Conference noted::sf

Here are three names for consideration.  (I doubt you've got their memories on
tap).  They may not be your favorites, but they're the first ones I thought of.

I am still waiting for a sequel to the Witches of Karres.  Granted, a sequel is
unlikely to be as good as the original, but this one has got to be better than
the sequels we actually have to read.  He also wrote excellent short fiction,
such as "A Nice Day for Screaming and Other Tales of the Hub".

Alice Sheldon, if I remember correctly, is the real name of James Tiptree, Jr.
It'd be nice to see more of those stories.

H. Beam Piper wrote some outstanding books, and is often remembered for his
Little Fuzzy stories.  He committed suicide over issues related to a divorce
and money.  His books were out of print for 20 years or so, as I have heard it,
because his executor was instructed to withhold publication until his ex-wife
couldn't derive any benefit from it.  Since they are now available again, I
imagine he'd be pretty cheerful about coming back.

Of course, there are authors that I reflexively buy without conscious thought
if I see a new title with their name on it.  Such as Robert Heinlein and E. E.
"Doc" Smith to name a couple of dead ones.  It's a good thing that Carolyn J.
Cherryh, Hal Clement, Robert Forward, Larry Niven, Vernor Vinge and Roger
Zelazny are still alive.  Depending on your timing, I expect that Isaac Asimov
and Arthur Clarke will be on your list.

Some more criteria would be nice.  Are we to bring them back so they can write
more, or to reward (or punish) them for what they already wrote?  Do they have
bodies and can they enjoy being alive, or do you just regrow the brains?  In
the latter case, we would just have to do this to Rudy Rucker.

Do we have the technology to get back Jules Verne, H. G. Welles, or Sam Clemens
(Mark Twain)?  Bill Shakespeare?  The author of Revelations?  (Not that I'd
want the last one, but I'm looking for really *old* SF.)

You asked.

    Tolkien,Herbert and Jules Verne
    
            Niall
    

    Re .1:
    
    James Schmitz (sp?) is dead?  Rudy Rucker is dead?
    
    Since Alice Sheldon and H. Beam Piper both committed suicide, they
    might not *want* to be brought back.  (Of course, you might not want to
    respect their wishes in this case, but if you want them to write
    stories for you, it might make a practical difference.)
    
    More amusing on a metaphysica level, I once heard the specualtion that
    Piper believed in reincarnation and committed suicide because he wanted
    to go on to the next life.  Perhaps a reconstituted Piper might deny
    that he *was* H. Beam Piper.
    
    Earl Wajenberg
    
    P.S.  I'd like to recall J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and James Blish,
    	  but all three of them might have metaphysical objections similar
    	  to Piper II's.

    Do publishers also count? Then strike Herbert and bring back John W.
    Campbell
    
    Wildrik
    -------

    Re: .3
    Eddings?? Dead????
    
    When, how???
    

    David Eddings is alive and well and living in Nevada as of Thursday of
    last week.
    
    (That's when I got turned down :-()

    Re .6 (Re .3):
    
    Given the company the name kept, perhaps the author meant E.R. Eddison,
    author of "The Worm Ouroborus"?
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    RE .8, .6, and .3 (my own note)
    
    Oops ... yes I did mean to say E.R. Eddison.  Sorry Eddings fans,
    didn't mean to disturb you.
    
    Does Gene Roddenbury qualify as a S.F. writer??  If so, I'd certainly
    like to bring him back ... somehow I just don't think Star Trek is 
    going to be quite the same without him.
    
    ... Bob
    

    
    and boy, if we could get all these authors to collaborate!
    

    
    ref .6
    
    Well, maybe Campbell from _before_ about 1966 or so. 
    
    Also, P.K. Dick. Definately.
    
    Hey, how about Lovecraft and Poe, together?

    Re .11: I can see it now. "Necronomicon II: The Bells of Nyarlathotep,"
    by Howgar Poecraft!!!
    
    (Before pursuing this thought any further, I suggest everybody read
    the cautionary tale, "The Man Who Collected Poe". Resurrection has been
    vastly overrated.)
    
    That said, I'd vote for E. F. Benson and Manly Wade Wellman - can't
    think of a third offhand...
    
    -b

James Schmitz is definitely dead, that's why I want him back.

As far as I know, Rudy Rucker is alive and well, somewhere.  I thought it would
be interesting to see his reaction to a world in which he was brought back as
a disembodied brain.  (In this case, disembodied is quite literal and not a
synonym for ethereal.)

People who wrote screenplays for bad SF movies with disembodied brains might
also be candidates for such abuse.  But I don't know who to blame.

There's also good fiction ni this category.  For example, the author of
Frankenstein would be interesting to bring back.  She might have some
interesting comments on "progress".

