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Water Flow On The Valley Floor!
Guest_BruceMoomaw_*
post Sep 19 2005, 12:43 PM
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Keep in mind that -- while Hollywood claims to regard Dick as a hot property -- they have, every single time they've used him, stripped all the core ideas out of his work, from "Blade Runner" on. The reason, I think, is that his core ideas are too SCARY for Hollywood to use. (The final insult is the fact that his name was misspelled in the credits for "Total Recall"!)

As for Anderson supposedly being too conservative for Hollywood to use: that hasn't stopped 'em from using Tom Clancy -- who is both distinctly more right-wing than Anderson and infinitely stupider. And do I really need to bring up the Rambo movies, or John Milius? The real reason they haven't used Anderson is simply that his stories are too INTELLIGENT for Hollywood to use in an SF movie, since readers of SF with any brains whatsoever both have some background in science to begin with and are willing to put up with a hell of a lot of expository background material that moviegoers won't tolerate. (It's the triumph of the McLuhanite self-lobotomization of mass society in a nutshell.)
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Guest_RGClark_*
post Sep 19 2005, 05:06 PM
Post #17





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QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Sep 19 2005, 08:54 AM)
...  The two authors were trying to do entirely different things; it's like comparing apples and rutabagas.  (By the way, did you know that Anderson actually turned up as a CHARACTER in one of Dick's stories in 1964?)


Ok, you gotta tell me which story that was!


Bob C.
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Bob Shaw
post Sep 19 2005, 05:54 PM
Post #18


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QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Sep 19 2005, 09:54 AM)
By the way, did you know that Anderson actually turned up as a CHARACTER in one of Dick's stories in 1964?
*


Bruce:

The process of authors putting their peers into SF stories (often to their considerable discomfort) is quite common - it's formally called 'Tuckerisation', after Wilson Tucker, who popped everyone and their auntie into his tales. L Sprague de Camp and Elron (He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoke Lest It Cause The Elronistas To Google You (hint)) sorted out each other that way, each murdering not only the other but the other's characters!

Oh, and have a look for 'Rocket to the Morgue' by Anthony Boucher, set at a LASFS-alike Convention and featuring practically *all* the Golden Age SF authors in barely disguised forms.

The process continues within SF fandom, at least in the UK: I have been eaten by zombies, as well as having my sexual prowess mocked mercilessly, in Deathday by 'Shaun Hutson' (names behind the nom-de-plume hidden to protect the guilty)and was recently also killed (but met my end as a bit of a hero) by King Richard III in one of Freda Warrington's novels. Jim Allan, a Glasgow fan known for obscure reasons as 'The Parrot' was immortailsed by James White in the form of a race of parrotoids in the Sector General stories (the Nallajim). I believe that John Brunner never forgave Michael Moorcock for the 'Miss Brunner' charactor in the Jerry Cornelius cycle!

I've been writing, for years, a series of grisly detective novels set in Glasgow (to be finished Real Soon Now, yeah, r-i-i-i-i-ght!) and have had enormous fun terminating with extreme prejudice a whole range of people. Any volunteers to be knocked off will be gratefully received, and will (naturally) be sent a Memorial Certificate, New Horizons style, to honour their selfless sacrifice!.

Who's first?

Bob Shaw


--------------------
Remember: Time Flies like the wind - but Fruit Flies like bananas!
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mchan
post Sep 20 2005, 02:31 AM
Post #19


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QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Sep 18 2005, 02:38 PM)
(Parenthetically, why is it always the VILLAINS in these books who are fat?  Why can't we have a fat hero now and then?  Fat people of the world, unite!)
*


One of my favorite SF characters is indeed fat -- Haviland Tuf from George R.R. Martin's short stories collected in "Tuf Voyaging".
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_*
post Sep 20 2005, 02:57 AM
Post #20





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QUOTE (RGClark @ Sep 19 2005, 05:06 PM)
Ok, you gotta tell me which story that was!
  Bob C.
*


The story is "Waterspider" (from the Jan. 1964 "If") and you can find it in Mike Resnick's recent anthology "Inside the Funhouse".
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dvandorn
post Sep 20 2005, 05:49 PM
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QUOTE (edstrick @ Sep 19 2005, 05:55 AM)
Hollywood and the literary establishment has a very very limited stable of Science Fiction writers they are even aware of, excluding some of the most important names in the field.  Most of their awareness falls on writers who match their social-political vision of reality, and relatively conservative writers like Anderson are utterly outside their view.
*

While I really can't explain the popularity of Phil Dick's stories as the (extremely loose) basis for a number of Hollywood films, I don't think that political content is the major factor. Face it, Poul Anderson's works tend to be of vaster scope than Dick's (dealing with great historical trends and mapping such trends against possible future histories). As such, they're not as conducive to nice, edgy, self-contained 93-minute screenplays.

Anderson's future histories, including the van Rijn stories and the Flandry stories, would far better suit themselves to longer, episodic forms. Like episodic television, or a brace of mini-series.

And for all of those who saw "Ensign Flandry" as thinly-disguised justification for the war in Vietnam, I'm sorry to say that I found more parallels with the expansion and maintenance of the Roman Empire in the Flandry series than any statement of political views relating to 20th-century America. But, of course, that could just be my own perception.

