Iver P. Cooper's Blog
February 17, 2019
Pirates!
Recently my wife and I went to a travel club slide presentation on a member's visit to Morocco. The images I remember best were of a stork "condo" ( a radio tower with a stork's nest on every platform) and a Berber encampment (with nomad life enhanced by the presence of a solar-powered satellite TV).
My short story "A Pirate's Ken" (Grantville Gazette 15) described an encounter between one of the Sallee Rovers and a Spanish merchantman.
https://grantvillegazette.com/article...
Sallee was a "pirate republic," founded by Moriscos across the Bou Regreg river from modern Rabat, Morocco. The corsair ship in question is captained by Murad Reis -- the renegade Dutchman Jan Janszoon.
He married a Muslim woman (without divorcing his Dutch wife) by whom he had several children. One, Anthony, emigrated to New Amsterdam (New York) in 1629. He became a wealthy (if rather litigious) landowner, sometimes called "the Turk" or "van Salee," and had four children, all of whom married other settlers.
So, after "A Pirate's Ken" was published, I got an email from one of his descendants! He wanted to know whether I had any information about Anthony's third daughter, Sara, who married Jan Emans. (I didn't, since my focus was on Jan.) Anthony's other descendants, by the way, include the Vanderbilts, the Whitneys, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Humphrey Bogart.
The 1632 universe is a shared universe, and "A Pirate's Ken" ties in to stories written by others. The most unusual item in the loot taken by the corsairs is a plastic (a new material to the 17th century) Barbie doll carried by an Italian merchant. He is the second cousin of the Italian merchant mentioned in Gorg Huff's "The Sewing Circle" (Grantville Gazette 1). Anthony had a Dutch half-sister, Lysbeth Janszoon van Haarlem, and she is the subject of two gazette stories by Andy Rogers ("The Doom of Sallee" and "A Pirate Made").
As for what happened to Murad Reis' unfortunate captive, I will talk about him in another post.
My short story "A Pirate's Ken" (Grantville Gazette 15) described an encounter between one of the Sallee Rovers and a Spanish merchantman.
https://grantvillegazette.com/article...
Sallee was a "pirate republic," founded by Moriscos across the Bou Regreg river from modern Rabat, Morocco. The corsair ship in question is captained by Murad Reis -- the renegade Dutchman Jan Janszoon.
He married a Muslim woman (without divorcing his Dutch wife) by whom he had several children. One, Anthony, emigrated to New Amsterdam (New York) in 1629. He became a wealthy (if rather litigious) landowner, sometimes called "the Turk" or "van Salee," and had four children, all of whom married other settlers.
So, after "A Pirate's Ken" was published, I got an email from one of his descendants! He wanted to know whether I had any information about Anthony's third daughter, Sara, who married Jan Emans. (I didn't, since my focus was on Jan.) Anthony's other descendants, by the way, include the Vanderbilts, the Whitneys, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Humphrey Bogart.
The 1632 universe is a shared universe, and "A Pirate's Ken" ties in to stories written by others. The most unusual item in the loot taken by the corsairs is a plastic (a new material to the 17th century) Barbie doll carried by an Italian merchant. He is the second cousin of the Italian merchant mentioned in Gorg Huff's "The Sewing Circle" (Grantville Gazette 1). Anthony had a Dutch half-sister, Lysbeth Janszoon van Haarlem, and she is the subject of two gazette stories by Andy Rogers ("The Doom of Sallee" and "A Pirate Made").
As for what happened to Murad Reis' unfortunate captive, I will talk about him in another post.
February 2, 2019
Drillers in Doublets
"I don't want to be critical of coal mining, especially where Mike Stearns can hear me."
That was the opening sentence of my first contribution to the 1632 universe, the article "Drillers in Doublets" (Grantville Gazette 4), e-published in 2004. (The 2008 paper edition was "IV" rather than "4.")
