Guest Author – Poul Anderson
04-13-2000
Subject: Early Notice–Poul Anderson Guest Visit
Date: 3/24/00 12:09 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: AGplusone
The Robert A. Heinlein Reading Group
Early notice of Online Guest Visit
Dates and Times: 9 PM to midnight, ET,
Thursday, April 13, 2000 on AOL and
5 to 8 PM, ET,
Saturday, April 15, 2000 on AIM
Locations: kindly e mail
AgPlusOne@aol for details
Poul Anderson
Mr. Anderson, since 1947, one of science-fiction’s most revered authors, writes science-fiction, fantasy, and epics and fables of our past. Paul and Karen Anderson are and were long time friends of Virginia and Robert Heinlein. In 1940, Robert wrote the novella Magic, Inc., a speculative fiction story of a universe in which an everyday element of our workaday lives is magic. Sixteen years later, Poul wrote a series of stories incorporating that world that were published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science-Fiction later collected and, with interstitial material, published in 1971 as Operation Chaos and dedicated by their author to Robert and Virginia. Last year, Operation Luna, Mr. Anderson’s sequel to Operation Chaos, was released. All three of these works are in-print, reissued by TOR in the past year, with Magic, Inc. available as the lead-off story in the new collection The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein.
As our online visitor, Mr. Anderson will discuss his long time relationship to Robert Heinlein and his works, the several stories involving the universe of Magic, Inc., and speculative fiction and his own other stories in general.
We urge you, if you haven’t read the stories to do so, and attend one or both of Poul Anderson’s guest visits.
E mail The Robert A. Heinlein Reading Group c/o for further information.
—
AGPlusOne
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
–Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29, Lt.(j.g.)
USN, Retired, 1907-1988
Subject: Re: Early Notice–Poul Anderson Guest Visit
Date: 3/24/00 8:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: AGplusone
Zim calls this the TANSTAAFL notice. (“There Ain’t No Such Thing As a Free Lunch!” See, Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.)
For Magic, Inc. you may care to purchase the new collection that has it, together with the novella Waldo, AND all of the old collection The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (title novella, “–And He Built a Crooked House–,” “They–,” “Our Fair City,” “The Man Who Traveled in Elephants,” and “–All You Zombies–.” We’ll be taking the remainder up throught the year.
(Or you may be able to find or order an old copy of the out-of-print paperbacks, Waldo and Magic, Inc., and The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.)
The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
bn.com – The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein
bn.com Price: $19.56
Retail Price: $27.95
You Save: $8.39 (30%)
In-Stock: Ships within 24 hours
Format: Hardcover, 1st ed., 352pp.
ISBN: 0312872453
Publisher: Tor Books
Pub. Date: October 1999
ABOUT THE BOOK
From The Publisher
Robert A. Heinlein, the dean of American SF writers, also wrote fantasy fiction throughout his long career. The Golden Age of SF was also the time of a revolution in fantasy fiction, and Heinlein was there with stories set in a convincingly realistic world. Many of his tales, such as “Magic, Inc., ” “They, ” and “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, ” appeared in the famous magazine Unknown Worlds. Now Heinlein’s best fantasy short stories and novellas have been collected in one big volume for the first time.
Reviews
From Russell Letson – Locus
Probably the best reason for the existence of this volume is to juxtapose three of Heinlein’s most striking nightmare visions. “They” and “All You Zombies” are variations on the solipsism theme that shows up throughout Heinlein”s career (notably anything featuring Lazarus Long). “The Unpleasant Profession of Johnathan Hoag” runs some metaphysical games with links to both of the solipsism stories and finishes with an image (the loving couple sleeping handcuffed to each other) that complements the curtain line of “Zombies”. Maybe these explorations of the extremes of the human condition are important because they are so unlike what we think of as “Heinlein SF.” Fantasy, after all, is the back door to the mind, and tracing the connections that link these stories to each other and to the rest of his work reveals a good bit of what made Heinlein tick.
Operation Luna
Poul Anderson
to order on-line, click the blue hyperlink below
bn.com – Operation Luna
bn.com Price: $16.06
Retail Price: $22.95
You Save: $6.89 (30%)
In-Stock: Ships within 24 hours
Format: Hardcover, 1st ed., 316pp.
ISBN: 0312867069
Publisher: Dohery, Tom Associates
Pub. Date: July 1999
ABOUT THE BOOK
Annotation
Poul Anderson returns to the world of his acclaimed novel Operation Chaos with a tale of one family’s mission to the moon.
Ginny Greylock and Steven Matuchek are partners on an Earth quite unlike our own. For starters, Ginny is a licensed witch and Steve is a werewolf. Steve moonlights as an engineer working on a spacecraft in the Arizona desert, along with Will Greylock, Ginny’s older brother. Will has determined that there are intelligent beings on the moon. Neither Will nor the U.S. government has any inkling as to the nature of these moonsprites, and everyone is anxious to make contact. But when the time comes to test the would-be spacecraft, a host of bugs, snafus, and angry spirits conspire to prevent the launch. It’s a recipe for perfect lunacy as Ginny and her clan struggle to figure out who, or what, is sabotaging the greatest magical and scientific achievement of the century.
From The Publisher
“Ginny Greylock and Steven Matuchek are partners on an Earth quite unlike our own. For starters, Ginny is a licensed witch and Steve is a werewolf. Steve moonlights as an engineer working on a spacecraft in the Arizona desert, along with Will Greylock, Ginny’s older brother. Will has determined that there are intelligent beings on the moon. Neither Will nor the U.S. government has any inkling as to the nature of these moonsprites, and everyone is anxious to make contact. But when the time comes to test the would-be spacecraft, a host of bugs, snafus, and angry spirits conspire to prevent the launch.”–BOOK JACKET. “It’s a recipe for perfect lunacy as Ginny and her clan struggle to figure out who, or what, is sabotaging the greatest magical and scientific achievement of the century.”–BOOK JACKET.
Reviews
From USA Today
One of science fiction’s most revered writers.
From Melinda Helfer – Romantic Times
Although the plot is slight, the appealing characters, running satire, magical antics and impressive supernaturals are pure delight.
From Tom Easton – Analog Science Fiction and Fact …[T]he sequel to Operation Chaos….If you recall the earlier novel, this is a suitable sequel, every bit as satisfying as one expects from the master.
From Locus
It’s a pretty loose-woven narrative, but all the threads do get tied up…
From Publisher’s Weekly – Publishers Weekly
She’s a witch who runs a small but prestigious consulting agency. He’s a werewolf who makes his living as an engineer. Similarities to Nick and Nora Charles are, perhaps, not entirely accidental. Anderson’s humorous stories about Ginny and Steve Matuchek, set in an alternate contemporary America where most technology is based on magic, first began appearing in the 1950s and were novelized as Operation Chaos in 1971. In his latest novel (after Starfarers), Anderson continues the saga in a tale that features light-hearted cloak-and-dagger suspense, ingenious adaptations of magic to the routine of daily life, and an attempt to send magically endowed spacecraft, including a souped-up broomstick, to the moon under the auspices of NASA (the National Astral Spellcraft Administration). Anderson deals playfully with a number of different
magical and religious traditions, centering on Zuni, Chinese and Norse lore. He also introduces a variety of eccentric human and supernatural characters–including Bob Shining Knife, a skilled FBI agent who conducts his investigations in full Apache regalia; Fjalar, a dwarf who is supernaturally skilled at forging both iron and passports; a magical sword named Fotherwick-Botts that won’t stop running off at the mouth; and Alger Sneep, an agent of the IRS (Inquisition for Revenue Securement), who attempts to derail the Matucheks’ moon flight by quite literally putting them through the audit from hell. The humor can be arch at times, and Anderson’s tendency toward thinly veiled libertarian political satire won’t work for all readers, but in general this is an enjoyable tale by a veteran writer who knows exactly what he’s doing. (Aug.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
From Kirkus
Belated and iffy sequel novel to a collection of linked stories, Operation Chaos (1971). The previous volume was set in an alternate world where the Industrial Revolution inhibited magic, so the surviving supernatural Beings spelled themselves to sleep. Later, a method was found to release the “goetic forces” (strong magic) and permit a grand Awakening. Now, Project Selene is ready to send a spaceship-a giant horse boosted by four broomsticks!-to the moon. But the launch proves a spectacular failure, thanks to certain inimical supernatural influences. So the National Astral Spellcraft Administration calls in consultant witch Ginny Graylock and her werewolf/engineer husband Steve Matuchek. The two diagnose interference from the Trickster, Coyote, and other powers, possibly Chinese. Despite hassles from the IRS, Ginny and Steve receive authorization to proceed with Project Luna, their own smaller, quieter method of reaching the moon, since only there can they find out who’s trying to destroy the space program, and why. Ginny will be assisted by her precocious 13-year-old daughter, Valeria, her familiar, Edgar the raven, and various friendly American Indian shamans. Steve flies off to England to find a powerful antique talking sword-it now calls itself Fotherwick-Botts-along with the sword’s smith, the massive, uninhibited, hammer-wielding dwarf, Fjalar. Anderson’s not particularly comfortable with his material: a glum, effortful outing, too seldom vitalized by humor or imagination.
Quotes
“One of science fiction’s most revered writers.” –USA Today
“One of hard science fiction’s most consistently impressive writers.” –Omni
“Anderson has produced more milestones in contemporary science fiction and fantasy than any one man is entitled to.” –Stephen R. Donaldson
“One of science fiction’s masters.” –Starlog –St. Martin’s Press
Operation Chaos
Poul Anderson
(to order on-line, click the underlined blue hyperlink)
bn.com – Operation Chaos, hc bn.com – Operation Chaos, pb
bn.com Price: $22.00Â bn.com Price: $10.36
In-Stock: Ships within 24 hours Retail Price: $12.95
Format: Hardcover, 282pp.
You Save: $2.59 (20%)
ISBN: 0727847635 In-Stock: Ships within 24 hours
Publisher: Severn House Publishers, Limited Format: Paperback, 256pp.
Pub. Date: October 1995 ISBN: 0312872429
Publisher: Tor Books
Pub. Date: August 1999
Edition Desc: 1ST ORB ED
ABOUT THE BOOK
Annotation
In a war waged against Black Magic, the fact that Steve is a werewolf and his wife is a highly-skilled witch is not unusual. But their adventures prove very unusual, even for their world, when they are given the task of neutralizing an enemy’s ultimate weapon–the world’s most powerful demon. Reissue.
From The Publisher
“In a war waged against Black Magic, the fact that Steve is a werewolf and his wife is a highly skilled witch is not unusual. But their adventures prove very unusual, even for their world, when they are given the task of neutralizing an enemy’s ultimate weapon – the world’s most powerful demon.”–BOOK JACKET.
Reviews
From Harry Turtledove – Science Fiction Chronicle
Operation Chaos was one of the truly fine fantasies of the 1970’s, a fantasy whose magic was so splendidly engineered that you felt it was as logical and as likely as our real technology.
CUSTOMER REVIEWS – An Open Forum
Number of Reviews: 1Â Â Â Average Rating: 5 stars
A reviewer (), October 25, 1999,
A classic that remains a classic. There are infinite number of time streams in the universe including one in which a large segment of the earth populace uses magic. In the first century BC, the physical rules governing magic were discovered. Two millenniums later, magic is considered a combination science and religion that centers on spells that harness supernatural energies.
In this modern world reside two individuals who will impact the future of civilization, which is why the Adversary keeps close watch over them. Werewolf Steve Matuchek and witch Ginny Greylock meet just outside Trollsberg, Oregon. They are in a battle with the Saracen Caliphate, an extremist Morlen sect. The duo must retake the town if they are to drive the sect out of the United States. Ginny and Steve succeed in their endeavor, and fall in love with one another during their encounters. They marry and beget a baby. However, a few years later that infant is kidnapped and taken to Hell. Steve and Ginny follow in hot pursuit of their beloved child. The reprinting of the 1970’s OPERATION CHAOS shows the highly regarded novel passes the time test required of being labeled a classic. Science Fiction giant Poul Anderson paved the way for many of the next two decades’ great writers such as Huff, Hamilton, and Lisle with works like this one where an alternate earth seems physically real. The engrossing story line focuses on Steve and Ginny, who appear to be real persona in spite of their supernatural
tendencies. Mr. Anderson’s novels retain their freshness and that make him a hall of fame level of story teller.
Harriet Klausner
Quotes
“Operation Chaos was one of the truly fine fantasies of the 1970s, a fantasy whose magic was so splendidly engineered that you felt it was as logical–and as likely–as our real technology.”–Harry Turtledove, author of Between the Rivers –St. Martin’s Press
—
AGPlusOne
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
–Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29, Lt.(j.g.)
USN, Retired, 1907-1988
Subject: Re: Early Notice–Poul Anderson Guest Visit
Date: 4/6/00 7:11 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: BPRAL22169
Re: Material on “Magic, Inc.” Fearless Leader (or intrepid, if you prefer) asked about magic sources in alt.fan.heinlein and received a bountiful response, cross-posted here:
Subject: Magic in Magic Inc was Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/6/00 1:14 PM Pacific Daylight Time
>About the flame Amanda whatzername used
on the nasty little guy, whatever his
species is … since I’ve got to read it
for Next Thursday when Mr. Anderson visits,
I think I’ll try to get it right for a while.
My copy of Magic Inc having magically disappeared (grrr) this is from memory and some almost illegible scribbled notes…here goes…
It seems clear from RAH’s comments in EU that he had met practitioners of modern witchcraft, and that he regarded them in a fairly positive light. He
mentions that he knows of four covens (presumably Wiccan, that being the largest group among the many different branches of witchcraft) and says “Treat (a witch) with warm politeness and you may learn much more.”
However, I’m guessing that these encounters with Pagans occurred after Magic Inc was written, so probably don’t throw any light on his sources of
information.
Anyway, as to the various forms of magical tradition in the story: Granny Jennings is perhaps the most familiar figure to non-Pagans – the little old
lady living alone in her cottage with her cat, brewing love-potions and reading tea-leaves. She’s obviously a force for good, combining grandmotherly kindness with sound common-sense and a very strong will when it comes to disciplining recalcitrant children (such as the gnome.) Wise, practical, homely and at first glance rather quaint, she’s the epitome of the “kitchen witch”. She and the two other female characters, Eileen and Sally, represent the triple aspect of the Goddess – maiden, mother and crone. However, her command of the elementals demonstrates the power hidden beneath the rather frail exterior, and later her transformation into young Amanda reveals another aspect of her character: the strong, dynamic and sexually attractive warrior against the forces of evil. Archie mentions that she reminds him of the “bronze Diana of the Woods”, so evidently he sees her as a fearless huntress.
The concept of the triple Goddess, and the image of the virgin huntress are obviously well-known, so I’d guess Robert Graves might have been the source RAH used.
Biddle, now, is another kettle of fish. Flashy, materialistic and let’s face it, downright incompetent. If it were not for the fact that he evidently has *some* power (his showy dematerialisations, for instance) I would have him pegged as a cynical psychic charlatan who preys on the vulnerable in order to finance his fancy office suites and pretty secretaries. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I see him as the kind of “occult practitioner” who wears the robes, knows the rituals but has never had to do any real magical work in his life (to use a Christian analogy, the equivalent of an actor playing the role of a priest.) He has no idea how to deal with the elementals, and is ignorant enough to tell Archie that *no-one* can help him (at this point, he still thinks he’s going to get paid, so it isn’t a deliberate ploy to stop Archie consulting Amanda.)
