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The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
With Double Star, the Hugos Start to Shine
What Do You Know? The Second Hugo Winner Redeems Itself
The First Hugo Winner Probably Deserves the Ghetto
Final Hugo Awards Ballot Full Of Writing, Publishing Goodness

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braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
12/01/09

In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
That settles it, I guess. I shall write a theatrical adaptation of this book.
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Moff
11/29/09

In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
Just a quick note:

Does Fritz Leiber not LOOK FUCKING AWESOME? Like, doesn't that portrait make you think: "That dude is gonna science-fiction the fuck outta me"?
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Grey_Area
11/29/09

@Moff: He really does. I am all a-tingle!
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
11/30/09

@Moff: He was really awesome even when old and sick. Sharp as a tack till the end, and could declaim that Shakespeare even in a reduced voice.
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Grey_Area
11/29/09

In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
Loving your Hugo posts, Moffie.
Have you ever read Leiber's 1968 A Spectre is Haunting Texas? Been out of print for too long but very worth hunting down. It too draws on his theatrical background. A Shakespearean actor from an orbital habitat foments a Marxist revolution in a North America now ruled by Texas. He was riffing on Lyndon Johnson's Great Society taken to comic extremes, but his picture of all-powerful anti-intellectual Good Ol' Boys seems eerily prescient.
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Edited by Grey_Area at 11/29/09 5:18 PM Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred

Moff
11/29/09

@Grey_Area: Oooh, I am intrigued. A few weeks ago, I finally picked up a copy of the first Fafhrd & GM book, too, which I am excited to get to, should I ever have free time again before my eyes begin to fail.
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Grey_Area
11/29/09

@Moff: Should your eyes fail, just use sonar like I do.
EEEEEK EEEEK EEEEEK!
I use this method to read in dimly lit bars where of course I do all my literary criticism.
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Edited by Grey_Area at 11/29/09 9:29 PM Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred

fyngyrz
11/29/09

In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
I also really liked the "conservation of reality" idea. The opposite of what most timeline change presumes. Very nice. Quite aside from enjoying SF works as full experiences, I always count it a win when I run into something very clever or insightful in very compact form.
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RyanF
11/29/09

In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
I can't say that I enjoyed this one. In fact, I think it's among my least favorite of the Hugos I've read (but at least not as bad as _They'd Rather Be Right_!). I just don't get the point. Locking people from various times and planets in a single room together and letting them have at each other for 150 pages is such a great idea. You'd expect an interesting discussion of the nature of history or humanity, and some in-depth character studies. Instead we get the politics of an off-stage "time war" in the vaguest and most jargon-heavy of terms.

If we're going to spend the novel on the Change War, I'd rather see it in action than read allusions to it. If we're not going to see it, I'd like to see a focus on character and dialog among a really odd mix of people. Instead, we get the worst of both worlds.

I enjoyed your review though, Moff. I just didn't see the Change War (as presented here) as all that interesting, and I didn't see the point of the book's strange format. I think Leiber actually crippled himself with his own rules here.
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Moff
11/29/09

@RyanF: Yeah, the story Leiber gives us isn't what you'd expect from the elements it's made up of -- I mean, it would not make a particularly great movie, I think. But the story will stick with me, for whatever reason, and I liked the end, when it gets into ideas of the Demons as possibility-binders, etc. I'm a sucker for that kind of thing, though.
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KeithZG
11/29/09

In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
I don't know at what point you decided "let us blog about books that made a big impression on KeithZG during his childhood", but good choice ;)

I dunno, there's definitely good science fiction out there nowadays, but really, reminding me of "The Big Time" reminds me of when science fiction still had the guts to be Science Fiction rather than "Fiction, and we'll throw in Something to do with Science too". The fact that the next installment of this series is about something by James Blish just rubs it in, really.

I'd say more, but it'd be too "you kids! get off my lawn!" to be respectable . . . especially since I'm still in my 20s! What can I say, I read too much Asimov and Brunner in my childhood. Thinking of, dear gods, how powerful would a miniseries or a made-for-tv movie of The Wrong End of Time be today? Especially after so much of Brunner's dystopian predictions ended up true . . . I get shivers just thinking of it.

...or in other words, keep doing what you're doing ;)
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Austin Grossman
11/28/09

In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
I haven't thought about that the Change War in forever! Is it me or is Leiber kind of a forgotten man of SF/F literature? Because of his sexual politics, maybe? I suppose Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road was a tribute.
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not_Bridget
11/29/09

@Austin Grossman: Forgotten? Hardly. At least, no more than many other SF pioneers now mostly out of print.

