XPost: alt.fan.heinlein   
   From: robertaw@drizzle.com   
      
   In article ,   
    Paul S Person  wrote:   
      
   > On Tue, 2 Dec 2025 17:21:08 -0000 (UTC), "Don"  wrote:   
   >   
   > >Paul S Person wrote:   
   >   
   >    
   >   
   > >Idiocy is in the eye of the beholder.   
   >   
   > Whatever.   
   >   
   >    
   >   
   > >Are ALL YOU ZOMBIES and THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF the sole SF self-sex   
   > >stories tangled in time travel?   
   > >   
   > >Precedence does not imply provenance.   
   > >   
   > >Self-sex science fiction was first formulated by RAH. He predictably   
   > >kept his narrative basic and bare bones by using only four time loop   
   > >characters: Jane, the baby, the unmarried mother, and the bartender.   
   > >    Gerrold embellishes by expanding his ensemble of time loop   
   > >characters. Calculating the character count could prove difficult in   
   > >the case of THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF.   
   >   
   > I believe the precise answer is -- infinite. Possibly uncountable.   
   >   
   > As to "--All You Zombies--", this is a short story, which explains its   
   > shortness compared to /The Man Who Folded Himself/, which is a novel.   
   >   
   > It was made into the film /Predestination/, which feels like a good   
   > Heinlein story done exactly (I've never read the story so cannot say   
   > how close they are). But, of course, adapting a short story to a film   
   > is likely to follow the original better (unless, of course, the   
   > filmmakers decide to go off in their own direction instead of doing   
   > something so boring as actually telling the same story) than a novel   
   > because there is enough screen time to include most if not all of the   
   > short story.   
   >   
   > As to the number of characters, I would say it has essentially /one/.   
   > Although other characters exist (most prominently the Agency guy).   
   > That, after all, is the point of the story. Or at least of the film.   
      
   Agency guy? IIRC, the story, other than scene extras, had only 1   
   character (who, because of time travel, shows up twice in many scenes,   
   perhaps even thrice once or twice). So is this Agency guy someone the   
   script writer added or is it the same character again?   
      
   --   
   "We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."   
   Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.   
   -------------------------------------------------------   
   Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)