H Beam Piper Recommendations
- Thread starter SgtHulka
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As an aside, John Scalzi has written a reboot of Little Fuzzy:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/04/...-you-about-revealed-introducing-fuzzy-nation/
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/04/...-you-about-revealed-introducing-fuzzy-nation/
A reboot? Ugh...
I've liked what I've read of Scalzi, Old Man's War and the sequels, but this is simply disturbing. Check out what he wrote on his blog:
He then goes onto talk about how TV shows have been rebooted, which of course illustrates how he's completely missing the point.
Galactica and Trek are television shows and not novels. The stories told by the originals in those cases depended on a certain level of SFX capability and their reboots were as equally, if not more, concerned with updating the SFX shown than updating the story.
Yes, the Galactica reboot had a much better story than the lame 70s version, at least until the series finale. The Trek reboot, however, was roundly and correctly condemned for the violence it did to the Trek story. In the case of the Trek reboot, the SFX upgrade wasn't worth the story mangling.
So, Scalzi has taken Piper's plot and characters and written a "reboot", a better story in his opinion. What has he added? What has he subtracted? Are there energy weapons now instead of Piper's slugthrowers? Personal computers instead Piper's huge mainframes? What violence had been done to the Piper-verse?
Making matter even more dicey, Scalzi wrote this reboot for his own amusement and before he had permission from the holders of Piper's IP rights. That means the manuscript most likely wasn't edited as well as it should have.
This has train wreck written all over it. Carr's and Green's sequel to Gunpowder God was godawful, so bad in fact that they've never been able to sell the sequel to their sequel, and that shameless hack Jerry Pournelle was put off on writing a Space Viking sequel a publisher wanted due to the actual work involved. Scalzi's reboot or re-imagining or re-whatever of Little Fuzzy is going to have to hit a pretty hard target.
Regards,
Bill
I tend to agree, Whipsnade.
This isn't even a new story- it's a pointless reworking of an already great story! Little Fuzzy needs a reboot like I need a whole in the head.
As you point out, Scalzi is a good writer. Old Man's War was good. Why doesn't he write a new story? I'd be interested in that. He could write in the Piper-verse. I'd read it, too, if he respects the setting conventions and canon.
This isn't even a new story- it's a pointless reworking of an already great story! Little Fuzzy needs a reboot like I need a whole in the head.
As you point out, Scalzi is a good writer. Old Man's War was good. Why doesn't he write a new story? I'd be interested in that. He could write in the Piper-verse. I'd read it, too, if he respects the setting conventions and canon.
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Jeff M. Hopper
SOC-14 1K
John Scalzi said:
I'm a big Piper fan as well and I think John Scalzi has earned enough respect from me to give this book a chance. If it sucks, I'll let people know.
Bill:
I've seen very little negative about the Trek reboot. I've seen a LOT about the BSG reboot...
Rebooting the Fuzzy setting and storyline may update it to modern sensibilities... much like "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" did for P&P... Bring something classic and use it to launch a new version of the same story, but with some changes.
The only real innovation is to not hide the source, unlike Terry Brooks pastiche on LOTR... Sword of Shanarra... or Stakely's Armor vs Heinlien's Starship Troopers.
I've seen very little negative about the Trek reboot. I've seen a LOT about the BSG reboot...
Rebooting the Fuzzy setting and storyline may update it to modern sensibilities... much like "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" did for P&P... Bring something classic and use it to launch a new version of the same story, but with some changes.
The only real innovation is to not hide the source, unlike Terry Brooks pastiche on LOTR... Sword of Shanarra... or Stakely's Armor vs Heinlien's Starship Troopers.
Wil,
You haven't seen the Hitler Rant on YouTube? Or even read the threads here?
The BSG reboot was very well received up until the series finale that is, but that reboot told a very different story something Scalzi has said he isn't doing. The BSG reboot also took great care not to reboot the technology from the original series. In fact leaving the technology "clunky" was part of the plot.
Just what do you think Scalzi's reboot of Little Fuzzy is going to do with computers for example? Do you think PDAs instead of building-sized mainframes really give the feel of Piper's setting?