There are businessmen like Biddle in all walks of life, so RAH wouldn’t necessarily have had to consult an esoteric source to develop the character. I’m tempted to think he might have read Crowley’s comments on clueless occultists, though <g>
Now this is a point at which my memory falters, so bear with me. Jack Bodie says, I think, that his father taught him all he knew, but insisted that Jack went to college to get “official” qualifications. Hereditary witch families teach their craft parent-to-child and are, even these days, very secretive about their beliefs and practices – a different system from Amanda’s, although the two obviously have some common ground. Perhaps RAH took this from Gerald Gardner, although I have a feeling the publication date of Magic Inc probably doesn’t bear this out.
OK, on to Satan. No problem with sources here – Magic Inc’s Satan is pretty much as described in the evidence given in the witch-trials of a few hundred
years ago. However, by setting Amanda against Old Nick, RAH brings together two traditions in a combat which could not actually have taken place – Satan is a part of Christian (and I think, Islamic) belief, whereas no such entity exists in witchcraft. The Horned God who represents the male principle in the witches’ faith is not a representation of evil, but the counterpart of the female principle as evinced by the Goddess. It seems unlikely that RAH was unaware of this, so presumably he chose to personify evil as a demonic figure familiar to Christians and non-Christians alike. Fair enough.
I’m going to gloss over Royce Worthington rather quickly, since I’m totally unfamiliar with African religions, but I *will* go and look up nganga as soon as I get the chance. However, the way in which Royce transmutes into what seems to be a totem animal sounds as if there might be a similarity with NAI tradition – anyone help me out here? His relationship with his grandfather is reminiscent of Voudoun, practitioners of which retain a strong spiritual link with their ancestors. RAH’s sources for Royce? Archie mentions the misconceptions arising from white people “seeing the black man outside of his cultural matrix”, which sounds more like RAH’s perspective than Archie’s (I don’t find Archie the brightest person in the multiverse, really <g>) so I reckon a *lot* of research went into Royce. Wish I knew what it was!
(I’ve just had a phone call telling me my copy of Magic Inc will be returned by the borrower tomorrow. Phew.)
Anyway, you get the drift from what I’ve said above – the story might appear, superficially, to use stereotypes or universally recognisable images to further the plot, but there’s a *lot* more to it between the lines.
Sorry this is so long. Please feel free to chop, snip, disembowel and criticise it at leisure, once everyone’s recovered from the shock of Jani posting more than six lines *and* on-topic 😉
Jani
Subject: Re: Early Notice–Poul Anderson Guest Visit
Date: 4/6/00 7:21 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: BPRAL22169
More cross-postings from alt.fan.heinlein on the general subject of the sources for magic theory in “Magic, Inc.” Jani’s post provoked an interesting exchange.
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/6/00 2:43 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Interesting post Jani, thanks! Heinlein certainly does seem to have crammed a lot into the story. It reminds me a little of the Alvin Maker stories by Orson Scott Card; an America where magic and hexes are accepted as part of life and people skilled in magic are both respected and feared. Or maybe the Anita Blake stories where vampires are citizens with a vote 🙂
I agree with you about Archie’s reaction to Royce; I have always assumed it was Heinlein’s way of getting over his own views too; seems to be a little over stressed. Wonder how it went over at the time of writing?
Jane
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/6/00 9:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time
I can’t say how it went over in the early 40’s. I, personally, can attribute that my own thinking and perceptions of blacks began to change on encountering this particular book in the early 50’s. I was a southerner from a family which was one of the last to leave the neighborhood when it turned from white to black and this particular quotation helped me realize that I had erected a wall against my new neighbors because of prejudice. The contrast between Worthington and Archie’s black workers, (and what I thought I myself had seen in all blacks in my own lifetime), made me think. This and some other things in Heinlein helped me to come up, (at least part way), out of prejudice.
David
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet’s Discussion Network * The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet – Free!
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/6/00 3:51 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Well, in the same way as a scientist will look at what’s behind a more “techie” bit of RAH’s background material, and extrapolate for us – just for once it was part of *my* field. Nice change <G>
Re the Alvin Maker stories by Orson Scott Card: There’s a very strong hereditary tradition in the US, perhaps because all immigrants bring their cultural baggage along. To face discrimination because of skin colour, dress customs etc is bad enough – but to have your religion treated as demon-worship is pushing it a bit 🙂 I wonder if Card got his original inspiration from Bell, Book and Candle? (Highly recommended also to old-movie fans, Jimmy Stewart fans, Kim Novak fans…:)
Re: Royce: To me, re-reading it the 80s, it seemed very racist. When I first read it in <counting back> 63, 64? I had no preconceptions about prejudice, and I just accepted that Archie was surprised at one stereotype being replaced by another, Oxford dons and African initiates being equally outside of my experience.
Now, <hindsight on> I see a big difference between the superstitious workmen who wouldn’t touch the “voodoo marks” on the bricks, and Royce who was still very much part of his own culture, however much he’d acquired a posh accent and a briefcase for purposes of communication in the “real” world.
Jani
Subject: African Magic in Magic Inc
was Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/9/00 12:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Slewing off at another tangent here, Royce’s form of magic seems to be the other side of the coin from Clarke’s Law. His practices are evidently unfamilar to Archie, but when I looked at African traditions I found that the acceptance of magic in everyday life is very similar to the world of Magic Inc. For instance, a nganga is the expert you would consult if you were hexed (which is about as common as nuisance phone calls are here, from what I can gather) and to get to the bottom of the affair there would be a public hearing similar to a court case – hence Royce’s comment about his function being analogous to a prosecuting attorney. (Not too different from Archie consulting Biddle, either, except for the difference between a private insurance settlement and a civil court case). Ancestors are consulted as a matter of course on all sorts of social and professional matters (reminded me of the way corporate Martians talk to Old Ones in SiaSL, which thoroughly confused the Earthlings!). And, to my great delight, I discovered something which IMO explains Royce’s transformation into a dog – there is a widespread belief in African tradition that witches can change into -no, not dogs, but hyenas, which were regarded with the same distrust and suspicion as black cats associated with witches were in Europe. It seems close enough to assume that that’s where RAH got the idea from…
Jani
Subject: Re: Early Notice–Poul Anderson Guest Visit
Date: 4/6/00 7:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: BPRAL22169
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Wonderful bit of research, Jani. Thank you. There are some other traditions this would probably be a good place to point out.
The one (and for a long time only) source I recognized was Frazer’s The Golden Bough. That bit about the Laws of Magic — the law of contagion, the law of similarity, etc. — seems to come out of his syntheses.
Now I can tell there is also a hermetic (and specifically alchemical) strain in there, too. The elementals there — undine and salamander — are not the traditionally pictured ones of the various European animist traditions, but seem to relate more to the alchemical theories of the four elements — undine
being an incarnated water; salamander being an incarnated fire. (The other two are gnomes for earth and sylphs for air).
Another hermetic tradition seems to be referenced by the geomantry Amanda does — the complex geometric invocations instead of the simple Magic Circle. That
seems to be Renaissance mathesis rather than mediaeval alchemy.
Basically, Heinlein put a lot of *Stuff* in there. There is, for example, some of Paradise Lost in the demonology.
Incidentally, while we are on this subject, I found a long letter of comment following the publication of “Magic, Inc.” in Unknown. The readers’ letters were not published with any consistency, so it was a stroke of luck to find one on this story. (There isn’t any for “They,” which would have been really neat).
CAUTION: this reader has a very rigid mind and thinks there is only “One, True Answer” for any question, so don’t take his objections seriously.
Unknown, February 1941, [160] R.B. Kimball, New York: “I definitely enjoyed “The Devil Makes the Law,” but I believe Heinlein might have chosen a more appropriate title — say, “Magic, Incorporated,” for instance — as actually, it was not the Devil who made the law — except in his own Half World — but Ditworth, a pseudohuman demon. [Campbell replies: “Actually, Heinlein’s original title was ‘Magic, Inc.’ We had to change it because ‘Magic’ constituted part of the preceding novel, ‘The Mathematics of Magic.'”]
“Notwithstanding the fact that I derived great pleasure from his novel, and would be the first to welcome more of his yarns in Unknown, I am firmly of the opinion that R. Heinlein must have a wonderfully unabridged — and unique — dictionary at his disposal. Androids (p. 63), gonifs (p. 48), black and red grimoires (p. 2) [Ed. note: a grimoire is traditionally a spell book or “book of shadows.” Practitioners in many magical traditions keep detailed notes of their magic or alchemical workings] and Arcane Laws (pp. 21, 62) were never in any dictionary or encyclopedia I have ever referred to. Neither were stonkered (p.23), and apportation (p. 18) — the latter, though, might perhaps be justified as a futuristic term not thought up yet. Discommode (p. 48), a rare form of incommode, was used, and what on earth is a “goon squad” (p. 52)? Finally, mandragores and mandrakes were herbs the last I knew anything about them. So much for that. [Campbell replies: “Heinlein’s vocabulary of magical terms is authentic, his other words accepted colloquialisms.”]
“What was it that flooded Archie Fraser’s store? From Jedson’s remark on page 17, I was under the impression that it was supposed to have been an undine– but an undine is a female water spirit — usually beautiful — and neither Cartier’s illustration of a monster slug, nor Heinlein’s unpleasant description of a rather disgusting shapeless something or other that ‘dripped and spread its slimy moisture to the edge of the magic ring,’ and ‘stank of fish, kelp and iodine’ seemed to bear out such an idea.
“Another thing. According to the theory of Paracelsus, a salamander was a being who inhabited the elemental fire, and did not constitute it. A different theory is that it is a mythical animal having the power to endure fire without harm — but in either case, fire burns. Could it be that Heinlein’s specimen is a mutation?
“My last criticism. Heinlein certainly picked a very novel assortment of characters to be wing commanders and the Fallen Thrones for Satan’s army of demons. Let me explain:
“BEEZLEBUB — I believe this was just a misspelling of Beelzebub, the fallen angel ranking immediately below Satan.
“LEVIATHAN — This name is either a product of Heinlein’s imagination, or was suggested by Thomas Hobbes’ great work, “The Leviathan,” which expounds his — Hobbes’ — theories of government. Or it may have been taken from the Biblical leviathan, an aquatic monster.
“ASHTORETH — the goddess of fertility and sexual love. She was also regarded by the classical nations as a moon-goddess. (Not exactly the name for a demon.
How come Heinlein overlooked Belial?)
“ABADDON — Ah, Heinlein is getting warmer. Abaddon is the name of the destroying angel of the bottomless pit. (See Rev. 9:11.)
“MAMMON — In Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost,’ Mammon was the demon of Cupidity; in the Gospels, Mammon was a sort of personified riches.
“THEUTUS — Heinlein seems to have been struggling with two ideas: Thetis, a Neried [sic] of Greek myth, and theurgy, a kind of occult art in which the operator may evoke the aid of beneficent spirits. Heinlein apparently compromised with himself and took a little of each. Result — Theutus.
“ASMODEUS — a demon of Hebrew story who plays an important role in the book of Tobit.
“INCUBUS — an evil demon supposed to haunt the sleep of mortals and cause nightmares.”
And for the sake of completeness, from the same issue:
[162] Eugene V. Walter, The Bronx, NY: “Sprague de Camp’s ‘Mathematics of Magic’ was simply de-lovely. More of Harold Shea and Reed Chalmers. Allister Park’s adventures were rather engrossing, and those of Archie in the incomparable ‘Devil Makes the Law’ were whacky but extremely amusing.”
Concluding, I believe The White Goddess (Robert Graves) was published after WWII, wasn’t it? If so, it would be too late to have influenced “Magic, Inc.”
W (Bill Patterson)
Subject: Re: Early Notice–Poul Anderson Guest Visit
Date: 4/6/00 7:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: BPRAL22169
FWIW a copy of the “Magic Inc.” issue of Unknown (where it appeared as “The Devil Makes the Law” (Sept, 1940) is being offered for sale on E-bay. The auction will end on 4/10, and the bidding is currently up to $15.50. These issues typically sell for $25-$30. If anyone is interested in acquiring this, I will be happy to assist. Just drop me a line — or bid yourself if you are already registered with E-bay.
W (Bill Patterson)
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 10:37 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Re the hermetic/alchemical elementals:
By one of those bits of coincidence that pop up so often I came across a reference to Undine in another detective story last night ( Patricia Wentworth this time).
A character is suggesting that a woman goes to a fancy dress party dressed as Undine and the woman asks who she is; “Miss Silver was shocked. She was aware that the classic authors of her youth were now mere shadows from the past, but that La Motte Fouque should have ceased to be even a shadow shook her…. ‘Undine was a water spirit. It’s a German legend. She fell in love with an earthly knight and married him, but in the end he was false to her and she disappeared in a cloud of spray from a fountain. One of the Chopin ballades puts the story into music.”
This sounds much prettier than Heinlein’s undine and of course is quite a recurring theme in fairy stories. The salamander description makes up for the water slug though. I like the bit about the flames curing colds 🙂
Jane
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/6/00 4:47 PM Pacific Daylight Time
This version of the legend is memorialized in Jean Giradoux’s ‘Ondine.’ He wrote the play in 1938 and it was a minor hit on Broadway a little more than a decade later when the title role was played by a young lady named Audrey Hepburn (the year after she appeared in Roman Holiday). It’s a sweet play, and I doubt muchly that Miss Hepburn resembled a water slug very much.
—
Jon
“I was ionised. But I’m okay now”
Buckaroo Banzai
[Ed Note: I believe Giradoux’s play was the inspiration for a Ravel tone poem of the same name.]
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/8/00 7:42 AM Pacific Daylight Time
The summer camp my children have attended names all the buildings. The rest room next to the dining hall is named after that water spirit.
Jeanette–who figures this is not her first unwelcome post.
Happy Birthday Jani
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/8/00 12:11 PM Pacific Daylight Time
ROFL! Is the furnace/boiler room called “Salamander”?
> Happy Birthday Jani
Thank you 🙂 I know I’m behind with email again, sorry (at least this week I have the excuse of birthdays and research…)
Jani
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/8/00 11:23 AM Pacific Daylight Time
>That bit about the Laws of Magic — the
law of contagion, the law of similarity,
etc. — seems to come out of his syntheses.>
You’re quite right – when I wrote the original post my mind was running on contiguity as applied to poppetry, and I’d mentally filed that along with Royce’s comments about fingernail clippings, and left it until I’d researched Royce a little….
Re: hermetic/alchemical elementals
Yes, and that would probably account for Mr Kimball’s bewilderment about RAH’s portrayal of the undine. (Although Archie points out that his image of an undine is “luscious enough to interest Earl Carroll” (who he, btw?) which implies that RAH was well aware of both traditions.)
>Another hermetic tradition seems to be
referenced by the geomantry Amanda does
— the complex geometric invocations
instead of the simple Magic Circle.>
Again, agreed. (My excuse is that I didn’t have the text in front of me, and I had forgotten Amanda’s circle. Re-reading it yesterday, I realised that she was even more eclectic than I’d remembered.)
> Incidentally, while we are on this subject,
I found a long letter of comment following
the publication of “Magic, Inc.” in Unknown.
Oh, luverly! Poor Mr Kimball. What a pity afh didn’t exist in his day – he would have had all his questions answered, and more….