-the other Doug


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“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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dvandorn
post Sep 20 2005, 06:09 PM
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QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Sep 19 2005, 07:43 AM)
As for Anderson supposedly being too conservative for Hollywood to use: that hasn't stopped 'em from using Tom Clancy -- who is both distinctly more right-wing than Anderson and infinitely stupider.
*

Very true -- but then again, against all odds, Clancy is a very entertaining and compelling storyteller. You all have been able to tell, I'm sure, that I'm not exactly a political conservative. But I've read, and highly enjoyed, every book Clancy has written. And anyone who can present such conservative views in such a way as to keep me from tossing the book against the nearest wall must have some really good storytelling techniques going for him... smile.gif

Besides, the film versions of Clancy's stories (with the possible exception of "Hunt for Red October") have gutted his core statements, just as Hollywood has carefully avoided Dick's core statements. This isn't a matter of Hollywood preferring liberal or conservative authors -- it's a matter of the Hollywood blender removing controversy from most of its products in order to maximize blandness -- er, non-offensiveness.

-the other Doug


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“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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ElkGroveDan
post Sep 20 2005, 07:43 PM
Post #23


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QUOTE (dvandorn @ Sep 20 2005, 06:09 PM)
And anyone who can present such conservative views in such a way as to keep me from tossing the book against the nearest wall must have some really good storytelling techniques going for him...  smile.gif
*


Conversely, like me reading Carl Sagan or watching Gene Roddenberry's works.


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If Occam had heard my theory, things would be very different now.
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_*
post Oct 5 2005, 11:15 PM
Post #24





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"The process continues within SF fandom, at least in the UK: I have been eaten by zombies, as well as having my sexual prowess mocked mercilessly, in Deathday by 'Shaun Hutson' (names behind the nom-de-plume hidden to protect the guilty)and was recently also killed (but met my end as a bit of a hero) by King Richard III in one of Freda Warrington's novels. Jim Allan, a Glasgow fan known for obscure reasons as 'The Parrot' was immortalised by James White in the form of a race of parrotoids in the Sector General stories (the Nallajim). I believe that John Brunner never forgave Michael Moorcock for the 'Miss Brunner' charactor in the Jerry Cornelius cycle!"

Oh. So you're THAT Bob Shaw. I was wondering...

"L Sprague de Camp and Elron (He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoke Lest It Cause The Elronistas To Google You (hint)) sorted out each other that way, each murdering not only the other but the other's characters!"

What a pity that de Camp didn't do it in person, thereby significantly advancing the cause of human civilization. (I don't suppose he used Hubbard as a character in "When Darkness Falls"...)
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Bob Shaw
post Oct 6 2005, 09:49 AM
Post #25


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QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Oct 6 2005, 12:15 AM)
"The process continues within SF fandom, at least in the UK: I have been eaten by zombies, as well as having my sexual prowess mocked mercilessly, in Deathday by 'Shaun Hutson' (names behind the nom-de-plume hidden to protect the guilty)and was recently also killed (but met my end as a bit of a hero) by King Richard III in one of Freda Warrington's novels. Jim Allan, a Glasgow fan known for obscure reasons as 'The Parrot' was immortalised by James White in the form of a race of parrotoids in the Sector General stories (the Nallajim). I believe that John Brunner never forgave Michael Moorcock for the 'Miss Brunner' charactor in the Jerry Cornelius cycle!"

Oh.  So you're THAT Bob Shaw.  I was wondering...

"L Sprague de Camp and Elron (He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoke Lest It Cause The Elronistas To Google You (hint)) sorted out each other that way, each murdering not only the other but the other's characters!"

What a pity that de Camp didn't do it in person, thereby significantly advancing the cause of human civilization.  (I don't suppose he used XXXXX as a character in "When Darkness Falls"...)
*


Bruce:

Aaargh! You mentioned the 'H' word! We're all doomed, they'll come and visit us and bore us all to death! N-o-o-o-o!

And as for L Sprague de Camp's sad oversight, yup!

And, er, actually I'm probably *not* the Bob Shaw you're thinking of - I'm the Evil Fake Bob Shaw (I kid you not!).

Bob Shaw


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Remember: Time Flies like the wind - but Fruit Flies like bananas!
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_*
post Oct 6 2005, 10:02 PM
Post #26





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QUOTE (Bob Shaw @ Oct 6 2005, 09:49 AM)
Bruce:

Aaargh! You mentioned the 'H' word! We're all doomed, they'll come and visit us and bore us all to death! N-o-o-o-o!

*


Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Idiocy, I shall fear no quacks. (Never mind that these creatures actually planted dope in the apartment of a Washington Post reporter who had investigated the Church of Shitology in an unsuccessful attempt to frame her for drug-running. What would we possibly do without religion to bolster our morality?)

"And, er, actually I'm probably *not* the Bob Shaw you're thinking of - I'm the Evil Fake Bob Shaw (I kid you not!)."

Ah. So by the reference to "fandom", you mean you're one of THEM.
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Bob Shaw
post Oct 6 2005, 10:17 PM
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QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Oct 6 2005, 11:02 PM)
Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Idiocy, I shall fear no quacks.  (Never mind that these creatures actually planted dope in the apartment of a Washington Post reporter who had investigated the Church of Shitology in an unsuccessful attempt to frame her for drug-running.  What would we possibly do without religion to bolster our morality?)

"And, er, actually I'm probably *not* the Bob Shaw you're thinking of - I'm the Evil Fake Bob Shaw (I kid you not!)."

Ah.  So by the reference to "fandom", you mean you're one of THEM.
*



Bruce:

No, not one of THEM - one of THOSE!

Bob Shaw (Evil SMOF)


--------------------
Remember: Time Flies like the wind - but Fruit Flies like bananas!
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