This built on research I had done almost a decade earlier. In 1995, I fell down the stairs and broke my leg in several places My daughter wanted to cheer me up by playing games with me. I vaguely remembered having created a board game "Strike it Rich" when I was a kid. Unfortunately, neither my brothers nor I could remember enough of the details to reconstruct it. So I decided to write a computer game on the subject of wildcatting for oil in North America from 1860 to 1939 In my enforced free time (I couldn't go dancing because of the injury) I did library research and programming and came up with a game that could be played over our home network. I continued to make enhancements to the game in 1996-2000.
The manual for that game was the skeleton on which I built the first draft of "Drillers in Doublets."
The same research also led, much later, to my humorous short story, The Doodlebugger, Grantville Gazette 13 (Sept. 2007). You can read a preview here
https://grantvillegazette.com/wp/arti...
(GG13 also includes my article, "The Wooden Wonders of Grantville.")
The story was inspired by several (possibly true) anecdotes I found in petroleum history literature. For those unfamiliar with the term, a "doodlebug" is a divining rod. There's a good discussion of dowsers -- both con artists and the self-deluded -- in Martin Gardner's classic, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.
I was amused to discover that the term has early 17th century roots -- back then, "doodle" as a noun meant a "foolish or frivolous person," and as a verb, "to make a fool of, cheat." (In the 18th century, it was used by the British about the colonials in the then-derogatory song, "Yankee Doodle.")
The premise of the 1632 universe is that a modern town is transported to 17th century Germany, but it is safe to say that while it will change many aspects of life, it will not change human nature.
That was the opening sentence of my first contribution to the 1632 universe, the article "Drillers in Doublets" (Grantville Gazette 4), e-published in 2004. (The 2008 paper edition was "IV" rather than "4.")
This built on research I had done almost a decade earlier. In 1995, I fell down the stairs and broke my leg in several places My daughter wanted to cheer me up by playing games with me. I vaguely remembered having created a board game "Strike it Rich" when I was a kid. Unfortunately, neither my brothers nor I could remember enough of the details to reconstruct it. So I decided to write a computer game on the subject of wildcatting for oil in North America from 1860 to 1939 In my enforced free time (I couldn't go dancing because of the injury) I did library research and programming and came up with a game that could be played over our home network. I continued to make enhancements to the game in 1996-2000.
The manual for that game was the skeleton on which I built the first draft of "Drillers in Doublets."
The same research also led, much later, to my humorous short story, The Doodlebugger, Grantville Gazette 13 (Sept. 2007). You can read a preview here
https://grantvillegazette.com/wp/arti...
(GG13 also includes my article, "The Wooden Wonders of Grantville.")
The story was inspired by several (possibly true) anecdotes I found in petroleum history literature. For those unfamiliar with the term, a "doodlebug" is a divining rod. There's a good discussion of dowsers -- both con artists and the self-deluded -- in Martin Gardner's classic, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.
I was amused to discover that the term has early 17th century roots -- back then, "doodle" as a noun meant a "foolish or frivolous person," and as a verb, "to make a fool of, cheat." (In the 18th century, it was used by the British about the colonials in the then-derogatory song, "Yankee Doodle.")
The premise of the 1632 universe is that a modern town is transported to 17th century Germany, but it is safe to say that while it will change many aspects of life, it will not change human nature.
January 28, 2019
Newcastle's Call
I am a patent attorney by profession, but I have been writing both fiction and nonfiction for the 1632 universe created by Eric Flint. I will be blogging occasionally both here and on my facebook author page, "Iver P. Cooper, Author"
https://www.facebook.com/ivercooperau...
(I invite you to like that page.)
Recently, my wife and I saw the new movie "Stan and Ollie" (which we highly recommend). So what does that have to do with the 1632 universe? Be patient....
The movie focuses on the comic duo's tour of the United Kingdom in 1952-53. One of their stops is in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Newcastle has some interesting medieval and early modern architecture, but all that we saw of it in the film was a rather unprepossessing hotel and a second-tier theater.
After the movie, I discovered that Stan Laurel was born in the UK, and spent part of his childhood in North Shields (a town eight miles downstream from Newcastle),.
My most recent story for the Grantville Gazette was "Newcastle's Call." You can see a preview here....
https://grantvillegazette.com/wp/arti...
and the current issue of the gazette, which includes that story, is on sale at the Baen ebook site:
https://www.baen.com/grantville-gazet...