> Concluding, I believe The White Goddess
(Robert Graves) was published after WWII,
wasn’t it? If so, it would be too late to
have influenced “Magic, Inc.”>
It was a shot in the dark, Bill, with neither book available at the time to check publication dates … <g> Did my best!
Jani
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/6/00 11:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Re: Royce Worthington and African magic:
I found this:
The “nganga,” diviners and herbalists, as well as laymen of the Shona culture use “bones” or hakata (called so although they are ritually prepared from wood) (Gelfand, 163), to detect the causes of both spiritual and physical illnesses. “Many men who do not pride themselves with the title of nganga claim to be able to divine with hakata for matters of average importance in daily life.” “As long as those who interview the diviner are spiritually related to the patient, the bones are able to ‘talk'” (Gelfand, 163). Therefore, the function of bones as tools of divination is commonly known in Shona culture and serves to reinforce connections to one’s spiritual relations. http://landow.stg.brown.edu/post/zimbabwe/hove/hander2.html
— Bryan
“And what if we picked the wrong religion?
Every week, we’re just making God madder
and madder!”
— Homer Simpson, “Homer the Heretic”
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 12:01 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Another site, where it’s spelled n’anga instead of nganga is at: http://www.tiac.net/users/smurungu/-shona_religion.html#RELIGION
—
Bryan
“And what if we picked the wrong religion?
Every week, we’re just making God madder
and madder!”
— Homer Simpson, “Homer the Heretic”
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 1:22 PM Pacific Daylight Time
One point about Magic Inc which is guaranteed to raise an eyebrow is the scathing denunciation of women in politics. In the story the views are expressed by Jedson but this is one case where we can be certain that they are the views of the author. This is because they are almost identical to the views put forward in “Take Back Your Government.” Highgrading? Maybe. Compare; “Most women in the United States have a short-sighted, peasant individualism resulting from the male created romantic tradition of the last century. They were told that they were superior creatures, a little nearer to the angels than their menfolks. They were not encouraged to think, nor to assume social responsibility. It takes a strong mind to break out of that sort of conditioning, and most minds simply aren’t up to it, male or female. Consequently, women as electors are usually suckers for romantic knowledge. They can be flattered into misusing their ballot even more easily than men. In politics their self-righteous feeling of virtue, combined with their essentially peasant training, resulted in their introducing a type of cut-rate, petty chiselling that should make Boss Tweed spin in his coffin.” Whew! Try to get away with that today, I dare you! That little rant is from Magic Inc. Was it in “The Devil makes the Law” as well? Were there any revisions?
This is from TBYG; “We were told when Votes For Women was new, that women would bring higher moral standards and would eliminate the graft and corruption which the nasty old men had tolerated. Women have had an effect {…..} They have also brought political corruption to a new low. Whoops! Easy girls – please! quiet down. There are exceptions to all rules – you may be the exception to this one. That is for you to determine. Judge yourself. A great many women are willing to go to hell in a wheelbarrow. Their husbands may be politically just as dishonest but the gentler sex are usually willing to sell out for a lower price. They go for cut-rate corruption.” And later; “I am inclined to believe, although I am not sure, that the average difference in political honesty between men as a group and women as a group is actually considerable and not just a matter of a lower pay scale for corruption on the part of women. [….] I am of the opinion that women usually know less about political issues than men and consequently are less inclined to realize that political issues are of moral consequence.”
TBYG was written in 1946, Magic Inc. in 1940. Obviously these were views that Heinlein felt strongly about; they were echoed in “A Bathroom of Her Own” where the female politician is shown as idealistic but politically naive. I am hesitant to link these views ( which obviously changed with the years) to his increasingly difficult marriage but it does seem one possible cause for such cynical bitterness. Even allowing for the time lag and the undoubted fact that in the earlier part of the century women were discouraged from having or forming political opinions he does seem to be rather unbalanced in his opinion. Not comfortable reading, even when all allowances have been made.
Jane
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was Re:
OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 4:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Jani:
1. Aside from Wiccans, what other disclosed groups of the “many different branches of witchcraft” are there; and why are Wiccans the largest? What is a good sorce book describing the different known branches? (and generally describing their beliefs, such as the Horned God who represents the mail principle in witches’ faith, not evil, and his female counterpart the Goddess?)
2. Why the name Pagan in capitals, and why use that term to describe ‘witchcraft’?
3. What is the name of the test in which Crowley’s comments on clueless occultists may be found?
4. What is the name of the reference(s) you refer to written by Gerald Gardner?
5. “Voudoun practicioners” is a reference to something sometimes spelled Voodoo? What is the source of an article that basically describes this practice and belief system?
I’m simply totally ignorant of the source material and would like to compile a tiny bibliography to pick up to speed with swiftly. Thanks.
—
David M. Silver
“I expect your names to shine!”
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/8/00 2:16 PM Pacific Daylight Time
AGplusone <> wrote in message news:…
Addressing this briefly on the ng, in case others have a passing interest: I can point people towards relevant FAQs and sites on email, if they want further information.
> 1. Aside from Wiccans, what other disclosed
groups of the “many different branches of
witchcraft” are there; and why are Wiccans
the largest?>
Wiccans are the largest simply because having the label “Wiccan” is a bit like having the label “Christian”. Wicca was “invented”, as a re-working of various old traditions, in the 1940s, and has been adopted, considered and branched from ever since. As to disclosed groups – there are many hereditary witch traditions, and most have no trust whatsoever in the current New Age climate of so-called “tolerance”, which is why RAH was most likely to have come across a Wiccan.
>good sorce book describing the different
known branches? (and generally describing
their beliefs, such as the Horned God who
epresents the male principle in witches’
faith, not evil, and his female counterpart
the Goddess?)>
Gerald Gardner, “Witchcraft Today”, is an excellent source book, not only to explain why Wicca is a popular “alternative” fifty years later, but also explaining that witches are not the bugbears of childhood, but simply another lost path up the mountain.
> 2. Why the name Pagan in capitals, and
why use that term to describe ‘witchcraft’?>
I generally use capitals to denote respect, so I would equate Christian, Jewish, Pagan, etc, when writing. “Witchcraft” is not in itself a belief system. It’s more like RAH’s “aborted science” in Waldo.
>3. What is the name of the test in which
Crowley’s comments on clueless occultists
may be found?>
Oh, boy. I will go and look it up -remind me (Come to think of it, Bill P probably has the ref, since he has more books than I have). Crowley had no time for silly upper-class twits messing around with that which they didn’t understand. Very Biddle <g>
> 4. What is the name of the reference(s)
you refer to written by Gerald Gardner?
Above…
>5. “Voudoun practicioners” is a reference to
something sometimes spelled Voodoo? What
is the source of an article that basically
describes this practice and belief system?>
Voudoun is a combination of traditional African practice, and Catholicism. I’ve found a couple of good websites, but you’ll have to give me a day to track down the URLs (no hangover, but the birthday has left me a bit weary 🙂
Jani
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/8/00 2:36 PM Pacific Daylight Time
>Voudoun
FWIIW, a “standardized” usage is beginning to settle out; “Voodoo” is a pop term, and people seem to think there is “a” voodoo religious praxis, whereas there are really many different strains of “voodoo.” People who want to let it be known they are talking about the religious practice in a serious sense tend to use “Voudoun” to distinguish what they are talking about from the pop nonsense that goes by “voodoo.” Just the same way hermetic magic-users in the xxth century tend to write it “magick,” to distinguish what they are talking about from stage magic or what is sometimes loosely called “granola magic.”
Bill
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/10/00 8:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time
On Sat, 8 Apr 2000 22:16:44 +0100, “Jani”
Noting of course that most Americans who are self-professed “Wiccans” are idiots who have no idea what the true history of their ‘religion’ is. Whoopie witches. . . Damn near as obnoxious as Mormons, but a bit more fun at parties.
John M. Atkinson
“They don’t have like us, snake. They just
have to meet the payment schedule.”
–David Drake
John M. Atkinson ‘erols’ instead of spamblock “Ultimately, most problems can be solved by
applying a large brick to the correct skull.
Difficulties arise when you don’t have a
brick or can’t find the right skull. The
devil is always in the details.”
–Marcus Cole
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/11/00 1:38 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Mornin’, John! Mellow and tolerant as ever, I see … have a beer, and go and apply your large brick to the trolls on the other thread, there’s a good chap ;-))
Newbies, give John a wide berth. We usually keep him locked up in the interests of public safety…
Jani
Subject: Re: AIM chat–Poul Anderson’s Operations
Chaos and Luna
Date: 4/12/00 8:32 PM Pacific Daylight Time
It is stated elsewhere (in Anderson’s _A Midsummer Tempest_) that Valeria Matuchek was born in 1955. In Operation Luna_ she’s about 14-15 or so (got to reread it, only done so once so far), so we’re talking about the period parallel to the Apollo program in this continuum.
—
Ward Griffiths
http://members.home.net/wdg3rd/
“No matter how deep you’ve buried it, never
underestimate the ability of shit to find
a fan”
F. Paul Wilson, _Legacies_
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc
was Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/6/00 6:56 PM Pacific Daylight Time
There’s one intriguing quote in the story: “In spite of his foppish clothes a thread showed on his neck just above the collar in back. It seemed likely that it was there to support something next to his skin – an amulet. If so, he was superstitious, even in this day and age.”
This refers to the mobster who is later questioned ( and, IMO, tortured) by Archie’s friend Joe Jedson. That bit always bothers me. Joe’s defence that he did nothing to the man, he imagined it and thus did the damage himself never quite worked for me. Obviously the man’s superstition is what lays the framework for Joe to be able to convince him that what happens to the putty doll is happening to him. However, Joe still did it; he could see the results and he carried on. Whether this was justifiable in view of the attempts on Archie’s life is one thing but…I don’t like that bit.
Jane
. Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was Re:
OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 1:08 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Jane wrote:
>There’s one intriguing quote in the story;
“In spite of his foppish clothes a thread
showed on his neck just above the collar
in back. It seemed likely that it was
there to support something next to his
skin – an amulet. If so, he was super-
stitious, even in this day and age.”
When I first read Magic, Inc., some time in the fifties, I wasn’t particularly far from the time when I was a nice little partially Italian American altar boy, who wore a scapular around my neck. They were very popular with nice little Italian American boys who served mass. They were also very popular with former nice little Italian American boys who had a lot to confess every week. We knew the difference.
Today, with ‘political correctness’ and the anti-Italian-American defamation league started by the late, ill-famed Frank Costello, maybe folks think that stereotype is unfairly racial. Me, I think I still know the difference.
—
David M. Silver
“I expect your names to shine!”
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 5:37 AM Pacific Daylight Time
David you’ve lost me a bit here….I was intrigued by the irony of someone with an amulet being seen as superstitious in a society that had spells, witches and such. An amulet to protect oneself would seem a reasonable precaution; yet he is labeled old fashioned. Does this imply that there is no protection? No, because pentagrams and such seem to work.
He is described as Sicilian; are you suggesting that it may have been a scapular not an amulet? Which stereotype do you mean?
Jane
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 6:54 AM Pacific Daylight Time
I think the difference was that the amulet was not modern, working magic and so represented “superstition.”
Bill
Subject: Rules of the Game (was Re: Magic
in Magic Inc
Date: 4/8/00 12:25 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Let me expand on what Bill has put forth here, as it is also consistent with the Anderson stories that are the other half of this chat …
Keep in mind that when Heinlein wrote his various stories, he also laid out a structure for them – “rules of the game” so to speak. In NOTB, even though there was magic in OZ, Deety wasn’t going to be able to have children. That was part of the rules. In this instance, the amulet represented something that wasn’t part of the rules for “real” magic in this story, so could be considered to be superstition.
In an interesting (to me) side note, if there are any E.E. “Doc” Smith fans here, remember the incident in the Skylark Series, (4th novel, I believe) where the “witches” needed to communicate with Richard Seaton? One of them says (and I’m paraphrasing, big time) “I wonder when what we do will be better understood so that the science can be separated from the superstition?” We may have a somewhat analogous situation here, and RAH is aluding to it in that subtle way he has of adding texture to a story by simple off-handed comments.
Randy
—
Randy J. Jost, PhD, PE rjost
REMOVEMe @ 4NoSPAM zianet.com
Subject: Re: Rules of the Game (was Re: Magic
in Magic Inc
Date: 4/8/00 3:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Yes, I made that point elsewhere but not as well. Thanks, Randy!
Jani
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 7:16 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Jane:
>He is described as Sicilian;
I’m Calabrese, same coloring, same poverty of land, same foods, same lumpara, we call our Mafia something else–difference is one mile of water and, according to my grandfather, the slightly thinner thickness of the skull.
>are you suggesting that it may have been a >scapular >not an amulet?
What is the difference between an amulet called a scapular given by mothers to young sons to keep them safe and the amulet worn by the character in Magic, Inc?
>Which stereotype do you mean?
The superstitious Italian one.
—
David M. Silver
“I expect your names to shine!”
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
From: (Chris and Elisabeth Zakes)
Date: 4/7/00 6:54 PM Pacific Daylight Time
On 07 Apr 2000 14:16:36 GMT, an orbiting mind-control laser caused (AGplusone) to write:
>What is the difference between an amulet
called a scapular given by mothers to
young sons to keep them safe and the amulet
worn by the character in Magic, >Inc?
Physically, quite a bit. The scapular was a popular religious item worn by Roman Catholics back in the ’60s (I don’t know if they’re still used these days or not– I haven’t paid significant attention to Catholicism since the early ’70s.) The ones I’m familiar with had a pair of small cloth rectangles (maybe 2″ square) on a sort of necklace–you wore it so that one rectangle was on the front of your torso and one was on the back. There was a specific picture (a saint? a prayer? it’s been too long…) on each rectangle, and IIRC, if you were wearing one when you died you were guaranteed *not* to go to Hell.
The amulet described in “Magic Inc.” was “an unsavory wad of nothing in particular, about as appetizing as the bottom of a bird cage”.
Functionally, who knows? The implication in the story is that such amulets were more superstition than “real” magic–about like having a “lucky hat” to wear to ball games to make sure your team wins. You may form your own opinions about the scapulars I described above.
-Chris Zakes
Texas
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 6:58 PM Pacific Daylight Time
This is what is bothering me: if Amanda and Jedson can make love potions which work using herbs, why can’t an amulet work to ward off the effects of such charms or ill wishings? It is not reasonable for the charms to work and be accepted but the amulet be considered superstitious and, by implication, useless. Every attack needs a defence for balance. His amulet might not have worked but that isn’t known; the judgement is given (admittedly by someone who isn’t all that much of an expert) before more than the string around his neck is seen.
Jane
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/8/00 11:59 AM Pacific Daylight Time
IMO, the difference is between “certain remarkable developments in human knowledge in general use which are commonly referred to by the laity as magic” -which I would see as Waldo’s “aborted sciences” allowed to grow and flourish in Archie’s world – and matters of belief which are a separate issue. For instance, Zack isn’t allowed to practise magic because of his religion, magic doesn’t work over consecrated ground, and there is nothing to show that charlatans and “headologists” can’t still influence the ignorant. I think the Sicilian reference is to the Mafia, since that would be a reasonable association for an American reader of the time to make, and Joe’s comment about “he did all that to himself, because he believed in it” bears out the mobster’s superstitious/credulous mentality. So the magic would *work* (depending on how competent the magician was) in the same way that a car will *work” if the mechanic and driver know what they’re doing … but both of ’em could still be wearing unappetising amulets while they’re working on the engine. <g>
(Sticking my neck out here) Jane, did you see a similarity between Star’s geometric magic and Amanda’s invocation of the elementals? (BillP’s post reminded me …)
Jani
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/8/00 4:32 PM Pacific Daylight Time
I think you’re right Jani; Heinlein seemed to be intrigued by the idea of magic as a science, as Randy has mentioned in connection with Skylark DuQuesne ( great books!). It’s an interesting idea and really, it’s a lot easier to accept than magic playing by different rules than the rest of the world. If what magic does and it is firmly grounded in reality, then a potion that causes you to fall in love may be as reasonable as a Lemsip potion to cure a cold.
