I picked this up on a whim (I had heard that it was patterned on
Dashiell Hammett's _The Thin Man, which I haven't read but did know
about). The wikipedia article on Hammett's novel doesn't give very many
details on the plot. The article on the subsequent movie adaption goes
into great detail (but how faithful was that adaption?). I do see some
similarities between the description of the movie plot and the plot of
_The Spare Man_, but they are all spoilers for the Kowal's novel.

It set on an interplanetary liner in-route to Mars from Earth. There are
some crazy features in the liner's design, which Kowal defends in an
appendix by comparing it to a few current cruise ships. I am not
convinced; unlike those cruise ships, this interplanetary liner is going
somewhere (the analogy should be to the Queens of the Cunard-White Star
Line).

So newly weds Shalnanser Steward (detective, retired) and Tesla Crane
(very wealth heiress, with PTSD) and their dog are on their honeymoon on
a plush interplanetary cruise ship to Mars when murder breaks out. The
chief security officer arrests Shal on suspicion (said officer was
playing dominance games, IMHO). Tesla goes looking for trouble (which
she finds). There are odd occurrences, more murders, their dog
disappears (does the chief security officer spend any time looking for
said dog? of course not). At the end of the book, Shal's free, the real
murder locked up, the dog is found, and our newly weds go back to
enjoying their honeymoon.

The fact that the time delay for conversations between Earth and the
ship increases over time is used for comic effect in conversations
between Tesla and her lawyer on Earth ("Don't tell me you are not trying
to hack the lock. Why am I am asking?..), though the conversations are
often serious. However, in one scene, Tesla does a data search during a
conversation, a search that needed to access data beyond what I would
expect to find on the ship's own databases, but no twenty minute time
delay was involved.

Oh, BTW, each chapter heading includes the recipe for a different
cocktail (Kowal admits to inventing 6 of them).

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
�-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

In article <robertaw-0191AC.10255921122022@news.individual.net>,
Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:
>I picked this up on a whim (I had heard that it was patterned on
>Dashiell Hammett's _The Thin Man, which I haven't read but did know
>about). The wikipedia article on Hammett's novel doesn't give very many
>details on the plot. The article on the subsequent movie adaption goes
>into great detail (but how faithful was that adaption?). I do see some
>similarities between the description of the movie plot and the plot of
>_The Spare Man_, but they are all spoilers for the Kowal's novel.
>
>It set on an interplanetary liner in-route to Mars from Earth. There are
>some crazy features in the liner's design, which Kowal defends in an
>appendix by comparing it to a few current cruise ships. I am not
>convinced; unlike those cruise ships, this interplanetary liner is going
>somewhere (the analogy should be to the Queens of the Cunard-White Star
>Line).
>
>So newly weds Shalnanser Steward (detective, retired) and Tesla Crane
>(very wealth heiress, with PTSD) and their dog are on their honeymoon on
>a plush interplanetary cruise ship to Mars when murder breaks out. The
>chief security officer arrests Shal on suspicion (said officer was
>playing dominance games, IMHO). Tesla goes looking for trouble (which
>she finds). There are odd occurrences, more murders, their dog
>disappears (does the chief security officer spend any time looking for
>said dog? of course not). At the end of the book, Shal's free, the real
>murder locked up, the dog is found, and our newly weds go back to
>enjoying their honeymoon.
>
>The fact that the time delay for conversations between Earth and the
>ship increases over time is used for comic effect in conversations
>between Tesla and her lawyer on Earth ("Don't tell me you are not trying
>to hack the lock. Why am I am asking?..), though the conversations are
>often serious. However, in one scene, Tesla does a data search during a
>conversation, a search that needed to access data beyond what I would
>expect to find on the ship's own databases, but no twenty minute time
>delay was involved.
>
>Oh, BTW, each chapter heading includes the recipe for a different
>cocktail (Kowal admits to inventing 6 of them).
>

I read the book & saw the movie, but aside from recalling that I liked
both and that a lot of drinking was involved remember very little.

I do know that "The Thin Man" was not Nick Charles, so that using that
title for the sequel movies was a bit odd.

