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The Door Through Space / Rendezvous on a Lost World (Ace Double)

de Marion Zimmer Bradley, A. Bertram Chandler (Autor)

Outros autores: Veja a seção outros autores.

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From December 1811 to February 1812, massive earthquakes shook the middle Mississippi Valley, collapsing homes, snapping large trees midtrunk, and briefly but dramatically reversing the flow of the continent s mightiest river. For decades, people puzzled over the causes of the quakes, but by the time the nation began to recover from the Civil War, the New Madrid earthquakes had been essentially forgotten. In "The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes," Conevery Bolton Valencius remembers this major environmental disaster, demonstrating how events that have been long forgotten, even denied and ridiculed as tall tales, were in fact enormously important at the time of their occurrence, and continue to affect us today. Valencius weaves together scientific and historical evidence to demonstrate the vast role the New Madrid earthquakes played in the United States in the early nineteenth century, shaping the settlement patterns of early western Cherokees and other Indians, heightening the credibility of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa for their Indian League in the War of 1812, giving force to frontier religious revival, and spreading scientific inquiry. Moving into the present, Valencius explores the intertwined reasons environmental, scientific, social, and economic why something as consequential as major earthquakes can be lost from public knowledge, offering a cautionary tale in a world struggling to respond to global climate change amid widespread willful denial. Engagingly written and ambitiously researched both in the scientific literature and the writings of the time "The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes" will be an important resource in environmental history, geology, and seismology, as well as history of science and medicine and early American and Native American history. "… (mais)
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review of
Marion Zimmer Bradley's / A. Bertram Chandler's The Door Through Space / Rendezvous on a Lost World
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - November 13-15, 2018

FINALLY, I've read something by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I've run across mention of her name a zillion times. I've probably been under the impression that she writes schlocky series fantasy, something I'm not that interested in. I even ran across mention of her recently in Philip Klass (William Tenn)'s introduction to Fredric Brown's What Mad Universe (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2464499871 ):

"From Marion "Astra" Zimmer—

"After that long eulogy of Kuttner . . . one very minor gripe. Misprint or error? Jason's tutor was not "Charon"; Charon was the ferryman of the Styx. The centaur who tutored Jason was C-h-i-r-o-n. Remember? Kuttner, shame on you." - p xiv, What Mad Universe

That's a letter to a fanzine, 1948ish. That, perhaps incomprehensibly to most people, is what endeared me to & interested me in Bradley, that attn to detail.

"The Terran Empire has set its blazon on four hundred planets circling more than three hundred suns. But no matter what the color of the sun, the number of moons overhead, or the geography of the planet, once you step inside a Headquarters building, you are on Earth." - p 10

In other words, in today's terms, if you're an American tourist traveling outside the US & you want to feel less threatened by the unfamiliar, go to a McDonalds. After all, it's so much trickier to do business w/ the Silent Ones. How do you even order? & did that mean 'Do you want fries with that?'

"It was the strangest trading I had ever done. Kyral laid out the small forged-steel tools and the coils of thin fine wire, and I unpacked my lenses and laid them out in neat rows. The Silent Ones neither spoke nor moved, but through a thin place in the gray veiling I saw a speck which might have been a phosphorescent eye, moving back and forth as if scanning the things laid out for their inspection.

"Then I smothered a gasp, for suddenly blank spaces appeared in the rows of merchandise. Certain small tools—wire-cutters, calipers, surgical scissors—had vanished, and all the coils of wire had disappeared. Blanks equally had appeared in the rows of lenses; all of my tiny, powerful microscope lenses had vanished. I cast a quick glance at Kyral, but he seemed unsurprised. I recalled vague rumors of the Silent Ones, and concluded that, eerie though it seemed, this was merely their way of doing business." - p 51

Now, I'm a feminist. & something that preoccupies me from time-to-time is the way that some people claiming to be feminists project the source of all masochistic fantasies onto men. This doesn't jive w/ my experience. I, e.g., find bondage extremely unappealing. I'm a man. I've known at least 5 women who seem to prefer bondage. As such, any aspect of Bradley's story having to do w/ bondage interests me given that Bradley's a woman writer.

