Query: Why "Cripples" (> "Crips") as gang-name? (fwd)

[James Landau]

Darn it, you're better at SF bibliography than I am.

I finally thought to dig out my copy of Fred Pohl's memoir _The Way the
Future Was_.  Pohl says that, at the urging of Galaxy editor H. [Horace] L.
Gold, Kornbluth added some scenes to the magazine serial version that were
not in the original manuscript.  The book version dropped these scenes.

Gladiator-at-Law was not as forgettable as you indicate, but on the other
hand it suffers by comparison to Kornbluth and Pohl's previous novel, _The
Space Merchants_ (_Gravy Planet_ in its H. L. Gold magazine serial version,
also with added scenes that were dropped from the book.).  Gladiator has
more exciting action than does Space Merchants, but on the other hand it is
more melodramatic---the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction flatly says
"sillier".  Space Merchants is a serious dystopia, with the protagonist
struggling against social forces, or in other words worth reading for its
intellectual content.  In Gladiator the protagonist struggles against a
single named antagonist (actually two people operating as a single business
partnership) which may be exciting but is neither realistic nor
educational.  Also the economics, which are a major part of the setup for
the plot, are dead wrong.  So perhaps you were right for the wrong reasons
about the lack of quality of the story.

Somewhere I read that Gladiator was Kornbluth's satire on Levittown and
similar developments, but I don't know how accurate this is.

      - Jim Landau


> [Original Message]
> From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: 1/23/2006 3:47:57 PM
> Subject: Re: Query: Why "Cripples" (> "Crips") as gang-name? (fwd)
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Query: Why "Cripples" (> "Crips") as gang-name? (fwd)
>
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>
> Cyril M. Kornbluth: Gladiator at Law (with Frederik Pohl, _first
> published as a Galaxy serial, 1954_).
>
> From Google. This accounts for my memory of having read this title as
> a (long, admittedly) short story in a magazine and not as a book.
>
> -Wilson
>
>
> On 1/23/06, Mark A. Mandel <mamandel at ldc.upenn.edu> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: Query: Why "Cripples" (> "Crips") as gang-name? (fwd)
> >
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> >
> > Gerald quotes Wilson Gray:
> > >>>
> >
> >     Back inthe '50's, around the time of "The Blackboard Jungle," I
read a
> > short story about a gang whose battle cry was, "Wa-wa-wabbit twacks!"
The
> > concept of being threatening by being ostensibly unthreatening is not a
new
> > one.
> >
> > <<<
> >
> > I don't know whether it's the same story, but the period is right. I
> > remember this gang and their battle cry (though not their name) from
> > GLADIATOR AT LAW, a classic sf novel by Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth
> > published in 1955. They fought with broken bottles, which are no mean
melee
> > weapon.
> >
> > m a m
> > http://www.cracksandshards.com
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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