I think that most modern sensibilities are already there. Piper had competent female protagonists in the 1950s, something many writers in 2010 still can't handle. He also tackled some rather unsettling issues too and, in the case of Little Fuzzy, one of those issues is state sponsored genocide.
Sure, the Fuzzies come across as cute, furry, infants complete with baby talk, but I think Piper did that on purpose in order to make his real themes hit you all the harder when you finally noticed those themes.
Good Sweet Strephon, you actually believe zombies helped "freshen" Pride and Prejudice? A decade from now once this idiotic zombie phase is over, people are going to be looking back and saying WTF were they thinking...
Scalzi could have written about the story from a different angle, much like how Stoppard deconstructed Hamlet with Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead or how Randall's The Wind Done Gone exposed the genteel racism and institutional southern apologia of Mitchell's Gone With The Wind. Of course tackling Little Fuzzy in that manner would have taken effort and, while I enjoyed Scalzi's take on space opera in the Old Man's War series, I don't think he as a writer is quite up to that effort.
Rather commenting on Little Fuzzy by writing at a tangent to the story, Scalzi is "rebooting" it. He going to be telling the same story in basically the same manner because he thinks he can do it better and/or because he believes that updating the technology will somehow make it better. He's rebooting the book not because he has anything interesting to say about it themes in it but because, much as with Trek reboot, there's ready made audience that will guarantee sales.
Remember, when you come across a situation you don't understand it is always best to look for the money.
It's not an innovation to no longer hide you sources, it's more like a lack of shame.
Regards,
Bill
Trek reboot.
Hey Aramis,
Let me be the first to say it the Trek reboot, blew chunks, and I only use that expression since the rules here prohibit the really foul language needed to describe the horror that is the Trek reboot.
First off he bloody killed off the Vulcans and the Time Travel bit is just bent beyond belief. But the all time uber-stupid bit, I mean other than the day(glo)light HALO raid on the even more moronic Space Drill, is the freaking Red Matter that can somehow can collapse an entire planet the size of Vulcan or Earth, yet is drawn from its container with a giant hypodermic needle. Gak!
It sucked and was really garbage. It had a nice bridge for the Enterprise, but the engineering looked like a pipe warehouse. It had a couple of nice lines, and the scene of Enterprise rising out of Titan's atmo was cool, but not enough that I should have to sit through the rest of the movie.
There lest anyone not have said this before.
Hey Aramis,
Let me be the first to say it the Trek reboot, blew chunks, and I only use that expression since the rules here prohibit the really foul language needed to describe the horror that is the Trek reboot.
First off he bloody killed off the Vulcans and the Time Travel bit is just bent beyond belief. But the all time uber-stupid bit, I mean other than the day(glo)light HALO raid on the even more moronic Space Drill, is the freaking Red Matter that can somehow can collapse an entire planet the size of Vulcan or Earth, yet is drawn from its container with a giant hypodermic needle. Gak!
It sucked and was really garbage. It had a nice bridge for the Enterprise, but the engineering looked like a pipe warehouse. It had a couple of nice lines, and the scene of Enterprise rising out of Titan's atmo was cool, but not enough that I should have to sit through the rest of the movie.
There lest anyone not have said this before.
Bill:
BSG was as well received as TNE was in the Traveller community... that is to say, the fan base was badly fractured by it, and it found a new fanbase by alienating much of the old fan base; it was a commercial success more in spite of the link than because of it. And the FX carrying the show? Well... a huge chunk of the fanbase was wanting the old setting with new FX, not a new setting that only superficially looks like the old.
The Trek reboot is fairly well received as well; the trek fan base isn't harping about it on the fan sites. Trek does, however, have a lot of casual fans who are more upset than much of the hardcore fandom.
And I'd put P&P&Z in the exact same category as the nBSG... creating a new fanbase but alienating the old. Think nBSG as "BSG & Blade Runner."
The Fuzzy setting was very 50's in its sensibilities and moral tone, except for the anachronistically equal women... but HBP was not the only one making that postulation; Doc Smith's women are in fact quite competent and not just homemakers, too. Women's equality was an almost inevitable outcome of WWII and the Korean War... And Doc smith and HBP both saw that.