Anyway, just wanted to say that in SF & related, "A Night At The Opera"
by Lee & Miller is a Nick & Nora story, and that DC's Ralph & Sue Dibney,
when written correctly, are a Nick & Nora couple.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

On Wednesday, December 21, 2022 at 1:43:56 PM UTC-5, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <robertaw-0191AC...@news.individual.net>,
> Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com> wrote:
> >I picked this up on a whim (I had heard that it was patterned on
> >Dashiell Hammett's _The Thin Man, which I haven't read but did know
> >about). The wikipedia article on Hammett's novel doesn't give very many
> >details on the plot. The article on the subsequent movie adaption goes
> >into great detail (but how faithful was that adaption?). I do see some
> >similarities between the description of the movie plot and the plot of
> >_The Spare Man_, but they are all spoilers for the Kowal's novel.
> >
> >It set on an interplanetary liner in-route to Mars from Earth. There are
> >some crazy features in the liner's design, which Kowal defends in an
> >appendix by comparing it to a few current cruise ships. I am not
> >convinced; unlike those cruise ships, this interplanetary liner is going
> >somewhere (the analogy should be to the Queens of the Cunard-White Star
> >Line).
> >
> >So newly weds Shalnanser Steward (detective, retired) and Tesla Crane
> >(very wealth heiress, with PTSD) and their dog are on their honeymoon on
> >a plush interplanetary cruise ship to Mars when murder breaks out. The
> >chief security officer arrests Shal on suspicion (said officer was
> >playing dominance games, IMHO). Tesla goes looking for trouble (which
> >she finds). There are odd occurrences, more murders, their dog
> >disappears (does the chief security officer spend any time looking for
> >said dog? of course not). At the end of the book, Shal's free, the real
> >murder locked up, the dog is found, and our newly weds go back to
> >enjoying their honeymoon.
> >
> >The fact that the time delay for conversations between Earth and the
> >ship increases over time is used for comic effect in conversations
> >between Tesla and her lawyer on Earth ("Don't tell me you are not trying
> >to hack the lock. Why am I am asking?..), though the conversations are
> >often serious. However, in one scene, Tesla does a data search during a
> >conversation, a search that needed to access data beyond what I would
> >expect to find on the ship's own databases, but no twenty minute time
> >delay was involved.
> >
> >Oh, BTW, each chapter heading includes the recipe for a different
> >cocktail (Kowal admits to inventing 6 of them).
> >
> I read the book & saw the movie, but aside from recalling that I liked
> both and that a lot of drinking was involved remember very little.

There were 6 movies. The first one was quite good. The rest were decent
except for the last one, which felt tired, lost money and killed the
franchise.

> I do know that "The Thin Man" was not Nick Charles, so that using that
> title for the sequel movies was a bit odd.

Brand recognition.

On Wednesday, December 21, 2022 at 11:26:06 AM UTC-7, Robert Woodward wrote:
> However, in one scene, Tesla does a data search during a
> conversation, a search that needed to access data beyond what I would
> expect to find on the ship's own databases, but no twenty minute time
> delay was involved.

Obviously, people in that future age are so addicted to the Internet that any
luxury liner going from Earth to Mars would inclulde an archive of an enormous
chunk thereof...

John Savard

On Wednesday, December 21, 2022 at 11:43:56 AM UTC-7, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> DC's Ralph & Sue Dibney,
> when written correctly, are a Nick & Nora couple.

Evidently, my memories of those old Elongated Man stories are
lacking in some respects.

Or is this concerning a more recent incarnation of the character,
not the stories I remember which were drawn by Carmine
Infantino?

John Savard

On 12/21/2022 1:45 PM, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 21, 2022 at 11:26:06 AM UTC-7, Robert Woodward wrote:
>> However, in one scene, Tesla does a data search during a
>> conversation, a search that needed to access data beyond what I would
>> expect to find on the ship's own databases, but no twenty minute time
>> delay was involved.
>
> Obviously, people in that future age are so addicted to the Internet that any
> luxury liner going from Earth to Mars would inclulde an archive of an enormous
> chunk thereof...
>
> John Savard

In Project Hail Mary, the entire internet is duplicated plus copies of
all software ever written on the spaceship headed to Tau Ceti. Since
the Earth was under a global administrator (a dictator), this was forced
and enforced. The administrator wanted the three astronauts to have any
information or software ever written in order to solve problems 12 light
years away from Earth.

