by Larry Niven
So I made your swimmer a Hawaiian and gave him some trouble with surfer’s ear, sounds go fuzzy and his balance isn’t good. But he wants the job.
Onward…
Larry
Subj: Technique
Date: 12/6/99
Do you know how to do a MERGE FILES?
I haven’t done it. I’ve watched Jerry do it. He generally messes up, curses, talks himself through it until he’s got it. It looks learnable.
I’m asking because I’m tempted to send you my current text. It’s got big block notes in it. But it would be cruel to send this and then make you hold off from working on it.
Anyway…I’m near the beginning. I’ll take a full pass before I do anything. But, hey, Brenda, what is this nonsense about a human colony on a water world? While the Thray are fighting (and killing!) for an iceball? And how does a reluctant swimmer get to be a world’s best diver?
Nah.
Larry
Subj: Re: Technique
Date: 12/8/99
It took me a while to absorb how powerful you’ve made humans. This is something I change almost automatically.
My assumption for this story is: by interstellar law, we hold only the Solar System. We might terraform Mars or Venus without seeking permission, but our ambitions haven’t even reached that far. There’s an interstellar community; we are junior members.
If we made it easy to get the right to terraform a world, even for humans, we lose all of the Thrays’ motive to commit genocide. Why would they bother?
I hope we haven’t been haring off in opposite directions here.
I’ve named the faster-than-light drive the Shift Trick. Implication: humans name it but don’t understand it. A better name might derive from stage magic. Find out if there’s a trade name for making a woman (or tiger) disappear out of a “sealed” box.
I’ve given the Thray ship artificial gravity only on gold-carpeted walkways; no gravity on the survey ship. You want gold carpet, you got it. Have to see if I can make it work. Free fall makes coffee more complicated.
Larry
Subj: Re: Waking Up
Date: 12/8/99
In a message dated 12/8/99 9:27:37 AM Pacific Standard Time,
<
Have a good day.
>>
I remember. Enjoy! This is part of the fun.
It didn’t stop being that addictive. What happened was, I grew aware that if I didn’t bother to go write it down, I’d still remember it. So I stayed in bed/shower/finished the hike/whatever.
LN
Subj: Re: Terraforming
Date: 12/9/99
In a message dated 12/8/99 9:48:57 PM Pacific Standard Time,
<
Book Reviews
by Jeff Foust and Harold Hamblet
“Generation Gap”
Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments
by Martyn J. Fogg
544 pp, illus.
SAE, 1995
ISBN 1-56091-609-5
review by Jeff Foust
>>
I went to the site. The reference is no longer connected. Can you get hold of this? Because I’d better have read it when we start serious work on GENERATION GAP.
Larry
Subj: Re: Terraforming
Date: 12/10/99
I’ve thought of an ending.
But stand by. I think it’ll work, given that I have to get “extreme” with out communications device anyway.
(We have to do that. Otherwise your instinct was dead on: letting these two discover the truth happens just before they get swatted like one-winged files.)
There’s another thing that goes with being a novice. It’s reeeally obvious in “There’s a Wolf in my Time Machine”. A novice will tend to avoid the hard scenes, the confrontations. We try to imply them. Watch out for that.
Larry
LN
Subj: Re: Terraforming
Date: 12/11/99
I’m going with mirrors. The Thray can 1. use them to rewarm the planet too; 2. claim that they brought them in early for that purpose, as opposed to using them to freeze the planet first. Make them half a meter by half a meter, and the numbers become neat. (You need 4(Pi) × 10,000 squared if Althared pulls from 10,000 km. around. That’s 1200 trillion…I think. I’ll look again.)
Larry
Subj: Re: various
Date: 12/13/99
In a message dated 12/13/99 8:45:22 AM Pacific Standard Time,
Title BURNING TOWER noted.
Del Rey retains some of its, well, strange characteristics, but the new editor-in-chief of Ballantine, Greg Tobin, is a level-headed, smart guy who seems to be easing the situation at Del Rey a little. Still, it’s hard to know how much support Bertelsmann is planning to give to the Del Rey operation, other than maintaining Star Wars line. I suggest you go ahead with RINGWORLD’S CHILD. If Del Rey bites, fine. If not, what’s to keep me from taking such a big name as “Ringworld” elsewhere?
Eleanor
What I’ll do, subject to your sanity check.. is work both THE GHOST SHIPS and RINGWORLD’S CHILD into outlines. (Don’t expect these until January.) Give ’em their choice, or sell as a package. What do you think?
LN
Eleanor I do hope those Draco Tavern stories keep coming. It’s hard to imagine Rick getting sloshed on ordinary human booze. On the other hand, it’s easy to imagine him being tempted to try some exotic offworld brew.
I hope so too. Offworld brew: I did that in “The Real Thing”, and that inclines me to try something else. Bad homeworld booze altered by alien tech. A glig’s attempt to make a cordial…with side effects….
Meanwhile, expect a 10,000 word collaboration story shortly “Ice and Mirrors”…and expect a Draco Tavern-ish flavor. I did not link the two universes. I suspected you would not approve…but am I wrong?
