I'd recommend John Myers Myers 'San Francisco's Reign of Terror'- gun-slinging politician chased out of San Francisco by evil slave-trading Vigilantes book. It's not as good as 'Silverlock', by same, because nothing is, but it's good history. Like every real history of a real gun slinger, the hero loses his pistols carelessly, doesn't care, doesn't know guns or shoot well, doesn't care, still ends up backing Luke Short (I think) against odds later. He did bring a field piece to the voting place in a San Francisco election, which should count for something.
I'd recommend 'A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin' where she goes into detail defending herself against claims she just made up UTC. But I haven't finished it. I think I ran across the title as a book someone was reading in an Edwardian country house story.
I loved Ringworld Engineers in Galileo Magazine when it was serialized, but even then I could see Louis Wu shifting from 'rich madly smart tourist in trouble in fairyland' which Niven does better than anyone on Earth before or since, to 'Pulp Hero master of martial arts makes tough decisions lesser studs could never-' which others have done. Still a great book. Born a Dougherty heir in the 1930s, Cal Tech math major who read too much SF and dropped out and got stuffed in Meningers, Niven just rules at rich madly smart tourists in trouble in fairyland.
Oh wow, how was the age of serial novels in magazines? Did shifts in tone work better then when people were reading chapters across longer periods of time? But yes, I like how Louis Wu can figure things out - his figuring out the mountain was the best part of the first "Ringworld" book, and the search in "Ringworld Engineers" is great too. But once he finds what he's looking for, things get poorer-quality.
I've heard of "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" but never tried it; how is it? Or, the part you read?
I loved the serialized 'Ringworld Engineers' in Galileo magazine, although the interior illustrations were for other stories and confused me a little in a good way. So I saved my pennies and subscribed and they went out of business and broke my heart.
The part of 'Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin' I read was good if you like serious history of slavery times. The rest is on my kindle waiting for me. According to Edmund Wilson's brilliant 'Patriotic Gore' Civil War literary classic she mellowed out and got more girly as she aged and the Key was written when she was older, so it's probably more mellow. Given the subject.
Not the last book to have confusing illustrations by someone who didn't really try to match them with the story!
Reynolds had a few chapters about Stowe's life. She did mellow out, but also she was writing a lot of sentimental novels throughout her life. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" shares a lot of the same tropes, but there used to a greater purpose.
If you're interested in more about hard-drinking, hard-fighting etc. miners of the California Gold Rush, Bret Harte wrote a number of popular contemporary stories about them. I read the collection *The Outcasts of Poker Flat and Other Stories,* and found it very enjoyable to start with but a bit same-y by the end.
"What's more, it fails to satisfy me in ways I should've expected from Niven - for had he not given an ending to another novel failing in the exact same way, and waved the tierods from there in front of us here?"
I respect your desire not to give spoilers (if that's what's going on here) but as someone who's read a lot of Niven, including Engineers, I confess that this is a little too allusive for me to grasp. Can you elaborate ever so slightly? Or should I scan your archives to find what you're referring to?
Yes, spoilers were what I was avoiding there! But here in the comment section, I'm fine giving SPOILERS AHEAD!
(SPOILERS AHEAD...)
I was talking about Niven's novel "Protector," and the ending there. Yes, it makes total sense given the novel and his characterization of the Pak Protectors, but I still don't like it. I can take the idea of hard choices driven by necessity, but to win my sympathy, protagonists should be conflicted or regretful about it (as Wu was here in "Ringworld Engineers"!) rather than immediately accept it.
Plus, I don't think Niven adequately justified how Pak Protectors' instinctive drives and rationality will necessarily lead them to agree on the same logical course of action. For instance, we humans have different appetites for risk and feel the free will to choose how much risk to take; why couldn't Protectors?
So all in all, I don't like Niven's Protectors and the sort of things they do; and I don't feel satisfied by how the Protector manipulates the situation to set up the ending here in "Ringworld Engineers." Yes, it makes sense given the 'verse Niven has set up - but I wish it'd gone another way.
Fair enough. What interested me about Protectors (and Moties, for that matter) was the examination of what happens when the rationality is completely subservient to instinct. IRL it didn’t work out that way for us, and maybe couldn’t given that the brain is more plastic than the genome. But Deep Time is Deep Time and maybe once you get as smart as you can, eventually the tortoise catches up.
But I agree, the end of Protector was more startling than satisfying.