Star’s version of magic seems to straddle the line even more; possibly because she comes from such a technologically advanced society. We all know the Clarke line about magic and science; I think that’s what we are looking at here.
Jane
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 7:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time
I’m a Quaker these days but I was raised Catholic and did my turn as an altar boy too …”ad Deum que latificat juventutem meum”… :-> remember that much of my Mass, among other bits.
Like the old saying goes, you can take the boy out of Catholicism, but you can’t quite take the Catholicism out of the boy.
When you said scapular, I thought you referred to the little cloth “badges” (for want of a better word) that were blessed by the priests that we wore as devotionals along with our crucifix. I still have mine from first communion someplace, or my mom does.
That doesn’t sound like what you are referring to, or are you? Probably the social context was different in an Italian family than in an Anglo-Irish one.
> >Which stereotype do you mean? > > The superstitious Italian one.
Ah yes, we micks have born that suspicion too! ;->
Best,
–Gary
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 9:11 PM Pacific Daylight Time
You got it correct[, Gary] when you said there were several kinds, and they all had little front and back “badges,” or panels bearing images of various saints, the Virgin, and God knows what else, usually mounted on brown felt, tied together by string about the size of a cloth shoelace in the top corners. You were rewarded with different ones, all part of a system of rewards, for, e.g., your first communion, making communion on the nine first Fridays, going on a retreat, etc., etc., and so forth. Mommie could get one by performing services for the altar guild, etc. et al., or by charitable contribution, i.e., purchase.
>Probably the social context was different in an Italian >family than in an Anglo-Irish one. >
I think it possibly may have been more economic, but how many generations over from the old country figures in that.
>> >Which stereotype do you mean? >> >> The superstitious Italian one. > >Ah yes, we micks have born that suspicion too! ;->
Yes, well, the mother’s mother was a harp named Mee (formally MacNaMee, born of a Larkin, and they were descended from Gibbon and Barlow, among others, so I can tell County Mayo potato famine tales and all those bitter little jokes too.) We all have born that suspicion in this country … including “Lo” hisself, the original “red” inhabitant.
The stereotype of the “lower-class” immigrant families with their amulets, scapulars, gold chains with the Virgin’s Guadalupe or Miraculous medal, St. Christopher to keep travelers safe, and the Star of David to keep off Jewish werewolves [equal time for all the ancestors here] is/was/and shall continue to be, fairly common. Ever notice the wrist bands and necklaces some recent Asian-American folk wear?
If I wanted to jump on Heinlein’s portrayal of the mafia hood imported from the ‘east’ who offers Archie protection, I’d have asked why he didn’t mention the neat spats on his shoes, color-cordinated with the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket and his wide tie.
And I still wouldn’t have been surprised to see the string of the amulet (scapular, what’s the difference?) on the back of his neck.
Tell me, Yisroel, what am I likely to see a little unusual worn by someone extorting a shopkeeper near Brighton Beach, assuming such a terrible thing could possibly occur? 😉
—
David M. Silver
“I expect your names to shine!”
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc
was Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 5:08 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Re: Political Correctness and the Italian
anti-defamation league
I thought that was Joe Colombo in the ’70s. Or did Costello do one of his own before someone interrupted his haircut?
OJ III
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was Re:
OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/7/00 9:19 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Lemme check, Ogden, but I think Francis had one going too, before, as you say, he was ‘interrupted’ …
They all looked to be the same filth to grandpa whose father and two older brothers were killed by them back in Reggio before the turn of the century, and so that must have rubbed off on me.
—
David M. Silver
“I expect your names to shine!”
Subject: Re: Early Notice–Poul Anderson Guest Visit
Date: 4/7/00 1:22 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: AGplusone
This series of pre-meeting posts is starting to get fun–
I’ve got a few reminders here … and clarifica-tions for those of you on AOL who haven’t paid a lot of attention to AFH and AIM … and a couple of little points to perhaps spark further threads.
AIM-AOL RAH Reading Group Next Meeting
Poul Anderson Visit
The Robert A. Heinlein Reading Group
AOL: Thursday, April 13, 2000,
from 9 PM to midnight, EDT (Eastern US Daylight Time)
AIM: Saturday, April 15, 2000,
from 5 to 8 PM, EDT
Eminent author Poul Anderson will visit us on the above dates and discuss Robert A. Heinlein’s novella Magic, Inc. and his own two sequels, the novels: Operation Chaos and Operation Luna, as well as his longtime friendship with RAH, his own other works, and whatever else can come up in two three-hour meetings.
Anyone is free to attend either or both meetings. The Thursday meeting on AOL will be held in a chat room TBA (it depends on what response we anticipate–it’ll be either the regular chatroom, known as “Barnes III” that we use, e.g., Keyword “BN” –>reading groups chatrooms–>Barnes III, or it’ll be a larger room called an ECR that we’ll announce). If you’re not a member of AOL all you need to do is establish a so-called 30-day trial account by downloading AOL software from http://www.aol.com, or installing it using one of those CD ROMs you might have around that haven’t been warped beyond use by using it as a hot drink coaster or Frisbee or clay pigeon, use it and then decide whether you want to keep the account before your trial period runs out. If you do, that’s your choice. Steve Case wouldn’t offer the choice if he didn’t think it worthwhile to him; and I don’t work for Steve and didn’t set up this chat to benefit him either.
Whether you’re on AOL or not, to attend the AIM chat, download the AIM 3.0 software from http://www.aol.com/aim/home.html, install it and make sure you get the name you register to me–because you don’t get into the chat room by invitation unless I know that name and you’ve notified me.
You may attend either or as much of both as you need. We may, depending on size, use a little protocol for the chat … as little as possible and for a short a time as possible. I’ll let you know later and I or someone helping me will let you know again at the beginning of or when you join the meeting.
So much for procedures … now it’s time to get things started formally on these boards to discuss what we’re about to talk to Mr. Anderson (and his lovely wife Karen at her keyboard) about.
I’ve been a little busy, but I met them last Saturday at a meeting they invited me to as they happened to be attending it in North Hollywood and I can tell you two things: (1) they are both wonderful people, and (2) don’t believe for a second that Mr. Anderson has even lost a step–I listened to him give a taped radio interview–at his age. Expect a good chat!
Others will post this thread about Mr. Anderson’s writings in general and specifically. I’ve only read some of his writings, although I will tell you one thing: about the early 1960s while I was overseas I gave up on science fiction for over twenty years, except for Heinlein, and one other writer whom I read occasionally–I was really sort of busy–and his name was Poul Anderson.
I’d like to just start off with a couple points:
I’m forced by Jani and others to reread Magic, Inc., if for no other reason that to avoid putting my foot in my mouth by forgetting details such as Ms. Jennings’ last name and the species of denizens of the other world that appear.
So I started rereading it, for the first time critically, today. Two things I note–(1) a setting that may require a bit more than normal comment, and (2) what it’s really about, and what that may require on certain preconceptions about the Author’s point of view–whether it indeed ever changed.
As to setting:
The best way to fully understand Heinlein’s setting is to have seen a lot of 1920s and 30s Hollywood movies–the kind of wise movie that Edgar G. Robinson or Jimmy Cagney might have played in. This is a hip, gangster, or sophisticated setting–maybe even Nick and Nora Charles movies, to understand the slang and some of the references and allusions. The biggest allusion of all, of course, is the title.
In the ’20s and ’30s in the US crime lord Charles (“Lucky”) Luciano, before he was imprisoned, consolidated organized crime under his sole rule. When all else failed, he killed his rivals for that title. The means was a part of his organization run by a lieutenant named Albert Anastasia. It was called “Murder, Inc.” Everyone knew about it except J. Edgar Hoover, who denied until much later there was even a thing called the “Mafia” in the US.
There may be questions about details of this setting, or allusions. Ask them in this thread.
As to what it’s all about:
This novella is about a violation of law particularly topical to today. It’s about American antitrust law. Set and written in a time before most of
us were born and most of you were even conceived, the story is a classic about a conspiracy in restraint of trade. I don’t want this thread to turn into an off-topic debate about whether Bill Gates and Microsoft “should” be penalized. That’s not the issue: what is the issue is how typically RAH sets the stage and how classically he demonstrates how it’s done.
Stage One:
Someone decides to monopolize. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a predator like Rockefeller with oil, or a trade association, or a professional association or even, a union of employees. First step: form an association “for the betterment” of the industry, profession, or employees–talk about construction standards in say, electrical wiring, or ethical standards among real estate salesmen–RAH tried selling real estate before he turned to writing–or
efficiencies of scale. It doesn’t matter what you say to gull the gullible, what you’re after is exclusion of your competitors and something to convince the peepul that you’re acting for their benefit until you can start fixing the prices.
Second step: sign up your market–doesn’t matter whether it’s a standard area union contract, a mandatory licensing scheme for the profession, or offering cut-rate but exclusive contracts to your customers. Tie them in by contract or other legality! And then start fixing the price.
Third step: get laws passed to perpetuate the situation forever to your advantage. Step three can come before two or one … or all of them can come together at once. Doesn’t matter how you do it, so long as the end is you have laws justifying what you do–call them regulations by an administrative agency you control that set the mandatory rates you want it to allow you to charge–and limit competition, by whatever rationale it uses; and by ‘n by you’ll have your monopoly.
What do we think about this viewpoint by RAH? How does it tie to, for example, his distrust of corporations in Friday or Citizen of the Galaxy?
How did it evolve later? Do you think he ever changed his mind about the undesirability of a monopolized business or trade or labor market?
Now there’s lots of other things to talk about … and I’m looking forward to as much as we can dredge up before a week from now … when the AOL chat takes place, and the Saturday thereafter, when the AIM chat takes place.
I’m ready for Magic! Get ready too.
David
—
AGPlusOne
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
–Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29, Lt.(j.g.)
USN, Retired, 1907-1988
Subject: Re: Early Notice–Poul Anderson Guest Visit
Date: 4/7/00 9:56 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: AGplusone
I happen to be one of those who thinks Heinlein cannot be trusted not to play around with the names of his major characters. Archibald Fraser — interesting name, and he wears his tartan as a tie.
archi- [see ARCH] a prefix meaning 1. chief, first and 2. _biology_ primitve, original
Archibald [of Gmc. origin (akin to OHG _Erchanbald_) prob. nobly bold] a masculine name.
The name Fraser evidently traces its roots from the French word for strawberry, and the family is believed to have originated in the provinces of Anjou and Normandy. The Fraser arms are silver strawberries on a field of blue, and their motto is “All my hope is in God.”
There are two branches of Clan Fraser today, the line of the original Laird of the clan having gone extinct, in 1720, when Charles, 4th Lord Fraser, died without issue or collateral male heirs. His seat was Castle Fraser, near Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, under the care of the National Trust for Scotland.
The present senior branch of the clan are the Frasers of Philorth-Lords Saltoun, descended from the Frasers of Touch-fraser, tracing their line back to one Sir Gilbert Fraser, somewhere in the 1300s.
The junior branch of the clan are the Frasers of Lovat, whose arms are a buck’s head erased proper, and motto is Je suis prest (I am ready).
The Lovat Frasers are descended from a brother of Alexander Fraser, Tenth Lord Saltoun (who acquired that title in 1669). The seat of the chiefs of Lovat was Castle Dounie from 1511 until it was burned following Culloden. The chiefs are called MacShimi, which means son of Simon, of whom more later.
Undoubtedly, considering the subject matter of Magic, Inc., the use of the surname Fraser for RAH’s main character may have been a tip of the hat to the man today who is probably the most famous historical Fraser, at least to academics.
Sir James George Frazer, 1854-1941 (Frazer is a sept of the senior branch of the clan, the Frasers of Saltoun). Scots anthropologist and folklorist, born Glasgow, educated at Larchfield Academy, Helensburgh, at Glasgow University and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he because a classics fellow. Admitted to the English bar in 1879, he never practised, turning his attention to anthropology which together with his classic training produced beginning in 1890, _The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religions, 12 vols, 1890-1915, which is *the* classic named after the golden bough in the sacred grove at Nemi, near Rome. His other works included several, but also notably, after “Magic, Inc.” was written, alas, _Magic and Religion_ (1944). He was professor of social anthropology at Liverpool (1907-08) and Cambridge (from 1908).
There were other Frasers who have stood out in history, including an explorer of large portions of Canada, after whom a large river is named, another who was first sea lord and signed the articles surrender in Tokyo Bay in 1945, even a pretty good lady swimmer; but let’s get back to why the Lords Lovat are called the sons of Simon.
Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat (c. 1667-1747) Scottish chief, born Tomich in Ross-shire, graduated from Aberdeen in 1695. In 1696 his father on the death of his grandnephew, Lord Lovat, assumed that title, and next year, Simon, after failing to abduct the late lord’s daughter and heiress, a child nine years old, forcibly married her mother, a lady of the Atholl family–a crime for which he was found guilty of high treason and outlawed. In 1699 he succeeded his father as twelfth Lord Lovat, in 1702 he fled to france, but a year later returned to Scotland as a Jacobite agent and because involved in the abortive Queensberry plot which forced him once more to escape to France. In 1715 he took the government side; his clan left the Jacobite rebels and he obtained a full pardon with possession of the Lovat title and estates. In the 1745 Jocobite Rising Lovat sent his son and clan to fight for the young Pretender Charles Edward Stewart while he protested his loyalty to the government. After all those bonnets lay dead on the field of Culloden he fled, but was captured and taken to London for trial. He defended himself with ability and dignity and met death by beheading with the same combination of gallantry and cynicism that had served him so well in life.
Courage, boldness and resourcefulness, and a very tricky gentleman indeed.
After the writing of “Magic Inc” another Lord Lovat distinguished himself for the first noted quality. Take a look at Zanuck’s _The Longest Day_ sometime. Remember the character leading the commandos ashore in the white sweater (so the boys could see him leading from the front, but the better to earn you a sniper’s bullet, my dear), played by Peter Lawford, who led the commandos off the beach and on to timely relief of Major Howard and the glider airborne troops who took those bridges, with his piper piping alongside him. That was the late Lord Lovat, father of the present one, I believe. Je suis prest (I am ready).
The thing about Archie: he was certainly ready, and nobly bold.
David
—
AGPlusOne
“The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!”
–Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA ’29, Lt.(j.g.)
USN, Retired, 1907-1988
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/8/00 12:08 PM Pacific Daylight Time
I keep seeing parallels with Archie and Oscar, and Amanda and Star… especially the last scenes in the Half World.
Jani
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/8/00 10:11 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Jani: Wait ’til you see Steve the werewolf and Ginny the witch in the ‘Operation’ stories (and you’ll die laughing when they run into one of Tom Lehrer’s dear friends in the end of Op Chaos). Jani, we’ve got to get you copies of those things. Send me a mailing address by e mail, please, if you wish. Better late than never.