And Trek XI? No, I'd not run across much hate for it online. A few scattered complaints. But at least it was done with a justification that allows for non-reboot universe continuity if the owners go that way. It was, for many, far better than Nemesis or Generations.
What Scalzi will bring is modern cultural tropes. It will be a story about finding the Fuzzies, and realizing they are sentient, not animals nor pets. But aside from the names and basic plot, it will be as much HBP's Fuzzy as nBSG was oBSG, or any of the recent remakes of the Grimm's fairy Tales: superficially similar, but in reality, it could have done just as well by not acknowleging the connection and letting the other half of the fans have their remake that isn't a change in the tone nor tenor. It won't have the strong sense of morality; it will probably have much less polite language. The computers, PDAs, cell phones, and automation will be added, and will probably impact the story a good bit.
BSG was as well received as TNE was in the Traveller community... that is to say, the fan base was badly fractured by it, and it found a new fanbase by alienating much of the old fan base; it was a commercial success more in spite of the link than because of it. And the FX carrying the show? Well... a huge chunk of the fanbase was wanting the old setting with new FX, not a new setting that only superficially looks like the old.
The Trek reboot is fairly well received as well; the trek fan base isn't harping about it on the fan sites. Trek does, however, have a lot of casual fans who are more upset than much of the hardcore fandom.
And I'd put P&P&Z in the exact same category as the nBSG... creating a new fanbase but alienating the old. Think nBSG as "BSG & Blade Runner."
The Fuzzy setting was very 50's in its sensibilities and moral tone, except for the anachronistically equal women... but HBP was not the only one making that postulation; Doc Smith's women are in fact quite competent and not just homemakers, too. Women's equality was an almost inevitable outcome of WWII and the Korean War... And Doc smith and HBP both saw that.
And Trek XI? No, I'd not run across much hate for it online. A few scattered complaints. But at least it was done with a justification that allows for non-reboot universe continuity if the owners go that way. It was, for many, far better than Nemesis or Generations.
What Scalzi will bring is modern cultural tropes. It will be a story about finding the Fuzzies, and realizing they are sentient, not animals nor pets. But aside from the names and basic plot, it will be as much HBP's Fuzzy as nBSG was oBSG, or any of the recent remakes of the Grimm's fairy Tales: superficially similar, but in reality, it could have done just as well by not acknowleging the connection and letting the other half of the fans have their remake that isn't a change in the tone nor tenor. It won't have the strong sense of morality; it will probably have much less polite language. The computers, PDAs, cell phones, and automation will be added, and will probably impact the story a good bit.
Are "modern sensibilities" necessarily an advantage?
Wil,
You haven't seen the Hitler Rant on YouTube? Or even read the threads here?
The BSG reboot was very well received up until the series finale that is, but that reboot told a very different story something Scalzi has said he isn't doing. The BSG reboot also took great care not to reboot the technology from the original series. In fact leaving the technology "clunky" was part of the plot.
Just what do you think Scalzi's reboot of Little Fuzzy is going to do with computers for example? Do you think PDAs instead of building-sized mainframes really give the feel of Piper's setting?
I think that most modern sensibilities are already there. Piper had competent female protagonists in the 1950s, something many writers in 2010 still can't handle. He also tackled some rather unsettling issues too and, in the case of Little Fuzzy, one of those issues is state sponsored genocide.
Sure, the Fuzzies come across as cute, furry, infants complete with baby talk, but I think Piper did that on purpose in order to make his real themes hit you all the harder when you finally noticed those themes.
Good Sweet Strephon, you actually believe zombies helped "freshen" Pride and Prejudice? A decade from now once this idiotic zombie phase is over, people are going to be looking back and saying WTF were they thinking...
Scalzi could have written about the story from a different angle, much like how Stoppard deconstructed Hamlet with Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead or how Randall's The Wind Done Gone exposed the genteel racism and institutional southern apologia of Mitchell's Gone With The Wind. Of course tackling Little Fuzzy in that manner would have taken effort and, while I enjoyed Scalzi's take on space opera in the Old Man's War series, I don't think he as a writer is quite up to that effort.
