"Roses are red
         Dave's turnin' blue
         Soon he'll be daid
         In pod numbah two!"

--
                                Sea Wasp
                        /^\
                        ;;;    
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/

:-)

"I'm so pretty, it can only be attributed to human error."

This is the sequel to _Hammerfall_, and is the book that most of you
wish had been written instead of Hammerfall.  There is a reference
section at the start of the book that would have been helpful to have
in Hammer, since it lays out the basic outline of what's happened up
to now, who's who, and why everyone is concerned about the Ila.  It
even explains why they didn't just use the telephone to call the Ila
and discuss the situation.  Like most of Cherryh's stories, the answer
is largely political.  There is a lot of backstory to Hammerfall that
would have made that book much more enjoyable.

But that's not what this book is about.  Forge starts up several
centuries after the events in Hammerfall.  The ondat and humanity are
observing a cold peace... the ondat are content to shoot human ships
that invade their space, but don't otherwise take aggressive actions
against humans.  The only spot humans and ondat interact (such as it
is) is on Concord Station, orbiting Marak's World.  Here everyone is
settled in to see what happens to a planet with rogue nanotech that
has been reduced to its primordial state by the Hammerfall.  

Meanwhile, life goes on in the rest of the universe.  Humans have
divided up into two political camps based upon their view of nanotech.
Earth and the Inner Worlds distrusts nanotech, with some good reasons,
and carefully controls it in order to preserve the purity of the human
genome.  Outsiders play much faster and looser with nanotech,
culminating in the Stylists.  Stylists are the extreme cutting edge of
fashion, setting the new looks and trends.  The idea is to establish a
Look... something unique that people admire.  And, humans being what
they are, that tends to mean edgy and trendy, and can results in
ceations that are scarcely human.  It's a fine line between Stylist
and grotesque, with the main difference being the artistry of the
person being modified.

Down on the planet, Marak and party are on a trip to watch a new sea
develop when the book starts out.  To be quite honest, not much
happens with them.  Their purpose in the book seems to be to provide a
view of the kinds of changes that are taking place on the planet, and
to temper some of the responses by the government up on Concord
Station, since no one wants to piss off the Old Ones downworld. But
mostly it seems to be to portray the scale of the changes that are
ocurring.  

Up on the station, there's politics in plenty.  An unexpected Earth
ship creates turmoil as everyone tries to figure out why it's shown up
and what it wants.  Teenage rebellion in the governor's household has
some unexpected results.  A young Project worker gets in trouble.
There's family issues to deal with, and people with unknown loyalties.

It's the kind of story that Cherryh does well.  If there is a problem
with this book, it's that the time frame is so short, with the entire
story taking place in around 5 days.  The social descriptions show
that a lot of thought went into the characters and their situations.
And there is a possibility that this is just the set up for a new
series.  But it's not clear... this story is neatly tied up at the end
of the book, and if the story continues it's going to be as a new
adventure.  On the other hand, she may just leave the characters to
live their lives with no further adventures that are worthy of
reporting.

Rebecca

When Baen published all of Garrett's Lord D'Arcy stories in one volume
not so long ago, did they alter any of the text? I know that in the
past Baen have been known to "update" bits of text (i.e. replace
references to slide-rules with calculators in some books) and I'm
curious as to whether this recent collection suffered the same fate.

In article <9a68c8ec.0408020039.23915...@posting.google.com>,

I understand they did.

I have all the stories in their original form, so I could make a
check if I wanted to, but I don't want to.  I would just get
annoyed.  I'm not sure why I have the omnibus (the one with the
girl with the strange anatomy being devoured by her dress) at
all; perhaps someone gave it to me.

By the way, it's Darcy, without an apostrophe.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djhe...@kithrup.com      

djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:

So far as I know, all they did was remove the couple of paragraphs
that were repeated in every single story, about how Richard the Lion-
Hearted was wounded by a crossbow bolt, suffered a change of personality,
etc. etc.  They left in a couple of instances of it, but it would have
been pretty repetitive to have it in every story.

On a similar note, I noticed that the Baen edition of _Witches of
Karres_ is out, "Edited by Eric Flint."  Does anyone know what editing
has been done?