—
David M. Silver
“I expect your names to shine!”
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/10/00 6:22 AM Pacific Daylight Time
That was my interpretation the first time I read it. [Number of the Beast] (About two days after it first hit the bookstore near me).
—
Ward Griffiths
http://members.home.net/wdg3rd/
“No matter how deep you’ve buried it, never
underestimate the ability of shit to find
a fan”
F. Paul Wilson, _Legacies_
Subject: Re: Magic in Magic Inc was
Re: OT:I think it is sad…
Date: 4/10/00 7:04 AM Pacific Daylight Time
That’s what Simon Slavin’s list shows too.
Jane
Subject: Re: Early Notice–Poul Anderson Guest Visit
Date: 4/12/00 12:09 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: BPRAL22169
Most of our discussion has, understandably, centered on “Magic, Inc.,” as our direct literary point of contact from Heinlein to Anderson. They were also personal friends whose contacts became more frequent after the Heinleins moved to Santa Cruz in 1966 (Anderson has for a very long time lived in the Bay Area community of Orinda). Anderson’s warm appreciation of Heinlein can be found in Part III of REQUIEM. They also have in common that they are both SFWA Grand Masters. RAH received the first SFWA Grand Master award in 1974 (presented at the 1975 Awards banquet), and Anderson received his in 1998. They are both members of a very small and select group: writers who make their living exclusively from commercial writing of speculative fiction (including both science fiction and fantasy). This is a tribute to Anderson’s hard work, thoroughgoing writerly skill, and enduring popularity.
I found over 1700 entries for Poul Anderson on Yahoo, most of them author lists of varying degrees of dependability and organization. The publication dates given for the different books varies greatly from list to list, and I was not able to find in my short research a reliable biography online. The information does exist, but I can only give a short sketch of Anderson’s writing at this point, largely from memory of the time I saw him frequently at SF conventions in the 1970’s. Corrections or amplifications will be gratefully solicited.
Born in November 1926, and nurtured in midwestern science fiction fandom, his first published science fiction story appeared in Astounding in 1947, and he has written consistently and prolifically since then. He has been married to sf fan (and writer) Karen since, I believe, the mid-1960s. He is an affable and charming individual who, at conventions, is seen with a bottle of beer — Lowenbrau by preference — surgically attached to one hand.
He established himself in the 1950’s as a master writer of science fiction with a series of remarkable novels — Brain Wave (1954), Three Hearts and Three Lions (1954) (a moving book that set new standards for the deCampian fantasy), The Broken Sword, and, one of my personal read-many-times favorites, The High Crusade (1960). With fellow sf fan-turned-writer, Gordon Dickson he wrote humorous sf stories about the Hoka, which have been turned into four collections starting in 1957 with Earthman’s Burden. His stories of diplomat Dominick Flandry and trader Nicholas van Rijn came together in a remarkable series of future history collections and novels that go by the portmanteau name of The Polesotechnic League. His writing in the 1960’s culminated in the remarkable 1969 novel, Tau Zero, which narrowly missed a Hugo, losing to Larry Niven’s perhaps equally remarkable Ringworld. In a 1997 interview with Locus magazine, Anderson was asked which five books he would like to be remembered for, and he named Tau Zero, saying:
“I like that one especially. It was some-
what of a tour de force, and I think it
got across what I was trying for.
Midsummer Tempest [1974], certainly. And
The Boat of a Million Years [1989] — that’s
actually borderline between science fiction
and fantasy. Three Hearts and Three Lions
I have an affection for. For number five,
I was hesitating over half a dozen, but
The Enemy Stars will do. I wish I could
get a really good single idea like that —
one you can run all over the field with,
oftener. That is what science fiction
does best. Brain Wave, old as it is, could
be on that list, too.”
Recently, Anderson (paralleling Heinlein’s progression as an older writer) has begun writing very large scale works, the four-volume Starfarers series was currently in production at the time of the Locus interview.
W (Bill Patterson)
Subject: AIM chat–Poul Anderson’s Operations
Chaos and Luna
Date: 4/11/00 4:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Poul Anderson’s Operation Chaos (1971) This is the first of the two novels Mr. Anderson wrote ‘in the universe’ of Robert A. Heinlein’s novella Magic, Inc. Rereading it reminds me why, when I ceased reading science-fiction and fantasy for a number of years after the early 1960s, I continued reading Anderson. The novel was originally four stand-alone short stories published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. When they were collected and published together under the name Operation Chaos in 1971, Mr. Anderson wrote interstitial material to string them together, much as Zenna Henderson did with her collections of the “People” tales for the two collections of her short stories. There’s a brief passage between the first two stories of Operation Chaos that brings to mind the reason I always liked to read Anderson’s work, even when written in the most fantastic genres of the most unlikely things:
“The real business of people is not strife
or danger or melodrama; it’s work, especially
if they’re so fortunate as to enjoy what they
do; it’s recreation and falling in love and
raising families and telling jokes and stumbling
into small pleasant adventures,”
from the Interlude, Cp. VIII, pp. 50-51 paperbound edition. Operation Chaos and its sequel, Operation Luna, is about a perfectly ordinary couple–given their exemplary intelligence and characters–Steve Matuchek and Virginia Graylock, who meet during wartime, World War II, in fact, while serving their country, have adventures, some rather melodramatic and dangerous, fall in love and, after the war, marry and raise a daughter. They are perfectly ordinary except that they live in another of the multiuniverses–or multiverses as Michael Crighton’s recent Timeline calls them–in which magic exists; and Steve is a werewolf while Virginia is a witch. Given that, the setting is somewhat fun to read … with some practical touches that I find worked out well. In “Operation Afreet” for example, the first of the stories, it’s World War II, as noted, but in a different world with a different history. The Axis powers may have Germany territory, but a Germany that is under the Saracen Caliphate, i.e., I think Charles Martel lost the big one at Tours, or that Roland and Oliver didn’t hold that pass long enough for Charlemagne to escape Spain with his Army. Or maybe Don Juan of Austria lost Lepanto. I wonder who planted the first American colony. Just guessing, I’d think they never left Leif Erickson’s Vinland the Good, considering the author. <VEG> It’s a World War II in which the enemy is on the territory of the Continental US; and whatever is left of Europe outside the Caliphate is fighting, if anything, a guerilla war, or awaiting a MacArthur’s call to rise, and “strike home!” Turtledove or Drake fans might enjoy this tremendously. [By the way, speaking of Turtledove, he wrote yet another novel in this ‘universe,’ named, I am told, something like “The Case of the Toxic Spellda,” a detective story or stories. Another one to track down and put on the to be read ASAP pile.]
Steve and Virginia are given a joint mission behind enemy lines, a Jedburgh mission, so to speak. The enemy has a superweapon–an Afreet, which can potentially throw the Allied Armies into full retreat, and it must be nullified. What’s an Afreet? Go read The Thousand and One Nights (whatever version you may have available, and look for the tale of the fisherman and the bottle) or perhaps if you can find a copy, of Tennyson’s “Solomon’s Seal.”
You’ll love the use made of Alfred Korzybski’s paramount principle by Captain Graylock against the afreet. Quite a bit more clever than the fisherman in answering the eternal question “How do you get the djini back into the jar?”
There’s more than a bit of adventure, melodrama, and danger in these stories. For example, bearing in mind that Poul Anderson wrote the interludes some time around 1971, what do you think, if you’ve read it, about Steve Matuchek’s ruminations about the fundamental psyche of a country overrun by an enemy even for a short time in immediate post war period before he returns to college to studying engineering?
Steve concludes, with benefit of hindsight, that a significant part of the country had become unbalanced with ‘demagogues, self-appointed prophets, would be necromancers, nut cultists in religion, politics, dieting, life style and Lord knows what’–but exactly what country and what war is he talking about?
One of the European countries following World War 2 in our world? Perhaps even the US with McCarthyism about to unleash itself? Or is he possibly talking about 1971 in our world, and the malaise affecting us arising out to the ‘defeat’ of Vietnam?–after all, our own self-appointed and network anointed prophet Cronkite had declared that war lost two years earlier during the battle of Tet.
Lots of things in these stories. What do you folk think? Remember, only two days left to post your thoughts before the AOL meeting, and four days before the AIM meeting. I hope you all attend both meetings. There will be room.
David
—
David M. Silver
“I expect your names to shine!”
Subject: Re: AIM chat–Poul Anderson’s Operations
Chaos and Luna
Date: 4/11/00 6:20 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Re: Turtledove’s “The Case of the Toxic Spellda”
I have The Toxic Spell Dump; only read it once but I have good memories of it as an excellent story with some dark overtones.I can recommend it. FWIW .
Jane
Subject: Re: AIM chat–Poul Anderson’s Operations
Chaos and Luna
Date: 4/11/00 8:42 PM Pacific Daylight Time
>This is the first of the two novels Mr. Anderson wrote ‘in the universe’ of >Robert A. Heinlein’s novella Magic, Inc.
I wonder if the first three novelets were so much “written in the universe of” “Magic, Inc.” as they simply used the same set of assumptions — i.e., “industrial magic.” Though, clearly, the last of the novelets is an homage specifically to “Magic, Inc.”
What I most like about these two books of Andersons is the rolling-on-the-floor funniness of them. Steve Matuchek finds work as an actor in Hollywood after the war — doing a Rin-Tin-Tin type series (he’s a werewolf, see — ). And they conjure Bolyai and Lobachevsky as guides for their trip into the Hell universe. And the bit about the FBI undercover demon is priceless as he — well, you get the picture.
Although the overall tone of Operation Luna is somewhat more somber, it still has those wild moments of pawky humor — Ginny’s trip to Yggsdrasil, for example, and comments about Swedes and coffee. You think ROFL is a metaphor — not always!
Bill
Subject: Re: AIM chat–Poul Anderson’s Operations
Chaos and Luna
Date: 4/12/00 7:33 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Re: The Operation Chaos stories’ relation to Magic, Inc.
Definitely not the same universe/history, but yes, similar assumptions. And Turtledove’s _The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump_ is also not in the same universe as either. Nor the HBO movies “Cast a Deadly Spell” and “Witch Hunt”, which I also recommend (the former is better than the latter).
Re: Steve Matucek as actor
He’d been a successful actor before the war — after the war, due to his wounds (losing much of his tail), his work was less satisfactory both to himself and the studio, so he went back to college.
Re: The FBI undercover demon
Hmm? The FBI undercover demon was in _Magic, Inc._, not in Anderson’s stories.
Re: The Humor of the stories
And the mention of _The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump_as a thriller that Steve was too distracted to concentrate on.
—
Ward Griffiths
http://members.home.net/wdg3rd/
“No matter how deep you’ve buried it, never
underestimate the ability of shit to find
a fan”
F. Paul Wilson, _Legacies_
Subject: Re: AIM chat–Poul Anderson’s Operations
Chaos and Luna
Date: 4/12/00 6:22 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Re: Poul’s marriage to Karen Anderson
Rather longer than that [before the 1960’s]. Their daughter Astrid is past forty.
Re: Gordon Dickson
And former college roommate.
—
Ward Griffiths
http://members.home.net/wdg3rd/
“No matter how deep you’ve buried it, never
underestimate the ability of shit to find
a fan”
F. Paul Wilson, _Legacies_
Subject: Re: AIM chat–Poul Anderson’s Operations
Chaos and Luna
Date: 4/12/00 6:37 PM Pacific Daylight Time
I am half way through Operation Luna and I agree that the puns are awful (in the proper sense of the word!). I can’t choose a favourite but I did giggle aloud at Britannia waiving the rules and the joke about the dwarf and the fake passport; “dwarves can forge anything.”
I notice that there is a lot of emphasis on different types of magic than the ones in Magic Inc, particularly those of the American Indians. I felt some familiarity here from my reading of the Tom Deitz books that cover this; he has a great series set mainly in Georgia which covers the Anasazi and Hopi magics plus dealings with the Sidhe. I recommend them without having the faintest idea how accurate the descriptions of the rituals are but they feel right.
I also saw that in the book, Steve and Ginny’s daughter is reading the latest book about Magister Lazarus by Lyle Monroe….<sigh> Lucky universe to still have new books by that author 🙂
Jane
CHAT LOG — ONLINE VISIT WITH POUL ANDERSON
Thursday, April 13, 2000
Extract from David’s Log:
4/13/2000 5:30:13 PM Opening “RAH Chat Log 4/13/2000”
AGplusone: Thursday, April 13, 2000, 5:31:37 PM, PDT
AGplusone: Robert Heinlein wrote science fiction, from 1939 to 1988, over forty novels and collections. He was called the “Dean of Science Fiction” and won the first awarded Grand Master Nebula Award for lifetime achievement.
AGplusone: Bye. Come back again …
\¼¼¼/ \¼¼¼/ \¼¼¼/
AGplusone: _||_ _||_ _||_ Champagne, anyone?
BookOworm: Hi David… just checking out the room 🙂 What time does the chat start…9….I lost my train of thought today
AGplusone: Hi, Max, just checking my macros. In 27 minutes. Boy, so did I
OnlineHost: Poul Anderson has entered the room.
AGplusone: Hi, Karen, meet Marsha, who’ll be helping me … actually she’s my ex-boss. So ‘helping’ is a little inaccurate.
AGplusone: I’m testing my macros right now.
BookOworm: LOL… Hi Poul 🙂
Poul Anderson: K: At last — I’ve been trying to get on, and send and e-mail, for about half an hour. Hi, M
AGplusone: Welcome to the Robert A. Heinlein Reading Group. Tonight we are honored by visitor Poul Anderson. He’s here to discuss anything he’d like, but we’ve all read Robert Heinlein’s Magic, Inc. and his novels Operation Chaos and Operation Luna in anticipation of this visit..
AGplusone: :::
DenvToday: Greetings to one and all.
AGplusone: Before we begin I have to note we will operate under a protocol at least for the beginning of the meeting. If you have a question, type “?” and if you have a statement, type “!” and we’ll recognize you in order. MikeC89102 will keep and will call on you in order.
:::
Any questions before we begin?
:::
AGplusone: Hi, Denv, just testing my macros.
Poul Anderson: Hi, Marsha, Poul isn’t on yet, this is Karen.
DenvToday: Very impressive, AG. lol
BookOworm: Hi Karen 🙂
AGplusone: ROFL, actually. 🙂 Do you have any you need to test, Karen? We can leave if you wish.
DenvToday: Mrs. Anderson, I’m about one hundred pages into Operation Luna. You must find the acknowledgement very touching.
Poul Anderson: K: Does the ? or ! precede or follow the question/statement it identifies?
AGplusone: Or we can go into informal … yes, what happens is that Mike when he comes will call on the next question or statement.
DenvToday: The only people who have acknowledged me lately are my creditors and the IRS.
Poul Anderson: K: About the acknowledgement, yes indeed. I hope you’re enjoying the book.
AGplusone: Them too, huh? You and me, Denv. I am … it arrived finally today.
DenvToday: It’s excellent, as always. I’ve been on a Poul Anderson jag lately. I just re-read Boat of a Million Years and Trader to the Stars.
AGplusone: I am boggled by the fun I’m having. Hi, Candy, welcome!
DenvToday: lol AG.
CandyLC: Hi David
DenvToday: Not to mention the Anson Guthrie novels a few months ago.
AGplusone: Karen, Candy is the coleader of the Great Sci-Fi and the Fantasy reading group here.
