Conference noted::sf

    I'd call them science fiction.  They may not strike people as such
    because they are not in one of the familiar sub-genres like space
    opera, time travel, or post-holocaust.  But the setting and the
    nature of some of the characters is conjectural, based on science,
    then extrapolating a little further.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

I read the first two also.  They were much better than the last one.  I got a-
bout 200 pages into it, and after seeing the main character ( I forget her
name ) work her hundredth miracle, I gave up.  I just can't believe how some
of those female authors think they can make up for a perceived lack of female
heroines in literature by creating female characters who can do anything better
than anyone else.  She was doing things I wouldn't have believed even coming
from Superman!  And she was making observations and conclusions which would
be very intelligent for TODAY's standards, much less for the Stone Age!!!
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a female heroine as much as a male heroine, but I
have to _believe_ in them as they are presented.


The first was good, the second ok, and the last was truly awful.  Pure bilge.
Each book has it's own precepts which you must accept at face value; after
that, it is the author's job to make you believe in everything else which hap-
pens.  In that the author of this book failed miserably ( at least with me ).


I sure know I won't be reading any more of this series.



Brian

    After reading all 3 of the Earth's children books, I'm sill ambivalent
    towards them.  The Ice Age background is very well researched and the
    idea of racial memory in the Neanderthals is fascinating.
    
    I can even stomach the superwoman heroine (almost).  Romantic heroines
    are permitted some super-human capabilities (mainly to endure
    suffering).  What I can't handle is being asked to believe that
    one person was responsible for every major technological advance
    of the Ice Age.
    
    Are the books SF?  I think not.  Apart from the racial memory ideas,
    once you allow for the odd setting (Ice Age Europe rather than
    17th-18th century) the books are straight historic romances.  The
    plot situations and the problems faced by the protagonists are only
    loosely connected to the particular setting.  One could probably
    rewrite all 3 book setting them in, say, 14th century Europe and
    not have to alter many of the major plot elements.
    
    

    I think we much allow "Earth's Children" a certain amount of
    SF-coloring, even if it isn't a very pure example of SF.  I base
    that almost solely on the scientific speculations about the
    Neanderthals.  For the rest, I agree, they are "historical" (well,
    pre-historical) romances.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    While the Neanderthal speculation is fascinating and quite cleverly
    worked out, it does suffer from a minor reality conflict.
    
    If one looks at the human "family tree" one finds that Neanderthal
    Man ("the Clan") and modern man ("the Others") are both members
    of the species _homo_sapiens_.  Auel in fact recognizes this fact
    in having the 2 races able to interbreed.
    
    The whole point of this  is that it seems highly unlikely to me
    that 2 races of the same species would differ so wildly in their
    neural makeup.  I can handle the language difference since speech,
    as opposed to language, depends on the mechanical structure of the
    mouth (chimps and gorillas couldn't talk if they had Einstein's
    brain - humans with physical defects have great difficulty speaking).
    The supposed mental diferences Auel describes would, on the other
    hand, seem to imply major differences in brain structure and
    organization which, as I have stated, would probably not occur between
    2 races of a single species.
    
    It is, however, a neat speculation.

I haven't read the books, but it could be that racial memory is a
latent ability in Cro-Magnon types as well.  We're just defective in
that regard.  Some minor mutation cut the wire to that section.  We
get occasional glimpses of past lives (dreams of previous
incarnations, the collective unconscious, etc.) but can't really use
the facility. It's probably just as well; with a racial memory there
would be little need for writing, a key piece of civilization.

/jlr

    It depends on what you think makes something sf. Most sf
    collectors' (to choose one point of view) and bibliographers
    (to choose another) consider anything about the prehistoric
    past to be science fiction.
    
    Think of science fiction as fictional extrapolation of a
    scientific idea. The science in the case of Auel's books
    is anthropology.
    
    --- jerry

    
    Is _Watership_Down_ science fiction?  There's a lot of extrapolation
    from zoology. 

    I'd call "Watership Down" fantasy, since the human-calibre mentation
    of the rabbits is counter to fact, at least in the public opinion.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

        .9:
        
        In other words, every novel to use such concepts as
        faster-than-light travel or time travel is in fact fantasy
        because, as you say, it "is counter to fact, at least in
        the public opinion".
        
