MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 1448 Topics covered in this issue include: 1) ADMIN: repost of the Troubleshooting FAQ by Melanie Dymond Harper 2) braid by Marv Watson 3) Re: braid by "John E Morris" 4) Re: braid by Sara Hagen 5) Misty and Sex by Karen Chan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 11:29:06 GMT From: Melanie Dymond Harper To: mercedes-lackey Subject: ADMIN: repost of the Troubleshooting FAQ Message-ID: <199801051129.LAA19419-+AT+-vanyel.herald.co.uk> A quick repost, since this hasn't gone to the list for a little while. If you're having problems with your list subscription, your faithful Listmistress would appreciate your reading this first before mailing her... "It's not working!" -- a troubleshooting guide for list subscribers 1. Help! I'm trying to subscribe but ... 1a. I get an error message telling me that "No name given to SUBSCRIBE" Listproc takes two arguments when you want to subscribe to a list; the name of the list (in this case, MERCEDES-LACKEY) and your name. The name you give need not be your real name -- there's nothing to stop you using some kind of usename -- though it's sometimes easier for me to fix problems if I have a real name. It's not vital. Fix: give your name, or something like it, when you're subscribing. 1b. Listproc tells me that I am already subscribed, though I'm not getting mail. Did you set your options to POSTPONE at some time in the past? If not, it is possible that your subscription has been set that way due to an excessive number of errors as we try to send mail to you (perhaps your mailbox became full, perhaps you went over your quota, perhaps the machine to which your mail was sent was offline for a while). Fix 1: send mail to listproc-+AT+-herald.co.uk, leaving the Subject line blank or using "No Subject", and in the message body write set mercedes-lackey mail ack or set mercedes-lackey mail digest depending whether you'd rather receive individual messages or digests. Fix 2: if fix 1 doesn't work, write to lackey-owner-+AT+-herald.co.uk and give details of the problem. 1c. Listproc tells me that I am already subscribed, and I am getting mail. Then you don't need to resubscribe, do you? :) 1d. Listproc is ignoring me -- I never get a response. Fix 1 -- check your return address. (This applies particularly to people who have typed in their own return address at some point, such as most Netscape users.) Make sure that the address points to you, and that you haven't transposed letters, used commas instead of full stops, etc. etc. Fix 2 -- if you're on AOL, you _must_ put something in your subject line, or you can't send the mail -- don't use "Subscribe", "Unsubscribe", "test" or variations thereon. If "No Subject" seems too boring, use "Chocolate Cake" if you must :) (This may apply to other email packages as well. If it tries to use the first line of your message as a subject line, you should use "No Subject".) 1e. Listproc doesn't seem to understand my mail, and sends back an error message. This is usually caused by mail programs which insist on putting in either some headings showing the sender of the mail, or which encode even plain text as a MIME message. Listproc needs to find its requests in the first line of a message, and will give up if it can't. Fix: turn off the headings or the MIME encoding (speak to your local tech staff if you can't do this). 2. Help! I'm trying to unsubscribe but ... 2a. Listproc tells me that I'm not subscribed, but nothing else. I'm still getting mail. Has your mailing address changed since you subscribed? If it has, and you can still send mail from the old address, try unsubscribing from there, instead. If you can no longer send mail from the old address, send mail to lackey-owner-+AT+-herald.co.uk saying what the old address was and you will be removed manually. If you don't think your address has changed, send mail to lackey-owner-+AT+-herald.co.uk to unsubscribe -- the chances are good that something has been changed along the line which is causing your system to show a different address. (This happens more often than you would believe.) 2b. Listproc tells me that I'm not subscribed, but nothing else. I'm not getting mail. Either (a) you already unsubscribed successfully, or (b) you were never on the list in the first place. No action needed. 2c. Listproc tells me that I'm not subscribed, but something that looks like my address is. Your setup has changed, or you're sending from a different machine. If you can send mail from the machine named in the address Listproc sends back, do so; if you can't, or if that doesn't work, send mail to lackey-owner-+AT+-herald.co.uk to be removed. 2d. Listproc is ignoring me -- I never get a response. See 1d above; same problem. 2e. Listproc doesn't seem to understand my mail, and sends back an error message. See 1e above; same problem. 3. Help! I'm trying to post to the list but ... 