Aucbvax.1548 fa.sf-lovers utzoo!duke!mhtsa!ucbvax!JPM@MIT-AI Sat Jun 6 23:25:18 1981 SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #143 SF-LOVERS AM Digest Sunday, 7 Jun 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 143 Today's Topics: SF Fandom - Awards & APAs, SF Books - Fantasticats, SF Topics - Children's TV (Winkie Dink and You and Planet Patrol) Compu-fiction & Children's stories (Jane Langton), Humor - "About a Secret Crocodile" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Jun 1981 12:44:32-EDT From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock) Subject: Hugos To say that Hugo awards are "at the whim of the con committee" is no longer anywhere near correct. A committee can give special awards (e.g., St. Louiscon (1969) gave Armstrong/Aldrin/Collins an award "for the best moon landing ever", and I'm working on lobbying the Denvention II committee for a similar award for Young&Crippen) but for the past several years concoms have specifically been forbidden to call these awards Hugos. A concom can include \\one// additional category, which must go through the same process of nomination and balloting as the rest of the Hugos. (One such tried to use this as a mechanism for giving a Hugo to Tolkien, offering the RingS as an example of a "series"; nominees included the Lensmen and the Foundation trilogy, which won.) The problem is that it would be easy to exhaust the worthwhile series if this were made permanent (look at what happened to the Gandalf (Life Master of Fantasy), which is about to be banned from the Hugo ballot); mechanisms for non-annual awarding could be very painful. As it happens, SFWA already has a Life Master award for SF; I think past winners include Heinlein, Williamson, and Simak, all of whom are a long way past their primes. If there's anyone seriously interested in this, I'd suggest they draw up a proposal and knock it around a while. I would \\not// suggest trying to get it into the Denver business meeting; they'll have enough problems with pass-on business and you'll probably get a much better motion if you pass it around some people who know the history of the Hugos. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jun 1981 23:55:40-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!bch at Berkeley Subject: cats in sf As a true cat-lover (almost more than an sf-lover) I cannot help but respond to this: (1) Larry Niven's Kzinti (known space series) may not be the most flattering image of cats, but are remarkably accurate representatives of feline psychology (predatory, but not seriously; always making war just a little bit before they are ready to; immensely proud with great dignity and always a little embarrassed at a show of extreme pleasure or emotion...I always wondered why Wu didn't dangle a rubber ball on a string in front of one.) (2) The artificially evolved cat-people in Cordwainer Smith's stories, notably Alpha Ralpha Boulevard. Many more, many more...just have to get back to my library to get authors and titles correct. purringly, Byron Howes ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jun 1981 1145-PDT Sender: LEAVITT at USC-ISI Subject: Cats in sf From: Mike Leavitt Do the cat-people in Cordwainer Smith's stories count as being of interest to a cat club? ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jun 1981 23:51:11-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley Subject: Purr-fect SF Phyllis Eisenstein also has a race of cat-like aliens, though the title escapes me at the moment. It might have been "Starcats". ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jun 1981 23:52:32-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!bch at Berkeley Subject: Purr-fect SF Don't think I have read that. I am also trying to remember the name and author (possibly Laumer) of a short story about a kitten who can't figure out why dumb babies grow up to be intelligent humans (and drink coffee!) and lively intelligent kittens grow up to be dumb lazy cats. Is convinced that he won't do this but along the narration somehow has to give up his kitten-soul to the child in order to protect it. ------------------------------ Date: 4 June 1981 01:37 edt From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Postal APA for cartoon lovers Since there seem to be such a large number of cartoon fans around: There exists a postal apa for animation buffs. This is presently circulated by mail every other month. (For those used to SF-Lovers, this interval is comparable to the reversing of the magnetic poles.) There will be a membership limit of about 30, but there is presently space. If you have an interest, type up a contribution of at least one page (no upper limit), make 30 copies of it, and send them to ApaToons c/o Gigi Dane 3433 W. Sierra Vista Phoenix, AZ 85017 Deadline for the first mailing is July 9, 1981. Future deadlines at two month intervals. For those who aren't familiar with postal apa's, I will let Ye Ed dredge up the last explanation that went through here and insert it [ OK, I'm caught. APAs are Amateur Press Associations. The members of the APA