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Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth

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In article <pavqhd$1qtn$1@gioia.aioe.org>,
David Johnston  <davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> wrote:
>This short story is a combination of the Wizard of Oz and Heinlein's 
>Magic Incorporated, a brief look at a world built on the "Sufficiently 
>reliable magic is indistinguishable from technology." lines.  Flying 
>carpets instead of cars, skyscrapers, chemical factories producing magic 
>potions and what have you.  And like Magic Incorporated organized crime 
>has moved in, although unlike Magic Incorporate organized crime won. 
>And unlike Thirteen O'Clock. Magic Incorporated didn't suck so hard it 
>could be used to remove chrome from bumpers.

Have you read Turtledove's _The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump_?
It's alternate-world-just-like-ours-except-with-magic done with
skill and a laudable attention to detail.  There's a whole lot of
Turtledove I can't/won't read, but this is an exception.
>
>Seriously Thirteen O'Clock is awful from the moment the protagonist 
>decides he loves the "witch" he meets based on a minute's acquaintance 
>to the ending where he mutilates her because no self-respecting man can 
>tolerate his wife being more dangerous than he is.  He cuts off her 
>finger to remove her power to blast things and they live happily ever 
>after having left the crapsack magical world not one iota better than 
>when he arrived.  Spare me.

Yes, it sounds awful.  But it was published in 1954 and Kornbluth
died in 1958.  As was said in another context, the past is a
foreign country; they do things differently there.  I lived
through the fifties, and the assumptions about (inter alia)
gender roles were extremely different.

-- 
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

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Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth David Johnston <davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> - 2018-04-15 09:19 -0600
  Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2018-04-15 16:35 +0000
    Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth Carl Fink <carlf@panix.com> - 2018-04-15 20:45 +0000
      Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2018-04-15 15:36 -0600
      Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth Wolffan <akwolffan@gmail.com> - 2018-04-15 17:39 -0400
        Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-04-15 21:43 +0000
        Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2018-04-15 22:33 +0000
        Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> - 2018-04-15 21:43 -0700
    Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth Bill Gill <billnews2@cox.net> - 2018-04-16 08:07 -0500
      Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2018-04-16 13:26 +0000
      Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth nance@math.ohio-state.edu (Anthony Nance) - 2018-04-16 14:47 +0000
        Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2018-04-16 21:59 +0000
          Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-04-16 22:29 +0000
            Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2018-04-16 23:42 +0000
            Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth nance@math.ohio-state.edu (Anthony Nance) - 2018-04-17 14:07 +0000
              Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-04-17 16:07 +0000
  Re: Thirteen O'Clock by Cyril Kornbluth D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-04-16 15:13 +0000

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