Yes, it is a problem bringing back suicides, but to me, suicide is a last resort
when all other options have failed.  The most common valid case for this is when
there is a painful terminal illness.  Many such illnesses (but far from all) can
now be cured; hopefully that trend will continue so that people who once would
have had no options will have them.  I have lost a number of friends to suicide,
generally under conditions of extreme but artificial stress (e.g., being a
student at MIT).  I simply hope that we could persuade them that circumstances
had changed and give them something to live for.  A fellow named Boole comes to
mind in this connection also -- but you did specify science fiction authors and
not just people who gave us a lot of material to build on.

I'm surprised not to have seen Ted Sturgeon listed here, or Cliff Simak (Time is
the Simplest Thing, Great Time Machine Hoax), or Lloyd Biggle (Monument and
Watchers of the Dark).

There are so many worthwhile writers but you did say only three...

						-- Spencer

Er, how about: William Hope Hodgson, A. Merrit and Philip K. Dick?
With Edgar Allan Poe, Olaf Stapledon and Manley Wade Wellman in the wings?

Pc.

    Re .10:
    
    Good luck getting Tolkien to collaborate with anybody.  His friend 
    C.S. Lewis, when asked if he had even had any *influence* on Tolkien,
    remarked, "You might as well try to influence a bandersnatch. Tolkien
    has two reactions to criticism: either he ignores it entirely or he
    starts re-writing from the beginning."  (That must have made for a
    certain amount of suspense for the Inklings, the little literary circle
    to whom Tolkien read the emerging manuscript of "Lord of the Rings.")
    
    I've already cast my votes for Lewis, Tolkien, and Blish, but if I can
    cast votes for a second-string trio, I'll second the votes for Doc Smith 
    and Manly Wade Wellman, and add Charles Williams (another Inkling).  (A
    pretty diverse trio, if I do say so myself.)  (Or are trios
    "triverse"?)
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    
    Sigh, it's really hard to limit to three...
    
    There are two who's careers were cut short, that I'd have liek to
    have seen more works from them:
    
    Stanley G Weinbaum, who started publishing SF in 1934 and died in
    1935.  His story "A Martian Odyssey" is a classic, and frequently
    anthologized.  There is a collection of his stories and a couple(?)
    of novels.
    
    And H. Beam Piper, already mentioned.  I'd really like a sequel
    to "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen".
    
    The third one is tougher, but I think I'll second/third/... Manly
    Wade Wellman.
    
    							/alan
    

    
    Sturgeon, Heinlein, and Simak.
    
    I'd read anything by the first two and I always hoped that there was
    another novel as good as "Way Station" lurking in Cliff Simak's brain.
    
    JP

    
     Verne, Heinlein, Simak,  and...
    
        Edgar Rice Burroughs   (don't think he's been mentioned yet!)
    
     
     -- Jeff

    Cordwainer Smith		who wrote little but was an extraordinary
    				person, and with nicely strange story-settings
    
    Thorne Smith		the best Fun writer I have ever found
    
    Lord Dunsany		for his command of language and bright 
    				imagination of other realms
    
    
      Scott

    Solution:
    
    Once you have the initial three writing again, take a cut from
    their new books and you have the funds to bring back another batch !
    
    Regards
    	Mike

    I think the greatest thing about this note is what some of these people
    who died quite a while ago would make of our current world.
    
    I can imagine some great ideas and writing coming from someone who left
    us in the fifties.  Think of the culture shock! Alot like a time travel
    story.  
    
    And would H.G. Wells write a story alluding to the folly of economic 
    disaster, or would he cry, "NO! Send me back, please!".  (;-) ;-) ;-)). 
    
    - Russ.
    

    
    "HOWGAR POECRAFT???!!!" I cracked up...!
    
    (I wouldn't mind seeing more Cordwainer Smith, myself.)

    Blish, without a doubt - his work was only slackening off towards the
    end of his life due to illness, not rampant megalomania and spineless
    editors as with some other authors that shall remain nameless.
    
    Wells - the great prophet of SF.  It would be fascinating to know what
    he thinks of "his future".
    
    Tom Reamy - whose life was tragically cut short after producing one
    evocative novel "Blind Voices".  He was very reminiscent of Bradbury,
    but harder-edged.
    
    By the way, this sounds like a good idea for a con/club programme item. 
    Permission to rip-off, Mr. Noter, sir?

    Sure, go ahead, but let's make this a little more precise.  When
    we resurrect authors, they will have all the writing powers they
    had /at the time of their death/.  Jurassic Park Research can't
    bring them back at the peak of their careers; they can only
    recreate them when they kicked off. Thus we may not want to bring
    back Heinlein, even though he was clearly one of the greats. 
    Whose careers were really cut short?  Who was just coming into
    their own?

    /jlr
    
    PS James Blish is a good choice for this because he actually
    wrote such a story, "A Work of Art".  It's about a composer who
    is brought back only to find that he doesn't have it any more.