I'd recommend John Myers Myers 'San Francisco's Reign of Terror'- gun-slinging politician chased out of San Francisco by evil slave-trading Vigilantes book. It's not as good as 'Silverlock', by same, because nothing is, but it's good history. Like every real history of a real gun slinger, the hero loses his pistols carelessly, doesn't care, doesn't know guns or shoot well, doesn't care, still ends up backing Luke Short (I think) against odds later. He did bring a field piece to the voting place in a San Francisco election, which should count for something.
I'd recommend 'A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin' where she goes into detail defending herself against claims she just made up UTC. But I haven't finished it. I think I ran across the title as a book someone was reading in an Edwardian country house story.
I loved Ringworld Engineers in Galileo Magazine when it was serialized, but even then I could see Louis Wu shifting from 'rich madly smart tourist in trouble in fairyland' which Niven does better than anyone on Earth before or since, to 'Pulp Hero master of martial arts makes tough decisions lesser studs could never-' which others have done. Still a great book. Born a Dougherty heir in the 1930s, Cal Tech math major who read too much SF and dropped out and got stuffed in Meningers, Niven just rules at rich madly smart tourists in trouble in fairyland.
Oh wow, how was the age of serial novels in magazines? Did shifts in tone work better then when people were reading chapters across longer periods of time? But yes, I like how Louis Wu can figure things out - his figuring out the mountain was the best part of the first "Ringworld" book, and the search in "Ringworld Engineers" is great too. But once he finds what he's looking for, things get poorer-quality.
I've heard of "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" but never tried it; how is it? Or, the part you read?
I loved the serialized 'Ringworld Engineers' in Galileo magazine, although the interior illustrations were for other stories and confused me a little in a good way. So I saved my pennies and subscribed and they went out of business and broke my heart.
The part of 'Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin' I read was good if you like serious history of slavery times. The rest is on my kindle waiting for me. According to Edmund Wilson's brilliant 'Patriotic Gore' Civil War literary classic she mellowed out and got more girly as she aged and the Key was written when she was older, so it's probably more mellow. Given the subject.
Not the last book to have confusing illustrations by someone who didn't really try to match them with the story!
Reynolds had a few chapters about Stowe's life. She did mellow out, but also she was writing a lot of sentimental novels throughout her life. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" shares a lot of the same tropes, but there used to a greater purpose.
If you're interested in more about hard-drinking, hard-fighting etc. miners of the California Gold Rush, Bret Harte wrote a number of popular contemporary stories about them. I read the collection *The Outcasts of Poker Flat and Other Stories,* and found it very enjoyable to start with but a bit same-y by the end.
In case you're curious, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" can be read for free online https://americanliterature.com/author/bret-harte/short-story/the-outcasts-of-poker-flat/
and if I were to recommend another of his hard-living stories, it would be "Tennessee's Partner," link https://americanliterature.com/author/bret-harte/short-story/tennessees-partner/
(The site I found in searching for these links that called Harte a sort of discount Twain wasn't, imo, wrong...)
"What's more, it fails to satisfy me in ways I should've expected from Niven - for had he not given an ending to another novel failing in the exact same way, and waved the tierods from there in front of us here?"
I respect your desire not to give spoilers (if that's what's going on here) but as someone who's read a lot of Niven, including Engineers, I confess that this is a little too allusive for me to grasp. Can you elaborate ever so slightly? Or should I scan your archives to find what you're referring to?
Yes, spoilers were what I was avoiding there! But here in the comment section, I'm fine giving SPOILERS AHEAD!
(SPOILERS AHEAD...)
I was talking about Niven's novel "Protector," and the ending there. Yes, it makes total sense given the novel and his characterization of the Pak Protectors, but I still don't like it. I can take the idea of hard choices driven by necessity, but to win my sympathy, protagonists should be conflicted or regretful about it (as Wu was here in "Ringworld Engineers"!) rather than immediately accept it.
Plus, I don't think Niven adequately justified how Pak Protectors' instinctive drives and rationality will necessarily lead them to agree on the same logical course of action. For instance, we humans have different appetites for risk and feel the free will to choose how much risk to take; why couldn't Protectors?
So all in all, I don't like Niven's Protectors and the sort of things they do; and I don't feel satisfied by how the Protector manipulates the situation to set up the ending here in "Ringworld Engineers." Yes, it makes sense given the 'verse Niven has set up - but I wish it'd gone another way.
Fair enough. What interested me about Protectors (and Moties, for that matter) was the examination of what happens when the rationality is completely subservient to instinct. IRL it didn’t work out that way for us, and maybe couldn’t given that the brain is more plastic than the genome. But Deep Time is Deep Time and maybe once you get as smart as you can, eventually the tortoise catches up.
But I agree, the end of Protector was more startling than satisfying.