In 1636, Newcastle-upon-Tyne lost an estimated 5600 people -- 47% of its population -- to the plague. I first contemplated writing a story about how this might play out in the 1632 univers back in 2013. However, after writing a few scenes, I got a bit too engrossed in the science and ended up writing a two part nonfiction piece (“Infectious Pestilence: Part 1: Coping with Plague in Early Modern Europe,” Grantville Gazette 50, “Infectious Pestilence Part 2: Fighting the Plague After the Ring of Fire,” Grantville Gazette 51.)
In October, 2018, while my wife was off in Orlando enjoying Universal's Halloween Horror Nights with our daughter, I took the story off the back burner and completed it. It views the plague, and the effect of the Ring of Fire upon Newcastle's response to it, primarily through the eyes of Ralph Tailor, a young scrivener taking down the wills of plague victims. As a 1632 story, there must be some sort of connection to the Ring of Fire, and in "Newcastle's Call," it is that a young physician in Newcastle has become aware of what the medical books in Grantville say about the causes and treatment of bubonic plague, and is fighting with the skeptical town physician. All three of them are historical characters.
I comment more on what happened in the "old time line" in the Author's Note to "Newcastle's Call." The title, by the way, is taken from pastor Robert Henison's 1637 polemic, "Newcastle's Call to her Neighbours and sister Townes and Cities throughout the Land, to take Warning by her Sins and Sorrows lest this overflowing Scourge of Pestilence reach even to them also."
And after re-reading that daunting title, I think I will go find a Laurel and Hardy movie to cheer me up ....
https://www.facebook.com/ivercooperau...
(I invite you to like that page.)
Recently, my wife and I saw the new movie "Stan and Ollie" (which we highly recommend). So what does that have to do with the 1632 universe? Be patient....
The movie focuses on the comic duo's tour of the United Kingdom in 1952-53. One of their stops is in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Newcastle has some interesting medieval and early modern architecture, but all that we saw of it in the film was a rather unprepossessing hotel and a second-tier theater.
After the movie, I discovered that Stan Laurel was born in the UK, and spent part of his childhood in North Shields (a town eight miles downstream from Newcastle),.
My most recent story for the Grantville Gazette was "Newcastle's Call." You can see a preview here....
https://grantvillegazette.com/wp/arti...
and the current issue of the gazette, which includes that story, is on sale at the Baen ebook site:
https://www.baen.com/grantville-gazet...
In 1636, Newcastle-upon-Tyne lost an estimated 5600 people -- 47% of its population -- to the plague. I first contemplated writing a story about how this might play out in the 1632 univers back in 2013. However, after writing a few scenes, I got a bit too engrossed in the science and ended up writing a two part nonfiction piece (“Infectious Pestilence: Part 1: Coping with Plague in Early Modern Europe,” Grantville Gazette 50, “Infectious Pestilence Part 2: Fighting the Plague After the Ring of Fire,” Grantville Gazette 51.)
In October, 2018, while my wife was off in Orlando enjoying Universal's Halloween Horror Nights with our daughter, I took the story off the back burner and completed it. It views the plague, and the effect of the Ring of Fire upon Newcastle's response to it, primarily through the eyes of Ralph Tailor, a young scrivener taking down the wills of plague victims. As a 1632 story, there must be some sort of connection to the Ring of Fire, and in "Newcastle's Call," it is that a young physician in Newcastle has become aware of what the medical books in Grantville say about the causes and treatment of bubonic plague, and is fighting with the skeptical town physician. All three of them are historical characters.
I comment more on what happened in the "old time line" in the Author's Note to "Newcastle's Call." The title, by the way, is taken from pastor Robert Henison's 1637 polemic, "Newcastle's Call to her Neighbours and sister Townes and Cities throughout the Land, to take Warning by her Sins and Sorrows lest this overflowing Scourge of Pestilence reach even to them also."
And after re-reading that daunting title, I think I will go find a Laurel and Hardy movie to cheer me up ....