Yes, Gentlemen of the Road is (among other things) a tribute to Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser, his sword & sorcery heroes. (What if Conan had a sense of humor?) In fact, Leiber invented the phrase "Sword & Sorcery."

But Leiber didn't write any huge, sprawling epics. Faff & his pal had long careers that were published as short stories & novelettes.

The Big Time is, indeed, small--a gem that could have been done as an arty B&W TV production back in the day. (With a bit of puppetry for one character.)

My first Change War story was "No Great Magic"--published in Galaxy & available here: [www.gutenberg.org]

Some of the same characters & even more theatrical!
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Dr Emilio Lizardo
11/28/09

In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
Without rules, SF becomes fantasy. And not in a good way. Without rules, every resolution can be a deus ex machina. Since we are dealing with new worlds, it is important that we have rules that are explained so we can understand the importance of events. Every good SF book has rules. In the best books, they aren't just laid out for all to see, they are made apparent by the background. The rules may be physical or sociological but they must be consistent. Without rules, Niven's "Known Space" with technology controlled for the people's own good has much less impact. As you pointed out, the rules serve as a framework for whole series of stories. Again, in Niven's universe all crimes are capital crimes because organ transplants are easy and in demand. Asimov's robot stories were an excellent example of this. Asimov seemed to delight in finding loopholes to write new stories about.
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Edited by Dr Emilio Lizardo at 11/28/09 8:32 PM Dr Emilio Lizardo was starred

braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
12/01/09

@Dr Emilio Lizardo: Listen: fantasy also has rules. Deus ex machina is not intrinsic to fantasy, and actually also is subject to rules. You have two genres here that are explicitly about avoiding the real literal, they work exactly the same way. You don't have to like them both, but there's a point at which you've got to stop pretending that they're fundamentally dissimilar.
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Dr Emilio Lizardo
12/01/09

@braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.: You missed my point. I have nothing against fantasy even though I read far more SF. Frankly, the boundries have been blurring in a lot of what I have been reading lately. I didn't mean that it becomes Fantasy (big F) as a literary genre, I meant fantasy (little f) as in it's just some imaginary thing the author thought up to write himself out of a corner that comes out of nowhere. That's why I said "not in a good way." Sorry if I was unclear.

In short, Braak, you are, as usual, completely correct.
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Guang
11/28/09

In reply to The Big Time Is a Mystery Morpheus Would Approve Of
I have this book filed under first of a series, but not sure if I've read it or not. Wikipedia has no further info - was this a trilogy or something like that?
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Dr Emilio Lizardo
11/28/09

@Guang: Check Lieber's bibliography on his Wikipedia page. It lists several Change War books and stories. Probably easiest to Ctrl-f and search for "Change."
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klondykekid
11/28/09

@Dr Emilio Lizardo: Besides The Big Time, the 7 short stories are collected in a volume called Changewar. There's a bit of autobiography (about 114 pages called "Not Much Disorder and Not so Early Sex") in another collection called The Ghost Light. These were all Ace books between 1982 and 1984.
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Slowburner01
11/15/09

In reply to With Double Star, the Hugos Start to Shine
I'm now in my 60th year and I've been reading SF since my early teens, so I've read a lot, though sadly not so much in recent years. Heinlein was one of the earliest and I'll still read anything of his. I can recall starting with "The Door into Summer" and short stories "The Green Hills of Earth" from my father's collection (Unfortunately, after he retired my mother sold off most of his books, but that's another story). I still have "Double Star" which I'll now need to reread, even though it's in German rather than English, and my German is very rusty - I bought it in the early 70s while in Germany and looking for something to read. I did think "Starship Troopers" was too gung-ho when I read it around 1980, but my father, a WWII vet, who always had nightmares after seeing war movies, thought it very good on the subject of citizenship #hugos
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groovista
11/15/09

In reply to With Double Star, the Hugos Start to Shine
Another agreement here, Moff;excellent series and a high ambition, too.

I've just re-read Raymond Chandler - "That Voice" sounds like Philip Marlowe in space. In wonder if RAH and Chandler ever corresponded.. #hugos
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PostMarque
11/15/09

@groovista: i hate finding other good books i should read when i have to finish the wheel of time and then i started doomsday... and well... i hope remember this book in a few months when i finish the wheel of time. for the white tower! #hugos
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azogue2
11/15/09

In reply to With Double Star, the Hugos Start to Shine
I, for one, love his later work. That "descent into crazy", was tremendously liberating and an illuminating refelciton of the times in which he lived.

