Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 01:26:55 -0400
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: The World Turned Upside Down - and changes
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

dicconf wrote:

> On Sat, 11 Sep 2004, Jim Kling wrote:
>
>>Saturday, September 11, 2004, 11:50:28 AM, you wrote:
>>
>>>That's good question - how do post-computer readers
>>>feel about stories written in the pre-computer era?  I
>>>know I find it jarring to read a story where the main
>>>character pulls out a slide rule to make calculations
>>>for his whiz-bang machine.  It seems odd to have a
>>>machine that can do wonderful things, but the data to
>>>run it has to be manually entered.  And I remember
>>>slide calculators!  What if you've never had that
>>>experience of no computers, cell phones, and the like.
>>
>>I read these stories as alternate history.
>
> Even that might not be enough to avoid a choking fit when the Galactic
> Patrol's chief librarian finds all the brilliant scientists in
> Civilization by running their Hollerith cards through a sorter to provide
> Kimball Kinnison with the list of people qualified to work on the
> negasphere.
>
> -- Dick Eney
>    My Inner Child is an honor student at St. Trinian's

I give the Lensman books special consideration; after all, it's pretty
obvious that their universe and our universe have different sets of
physical laws.

I just figure that Mentor and Gharlane didn't want anybody messing with
computers because they couldn't control them.  If something is run
manually, it'll do what they want.  There's one scene where a mentally-
controlled person keeps something from being recorded by simply holding
the pen of a stripchart recorder.  A bit difficult to do with electrons
floating around in a silicon crystal; telekinesis doesn't seem to be
part of the Lensman universe.

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."