CandyLC: Hi Karen
Poul Anderson: David, I have some answers to possible questions, should I send them privately so you can ask the questions?
BookOworm: Here is my autowelcome…
BookOworm: Welcome To our Chat! Tonights Guest is Author, Poul Anderson! Chat Etiquette: Please Type a ? or a ! for a Question or Comment. Wait to be Called On 🙂
CandyLC: Nicely done, Marsha
AGplusone: {maybe you all might talk … ?} Sure, if you wish to test them. That’s great Maxy, and thank you, ex-boss, for helping out, as always. Marsha says what I say in about 15% of the words. Always …
CandyLC: LOL, she always chopped away anything I wrote, too.
DenvToday: Conciseness is highly overrated…especially if you’re being paid by the word.
AGplusone: GA, Karen … (GA=go ahead)
BookOworm: Give me a break…normally I only fix spelling errors…VEG
AGplusone: stop picking on my former profession, Denv … I quit it!
DenvToday: lol Sorry AG.
DenvToday: But it is my current profession…despite what my agent may tell you.
AGplusone: Ah, and you loved Rainmaker too, I suppose. those sharks were great.
BookOworm: AG… all you really want me around for is to handle auto IM’s and any troublemakers?
DenvToday: Rainmaker??
CandyLC: And your pleasant company, Marsha.
AGplusone: The Grisham novel made into a movie. Loved every minute of it.
DenvToday: Oh, yes. I try to block out all things Grisham.
AGplusone: Hi, Bill, welcome.
AGplusone: Me too, generally, but those sharks in his office were just too good.
BPRAL22169: Thanks. I thought I’d arrive a little early.
DenvToday: Lawyers depress me. lol
AGplusone: Karen is on … say hello. And welcome David, our benefactor.
AGplusone: Me too.
BPRAL22169: Karen; delighted to see you again (figuratively speaking)
BPRAL22169: David, thank you exceedingly much
AGplusone: I loved the line in Operation Luna, saying: after detailing the changes in various professions, that law school always involved the magic and so didn’t change at all. I have a theory … but I’ll let it evolve during discussion. When we begin in ten minutes or so.
BPRAL22169: And Poul, too, of course.
DenvToday: Did you all catch the Heinlein reference in Operation Luna?
BookPotato: Glad to be able to help.. I am a life-long SF reader…
Poul Anderson: K: Poul is ready to come on. Here’s a squirt from him–
Poul Anderson: Good evening. Thank you for inviting me. This is an honor and will surely be a pleasure. However, It’s my first experience of any such thing, and I’m doing it with the help of my wife Karen, who’s much better with a computer than I am. So if —
CandyLC: Hiya Mike
AGplusone: Okay. I think she got booted for scrolling. Too fast.
AGplusone: Hi, Mike.
BPRAL22169: A procedural question, before we start? Are we vulnerable to — that answers my question.
CandyLC: Yep, the macro puntskies
AGplusone: We’ll get her back, which is why I suggested she test them
DenvToday: That’s why God invented Power Tools.
MikeC89102: Hi everyone 🙂 (setting up the queue)
AGplusone: Agree.
DenvToday: Hello Mike.
AGplusone: Hi, Mike … we’ll start in about ten minutes or so. Just chatting informally and adjusting scrolling speed.
RIA P27: Hello everyone
MikeC89102: Right, I’m coming up to speed now..
DenvToday: Evening RIA.
AGplusone: Karen, you need to go into Preferences in TypeIt4Me and turn the speed down.
CandyLC: Hi Ria
RIA P27: Hi Denv
RIA P27: Hi candy
AGplusone: Under your control panels under the apple menu.
AGplusone: On the left of the pull down …
BookPotato: Hey RIA
DenvToday: AG, what’s the deal with Barnes & Noble? Their cancellation seemed a little abrupt and churlish.
RIA P27: {{{Book}}}}
AGplusone: Arrgh … we’ll talk about it later, Denv … another time.
DenvToday: Sure.
BookPotato: <–Book
RIA P27: 🙂
AGplusone: Yeah, for Book, aka another David. David means beloved. And thank you publicly for letting us have your room.
RIA P27: Maybe I should have done..{{{Dave}}} 🙂
BookPotato: I have always enjoyed your Heinlein chats .. when I could attend them. Wish I could be there more often. Maybe if you have them in my place.. I will show up: )
CandyLC: Yes, thanks BookPotato
RIA P27: <—It has been a long time since I could attend:-)
BookPotato: (RIA is up WAY past her bedtime… )
RIA P27: LOL
AGplusone: Nice to have you back, Ria.
RIA P27: Well usually ZZzzz in the recliner watching a game. Thanks:-)
BookPotato: Welcome back, Poul Anderson..
RIA P27: Another hour..true Zzzzz time
AGplusone: We’re starting to fill nicely. Free chat until about five after the hour
DenvToday: It’s obvious that Poul Anderson keeps shifting between alternate universes.
CandyLC: LOL
RIA P27: LOL..welcome to aol:-)
PatriciaAM555: Hullo
RIA P27: Where the punt is all too common
DenvToday: That faster-than-light scrolling will do it every time.
Doc4Kidz: not to mention the fumble
RIA P27: LOL
RIA P27: fumble is when you hit a wrong key and punt yourself
Astyanax12: Good evening to all.
Doc4Kidz: that’s an “own goal”
PatriciaAM555: ::waves::
RIA P27: Evening Ast
DenvToday: Hello Asty
Doc4Kidz: hello
RIA P27: Hi Doc
Portia1972: Good evening. The trail of breadcrumbs worked.
Major oz: hi, again
Doc4Kidz: hello, all
CherylYork: LOL!
DenvToday: lol Portia
TAWN3: Good Evening Astyanax12, pleased to see you here!
DenvToday: Evening Doc.
AGplusone: Hi, Astyanax, very welcome indeed. Karen is fighting back thru the ether
BPRAL22169: (Ahem, maybe that explains the difficulty. Michelson-Morley, thou art avenged!)
AGplusone: WB, Poul and Karen
PatriciaAM555: Hello!
DenvToday: Yes, welcome back!
RIA P27: WB Poul & Karen
AGplusone: Okay … we’ll start in a minute or two.
Poul Anderson: K: Am I here yet?
RIA P27: LOL
Astyanax12: Thank you, Tawn.
AGplusone: Yep! Yeah!
RIA P27: {{Tom}}}
CandyLC: Hi Judy
AGplusone: Okay … everyone … get ready to read just a little bit.
TAWN3: Your Welcome!
Polgaratex: Hi Candy, Hi Mr Anderson and room
DenvToday: Evening Polg.
Poul Anderson: K: See if I try another long answer. Poul is here.
AGplusone: Okay, go ahead…
Poul Anderson: We are both glad to be here.
TAWN3: Good Evening Mr. Anderson.
DenvToday: I somehow expected the Andersons to have a supercomputer from the 23rd century…
Poul Anderson: Good evening, everybody.
TAWN3: And Mrs. Anderson. I am honored to be here with this group, and somewhat humbled.
BPRAL22169: They do — it’s in Poul’s braincase.
MikeC89102: Evening 🙂
DenvToday: Good evening, Mr. Anderson.
Astyanax12: Evening Karen and Poul
AGplusone: Evening …
DenvToday: Good evening Mrs. Anderson. 🙂
AGplusone: Okay, I’m going to run the beginning macros and we can start …
BEVTESS: Good Evening everyone
AGplusone: Since we have heavy traffic tonight,
DenvToday: Hello Bev.
BEVTESS: hi
AGplusone: I’d appreciate anyone who knows how to log this chat, so we have backup if the system boots me, as can happen.
CherylYork: ! <= I will. 🙂
RIA P27: <can log but cannot stay past 10
AGplusone: Welcome to the Robert A. Heinlein Reading Group. Tonight we are honored by visitor Poul Anderson. He’s here to discuss anything he’d like, but we’ve all read Robert Heinlein’s Magic, Inc. and his novels Operation Chaos and Operation Luna in anticipation of this visit..
AGplusone: :::
BookOworm: I’m running a log so long as I don’t get punted 🙂
AGplusone: Before we begin I have to note we will operate under a protocol at least for the beginning of the meeting. If you have a question, type “?” and if you have a statement, type “!” and we’ll recognize you in order. MikeC89102 will keep and will call on you in order.
AGplusone: :::
MikeC89102: ready 🙂
AGplusone: Any questions before we begin?
:::
Okay, before I begin, I’d like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Anderson for being here tonight. Mrs. Heinlein for inviting them, everyone who’s helping to host the chat, and especially Bookpotato for allowing us to use his room on such short notice.
:::
And thank everyone of you for coming. Remember: Zim has only three rules: Be polite, Be patient, and tonight, Have a perfectly marvelous time.
:::
Mr. Anderson–it’s your podium. Thank you, and thank you Karen (on the keyboard–I’ll play the drums, thank you. Doc is on the vibes :).
:::
Go ahead please … All yours, sir.
Poul Anderson: K[aren]: Since I don’t really know how to keep from being booted, I’ll be very brief.
AGplusone: The best thing is just type it. We’ll wait.
Poul Anderson: Poul and I are happy to be here. He says: Does anybody want to start with a question?
AGplusone: Okay, remember [?] and Mike will call on you.
PatriciaAM555: ?
AGplusone: ?
MikeC89102: Patricia, please go ahead w/your question.
PatriciaAM555: What led you to sort of spin off from Magic, Inc?
Doc4Kidz: ?
CherylYork: ?
TAWN3: ?
AGplusone: GA, Poul and Karen. Mike will keep track of the queue.
AGplusone: “GA” = go ahead
MikeC89102: I have you in the queue Doc, Cheryl, Tawn 🙂
DenvToday: !
Poul Anderson: Magic Inc. was a dazzling tour de force. It seemed to me, years afterward,that looking on magic as just another matter-of-fact set of technologies had narrative potentialities Heinlein hadn’t explored. This process of building on some one else’s concept is well- established in the field. In l956, World War II was still fresh in memory. I imagined it as being fought with magic weapons. Tony Boucher bought this story for F&SF, as Operation Afreet. (end)
MikeC89102: AGplusone, please go ahead w/your question.
MikeC89102: (I have you in the queue DanvToday)
BPRAL22169: !
AGplusone: I’ve just started Luna. Give me a little help. What references did you use? I’m making a list of names I’ve got to look up! 🙂 And I’m having more fun than I’ve had in years reading. GA
Poul Anderson: Karen and I have a certain familiarity with NASA from Apollo launches, JPL flybys, etc. Before we were married, I’d spent some time in the Four Corners country, and so first we did a lot of book-and map-research, then went to local museums and finally traveled around the area in person. We had the good luck when we visited Zuni Pueblo to talk with both an outsider archeologist and a native Zuni artist. (end)
MikeC89102: Doc4Kidz, please go ahead w/your question. (I have you in the queue BPRAL22169, next is CherylYork, then Tawn3, and DenvToday)
Doc4Kidz: I LOVED those puns! I got to “Boeing 666” and LOL-ed. Can you comment on what made you include those puns as part of the stories. Thank You
AGplusone: ?
Poul Anderson: The whole thing is about half tongue-in-cheek, so humor of whatever kind, whenever it occurred to me, seemed to belong. (End)
AGplusone: 🙂
MikeC89102: CherylYork, please go ahead w/your question.
CherylYork: Mr. Anderson, what prompted you to start writing in the first place? /GA
CherylYork: ^^^ Obligatory question. 😉
RIA P27: ?
Poul Anderson: I had been writing for my own amusement for about as far back as I can remember. Finally I got up the nerve to submit and one was bought by what was then Astounding Science Fiction. After this I sold a few more while still in college. I wanted to be a physicist or astronomer, moonlighting at fiction, but graduated into a recession when jobs were hard to find. While I looked I supported sort of, by writing and gradually realized that this was what nature had cut me out for. (end)
MikeC89102: TAWN3, please go ahead w/your question.
TAWN3: Mr. Anderson, what did you use as background information on magic? (end)
BPRAL22169: ?
Doc4Kidz: ?
Poul Anderson: A certain “theory of magic” is pervasive (though not universal) in modern fantasy. It was elaborated fictionally in such magazines as _Unknown_ in the late thirties and early forties, and Beyond_and F&SF in the fifties. It traces back to Fraser’s _Golden Bough, includes aspects of astrology and alchemy, and may also include such modern disciplines as symbolic logic (the Harold Shea stories of Pratt and de Camp) or non-Euclidean geometry (Operation Chaos). It includes such laws as similarity, contagion, etc. , first expressed by Fraser. (end)
TAWN3: ?
MikeC89102: DenvToday, please go ahead w/your comment.
DenvToday: Mr. Anderson, I’m about 125 pages into Operation Luna, and I loved the sly reference to RAH…Val is reading “Lyle Monroe’s latest Magister Lazarus” novel. And a question: Will we ever see more of Nicholas Van Rijn?
Poul Anderson: Thank you for the kind words. I don’t plan on any more van Rijn, but you never know. (end)
MikeC89102: BPRAL22169, please go ahead w/your comment.
BPRAL22169: The one thing I was most impressed with in Operation Luna — enjoyed the whole thing when I could pick myself up off the floor and stop laughing long enough to read more — was how you handled the encounter with Pan — I mean Kokopelli. Wonderful stuff.
Poul Anderson: Thank you
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are, AGplusone,RIA P27,BPRAL22169,Doc4Kidz, and Tawn3
MikeC89102: AGplusone, please go ahead w/your question.
AGplusone: There’s an author named Hellerman (?) I think, who writes about that area. Do you know him?
AGplusone: The Navajo policemen series … Joe Chim I think.
BookOworm: (Tony Hillerman)
BPRAL22169: Jim Chee
AGplusone: Ah, yes.
AGplusone: Been a while and I lent them to my mom.
Poul Anderson: K[aren]: Poul hasn’t read much Tony Hillerman; I’ve read them all. But of course … they are about the Navaho, who are very different from the Zuni, and in fact… their traditional enemies. (But not at present.) (end)
MikeC89102: RIA P27, please go ahead w/your question.
RIA P27: Thank you
AGplusone: I just have to comment that I’m totally delighted with it, and I’ll read fantasy again now. Sorry Mike
RIA P27: Mr. Anderson, I am curious, how long did it take to get your 1st novel published and how may times was it rejected before accepted? (excuse the typos..its dark in here:-)
Poul Anderson: That has a complicated answer. The first I wrote that got published was _The Broken Sword, but it took years to find a publisher, being rejected everywhere because it didn’t fit into any of the categories of the time. Meanwhile I had gotten a commission to write a juvenile science fiction novel, _Vault of the Ages_, and so that was my first to see print. I might add that when, many years later, Ballantine offered to reprint _The Broken Sword_ , I took the opportunity to do some rewriting, having (I hope) learned a few things meanwhile. (end)
GHMyst: !
SageMerlin: !
DenvToday: ?
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are, BPRAL22169, Doc4Kidz, TAWN3, GHMyst, and SageMerlin 🙂
RIA P27: Thank you!
RIA P27: <–knows the feeling of rejected everywhere
MikeC89102: BPRAL22169, please go ahead w/your question.
RIA P27: You have given me hope:-)
AGplusone: [if you’re getting spam notices, ignore them … can’t do much in this room]
BookPotato: <Minimize the buddy chats… seems to block others … >
AGplusone: Thanks Book. Good idea.
