

  Annotations and references in DKM's writings
  



From: Daniel Keys Moran

"Obscure references" ... <G> Lessee. This is off the top of my head.


 The "SpaceFarer's Collective" -- internal documents used by
  SpaceFarers refer to it as the "SF Collective." All SpaceFarer ships
  are the names of characters from other SF novels; but you knew that.

 "Charles Eddore" -- Gharlane of Eddore, from E.E. "Doc" Smith's
  Lensman novels...

 "Beth Davenport," Trent's lawyer in "Long Run." Beth Davenport was
  James Rockford's lawyer in "The Rockford Files."

 "The Dauntless," name of the first starship to leave Sol System; also
  name of Kimball Kinnison's spaceship in the Lensman novels....

 Use of "slithy" as a swear word. A semi-major alien race in the later
  novels are the !tove! ... the exclamation points stand for a glottal
  click humans have difficulty with. In one of the later books one
  character will start to swear at a !tove! -- "You slithy--" and get
  cut off. (Isn't this an awful lot of effort to go to for one lousy
  joke? We at Continuing Time Enterprises, Inc., are committed to
  quality control....)

 113102-KMET ... Ralf the Wise and Powerful's phone number. "KMET" was
  one of the all-time great rock and roll radio stations; its corporate
  pig owners turned it into a station playing Yanni & such about four or
  five years ago.

 "Angel de Luz," who appears in "The AI War," is based on an old
  girlfriend, Angel Greenwood. Angel & I parted on good terms; I have
  her permission to do this character. Angel was one of the two female
  motorcycle couriers in the history of the city of L.A.

 "Terry Shawmac." Terry Shawmac is, of course, Hunter S. Thompson with
  the serial numbers rubbed off, and a little Harlan Ellison/David
  Gerrold thrown in.

 "Jodi Jodi," "Doctor Death," are both alter egoes for my sister Jodi.

 Linda Jameison, Daniel November's mother, has my mother's birthday;
  James Ripper, Daniel November's father, has my father's birthday;
  Trent has Jodi's birthday; Daniel November has my birthday; and
  October 27, my youngest sister Kathy's birthday, is a date of
  considerable historical importance in the "Tales." The planet November
  is discovered on this date; Daniel November returns to November to stay
  on that date; and during "Lord November: The Man-Spacething War,"
  something Very Important happens on that date.

 The frequent references to "Je Suis Le Fleuve" ... "Je Suis Le Fleuve"
  is a fictional painting; it comes from the novel "The Perfect Thief,"
  written by Ronald J. Bass. Bass went on to win an Oscar for "Rain Man,"
  and to write such movies as "Gardens of Stone," "Black Widow," and
  several others.

 This isn't really an obscure reference, but it's interesting.

  In Last Dancer, Denice says: It's important to remember. But it's more
  important to forgive.

  Terry Shawmac's response is: Should everything be forgiven? Has no one
  ever done something to you that was such a betrayal, did such violence
  to your trust, that you could not forgive them?

  This is almost verbatim a comment I made to Dorothy Fontana one night;
  we were talking about Gene Roddenberry. Shawmac's response is hers. I
  ran home and typed it up. A lot of writing is stealing from the right
  sources....

 'Immigrant and Visitor's Guide to Survival,' by M. Garcia. This is a
  book referred to in Long Run -- M. Garcia is of course Manuel O'Kelly
  Garcia, the hero of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."

 "Moreau Island," mentioned in Long Run, is real obvious; named after
  Jules Moreau, one of the founders of the Unification. Later on we 
  find out that Jules Moreau has a PhD....

 "Officer Stout," the tall thin loonie in Long Run; Amy Stout was my
  first editor at Bantam.


That's it, off the top of my head. I've probably missed a dozen others.





[Science-fiction author Jack] Vance was a great influence on me [...]
Mohammed Vance was named for Jack Vance, yep.



Separate question:
What "old movie" soundtrack is playing when Trent wakes up at the very
end of tLR (p.370 in my paperback edition) and remarks "What a horrible
noise?" Does this comedy exist in its entirety outside of DKM's mind?


Interesting. I couldn't remember what you were talking about, so I went
and looked in the "Tales" file for that section of TLR --


I find I salvaged something, there, when I couldn't get rights to the
following. (I used, apparently, a piece of that John Lennon poem I wrote
long ago -- I'd forgotten doing that, too.)


The original lyrics were:


I've done a lot, God knows I've tried
to find the truth, I've even lied
But all I know is down inside
I'm bleeding ...


And SuperHeroes come to feast
to taste the flesh not yet deceased
and all I know is still the beast
is feeding ...


Brownie points to the first person who knows what the above is from. (It
used to be a harder question than it is now.)


The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  It used to be harder because most
prints didn't have that chunk of the movie, as I recall.  Didn't
play well with target audiences?  Something like that.


--
Bryant Durrell (sysadmin, cynic, coyote)


A well-educated man ... :-)


Why they wouldn't let me use that quote I never have figured out. People
get odd -- Bruce Springsteen was totally cool about it; I sent him a
signed copy of "The Armageddon Blues" and got back a nice postcard
saying thank you. Don Henley's people wouldn't even talk to me, on the
other hand. Warner Brothers said fine, use Bugs and Daffy and Elmer
Fudd; 20th Century said, no Rocky Horror quotes.



If I recall correctly, it played near the end, after Rifraff (sp?) and
Magenta blast off, leaving "the new, improved" ;> Brad, Janet, & Dr.
Scott on the ground writhing as the scene begins to spiiin....  It has
been a while, though, correct me if I'm wrong!


So, any particular reason why Rocky Horror?  And did 20th Century get
annoyed over the mention in EE?


I didn't ask permission to mention it; wasn't any copyright issue
involved. As to the particular reason -- SpaceFarers just seem like the
sort of people who would get culturally inbred, and I figure they're all
descended from sf fans anyway; hence the names of the various ships.

For the most part I dislike sf stories where someone of another era
refers back to some cultural landmark of 19xx -- usually some important
element from the lifetime of the author, not surprisingly. I think this
one works, though -- because I do believe that the Rocky Horror
Picture Show is going to continue to be shown well into the 21st
Century. My grandchildren, fifty years from now, will probably have some
idea what it is, and may well have seen it. ("Wizard of Oz" is almost 60
years old, now... )






  In TLD, on page 184, Domino asked Denise if she believes that the
Rebs have a chance of taking out the orbital cannon, to which she
replies, "Not a whelk's chance in a supernova."  This is an exact
quote from Douglas Adams' "Life, the Universe, and Everything," from a
conversation between Ford and Arthur.


  Also in the TLD (page 402), when Shell Altoma finds David, she says,
"Fuck me gently with a chainsaw," which is a classic quote from the
classic black comedy "Heathers."


  Lastly, and this is admittedly A LOT more obscure, so much so it
may be coincidence, in TLR (Page 131), Johnny describes the boards in
Capital City as being in a state of "Higgldy-Piggledy" and when Trent
asked about the word, Johnny replies that it means "in confusion:
topsy-turvey, randomly or 'a real mess.'" There is an early strip of
Bloom county where Binkley has a plan to flush all the toilets in the
pentagon simultaneouly, turning the plumbing system into a state of
higgledy-piggledy."  In the last panel of the strip, Binkly says,
"Higgledy-Piggledy means 'a real mess.'

 -- NEIL SALON 


Three for three. Very good. :-)




