MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 1074 Topics covered in this issue include: 1) def of Fantasy/Summersong/silk/SoI/*poof* by ecartier-+AT+-mail.geocities.com 2) Re: What is Fantasy Fiction? by Deniz 3) Re:Fire Rose Silk by Deniz 4) Uh, once a newbie, now again a newbie by Raingcats-+AT+-aol.com 5) Unsubbing temporarily by AERDEN-+AT+-delphi.com 6) Midori Snyder Question(off-Topic with apologies) by AERDEN-+AT+-delphi.com 7) Fire Rose and silk robes by AERDEN-+AT+-delphi.com 8) Re: Uh, once a newbie, now again a newbie by rozanm-+AT+-juno.com (Cat Person) 9) Re: No Misty content! by Mrocro-+AT+-aol.com 10) Re: Uh, once a newbie, now again a newbie by Trisha Byrum ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 05:19:37 +0000 From: ecartier-+AT+-mail.geocities.com To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: def of Fantasy/Summersong/silk/SoI/*poof* Message-ID: <199701251019.CAA04400-+AT+-geocities.com> Heather said: >I asked a reference librarian where I could find what "fantasy" meant >in literature. She sent me to the dictionary, where I learned that >fantasy in fiction is, more or less, a work that employs the >imagination. That's odd. Did you try _A Handbook for Literature_? It has English teacher type definitions for all genres and can be really useful (I would look in the copy that I should have, but I decided not to buy one in HS cause the local library had a copy and I wasn't planning on being an English major... so I don't have one). I am _quite_ sure that the authors of the Handbook wouldn't have such a simplistic definition. It might be all wrong but it would be a good place to start. If we are really serious about fantasy, we might want to take a look at how to tell if Clarke's law does not apply... Summersong said: >I have to unsub temporarily because I'm leaving for Japan this Sunday >(Jan 26), and I will be gone for two weeks. Since I'm moving to Japan >in 2 months, I have to take a pre-entrance admission exam for a high >school there. Anyhow, I will be back in February, and I'll probably a >semi-newbie by the time I get back! I'll miss you Summersong! Tell us all about it when you get back. Will you be getting email in Japan (for HS)? Re: Silk I can see three options. 1) Misty made a mistake 2) Misty does not know her natural fibers 3) Jason doesn't know his natural fibers There is a subtle difference between one and three, but I'm not sure that there is evidence available to distinguish between them. I'm inclined to believe that Jason doesn't know his natural fibers as he doesn't seem to be much of a fashion plate... Lee said: >I'm one of the people carping, and I say Read It. Aside from the >fact that people have differing tastes and consequently you can't >take anybody's word for it, there's telepathic horses in the book ;) I'm carping too, and I'm still glad I read it. I had fun with it and I kinda like picking books apart in my free time. I wouldn't say to _buy_ it, but Read It. Then you can have fun carping and complaining too . Emily the invisible Dame of the OAM ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jan 97 13:54:09 -0500 From: Deniz To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: What is Fantasy Fiction? Message-ID: <199701251858.NAA18090-+AT+-sirocco.CC.McGill.CA> Before you start this post, I'm just going to warn you that it's all about literature and it's kind of long. It is interesting, however, and there's a challenge at the end, so please do read it. Heather W (not "just Heather" thank you very much!) pontificated extensively: >You read and, largely, enjoy the works of Mercedes Lackey; if pressed >to put them into a genre, you would likely say that they are fantasy >fiction. You know what you mean when you say fantasy fiction, and >I as the listener think I understand what you are saying . . . but >when I try to tell another what defines fantasy fiction, I find >myself failing utterly. Actually, I find myself saying Sci Fi/Fantasy, because she is very scientific in her usage of magic, having it work like electricity and all. Fantasy Fiction is where I would put A Swiftly Tilting Planet, but I'd leave A Wrinkle in Time as Sci Fi/Fantasy, or maybe just Sci Fi. Usually, Fiction is something that is easy to swallow... "just a story" (quotes indicate this is a cliche). Yes, the Great Gatsby, all of Faulkner (with The Reavers being comedic, as well), pretty much all the Literature Greats you read or hear about are Fiction. You don't have to make a leap of faith or anything to understand or accept what the author says... they're also set in this world. Science Fiction is something where they envision what the future will be like, or when they deeply