all submit some contribution (usually having something to do with the purpose of the APA, like Science Fiction or animation buffs - however, a lot of biographical material and random (although often enjoyable) noise is also submitted). Some poor soul then goes through the mush and orders them into an issue of the APA, adding appropriate editorial comments (mainly restricted to administrative matters), and mails out an issue to each member of the APA. Variations on the same theme: some APAs (like the one Paul refers to) require you to send enough duplicates of you contribution for all the issues that are to go out. Others only require an original. Some editors of the APAs charge the members (for time, postage, supplies, and duplicating costs, if any), while others are silly enough to do it out of love. Some APAs come out weekly, but usually new issues come out monthly or so. -- Jim ] Paul ------------------------------ Date: 6 June 1981 14:27 edt From: Margolin.PDO at MIT-Multics Subject: Winkie Dink The name of the cartoon which had viewer participation was "Winkie Dink and You". Our heroes would get into trouble with bad guys, and we could save their asses. The only situation I remember is them being stuck in a pit, so the viewer had to draw a staircase or a rope or something. They were then able to climb out and get the bad guys. ------------------------------ Date: 18 May 1981 2037-EDT From: Antonino Mione Subject: 1960's Sci-fi. I am trying to find someone who remembers something about a series called 'Planet Patrol'. It was done with puppets similar to those in 'Fireball-XL5'. I do not remember the names of the characters. All I remember is the ship which they used to travel throughout the solar system. It was similar to any cylindrical rocket but it had a doughnut shaped tube around this rocket. It landed on a platform similar to the one which the Millenium Falcon lands on in TESB. An access arm was used to enter and exit from the ship. Does this sound familiar to anyone??? Tony: ------------------------------ Date: 22 May 1981 1137-PDT From: LEWIS at SRI-AI (Bil Lewis) Subject: "Compu-fiction" As I remember, at the West Coast Computer Faire there were some people pushing some sort of computer based fiction story that allowed the user\\\\reader? to stick in their two-bits worth and redirect the story. Anyone out there know more about this? There is method to my madness here, as some of us are going to meet with a gentleman from a large publishing firm next week that is interested in exploring the possibilities. Now I have a good idea of the general type of things that are possible, but would love to her what others think. Full text generation from some sort of formal schema is out of course (See Mann & Moore in AJCL V7 N.1. They cover the work of Badler, Meehan, Schank, Carbonell, &c.). Thus we can't pretend to use AI, but are rather stuck with writing out all of the text ourselves and using "clever programming". The real question is "How clever can that programming be?" Ideas? -Bil ------------------------------ Date: 1981-5-20-12:59:39.71 From: Martin Minow at PHENIX at METOO Sender: Paul Young (YOUNG at DEC-MARLBORO) Subject: Jane Langton Mysteries -- re: Morris Keeshan's comment in issue 122 Jane Langton has written three murder mysteries that I know of, all HIGHLY recommended. Two of them, The Transcendental Murder (also called The Minuteman Mystery), and The Memorial Hall Murder are currently available in paperback. All of her books are enjoyable and highly literate. The Transcendental Murder is set in Concord Mass. during Patriot's Day festivities. Among other things, it suggests a love affair between Thoreau and Emily Dickenson. The second book, Dark Nantucket Noon, concerns a murder that takes place during an eclipse of the sun. To say more would spoil the ending, but SFL readers should enjoy it. Check your local library. The Memorial Hall Murder is set in Harvard's Memorial Hall during rehearsals for an annual performance of Handel's Messiah. The first two were featured on WGBH's "Reading Aloud" about two summer's ago. Regards. ------------------------------ Date: 19 May 1981 13:51:35 EDT From: Ralph Muha Subject: time and tin cans ... They fed the problem to the computer by pieces and by wholes. The machine was familiar with their lingos and procedures. It was acquainted with the Non-Valid Context Problems of Morgan Aye and with the Hollow Shell Person Puzzles of Tony Rover. It knew the Pervading Environment Ploy of Maurice Cree. It knew what trick-work to operate within. Again and again the machine asked for various kinds of supplementary exterior data. "Leave me with it," the machine finally issued. "Assemble here again in sixty days, or hours--" "No, we want the answers right now," John Candor insisted, "within sixty seconds." "The second is possibly the interval I was thinking of," the machine issued. "What's time to a tin can anyhow?" [from "About a Secret Crocodile" by R. A. Lafferty] ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest *********************** ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.