tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8526498499129692237.post3803396260474127787..comments2024-03-22T05:17:53.112-04:00Comments on Big Bad Bald Bastard: Going Back to the 'Tor' WellBig Bad Bald Bastardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01983025559556548658noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8526498499129692237.post-82969981632126978892019-11-29T16:39:24.954-05:002019-11-29T16:39:24.954-05:00That's true -- quite a few of the Golden Age g...That's true -- quite a few of the Golden Age guys had a problem with the anti-war, go-with-the-flow currents of the period. It got to be a real schism; I remember one of the zines, F&SF maybe, running a sort of proclamation, or pair of proclamations pro- and anti-Vietnam War, each with signatures of leading SF names.<br /><br />By the time I got into my illustration project in the early 90s, I was able to ignore those little conservative digs on Anderson's part. I thought his evocation of the Hell continuum in the last story was imaginative and hair-raising. It's hard trying to compete with the likes of Dante, Bosch, and John of Patmos, but he did ok! <br /><br />By the way, Happy Thanksgiving. Hope the lovely orange kitty got some of that turkey.<br />dLi'l Innocenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12516526103367681109noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8526498499129692237.post-83042752021118592972019-11-28T01:33:16.834-05:002019-11-28T01:33:16.834-05:00'Operation Chaos' started out as a lot of ...'Operation Chaos' started out as a lot of fun with 'Operation Efreet', but got a little too 'hippie-punching' toward the end. Big Bad Bald Bastardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01983025559556548658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8526498499129692237.post-32066713501979464062019-11-26T18:33:10.273-05:002019-11-26T18:33:10.273-05:00Addendum #2: "OC" meaning "Operatio...Addendum #2: "OC" meaning "Operation Chaos", the title of the one-volume form of the stories. Sorry - it's been a long day.Li'l Innocenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12516526103367681109noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8526498499129692237.post-70023611315183096652019-11-26T18:30:41.881-05:002019-11-26T18:30:41.881-05:00That ought to be EAST of Telegraph! I just looked ...That ought to be EAST of Telegraph! I just looked at a map, and still have no idea of the name of the hotel. Maybe it's no longer there. Li'l Innocenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12516526103367681109noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8526498499129692237.post-38414615526990165642019-11-26T18:25:21.303-05:002019-11-26T18:25:21.303-05:00When I was just out of art college in NYC, I went ...When I was just out of art college in NYC, I went (as many of us did in the late 60s) to California to see what it was like. I was living in Berkeley with a motley bunch of students/youths and hanging out with grad students up on the UC Berkeley campus. <br /><br />One nice night I took a contemplative walk and saw a building magically alight up on the hills north of Telegraph Ave, its Disneyesque pointed towers glowing against the sky. It turned out to be a well-known hotel in the act of hosting that year's SF Con (Cons were not so omnipresent then). <br /><br />I wandered in and saw Harlan Ellison accept IIRC two, maybe three Hugo awards. I came back next day and saw some al fresco combats between members of the SFCA, including Anderson in chain mail, conical helmet, wielding a sword, and wearing big glasses, like a scholar from some monkish haven of learning forced to take up arms. I forget whom he was fighting, but they walloped each other sincerely. It was all very cool; I'd been reading his work, among other people's, since I was about 11.<br /><br />A favorite from the old pulp days was his 4-story series about a manly werewolf and a high-powered witch who meet as commandos during an alternate version of WW2. It came out in single-volume form sometime in the 60s or 70s. I've always enjoyed SFF that uses folklore imaginatively but respectfully, and OC abounds in that. I'm an illustrator, and devoted the best part of the year to doing a graphic novel treatment of the first part of the first story. This was all pre-digital. It never went anywhere, but it was sort of a labor of love, and a great pleasure to do.Li'l Innocenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12516526103367681109noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8526498499129692237.post-89113748801056071922019-11-26T14:29:13.407-05:002019-11-26T14:29:13.407-05:00'Delenda Est' was a great read, I liked ho...'Delenda Est' was a great read, I liked how he extrapolated so much from a scenario in which Carthage won the Punic Wars. Again, he accomplished so much in a long short story- nowadays, it would have been the basis of an entire series of novels.<br /><br />One of my favorites by him is 'Fire Time', he really had a knack for xenobiology, and a knack for portraying both sides of a conflict precipitated by climate change as sympathetic.Big Bad Bald Bastardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01983025559556548658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8526498499129692237.post-30105676577881979232019-11-26T14:14:33.731-05:002019-11-26T14:14:33.731-05:00I never cared for the Fantasy genre - we called it...I never cared for the Fantasy genre - we called it Sword & Sorcery back then - but Anderson wrote a few classics of hard science fiction. Particularly noteworthy to me was Tau Zero - a wonderful novel that didn't play fast and loose with relativistic reality, overlaid on a dark tale of defective hardware and human weakness. Delenda Est was truly one of the greatest time travel tales of the period. The Star Fox and After Doomsday are also good reads.<br /><br />He was one of that whole classic set of SF writers who influenced so many of us in the sixties and seventies...mikeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13057701313718589322noreply@blogger.com