explore some new (when the book was written) branch or discovery of science and imagine what it's effect would be on humans. Sci Fi also talks about life on other planets, in outer space, other forms of life, and time travel. I know I'm probably missing a lot, so don't take this as canon. Sci Fi is hard to write when you don't understand the science behind what you're writing... if you write about... let's say... time travel, and have people blithely jumping around in time (Bill & Ted's Most Excellent Adventure? Is that the first one?) without having an effect on those people or worrying about changing the time line and what happens to the people who subsequently cease to have ever existed, and causing causal temporal loops or somesuch where a person can negate their own existence or their knowledge of an event which they purposely affected... people won't believe it. They'll think it's trite garbage and it better not get anywhere. If you have somebody go out in a FTL (Faster Than Light) spaceship... you dern well better not have them come back to their planet of origin having aged as much as the people there did. But Misty's not completely Sci Fi... I tend to think her system of magic (working like electricity) is what gives it the Sci Fi nature. But Misty also has a gimme. That, I think is what Fantasy is... where there is something that is so "fantastic" that you just have to accept the author's word. It's not something you neccessarily believe would happen in real life, but when you're reading in this Author's world, once you have accepted the gimmes (people being able to work magic, talking horses, manifesting Deities, Demons) the whole book makes perfect sense. Well, I'm gonna retract a bit here. I think Fantasy Fiction is basically, if you accept the Fantastic elements as true, a Fiction story. Pure Fantasy, on the other hand, makes no claims to realism at all. I think that Fairy Tales would originally have been called Fantasy. We've been hearing them so often, though, that the Fairy Tales from your culture seem like ordinary, acceptable Fiction. But read the Fairy Tales from someone else's culture, and you'll find yourself thinking of it as Fantasy. (these "you"s are just my way of speaking, please don't get offended) I think that Misty is a blend of Sci Fi and Fantasy. >It is simple to give examples of fantastic fiction; Tolkien's >Ring series, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and the >Valdemar stories are all examples of fantasy fiction. How do we >know? ** Going by my definitions, I would claim these above as Fantasy except maybe for Peter Pan, because that is a story that's targeted more for children and so well known and loved (in the Western World) that, like a Fairy Tale, it has achieved semi-Fiction status and would be a Fantasy Fiction. >Can you show me a work of fiction that does not involve the >imagination? No, it's just the degree to which the work employs your imagination and to what aspects that makes the subtle but present differences within Fiction. >Now, this set of definitions might be useful. We can say, for >example, that The Hobbit is fantasy because it has elves, and The >Great Gatsby is not, because there are no dragons. Nicely black >and white, except . . . I would call The Hobbit a fantasy not only because it has elves, but because it takes place in a world where there are very few humans and all the main characters are, strictly to say, figments of the imagination, who go off on a quest to kill another figment of the imagination. The Great Gatsby is, on the surface, an anecdote of part of a man's life that, when you read it, you could believe to be a real man... you can imagine bumping into him in the streets and asking about Daisy. Of course, this sure would be a boring story if that's all it was, so it employs symbolism and parallels and lots of good stuff so that the author, while telling a simple story, can get across whatever weighty ideological philosophical nugget he wants to. This is Fiction, and because of the deeper meanings which Prof's like to show to students over and over again, This is Literature. >Well . . . is Jinx High a work of fantasy? There are no >elves. What about Sacred Ground? To get more marginal, >isn't The Princess Bride? Is Charlotte's Web a >fantasy? We have pigs in reality, but not talking pigs . . . I would classify JH and SG as Urban Fiction... things that take place in a realistic modern setting, yet still have an element of fiction (i.e.: things you *don't* bump into on the streets like elves). I'd call The Princess Bride fiction, because it's basically a fairy tale (and aren't fairy tales classified as fiction? They've been around so long that