What Books Should Be Made Into Movies?

 

At the suggestion of @robtgilsdorf I am moving this from the Ricochet Film Society group to the main feed to see if more people are interested.

I was reading a post about the best western films since 2000 and it got me to thinking, as I was writing my response promoting Elmer Kelton, that there are a ton of great books that need to be made into amazing movies.

For example, it would be amazing if Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers was made into a movie that actually bore a passing resemblance to his work. I would love to see The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as a movie as well. I heard it was a project that would be called Uprising, Brian Singer was associated with it, and I am not sure how I feel about that.

I would love to see The Dragonriders of Pern made into a film. I doubt that it would survive contact with Hollywood though and the perceived misogyny would make them want to change it entirely. I doubt they could stomach the all-male dragonrider corps, though they might very much like the homosexual nature of the draconic matings that ensues.

I would also like to see John Ringo’s Legacy of the Aldenata books made into a series of films, at least the first four would be awesome.

What are your thoughts?

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  1. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Also, Clarke’s line is about how any sufficiently-advanced technology would APPEAR TO BE magic.

    Not that it IS magic.

    Just that it APPEARS TO BE magic.

    Even if we don’t currently know how to make them, stepping discs are not magic.

    Jaunting would be. Because there’s deliberately no technology behind it.

    So to sum up…since it is portrayed as an innate ability of humans as opposed to a technological device you call it magic and thus it is fantasy. So, I take it you don’t watch any superhero movies either?

    Pretty much.  But it’s not quite as simple as you might be claiming.  Vision can be an innate ability of humans since it doesn’t require “1.21 gigawatts” passing through the body to do it.  How would you explain the production and expenditure of energy required to “jaunt” a person 1000 miles, let alone light-years, without destroying the body?  Just claiming it’s “innate” is useless if you can’t even begin to explain HOW.

    • #271
  2. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    It’s fantasy. Or science fantasy. Your demand that it all make perfect scientific sense is about as reasonable as requiring that a symphony be blue or a painting be in the chromatic scale. If you don’t like fantasy, fine. But don’t demand something that is not part of that genre.

    I don’t demand things be written certain ways, and I don’t think fantasy should be banned. But it bugs me when some people claim stuff like “Stars My Destination” is sci-fi when it clearly isn’t. With stuff like “jaunting” it can only be faaantasy, not even “speculative fiction.”

    You’ll have to take up your complaint with a very large number of science fiction writers and editors and critics.

    I’ve never had a problem with being the only person who’s right about something.

    One reason that I like you so much!

    Good.  If “majority rule” doesn’t work for “climate change,” why should it work for defining “sci-fi?”

    • #272
  3. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    It’s the Sayre’s Law thread!

    • #273
  4. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    kedavis (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Also, Clarke’s line is about how any sufficiently-advanced technology would APPEAR TO BE magic.

    Not that it IS magic.

    Just that it APPEARS TO BE magic.

    Even if we don’t currently know how to make them, stepping discs are not magic.

    Jaunting would be. Because there’s deliberately no technology behind it.

    So to sum up…since it is portrayed as an innate ability of humans as opposed to a technological device you call it magic and thus it is fantasy. So, I take it you don’t watch any superhero movies either?

    Pretty much. But it’s not quite as simple as you might be claiming. Vision can be an innate ability of humans since it doesn’t require “1.21 gigawatts” passing through the body to do it. How would you explain the production and expenditure of energy required to “jaunt” a person 1000 miles, let alone light-years, without destroying the body? Just claiming it’s “innate” is useless if you can’t even begin to explain HOW.

    First explain how memory works.  

    • #274
  5. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    It’s fantasy. Or science fantasy. Your demand that it all make perfect scientific sense is about as reasonable as requiring that a symphony be blue or a painting be in the chromatic scale. If you don’t like fantasy, fine. But don’t demand something that is not part of that genre.

    I don’t demand things be written certain ways, and I don’t think fantasy should be banned. But it bugs me when some people claim stuff like “Stars My Destination” is sci-fi when it clearly isn’t. With stuff like “jaunting” it can only be faaantasy, not even “speculative fiction.”

    You’ll have to take up your complaint with a very large number of science fiction writers and editors and critics.

    I’ve never had a problem with being the only person who’s right about something.

    One reason that I like you so much!

    That usually just means that you’re the last person to realize he was wrong. 