--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck       Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
tene...@alumni.caltech.edu      \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.

In article <adb08981.0407301925.52fa6...@posting.google.com>,
[snip summary]

You're actually the second person I've seen ask about this book in the
past month.  It's _But We Are Not of Earth_ by Jean E. Karl.

--
Justin Fang (just...@panix.com)

Warning: This is a long and rambling post, which will probably
be of interest to no one but myself. Well, my mother would
probably read it, if she were on Usenet.

Anyway. I'm reading a book called Dark Woods by Jay Kumar. It's
about a hunter who goes into the woods after a wounded Bigfoot
that injured a friend of his. I'm a sucker for monsters in the
modern world, so this was an easy buy for me. I'm only about
fifty pages in, so I won't be spoiling much plot, but I will
be spoiling some of the backstory, so be warned. So far it's
not too bad a read, but I can't recommend it unreservedly.

The reason I'm not sure I recommend it is the backstory.
It started out looking like a good old-fashioned hunter
vs. monster story. Then the politics came into it. Seems
that the US Government and the logging industry have
known for decades that Bigfoots are real. They're covering
up that knowledge, though, both to keep the logging
industry solvent (if Bigfoots got added to the Endangered
Species List, the logging industry would cease to exist
overnight, apparently) and to keep from panicking the
general populace. In fact, President Johnson signed a
directive referred to as "The Bigfoot Order" in 1967.
The order "instructed the Secretary of Agriculture and
the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service to do 'everything
possible' to keep the animal's existence a secret
because its revelation could 'cause a spiritual crisis
that would be detrimental to National Security.'"

After signing the order, Johnson is reported to have
said, "I don't need to worry about goddamn walking monkeys
on top of everything else."

Since 1967, the logging industry and the US government have
poured lots and lots of effort and money into creating
obvious hoaxes and discrediting real evidence. Over the
years their efforts have lessened, because most of the
public has stopped believing in Bigfoot. They still work
to discredit people researching the possibility of their
existence, however.

That's the backstory to the book, and man did it give me
pause. No. Just no. I have a very hard time believing
that the US government and the entire friggin' logging
industry could keep something like this a secret for
over thirty years. It's said or implied that pretty
much everyone high up in the logging industry knows
about Bigfoots. (Bigfeet?) But not one of them has
ever provided proof to the world? I suppose it's for
the best that Kumar doesn't explore that idea, because
then we'd probably get a team of government MIBs
killing the people who want to let the secret out.
Of course, there's still a couple of hundred pages
left, so maybe that's coming up.

I'm going to stick with the book at least a while longer,
but this was a major red flag. I hate, hate, hate stupid
secret conspiracies that require everyone involved to
be a lot more ruthless and/or competent than is at
all realistic when compared to the way similar groups
of people operate in the real world. And all that effort
to keep Bigfoot a secret? Good lord.

Anyone know some good examples of dumb conspiracies or
secrets in SF? Two come immediately to mind.

1) Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Standard secret magic
world, where magic and demons have existed throughout
history but almost no one knows about it but, amazingly,
the existence of magic and incredibly powerful beings
hasn't caused history to run any differently then it
did on our world.

Now, I love Buffy. Not all the characters, and certainly
not all the episodes or seasons, but when it was good
it was really, really good. But the secret crap was
really, really bad. It wasn't too bad early on, when
the Hellmouth's effect could be blamed for people just
not wanting to know what goes bump in the night. But
then we got demons attacking the graduating class,
demons attacking in broad daylight, demon bikers
assaulting the town, demons coming to the wedding,
and - over on Angel - human tourists mingling with
demons in Lorne's bar. For the love of God, no.
When the writers just ignored the fact that there
was simply no credible explanation for why the
general population of the world didn't know about
magic, it was easy to maintain my suspension of
disbelief. But when they started mixing the demons
and magic with the normal, everyday stuff, my
SOD just broke. It was like the writers took
the viewers for granted, or something. Or maybe
they just wanted to write campy stories. Which
is fine, but I didn't want campy stories on
Buffy, and I don't think it was very good camp
anyway.