        Actually, you have a good point there... the problem with
        its application in this case is that it negates much of what
        we generally consider to be "science fiction", to the point
        of rendering the term virtually useless.
        
        Although, on the other hand, I've long since given up on
        defining "science fiction" or "fantasy"... much less attempting
        to define the distinction (if any) between them.  There's
        too much variety.  I consider "fantasy" to be what's written
        in books labelled as "fantasy", and "science fiction" to
        be what's written in books labelled as "science fiction".
        
        I am far more concerned about the quality and content of
        a story than about what it's called.  I have always been
        primarily interested in science fiction reading, and therefore
        I'm more like to find stories I like among those labelled
        "science fiction"... but many of them are "fantasy", or
        something else entirely.  Nor is everything labelled "science
        fiction" to my taste.
        
        If I owned a bookstore, I'd have no hesitation putting Watership
        Down on the fantasy shelf.  I haven't the faintest idea where
        I'd put Earth's Children(TM) books, but it most likely wouldn't
        be either SF *or* fantasy... maybe right at the intersection of
        the SF, adventure, romance, and archeology sections in my
        special-order 4 dimensional bookshelves...
        
        	/dave 

Re .10
    
    Well, personally, I consider SF a sub-species of fantasy.
    
    Poul Anderson proposed an interesting definition of "speculative
    fiction" (= my category of general fantasy).  It is fiction that
    deals importantly with fictitious categories.  Not only are the
    people and events and maybe the places fictitious, the kinds of
    things encountered are fictitious -- elves, magic, ESP, hyperdrives,
    time-travel, ghosts, aliens.
    
    You begin subdividing "spculative fiction" according to the, as
    it were, kind of nonexistence enjoyed by the categories used.  Alien
    or artificial intelligence are neither of them part of our world
    at present but might become so in the future.  That makes them SF.
    Elves, ghosts, and magic (and sapient rabbits) are not part of the
    publicly accepted world view but, as they are usually described, they
    ought to have been there all along.  They are more strictly
    counterfactual and so go into fantasy proper.  (Though Anderson points
    out that there are plenty of people who believe in any or all of
    them.)
    
    ESP, hyperdrive, and time-travel are intermediate.  ESP happily
    exists in both kinds of fiction, reflecting its ambiguous position
    in public evaluation.  Hyperdrive and time-travel are, perhaps by
    accidents of literary history, usually portrayed as being done by
    gadgetry.  This together with sheer tradition tends to get them
    stuck in the SF category, whatever you think of their real scientific
    plausibility.
    
    I'd classify "Earth's Children," or at least "Clan of the Cave Bear,"
    as SF, since the Neanderthal character is a careful, if speculative,
    construction from for-real scientific hypotheses, give or take a
    little race memory (but remember ESP is amphibious).
    
    The rabbits remain fantasy.  They could become science fiction if
    they were a new and unexpected breed of mutant hi-IQ rabbits.  Thus
    "The Rats of NIMH" comes closer to SF.  (It doesn't make it to SF
    because lots of non-lab rodents are also depicted as sapient.)
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    re: .11  I think some of us understood what you meant. ;-)
    
    Isn't there a file on defining SF, Fantasy, etc., in here somewhere...?
    
    						Don

    Re: .12
    
    Actually it "Mrs. Frisby and the rats (of/from) NIMH".  No idea
    of the author, though.
    
    			R_o_b

    R_o_b is correct. The original novel is MRS. FRISBY AND THE
    RATS OF NIMH. The title was changed for the movie. They also
    changed the character's name to Mrs. Brisby, because if they
    didn't, they wouldn't be able to market any toys based on
    here without infringing on the "Frisbee" trademark.
    
    The author, by the way, is the late Robert Lesley Conly, under
    the pseudonym Robert C. O'Brien. A sequel was published within
    the last year or so, written by Conly's daughter.
    
    --- jerry

    
    	Book #4 (The Plains of Patience) of the Earth's Childeren ??ogy
    	is due out in August.
    

    Well, someone beat me to the question.  Any details of the book?
    Personally, I thought the third book stunk also, just how much
    do we credit Ayla with?  If you cut out the pages in that book that
    were spent on Pleasures there wouldn't be much book left.
    