    • #275
  6. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Django (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    It’s fantasy. Or science fantasy. Your demand that it all make perfect scientific sense is about as reasonable as requiring that a symphony be blue or a painting be in the chromatic scale. If you don’t like fantasy, fine. But don’t demand something that is not part of that genre.

    I don’t demand things be written certain ways, and I don’t think fantasy should be banned. But it bugs me when some people claim stuff like “Stars My Destination” is sci-fi when it clearly isn’t. With stuff like “jaunting” it can only be faaantasy, not even “speculative fiction.”

    You’ll have to take up your complaint with a very large number of science fiction writers and editors and critics.

    I’ve never had a problem with being the only person who’s right about something.

    One reason that I like you so much!

    That usually just means that you’re the last person to realize he was wrong.

    Except that citing “majority opinion” doesn’t prove that I’m wrong.

    • #276
  7. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Django (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    It’s fantasy. Or science fantasy. Your demand that it all make perfect scientific sense is about as reasonable as requiring that a symphony be blue or a painting be in the chromatic scale. If you don’t like fantasy, fine. But don’t demand something that is not part of that genre.

    I don’t demand things be written certain ways, and I don’t think fantasy should be banned. But it bugs me when some people claim stuff like “Stars My Destination” is sci-fi when it clearly isn’t. With stuff like “jaunting” it can only be faaantasy, not even “speculative fiction.”

    You’ll have to take up your complaint with a very large number of science fiction writers and editors and critics.

    I’ve never had a problem with being the only person who’s right about something.

    One reason that I like you so much!

    That usually just means that you’re the last person to realize he was wrong.

    Except that citing “majority opinion” doesn’t prove that I’m wrong.

    True statement. 

    • #277
  8. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    • #278
  9. David C. Broussard Coolidge
    David C. Broussard
    @Dbroussa

    kedavis (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    It’s fantasy. Or science fantasy. Your demand that it all make perfect scientific sense is about as reasonable as requiring that a symphony be blue or a painting be in the chromatic scale. If you don’t like fantasy, fine. But don’t demand something that is not part of that genre.

    I don’t demand things be written certain ways, and I don’t think fantasy should be banned. But it bugs me when some people claim stuff like “Stars My Destination” is sci-fi when it clearly isn’t. With stuff like “jaunting” it can only be faaantasy, not even “speculative fiction.”

    You’ll have to take up your complaint with a very large number of science fiction writers and editors and critics.

    I’ve never had a problem with being the only person who’s right about something.

    One reason that I like you so much!

    Good. If “majority rule” doesn’t work for “climate change,” why should it work for defining “sci-fi?”

    Well, there isn’t a need really. I can enjoy Andy Weir’s The Martian and Looper or Jumper, or the MCU. Plenty of stuff out there to watch and read.

    But, i’d love to see Girl Genius made into an animated series.

    • #279
  10. David C. Broussard Coolidge
    David C. Broussard
    @Dbroussa

    kedavis (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Also, Clarke’s line is about how any sufficiently-advanced technology would APPEAR TO BE magic.

    Not that it IS magic.

    Just that it APPEARS TO BE magic.

    Even if we don’t currently know how to make them, stepping discs are not magic.

    Jaunting would be. Because there’s deliberately no technology behind it.

    So to sum up…since it is portrayed as an innate ability of humans as opposed to a technological device you call it magic and thus it is fantasy. So, I take it you don’t watch any superhero movies either?

    Pretty much. But it’s not quite as simple as you might be claiming. Vision can be an innate ability of humans since it doesn’t require “1.21 gigawatts” passing through the body to do it. How would you explain the production and expenditure of energy required to “jaunt” a person 1000 miles, let alone light-years, without destroying the body? Just claiming it’s “innate” is useless if you can’t even begin to explain HOW.

    Well, since such felelortstiin would almost certainly be a dimensional shift, then bleeding off excess energy would likely happen between the dimensions. Similar to how a hyperspace insertion would involve similar conservation of energy issues. I’ve played Traveller since the early 80s and they use a Jump drove as their FTL. 168 hours in jumpspace and you travel 1-6 parsecs. But reals pace momentum is conserved so if you enter going 1000 m/s on a vector that same vector exists when you exit jump space. Alas, it handwaves over the difference in relative velocities of the two stars and the planets themselves when you exit jump. The cannon explanation is that it’s bled off when you pass between the normal space dimensions and jump space and in some versions this can be seen as a “jump flash” entering and exiting jump.

