Jibber Jabber - Q1 - 29

[Martin L. Shoemaker]

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd Ishmael brings the thread to 4,500 posts! Hurray!

[gower21]

This thread continues to be a Holiday Miracle.

[ThomasKCarpenter]

This thread continues to be a Holiday Miracle.

So what are you going to announce in 49 more posts? You're nearing 2000!

[bobsandiego]

I feel so smart.
I had two scenes that dragged i my book and now I know how to make them into one fast scene that doesn't drag.
Pacing improved, word count reduced.
Yay!

[Elen Tel'Ithil]

I feel so smart.
I had two scenes that dragged i my book and now I know how to make them into one fast scene that doesn't drag.
Pacing improved, word count reduced.
Yay!

Awesome news!

[E.CaimanSands]

On another thread Mike Resnick suggested I name 50 science fiction writers, and insisted 48 of them will have originally emerged from a slush pile.

I didn't sleep too well last night so in my brain-fuddled state I opened notepad and wrote down the first 50 sf writers that came in to my head. Here they are!

asimov
bradbury
sturgeon
wells
huxley
atwood
clarke
ballard
orwell
wyndham
heinlein
resnick
james patrick kelly
eugie foster
kage baker
kd wentworth
martin shoemaker
brad torgersen
dean wesley smith
stephen baxter
kim stanley robinson
philip k dick
michael moorcock
anne mccaffrey
connie willis

nina allen
robert silverberg
douglas adams
john brunner
james white
thomas disch
harlan ellison
john scalzi
iain banks
neal stephenson
mary robinson kowal
ursula le guin
robert sheckley
john christopher
ian mcdonald
storm constantine
aliette de bodard
dale bailey
christopher priest
Ian Macleod
david brin
peter watts
robert reed
robert sawyer
clifford simak

My list is heavily skewed to UK writers I read in my teens plus a few more recent names that I've had online contact with or remember for other personal reasons. Eugie Foster is there not only because I was in an anthology with her but because it's her birthday today which Facebook spam insisted on sharing with me even though she passed away in September. So I felt a moment of sadness this morning when I saw that email.

I'm a little embarrassed that Cat Sparks isn't there, but then I guess I see her more as an editor than a writer.

So here's a question. What 50 (or maybe 10 if you're much busier than me ) would pop into your head first? No thinking about it, just the first 10, or whatever... And I kept it to sf writers only, no pure fantasy writers.

[Martin L. Shoemaker]

So here's a question. What 50 (or maybe 10 if you're much busier than me ) would pop into your head first? No thinking about it, just the first 10, or whatever... And I kept it to sf writers only, no pure fantasy writers.

Niven
Pournelle
Asimov
Heinlein
Clarke
McDevitt
Steele
Bova
Torgersen
Jansen
Bellet
Gower (Smith)
English
Resnick
Benford
Brin
Gerrold
Saberhagen
Zelazny
Caiman-Sands
Schmidt
Foster
Sturgeon
Sucharitkul
Longyear
Smith
Rusch
Weintraub
Bradbury
Ledbetter
Lostetter
Kane
Ellison
Andrews
Lovett
Kaldon
Baker
Baker
Aldrin
Barnes
Barnes
Reeves-Stevens
Reeves-Stevens
Hogan
del Rey
Forward
Blish
Robinson
Landis
Hoyt

[Holly Heisey]

Niven (because I saw Martin's post first)
Pournelle
Asimov
McDevitt
Heinlein
Baxter
Clarke
Asher
Bujold
Feintuch
Campbell (Jack)
Campbell (John)
Hemry (Ha! Bonus, because same as Jack Campbell)
Willis
Huxley
Ellison
Brin
Kowal
Foster
Shoemaker
Sanderson (he did write a few)
Abnett
Wolfe
Sands (as in Gator)
Sottong
Habershaw

Ummmm...how many is that? 26?

Okay.

Resnick
Silverberg
Levine
Stone
Reid
Parkin
Lostettler
English
Anderson
Denning

Ummm...crap, this is harder than I thought. Well, I thought it was going to be hard. So it's harder than the hard I thought it was going to be, which means it's REALLY hard.

