Mentioned on rasfw

[james_davis_nicoll]

This is Michael McCollum's site. McCollum used to be a Del Rey author in the 1980s and early 1990s. After about 1992, I think, he wasn't with Del Rey any more; a lot of Del Rey authors left Del Rey around that time, some of their own volition [1], others not. I don't know which set he fell into. In any case, he experimented with selling his books online in 1997. His site is still going almost 14 years later; good for him.

John F Carr pointed out a decade ago that some McCollum stories were reminiscent of Larry Niven stories:



The two examples he gave were Antares <-> Mote and Tau Ceti <-> Fourth Profession. McCollum actually discussed the similarities between the Antares books and Mote; let's see if I can find it...

Ah, right: here it is.

This struck me as amusing and the other possibilities I came up with were:

A Greater Infinity (fix up of paratime stories <> Svetz

The guy in AGI has better working conditions.

The Probe Duology <> Protector or perhaps the bit we never saw in Known Space, where the aliens trade us FTL.

Clouds <> ? As far as I recall, Niven never set anything in a gas giant. A classic Niven short story in a gas giant might well have been fun.

Ah! It's _A Gift From Earth_: A human colony with social problems on a largely hostile world receives technology from Earth which has profound implications for them.

Thunderstrike! = Lucifer's Hammer, of course.

Pretty strained analogy in some cases, not nearly as close as the Clarke/Sheffield orbital elevator novels.


1: Often but not always migrating to Tor.

Comments

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

McCollum has some of his books on Amazon's Kindle platform now.

[oh6.livejournal.com]

I guess that, although it's big and mostly gas, the Smoke Ring doesn't really qualify as a gas giant.

Of McCollum's books, I've only read Life Probe, and I would call it a stretch to compare it to Protector. The Probe and Phssthpok are both kind of naïve about what kind of reception awaits them, at least.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

I recall Michael McCollum well (as I once had a step-brother named Michael McCollom, I could hardly forget him); it's nice to hear that he's still writing something.

I wouldn't mind seeing more of his works in the stores now, but if we had an author-prod that would produce novels, we'd be using it on Larry Niven first.

[gohover.livejournal.com]

Here's a Niven, although not a classic Niven, co-authored story set in a gas giant.

Free Floaters by Brenda Cooper and Larry Niven
http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0209/Floaters.shtml

IIRC, this story was intended to be yet another example of Niven being the first to write about a newly discovered astronomical discovery. I'll post a follow-up comment about that if I can find the relevant links.

--
Thanks for this post - I'm looking forward to enjoying McCollum's stories.

[gohover.livejournal.com]

Well, *somewhere*, although I can't find it, Niven discussed what made this story an example of "first SF story to be written about a new discovery." (And similarly, Building Harlequin's Moon was intended to be the first story that discussed a gas giant orbiting extremely closely to its star). Even though I can't find the exact claim Niven is making, I can guess, and then unfairly consider whether the claim is correct - see the SF-related comments here:
http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2007/09/sunless_planets.php

[nyrath.livejournal.com]

As Michael McCollum said, he used the MOTE FTL system because is allows interstellar combat. McCollum is not alone in cribbing from MOTE, there are quite a few novels, boardgames, and computer games that "borrowed" it as well. It is quite effective.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/fasterlight.php#Alderson_Drive