"She was tall, with a proud swinging walk, and a metallic clashing kept rhythm to her swift steps. Her ams were fettered, each wrist bound with a jeweled bracelet and the bracelets linked together by a long, silver-gilt chain passed through a silken loop at her waist. From the loop swung a tiny golden padlock, but in the lock stood an even tinier key, signifying that she was a higher caste than her husband or consort, that her fettering was by choice and not command." - p 56

"Now, after all my years on Wolf, I understood the desire to keep their women under lock and key that was its ancient custom. I vowed to myself as we went that I should waste no time finding a fetter shop and having forged therein the perfect steel chains that should bind my love's wrists to my key forever." - p 132

Nope. That's a form of 'romanticism' that's not for me.

"There is a tale told in Daillon of a shegri where the challenger was left in a room alone, where he was blindfolded and told to await the beginning of the torment.

"Somewhere in those dark hours of waiting, between the unknown and the unexpected, the hours of telling over to himself the horrors of past shegri, the torture of anticipation alone became the unbearable. A little past noon he collapsed in screams of horror and died raving, unmarred, untouched." - p 67

Remember that. Never order shegri on Wolf, not even from a McDonalds. & watch out for those women-in-chains, there's just something so generic-romance-novel about them.

"Then suddenly her arms were gripping me, frantic and hungry; the subdued thing in her voice, her eyes, flamed out hot and wild. She was pressing the whole length of her body to mine, breasts and thighs and long chicken wings, and her voice was hoarse." - p 77

Oh, sorry, that shd've been "long legs". I don't know how that "long chicken wings" got in there.

Bwawk! "I said goodbye to her alone, in the reddish, windswept space before the Great House. She pressed her head against my shoulder and whispered, "Race, take me with you!"

"For answer I only picked up her narrow wrists and turned them over in my palm. The jeweled bracelets were clasped again around the thinly boned joints, and on some self-punishing impulse she had shortened the chains so that she could not even put her arms around me. I lifted the punished wrists to my mouth and kissed them gently."

'Do you prefer white meat or dark?' I asked her as the thumping of my heart knocked fiercely against her belly.

""You don't want to leave, Dallisa."

"I was desperately sorry for her. She would go down with her dying world, proud and cold and with no place in the new one. She kissed me and I tasted blood, her thin fettered body straining wildly against me, shaken with tearing, convulsive sobs. Then she turned and fled back into the shadow of the great dark house.

"I never saw her again." - pp 81-82

Just to make sure that Bradley was a woman & not the reverse of Jame Tiptree, Jr, I looked at her Wikipedia entry & found this:

"While she is noted for her feminist perspective in her writing, her popularity has been posthumously marred by multiple accusations against her of child sexual abuse and rape by two of her children, Mark and Moira Greyland, and others." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley

It's 'interesting' that Wikipedia wd feel so 'free' as to put something like that online in a biographical entry. That, alone, makes me suspicious. I don't believe every allegation & I think that other people wd be wise to do the same. However, I will say that one of the main things I noticed about this bk was the nature of its sexual fantasy. & what about these kids's toys anyway?

"He replaced the dance and pulled down something like a whirligig. "This might interest you," he mused, and set it spinning. I stared at the pattern of lights that flowed and disappeared, melting in and out of visible shadows. Suddenly, I realized what the thing was doing. I wrested my eyes away with an effort. Had there been a lapse of seconds or minutes? Had Evarin spoken?

"Evarin arrested the compelling motion with one finger. "Several of these pretty playthings are available to the children of important men," he said absently. "An import of value for our exploited and impoverished world. Unfortunately, they are, perhaps, a little . . . ah, obvious. The incidence of nervous breakdown is, ah, interfering with their sale. The children, of course, are unaffected, and love them." Evarin set the hypnotic wheel moving again, glanced sideays at me, then set it carefully back." - p 92

That's what you get for using the boobtube to babysit the kids.