    Personal, biological teleportation would make sense of with a similar explanation. Now, how a human body could exploit that dimensional shift ist explainable using current science, but then again neither are Jump drives, or hyperspace, or most warp drives, or even wormhole transits. 

    • #280
  11. David C. Broussard Coolidge
    David C. Broussard
    @Dbroussa

    Django (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    It’s fantasy. Or science fantasy. Your demand that it all make perfect scientific sense is about as reasonable as requiring that a symphony be blue or a painting be in the chromatic scale. If you don’t like fantasy, fine. But don’t demand something that is not part of that genre.

    I don’t demand things be written certain ways, and I don’t think fantasy should be banned. But it bugs me when some people claim stuff like “Stars My Destination” is sci-fi when it clearly isn’t. With stuff like “jaunting” it can only be faaantasy, not even “speculative fiction.”

    You’ll have to take up your complaint with a very large number of science fiction writers and editors and critics.

    I’ve never had a problem with being the only person who’s right about something.

    One reason that I like you so much!

    That usually just means that you’re the last person to realize he was wrong.

    LOL, or I’m OK with others wanting anything not explainable with current science or tech being called science fantasy, or space opera, or just fantasy. I may not agree with them, but  I’m OK with their opinion being “wrong”. 

    • #281
  12. David C. Broussard Coolidge
    David C. Broussard
    @Dbroussa

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Django (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    It’s fantasy. Or science fantasy. Your demand that it all make perfect scientific sense is about as reasonable as requiring that a symphony be blue or a painting be in the chromatic scale. If you don’t like fantasy, fine. But don’t demand something that is not part of that genre.

    I don’t demand things be written certain ways, and I don’t think fantasy should be banned. But it bugs me when some people claim stuff like “Stars My Destination” is sci-fi when it clearly isn’t. With stuff like “jaunting” it can only be faaantasy, not even “speculative fiction.”

    You’ll have to take up your complaint with a very large number of science fiction writers and editors and critics.

    I’ve never had a problem with being the only person who’s right about something.

    One reason that I like you so much!

    That usually just means that you’re the last person to realize he was wrong.

    Except that citing “majority opinion” doesn’t prove that I’m wrong.

    Well, I’m OK with your opinion on the issue, though my wife (Masters in English Lit and Fantasy writer) commented that your definition is not the definition of the literary community. Not making an appeal to authority here, but just illustrating that the people who make a living of this have made a definition. 

    • #282
  13. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Paul Stinchfield (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    It’s fantasy. Or science fantasy. Your demand that it all make perfect scientific sense is about as reasonable as requiring that a symphony be blue or a painting be in the chromatic scale. If you don’t like fantasy, fine. But don’t demand something that is not part of that genre.

    I don’t demand things be written certain ways, and I don’t think fantasy should be banned. But it bugs me when some people claim stuff like “Stars My Destination” is sci-fi when it clearly isn’t. With stuff like “jaunting” it can only be faaantasy, not even “speculative fiction.”

    You’ll have to take up your complaint with a very large number of science fiction writers and editors and critics.

    I’ve never had a problem with being the only person who’s right about something.

    One reason that I like you so much!

    Good. If “majority rule” doesn’t work for “climate change,” why should it work for defining “sci-fi?”

    Well, there isn’t a need really. I can enjoy Andy Weir’s The Martian and Looper or Jumper, or the MCU. Plenty of stuff out there to watch and read.

    But, i’d love to see Girl Genius made into an animated series.

    SOOO many technical errors in “The Martian,” possibly more in the movie than the book which I never read.  imdb has a long list, saves me the trouble of typing them here.  Among others, I knew from reading “Marooned” (the original 1964 novel by Martin Caidin who also originated The Six Million Dollar Man) that he couldn’t use hydrazine that way.

     

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/goofs/

    • #283
  14. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Also, Clarke’s line is about how any sufficiently-advanced technology would APPEAR TO BE magic.

    Not that it IS magic.

    Just that it APPEARS TO BE magic.

    Even if we don’t currently know how to make them, stepping discs are not magic.

    Jaunting would be. Because there’s deliberately no technology behind it.