    However, I'd love to see her reunited with Durc and face to face
    with Broud, she could squish him once and for all if her upbringing
    would let her.             
    
    Helen

    FWIW, I found the descriptions of events surrounding most of Ayla's
    'inventions' to be totally believable.
    
    "Intelligence" is the ability to adapt concepts and tools to new
    situations, and there is no reason why a Stone Age person should be any
    less adaptable than a present day person. In fact there could be a good
    reason (survival) why they might necessarily have been more adaptable.
    
    If intelligence is partly related to environmental influences, then the
    Stone Age environment might have made it more common than the present
    day civilised environment where not bothering to think is less likely
    to prove fatal.
    
    
    Dave Hazel

>    Isn't there a file on defining SF, Fantasy, etc., in here somewhere...?
    
    Indeed, one of the early topics in this file was:
    27   NACHO::CONLIFFE     14-FEB-1984    30  Science Fiction versus Fantasy
    
    I haven't looked at the discussion recently; not sure we have SF and
    Fantasy neatly defined, if that were possible.
    
    --Simon
    

               <<< COLBIN::$1$DUA1:[NOTES$LIBRARY]BOOKS.NOTE;1 >>>
 Topic       Author               Date         Repl  Title
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   156         ROLL::GAUTHIER     28-APR-1986     9  MAMMOTH HUNTER, ANYONE?
   320       RETORT::HARMON       10-APR-1987    16  Jean Auel
   499       BPOV09::GROSSE       19-FEB-1988    12  J. Auel
================================================================================
Note 156.8                   MAMMOTH HUNTER, ANYONE?                      8 of 9
HANZI::SIMONSZETO "Simon Szeto, ABSS/FER, Hongkong"  30 lines   1-MAY-1988 09:35
                  -< Making prehistoric people in our image >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Well, you may be right about men learning something from reading
    Mrs. Auel's stories, but I'm skeptical about it being from prehistory.
    The author apparently did a lot of research, and I don't cast doubt
    on her scholarship.  However, these novels are still very much fiction.
    There were no written historical records from back then, and whatever
    anthropologists/archaeologists may have deduced from what's left
    behind from prehistory, I don't believe that detailed human behavior
    is part of the result of that research.
    
    That these prehistoric people had different sexual mores than
    contemporary societies, is quite possible, even likely.  I do not
    presume to know one way or another.  But I consider these novels as
    romanticized versions of life set in the Stone Age, not necessarily
    the way it was in those days.
    
    I saw the movie too.  I agree that it's very difficult to do Clan of
    the Cave Bear right.  For example, how are you going to find actors
    that look like Clan, even heavily made-up?  Also, because Clan don't
    speak much, it's really tough to get "dialogue" across to us who're
    just as disadvantaged as the Others? 
    
    As I read through the novels, particularly Valley of the Horses,
    I couldn't help but marvel at the resemblance between Ayla and your
    typical movie sex goddess.  (They could have picked somebody better
    than Darryl (sp?) Hannah to play Ayla, in my opinion.)  Does anybody
    know whether the Cro-Magnon really looked like modern-day Nordic
    people?

  --Simon
    
    [The following is reposted without prior permission. I hope Larry Klaes
    doesn't mind.]
================================================================================
Note 156.9                   MAMMOTH HUNTER, ANYONE?                      9 of 9
DICKNS::KLAES "Know Future"                          12 lines   2-MAY-1988 13:31
           -< One old myth - humans have always been brutal killers >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    	Keep in mind that just twenty years ago, humanity's ancestors
    right up through the Neanderthal were considered vicious hunters
    and killers.  Only recently has there become more evidence that
    early humanity were actually more peaceful vegetarians (This is
    more specifically theorized for Austalopithecus and Homo Erectus).
    The attitude we see in ourselves today seems to have started with
    *our* direct branch of evolution - Homo sapiens and Homo sapiens
    sapiens.  Cro-Magnon Man is now an obsolete term, and is put in
    the Homo sapiens category; yes, they did look very much like us.
    
    	Larry
    

    
    
    Ok, everybody who's been waiting for the next book in the series...
    
    RUSH to your local Waldenbooks store to pre-order your copy of
    "Plains of Passage".  Notice the title.  This title makes more sense
    than the one reported earlier.
    
