Recent content by AndyC

It's very easy to end up running out of fucks to give. When you are, for example, the group whip for a political grouping, who are putting forward a pro-trans-rights motion, and you have to be the one in the middle trying to talk down a bunch of middle-aged women who have swallowed a load of...

And if the pushback is explicitly that it is offensive for you, as a non-LGBT+ person, to write an LGBT+ character, there isn't much actual criticism to get hold of.

Yeah, well, not to put too fine a point on it: I've got enough grief going on right now and I'm juggling enough not to want to kick a hornets nest even with the best of intentions and doing the best I can. I may well change my mind in a while. I think the criticism of someone trying to...

That's not how the character is portrayed in the book. Windy is portrayed sympathetically and well accepted by the other characters. The dilemma David is in is that if he does NOT write LGBT+ characters, he's exacerbating the problem, but when he does, he's told off for it because he's not...

I'm by no means an expert on this sort of thing, but I suppose a bathyscaphe could be possible in the late 19th century? I believe they could build the steel walls well enough, compress air, have batteries, and even refined gasoline if needed.

One of things that causes concern is things like this: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/texas-power-outage-almost-became-weeks-long-catastrophe/ (Admittedly Texas, but they were relying on blackstart that hadn't been tested and turned out to be ineffective)...

I seem to recall a discussion several years back where it was indicated that the intro was added later - McCaffery had started with the aim of a fantasy series, and pulled it into soft sci-fi later on. It was possibly on rec.arts.sf.written, but I can't remember the full details.

You didn't miss much. It's the one that I can't reread. McCaffery was so in love with Masterharper Robinton that it warped the entire book. - Remember that no women were ever Harpers and never had been for time out of mind? Well, Robinton's Mum had been one, and the Mastersinger at that...

The one that most blew out the continuity for me was Masterharper of Pern. Such things as no female harpers and Queen riders, amongst others, were completely changed.

I'm sorry, that's not quite correct. I just checked. It's #3, now. :)

You mention in the article that you never got to experience the frustration the fans did who bought the books as they came out. I came in at Book Two (because it was in the library, I actually read that one first, something I seemed to have a habit of doing because Colchester Library had an...

Aw, shucks.

I’ve read this one as well. Enjoyed it, and agree with pretty much all the points.

Thanks for doing this @Gary Oswald ! Something I should have started back when I was doing it and would have been far easier to do as I went along, so many thanks for doing the hard yards now. (And once again, for taking over the reins and forging on so well)

Essentially, the US Space Race was saved due to the fact that Frank Borman was Genre Savvy.