Ted Nolan wrote:
Christian Weisgerber wrote:
Paul S Person wrote:
I would advise skipping this book. The subjects are horrible and not >>>>>for the faint at heart or the squeamish. All of the States in the USA >>>>>except Hawaii have worm infestations with worm huts all over the place. >>>>>Various cults of worm worshipers have sprung up of people actually >>>>>living with the worms and feeding their ... to the worms. There is also >>>>>aberrant sex in the book.
Sounds like Gerrold all right. Book 4 didn't, by any chance, come out
after he decided to emulate the later Heinlein, did it?
I've mostly forgotten the details, but I think the books started
to veer off a simple "heroic humans fight evil bugs" template and
the protagonist went through a major self-finding phase.
The sex can't have been all that interesting or I would remember
it. ;-) Some body swapping with the telepathy thing, ending up in
a body of the opposite sex, IIRC?
It would be hard to outdo _The Man Who Folded Himself_.
I found that one ... idiotic. I didn't so much get the feeling that
the main character gradually understood his position as that Gerrold
only figured it out at the end and then decided to pretend that he had
known it all along. Note that this is just my impression; Gerrold
could indeed have had it figured out from the beginning.
From the sex standpoint, both /Jacob/ and /Moonstar Odyssey/
(available as /Moonstar: Jobe, Book One/; there is no Book Two; this
is the first book of a one-book series) rival anything Heinlein did.
Since it wasn't intrinsically interesting, I soon got bored, driving
on only on the chance that something worth reading would eventually
happen. And, in a way, it did. Less so in /Jacob/.
That said, there was a very Heinleinesque feel to the last book I thought, >>though I can recall very little of it now.
While I would certainly buy a new Chtorr book, I would much rather have
a new Steerswoman, an eventuality which seems equally unlikely.
Paul S Person wrote:<snippo: Sex and Time Travel and /The Man Who Folded Himself/>
Idiocy is in the eye of the beholder.Whatever.
Are ALL YOU ZOMBIES and THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF the sole SF self-sex >stories tangled in time travel?I believe the precise answer is -- infinite. Possibly uncountable.
Precedence does not imply provenance.
Self-sex science fiction was first formulated by RAH. He predictably
kept his narrative basic and bare bones by using only four time loop >characters: Jane, the baby, the unmarried mother, and the bartender.
Gerrold embellishes by expanding his ensemble of time loop
characters. Calculating the character count could prove difficult in
the case of THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF.
On Tue, 2 Dec 2025 17:21:08 -0000 (UTC), "Don" <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
Paul S Person wrote:
<snippo: Sex and Time Travel and /The Man Who Folded Himself/>
Idiocy is in the eye of the beholder.
Whatever.
<snippo>
Are ALL YOU ZOMBIES and THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF the sole SF self-sex >stories tangled in time travel?
Precedence does not imply provenance.
Self-sex science fiction was first formulated by RAH. He predictably
kept his narrative basic and bare bones by using only four time loop >characters: Jane, the baby, the unmarried mother, and the bartender.
Gerrold embellishes by expanding his ensemble of time loop
characters. Calculating the character count could prove difficult in
the case of THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF.
I believe the precise answer is -- infinite. Possibly uncountable.
As to "--All You Zombies--", this is a short story, which explains its shortness compared to /The Man Who Folded Himself/, which is a novel.
It was made into the film /Predestination/, which feels like a good
Heinlein story done exactly (I've never read the story so cannot say
how close they are). But, of course, adapting a short story to a film
is likely to follow the original better (unless, of course, the
filmmakers decide to go off in their own direction instead of doing
something so boring as actually telling the same story) than a novel
because there is enough screen time to include most if not all of the
short story.
As to the number of characters, I would say it has essentially /one/. Although other characters exist (most prominently the Agency guy).
That, after all, is the point of the story. Or at least of the film.
Paul S Person wrote:
Don wrote:
Paul S Person wrote:
<snippo: Sex and Time Travel and /The Man Who Folded Himself/>
Idiocy is in the eye of the beholder.
Whatever.
<snippo>
Are ALL YOU ZOMBIES and THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF the sole SF self-sex
stories tangled in time travel?
Precedence does not imply provenance.
Self-sex science fiction was first formulated by RAH. He predictably
kept his narrative basic and bare bones by using only four time loop
characters: Jane, the baby, the unmarried mother, and the bartender.
Gerrold embellishes by expanding his ensemble of time loop
characters. Calculating the character count could prove difficult in
the case of THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF.
