Lincroft-Holmdel Science Fiction Club Club Notice - 4/3/87 -- Vol. 5, No. 38 MEETINGS UPCOMING: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon. LZ meetings are in LZ 3A-206; MT meetings are in MT 4A-235. _D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C 04/08 MT: Would Shakespeare think PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT was science fiction? or, contemporary fiction as historical SF 04/22 LZ: MURMURS OF EARTH by Carl Sagan SF-related Non-Fiction 05/06 MT: THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Mainstream SF Margaret Atwood 05/13 LZ: TO YOUR SCATTERED BODIES GO by Reincarnation Phillip Jose Farmer HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 834-1563 LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 576-6106 MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 957-5619 HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3M-420 949-5866 LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-2068 MT Librarian: Bruce Szablak MT 4C-418 957-5868 Jill-of-all-trades: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted. 1. This week's discussion stems out of a comment that was made at the last discussion. we were talking about how much explanation of new technologies and cultural patterns needed to be explained in a science fiction novel, and how much the author could assume the reader would pick up from context. Someone said that that to Shakespearethe Elizabethans a contemporary novel like PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT would seem like science fiction--it would be set in an alien world, but people could pick everything up from context and wouldn't need the explanations that science fiction novels so often have. So on April 8, bring your favorite ideas about why or why not your favorite contemporary novel would be comprehensible to Elizabethans as science fiction. 2. Last week I reported on the growing conspiracy of a square dancing underground. I have been asked by friends who are square dancers and who claimed to be ignorant of what was going on that I should point out that perhaps (PERHAPS) not all square dancers are in on the conspiracy. Actually I am informed by (not necessarily unimpeachable) sources that 90% of all square dancers are innocent and probably 60% don't - 2 - even know that the conspiracy exists. That is perhaps the most tragic part about the square dancing conspiracy. A Squarie is the innocent victim of the conspiracy perhaps even more than a non- Squarie. I am sure most square dance with only the best of intentions, but will they be able to prove that to a congressional committee if the question ever comes up? And you Squaries, have you thought about how the callers are conditioning you to follow orders? Ask yourself, why are you not even allowed to question the authority of the caller. That should tell you something. And you should ask yourself who your caller is taking his/her orders from. How will you feel when your caller start giving you: Waltz that gal across the floor. Hide some drugs in your desk drawer. Meet in the center with a right hand star. Toss a granade at someone's car. Prominade that pretty little thing. Drill some holes in an airplane wing. One Squarie told me of her square's personal rebellion against the caller. Just for fun they did everything the mirror image of what the caller wanted. This the Squarie thought of as a disobedience of a sort. It didn't even occur to her that the mirror image of a man throwing a Molotov Cocktail is still a man throwing a Molotov Cocktail. Scary, huh? Oh, incidentally, I will say that I have been invited to a square dancing class to see "how innocent" it all is. This is a warning to all readers, if the same offer is made to you DON'T GO! Yes, you will be convinced square dancing is innocent with just one class. Ask an ex-Squarie -- one who has been deprogrammed -- about that first class, how it never ends, how you are fed on a diet like Coke and cookies and no protein at all and kept dancing until you are too weak to argue back. Why do you think there are so many Squaries around these days? 3. The LZ librarian and, hence the LZ library, have moved from 1C- 117 to 3L-312. [-lfl] Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 957-5619 ...mtgzz!leeper VARNEY THE VAMPIRE by James Malcolm Rymer or Thomas Peckett Prest Dover, 1972 (originally published 1847), $10 (for two volumes) A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1987 Evelyn C. Leeper As the heading indicates, this is not your normal horror novel. It's old (almost 150 years), it's long (868 pages, or close to 900,000 words--by comparison, _D_u_n_e checks in at about 200,000), and no one is sure who wrote it. The greatest of the penny dreadfuls, it is described by