BPRAL22169: Mr. Anderson, you are usually shown as having sold your first story to ASF in 1947, but I saw a “P. Anderson” in a “Probability Zero” in 1944 — was that yours?
Poul Anderson: Yes, but I don’t think that really counts. (end)
BPRAL22169: It counts!
MikeC89102: Doc4Kidz, please go ahead w/your question.
Doc4Kidz: As the father of two girls, I was curious if the character of “Valeria” was based on anyone in “real life”. Thanks
Poul Anderson: I don’t put real people into fiction, even under different names. But doubtless there is something of our daughter Astrid in her. (end)
MikeC89102: TAWN3, please go ahead w/your question.
AGplusone: !
TAWN3: Was it hard to marry magic and technology together?
Poul Anderson: K: In some ways it’s very easy. When you say “Cadillac flying carpet” or “Jaguar broom”, the reader actually does the work for you. Poul: So much of the background assumptions in science fiction is pure fiction, not science, at least as far as we know today. For example, time travel and travel faster than light. (end)
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are, GHMyst, SageMerlin, DenvToday, and AGplusone.
TAWN3: Carpet bombers and broomstick fighters was just such a vivid image! Thank you.
MikeC89102: GHMyst, please go ahead w/your comment.
GHMyst: I’d just like to say that I am glad to “meet” someone with whom I have appeared in print. You had a letter in Nov 99 Analog. Mine was the next letter. Back later with a question (end)
Poul Anderson: Thank you. I’m sorry but I can’t remember who wrote what letter when, and your screen name doesn’t identify you to me. (end)
MikeC89102: SageMerlin, please go ahead w/your comment.
RIA P27: WB Dave
RIA P27: <–must run. ZZZ time. Glad to have met you Mr. Anderson.
AGplusone: bye Ria, thanks for coming
RIA P27: Good nite! Welcome <<Poof>>>
SageMerlin: I read Vault when I was a pre-teen in hard cover and I remember it being one of the most affecting books I read in my youth….It probably had a great deal to do with my political activism in the 60s and 70s….and I wish I still had that book. Is it still in print?
Doc4Kidz: what’s “a pre-teen in hard cover”??
SageMerlin: I was a pre-teen and the book was in hard cover.
Doc4Kidz: just kidding
SageMerlin: K, doc
Poul Anderson: I don’t think it’s in print now. These things go in and out of print. (end)
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are, DenvToday, Agplusone, SageMerlin, and GHMyst.
MikeC89102: DenvToday, please go ahead w/your question.
BPRAL22169: !
DenvToday: Mr. Anderson, Scandinavian history and folklore has been featured in so much of your writing. Which literary works did you study to gain such a wide knowledge of it?
Poul Anderson: For many years I’ve been captivated by the Icelandic Eddas and sagas, and skaldic poetry. This naturally led me on to more modern literary and scholarly works with those themes. Of course there is a lot of other Scandinavian literature in fact it’s quite rich, and it’s a shame that the world at large doesn’t know more of it. (end)
MikeC89102: AGplusone, please go ahead w/your comment.
SageMerlin: ?
AGplusone: Okay, at the end of the first hour. Let’s take a coffee or “poddy” break. Back in 5 minutes. Bill, you have the conn.
MikeC89102: Sounds good 🙂
AGplusone: Maxy and Mike, trade off if you wish. Up to you. brb Free chat until 905 ET
CherylYork: afk
AGplusone: sorry 1005
BPRAL22169: Have you (the Andersons) seen any of the pre-meeting discussions? Both on AOL and on alt.fan.heinlein
Astyanax12: brb
Poul Anderson: K[aren]: No, to our regret. I did look in earlier today for a moment to make sure I could. (end)
BPRAL22169: I will be happy to send you a copy if you wish. I send the messages plus this chat log (when available) to people in preparation for the Saturday AIM chat.
Poul Anderson: Yes, thank you. That would be a good idea.
BPRAL22169: Delighted to.
CherylYork: back
AGplusone: Back. Hi, Susan, Ron, welcome in. Everyone: we’ve been running at full capacity in this room since start. A real tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Anderson.!!!
AGplusone: Okay, who’s got the queue?
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are GHMyst,SageMerlin,BPRAL22169,and SageMerlin
MikeC89102: Ready ?
AGplusone: Thank you Michael!
AGplusone: Ready
MikeC89102: Please go ahead w/your question GHMyst 🙂
GHMyst: This a question concerning Robert Heinlein. In my research I have ben trying to identify a device which he describe in one of his early stories and then which was developed into a real system by the Navy. I am hoping that he discussed what it was with someone. Can you help me?
Poul Anderson: I would like to know myself. Perhaps Sprague de Camp remembers.
GHMyst: Already contacted him. No help. Oh well. I had to ask. Thank You . (end)
MikeC89102: SageMerlin, please go ahead w/your question.
SageMerlin: What did you think, then, of the Eaters of The Dead, from a Scandia viewpoint? I ask this because I know something about the cultures and I wondered how it looked to an expert
Poul Anderson: To tell the truth, I never read it. So many books, so little time.
SageMerlin: I don’t suppose you saw the movie either, what was it called Dave?
AGplusone: Eaters of Dead not bad. … Was called The Thirteenth Man
SageMerlin: Ah, yes.
CandyLC: 13th Warrior
AGplusone: Lovely adaptation of Beowulf
Poul Anderson: Didn’t see the movie, either.
AGplusone: Yes, you’re right Candy.
SageMerlin: If I may…..
Seanspanks: There’s a new Beowolf translation out.
SageMerlin: Creighton does something in his book to convince the reader that this was a real event that he was recounting, and that seems to have a great deal to do with fantasy in general, the need for feasibility. Within context of course.
AGplusone: !?
CherylYork: !
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are, BPRAL22169,SageMerlin, and Pumprat.
MikeC89102: BPRAL22169, please go ahead w/your comment.
TAWN3: ?
BPRAL22169: I just wanted to note, though it hasn’t come up in our preparatory discussions, that Poul and Karen are high and long-standing mucky mucks of the Society for Creative Anachronisms. King, in fact, I believe. (end)
MikeC89102: SageMerlin, please go ahead w/your question.
Poul Anderson: No, actually Knight was as high as I ever got. We enjoyed ourselves in the early years,
MikeC89102: whoops, apologies.
Poul Anderson: but dropped out about A.S. 15. (end)
MikeC89102: SageMerlin, please go ahead w/your question.
SageMerlin: pass…hardware problems. Put me at the bottom of the queue
MikeC89102: Pumprat, please go ahead w/your question.
Pumprat: Re OpChaos, did you see any movement at the time that paralleled the Thomast world view or was a plot device? Also, Do you think that such a movement could arise and stay as unified as a church given the centrifugal tendencies inherent in such a world view? Really enjoyed the whole series! <end>
Poul Anderson: By “Thomast” you probably mean Johannine. To some extent that part of Operation Chaos was a more or less satirical commentary on the radicalism of that time, about 1970 but there is in fact a more or less fugitive Johannine tradition in church history. It implies that there will be a fulfillment of some kind based on the Gospel of St. John. This tradition may or may not in fact have involved Gnosticism; for story purposes I assumed so. Indeed, Gnosticism is one of the heresies which in one form or another keep cropping up within Christianity. Some sects have lasted quite a long time and spread pretty far. In the story, however, the whole thing was really pretty unstable and collapsed. (end)
Pumprat: !
AGplusone: ?!
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are, Agplusone, CherylYork, TAWN3, Pumprat, SageMerlin, and AGplusone.
MikeC89102: AGplusone, please go ahead w/your question/comment.
AGplusone: That was interesting to me because I felt Robert might have been talking re that in Stranger when he originally named it “The Heretic.” We had a comparison of the church Mike starts with the Gospel of Thomas, and some of us thought we saw similarities [end]
AGplusone: [and of course, the original Valentinius … ]
Poul Anderson: That’s interesting, but I really couldn’t say if it’s so or not. (end)
MikeC89102: CherylYork, please go ahead w/your comment.
DenvToday: ?
CherylYork: <= Lady Cassandra Rhondelle from An Tir (generally retired since AS 20) <grin>
CherylYork: But on a far more serious note… I don’t know how quickly news travels, but since the de Camps were mentioned earlier, this is from a message I received two days ago: Catherine de Camp has passed away. The de Camp family has asked that in lieu of flowers, a contribution to the Alzheimer’s Association be made in Catherine’s name. She will be missed. ga
AGplusone: Entirely appropriate and true …
Poul Anderson: We had received the same message. Catherine will be missed by all who knew her.
MikeC89102: TAWN3, please go ahead w/your question.
TAWN3: Sir, how well did you know Van Vogt? Would you please tell me about van Vogt and Heinlein, if you know anything. They are “my” two authors. (End)
TAWN3: Thank you.
Poul Anderson: That’s a very tall order. They were both gracious gentlemen, and fascinating…
TAWN3: I ask deep questions sometimes 🙂
Poul Anderson: to talk with. But this could fill several books. (end)
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are, Pumprat, SageMerlin, AGplusone, and DenvToday.
MikeC89102: Pumprat, please go ahead w/your comment.
Pumprat: Yes Johannine was what I meant, apologies.<end>
TAWN3: Thank you.
MikeC89102: SageMerlin, please go ahead w/your question.
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are AGplusone, and DenvToday.
SageMerlin: Ah, so, then, I was reading The Time Patrol reprint a few weeks ago, and I find it interesting how certain stories stay with you years and years after the fact, while others you can’t remember the next day. As a writer, what do you think contributes to those memorable stories? Is it character, plot, or something else?
Poul Anderson: I would guess that to a considerable extent it lies with the individual reader how much and how does something resonate with you personally. Also, of course, it helps if one reads the story at an impressionable age. Beyond this, we get into questions of literary merit and I don’t know of any absolute way to judge those. (end)
Pumprat: !
MikeC89102: AGplusone, please go ahead w/your question/comment.
SageMerlin: Thank you sir,
AGplusone: A follow up: when writing historical fiction, what best grips gnl [general?] readership, do you think?
SageMerlin: ((which is a hint about what David really does on line all the time))
Lucylou98: ?
Poul Anderson: I couldn’t say for sure. But I would suppose mainly it’s a matter of the qualities such as narration and characterization that make the appeal of any kind of fiction. (end)
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are, DenvToday, Pumprat, and Lucylou98.
AGplusone: thank you …
CherylYork: !
MikeC89102: DenvToday, please go ahead w/your question.
DenvToday: Libertarian philosophy and politics seems to be shared by so many of the best speculative fiction writers. Did this philosophy emerge in your work as your career progressed, or did you have libertarian leanings as a young man? (I loved the very funny satire of the IRS in Operation Luna!)
SageMerlin: (comments about the IRS are NOT appreciated tonight)
CherylYork: … oops, make that ?
AGplusone: ?
Poul Anderson: Once upon a time I was a good left liberal, and this doubtless shows in some of the earlier work. Gradually my opinions changed, until today I would probably call myself either a libertarian conservative or a conservative libertarian. Basically, what I would like to see conserved is what the founders of this republic had in mind, even more for my grandchildren than myself. No doubt this attitude also shows a bit in my work today. However, I really do try not to preach. My job is to tell stories, not give sermons. (end)
MikeC89102: Pumprat, please go ahead w/your comment.
Pumprat: Not sure if I agree about the impressionable age — has more to do with good writing I think — otherwise, I haven’t left that impressionable age yet <end>
Poul Anderson: Oh, yes, agreed. Quality is the sine qua non. It’s just that other factors unique to each individual come in too. (end)
MikeC89102: Lucylou98, please go ahead w/your question.
Lucylou98: Mr. Anderson, many authors have written Hollow Earth novels, and I wonder if you have ever considered the topic for a storyline?
Poul Anderson: No. For one thing, it’s been done, and for another thing, it’s scientifically absurd. Even fantasy ought usually to make some sense. But please note that I day “usually.” There are always exceptions, and I too have enjoyed Verne’s story. (end)
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are CherylYork, and AGPlusone.
Major oz: !
MikeC89102: CherylYork, please go ahead w/your question.
CherylYork: What is one thing that you don’t think many people know about yourself, or science fiction (or the universe in general), that you would like more people to know? /ga
Dehede011: ?
Poul Anderson: I think it is vitally important that more people learn what real science is about, and how the real universe works, including human societies. Ignorance and superstition are on the march again, and if they aren’t stopped I’m glad I’m too old to experience the eventual consequences. (end)
TAWN3: ?
TAWN3: !
CherylYork: Hear, hear! Hopefully this too shall pass. 🙂 Thanks.
MikeC89102: AGplusone, please go ahead w/your question.
AGplusone: The editor of How To Be a Politician says he believes the techniques therein won’t work. Without wanting to start any dispute with Jerry, do you agree?
Poul Anderson: “How to Be a Politician”? I don’t know the work you refer to. (end)
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are Major oz,Dehede011, and Tawn3
Doc4Kidz: Take Back Your Government
TAWN3: Take back your Govt.
Poul Anderson: Yes, Heinlein’s old book. Still valid. (end)
AGplusone: That’s a relief … sorry to pose that one, but I had to know.
MikeC89102: Please go ahead w/your question Major oz.
MikeC89102: Dehede011, please go ahead w/your question.
Dehede011: Mr. Anderson have you ever considered writing a nice fat autobiography? You lived in a unique period of world history.
Major oz: ! (got dumped….sorry)
BPRAL22169: Memoirs of a not-so-superfluous man! yeah!
MikeC89102: You’re back in the queue Major oz..
Major oz: thanx
Poul Anderson: Years ago, because they waved money under my nose, I wrote about 10,000 words for the Contemporary Authors series (Gale Research Group). This says as much about my own life as I would ever want anybody to publish. Of course, there is no limit to commentary, etcetera, on the times we live in. (end)
BPRAL22169: ?
Dehede011: Thank you, sir.
GHMyst: bye, all.
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are Major oz, and TAWN3.
MikeC89102: Major oz,, please go ahead w/your question.
AGplusone: !
Major oz: Difficult to state without sounding prissy…but it is so very satisfying to read and to speak with one who maintains the rules of grammar without sounding prissy himself. I am so irritated by “professionals” who say: “different than…” etc. Do you have any comment on this? (end)
Poul Anderson: Thanks. Oh, heavens yes, the English language peaked in Shakespeare’s time, but maintained a decent standard until quite recently. Anderson:decay seems almost exponential, and is another cause for concern. If we don’t know our own language and its rules and vocabulary how can we communicate to any effect, or even think? (end)
Major oz: thank you
Pumprat: !
MikeC89102: TAWN3, please go ahead with your question/comment.
TAWN3: First, my ! Ignorance and superstition on the march again. Yes, I agree with you. Which leads to my question. Do you think the “Golden Age” is truly over? Have all the original concepts truly been explored? What do you see as the new group of new ideas? <end>
Poul Anderson: K: This seems a good place to give the correct origin of a famous definition of “Golden Age.” It was actually Bob Stewart, a friend of Terry Carr, who said that “The Golden Age of science fiction is age 13.” (end) (over to Poul)
Pumprat: !
BookPotato: ?
TAWN3: 🙂
CherylYork: lol
Poul Anderson: To readers of my age group, the golden age was indeed the Campbell era from about 1937 to 1943, and it can be said that his authors then were in green pastures. However, as long as we stay oriented to the real world, and especially to the ongoing revolutions in science and technology, there will be no dearth of bright ideas. In fact, ideas have never been too hard to come by. It’s what the author does with them that counts. (end)
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are BPRAL22169, AGplusone, Pumprat, and BookPotato.