Herbert! I can't believe I forgot Herbert
and Herbert
Hanks (as in Tom, because I can)
Farland!

...

Okay, I give up. hijklmnop and all that.

Oh oh wait!

Kress
Howey - who definitely DIDN'T come through slush
Gurley - who also didn't
Bunker - and another who didn't...
and Honsinger. Also another I think who didn't.

Huh. And there's 50!

Edit: I counted and it's actually 45.

So...

Sturgeon
Delany
Wells
Verne
Sawyer

Done.

[E.CaimanSands]

So here's a question. What 50 (or maybe 10 if you're much busier than me ) would pop into your head first? No thinking about it, just the first 10, or whatever... And I kept it to sf writers only, no pure fantasy writers.

Niven
Pournelle
Asimov
Heinlein
Clarke
McDevitt
Steele
Bova
Torgersen
Jansen
Bellet
Gower (Smith)
English
Resnick
Benford
Brin
Gerrold
Saberhagen
Zelazny
Caiman-Sands
Schmidt
Foster
Sturgeon
Sucharitkul
Longyear
Smith
Rusch
Weintraub
Bradbury
Ledbetter
Lostetter
Kane
Ellison
Andrews
Lovett
Kaldon
Baker
Baker
Aldrin
Barnes
Barnes
Reeves-Stevens
Reeves-Stevens
Hogan
del Rey
Forward
Blish
Robinson
Landis
Hoyt

Who's that one in red? Never heard of that one.

Very funny, smiley chops.

But yeah, I kind of self-selected out those of us who are surely still in the slush piles. Indeed, I think even you, Martin "Year's Best" Shoemaker, have said you have to endure the slush piles, not so sure about Brad who maybe is on his way from becoming a "neo-pro" to established. As for me, I'm surely not even a neo-pro, so not sure what I'm doing on that list!

[Ishmael]

And let me be the first to pay tribute L Ron Hubbard, without whose generosity none of us would be on this forum!

And Poul Anderson, Greg Bear, Arthur C Clarke, David Drake, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, Fritz Leiber, Murray Leinster, Frederik Pohl, John Ringo, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Z Williamson.

And everybody on the forum who's ever exchanged with me - I have enjoyed reading all your work.

And of course ME!

Of course we can include people who are still in the slush pile. That way we guarantee that 48/50 will not yet have emerged from same. This makes us feel smug. Until we think why. Then we're not so smug.

[Tamlyn]

I started a list. Only a few names in I realised I need to up my science fiction reading.

[ThomasKCarpenter]

Sounds like a fun exercise. Only going to list people I've read and without looking at my bookshelves or the interwebs.

Asimov
Heinlein
Clarke
McCafferty
Kris Rusch
Nancy Kress
Ken Liu
Annie Bellet
Brad Torgerson
Pournell
(10)
JK Rowling
JRR Tolkien
George RR Martin
Hugh Howey
Patrick Rothfuss
Resnick
Jay Lake
Connie Willis
Orson Scott Card
Jim Butcher
(20)
Scalzi
Peter Orriellian
RA Salvatore
Saberhagen
Vonneget
Pohl
Benford
Bruce Sterling
William Gibson
Palo Balgalupi
(30)
Harlan Ellison
Lovett
Niven
Huxley
Orwell
Brin
Sanderson
Gene Wolfe
Frank Herbert
Dave Farland
(40)
Delany
Octavia Butler
Sawyer
Lisa Tuttle
Nnedi Okorfor
Margret Atwood
Neil Gaiman
Cherie Priest
Silverberg
Pat Cadigan
(50)

Wow. That was hard. The first 35 were easy. I can remember books and stories but not always the writers that went with them. Lots of series when I was younger that I loved, but couldn't remember the author for the life of me. Probably got lots of spellings wrong.

[gower21]

This thread continues to be a Holiday Miracle.

So what are you going to announce in 49 more posts? You're nearing 2000!

Oh I wish! That would be awesome to have something to announce. Maybe the universe will cook something up for me.