I believe the precise answer is -- infinite. Possibly uncountable.
As to "--All You Zombies--", this is a short story, which explains its
shortness compared to /The Man Who Folded Himself/, which is a novel.
It was made into the film /Predestination/, which feels like a good
Heinlein story done exactly (I've never read the story so cannot say
how close they are). But, of course, adapting a short story to a film
is likely to follow the original better (unless, of course, the
filmmakers decide to go off in their own direction instead of doing
something so boring as actually telling the same story) than a novel
short story.
As to the number of characters, I would say it has essentially /one/.
Although other characters exist (most prominently the Agency guy).
That, after all, is the point of the story. Or at least of the film.
Agency guy? IIRC, the story, other than scene extras, had only 1
character (who, because of time travel, shows up twice in many scenes, perhaps even thrice once or twice). So is this Agency guy someone the
script writer added or is it the same character again?
In article <lto0jk54dgjlvumbg6vd4m6dvnhug26kna@4ax.com>,That would be Mr. Robinson. He recruits her for Comfort Girl work in
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
On Tue, 2 Dec 2025 17:21:08 -0000 (UTC), "Don" <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
Paul S Person wrote:
<snippo: Sex and Time Travel and /The Man Who Folded Himself/>
Idiocy is in the eye of the beholder.
Whatever.
<snippo>
Are ALL YOU ZOMBIES and THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF the sole SF self-sex
stories tangled in time travel?
Precedence does not imply provenance.
Self-sex science fiction was first formulated by RAH. He predictably
kept his narrative basic and bare bones by using only four time loop
characters: Jane, the baby, the unmarried mother, and the bartender.
Gerrold embellishes by expanding his ensemble of time loop
characters. Calculating the character count could prove difficult in
the case of THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF.
I believe the precise answer is -- infinite. Possibly uncountable.
As to "--All You Zombies--", this is a short story, which explains its
shortness compared to /The Man Who Folded Himself/, which is a novel.
It was made into the film /Predestination/, which feels like a good
Heinlein story done exactly (I've never read the story so cannot say
how close they are). But, of course, adapting a short story to a film
is likely to follow the original better (unless, of course, the
filmmakers decide to go off in their own direction instead of doing
something so boring as actually telling the same story) than a novel
because there is enough screen time to include most if not all of the
short story.
As to the number of characters, I would say it has essentially /one/.
Although other characters exist (most prominently the Agency guy).
That, after all, is the point of the story. Or at least of the film.
Agency guy? IIRC, the story, other than scene extras, had only 1
character (who, because of time travel, shows up twice in many scenes, >perhaps even thrice once or twice). So is this Agency guy someone the
script writer added or is it the same character again?
Robert Woodward wrote:Since I haven't read the story and since Ethan Hawke's character is
Paul S Person wrote:
Don wrote:
Paul S Person wrote:
<snippo: Sex and Time Travel and /The Man Who Folded Himself/>
Idiocy is in the eye of the beholder.
Whatever.
<snippo>
Are ALL YOU ZOMBIES and THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF the sole SF self-sex >>> >stories tangled in time travel?
Precedence does not imply provenance.
Self-sex science fiction was first formulated by RAH. He predictably
kept his narrative basic and bare bones by using only four time loop
characters: Jane, the baby, the unmarried mother, and the bartender.
Gerrold embellishes by expanding his ensemble of time loop
characters. Calculating the character count could prove difficult in
the case of THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF.
I believe the precise answer is -- infinite. Possibly uncountable.
As to "--All You Zombies--", this is a short story, which explains its
shortness compared to /The Man Who Folded Himself/, which is a novel.
It was made into the film /Predestination/, which feels like a good
Heinlein story done exactly (I've never read the story so cannot say
how close they are). But, of course, adapting a short story to a film
is likely to follow the original better (unless, of course, the
filmmakers decide to go off in their own direction instead of doing
something so boring as actually telling the same story) than a novel
short story.
As to the number of characters, I would say it has essentially /one/.
Although other characters exist (most prominently the Agency guy).
That, after all, is the point of the story. Or at least of the film.
Agency guy? IIRC, the story, other than scene extras, had only 1
character (who, because of time travel, shows up twice in many scenes,
perhaps even thrice once or twice). So is this Agency guy someone the
script writer added or is it the same character again?
Good question. Allow me to clear up character count confusion.
My "time loop character" is separate and distinct from the narrative's
one character. Each independent idiosyncratic identity instantiation
(eg Jane, the baby, the unmarried mother, and the bartender) of the one >narrative character counts as one "time loop character."
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