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Post by andydecker on May 16, 2021 12:57:28 GMT
That sounds interesting. But I don't want Space Opera. Big space battles is a no no. He seems to have done stories featuring ubermensch, they might be worth looking at. Slan is definitely worth a read. Fans are slans , as the American fandom used to say. It's been ages I read this. The plot has been later done dozens of times. Just think Marvels X-Men. The novel really is good introduction to van Vogt. Both Weapon Shops of Isher and The World of Null A require a lot of patience, if you ask me. Both works are no space operas as we today understands them, be it Iain Banks Culture sequence or Star Wars, to name just two on the different ends of the spectrum. Weapon Shops is in large parts about time-travel and the superhuman, Null-A is about the superhuman and identity-transfer with what is basically clones (but written at a time where the idea of cloning was not on the map).
If one really starts with Voyage of the Space Beagle, seek out the original stories, not the expanded fix-up novel. The new bridging parts just drag more often than not.
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Post by Knygathin on May 18, 2021 19:46:24 GMT
I'd love to recommend some. First the short story "The Monster" (aka "Resurrection") from 1948. Then the novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle (based on other short stories). After that the field is more open. That sounds interesting. But I don't want Space Opera. Big space battles is a no no. He seems to have done stories featuring ubermensch, they might be worth looking at. Space ..., ... Space Opera, ... It may sound like it, but I don't think The Voyage of the Space Beagle is that. It is wonderful and thought-provoking. If you can find the individual stories, like AndyDecker suggested, that might be good. But it is a thin book, a quick read, and I don't remember being much bothered by the linking material. But first you must read "The Monster". There is your ubermensch, and it is considered Vogt's best story. It is available here: THE MONSTERSeveral books by Vogt I have read, are quite unreadable. The prose is for the most part terrible, and he can get very longwinded, almost autistic, over his far out ideas. The World of Ā books, and Weapons of Isher books, were painful for me to get through. But they have interesting ideas, and remain standing in my bookshelf. I hope to revisit them someday. At his best he calls forth eerily convincing visions of the future, sometimes dreamlike evasive, and too weird for our present minds to retain. I think Vogt is best in his short-stories. My favorite collection is Destination: Universe!.The following novels are readable: The Voyage of the Space Beagle - Includes interesting thinking on holistic psychology. Slan - Exiting drama, but not as varied as the above book. His first novel. The Silkie - Great great imaginative stuff of ubermensch.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on May 18, 2021 20:32:19 GMT
Sorry that post was badly phrased. I didn't mean I thought Space Beagle was Space Opera. It doesn't sound it. Will try to track it down. Thank you!
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Post by andydecker on May 19, 2021 15:33:13 GMT
Sorry that post was badly phrased. I didn't mean I thought Space Beagle was Space Opera. It doesn't sound it. Will try to track it down. Thank you! Space Beagle is indeed a Space Opera. If you define the adventures of a lone exploratory space ship as Space Opera. Van Vogts two most known works Isher and Null-A basically don't leave the solar system, though.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on May 19, 2021 16:52:19 GMT
Sorry that post was badly phrased. I didn't mean I thought Space Beagle was Space Opera. It doesn't sound it. Will try to track it down. Thank you! Space Beagle is indeed a Space Opera. If you define the adventures of a lone exploratory space ship as Space Opera. Van Vogts two most known works Isher and Null-A basically don't leave the solar system, though. I obviously have no idea what Space Opera is.
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Post by Knygathin on May 19, 2021 17:23:18 GMT
Space opera is shallow swashbuckling adventure stuff, with pirates and heroes and princesses, incidentally set in space.
Jack Vance wrote a novel called Space Opera, but that is opera set in space.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on May 19, 2021 18:19:40 GMT
Space opera is shallow swashbuckling adventure stuff, with pirates and heroes and princesses, incidentally set in space. Jack Vance wrote a novel called Space Opera, but that is opera set in space. To be honest I have no clue about SF. I know Isaac Asimov had wandering hands at conventions, and that's about it.