2) The Harry Potter books. All the magicians live
in a world that the Muggles just don't know about.
Since the series is aimed primarily at younger
readers, I'm willing to cut Rowling some slack
when it comes to this kind of conspiracy. She
still annoys me with some things, though. The
mind-wiping of Muggles who see things they
"shouldn't," for example. That's an incredibly
invasive and immoral thing to do and, at least
in the books I've read so far, no one seems to
bat an eye about it.

Since most of the books take place away from the
Muggle world, it's easy to ignore the whole
conspiracy thing. I think that's a good move on
Rowling's part, and exactly where the Buffy
writers failed. Still, though, Rowling sticks
all sorts of details in that just bug me when
I think about them too much. Which I suppose
means I'm thinking about them too much, but
what can you do?

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the issue of
dumb conspiracies and secrest in SF. Gotta be
worth at least two cents, I'd say, if only
because you get a bulk discount.

Pete

Peter Meilinger <melln...@bu.edu> wrote in news:celhim$fct$1@news3.bu.edu:

0. The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea, surely
should sneak in before BtVS. It is the very epitome of "implausible
conspiracy", taking everything and jumbling it into a tangled web, and then
finding the taste not exotic enough it then proceeds to add a couple of
kitchen sinks for spice and flavour.

Dvet,
I am in a a very similar situation....
I have a bs in Information Tech, but am hoping to go back into
engineering (considering EE or Computer Engineering) for a MS or even
as far as a PhD....OR, pursue a career in vet medicine (human familly
medicine)....

Some of the vets that I have spoken to seemed extremely supportive.
I'd recommend about.com's forums 'Vet school dairies' featuring
a cornell vet med school student named "Joanne". There is also the
alt.med.veterinary newsgroups with is very helpful (as well as
www.hillery.net, a student posting her class notes online).

As for the choice between the two, the methidology seems quite
different, engineering appears to be the learning of how to learn and
being able to remember theories to then apply to new situations,
whereas medicine seems like wrote memorization from the getgo.
Medicine, it seems, does not care if you only retain a third of what
you learn, tho...correct me if I am wrong!!

Either way, medicine (esp, vet med) is a ball-buster in terms of hours.
My father worked in his practice 8am-7pm M-F (1-2 hr lunch), 9-1
Saturday, emergencies (if you want to handle them, or if you are not
close to a large city with an emergency clinic) could be on Christmas
day when the wife or kids are opening presents in a
blizzard...Engineering....you seem like you know better, but either
way, it seems that you *must* keep reading/learning/experiencing to be
employed!! But any self-employment is probably like that....

I see that my life goals can be somewhat touchy-feeling in that I would
like to help the "Greater Good" and leave an impression on the lives of
people and the direction of the country while taking the opportunity to
explore my avenues with ability, finance, and education to explore my
career.

Along those lines, I see the proliferation of cellphones and can't
imagine how rewarding it must be when the developer is able to help
thousands a people each second from injury and death (and other tragic
circumstances) rather than unblocking a cat or doing yet-another-spay.
However, I see that millions are vying and competing for the same
purpose domestically and abroad daily! And I also see the thousands of
throw-away devices and engineering-clueless managers and just shutter
at the prospects.

It seems as if there has to be some area in between the two, but I
haven't found anything other than medical device engineering (EE/CEing
of medical devices). Other biomedical engineering programs (or at least
some of the ones that I have seen) stressed only being capable to
FIX/REPAIR medical devices in the field....something I am really not
too keen on doing...

Finally, I am hoping for a position that would offer self-employment
potential, but would not cost megabucks to launch....and obviously, I
would be hoping to earn a modest living (~40-60 -> 70) should be
sufficient, but I wouldn't deny more! =)

However, as I survey the future of engineering (esp in the US), things
don't appear to bright - I am worried if I would be looking for another
career in my mid-40's because my position was replaced by an employee
on the Pacific Rim or in India....or if I am just sick of job
shopping/contract employment...

It seems as if engineering really depends on how long you can continue
job-shopping and picking the right technology to stay
current...medicine seems like you can make a half-decent living with
much more respect than dilbert. But what about those who fall in
between?