    The book will be out in late Sept., so pre-ordering is only for
    the next two weeks (approximately).  The list price is $24.95.
    Pre-order price is $17.95, but if you have a Waldenbooks Preferred
    Reader card then the price is only $15.71.  Good deal!  My name
    is on the list.
    
    Enjoy!!
    
    Debbi
    \

    Not only is "Plains of Passage" out, but they have the first three
    books alongside, in hardcover, no less.
    
    I think I'll wait for the softcover, though.
    
    --Simon
    

    re .17, .18
    
    Please don't get me wrong.  I love the first two books, I have no
    problem with Ayla discovering an easy way to make fire, hunt alone,
    domesticating the first cat and horse, and for that matter the first
    dog (which came along in Mammoth Hunters) etc.  Actually, Ayla is
    my hero.
    
    But The Mammoth Hunters got a little thick for my taste.  Sure,
    Ayla was wonderful, but let's let some of the other characters have
    some accomplishments too.  In addition to all of her earlier
    accomplishments we now find she's a caller, a seer, etc.  I agree
    also with an earlier response that she was more of a movie goddess
    in the third book and second my own opinion that if Auel had left
    Pleasures out of The Mammoth Hunters then there wouldn't have been
    a third book.  Had I known then what I know now, I wouldn't have
    spent $20 on the hardcover, in fact; I probably wouldn't have bought
    it paperback.                                                   
    
    Someone read it fast and give us a quick review.  After all these
    years waiting for the fourth book, maybe Auel has had time to
    rediscover her earlier talent of writing quality instead of something
    Danielle Steel or Harlequin Romances could put out.
    
    Helen
            

    
    RE: .-1
    
    	Those are exactly my reasons for not buying the new one until
    someone highly recommends it.
    
    								Mauricio

Jean Auel will be at Pheasant Lane Mall, Nashua, NH on either 15 or
16 November from 2 to 4 pm.  One of the bookstores is hosting the event.  

(Sorry I'm not sure which day - I didn't have a chance to write it down
and am relying on memory.)

Karl B.

    
    Was listening to a Larry King repeat show early this morning and
    he had Jean on.  Several people called in during the 1/2 hour I
    listened who said they were having a problem with Plains.  I got
    the impression that there are a lot of flashbacks or something to
    the old Clan days.
    
    Someone called and asked about Durc, would he and Ayla ever be
    reunited, and Jean replied that Durc was a tragedy and that Ayla
    would live with the pain of that tragedy forever.  Personally, I
    feel that Ayla has done what Iza told her to do.  She found the
    Others, she has Jondalar, and I want her to go back for her son.
    But then, nobody ever listens to me...*-)
    
    Helen
         

    OK, recieved Plains of Passage for Christmas.  Anyone want my opinion
    after 200 pages?
    
    Helen

    yeah it was indeed a slow starter.

    
    
    
    I zipped right through Plains of Passage. Much better than the 
    Mammoth Hunters, but I still ended up skipping over the
    Pleasures-pages which I'm happy to say were fewer and sometimes 
    (once or twice) actually were appropriate for the plot.
    
    I highly recommend the book, I just wish the editor/publisher would get
    a rein on the author. 
    

    I re-read all three of the preceding books in the correct order (having
    previously read them in the wrong order). Then I felt compelled to buy
    Plains of Passage to find out what happened next. I am now waiting for
    the fifth book to appear, to get the next instalment of the story.
    
    Personally, I find these books a refreshing change from the usual
    political/social intrigues which bear more resemblance to soap-operas
    than stories. I also like the lengths to which Jean Auel has gone to
    ensure that the descriptions of the environment are accurate. I always
    feel as though I am there in Ice Age Europe (which sounds more pleasant
    than present-day Europe on occasions).
    
    I like these stories a lot.
    
    
    Dave Hazel 

    PLAINS OF PASSAGE was indeed an excellent read. I blasted thru it in
    less than three days. It was much more adventurous and exciting than
    the MAMOUTH HUNTER. It was a culmanation of all the previous books.
    After MAMOUTH HUNTER, I too was hoping for a change. Well we got it
    and it worked for me. Can't wait for the next book. 
    
    Rich