    So to sum up…since it is portrayed as an innate ability of humans as opposed to a technological device you call it magic and thus it is fantasy. So, I take it you don’t watch any superhero movies either?

    Pretty much. But it’s not quite as simple as you might be claiming. Vision can be an innate ability of humans since it doesn’t require “1.21 gigawatts” passing through the body to do it. How would you explain the production and expenditure of energy required to “jaunt” a person 1000 miles, let alone light-years, without destroying the body? Just claiming it’s “innate” is useless if you can’t even begin to explain HOW.

    Well, since such felelortstiin would almost certainly be a dimensional shift, then bleeding off excess energy would likely happen between the dimensions. Similar to how a hyperspace insertion would involve similar conservation of energy issues. I’ve played Traveller since the early 80s and they use a Jump drove as their FTL. 168 hours in jumpspace and you travel 1-6 parsecs. But reals pace momentum is conserved so if you enter going 1000 m/s on a vector that same vector exists when you exit jump space. Alas, it handwaves over the difference in relative velocities of the two stars and the planets themselves when you exit jump. The cannon explanation is that it’s bled off when you pass between the normal space dimensions and jump space and in some versions this can be seen as a “jump flash” entering and exiting jump.

    Personal, biological teleportation would make sense of with a similar explanation. Now, how a human body could exploit that dimensional shift ist explainable using current science, but then again neither are Jump drives, or hyperspace, or most warp drives, or even wormhole transits.

    Well, that sounds like hand-waving to me.  Where does the energy go, or more importantly COME FROM if ACCELERATION is required, rather than only deceleration?  (And indeed, in terms of energy/physics, “deceleration” is really “acceleration” in a different direction…)

    Also, I checked to make sure and, other than perhaps some exceptions that weren’t caught in editing, the stepping discs and jump-shift technology used by Niven is only speed-of-light.  Which means that taking a stepping-disc from Earth to Alpha Centauri, if it were even possible given that technology, would still take 4 years from departure to arrival.

    • #284
  15. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    As far as I can tell, “speculative fiction” is a different animal too. “Speculative fiction” could include things like “what if the Nazis won WW II” etc which wouldn’t begin to approach “science fiction.”

    That would be grouped into what is termed Alternate History, the first story of that is said to be Philip K Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, which Amazon turned into a series that bore more than a passing resemblance to the book, but was also quite different. One of my favorites is Harry Turtledove’s alternate history where Lee won at Sharpsburg and, defeating the Union Army in detail was able to occupy DC. The French and English forces Lincoln to make peace. He picks up the story in the 1880 with the Second Civil War, and then writes nine books that track WWI, the interphase, and WWII. Fascinating stories, but he adheres to the basics of alt history, single event change, and the same themes tend to resurface.

     

    What category would you put Turtledoves “The guns of the south”, where South Africans time travel and give Lee AK-47s?

    Time travel stories tend to be alt history as well. S. M. Stirling is another great alt-history writer and two of his series fix upon a single event, the Island of Nantucket going to ~1200 BC. One series is from the aspect of the Islanders, and the other is from the aspect of the people in the current time (where all technology and explosives stop working). One is alt-history (the first), the second is post-apocalyptic.

    Guns of the South would be alt-history, much like Eric Flint’s 1632 series where a West Virginia town ends up in Thuringia in the middle of the Thirty Years War.

    About 30 years before Philip K. Dick’s novel, The Man in the High Castle, a washed-up politician named Winston Churchill contributed an essay to a 1931 collection, in which a historian from an alternate world speculates how history might have gone if Lee had not won at Gettysburg.  Dick using the same device in his novel was probably a homage.

    Dick may also have been influenced by Ward Moore’s 1953 novel, Bring the Jubilee, set in the world that resulted from Lee’s victory at Gettysburg.

    Finally, Harry Turtledove has credited his career as a writer of alternate history to one book, L. Sprague de Camp’s classic, Lest Darkness Fall (1939), about an accidental time traveler in early 6th century Rome who decides to try to prevent the Dark Ages.

    • #285
  16. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    kedavis (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    David C. Broussard (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Also, Clarke’s line is about how any sufficiently-advanced technology would APPEAR TO BE magic.

    Not that it IS magic.

    Just that it APPEARS TO BE magic.

    Even if we don’t currently know how to make them, stepping discs are not magic.

    Jaunting would be. Because there’s deliberately no technology behind it.

