I would love to see Larry Niven’s Known Space stories and novels brought to the screen. Big, sweeping arcs like Ringworld Series, The Fleet of Worlds, or the epic Man-Kzin Wars; or smaller sets like the Gil Hamilton organlegger detective stories, or the individual novels that help flesh out the Known Space Universe: Becalmed in Hell, the Coldest Place, World of Ptaavs, A Gift from Earth, and especially, Protector, and the related Peace Corben novellas. These would probably be best done like The Expanse; a multi-year episodic TV drama.
The biggest problem would be preventing the studio suits from doing a Disney on the stories. I would consider that an Organ-Bank-worthy crime!
Category: Ed Brault
Content of Guest Contributor, “Ed Brault”
Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 03FEB2025 – The Dreaded White Stuff
Good luck with the snow. I grew up on the MA North Shore and then 40 years on the Northern Tier with the Air Force and Army. Heartily agree about freezing rain. We lost power for 27 days in Plattsburgh NY due to an ice storm back in ’98 (Thank Ghu for wood stoves and oil lamps), and saw a lot of VERY slick road and dead-stopped traffic due to iced pavement. Major reason for moving to South Carolina in 2014. And what happens in 2015? The first snow in 40 years, followed by more of the cussed stuff 10 years later! I tell ya I don’t get no respect!
Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 15SEP2024 – Known Space
You might try fitting your story into Larry Niven’s Known-Space/Man-Kzin Wars Universe. Since Niven allowed other writers access to what is now a shared universe, over 15 books of short stories, novelettes, novellas and novels have been written by numerous authors. The Tech timeline goes from 19th Century India, through the age of fusion reaction drives, Bussard Ramjets, and the 3-days per lightyear Hyperdrive. You could set your story in any period along more that 1000 years of technology. The Kzinti Occupation years on Wunderland are ripe for Resistance stories, as are the post-liberation years of political upheaval as surviving working-class colonists try to overthrow the semi-aristocratic Herrenmen who are descended from the original Fifteen Families in the first colony ships, who claimed all the good farmland, industrial concerns, and control of the government.
Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 04APR2024 – The Witch’s Curse
I grew up not too far from Dunwich; Danvers, MA, better known among the arcana-read as the real site of the Salem Witch trials. Back then it was known as Salem Village, while modern Salem was Salem Towne. Growing up I noticed that when a storm was forecast to bring, say nine inches of snow, we got 12. Or a Foot was forecast and we got 18 inches.
I finally had a chance to put this question to no less than Don Kent, meteorologist at WBZ-TV. He looked me in the eye and said “You’re from Danvers aren’t you?” I said yes, and just why is the weather so weird? He answered honestly “We don’t know…BUT…” and then he told me about how, during the Trials, one of the accused witches, on the way to the gallows, laid a curse on the town, that it should always suffer a harder winter than the rest of the county. And this curse WORKED! Even changing the town’s name didn’t help (That’s why the town seal says “Without the King’s Consent”. They did it without the approval of the Colonial Office.)
Best regards to the First Select-Entity. The Eldrich Powers are hard at work in other regions as well.
[Editor’s Note – The First Selectman sends his greetings to his cousins on the shore and hopes they are enjoying the weather they ordered a while back from his cousin. Gurgle, glug, gurgle, gurgle glug glug glug.]
Reply from Tregonsee 314
I live just down the road from Danvers, Close enough that when the leaves are off the trees I can see the remaining building of the Danvers State Hospital (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danvers_State_Hospital )
the alleged inspiration for Lovecraft’s Arkham Asylum (amazingly there are now expensive Condos there, with only the historic main tower remaining as a shared space). Our little town was part of Salem Village but split in the early 18th century from Danvers. We also seem to share in that curse 🙂 . It has to be true Mr. Kent was one of New England’s top meteorologists for most of my life and if that was the explanation he had that is good enough for me, certainly nothing else makes sense,
Reply from photog
Tregonsee. there used to be a similar mental hospital in Worcester.
Likewise it was recently demolished leaving only a replica clocktower to mark its former presence. But when it stood it was an eerie reminder of a different world.
Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 08MAR2024 – Some Kipling
I have eaten your bread and salt. I have drunk your water and wine. The deaths ye died I have watched beside, And the lives ye led were mine. Was there aught that I did not share In vigil or toil or ease - One joy or woe that I did not know, Dear hearts across the seas ? I have written the tale of our life For a sheltered people's mirth, In jesting guise - but ye are wise, And ye know what the jest is worth. -R. Kipling
Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 18FEB2024 – New York Exodus
How many corporations will look at what happened to Trump, and start making HARD decisions about conducting business in New York City or State? Some truckers are already refusing loads for NYC. How many billions would it cost NY if those companies closed their offices and moved their operations to surrounding states like CT, RI, NJ, or PA. The COVID experience with remote office work proved that large corporate administrative centers are not essential to conducting business. The money saved on real estate costs may well counter the cost of server farms and optical fiber networks. Not to mention relieving workers of having to face long commutes or living in outrageously expensive apartments in the city.
In his zeal to “get” Donald Trump, this idiot DA and his megalomaniac judge may have sown the seeds of New York’s final financial ruin. Remember, if they can do this to a financial powerhouse like Donald Trump, who won’t be targeted?
Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 16FEB2024 – Marie Antoinette Vindicata
There is absolutely no historical evidence that Marie-Antoinette ever said “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” or anything like it. So where did the quote come from, and how did it become associated with Marie-Antoinette?
Folklore scholars have found similar tales in other parts of the world, although the details differ from one version to another. In a tale collected in 16th-century Germany, for instance, a noblewoman wonders why the hungry poor don’t simply eat Krosem (a sweet bread). Essentially, stories of rulers or aristocrats oblivious to their privileges are popular and widespread legends.
The first person to put the specific phrase “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” into print may have been the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In Book VI of Rousseau’s Confessions (written about 1767), he relates a version of the story, attributing the quote to “a great princess.” Although Marie-Antoinette was a princess at the time, she was still a child, so it is unlikely that she was the princess Rousseau had in mind.
Since Rousseau’s writings inspired the revolutionaries, it has sometimes been supposed that they picked up on this quote, falsely credited it to Marie-Antoinette, and spread it as propaganda, as a way to rouse opposition to the monarchy. However, contemporary researchers are skeptical of such claims, having found no evidence of the quote in newspapers, pamphlets, and other materials published by the revolutionaries.
Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 17JAN2024 – Vermont Driveway Survival
Before we escaped the Peoples’ Republic of Vermont, I would stretch a poly tarp over my car. This covered the windshield, side windows and the door locks. A couple of bungie cords kept it tight. Come out in the morning, or night, and pop it off and the ice/snow/frost came with it. No scraping, and especially no fumbling trying to get keys into frozen locks. (Yes, this was back in the Ice Age when I was a specialist in stone knives and bearskins.)
Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 24NOV2023 – Photo
OT, but had to post it. A perfect BLACK Friday stocking stuffer from the Great Old One First Select(man?)
Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 20MAY2023 – Gunga Din – A Dramatic Recital