Every time I see the title “The Wind is Rising”, I think of the s-f short story “A Wind is Rising”, by Robert Sheckley under his Finn O’Donnevan pen name, in Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1957.
This reminisce has absolutely nothing to do with Furry fiction. Skip it if you want.
Around 1975 or ’76, I was talking with Dan O’Bannon, who was one of the USC film students who had made and played in John Carpenter’s s-f black comedy live-action feature, “Dark Star”. He played Sgt. Pinback, the comedy-relief character who was outsmarted by the alien animal called the Beachball because it looked like a beachball. O’Bannon said that was because it was; a beachball on the flipper-feet from “The Creature from the Black Lagoon”. This was just before O’Bannon went on to his professional movie career, as a writer for “Alien”, “Invaders from Mars”, “Total Recall”, and other s-f and horror movies.
I got the definite feeling that O’Bannon’s real character was not far removed from the dimwitted klutz that he played in “Dark Star”.
Anyhow, he invited me up to his apartment which was still in the USC neighborhood then, to see some of the other film projects that he was working on or had created for his film classes. They were pretty impressive, but the one that I was impressed by the most was a complete storyboard breakdown for Sheckley’s “A Wind is Rising”. I was a big Sheckley fan at this time, and I felt that O’Bannon’s treatment had improved the story. I goshwowed about how good I thought it was, and O’Bannon said that it was just a minor idea he’d had in film class one day.
“Er, no”, I said. “I recognize this. It’s a short story by Robert Sheckley. I’m a big fan of his.”
“Well, I might have gotten the basic idea from some old s-f magazine, but my development of it is totally mine."
“But it isn’t! ‘A Wind is Rising’ has been reprinted three of four times, and I’ve read it each time. This is a point by point breakdown of the story. The only thing that you’ve done is to transpose the important third-person narration into conversation between the two humans – excellently, but it’s just as Sheckley has it!”
“No, it was just an old story that I came across in an old s-f magazine. It would be totally forgotten if I hadn’t seen it, so all of the author credit is mine.”
I could see that further argument would be futile, so I gave up at that point. But believe me, if that film treatment had ever gotten made without acknowledging Sheckley as the author, there would have been a LOT of viewer corrections.
Every time I see the title “The Wind is Rising”, I think of the s-f short story “A Wind is Rising”, by Robert Sheckley under his Finn O’Donnevan pen name, in Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1957.
This reminisce has absolutely nothing to do with Furry fiction. Skip it if you want.
Around 1975 or ’76, I was talking with Dan O’Bannon, who was one of the USC film students who had made and played in John Carpenter’s s-f black comedy live-action feature, “Dark Star”. He played Sgt. Pinback, the comedy-relief character who was outsmarted by the alien animal called the Beachball because it looked like a beachball. O’Bannon said that was because it was; a beachball on the flipper-feet from “The Creature from the Black Lagoon”. This was just before O’Bannon went on to his professional movie career, as a writer for “Alien”, “Invaders from Mars”, “Total Recall”, and other s-f and horror movies.
I got the definite feeling that O’Bannon’s real character was not far removed from the dimwitted klutz that he played in “Dark Star”.
Anyhow, he invited me up to his apartment which was still in the USC neighborhood then, to see some of the other film projects that he was working on or had created for his film classes. They were pretty impressive, but the one that I was impressed by the most was a complete storyboard breakdown for Sheckley’s “A Wind is Rising”. I was a big Sheckley fan at this time, and I felt that O’Bannon’s treatment had improved the story. I goshwowed about how good I thought it was, and O’Bannon said that it was just a minor idea he’d had in film class one day.
“Er, no”, I said. “I recognize this. It’s a short story by Robert Sheckley. I’m a big fan of his.”
“Well, I might have gotten the basic idea from some old s-f magazine, but my development of it is totally mine."
“But it isn’t! ‘A Wind is Rising’ has been reprinted three of four times, and I’ve read it each time. This is a point by point breakdown of the story. The only thing that you’ve done is to transpose the important third-person narration into conversation between the two humans – excellently, but it’s just as Sheckley has it!”
“No, it was just an old story that I came across in an old s-f magazine. It would be totally forgotten if I hadn’t seen it, so all of the author credit is mine.”
I could see that further argument would be futile, so I gave up at that point. But believe me, if that film treatment had ever gotten made without acknowledging Sheckley as the author, there would have been a LOT of viewer corrections.
Fred Patten