Random Thoughts XIII - Radioenergopithecocracy

[Arakhor]

Misspellings of "Iain" aside, did you know that the 'with/without M' format was initially an accident of editing, but he liked it so much that he kept the duality going for all the rest of his books, on the grounds that it's pretty nearly obligatory for SF+F authors to have middle initials...?

I didn't know that it was an accident, but I did know that he used the initial M for his sci-fi books.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Sometimes two. Lookin' at you Ronald Reuel. Whose first name is itself scarcely more than an additional middle initial.

Hm. George R.R. Martin. When I look at "R.R." I think either "railroad" or "rural route" (for mail delivery).

 

[Birdjaguar]

GRRMartin was emulating JRRTolkien. And likely he has been a significant influence for at least two decades. Choosing one's author name has become important when in the past it was much less so.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It was every bit as important in the past, particularly for female authors. So many of them in the '30s-'50s, even into the '60s, went with masculine pseudonyms or initials, because few editors were willing to publish science fiction by a woman, or at least to have a woman's name on the front cover or in the table of contents.

Marion Zimmer Bradley really helped open the door to women writers, with her Darkover and Sword & Sorceress anthologies. So many of the established female fantasy writers now owe their first sale to MZB seeing something worthwhile in the 'slush pile'.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I was gonna say, "Tell that to George Eliot."

Even the Bard never settled on whether he wanted to be Shakespear or Shakspeare or Shackspear or Shakspere or something else yet again.

It was a decision for John Milton whether he was going to be that or Ioannes Milton (and whether he was going to write his great work in Latin or English).

Madison, Hamilton and Jay wanted to be known a Publius for certain purposes.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The exceptions prove the rule!

 

[Gori the Grey]

Go look at the Wikipedia entry on pen names, and you may start to feel that authors thinking carefully about their names is more the rule than the exception.

And why not? They're by definition people who care about words!

 

[r16]

will take an issue with the evil Western lies designed to cover it up and make us forget Sheik Pir , but busy tonight .

 

[Gori the Grey]

You see why such a person would need to make careful considerations about how to name himself in Elizabethan England.

The "turbaned Turk" that Othello reports smiting was a little self-portrait.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Some authors write under different names for marketing reasons. Waay back in the '90s I was at yet another science fiction convention in Calgary, in the dealers' room, and stopped off at a table run by a couple of SCA people who owned a bookstore specializing in history and historical fiction. I picked up a book about the Trojan War, by some author I'd never heard of. One of the women running the table told me, "That was really written by Dave Duncan (well-known Calgary writer of SF/F), and he's standing right over there" (she pointed at him). "If you buy this, he'd be glad to sign it for you."

She knew my reading preferences, as she was a former librarian in Red Deer who had been one of the people who got me into the SCA in the first place, and definitely knew how tempt a customer. I do like to have a reason to chat with the author guests, so I bought the book and went over to Dave Duncan. I told him, "Deloris Booker at Blue Castle Books tells me you're the person who really wrote this - I wonder if you might have time to sign it, please?"

He was happy to, and as he signed it, he explained that the reason for the pseudonym was because he had a couple of other books coming out at the same time and didn't want too many of his books out at once for marketing reasons.

SF/F/historical fiction readers are notorious for collecting authors - if you like an author you tend to get everything they publish, but of course people have only so much money to spend on books each month, or at least they might decide to limit the number per author, in order to try out new ones. So having 3 books out at once might mean that a collector would only buy one or two, not all three... and by next month might not remember about the ones they hadn't bought.

There's also the issue of authors becoming known for particular genres. Dave Duncan was not known for historical fiction as much as for SF/F, so he wanted to keep his own name in the area where people knew him best. After all, not everyone can be Asimov, who wrote in many different areas.

Sadly, Dave Duncan died some years ago. It's a shame. He was very nice to talk to, and an interesting guest at some of the writing panel discussions.

 

[r16]

not meant to suggest it was real . Think it was a staple of Kaddafi propaganda but has survived until now . Most of the people laugh at the notion that the guy who gives Civ III players 8 happy people (in the city with that particular wonder) was anything but English .

 

[Kyriakos]

You see why such a person would need to make careful considerations about how to name himself in Elizabethan England.

The "turbaned Turk" that Othello reports smiting was a little self-portrait.

"Where a malignant, and a turban'd Turk".
Can see why Borges mentioned that description; it fits his own use of strange epithet combinations.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Some day I'm going to write a mock academic article claiming that Shakespeare was actually an alien.