You explained briefly what you experiences were...would you be willing
to elaborate any further???

Suggestions? Advice to make this seemingly staggering decision:
medicine/vet vs engineering?!?!

Thanks in advance!

NLeducatecar...@hotmail.com

--- another post along same lines - please answer any if you can! --
I received a bachelors of Info Tech (comp. networking, some
programming, communications, some db, etc) from a tech college with a
competitive gpa, imho, but I am giving some serious consideration to a
masters-level engineering degree (eg, electrical, computer, biomedical,
etc, or maybe computer science or nanotech if its not 100% hype), but I
had a few concerns that continue to rear their ugly heads...

I'm 25 and I have a lot of time, as well as a moderate amount of life
experience for a 40year old: I managed and negotiated the sale of my
families 2 veterinary hospitals for ~1 yr (accounting, management,
etc), managed 15 residential/agricultural/commercial properties (~25
tenants) for ~2 yrs - including major renovations on one of the homes
and long-term commercial leases (*all* aspects), handled 2 counts of
litigation (with ~10 attorneys total)...I had no notice (or direction
!), etc - parents passed away suddenly...I was lucky if I had a set
of keys to more than one property, and I had very very very little to
make any sort of transition. I had to handle both of their estates
(finances, title changes, legal, partnerships, tax prep, etc, etc,
etc). Needless to say, it wasn't a 9-5 job! =)

A fundamental aspect of my career of choice is one that _values_ the
education that I would be receiving - something that Info Tech never
really seemed to offer. For Info Tech, it just seemed that job
experience was *the* pinnacle evaluation for employment - although a
BS did/could raise the bar slightly, someone with more experience just
seemed to continuously win over higher education. I don't think that
this is a problem, but I just hope earning a degree is actually *worth*
it...certifications and education alone could not cut it against brute
experience - it just seemed self-defeating pursuing more education if
the guy down the block who when to a community college could get the
job and cost the company less $....

I can afford getting an advanced degree, and frankly, I'd like for it
to be *worth* it.

One of my personal goals (at least at this point of my life) is to try
to pursue a career that would permit a transition into self-employment.
I've heard many statistics that many companies are started by
engineers, but am inclined to think that may be the personal
characteristics of the engineer _himself_, not just the degree, per
say. It seems that most environmental/civil engineers can start their
own gig pretty easy, but I was always interested in technology rather
than landfills...

How difficult is it to start your own company as, say, a computer,
electrical, or biomedical engineer? Unless you do only design, can a
small business possibly be on the cutting edge, or will they only be
able to design lightbulbs?

Also, its no surprise that US' engineering/manufacturing industries
are going into the crapper real quick....China, South Korea,
Japan...they have the manufacturing industry is the backbone of their
economy ... and more and more of them are now going into design (eg,
China's killer Beijing Microsoft labs, etc, etc, etc). Including
India, engineers and comp sci'ers are real cheap. US is now making it
increasingly more difficult for foreign students to enter, so they
might just run  with what education they have already...which brings me
to the next question...

Given international competition and offshoring (however much Bush/Kerry
say that it is occurring), how can an engineer stand out from the huge
influx? Granted you must always continue to learn, etc, but isn't
there *always* someone younger to do your job when you are pushing
40-50 years old? Isn't *every* engineer trying to learn and work his
butt off, too?

Yes, you could go for management (or a PhD), but its really not funny
when managers fire engineers just because they don't like Michael
Bolton and don't wear the same type of shoes or aren't an
extravert....or are my Dilbert fears too extreme?? How often/why  does
"The Company" lay you off?

Given my background, I was hoping to play into anything ranging from a
veterinarian/family doctor to a robotic engineer, etc...I'm really
not one for memorization, but that's what all my Cisco
certifications, unix commands, and programming languages are...

Finally, the all telling questions....If you were to do it again, would
you? What would you do differently? Would you tell your children to be
an engineer, too? How happy are you with your job, given the impact
that you have on the product/process, family, or society?

Thanks in advance to any readers and responders...anything would be
greatly appreciated!! Know anyone else that I could talk to, esp in PA
area?

NLeducatecar...@hotmail.com