E. F. Bleiler as "the most famous book that almost no one has read." Well, I'm never one to turn down a challenge, so I determined to sit down and read it. It's not half-bad. Okay, so that's not a glowing recommendation. But considering the length, I think the fact that I managed to read it all and have a reasonably enjoyable time of it says something. The first half moves along at a good pace, as the Bannerworths find themselves tormented by the actions of Sir Francis Varney, who is trying to drive them from their home. There is the romantic subplot, with Charles Holland and Flora Bannerworth, which follows the standard Victorian pattern. There is comic relief, with Admiral Bell and his first mate Jack; this comic relief becomes a bit overdone at times, with the plot stalled while the admiral and Jack have yet another squabble. Eventually we find out just what Varney wants the house for and we begin to sympathize with him and his predicament as he is chased by the mob and forced to seek shelter with the Bannerworths, the very family he has been tormenting. There is a brief section in which Varney is describing his history that is reminiscent more of _F_r_a_n_k_e_n_s_t_e_i_n than of _D_r_a_c_u_l_a, and in fact throughout the whole first volume, the vampiric elements are quite understated. In the second half, Rymer (or Prest or whoever) seems to run out of steam. Instead of a single story, we get a series of episodes of the sort: - mysterious nobleman comes to town - greedy mother arranges to have her daughter marry him, even though the daughter doesn't love him and/or loves someone else - on the wedding day, someone shows up, points to the groom, and shouts "That's Varney the Vampire." - Varney flees and (optionally) the girl marries the man of her dreams instead After several iterations of this plot, interspersed with musings by Varney himself on how much horror and misery he is bringing to the people that he meets, Rymer finally changes direction and wraps up the - 2 - novel by having Varney tell his life story, or at any rate major parts of it, to a sympathetic minister. Having done this, Varney apparently decides that he has served his literary purpose and departs, somewhat dramatically, from the scene. Without ruining the ending (what makes me think anyone will read this, anyway?), let's just say a sequel is unlikely. If this seems like a flimsy plot to hang almost a million words on, remember how many films Universal Studios, Hammer Studios, and who knows who else have made based on Bram Stoker's _D_r_a_c_u_l_a. Yes, it's padded unmercifully--at one point a character is waiting in someone's library and picks up a book to read and the next chapter of _V_a_r_n_e_y consists of the story she reads! Yes, many of the characters are two-dimensional or less. But there is also genuine horror, genuine humor ("people will talk even when they have not anything particular to say, so that we cannot wonder at their doing so when they have"), and a genuine story. I'm not sure that I'd recommend that you plow through the whole of _V_a_r_n_e_y _t_h_e _V_a_m_p_i_r_e, but you might give the first half--which can stand on its own without the second half--a try. ================================================ THE VAMPYRE by John Polidori (in THREE GOTHIC NOVELS edited by E. F. Bleiler) Dover, 1966 (originally published 1819), $3 A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1987 Evelyn C. Leeper If you thought _V_a_r_n_e_y _t_h_e _V_a_m_p_y_r_e was old, well, here's an even older novel, or rather, novelette, since the word count on this is about 8500 words. This is one of three works produced as part of a "challenge match" one night in Geneva in 1816. The other two were a fragment of a novel by Lord Byron and another, slightly better known work, _F_r_a_n_k_e_n_s_t_e_i_n by Mary Shelley. It's clear that Shelley was the winner. _T_h_e _V_a_m_p_y_r_e is too straight-forward a telling of a vampire story to generate horror or tension the way Shelley's does. As Bleiler points out, however, a large body of work was produced in the remainder of the Nineteenth Century that was inspired by _T_h_e _V_a_m_p_y_r_e including, of course, _V_a_r_n_e_y _t_h_e _V_a_m_p_y_r_e, which Bleiler describes as the repetition of the incidents of _T_h_e _V_a_m_p_y_r_e until the author (and Varney) ran out of steam. Not up to _V_a_r_n_e_y _t_h_e _V_a_m_p_y_r_e in characterization, plot, humor, or even writing style, Polidori's _V_a_m_p_y_r_e does have the virtues of briefness and historical interest. Polidori's Lord Ruthven has been the model of innumerable vampires through the years since _T_h_e _V_a_m_p_y_r_e was written and makes this work a "must-read" for students of the genre. RAISING ARIZONA A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1987 Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: A frantic and funny comedy about an ex-con who steals a baby to have instead of the one his wife cannot have. The _B_l_o_o_d _S_i_m_p_l_e Coen brothers have made a second great film. It's a screwball comedy filled with screwball characters. The Coen brothers have made another movie. Two years ago the then 29-year-old director Joel and the then 26-year-old producer Ethan made a superb story of murder and misunderstanding. _B_l_o_o_d _S_i_m_p_l_e was a great first film and all the more amazing for having come from two unknowns. Joel had been editor on some low-budget horror films, the best known of which was _T_h_e _E_v_i_l _D_e_a_d; Ethan had no film experience. _B_l_o_o_d _S_i_m_p_l_e was a great film and an outstanding critical success. More recently the Coens had to prove that they had more than just one film in them. Well, _R_a_i_s_i_n_g _A_r_i_z_o_n_a proves that and while it seems less ambitious to make one more comedy in a market full of comedies, _R_a_i_s_i_n_g _A_r_i_z_o_n_a is as unique in its own way as _B_l_o_o_d _S_i_m_p_l_e was. Nicholas Cage plays H.I., an ex-con who went through jail terms as often as you go through tubes of toothpaste. Then he married Edwina, an ex-cop who wants to settle down with him and raise a family. One problem. No kids. And as a cigar-chomping doctor gaily explains, there aren't gonna be none, neither. Things look pretty bad until Edwina hears about a furniture chain (Trey Wilson who played in _F_X and as the base commander in _A _S_o_l_d_i_e_r'_s _S_t_o_r_y). owner whose wife just had quintuplets. Now, if some folks don't got enough kids and others got too many, the answer is obvious. If H.I.'s so used to stealing.... Well, you get the idea. And what the Coens give us a bringing-up-baby sort of comedy done in a manic Joe-Bob-Briggs style. I think while he was making this film, the cameraman must have lived on black coffee and motion-sickness pills. In fact, the same might be true of most of the major actors. The Coens have a way of telling a story that is fast and staccato. The camera moves in fast, jerky motions, making the viewer feel as manic as the characters. The film grinds up biker movies, the prison system, other people's kids, the parents of other people's kids, and just about anything else that gets in its path. The film is fast and it's funny. And it's not like most of the other comedies out there. Rate this one a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. THE TOXIC AVENGER A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1987 Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: This is a feeble parody on super- hero comics that seems to have a following purely because it knocks New Jersey. It has crude production values, weak humor, and an inexplicable following. Generally I am not all that fond of parodies. A film gets no points just for being a parody, no matter what it is satirizing. A parody should be funny on its own, even if the viewer has never seen the material being parodied. One parody that does work is John Landis's first film, a satire on _T_r_o_g called _S_c_h_l_o_c_k. The gags in _S_c_h_l_o_c_k are funny even if you have never seen _T_r_o_g. One parody that does not make it for this very reason is _T_h_e _T_o_x_i_c _A_v_e_n_g_e_r. Melvin Furd (a name borrowed from _M_a_d magazine satires of the 1950s) is a 98-pound weakling working as a mop-boy at a health club in Tromaville, New Jersey, the self-styled "Toxic Capital of the World." At the club everyone is good-looking and is a creep in one way or another, and the favorite sport is tormenting Melvin. One such prank goes awry and lands Melvin in a vat of toxic waste which puts Melvin through some changes. He becomes incredibly strong like Arnold Schwarzenegger but at the same time he is made deformed and ugly like, well, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He then proceeds to set the world, or at least Tromaville, right. The problem is that most of the jokes in _T_h_e _T_o_x_i_c _A_v_e_n_g_e_r are feeble and predictable. The jokes are on the level of the health instructor telling his exercise class to do just what he does, and then someone drops a snake down his back. You've seen this gag about thirty times before. The film is crudely made with the words often not synchronized with the lips. _T_h_e _T_o_x_i_c _A_v_e_n_g_e_r is a funny film for anyone who can laugh for an hour and a half at the same joke premise with little assistance from the rest of an amateurish script. Yes, we all like to knock New Joisey, and none more than we New Joisey residents, but _T_h_e _T_o_x_i_c _A_v_e_n_g_e_r doesn't do it particularly creatively. Rate it a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.