All in all, yeah, I didn't like this very much but now that I know that Bradley's reputation has been negatively affected by postumous accusations I'm tempted to read at least one other thing by her to see if she has redeeming qualities not evident in this novel. In fact, I've ordered the movie of her popular The Mists of Avalon from my local library even tho it very much appears to be not. my. thing. at'all.

*****************************************

I got this Ace Double b/c of the flipside bk is by A. Bertram Chandler, Rendezvous on a Lost World. I've read so many by him & most of them are so inter-related that I've little or no idea of the chronology & I don't really think it's important enuf to try to sort them all into a preferred-reading-order. This must be one of the early ones, a novel written before the characters became repeating, before other elements became repeating. The names seem new to me:

"It was Kemp's dream, although we shared part of it. It was Kemp's dream, but Jim Larsen participated in it, and Dudley Hill, and myself." - p 6

Maybe it was my dream, too, the dream of being respected at work for one's deeper knowledge, rather than being shunted off by a younger. stupider person vying for power.

""Keep back!" somebody was saying in an authoritative voice. I saw that it was Baines, the Port Captain. "Keep back, you people. My rescue squad will be able to handle this."

""Perhaps I can help," suggested Jim Larsen.

""If I require any assistance I'll let you know," snapped Baines.

""Do you know what sort of ship this is?" persisted old Jim.

""Obviously something new and experimental," said Baines impatiently. "Please don't waste any more of my time."

""She's not new, Captain Baines. She's old. She's a gaussjammer, and I've served in the things. She's on her side now, and the airlock door is jammed. You'll have to roll her to get her clear."

""Are you sure?" demanded Baines.

""I'm sure."

"In spite of his impatience Baines was willing to listen to reason, ready to make fresh decisions." - p 18

Then again, maybe just no people at all is the answer:

""And we've seen no people," said Alan. "No people whatsoever. We've seen surface ships, and ground cars, and railway trains, but never anybody boarding them or disembarking from them."" - p 51

It's a veritable Andymat! To quote from Computer Graphics Conspiracy's "Machines, Machines": "No matter who or where you are there are thousands of machines ready to save your life and there are thousands of machines ready to kill you" ( https://youtu.be/2QIZAxc1K6M?t=4869 ).

""You can serve us," said Alan firmly, "by replenishing our Pile, by devising instruments that will tell us our whereabouts in the Galaxy so that we may return to our own home."

""But why should you wish to return? I will give you everything."

""I'm sorry, but you can't."

""I can."

"Alan smiled bitterly. "Even leaving that peculiar sexual preference that we call love out of it, we still have no women. And you cannot create life."

""No, I cannot create life. But, from cells taken from your bodies, I shall build women for you, women who will be nearer perfection than any you have ever known, ever could know in all your travels."

""That," said Alan firmly, "would be quite impossible."

"But we haven't all got perfect wives, I thought. I'm tempted.

""You will stay," said the voice, stating a fact. "You will be happy here. I will give you everything."" - pp 58-59

Even Andymats get lonesome. I recall Philip José Farmer being emphasized as the SF writer most noteworthy for introducing sex between humans & extraterrestrials but it seems to me that A. Bertram Chandler deserves a prominent place too:

"They came in unannounced, bringing with them our first meal in captivity. There were four of them. Their features and their bodies, displayed rather than concealed by their scanty clothing, were too perfect. Even the one who was almost Veronica's double was too perfect. It was the very slight asymmetry of Veronica's fine features that was lacking, the slightly too fine slimness of her. By all the accepted canons this girl was more beautiful than Alan's wife. In actuality she was not.

"I saw Alan stare incredulously, the beginnings of a wild hope dawning on his face. Then I watched his features slump into a mask of dejection. He growled, "Who are you?"

""We are your servants," answered the pseudo-Veronica. Her voice was wrong and somehow lacking in life. "We are your servants. We are to serve you in all ways."