3a. Listproc tells me that I'm not subscribed, but nothing else. I don't get mail from the list. You need to be a member of the list to post to the list. Either (a) subscribe to the list, (b) stop trying to post to the list, or (c) (rare cases only) send the article you were trying to post to mel-+AT+-herald.co.uk and have her post it for you. Note that (c) applies only to _very_ Lackey-relevant articles and people who have reasons for not being on the list. 3b. Listproc tells me that I'm not subscribed, but nothing else. I do get mail from the list. Same problem as 2a above. If your mailing address has changed since you subscribed, try sending the article from the old address, if you can. If you can't do that, it is probably worth unsubscribing from the old address, and resubscribing from the new address (this may involve mail to lackey-owner-+AT+-herald.co.uk as in 2a). Then send your article again. 3c. Listproc tells me that I'm not subscribed, but something which looks like my address is. Same problem, and similar fix, to 2c above. If you're in a place with a lot of different machines and the address from which your mail appears to come reflects this (often the case in universities) it may be worth sending mail to lackey-owner-+AT+-herald.co.uk to have your various machines added to the 'aliases' list. 3d. Listproc is ignoring me -- I never get a response. See 1d above; same problem. 3e. Listproc returns a message which starts, "We are sorry, but ..." This is usually the case if Listproc spots a word like "test" or "subscribe" in the first couple of lines of your message. (Don't complain about it _too_ loudly; it stops a lot of misplaced requests getting through to the list.) Fix: rewrite your message to move or delete the word concerned. 3f. I get some junk about "unknown mailer" What this actually means is "the machine was too busy to process your mail right now, try later". It's just not an especially friendly way of saying so. Luckily this doesn't happen especially often these days. 3g. Listproc doesn't seem to understand my mail, and sends back an error message. See 1e above; same problem. 4. Help! I hate computers. Why can't this be simple? Computers are very literal-minded creatures, and as such they can only do what they're told. This means, for example, that if you're told to write subscribe mercedes-lackey Jane Smith in the body of a mail message, the following things will not work; a) writing "subscribe mercedes-lackey Jane Smith" in the subject line of your mail message; (wrong place) b) writing "Please subscribe me to the Mercedes Lackey mailing list. Thanks, Jane Smith" in the body of your mail message (wrong format) c) writing "suscribe mercedes-lackey Jane Smith" in the body of your mail message (wrong spelling; if you can't spell 'subscribe', it may be abbreviated to 'sub') d) writing "subscribe mercedes_lackey Jane Smith" in the body of your mail message (wrong spelling, again; it's a hyphen, not an underscore) Computers are not people. Computers will not (necessarily) recognise what you meant if it's "close enough". Your faithful listmistress does not read through every piece of mail sent to Listproc to see if people have been making errors (life is too short). All you really need to do is _follow the instructions_ -- and if you don't understand them, you may ask for help after reading through the list above and seeing whether any of it applies to you. Any additional questions for the list should be sent to Mel at mel-+AT+-herald.co.uk or lackey-owner-+AT+-herald.co.uk. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 19:40:25 +0000 From: Marv Watson To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: braid Message-ID: <34B13726.F3891055-+AT+-washington.sbceo.k12.ca.us> Personally FS is my fave character (*whispers* van is too goody *hides from OAM*) Van is not too goody!!!!! : ) But, yes, I agree with you, Firesong is one of my favorite character too. Of the duology, _Oathbreakers_ is my favorite, for the depth of the mature, caring relationship revealed between Tarma and Kethry. The interactions with the children at the beginning are priceless, the more so for the scarcity of such episodes in Misty's oeuvre. I must agree here as well. The Oathbreakers books were my favorite as well. The feeling the books gave off was believable. I could really get into the story, to be able to feel what each character feels. These are the books I compare all the rest of Misty's books to. And, like all the rest of you, I'm jumping up and down with anticipation for the new book too. Anyone got a release date for the U.S.? As for the bio, I'm a 16 (soon to be 17 on Feb 5) year old girl and have been reading Misty for several years. She was the first fantasy author I ever read, and have been hooked ever since. Everyone, never mind the 'Marvin Watson' that appears when I post. I'm trying to get that fixed. (that's dad) : ) Now, a while ago I was looking around on some Lackey sites, and saw that Misty had a plan to do a book on the Firestorms right after the LHM. I think. At least that was the impression I got, and since I didn't write the site down, I can no longer find it. So, if I'm wrong, please tell me. Anyway, I also have one more question for you listsibs. I've been wanting to expand my reading circle, and would like to know of some good authors to read. Any suggestions? Dance forever, Skywolf Dame of the OAM "We danced in the