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Post by Dr Strange on May 19, 2021 18:44:24 GMT
I obviously have no idea what Space Opera is. Me neither, it seems. For some reason "Space Beagle" (which I haven't read) makes me think of E.E. 'Doc' Smith (who I have also never read) - I think it may be some association between paperback covers that I saw as a kid. Most online reviews seem to identify The Voyage of the Space Beagle as "space opera", albeit of a "superior" sort. Many also suggest it was an influence on the original Star Trek TV series, which I would definitely call "space opera".
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Post by andydecker on May 20, 2021 10:55:41 GMT
Re: the Space Opera ... To quote experts like John Clute in his Encyclopedia of Science Fiction:
"A popular item of sf Terminology, echoing the practice (dating from the 1920s) of referring to Westerns as "horse operas", and more immediately the term "soap operas" (from 1938) for never-ending Radio series. [...] The pattern was extended into sf nomenclature by Wilson Tucker, who in 1941 proposed "space opera" as the appropriate term for the "hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn". It soon came to be applied instead to colourful action-adventure stories of interplanetary or interstellar conflict. Although the term still retains a faint pejorative implication, it is frequently used with nostalgic affection, applying to space-adventure stories which have a calculatedly romantic element."
E. E. Smith is a good starting point with his galactic wars, miles-long spaceships, space pirates and what are basically Texas Rangers in space fighting against evil Aliens. He is still readable for his imagination, even if he at the time of his writing didn't knew about physic stuff like speed of light and the rest. While Star Wars is - IMHO I hasten to add - the lowest common denominator, today space opera covers a broad range of topics.
People like Asimov, van Vogt and the rest had this weird and - IMHO again - slightly offputting fascination with feudal societies which often feature in their work. So in intergalactic states you often get emporers and nobility and such. Guess it makes world building easier. George Lucas again didn't made this up, he just put the basic concepts together.
Contemporary space operas are a bit more complicated and sophisticated. You either get the more intellectual works from writers like Iain M. Banks with his Culture novels. I cite again Clute - "... Most importantly, and most unusually for Space Opera, the Culture has very carefully been conceived in genuine post-scarcity terms; it does not contain – and therefore does not tell the stories of – internal or external hierarchies or conspiracies bent on maintaining power through control of limited resources. Within the Culture itself, therefore, there are no Empires, no tentacled Corporations, no Enclave whose hidden knowledge gives its inhabitants a vital edge in their attempts to maintain independence against the military hardware of the far-off Czar at the apex of the pyramid of power, no Secret Masters. Even more remarkably, Iain M Banks represents the inhabitants of the Culture – they are most often met monitoring and exploring the Universe in the vast AI-run ships - as energetic volunteers at living in the Utopia that has, in a sense, been created for them."
Or you get Dan Simmons with his superior Hyperion novels - about 2000 pages - about the fall of another in this case democratic Galactic Empire initiated by its AI. (It is of courese way more compilcated.) Or maybe more actual James S. A. Corey's (which is a pseudonym for two writers) The Expanse, which was filmed as a tv adaption. It is at first about a colonized solar system and a war between Earth and Mars about resources. The interesting thing about it - beside being great entertainment - us that here the technology is based on actual physics, on mining asteroids water is more worth than gold and the g-force can kill you.
Or if you just want to read a couple of thousands of pages of hard-hitting wacky action, you can read Simon R. Green's Deathstalker cycle which is again about the toppling of the Galactic Empire of the evil empress Lionstone, where every protagonist is a super-fighter. Green threw every space opera concept and idea into a blender and just wrote with his tongue firmly in cheek. At least the first books are fun, if you like this sort of thing. I never read the later ones.
It seems to me that while the earnest science fiction is a dying breed, the much maligned space opera is still healthy, no doubt to is success on the screen.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on May 20, 2021 11:44:44 GMT
Re: the Space Opera ... To quote experts like John Clute in his Encyclopedia of Science Fiction:
"A popular item of sf Terminology, echoing the practice (dating from the 1920s) of referring to Westerns as "horse operas", and more immediately the term "soap operas" (from 1938) for never-ending Radio series. [...] The pattern was extended into sf nomenclature by Wilson Tucker, who in 1941 proposed "space opera" as the appropriate term for the "hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn". It soon came to be applied instead to colourful action-adventure stories of interplanetary or interstellar conflict. Although the term still retains a faint pejorative implication, it is frequently used with nostalgic affection, applying to space-adventure stories which have a calculatedly romantic element."
