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[james_davis_nicoll]

I was going to put a rant here but I think it would be prudent for me to wait a month until the book that triggered it sees print. Even if I friends-lock it, that doesn't mean the publisher might not get wind of my comments and take offense.

So, to fill the time until then:

Is writing Heinlein young adult novel pastiches primarily a male occupation? I can't off-hand think of a female writer who tried her hand at a Heinlein young adult novel, at least not in the centenary wave of Heinlein pastiches.

[This might be a stupid question but if it is mainly a guy subgenre, why would that be?]

In a unrelated comment, metric _or_ American imitation of Imperial, people. Not both or at least not both in the same sentence.

Comments

[secritcrush.livejournal.com]

tease!

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

On your unrelated comment -- maybe the "American imitation" covers it; but last I looked, highway distances and speed-limits were marked in Imperial in England (and the units involved are the same as the American imitation). So right now, and for at least some time into the future, one could construct a situation where using both systems in a sentence made perfect sense -- particularly sentences involving "miles per liter".

And I find myself using both when writing in LJ and email lists sometimes, knowing people of both flavors will be reading; and a character in a book might possibly get away with that as well (though of course Twain's Dictum applies).

[redbird]

Are actual imperial units verboten, then?

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

What do you mean by a Heinlein YA novel?

[ellarien]

Didn't NASA have a metric/imperial mixing accident with a Mars probe a few years back? (And have you looked at a US food label lately? Grams per "half-cup serving" seem to be standard.)

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Re Heinlein YA: Psion by Joan Vinge could be considered a counter-example. And the latest Vatta series by Elizabeth Moon has a definite Heinlein influence.

But I would agree that there's certainly more Heinlein YA pastiches out there written by male writers.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

A Heinlein young adult novel. The classic examples would be the twelve books that Heinlein wrote for Scribner's between 1947 and 1958.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

This week was the last chapter in the Gimli Glider incident (where an Air Canada jet was forced to glide into Gimli airport because of an Imperial/metric mixup in fueling): the jet was finally decommissioned after a long and subsequently uneventful career.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I've gone back and replaced YA with young adult.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I understood that part. What I meant was "What are the distinguishing characteristics which cause you to count a novel as a Heinlein YA pastiche?".

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Going off-topic, it can be quite dangerous to change speed/distance signage on roads from one unit to another. For example, when switching from mph to km/h for speeds, you'd go from a 60mph limit to a 100km/h limit. Which could have drastic side effects if not everyone got the message. Which is why the UK still specifies imperial units on road signage. (Although we might eventually follow the Irish technique for changing -- which is to switch distances to metric first -- it's less hazardous -- and let people get used to it, before a huge publicity campaign in the run-up to changing speed limits to metric too.)

Yes, but here's a counter-example

[dsrtao]

Connie Willis, _D.A._, Subterranean Press 2007.

It's definitely a Heinlein juvenile, complete with a twist ending that you'll spot from thirty pages out.

[dsrtao]

The protagonist is high-school through college-age, intelligent but without much street-sense and possibly woefully uneducated. The adventure will include a trip to a strange new place, involve making a friend or two and one or more con-jobs perpetrated on the protagonist. There will be some growing-up. Familiar figures include a Fool serving as a bad example, a Rich Brat who may also be the Fool, an older tough who may be a con-man but will certainly have a heart of gold and a willingness to show the new kid the ropes, and one or more antagonistic adults. At least once the protagonist will be lost in a strange environment. For maximum Heinlein points, there should be at least one didactic break in which some engineering or astrogation or similar feat is thoroughly explained. At the end, the protagonist should display new confidence and competence in a concrete manner.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Let's see: set in space (and Earth is almost certainly a bad place), told from the point of view of a single protagonist who is under 30 and probably under 20 and the story will have lots of heavy-handed references to Heinlein to make it as clear as possible to the reader who they are trying to emulate. Oddly, there are elements of the originals nobody seems to have picked up on, like how a number of Heinlein young adult books had the pattern of a protagonist, his best friend and an Other (someone from a non-main stream culture or perhaps an alien) as the core group of characters.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

I'm currently playing an online game where distances are measured in km, speed in kph, acceleration in kph/s, thickness in mm, fuel in l, and weight in lbs. And the values for weight are entirely arbitrary, made up solely for game balance.

[casaubon.livejournal.com]

We still use miles per gallon for mileage, though petrol is sold in litres.

A likely example of mixing systems would be when discussing tax rises after a budget - "2 pence on a pint of beer and a penny on a litre of unleaded..."

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

We managed in Canada, back in the 1970s.

[xinef.livejournal.com]

Canada successfully went through that process years ago. For several years, the speed limit signs had both metric and imperial. Eventually, they phased out the Imperial and signs now only have metric speed limits.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

James, you're Canadian. By now you should be bilingual :-)

[j-larson.livejournal.com]

Having lived in Canada since 1980, I was educated formally only in metric. I can get by in Imperial, but as soon as I get away from the most commonly used units, I'm completely lost. For example, I know my height in feet and inches and my weight in pounds, but I can only guess the number of fluid ounces in a gallon or the number of square feet in an acre.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I can use metric, Imperial or the US system but I am a strict segregationist where measuring systems are concerned [1]. I don't want to have to flip back and forth in my head.

1: Also food, which is why I eat my dinner one item at a time, rather than going back and forth.

[velochicdunord.livejournal.com]

However, all border signs have biiiiiiiiiiiiigggg notices that the 100 posted is _kph_, not mph.

While we have shifted internally, the southern neighbours need to be reminded as they cross.

The very large sign on the Canadian side of the Sault St Marie crossing to the upper Michigan peninsula comes to mind.

[velochicdunord.livejournal.com]

Seconded on all matters.

[velochicdunord.livejournal.com]

Although, I can also switch back and forth between imperial (US) metric, printer's measures and units, and pixels entirely at will, on the fly and at random.

[(Anonymous)]

43,560 square feet in an acre. I know it off the top of my head, because I use it all the time at work. Does the metric system have something analogous to that remarkably useful measure of volume, the acre-foot?

Incidentally, I'm 97% sure that the official proper name for the version of the Imperial system that Americans use is the "U.S. Customary Units" system. There's an Official Government Publication (something about highways, I think) at work that says it's the U.S. Customary Units version. My eye snags on the text on that binder sometimes when I'm changing the paper in the plotter.

--Cally