[Rebecca Birch]

This thread continues to be a Holiday Miracle.

So what are you going to announce in 49 more posts? You're nearing 2000!

Oh I wish! That would be awesome to have something to announce. Maybe the universe will cook something up for me.

Make it so!

[Holly Heisey]

Oh I wish! That would be awesome to have something to announce. Maybe the universe will cook something up for me.

Make it so!

...and the obligatory meme.

[Pat R Steiner]

No one has posted here for a bit so--here's my latest Photoshop image: "Pillars of Creation"

(photo sources: NASA/Hubble and Dan Bowen)

[Isto]

Quite nice, indeed! So is that Dan we see in the picture?

[Pat R Steiner]

Have to keep this thread alive!

One of my latest photo manipulations.

(photo source: Frank Hurley)

[Isto]

Speaking of war, I thought The Imitation Game was extraordinary. It was based on a true story which made it even more touching... about a true hero who changed our world in spite of it crapping on him all the while. It's good to remember that such heroes do exist in reality as well as fiction. Thank you, Pat, for keeping an eye on this thread.

[Pat R Steiner]

another in my Frank Hurley series: "The War to End All Worlds"

"Night Watch"



photo sources: Frank Hurley and milkshakeconspiracy

[Isto]

Just passing through.

[hazlett]

Just helping to keep this thread alive...

[E.CaimanSands]

Burp.

[Holly Heisey]

Those last three posts are like the perfect setup and punchline. Here's me cracking up.

[Martin L. Shoemaker]

Awfully quiet around here.

Almost too quiet...

[Isto]

Awfully quiet around here.

Almost too quiet...

Here we are doing what you preach (write-write-write) and now you complain?

I'm guessing, with your extra duties, you are really snowed under. Any chance for a melt before the
submission quarter is over?

[hazlett]

Awfully quiet around here.

Almost too quiet...

Uh oh. Another Martin sighting.

Where's Gator?

The end is nigh!

[dr-phil]

I'm a physicist. Which has certain advantages when writing hard SF.

In the old days, Newton, Faraday, etc., one tended to be just a physicist -- not so much specialists. Today, while one can be widely read, it is damned difficult to know everything.

Second thought. Even in hard SF, you can usually spot the author about three things -- what I call faux physics. The best faux physics sounds plausible or is just so far ahead you can go with it and not be thrown out of the story. Warp drive? Make it so. Bend space? Just give me the spice.

Third thought. The author does not have to let the reader in on everything. You aren't building a real FTL star drive after all. But you do have to know enough so you can make the story feel right. It's like backstory -- it may be important to the character, but not need to be put on the page.

Putting this together -- I was at a talk tonight on the 100th anniversary of Einstein's paper on General Relativity -- and 110th for Special Relativity. And I talked to the speaker afterward and explained I did writing and how my 29th century physics worked. And he said he really liked, for the same reason I had written it that way -- it sounded plausible, because it riffed on other real physical laws.

This is a guy in the field and he had a big grin and that it was really a good idea.

Makes me feel good.

Anyway, no one has posted here in weeks, and we can not let this thread die...

Dr. Phil

[Ishmael]

Relativity seems to be assumed away by most space opera fiction. Quite often you even have real time communication between 'static' star-bases and FTL ships. So familiar in fact are concepts such as subspace communications and intertial dampeners that we have forgotten how far in the realm of theoretical (or impossible) physics they actually lie.

This is fine if all you want to do is write military fiction in a future setting, space westerns etc., though the impracticability of the physics does give you a little pause in retrospect.

But sometimes it is quite fun to play around with the Rip Van Winkle principle that relativity offers you on a plate. I once had a story shortlisted for the Aeon Award that was based upon this idea and another was one of my two HMs in WotF.

I find it strange that we don't see more of this, though I suppose it does offer less scope for variety once you accept the basic social conflict inherent in the principle itself.

[amoskalik]

I was working on a flash piece that marries game theory with the constraints relativity places on interstellar colonization. I shelved it though. The story itself was flat. Maybe I'll give it another go in a few weeks.