TAWN3: Thank you.
MikeC89102: BPRAL22169, please go ahead with your question.
Stargazer029: !
TAWN3: ?
BPRAL22169: Thanks. Before we get too far away from your 10,000 word autobiography — did you provide commentary especially about your colleagues in sf and science? Is it generally available? And have you selected a repository for your personal records? Sorry to load in the questions like that.
Major oz: ?
Poul Anderson: The autobiography is in the Contemporary Authors series, and there was a recent reprint in a volume called _Something About the Author__. They should be available in many public and school libraries. I said little about my colleagues or for that matter about science fiction in general, but have written about both in various introductions, essays, etc. No, there is no particular designated repository for my personal records, and in fact I wouldn’t want anything touching on private life to be preserved. J(end)
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are AGplusone, Pumprat, BookPotato, Stargazer029, TAWN3, and Major oz.
BPRAL22169: Thank you.
MikeC89102: AGplusone, please go ahead with your comment.
AGplusone: Heading into 3d hour. 5 minute break, everyone. Oz, you have the conn. Free chat until 2323
MikeC89102: brb 🙂
Major oz: hokay
AGplusone: Mike definitely needed one!
OokLA2000: hi there
Lucylou98: Hi, Ookla, good to see you
Major oz: welcome Ook
TAWN3: Hi Ookla
Major oz: This is a meeting of the Robert A. Heinlein reading group
Dehede011: Hi Ookla
Major oz: Tonight’s special guests are Karen and Poul Anderson
OokLA2000: hello people
Lucylou98: 5 min. break, right?
Major oz: We are in a break right now
Kaydreaming: why is it public if it’s a private group?
TAWN3: 🙂
Major oz: Resume at 1123 EDT
Major oz: Kay, you will have to speak to BookPotato about that.
Kaydreaming: why?
Major oz: Very political AOL “stuff” going on that I don’t understand.
Kaydreaming: lol major
Major oz: I’m just babysitting until we resume.
OokLA2000: Hi Lucylou
Kaydreaming: I think the reading group is a myth
Major oz: Scuttlebutt has it that we will talk about it after the meeting. Only if you don’t read
TAWN3: Oh good.
AGplusone: Hi, Kay. Do you read Robert Heinlein?
SageMerlin: brb
Kaydreaming: not that I know of
Lucylou98: Hi, Ookla, you can pose a queston to Mr. Anderson by typing a “?” when he returns:)
AGplusone: or Poul Anderson?
MikeC89102: That was a relief, i’m back 🙂
Major oz: feel better now…?
Kaydreaming: no AG
MikeC89102: hah! yes, thank you Major 🙂
AGplusone: You are in the presence of one of the finest writers now writing.
OokLA2000: ?
AGplusone: Welcome, and stay if you wish.
MikeC89102: Gotcha Ook 🙂
AGplusone: All of you. 🙂
Kaydreaming: What are the author’s screennames please?
Pumprat: sorry, got booted
AGplusone: Okay, we’re ready to resume, Mike, Marsha?
AGplusone: Poul Anderson, his real name.
Kaydreaming: screennames
MikeC89102: Pumprat, please go ahead with your comment.
Kaydreaming: oh ok
Pumprat: actually it was a question,
MikeC89102: k 🙂
Kaydreaming: I didn’t see Poul there
BookPotato: Hey Star…
Pumprat: What are the hot sci/tech that will inspire the new golden agers? And I can’t WAIT to use that term on the next 13 year old I meet!<end>
SageMerlin: I am rapidly approaching that condition at the other end of the spectrum — Golden Ager that is.
BookPotato: Protocol resumes in a few minutes. That means.. you must place a ? or ! to ask a question or comment
OokLA2000: Sage, the political spectrum?
BPRAL22169: I was informed today that I was all silver
Major oz: …tap, tap, tap….
Poul Anderson: I don’t think there is any such thing as a ‘hot’ topic, although of course fashionable themes come and go. A. J. Budrys put it quite well when he remarked “Trends are for second-raters.” There’s a whole universe out there to write about. It will always be much greater and richer and more surprising than our imaginations. (end)
OokLA2000: ?
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are BookPotato, Stargazer029, TAWN3, Major oz, and OokLA2000.
MikeC89102: BookPotato, please go ahead with your comment.
BookPotato: Hey Poul.. thanks for coming.. I was wondering.. who you still read.. what you consider to be the essential works and if there are any new writers you are enjoying?
Poul Anderson: I would say the essential works are the great works of world literature, from Homer onward. These days, unfortunately, I don’t have nearly as much time for reading as I wish, so I’m missing a lot and doubtless ignorant of much more. Right now I am waiting for a chance to read Peter Beagle’s _Tamsin_. In general, I would rather not list the “best” writers because I would be bound to forget to include some and kick myself the next day. (end)
MikeC89102: Stargazer029, please go ahead with your comment.
BookPotato: Thanks…
Stargazer029: I could not pass up the opportunity to say “thank you, Poul Anderson, for many hours of wonderful reading”
Poul Anderson: Thank you.
MikeC89102: TAWN3, please go ahead with your question.
TAWN3: Sir, I read that you and Karen were at JPL for the 1976 Viking one landing,
TAWN3: I have a two part question. Could you briefly relate what it was like when you and the Heinleins (or maybe only Robert) watched the images come in? And 2, I have read that there was a video made of the authors, Heinlein, Ellison, Bradbury and perhaps even yourself, discussing their feelings as it happened. The video is entitled “Billion Dollar Image. Does it really exist or is it a myth?
TAWN3: Thank you. (end)
Poul Anderson: That was unforgettable. We were in the cafeteria because it had elbow room and a great big screen. So there we sat, right beside Robert Heinlein, as the first images ever of the Martian surface unfolded line by line. Neither of us knows anything about any such video, though. Try asking the Public Information Officer at JPL. (end)
TAWN3: Thank you. I tried to find the video but ran into a dead end. I will ask JPL. Thank you
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are Major oz, and OokLA2000.
MikeC89102: Major oz, please go ahead with your comment.
Major oz: Sir: Have you ever been guilty of doing (in the words of RAH) “honest work”?
Poul Anderson: Yes, there were lean times when I had to find some kind of pay check. But they were fortunately brief and the last one was long ago. (end)
Major oz: Thank you
MikeC89102: OokLA2000, please go ahead with your question.
MikeC89102: ?
OokLA2000: Do you think novels about the Post-Apocalyptic theme such as Ridley Walker, On the Beach, and Twilight World are a creation of the cold war only or will they continue to to thrive and be popular even after the end of cold war? (end)
Poul Anderson: There were world-catastrophe stories long before the Cold War. To name just one, Jack London’s “The Scarlet Plague.” I daresay there will always be something of the kind written now and then. At the moment, ecological disaster and its social consequences are probably the timeliest themes;… although like any others they could be run into the ground. (end)
SageMerlin: ???
MikeC89102: Mr. A. I do not know as much about science as you obviously do. Can you tell me what you think about the “face of the man” on Mars? I am just curious 🙂
BPRAL22169: ?
Poul Anderson: It was obvious from the first that this was an illusion. Did an ancient civilization create the Great Stone Face in upstate New York? Actually, if there had been traces of something like that, do you imagine NASA would try to cover them up? Just think what that would do for its budget!(end)
MikeC89102: Good point, thank you 🙂
Robbobk: ?
TAWN3: ?
MikeC89102: SageMerlin, please go ahead with your question.
SageMerlin: This is completely off topic, can anyone think of songs that would reflect W.S.’s Tempest? I figure with all these brains we can think of something for my son’s homework assignment.
TAWN3: The Green Hills of Earth?
CherylYork: lol!
DenvToday: Stormy Weather?
TAWN3: It’s a stretch but…
SageMerlin: Wow, that was the first thing he came up with Stormy Weather
AGplusone: {Okay. Last round of questions. Speak now with your ? or ! or forever hold your peace.} {until the AIM meeting Saturday.}
Major oz: …eh?
OokLA2000: The theme song from Forbidden Planet
DenvToday: A Hard Rain’s A-gonna Fall?
TAWN3: ?
SageMerlin: Denv, you are a genius.
MikeC89102: (chuckle) BPRAL22169, please go ahead with your question.
DenvToday: lol
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are TAWN3, and Robbobk.
BPRAL22169: Sorry — I was wondering what was coming up next? Are you finished with Starfarers?
DenvToday: ?
Pridemores: ?
Poul Anderson: The latest book out is _Genesis, which is a stand-alone. I have one which is quite different under construction, but don’t hold your breath. It still has to be completed and then the usual time until publication is about a year. (end)
MikeC89102: TAWN3, please go ahead with your question.
TAWN3: Mr. Anderson, what effect did Korzybski’s “Science and Sanity” and General Semantics have on Science Fiction writers after it came out? (end)
Poul Anderson: Probably _The World of Null-A_ was what called the attention of most of us to Korzybski, but early Heinlein stories such as “Blowups Happen” and “If This Goes On” also show the influence. It was considerable at first but soon faded. K[arem]: There is a satirical allusion to it in one of Jim Blish’s Okie novels. (end)
CherylYork: !
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are Robbobk, DenvToday, and Pridemores. (Queue is closed for this evening,thank you)
MikeC89102: Robbobk, please go ahead with your question.
TAWN3: Thank you very much sir, and thank you for coming.
Robbobk: Mr. Anderson, I came in late, so please forgive me if this question has been asked already. Having been overwhelmed by Hollywood’s insistence that the science in science fiction movies almost has to be done wrong (Starship Troopers and Capricorn One come to mind), have you been satisfied with the science used in any Science Fiction movies?
Poul Anderson: _Destination Moon was at least an honest effort. _Deep Impact_ wasn’t bad in that respect. However, I haven’t seen many SF movies, and may well have missed something. (end)
MikeC89102: Waiting in the queue are DenvToday, Pridemores, and CherylYork.
MikeC89102: DenvToday, please go ahead with your question.
DenvToday: I’ve wondered…are Anson Guthrie and Lazarus Long related? First cousins perhaps? (Is Hanno a distant relation?)
Poul Anderson: Well, doubtless there is some influence there, as there has been a strong Heinlein influence on so much else. (end)
MikeC89102: Pridemores, please go ahead with your question.
Pridemores: Mr Anderson, are you familiar with the ” HaB Theory”?
Poul Anderson: I don’t recognize it by that name. (end)
Doc4Kidz: “Habs” = Montreal Canadiens
MikeC89102: CherylYork, please go ahead with the last queue question this evening 🙂
CherylYork: Just wanted to add “Gulf” to the list of stories involving General Semantics… and to thank everyone here for one of the best chats I’ve had the pleasure to participate in. 🙂
MikeC89102: For sure !
Poul Anderson: Ah, yes, “Gulf.” –Habitants, OK, but what’s the theory? (end)
Astyanax12: Thank you, Karen and Poul. Letter will follow. G.
DenvToday: Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, thank you so much!!
MikeC89102: Good to “see you” Astyanax12 😉
TAWN3: Yes, Thank you both very much for coming and sharing your thoughts with us!
BookPotato: I host this room from five to seven PM EST weekdays…
Gandalara: ::: applause :::
Pumprat: Three cheers, hip hip…..
BookPotato: The subject is always writing and publishing
Dehede011: Thank you
Portia1972: Hooray!
BookPotato: Please.. feel free to visit again..
MikeC89102: Big thanks to BookPotato for having us !
CherylYork: Hooray!
Portia1972: Right!!
DenvToday: This was quite a rush. I’ve been a fan for so long.
MikeC89102: Applause to Mr. Mrs A. !! (ROAR)
Dehede011: Thank you Astyanax
Doc4Kidz: cheers! and thanks to the Andersons, Astyanax, and Book Potato!!!
Lucylou98: had a wonderful time
Poul Anderson: Thank you all, and good night. We’ll be back Saturday. Good night!
Major oz: Thank you so much, BP.
Gandalara: Free bheer for BookPotato 🙂
AGplusone: Getting time to begin to end. Our next meeting will this Saturday, on AIM. POUL ANDERSON has kindly agreed to visit there as well, from 5 to 8 PM.
::
All of you are welcome to attend if you wish and install AIM. E mail me for details.
Robbobk: Ya know, a Book Potato is quite a different thing from a couch potato…
MikeC89102: Goon night 🙂
TAWN3: Thank you Book Potato.
Major oz: And thank you for tonight and many years, PA.
BPRAL22169: Yes, Asty — I have a gold star for you. you have no idea how hard it is to find gold stars nowadays!
Dehede011: Dave, EDT?
AGplusone: See you all then!
Robbobk: One acts when necessary, the other won’t act. T’anks for de help heah, kiddo.
Pumprat: heck, free wine and single malt scotch for Book Potahto
Robbobk: Ahh, a connoiseur!
TAWN3: Yes, Thank you very much Astyanax12.
AGplusone: Yes, EDT. Wow! is all I can say.
Robbobk: (Or however that’s spelled)
AGplusone: Thank you all for coming.
AGplusone: And g’nite!
Gandalara: Night all 🙂 Thanks for the invite!
AGplusone: free chat
SageMerlin: Well, that was an experience
DenvToday: AG, how does one find the chat on AIM? I’m planning to install it.
Pumprat: chat ain’t free- TANNSTAAFL
CherylYork: lol
SageMerlin: Time is all we spend. David, may I have the floor?
DenvToday: Sage, so true. I felt like a giddy kid being here.
BPRAL22169: Ran into a Glen Moray Single Speyside in Santa Cruz
SageMerlin: Not too hard I hope
Pumprat: roger that Denv
TAWN3: LOL Tanstaafl
SageMerlin: And just what is a Glen Moray Single Speyside?
TAWN3: and chat
BPRAL22169: Marked down to move. We made it move. A single malt scotch, very nice — not exceptionally rare, but 12 years old.
Pumprat: a VERY nice single malt,
SageMerlin: I am nearing the bottom of my current bottle of Lagavulen
SageMerlin: And I am 45 minutes away from it right now
Pumprat: never had it, talked to folks who have though – I more of a beer type anywho
OokLA2000: scotch tastes like iodinized whiskey
DenvToday: <—–drinks very old, very aged, very rare milk. Unfortunately, it gives me the runs.
Lenjazz: Adios all. That was fairly amazing. Thanks for the invite.
DenvToday: Len, it was fun.
Lucylou98: Agreed, Ookla
SageMerlin: Okay, since David is obviously palavaring with Poul, let me take the floor for a minute and explain to some of you that some of us are about to have another discussion about the future of this here hangout
Pumprat: go to it Sage
OokLA2000: I invite you all to partake of a pipe of warm Guiness Stout, however.
AGplusone: Malmud (Keyword to: aol://2719:2-2-Malmud)
AGplusone: I have to leave now, everyone. Thank you for coming.
OokLA2000: lets discuss the HAB Theory. I am a believer
SageMerlin: K
DenvToday: Night AG
Lucylou98: Night, AG
AGplusone: Night all
Doc4Kidz: night all
OokLA2000: night, AGplus
Pumprat: It was a great time. I was privileged to be here. G’nite all, gotta get my sleep, working later
DenvToday: How does the AIM work? How does one find the chat?
TAWN3: Me, I’m multicultural. German beer, French wine, Russian vodka, Scotch, Tequila, you name it
DenvToday: Night Pump.
Pumprat: Thanks for the invite AG
END OF CHAT LOG