(Read it first. If I went this route, it would be set a generation later than the chirps landings. I haven’t raised the subject with Brenda; but she’s read the stories.)
LN
Equally warm regards…and I’ll think of you at 9 PM on the 31st. By the time we have to face Y2K, New York will be three hours into the New Year. We’ll have the news…or a dead TV, lights, power….
Larry
Subj: Intermediate draft
Date: 12/14/99
I’m sending you a printout of what you sent me as “Trine’s Flyers” in early December, which I covered with red pencil marks.
Keep it for reference. Shortly I’ll be sending you what I think is a final draft of “Trine’s Flyers”, possibly renamed. I want you to compare the two. Wherever you don’t see why I made a change, think about it, then ask me.
I did a lot of work on this story. I did it partly so you could see what the process of elaboration and trimming looks like. Future stories, I’ll make you make the changes for as long as I think I can guide you, and then I’ll finish the polish.
It’s windy as hell here. In this area and in this age, only a crazy person would put a fireplace in a house. Crazy Dr. Kane gave us five. The chimneys howl like all the damned in Inferno.
Be well, have fun, stay busy.
Larry Niven
Subj: Re: intermediate draft
Date: 12/14/99
In a message dated 12/14/99 2:53:42 PM Pacific Standard Time, <
Date: 12/14/99 2:53:42 PM Pacific Standard Time
From:
Thanks for the work. I do get it—what your time is worth. Is it more fun, for you to guide and teach or to really write (as in collaboratively or alone—but doing early drafts as well as finishes?). A side thought—do you think we should have someone else who is not one of us read the story when we think it’s done?
B
C
I dunno. When I was a lot younger, I was never (in my own head) more a teacher than a collaborator. I’m used to that—I guess I like it that way—but teaching myself is what I’m doing when I pontificate.
It’s an invitation to catch me in a mistake, or offer me another viewpoint.
Anyway, it always works out as both.
LN
If it’s a helpful trade, I have been working on the outline for GENERATION GAP—will get it to you for feedback soon, if just to tell if I am on a reasonable track and thinking in the right order. Maybe a week or just after Christmas.
BC
Yeah! But, hey, I don’t need a helpful trade. Any story has to be the best it can be, and I’m having fun.
Warning: the ending has changed greatly. Be ready. I couldn’t leave Kimber doing nothing at all, still in denial, and ready to be swatted like a fly. That last leg of the investigation is now a cross-country skiing trip, intended as a distraction to protect Eric.
And—whether it becomes overt; it hasn’t yet—the Thray have real trouble killing face-to-face.
LN
I am looking for places I can be useful to you so you win as much as I do—and I think maybe one of them, besides raw bright beginner enthusiasm, is in technology and understanding that pretty well—seeing how it may affect social choices. I spend a lot of my work day there.
BC
Yeah! As a general thing, my collaborator has usually done the research. (Even the first one. David Gerrold did the research on balloons, and weaving.) I’m delighted you can help with the terraforming research…but I’d sure better read that book. Not for Trine, but for Generation Gap.
LN
I’m in San Francisco today, at a conference on ecommerce and for the Gll awards, then back home tomorrow. Staying at the Westin (on the City) and Christmas shopping at Macy’s after each day’s events. People in Longview will get a kick out of Macy’s stuff even if it is as cheap (I shop sale racks!). Got a great story from the bus driver about Mars. I’ll write and send it along if I get time.
Have a wonderful day.
BC
It’s been good, even though I have a cold coming on. Leah (yoga instructor) took it easy on me. “Warming Trine” (alternate title) runs well. I made red marks all over my printout while Roland Dobbins was fiddling with my computers, and input them today, and kept going.
LN
Speaking of Christmas, I sent you a card. On the shopping end, I’ll love getting you something that says “Larry” loudly—if I find it. But I won’t buy something just for the sake of sending a gift. I have to imagine you have enough general “stuff.” So please feel like I wish you a great Holiday whether any gift arrives.
BC
Okay. Your card in hand; your message received and understood. I haven’t done it yet, but—my gift to you will reflect my missionary urge: It’s a terrific sonic toothbrush.
Larry
Subj: Re: intermediate draft
Date: 12/15/99
In a message dated 12/14/99 11:35:23 PM Pacific Standard Time,
I guess my thought on another reader is just ’cause the nature of the collaboration between us is new and different—sometimes I like a reality check from outside. Your call—I don’t have any risk here.
BC
Okay. I’ll email to Steven as well as you, when it’s ready, which will be in about two hours. I’ve got a cold, but it hasn’t reached my brain yet…I think. So, who besides Steven? Let’s get a sanity check from your circle of writers.
LN
> Yeah! As a general thing, my collaborator has usually done the research.
> (Even the first one. David Gerrold did the research on balloons, and
> weaving.) I’m delighted you can help with the terraforming research…but I’d
> sure better read that book. Not for Trine, but for Generation Gap.
LN
For Generation Gap, I’m sure we’ll need your basic design on terraforming. Partly because you sounded interested in it when we were talking story—which tags something in my barin as at least partly yours. Sort of like you designing the ships—it’s something in your heart. But more importantly, I think you have an intuitive sense of space—things like ships and planets and worlds. I don’t yet. Trine was my first attempt to write about space, and mostly I learned I am really still pretty badly clueless. I might learn that about computer and communications tech too, but I don’t think so—I think I have some intuitive sense of those and we can shine in that area.
