlock.

The second, on Poul Anderson, is even worse. "I've seen all this stuff before!" This one is right up there with people saying that Shakespeare is full of cliches.

Really, it was absurd.

Shame on you. This is currently the state of the art in advanced thought in F/SF circles, you know...

Sort of like the complaints from people that John Carter copied a lot of stuff from Star Wars...

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Great! I'm not going to worry too much about 'proper' terms, as this is supposed to be a game and not a class. The language books do have a Tsolyani-English dictionary, and I have tried to give the flavor of the conversations over pedantic accuracy. Phil never worried about it all that much, so why should we?

Oh, hell no! Who needs all that? I just want to be able to describe to the players what they see, and tell them what they should be doing in a particular situation if they even ask. In the past I normally glossed over this or said something like: " They greet you formally". I figured since you were able to tell us how it was in ye olden tymes, why not incorporate some "authenticity" into the game. If the guys were going to be in the presence of the Chaegosh then I might super detail it, but normally I don't sweat it. Thanks again.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Tor Book series on Appendix N? You mean that list of books Gary happened to like that somehow became holy writ? Somebody did a series on that? Do I want to know?

And as far as Terry Pratchett ... You'll like his stuff. Trust me. A vicious satirical wit... the "Campaign for Equal Heights" trying to convince the dwarfs they're oppressed...

And as for Raising Steam, I tell my friends and relations "If you want to know why I have a 61 year long fascination for trains, just read this book."

I'll join Gronan's recommendation...sir Terry Pratchett is very, very good!

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

**********
Yep. Please see http://www.tor.com/features/series/a...eons--dragons/

After I read all the articles, I wrote this: http://chirinesworkbench.blogspot.co...political.html
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I'll have a look.
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Try "Steam Bird", for the same thing. This hearkens back to the days when me dear old dad worked for the AEC, when the solution to everything was to put a nuclear reactor in it. His stories of the AAR's reaction to the proposal for open-cycle reactors for steam locomotives were hysterically funny. Read this book, and I'll be willing to bet that you'll laugh so hard you'll cry...

Oh, that's hilarious!

Originally Posted by TOR writers

But in talking about The Lord of the Rings—and I do certainly want to talk about this book, because I love the heck out of it, and I didn’t realize how much I loved it until I reread it recently—we also have to talk about the other oliphant in the room: that Gary Gygax didn’t much like Tolkien’s stuff.

Maybe “didn’t much like” is too strong of a description when you’re talking about a book that Gygax himself specifically listed as an influence on Dungeons and Dragons, but it’s certainly true that Gygax consistently tried to distance himself from the Tolkien influence and, more importantly, from the perception of the Tolkien influence.

That one is spot-on. But really, people, I didn't read this to learn what you two think of JRRT...And this one just gets the stupid award.

It’s impossible to deny that Tolkien is great at world-building—is anyone better?—but that’s not the only thing that makes The Lord of the Rings so remarkable.

Is anyone better? Let me think, Sherlock... Zelazni, MAR Barker, Geoffrey C. Grabowski, Greg Stafford, Jack Vance? And those are just those off the top of my head, which have published RPG settings - like Tolkien. I can probably find others without much effort.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Remember the proposal for the nuclear ramjet bomber that used liquid sodium sprayed onto an atomic pile? Weehawken!

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

That'll teach them Rooshins!!! Or, if you will, the proposal to dig the sea-level canal from the Pacific to the Caribbean across Nicaragua with nuclear explosions? Or Project Orion, which involved launching very large payloads into orbit with a series of nuclear detonations?

Ah. me' Those where the days, weren't they? And we haven't even touched on the "Davy Crockett", yet...

These two help me understand where the obsession with unusual machinery came from in pulps.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Shame on you. This is currently the state of the art in advanced thought in F/SF circles, you know...

Sort of like the complaints from people that John Carter copied a lot of stuff from Star Wars...

When advanced thought isn't good for anything apart from politics, I'd question how correct is the "advanced" qualifier. Or maybe I should question the "thought" part.

Originally Posted by Hrugga

PS I also wanted to get your opinions on Tolkien's well known allegory of Middle-Earth and Democratic Socialism during WWII.

* takes drink *

The only problem with a "Dumbshit in F&SF Fandom" drinking game is that my liver isn't young enough to stand it any more.

To quote Saccharista Crisplock in The Truth, by Sir Terry Pratchett: "They look sort of like a man's, um, you know. But you really have to want to see a man's um, you know there."

Or to quote Tom Lehrer:
"When correctly viewed, everything is lewd!" Or 'politically incorrect'.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Or, if you will, the proposal to dig the sea-level canal from the Pacific to the Caribbean across Nicaragua with nuclear explosions? Or Project Orion, which involved launching very large payloads into orbit with a series of nuclear detonations?

Great suffering Fnord, I'd forgotten about those!

Kids, the 50s were incredible; we were suspended between believing that the Perfidious Bolsheviks were going to destroy the world in a cataclysm of Mutually Assured Destruction, and the belief that Mister Happy Atom would solve all the world's problems.


And, of course, as Chirine mentioned, the "Davy Crockett." "Let's give an atomic weapon to a second lieutenant! What could possibly go wrong?"

Besides of course the obvious questions of "What's the range on this thing, and what did you say the blast radius was?"

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

* takes drink *

The only problem with a "Dumbshit in F&SF Fandom" drinking game is that my liver isn't young enough to stand it any more.

To quote Saccharista Crisplock in The Truth, by Sir Terry Pratchett: "They look sort of like a man's, um, you know. But you really have to want to see a man's um, you know there."

Or to quote Tom Lehrer:
"When correctly viewed, everything is lewd!" Or 'politically incorrect'.

This, and I'm not going to play that drinking game - I suspect there might be alcohol poisoning waiting for both of us there...

(I'm surprised the TOR authors didn't say a word about female representation in Jack Vance stories. Maybe they're just Vance fans).

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Oh, hell no! Who needs all that? I just want to be able to describe to the players what they see, and tell them what they should be doing in a particular situation if they even ask. In the past I normally glossed over this or said something like: " They greet you formally". I figured since you were able to tell us how it was in ye olden tymes, why not incorporate some "authenticity" into the game. If the guys were going to be in the presence of the Chaegosh then I might super detail it, but normally I don't sweat it. Thanks again.

Shemek.

You're very welcome! About all Phil usually did was use a more formal form of address; titles were used when needed in the appropriate situations. He often remarked that the kind of rude badinage that he saw amongst the gamers at the table would never have been tolerated in Tsolyani society; one just does not use the kind of 'American' idioms that he used to see. Which may be why he tended to like the conversation in our group - we didn't do that kind of thing either.

Originally Posted by Hrugga

At first I was going to chime in from the peanut gallery. Then I says to myself, don't bother. Now I thinks, thank you Gentlemen. You both have pretty much said what needed to be said. At least I KNOW THAT I AM IN THE RIGHT PLACE...
Gents be well and keep reading!!!

H;0)

PS I also wanted to get your opinions on Tolkien's well known allegory of Middle-Earth and Democratic Socialism during WWII. I expect prompt answers you "OF"s. Oh did I mention , I am an artiste...

I think it had a lot more to do with the British Union of Fascists and the Mitford sisters, myself. It's been a very 'understated' part of UK history just how popular the Blackshirts were, when he was writing, and how much people feared a fascist coup. There's now a cottage industry in gaming based off it, too.