Lynn

In article <55ec323e-458e-4e6d-ad68-5e39c49fa579n@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Wednesday, December 21, 2022 at 11:43:56 AM UTC-7, Ted Nolan
><tednolan> wrote:
>> DC's Ralph & Sue Dibney,
>> when written correctly, are a Nick & Nora couple.
>
>Evidently, my memories of those old Elongated Man stories are
>lacking in some respects.
>
>Or is this concerning a more recent incarnation of the character,
>not the stories I remember which were drawn by Carmine
>Infantino?
>
>John Savard

It's a role they kind of gradually settled into. I've kind of lost track
of them recently. Last I knew, they were both dead and doing the
"Ghost Detectives" thing.

Then of course there's the whole "Identity Crisis" thing which I try
to forget about.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

On 22/12/2022 05:25, Robert Woodward wrote:
> I picked this up on a whim (I had heard that it was patterned on
> Dashiell Hammett's _The Thin Man, which I haven't read but did know
> about). The wikipedia article on Hammett's novel doesn't give very many
> details on the plot. The article on the subsequent movie adaption goes
> into great detail (but how faithful was that adaption?). I do see some
> similarities between the description of the movie plot and the plot of
> _The Spare Man_, but they are all spoilers for the Kowal's novel.
>
> It set on an interplanetary liner in-route to Mars from Earth. There are
> some crazy features in the liner's design, which Kowal defends in an
> appendix by comparing it to a few current cruise ships. I am not
> convinced; unlike those cruise ships, this interplanetary liner is going
> somewhere (the analogy should be to the Queens of the Cunard-White Star
> Line).
>
> So newly weds Shalnanser Steward (detective, retired) and Tesla Crane
> (very wealth heiress, with PTSD) and their dog are on their honeymoon on
> a plush interplanetary cruise ship to Mars when murder breaks out. The
> chief security officer arrests Shal on suspicion (said officer was
> playing dominance games, IMHO). Tesla goes looking for trouble (which
> she finds). There are odd occurrences, more murders, their dog
> disappears (does the chief security officer spend any time looking for
> said dog? of course not). At the end of the book, Shal's free, the real
> murder locked up, the dog is found, and our newly weds go back to
> enjoying their honeymoon.
>
> The fact that the time delay for conversations between Earth and the
> ship increases over time is used for comic effect in conversations
> between Tesla and her lawyer on Earth ("Don't tell me you are not trying
> to hack the lock. Why am I am asking?..), though the conversations are
> often serious. However, in one scene, Tesla does a data search during a
> conversation, a search that needed to access data beyond what I would
> expect to find on the ship's own databases, but no twenty minute time
> delay was involved.
>
> Oh, BTW, each chapter heading includes the recipe for a different
> cocktail (Kowal admits to inventing 6 of them).
>
I just finished it myself, it was... fair.

I can't recall reading any of the "Nick & Nora" books, but I do recall
watching some (all?) of the Myrna Loy & William Powell movies, but not well.

Which is good, because "The Spare Man" is based on the movies, not the
books.

That said, it doesn't quite click.

In the movies Powell & Loy just clicked, you could believe them as a
couple, where in this book the pairing feels forced.

A light read, good enough as that, but not ground-breaking.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

In article <4uqc7j-eg9.ln1@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au>,
Gary R. Schmidt <grschmidt@acm.org> wrote:
>
>I can't recall reading any of the "Nick & Nora" books, but I do recall
>watching some (all?) of the Myrna Loy & William Powell movies,
>but not well.

I believe the novel The Thin Man is a stand-alone.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

Robert Woodward wrote:

>I picked this up on a whim (I had heard that it was patterned on
>Dashiell Hammett's _The Thin Man, which I haven't read but did know
>about).

I liked it well enough. I haven't read the Hammett book either, but
they have it in the library and I have been considering it. As a reader
of mysteries, I always enjoy seeing what an SF author can do with the
genre.

Brian