we no longer think of them as fantastic(involving a huuuuuge stretch of the imagination)). Charlotte's Web is something that when it was written, I suppose I'd call it Urban Fiction (except it's really rural), but I'm more tempted to call it a Fantasy, because the two of the three main characters are talking animals and the third is a girl... this is basically a Fantastic children's story, I suppose, with its charm and innocence and how they're children (Penny and I-don't-remember-the-pig's-name). >This group contains many bright people who should have a feel >for what is and is not fantasy fiction. I'm asking for help right >now, because I find myself in Augustine's unenviable position: "If >no one asks me, I know; f I want to explain it to someone who does >ask me, I do not know." You know what? I feel that way every time I use a word that nobody around me knows. Like "simper". You know the nuances and feel of the word yourself, but when asked what it means, you find it hard to describe, because all you feel are the nuances. I challenge anyone to define the following word coherently without resorting to a dictionary. Prestation. The guest lecturer who used that word and was subsequently asked to define it (by me, go me!) couldn't. She ended up using a very vague word and a few examples. love, Deniz Sarikaya, High Priestess of |"Perhaps today IS a good to die!"-- Worf Procrastination, Holy Custodian of|"You told him about the statue?" -- Riker the B-Day List, Dame of the OoAM, |"I'm a doctor, not a doorstop." -- EMH and Demon of Deceitful Aliases. |"Definitely not Swedish." -- Lily >dsarik-+AT+-PO-Box.McGill.CA< >freakola-+AT+-geocities.com< >http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/9359/< ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jan 97 14:04:14 -0500 From: Deniz To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re:Fire Rose Silk Message-ID: <199701251907.OAA20443-+AT+-sirocco.CC.McGill.CA> vrondi wrote: >Shy Kraytman wrote: >>I have always thought that the silk is collected as the >caterpillars >spin it. Not that the caterpillars are >>scrificed by the thousands to weave silk. > >No, the threads are collected from the catepillars' coccoons. This >breaking open of the coccoon kills the caterpillar. and Lee wrote: >Speaking of Norton, didn't she write a historical >fantasy about the Byzantine Empire in which the process of collecting silk >was explained? I seem to remember that the silkworms were thrown in >boiling water to make their silk spin out in a line all at once. >(Sheeps to the squeamish.) I don't know if I ever read it in a book, but I know a woman who is an animal rights activist/Vegan who told me the same thing. She said that the most efficient way of getting the silk is to throw the worms into the boiling water. Em said: >Re: Silk >I can see three options. >1) Misty made a mistake >2) Misty does not know her natural fibers >3) Jason doesn't know his natural fibers I would tend to think that with his friends and contacts among the Chinese society in San Fran, that Jason *should* know more about silk. That doesn't mean he ever thought to question it. I mean, the Chinese probably thought everyone knew that you had to boil the worms, and Jason probably didn't suspect a thing, being spoon-fed about how the worms are cultivated and such. But what I'm wondering is I thought it was possible to get the silk from the worms without killing them, it just took more time and effort, and that the boiling method was easier and more efficient. However, what Vrondi says makes me question this first premise. love, Deniz Sarikaya, High Priestess of |"Perhaps today IS a good to die!"-- Worf Procrastination, Holy Custodian of|"You told him about the statue?" -- Riker the B-Day List, Dame of the OoAM, |"I'm a doctor, not a doorstop." -- EMH and Demon of Deceitful Aliases. |"Definitely not Swedish." -- Lily >dsarik-+AT+-PO-Box.McGill.CA< >freakola-+AT+-geocities.com< >http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/9359/< ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 14:26:03 -0500 (EST) From: Raingcats-+AT+-aol.com To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Uh, once a newbie, now again a newbie Message-ID: <970125142602_748645339-+AT+-emout09.mail.aol.com> All right, I'm back!!!!! Not for long, but I'll try to stay as long as humanly possible!! I've missed you guys sooo much, and out of curiousity, are we still doing the pantheon of gods/esses that we had earlier? Way earlier actually, I still have the list if anyone wants/needs it. Anyway, I'm back!!!! (Oops, said that already, sorry :)) How is everybody doing?? Does anyone remember me?? Lady Nightshadow Goddess of Forgiveness if no one took the title and if we are still doing it . . . ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 15:10:41 -0500 (EST) From: AERDEN-+AT+-delphi.com To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Unsubbing temporarily Message-ID: <01IEMUL6BWZS9EDN1B-+AT+-delphi.com> On 24-JAN-1997 16:44:16.3 mercedes-lackey said to AERDEN Akiko--Best of luck on that exam! Chantal `[1;30;41mRainbow V 1.20.2 for Delphi - Test Drive ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 15:10:54 -0500 (EST) From: AERDEN-+AT+-delphi.com To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Midori Snyder Question(off-Topic with apologies) Message-ID: <01IEMULD80849EDN1B-+AT+-delphi.com> On 24-JAN-1997 12:13:00.4 mercedes-lackey said to AERDEN me>Has _Anyone_ heard of or read anyhting by Midori Snyder? me>Please!!!! I have had a novel called "Sadar's Keep" by her for a few me>years. But there was no mention of it being me>part of any series on or in the book. Then, lo and behold in a used me>bookstore a while ago, there sits a book by Midori Snyder. I'd never me>seen anything else by her. me>It's called "New Moon" And appears to be the first in a series! It has me>some of the exact same characters as "Sadar's Keep" and I was me>astonished! So, is anyone else familiar with these? Does anyone know me>the other titles? Or anything else by this woman for that matter? If me>any of you happen across these, _Read Them_. They are good. Vrondi--Nice to meet another Snyder fan. Yes, I have read at least one of her books, and began a second but got distracted by other stuff, and have forgotten where I put that book. The books i have are about Sadar's Keep. They about were the Elemental-allied girls, right? (ObMisty)Are Misty and Larry still raising birds? And are they affiliated at all with Last Chance Forever (a bird rehabilitation organization)? Aerden is actually a character I created for an original SF/Fantasy universe I'm working on a novel about. But I like him so much that I morph him into other stories. Outside of my SF/F universe, I've mainly morphed Aerden into Pern, where he's a journeyman healer at StarRise Weyr. I figure he could just as easily be a healer at the Collegium, too. (Or maybe one from the Empire. That could be fun!) Do any of you people write Velgarth fiction? Is it allowed? Chantal ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 16:09:56 -0500 (EST) From: AERDEN-+AT+-delphi.com To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Fire Rose and silk robes Message-ID: <01IEMWNLP0LK9AMV2H-+AT+-delphi.com> On 24-JAN-1997 19:34:10.6 mercedes-lackey said to AERDEN me>I'm not an expert on silk weaving and so am probably not at all in any me>way qualified to talk about this, but I have always thought that the me>silk is collected as the caterpillars spin it. Not that the me>caterpillars are scrificed by the thousands to weave silk. Of course, me>I am operating under an assumption and could be very off the mark. me>'hawk 'Hawk--Yep, the caterpillars have to die before the silk can be harvested. It's their cocoons. Lee--They use 'y'all' as a singular in California? (groan!) Chantal (from Texas) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 18:01:53 EST From: rozanm-+AT+-juno.com (Cat Person) To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Uh, once a newbie, now again a newbie Message-ID: <19970125.170256.4534.0.rozanm-+AT+-juno.com> Heyla Nightshadow. 'Tis me, Firemist. Survived the Dread TransAtlantic move /-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/ Firemist rozanm-+AT+-juno.com Lore-Mistress of the Cat People Goddess of Made From Scratch Foods She Who is Hip-deep in Kleenex ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 19:36:25 -0500 (EST) From: Mrocro-+AT+-aol.com To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: No Misty content! Message-ID: <970125193624_847031920-+AT+-emout20.mail.aol.com> Try hiding pill in raw hamburger, drops, call vet and seen if you can put in it milk, Just give kitten and small amount. I had to had raise some kitten, bottle fed and all. Hope this is some help to you.\ Khrysa, Songweaver Chris Olson Sorry, did not send you e-mail addresss Sorry to all who have to read this and are not interested ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 20:49:17 -0500 From: Trisha Byrum To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Uh, once a newbie, now again a newbie Message-ID: <32EAB81D.7DDD-+AT+-southeast.net> Heyla and greetings fellow threadies..... Just stepping forward for a hearty hello and greetings! Trisha ------------------------------ End of MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 1074 **********************************