Use the whole "nobody of this era could have built this" schtick from Ancient Aliens.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Some day I'm going to write a mock academic article claiming that Shakespeare was actually an alien.

Use the whole "nobody of this era could have built this" schtick from Ancient Aliens.

If you've seen Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, you might remember a scene in which General Chang claims that you can't really understand Shakespeare until you've read it in the original Klingon.

It's not the only place in Star Trek where the Klingons show an appreciation for Shakespeare. In one novel they go wild over Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yeah, that's one of my favorite lines: "you have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon."

Evidently somebody has created a facing-page translation of Hamlet, with the original Klingon on one side and English on the other.

 

[Kyriakos]

Some day I'm going to write a mock academic article claiming that Shakespeare was actually an alien.

Use the whole "nobody of this era could have built this" schtick from Ancient Aliens.

He was quite the prolific plagiarist

Then again, he did provide various memorable (from a linguistic view) passages

 

[Broken_Erika]

In the Ring of Fire series of books they reveal that "Shakespere" was actually numerous people writing under a single name.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Some day I'm going to write a mock academic article claiming that Shakespeare was actually an alien.

Use the whole "nobody of this era could have built this" schtick from Ancient Aliens.

If you've seen Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, you might remember a scene in which General Chang claims that you can't really understand Shakespeare until you've read it in the original Klingon.

It's not the only place in Star Trek where the Klingons show an appreciation for Shakespeare. In one novel they go wild over Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy.

In Mass Effect, there's a recurring joke about elcors (large elephantine aliens that move slowly and talk in monotone) performing Hamlet. In one of the spin-off novels, there's also an elcor character who... it's best if I just quote it.

“Melancholy nostalgia: They auditioned hundreds of elcor. I made it all the way through the auditions, callback after callback. Seeking praise: I look the part, don’t I? I’m properly big and imposing, old but not frail, warm and fatherly. I’ve got it all. Mr. Francis Kitt went with a younger actor in the end. Jaded bitterness: Don’t they always? But I was assured by the studio that I was absolutely their second choice. With defiant certainty: He might have been younger, but he didn’t love Hamlet more. No one does. Conspiratorially: I do not believe that Shakespeare wrote it. I do not believe any human wrote it.” Yorrik was not accustomed to speaking or thinking this quickly. An elcor’s life was large and long. They could afford to consider. And reconsider. And reconsider their reconsiderations. They did not share with outsiders. They did not make small talk. But now, fueled by revival drugs, Yorrik’s intellect moved at the speed of an overstimulated salarian. He could not stop himself. “With disdain: I have met many humans. They move fast, shoot quickly, speak carelessly. Withheld revelation: Hamlet has the soul of an elcor. He cannot decide. He must deliberate for a long, long time. With excitement: Do you not think the famous line, ‘Accusatory: Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all’ could describe the sensory organs of my people? We have four feet but no hands,” Yorrik lifted one massive foreleg and flexed his long, thick, soft gray three-fingered toes to demonstrate, “and our eyes are weak in comparison to our sense of smell. Why else would Hamlet say, ‘Wry awareness of double meaning: You shall nose him as you go up the stairs?’ Humans cannot even tell their mothers from a batarian war beast with their puny noses. Additionally, Dennmaark sounds far more elcor than human. Some have theorized it is a bastardized form of Dekuuna. Bashful admission: By some, I mean me. I have theorized that. With deep spiritual certainty: There is no possibility that it was written on Earth. Thoughtful speculation: Perhaps, if Hamlet had had an elcor combat VI system, he could have run a simulation, and been more confident of the correct choice. Confidential whisper: Yorrik is not my real name. I was born Naumm, in New Elfaas on the planet of Ekuna, a very respectable, very serviceable, very plain name. I changed it, to honor the greatest play ever written. Quiet desperation: To remind myself of my dream. In Andromeda, there will be no Francis Kitt to cast a younger elcor. There will be Yorrik, and many people thirsty for entertainment. With fierce ambition: I spent my time on Hephaestus Station writing elcor Macbeth, which is not quite as good as Hamlet but has a higher kill count among the dramatis personae. It is sixteen hours long. The Nexus will love it, I am certain.”

 

[r16]

oh yes , people were there already ...

Spoiler :

 

[Gori the Grey]

I've actually read one of those: The Phantom of Menace.

It's very mediocre blank verse.