path of the greatest winds / In front of all their brutal savagery / And were swept away / Into eternity." -by J.W ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 23:24:32 -0500 From: "John E Morris" To: Subject: Re: braid Message-ID: <01bd1a5a$fcda84c0$846e2581-+AT+-default> > > > >'he did for her what he would not do for Conn Levas' > >Prehaps this was sez, prehaps not, I belive that is Misty leaving up to the >reader to decide what happend OK - I hate to preach about this again, but NO!! She is not leaving it up to us to decide. I HATE this desconstructivist stuff. We as readers cant just ignore words on the page and, without attention to the givens, "decide for ourselves" When an author makes an allusion or inuendo, she is assuming that her readers are smart enough to pick up on it. There are many things to debate about, but an authors explicit words are not among them. The facts have already been laid out: Conn Levas wanted sex to make Winterhart jealous...Drake wouldn't give it to him...Drake gave the other client what he wouldn't give to Levas (i.e. sex) Therefore: Drake and client number two were, in fact, intimate in a physical fashion. Well, sorry if I sound preachy, but deconstructivism really bites my tail. Surecrow ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 23:46:55 -0500 From: Sara Hagen To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: braid Message-ID: <34B1B739.F5B2FB4D-+AT+-snet.net> Marv Watson wrote: > Of the duology, _Oathbreakers_ is my favorite, for the depth of > the mature, > caring relationship revealed between Tarma and Kethry. The interactions > > with the children at the beginning are priceless, the more so for the > scarcity of such episodes in Misty's oeuvre. > > I must agree here as well. The Oathbreakers books were my favorite as > well. The feeling the books gave off was believable. I could really get > > into the story, to be able to feel what each character feels. These are > > the books I compare all the rest of Misty's books to. And, like all the > > rest of you, I'm jumping up and down with anticipation for the new book > too. Anyone got a release date for the U.S.? No release date yet available for the book which will contain all the Tarma & Kethry tales in one volume, along with a novella. The only place I can think of to check is amazon.com here in the US. They usually know when books will be published. > Now, a while ago I was looking around on > some Lackey sites, and saw that Misty had a plan to do a book on the > Firestorms right after the LHM. I think. At least that was the > impression I got, and since I didn't write the site down, I can no > longer find it. So, if I'm wrong, please tell me. Anyway, I also have > one more question for you listsibs. I've been wanting to expand my > reading circle, and would like to know of some good authors to read. > Any suggestions? Yes, Skywolf. Have you tried Guy Gavriel Kay yet? Or Marion Zimmer Bradley? Anne McCaffrey? Peter S. Beagle? Julian May? CJ Cherryh? Joel Rosenberg? David Eddings? Try some of the above authors if you haven't already. They're all pretty good. Lady Sara, LIG & Dryad Extraordinaire. WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE!!!!! (George of the Jungle) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 16:52:14 +1100 From: Karen Chan To: Mercedes Lackey list Subject: Misty and Sex Message-ID: <3.0.32.19980105181028.007217a8-+AT+-ozemail.com.au> 5th January, 1998. 1:56 a.m. "Why does the act of making love cause so many people so many hangups." Don't know - maybe because it is so personal. It affects people in that way. For example, I have a friend who lives in one of those shared rooms in a dorm. One night his roommate came back with a girl and had sex with her on the couch, thinking that my friend was asleep. He wasn't and so heard it all. That sort of thing makes me feel rather ill to tell you the truth. "Well, one thing to remember is that Misty is notoriously shy about writing explicit sex (as well she should be, given that she is not writing porn)." The only time I can remember Misty writing about sex sort of explicitly is in "Arrow's Flight" - Kris and Talia. (But then I haven't read that many Valdemar books.) I think explicit sex kills the atmosphere in a way or maybe it is just me. My favourite Misty novel so far is "Arrows of the Queen". Young girl finding a Companion for life and a place where she actually "belongs". I thought it was funny how Talia and Skif kept trying to have sex and then ended up just being really good friends!! :) Karen. ================================================================== Karen Chan kkchan-+AT+-ozemail.com.au kkc02-+AT+-wumpus.uow.edu.au "...but at four o'clock in the morning, when the world is full of magic, things may be safely said that may not be uttered at any other time, so long as the person who listens believes in the same kind of magic as the person who speaks." Robin McKinley, "Deerskin", p. 189. ================================================================== ------------------------------ End of MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 1448 **********************************