    Oh, I dunno. Seems kind of a waste of speculation to wish for dead
    authors to return, when there are some live authors out there who've
    been promising certain sequels to certain books for a Very Very Long
    Time Now - couldn't we spend our efforts writing them inspirational
    letters or something? ;-)
    
    That said, I guess my resurrection candidates are out of the running,
    since they both died at a ripe old age (though I think both were still
    in pretty good form at the time).
    
    -b

    So Jurassic Park can't bring them back them back at the peak of their
    careers?  I think you chaps have got into this market too early.  SF
    writers do seem to be a long-lived bunch and keep going long after they
    should have stopped.  Indeed, in some cases, even Death doesn't seem to
    stop them...
    
    If I had to ammend my three to suit the deficiencies of your
    technology, then I guess I would keep Tom Reemy, and add George Orwell,
    who wrote 1984 just before he died (and we can all look forward to his
    sequel "1985: The Proles Strike Back"?) and maybe Cyril Kornbluth, who
    could pick up his fruitful partnership with Fred Pohl (Space Merchants
    III?).
    

    re: .26
    
    Before you employ the services of Jurassic Park, you want to
    hire Temporal Terminators, Ltd.  Then it's simply a matter of
    killing-off your favorite writers some time before the peaks of
    their careers.
    
    So the next question is, when would you have bumped whom?
     

    
    Since Jurassic Park seems to be doing a straightforward clone'n'load
    operation, it would be possible (and an interesting experiment) to
    bring one author back three times.  The separate incarnations would
    of course remain in ignorance about the others.  I wonder whether we'd
    get three times the output (i.e., different books) or three copies of
    the same book...
    
    Btw, I think I'd stick with Heinlein as one of three, even though he
    did not die at his prime.  But he was improving after the low point of
    "I Will Fear No Evil," (possibly because of better medical treatment).
    
    Cordwainer Smith (Paul Linebarger) was a good call -- I think I'd take
    him over Simak.
    
    JP

    I thought the Jurassic Park technology would just bring you back as an
    infant.  I don't recall it encompassing the "Overdrawn at the Memory
    Bank" or "We Can Remember it for You Wholesale" capabilities.  Besides,
    there's not a whole lot of value in resurrecting a particular dinosaur,
    experiences and all.  And inheritability of acquired traits (Lamarckism? 
    Who was the Russian guy that believed in this?) has been pretty much
    discredited.
    
    If you had to raise the reincarnated author(s) from birth, my guess is
    their different experiences growing up would result in different
    stories with some stylistic similarities.
    
    This is of course the nature vs. nurture debate, and I'm a firm
    believer in both.
    
    len.
    
    

    Tom Reamy is a good choice, but the first two sf writers I'd like to
    resurrect are Joanna Russ and Samuel R. Delany, both of whom are
    purportedly alive....
    
    Ray

    There are a few that I would consider worthy from the body of
    their work, such as the aforementioned Simak and Cordwainer
    Smith. But the idea of choosing people who were cut off early
    is a good one. In this vein, Tom Reamy is a good choice. Another
    would be Charles Beaumont. The third would maybe be Robert
    Stallman, who got the chance to write the very good Beast Trilogy
    before he died.
    
    --- jerry

    re .29 - the Russian guy I was thinking of was Lysenko.
    
    len.
    

Is it true that you JR guys blew your prototype budget on L. Ron Hubbard?

    re -1:  *That* explains how he keeps crankin' 'em out!
    
    					{^% andrew %^}

    
    .28 started me thinking...
    
    Suppose we bring back an author and let him review his own books--
    Harlan Ellison at 17 reviews Ellison at 40, for example? (And could
    you picture three Asimov's working in pararell? They'd need 
    a dedicated mill to keep 'em in typewriter paper!)

    Off the top of my head:
    
    Clifford Simak (I'm another permanent "Way Station" fan)
    Harlan Ellison (probably the greatest living SF writer but dead for
                    years for all practical literary purposes)
    Robert Heinlein (but only if he died before he again hit
                     45 and revealed himself to be a sex-starved
                     middle-aged bore)
    
    
    Or, with money tight at the Institute, combine the DNA from two pretty 
    good writers to make one outstanding writer.
    
    Or, get really nasty and combine the DNA from someone like Ellison with
    someone like Leonard Maltan (sp?) or anyone else with a demonstrated
    dislike of anything that wasn't done in France in black and white, 
    and presto! An instant psychotic schizophrenic who writes something 
    and then stabs himself in the hand!
    
    8')
    
    kbs
    
    
    kbs
    

    Jerry,
    
    I think .36 said anything that WASN'T done in France in black and
    white.
    
    Tony

    re:.38
    
    That's what I quoted, and what I was questioning. 
    
    --- jerry