    So to sum up…since it is portrayed as an innate ability of humans as opposed to a technological device you call it magic and thus it is fantasy. So, I take it you don’t watch any superhero movies either?

    Pretty much. But it’s not quite as simple as you might be claiming. Vision can be an innate ability of humans since it doesn’t require “1.21 gigawatts” passing through the body to do it. How would you explain the production and expenditure of energy required to “jaunt” a person 1000 miles, let alone light-years, without destroying the body? Just claiming it’s “innate” is useless if you can’t even begin to explain HOW.

    Well, since such felelortstiin would almost certainly be a dimensional shift, then bleeding off excess energy would likely happen between the dimensions. Similar to how a hyperspace insertion would involve similar conservation of energy issues. I’ve played Traveller since the early 80s and they use a Jump drove as their FTL. 168 hours in jumpspace and you travel 1-6 parsecs. But reals pace momentum is conserved so if you enter going 1000 m/s on a vector that same vector exists when you exit jump space. Alas, it handwaves over the difference in relative velocities of the two stars and the planets themselves when you exit jump. The cannon explanation is that it’s bled off when you pass between the normal space dimensions and jump space and in some versions this can be seen as a “jump flash” entering and exiting jump.

    Personal, biological teleportation would make sense of with a similar explanation. Now, how a human body could exploit that dimensional shift ist explainable using current science, but then again neither are Jump drives, or hyperspace, or most warp drives, or even wormhole transits.

    Well, that sounds like hand-waving to me. Where does the energy go, or more importantly COME FROM if ACCELERATION is required, rather than only deceleration? (And indeed, in terms of energy/physics, “deceleration” is really “acceleration” in a different direction…)

    Also, I checked to make sure and, other than perhaps some exceptions that weren’t caught in editing, the stepping discs and jump-shift technology used by Niven is only speed-of-light. Which means that taking a stepping-disc from Earth to Alpha Centauri, if it were even possible given that technology, would still take 4 years from departure to arrival.

    Or as much as 7 years depending on traffic. 

    • #286
  17. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Taras (View Comment):
    Finally, Harry Turtledove has credited his career as a writer of alternate history to one book, L. Sprague de Camp’s classic, Lest Darkness Fall (1939), about an accidental time traveler in early 6th century Rome who decides to try to prevent the Dark Ages.

    The Dark Ages mean that they are dark to us, not necessarily to the people who lived through them. Recent archaeology in Tintagel, Cornwall indicates that Tintagel was in contact with the Mediterranean trade network all the way through the period of 400-600 AD. The archaeologists have found “buckets” of pottery sherds from as far away as Greece and Anatolia. There was a tin mine near Tintagel – one of three in western Europe. Further work seems to indicate that the Anglo-Saxons weren’t invaders, they were immigrants who mixed with the existing population. Maybe they were refugees.

    • #287
  18. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    Percival (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):
    Finally, Harry Turtledove has credited his career as a writer of alternate history to one book, L. Sprague de Camp’s classic, Lest Darkness Fall (1939), about an accidental time traveler in early 6th century Rome who decides to try to prevent the Dark Ages.

    The Dark Ages mean that they are dark to us, not necessarily to the people who lived through them. Recent archaeology in Tintagel, Cornwall indicates that Tintagel was in contact with the Mediterranean trade network all the way through the period of 400-600 AD. The archaeologists have found “buckets” of pottery sherds from as far away as Greece and Anatolia. There was a tin mine near Tintagel – one of three in western Europe. Further work seems to indicate that the Anglo-Saxons weren’t invaders, they were immigrants who mixed with the existing population. Maybe they were refugees.

    Or perhaps “invaders … who mixed with the existing population”.  I recall that in The Age of Arthur: A History of the British Isles from 350 to 650 (1973), John Morris found evidence that Britons and Saxons in Rome, though they were all Christians there, were on unfriendly terms in the generations after the invasion.

    The Celtic population of Brittany is generally held to consist, in large measure, of refugees from the Saxon invasion of Britain.  Indeed, these refugees gave the region its name.

    However, the “dark age” that the protagonist of Lest Darkness Fall is worried about is that the Eastern Roman empire is about to devastate Italy in an ultimately futile effort to reconquer it.

    • #288
  19. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Taras (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):
    Finally, Harry Turtledove has credited his career as a writer of alternate history to one book, L. Sprague de Camp’s classic, Lest Darkness Fall (1939), about an accidental time traveler in early 6th century Rome who decides to try to prevent the Dark Ages.