""All?" queried old Jim. "I'm looking forward to this."" - p 61

I reckon the editor(s) of the Ace Doubles series had fun picking wch novels to pair w/ each other. In this case, sexual servitude of the feminine to the masculine seems to be the uniting theme. Bradley's version of it seems to be the romance novel fantasy of a woman wanting to be the favored wife in an Arabic harem — there's not really any humor there. Chandler's version is full of irony & awkward unexpected conundrum — there's plenty of humor.

"She came across to me, her body all fluid poetry, and before I could pull back (but would I have done so?) she kissed me full on the lips. It was that blasted cigarette that spoiled things; she let it drop and it fell into the division of her breasts, and the thin wisp of smoke that spiraled upward stank of burning rubber." - p 71

Is the cigarette machine in the Andymat trying to tell us something?

""You still haven't said what you want."

""Information."

""What sort of information?"

""Star charts, if you have them."

""And then we'll have the Survey Service boys breathing down our necks. Not bloody likely, Mister. It's many a long year since Grandpop brought the old Star Raider in from her last foray, but I'll lay that Black Bart hasn't been forgotten."" - p 96

I don't remember Black Bart but I do remember Black Lung cigarettes.. or was that just MY fantasy?

The Andymat even has food for future stories:

""Out on the Rim," he said seriously, "and especially on worlds such as this, planets that human beings have reached only within the past few decades, the Barrier must be very thin . . ."

""What Barrier?" I asked.

""The Barrier between the alternative time tracks, the divergen&t world l'ines . . ."

""Surely you don't believe . . ."

""And why shouldn't I?" He paused, losing interest in his dimensional theories. "That girl,"" - pp 122-123

Does he mean Thursday Next? Are that extra ampersand & apostrophe intrusions from another timeline? from another novel by someone else? Read every review I've ever written to find out!! OR, cut to the chase & go here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2593563183 . Using the same punchline for 2 different reviews may seem weird but you ain't seen nuthin' yet. Chandler's excellent sense of humor has give me poetic license. ( )
  tENTATIVELY | Apr 3, 2022 |
sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha

» Adicionar outros autores (1 possível)

Nome do autorFunçãoTipo de autorObra?Status
Bradley, Marion ZimmerAutorautor principaltodas as ediçõesconfirmado
Chandler, A. BertramAutorautor principaltodas as ediçõesconfirmado
Tremblay, GregNarradorautor secundárioalgumas ediçõesconfirmado
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Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
This Ace Double contains both Rendezvous on a Lost World and The Door Through Space. It should not be combined with either individual work. It was published as Ace Double F-117 and later as Ace Double 15890.

While Rendezvous on a Lost World is part of the John Grimes Rimworld series, this Ace Double is not.
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From December 1811 to February 1812, massive earthquakes shook the middle Mississippi Valley, collapsing homes, snapping large trees midtrunk, and briefly but dramatically reversing the flow of the continent s mightiest river. For decades, people puzzled over the causes of the quakes, but by the time the nation began to recover from the Civil War, the New Madrid earthquakes had been essentially forgotten. In "The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes," Conevery Bolton Valencius remembers this major environmental disaster, demonstrating how events that have been long forgotten, even denied and ridiculed as tall tales, were in fact enormously important at the time of their occurrence, and continue to affect us today. Valencius weaves together scientific and historical evidence to demonstrate the vast role the New Madrid earthquakes played in the United States in the early nineteenth century, shaping the settlement patterns of early western Cherokees and other Indians, heightening the credibility of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa for their Indian League in the War of 1812, giving force to frontier religious revival, and spreading scientific inquiry. Moving into the present, Valencius explores the intertwined reasons environmental, scientific, social, and economic why something as consequential as major earthquakes can be lost from public knowledge, offering a cautionary tale in a world struggling to respond to global climate change amid widespread willful denial. Engagingly written and ambitiously researched both in the scientific literature and the writings of the time "The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes" will be an important resource in environmental history, geology, and seismology, as well as history of science and medicine and early American and Native American history. "

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