Destinies, January - February 1979 edited by Jim Baen

[james_davis_nicoll]

Destinies, January - February 1979 edited by Jim Baen

Comments

[james_davis_nicoll]

For some reason, I thought this and not the actual volume one, number one was the first issue.

[(Anonymous)]

"This is an anthology edited by Jim Baen."

[kithrup]

Ha -- "To Be or Not" is a story that pops into my head fairly regularly, but I could never remember author or title.

[theresawright]

"We will never know to what extent he was a paid agent of Moscow, sowing discord in the Soviet Union’s primary enemy."

As recent events have shown, there are more than enough volunteers to make paid agents redundant.

[beamjockey]

The Pohl essay piques my interest, but Worldcat claims-- as if to elaborate on our host's remarks about its out-of-print-ness-- that not a single library anywhere holds this book. Sad.

Abebooks has a copy. Am I eight bucks' worth of interested in what Fred had to say?

[(Anonymous)]

What I find astounding is that the alien on the cover is carrying a naked *man* instead of a woman! That is still almost unheard of today!

Of course, it could be a case of 'no women allowed - even on the cover'.

-Awesome Aud

[ba_munronoe]

I'm not sure if the alien looks regretful or just plain embarrassed.

[james_davis_nicoll]

Bit of both. Their system didn't have failsafes to prevent an O2 breather from teleporting into their chlorine filled ship. On the plus side, they saved the other human once they traced the signal back.

[ckd]

A different search finds three copies in university collections (Eastern New Mexico University, Indiana University, and the University of Pennsylvania). Eight bucks is still cheaper than travel to any of those....

[ba_munronoe]

Eastern New Mexico U has a great collection of science fiction: alas, they don't do interlibrary loans, and although I'm closer than you are, it's still 230 miles from Albuquerque. Where's my teleportation booth [1], darn it!?

[1] _Much_ more convenient than flying cars or jetpacks, although only if they've overcome that little "human fly" issue.

[chrysostom]

That is some logo.

[scott_sanford]

Not to mention profit seeking teenagers.

And yet we keep hearing about paid agents in troll farms. If nothing else it's a very cheap operation by government standards.

[scott_sanford]

A logo should send a message. This one says, "It's 1979 and I own an airbrush!"

[theresawright]

There are professionals. But there are far more authoritarian-wannabe types who are eager to volunteer in the war on everything that makes them vaguely uncomfortable.

[jbwoodford]

It occurred to me that even if you manage to keep flies and other organisms out of the teleportation booth, you're still going to have a huge population of intestinal flora along for the ride. Not looking forward to being a human coliform....

[dagibbs]

Didn't Baen books "go bad" after Jim left/died?

[dwight_benjamin_thieme]

When James expounded on the less-than-desirable consequences of most superpowers recently, I recall thinking that being a teleport would still be a nifty ability. What are the downsides?

[chrysostom]

My understanding is that Baen definitely had preferences in what he liked, but he also had a keen eye for talent, so was willing to buy stuff that wasn't really to his taste. After he died, that part went away.

[keith_morrison]

Yeah, you can tell from the bibliography there was a significant change. The authors that appeared later are, well, pretty much what you'd consider stereotypical Baen authors. Not to say they're all bad by any means or carbon copies, just, well, predictable.

Of course, there's an argument to be made there is success in catering to a specific audience, especially in these days of online sites that suggest authors Y and Z if you liked X. The closer in style to X, the more likely you are to pop up.

[grimjim]

Partial or incomplete teleportation could be upsetting, unless the point is to cause harm. Control over what volume was selected for teleportation seems a vague thing, and possibly not easily learned without some trial and error.

[(Anonymous)]

Sleep walking is bad - but sleep-teleporting could be instantly fatal.

[ba_munronoe]

It's all about sticking the landing - as in "not inside a solid object"

[(Anonymous)]

Yep, have that one. I remember liking the Drake story.

Riderius

[dwight_benjamin_thieme]

But this isn't an intrinsic downside, which is what I was asking for. James pointed out that superspeed necessarily implies a super slowdown from the speedster's perception; that's intrinsic. Similarly, so what if you have super-strength if you don't have the correspondingly fine muscular control? That's intrinsic. Contrariwise, if you want to posit superfine muscular control along with super strength, that's two different superpowers, not one.

So what are the intrinsic downsides of teleportation?