E. E. Smith is a good starting point with his galactic wars, miles-long spaceships, space pirates and what are basically Texas Rangers in space fighting against evil Aliens. He is still readable for his imagination, even if he at the time of his writing didn't knew about physic stuff like speed of light and the rest. While Star Wars is - IMHO I hasten to add - the lowest common denominator, today space opera covers a broad range of topics.
People like Asimov, van Vogt and the rest had this weird and - IMHO again - slightly offputting fascination with feudal societies which often feature in their work. So in intergalactic states you often get emporers and nobility and such. Guess it makes world building easier. George Lucas again didn't made this up, he just put the basic concepts together.
Contemporary space operas are a bit more complicated and sophisticated. You either get the more intellectual works from writers like Iain M. Banks with his Culture novels. I cite again Clute - "... Most importantly, and most unusually for Space Opera, the Culture has very carefully been conceived in genuine post-scarcity terms; it does not contain – and therefore does not tell the stories of – internal or external hierarchies or conspiracies bent on maintaining power through control of limited resources. Within the Culture itself, therefore, there are no Empires, no tentacled Corporations, no Enclave whose hidden knowledge gives its inhabitants a vital edge in their attempts to maintain independence against the military hardware of the far-off Czar at the apex of the pyramid of power, no Secret Masters. Even more remarkably, Iain M Banks represents the inhabitants of the Culture – they are most often met monitoring and exploring the Universe in the vast AI-run ships - as energetic volunteers at living in the Utopia that has, in a sense, been created for them."
Or you get Dan Simmons with his superior Hyperion novels - about 2000 pages - about the fall of another in this case democratic Galactic Empire initiated by its AI. (It is of courese way more compilcated.) Or maybe more actual James S. A. Corey's (which is a pseudonym for two writers) The Expanse, which was filmed as a tv adaption. It is at first about a colonized solar system and a war between Earth and Mars about resources. The interesting thing about it - beside being great entertainment - us that here the technology is based on actual physics, on mining asteroids water is more worth than gold and the g-force can kill you.
Or if you just want to read a couple of thousands of pages of hard-hitting wacky action, you can read Simon R. Green's Deathstalker cycle which is again about the toppling of the Galactic Empire of the evil empress Lionstone, where every protagonist is a super-fighter. Green threw every space opera concept and idea into a blender and just wrote with his tongue firmly in cheek. At least the first books are fun, if you like this sort of thing. I never read the later ones.
It seems to me that while the earnest science fiction is a dying breed, the much maligned space opera is still healthy, no doubt to is success on the screen.
I'm afraid science Fiction seems beyond me. Oh well.
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Post by PeterC on May 20, 2021 11:51:25 GMT
How do you pronounce his surmame: Van Vott or Van Gogg?
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on May 20, 2021 12:05:15 GMT
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on May 20, 2021 13:23:11 GMT
Re: the Space Opera ... To quote experts like John Clute in his Encyclopedia of Science Fiction:
I'm afraid science Fiction seems beyond me. Oh well. If I can't work out what Space Opera is, what chance have I got with the rest of the genre.
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Post by Knygathin on May 20, 2021 14:22:49 GMT
His wife looks much too happy in that photo, to understand any of how complicated her husband's mind really was. Vogt (I first said "Voggt", but have learned to say "Vote") was all about ideas, and from what I heard, as a far out science fiction visionary he outwrote both Asimov and Heinlein by horse lengths.
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Post by Knygathin on May 20, 2021 14:55:19 GMT
His wife looks much too happy in that photo, to understand any of how complicated her husband's mind really was. Even Forry Ackerman sitting behind looks flabbergasted and humbled with respect.
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