I've always thought Lazarus Long could be a movie franchise.
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arthur001
11/15/09

In reply to With Double Star, the Hugos Start to Shine
It's worth remembering that Heinlein had three wives, the last two during his career as an sf writer. He was also raised by religious fundamentalists who were sexually repressed, and much of his life and fiction can be explained, in a pop culture way, as a reaction against that. If you read The Puppet Masters, you'll see that he had a pretty good idea how marijuana affects both the brain and personal relationships. I don't think he got the insights second-hand.
I only fully understood his impact on the SF field when I read the Asimov/Greenberg anthology The Best of 1939. The book has some great stuff in it, but the language is formal, creaky, and the people are wooden. Then Heinlein's "Life Line" comes in. The contrast between it and the other fiction is incredible. It's a dumb story but it doesn't matter because the prose is crackling and the characters are arguing and it's as the entire approach to writing science fiction came alive. In those days it took only a few months for the effect of an influential story to be felt, so when you get to the The Best of 1940, the entire field has changed, both in style and in the cast of its greatest writers.
Good post, Josh. I'm Arthur Cover with whom you've corresponded before. I'm having pass word trouble so despite the funny name on the post, this is indeed me. Well, most of the time. I don't know how much Leiber you've read, but you may want to keep in mind his father was a Shakespearian actor (who was silent movies and talkies) and the Bard definitely had some influence on the way Fritz Jr. used the English language.
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Moff
11/15/09

@arthur001: Hey, Arthur! Thought that might be you. (I don't know how to fix password issues, but Annalee or Charlie Jane could probably help come Monday.) I didn't know Heinlein had been married more than once, but I'm sure Virginia was the wife in the anecdote I mention in the footnote; the veracity of the anecdote I'm less sure of (the source was credible, but he'd heard it secondhand himself), but it's a fun story either way.

I remember "Life Line" -- very Twilight Zone-y. And even the difference in style between this and the previous two Hugo winners was huge. Bester had a lively voice, but to me reading him still feels like reading, while Heinlein you can hear in your head.

A little disappointed now that I let A Heinlein Trio, the book I'd found Double Star in, go back to the library before I read The Puppet Masters -- I think it'd have been helpful for some research I'm doing, based on what you write.

I'm looking forward to the Leiber -- the only work of his I've read are some Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories. #hugos
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Starwatcher
11/15/09

In reply to With Double Star, the Hugos Start to Shine
Meh, I'll skip it. Heinlein is one of those guys you either really love or absolutely loathe. That's a big problem when it happens in the same book, as it did for me with Time Enough for Love. At his best Heinlein is, as you point out, a wonderfully accessible and brilliant writer; it's just when he starts getting political (especially if you don't particularly agree with many of his views) that he becomes unbearable, and he does it far too often to be able to enjoy his work. I can only think of one novel I ever literally threw across a room, and it was a Heinlein novel. I won't tell you which one. #hugos
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Yarrr
11/15/09

@Starwatcher: Time Enough for Love is my all-time favorite book. I find the entire Lazarus Long arc fascinating, and I always enjoy hearing a completely different take on life, even if I don't agree completely.
Of course, considering that my other favorites are Stephen Baxter and Gregory Benford, perhaps my taste in authors is suspect. Nevertheless, I do hope you've found an author you enjoy as much as I enjoy R.A.H. #hugos
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Starwatcher
11/15/09

@Yarrr: Oh, of course. I've found lots of writers whose work I really love--P.K. Dick, Sam Delany, Octavia Butler, Dan Simmons and Liz Hand to name a few. #hugos
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Yarrr
11/15/09

@Starwatcher: I've always wanted to give P.K. Dick a try, may have to do that next, and I'm sorry to say I haven't heard of the others but I will make sure that changes. #hugos
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Starwatcher
11/15/09

@Yarrr: You definitely need to read PKD. Delany, Butler and Hand are probably more personal tastes. Simmons will be coming up in this Hugo series eventually--not soon enough for my liking. #hugos
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phoghat
11/15/09

In reply to With Double Star, the Hugos Start to Shine
Heinlein's been my favorite since I read "Door Into Summer" when I was a kid.
I wasn't aware of this one and jumped to Amazon and downloaded the Kindle version. #hugos
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