My first instinct was to say that ...f5 has all the (dis)advantages of a Stonewall that isn't actually built of pawns. If the Bd5 goes, for any reason, the structure is horribly weak. But it might not be so bad. If White plays Bc4 you could support the Bishop with ...c6, and liquidate the e6 weakness with exd5 if White exchanges Bishops. Not exactly pretty -- stonewalls hardly ever are -- but not bad.

Hmmm ... suppose White takes a slower approach, with Bd3, 0-0, maybe Nd2, Re1 -- all the overprotection he'll ever need -- and then e4 ...? In that case e6 could be pretty weak. Or would Black have used the tempi to build up a mating attack with ...Bd6, ...Qh4, etc?

I actually played this ...g6 line of the QID once, in the early 80s, in a 'casual' game with my then girlfriend, who had never been near a chess club or a tournament. She mated me brutally on the kingside when I took one liberty too many.

I need to look up the suggested King Walk for Kaspy against Junior when instead Kaspy took the quick draw as White.

Alas, when you let go of your Rook on f1, that was the completion of your move and the opponent would be quite correct in insisting that be the final resting place of the Rook, if it were indeed a Rook move and not castling.

I think. Fred Flintstone may be the real artist

Funny how at that precise time the Admins suddenly abolished the category of "most popular forum" from the Statistics Page....

not in "my" forum.

I mean in that shrieking harridan <jessicafischerqueen's> forum.

Forgot to mention: I enjoyed that one greatly. Perhaps the last word should be 'Farce'?>

It should be Force. But if you want to use it for yourself - and be my guest, if so - I can see how modesty would.... hmmm, object a little. I'm not sure it would work as well with the extra twist though - couldn't you just say it's an awarded title? Well, up to you. :)

The William Gibson anecdote was highly amusing and enjoyable. (But it doesn't quite let you off from posting a post-divergence era pic on your player page...) ;p

< Sometimes it seems I owe everyone an email ...>

Hope you got my email, btw. Take your time answering, of course - I just mean to confirm actual arrival, due to its First Contact nature.

I recently dipped my toe into 'classic' SF in the form of an anthology edited by Aldiss.

If we learn anything from this it may simply be that the SF subset published in ISR is different to that available in IRL.

An email? Events move apace. I don't even check the things in accordance with cultural norms, but I will now, of course.

heh

<Hollywood Gossip> Is that a pleonasm?

Heh... that doesn't work. OK, never mind T'Ruth then, it would be better to "meet" Cordwainer through C'Mell anyway - the short story 'The Ballad of Lost C'Mell'. If you can find it in an anthology (it's in lots of anthologies), give it a try. :)

<I like non-anthropomorphic first contact stories. Immense scope for misunderstandings out there... and moments when the opposite occurs.>

Exactly! :D

Uh, among many others, two excellent non-anthropomorphic first contact stories would be... well, 'Mission of Gravity' by that Clement guy (not his real name, actually), and, um, McCaffrey's 'Decision at Doona', the first book of the Doona trilogy (and better than the rest, which are also good, but in a "more of the same" way). ;)

Which leads me to --

<If we learn anything from this it may simply be that the SF subset published in ISR is different to that available in IRL.>

which is indeed a very likely hypothesis, at least pertaining to the SF literature readily available in each country at the respective times when each of us has been most involved with the field.

But that was then... and these days Amazon is not just a river in South America (or a mythological(?) tribe of female warriors for that matter) - meaning that any book can be be obtained, given the will to obtain (plus some prosaic fiscal considerations). :p

And therefore, I would cordially disagree with the <if we learn anything from this> part, <if> it was meant in an <end of subject> sense... because I would much rather view the conclusions from your stipulated hypothesis in a different light - namely as a first-class opportunity for an "exchange program".

Given that on so many of the subjects we discussed so far, you and I seem to hold highly similar stances and views, it would stand to reason to assume that the different roads taken are indeed a matter of opportunity alone, and not actually a matter of taste.

Anyway, I persuaded a certain editor that I was possibly the 2nd best qualified person alive to write on this topic (after, naturally, Allen Savage/Duchamp 64) ... only for my idea to be vetoed on the grounds that (a) I was too close to it, and (b) 'ordinary' people aren't interested anyway.

To which I can only comment that extraordinary people also like to be fed occasionally. However bland the fare.

I think I should go back to the idea of tackling Duchamp in a fictionalized form -- along with Nimzo, Reti, hypermodernism, the parallel revolutions in art and chess, the idea that 'modernism' may actually have hit chess first ... and the whole flux of the 20s that followed.

And I still see occasional critiques of others -- Nabokov, Borges, Beckett, etc - who have used chess tropes, where it's clear that the critic simply has no idea what it means. As in Beckett 'experts' who don't know what an endgame is, but have theories about Hamm, Clov, and post-apocalyptic settings.