    The Dark Ages mean that they are dark to us, not necessarily to the people who lived through them. Recent archaeology in Tintagel, Cornwall indicates that Tintagel was in contact with the Mediterranean trade network all the way through the period of 400-600 AD. The archaeologists have found “buckets” of pottery sherds from as far away as Greece and Anatolia. There was a tin mine near Tintagel – one of three in western Europe. Further work seems to indicate that the Anglo-Saxons weren’t invaders, they were immigrants who mixed with the existing population. Maybe they were refugees.

    Or perhaps “invaders … who mixed with the existing population”. I recall that in The Age of Arthur: A History of the British Isles from 350 to 650 (1973), John Morris found evidence that Britons and Saxons in Rome, though they were all Christians there, were on unfriendly terms in the generations after the invasion.

    The Celtic population of Brittany is generally held to consist, in large measure, of refugees from the Saxon invasion of Britain. Indeed, these refugees gave the region its name.

    However, the “dark age” that the protagonist of Lest Darkness Fall is worried about is that the Eastern Roman empire is about to devastate Italy in an ultimately futile effort to reconquer it.

    Maybe. I saw a documentary on PBS last night.

    Ancient Briton and Anglo-Saxon graves don’t show many war wound victims on either side, and indications of a lot of cultural interchange (ancient Briton enamel on Saxon-styled jewelry pieces, for example).

    I suppose they fought. I suppose everyone did, from time to time. But it might not have been the Armageddon we imagine.

    • #289
  20. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Percival (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):
    Finally, Harry Turtledove has credited his career as a writer of alternate history to one book, L. Sprague de Camp’s classic, Lest Darkness Fall (1939), about an accidental time traveler in early 6th century Rome who decides to try to prevent the Dark Ages.

    The Dark Ages mean that they are dark to us, not necessarily to the people who lived through them. Recent archaeology in Tintagel, Cornwall indicates that Tintagel was in contact with the Mediterranean trade network all the way through the period of 400-600 AD. The archaeologists have found “buckets” of pottery sherds from as far away as Greece and Anatolia. There was a tin mine near Tintagel – one of three in western Europe. Further work seems to indicate that the Anglo-Saxons weren’t invaders, they were immigrants who mixed with the existing population. Maybe they were refugees.

    Or perhaps “invaders … who mixed with the existing population”. I recall that in The Age of Arthur: A History of the British Isles from 350 to 650 (1973), John Morris found evidence that Britons and Saxons in Rome, though they were all Christians there, were on unfriendly terms in the generations after the invasion.

    The Celtic population of Brittany is generally held to consist, in large measure, of refugees from the Saxon invasion of Britain. Indeed, these refugees gave the region its name.

    However, the “dark age” that the protagonist of Lest Darkness Fall is worried about is that the Eastern Roman empire is about to devastate Italy in an ultimately futile effort to reconquer it.

    Maybe. I saw a documentary on PBS last night.

    Ancient Briton and Anglo-Saxon graves don’t show many war wound victims on either side, and indications of a lot of cultural interchange (ancient Briton enamel on Saxon-styled jewelry pieces, for example).

    I suppose they fought. I suppose everyone did, from time to time. But it might not have been the Armageddon we imagine.

    Amerind tribes fought plenty but not, generally, to the others’ elimination. 

    A lot of tribes tend to be portable which tends to limit them to raids rather than battles. So more like animals driving other animals away from their kills than city-states claiming a territory. 

    tl;dr Not that surprised that scholars might have been seduced by presentism. 

    • #290
  21. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    TBA (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):
    Finally, Harry Turtledove has credited his career as a writer of alternate history to one book, L. Sprague de Camp’s classic, Lest Darkness Fall (1939), about an accidental time traveler in early 6th century Rome who decides to try to prevent the Dark Ages.

    The Dark Ages mean that they are dark to us, not necessarily to the people who lived through them. Recent archaeology in Tintagel, Cornwall indicates that Tintagel was in contact with the Mediterranean trade network all the way through the period of 400-600 AD. The archaeologists have found “buckets” of pottery sherds from as far away as Greece and Anatolia. There was a tin mine near Tintagel – one of three in western Europe. Further work seems to indicate that the Anglo-Saxons weren’t invaders, they were immigrants who mixed with the existing population. Maybe they were refugees.