Rather commenting on Little Fuzzy by writing at a tangent to the story, Scalzi is "rebooting" it. He going to be telling the same story in basically the same manner because he thinks he can do it better and/or because he believes that updating the technology will somehow make it better. He's rebooting the book not because he has anything interesting to say about it themes in it but because, much as with Trek reboot, there's ready made audience that will guarantee sales.
Remember, when you come across a situation you don't understand it is always best to look for the money.
It's not an innovation to no longer hide you sources, it's more like a lack of shame.
Regards,
Bill
Honestly, I can't remember all that many sci-fis on TV that weren't perfectly happy with "competent female protaganists". A number of those appeared in the supporting cast, sure, but not all.
In the modern market, ie, for sales? Probably yes.
In the artistic sense? Absosmurfly not.
Sifu Blackirish
SOC-14 1K
Shameless hack? Ouch.
Of course, I have read a lot of his nonfiction stuff, so maybe that's what gives me a better opinion of him than you do.
No intent to derail the thread, it just smacked me between the eyes.
Anyway, I stumbled into the Federation and Empire books and thoroughly enjoyed them. Unfortunately my attention wandered before I could read Little Fuzzy etc. Still highly recommend anything he wrote, there's a lot more gems than ore there. You can't say that about the modern writers.
FWIW, Bill, most if not all of Piper's work has been in the public domain for several years, available on Project Gutenberg among other places. Little Fuzzy is among those works. Thus, no permission was needed.
John,
That is my understanding too, many of Piper's short stories and novels can be found legally free across the 'net. I've seen the files at Gutenberg for years now and re-read Day of the Moron for the first time in a few decades that way.
Yet in the blog post linked here Scalzi writes about his agent having to negotiate with, not one, but two IP holders. I've no explanation for it and Scalzi doesn't explain any further either.
I do know Pournelle was given the right to write within Terro-Human Future and Paratime setting by Piper before the latter died. Pournelle mentions that in his forward to one of the Ace collections. I also believe one of Piper's publishers and his ex-wife were involved with IP rights discussions shortly after his death. However, I don't completely understand what Scalzi were referring to in his blog post.
With regards to the editing angle, in that same blog post Scalzi states he wrote this reboot some time ago for purely personal reasons and that he had no thought of publishing it until fairly recently. That suggests to me that the manuscript hasn't received the careful editing that any good book requires throughout the entire writing process, not that many manuscripts these day do receive that sadly. We've all read me bloviating here about how best selling authors "escape" editorial control and how their work suffers for it.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make it that Scalzi neither wrote the manuscript on spec nor was approached by a publisher to write it. He didn't write a plot summary and a sample chapter or two, submit them, wrangle with an editor over revisions, have the proposal accepted, complete the manuscript, wrangle an editor again over revisions, and then finally see the book published. Instead Scalzi wrote the entire book for his own amusement and the publishers were presented with a completed work.
Putting it another way, Scalzi's new Fuzzy book is fan-fic. Fan-fic by a published author, fan-fic by someone who can tell a nifty story, but fan-fic nonetheless. Scalzi wrote it to amuse himself and not to convince a publisher to buy it. There's a bit of a difference there and, in my experience, a telling one.
Regards,
Bill
Blackirish,
I've read his non-fiction stuff too. He's a fairly accomplished science and technology "populariser".
With regards to his fiction, however, I find him repetitive(1), uninspired, and dogmatic. I'll point out that his only real successes have occurred when he's been part of a writing team and not when he's written alone.
Regards,
Bill
1 - How many times can you recycle the name Glenda Ruth?
Sifu Blackirish
SOC-14 1K
Ouch again.
Now that you mention it he said somewhere that his style of writing worked very well with Larry Niven, since they covered each other's weaknesses.
But stop sugar coating it and tell me how you really feel...
I thoroughly enjoyed anything HBP has written. Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen was especially appealing because I like that alternate history/parallel universe subgenre. His stories of heroic individuals succeeding over corrupt governments is always entertaining--and timely.
whitedalek
SOC-9
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