BC
Ask Steven about THE DESCENT OF ANANSI. He needed some practice in free fall (that is, watching characters move in his head and writing about it.)
So do you. That in particular is why you need to compare the manuscripts. I don’t think you even wondered if there was gravity in any given scene; no clue unless a character took it into her head to sit down.
LN
Remind me when I or we get an award to shut up fast.
BC
You’ll remember. You’re in politics.
Marilyn got us an artificial tree yesterday, after a lot of shopping. The forgotten top to the damn thing arrived this morning. We haven’t put it up yet. I’m tired of hiring an overpriced hit man to kill a damn tree every year. I have sympathy for the Green cause; I rage against those who espouse the wrong cause through sheer stubborn ignorance.
I’m sucking on a Cold-Eez to kill what’s established a colony in my throat. (Reminds me: I’ve got to get a January Playboy; I hear it’s out.) It’s midmorning and the wind is raging…
LN
Enough prattle. G’night.
BC
G’night.
Larry
Subj: Re: intermediate draft
Date: 12/15/99
File: C:/My Documents/Brenda/Trine.doc (1673728 bytes)
DL Time (32000 bps): < 14 minutes
Fixed (at 10 pm.)
My first draft put Eric and Kimber each in a place where they couldn’t see the action! Duh. I had her getting knocked out; that’s what had to be fixed.
I think this does the job. If you find a show stopper, let me know. If it’s good enough, show it to whomever you like.
And now I can let my cold have its way.
Larry
Subj: Re: intermediate draft
Date: 12/16/99
In a message dated 12/15/99 11:47:24 PM Pacific Standard Time, <
Date: 12/15/99 11:47:24 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: [email protected] (Brenda Cooper)
To: [email protected]
I can tell I’m sleepy—sentences don’t want to end.
Brenda
Yeah, you can judge readability that way. But do it without the red pencil.
LN
Mom says I need a wife, and I agree, except every time I’ve tried a beta male it’s been good for about an hour.
Brenda
Jeez, no! Wrong choice.
LN
Something interesting happened—a woman in the group I met with tonight gave a few thousand dollars to build a concrete walkway between an elementary school and an old folks home so the kids could visit even in the rain and the old folks could get to the school even with walkers and wheelchairs. It built a bridge between generations. I think I have a place for it in the still very very rough plotting of the outline…. Bueno.
Brenda
Sleep good. I hope you feel better. I will think good thoughts about you.
Brenda
Thank you. I’m still joyful…but a cold rarely lets me go until I’ve tasted every symptom.
I’m going to do a writer’s trick: let “Warming Trine” sit for as long as I can stand it, then hit it fresh. That is, I’ll wait for your responses and revisions.
Larry
Subj: Re: intermediate draft
Date: 12/17/99
In a message dated 12/16/99 10:25:10 PM Pacific Standard Time,
<< I do trust you.
<
br /> When Eric goes out to do the pole to pole and see if the CO2 is freezing out what is he supposed to find? That it isn’t?
BC
Infrared will tell him that both poles are warmer than the freezing point of CO2. Maybe we’d better say so: “The poles are too warm.”
LN
I’m not making any big changes—some word choices, a few little things. It’s little enough I can use “Mark Revisions” so you can see them, or I can just do it. Preference?
BC
<< Just make the changes.
LN
Subj: Re: geration gap
Date: 12/19/99
File: C:/My Documents/Brenda/generation gap.doc (158208 bytes) DL Time (32000 bps): < 1 minute
I took a pass through GENERATION GAP.
I like your names. (Might fiddle anyway, somewhere down the line.)
Change: the original plan was to use a different moon. From the colonists’ POV it would still be too close: accidents are likely, and an accident would greatly damage the ecology on Selene.
Regarding Trine…and this may be redundant, but I’m saying it anyway, because you were thinking in terms of a sequel once.
All the changes made were driven by a basic assumption: An alien species found it worthwhile to destroy a sapient race in order to get a terraformable world, and also worthwhile to hide it. Let’s look at some of the fallout:
Something else has to be telling the Thray what to do. Somebody is conspicuously more powerful than a race with that much power!
Hence the need for the Overlords.
Habitable worlds are rare. Even worlds that can be manipulated into shape are scarce.
Hence EITHER Humanity will have no worlds of their own
OR they’ve become too powerful to be interesting. You’d spend all your word length deciding what they had evolved into, then trying to describe it.
Set humans up as judges, you have to protect them somehow. The Thray have powerful motive to swat them. We need reasons why they don’t.
The Thray had better not be instinctive killers! The eyes are a nice touch: they’re herbivores.
Help has to arrive fast, and be seen to arrive.
A hive mentality might well be mute: might communicate with aliens only with difficulty. It’s still a nice touch, in that the Thray can’t expect to argue their way around the evidence.
So, two points:
In any sequel, we’re stuck with all of the previous assumptions. (And if you don’t like them, pick another universe.)