    Or perhaps “invaders … who mixed with the existing population”. I recall that in The Age of Arthur: A History of the British Isles from 350 to 650 (1973), John Morris found evidence that Britons and Saxons in Rome, though they were all Christians there, were on unfriendly terms in the generations after the invasion.

    The Celtic population of Brittany is generally held to consist, in large measure, of refugees from the Saxon invasion of Britain. Indeed, these refugees gave the region its name.

    However, the “dark age” that the protagonist of Lest Darkness Fall is worried about is that the Eastern Roman empire is about to devastate Italy in an ultimately futile effort to reconquer it.

    Maybe. I saw a documentary on PBS last night.

    Ancient Briton and Anglo-Saxon graves don’t show many war wound victims on either side, and indications of a lot of cultural interchange (ancient Briton enamel on Saxon-styled jewelry pieces, for example).

    I suppose they fought. I suppose everyone did, from time to time. But it might not have been the Armageddon we imagine.

    Amerind tribes fought plenty but not, generally, to the others’ elimination.

    A lot of tribes tend to be portable which tends to limit them to raids rather than battles. So more like animals driving other animals away from their kills than city-states claiming a territory.

    tl;dr Not that surprised that scholars might have been seduced by presentism.

    The Sioux famously waged a war of extermination against the Pawnee (featured in the film, The Revenant).  We might not know the Pawnee ever existed except that the Long Knives showed up and built forts, near which the Pawnee could take shelter.  

    Similarly, the Comanche tried to exterminate the Tonkawa — they affected to disapprove of their habit of eating slain enemies — and (according to Larry McMurtry) the Kickapoo.

    Prior to their conversion to Christianity, Native Americans had no ethical system that would prevent them from exterminating enemy tribes, or from torturing enemies to death, and gang raping and enslaving their women.

    • #291
  22. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    Percival (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Taras (View Comment):
    Finally, Harry Turtledove has credited his career as a writer of alternate history to one book, L. Sprague de Camp’s classic, Lest Darkness Fall (1939), about an accidental time traveler in early 6th century Rome who decides to try to prevent the Dark Ages.

    The Dark Ages mean that they are dark to us, not necessarily to the people who lived through them. Recent archaeology in Tintagel, Cornwall indicates that Tintagel was in contact with the Mediterranean trade network all the way through the period of 400-600 AD. The archaeologists have found “buckets” of pottery sherds from as far away as Greece and Anatolia. There was a tin mine near Tintagel – one of three in western Europe. Further work seems to indicate that the Anglo-Saxons weren’t invaders, they were immigrants who mixed with the existing population. Maybe they were refugees.

    Or perhaps “invaders … who mixed with the existing population”. I recall that in The Age of Arthur: A History of the British Isles from 350 to 650 (1973), John Morris found evidence that Britons and Saxons in Rome, though they were all Christians there, were on unfriendly terms in the generations after the invasion.

    The Celtic population of Brittany is generally held to consist, in large measure, of refugees from the Saxon invasion of Britain. Indeed, these refugees gave the region its name.

    However, the “dark age” that the protagonist of Lest Darkness Fall is worried about is that the Eastern Roman empire is about to devastate Italy in an ultimately futile effort to reconquer it.

    Maybe. I saw a documentary on PBS last night.

    Ancient Briton and Anglo-Saxon graves don’t show many war wound victims on either side, and indications of a lot of cultural interchange (ancient Briton enamel on Saxon-styled jewelry pieces, for example).

    I suppose they fought. I suppose everyone did, from time to time. But it might not have been the Armageddon we imagine.

    The military forces involved will have been tiny by our standards, and anyway we don’t know where even the most famous battle of the war, Badon Hill (Mons Badonicus), took place.  (Probably somewhere near Bath.)

    John Morris discusses how Celtic burials were replaced by Saxon ones, in waves as the Saxon advance stalled, then surged; and how buried coin hoards of the correct period demarcate the struggle.  Ominously, the owners never came back to dig up their treasures.

    • #292
  23. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Taras (View Comment):
    Prior to their conversion to Christianity, Native Americans had no ethical system that would prevent them from exterminating enemy tribes, or from torturing enemies to death, and gang raping and enslaving their women.

    The Hopi did. 

    • #293
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