@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society Club Notice - 11/20/87 -- Vol. 6, No. 21 MEETINGS UPCOMING: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon. LZ meetings are in LZ 3A-206; MT meetings are in the cafeteria. _D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C 12/02 MT: Military SF 2 (Anderson, Card, Drake, and Laumer) 12/09 LZ: POSTMAN by David Brin (Post-Disaster Recovery) 12/23 MT: Superheroes (Martin, Van Vogt, and Wylie) 12/30 LZ: FUTUROLOGICAL CONGRESS by Stanislaw Lem (Foreign-Language Authors) 01/20 LZ: 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA by Jules Verne (Classics) 02/10 LZ: DRAGON WAITING by John Ford (Recent Fantasy) HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 834-1563 mtuxo!jetzt LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 576-6106 mtuxo!jrrt MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 957-5619 mtgzz!leeper HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3M-420 949-5866 homxb!tps LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-6142 lzfme!lfl MT Librarian: Will Harmon MT 3C-406 957-5128 mtgzz!wch Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted. 1. All right all you thud-and-blunder types. Our next meeting, on Kill-the-Turkey-Wednesday at noon in the cafeteria, will be a discussion of more recent military science fiction. Last discussion of military science fiction was a great success. Everybody enjoyed the re-creation of the scenes from from military science fiction novels right up to (but perhaps not including) when Evelyn and Beth Eades -- each a different alien fleet -- went screeching across the cafeteria to attack each other and accidentally photon-torpedoed a certain executive director's tuna salad. It was one of the great moments in the history of the Club. 2. It is my sad duty to inform you that they have changed one of the most interesting street signs in the area. Route 35 no longer has the sign that says "Marx Brothers Abattoir." (I always wondered what kind of film that would make.) We still have "Child's Funeral Parlor" and it's just down the street from the Bates Lodge, but neither is as effective as Marx Brother Abattoir. THE MT VOID Page 2 Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 957-5619 ...mtgzz!leeper ============================================================= MURDER AT THE DIOGENES CLUB by Gerald Lientz THE BLACK RIVER EMERALD by Peter Ryan Berkley Books, 1987, 0-425-10606-3/0-425-10607-1, $2.95 each. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1987 Evelyn C. Leeper These are Sherlock Holmes books only by the broadest definition. In each one, the reader is placed in the persona of Dr. Watson's cousin. Then some mystery that Holmes is too busy to solve turns up and you get to solve it instead. The books proceed in the typical fashion for role-playing games: choose a course of action at some points, use a random-number generator at others, and track through the results of these. The one innovation in them is that you don't have to carry a pair of dice around to read/play the books--they provide you with a random number table and also with a random number at the base of each page (just open the book at random to choose a number). Both give you spaces to keep track of equipment, money, and clues you have gathered. The first, however, doesn't appear to make use of these to any great extent. This means that whatever you decide to do early on has little, if any, effect on what you can do later. The second gets more into the swing of role-playing and so what you can do and what you know as the game progresses is much more dependent on choices you have made earlier. The real problem is that neither one has much of Holmes. He's there to introduce the problem, then he disappears until the end when he reappears to tell you whether your solution is correct or not, and if not, what's wrong with it. One might ask why you should bother chasing clues, interviewing people, etc., since Holmes manages to get the right answer without doing anything. I'm pretty much of a completist, but even _I didn't buy the third book. HOUSE OF GAMES A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1987 Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: Psychiatrist, disenchanted with her efficacy, gets involved in an adventure of sorts. See the film before you read too many reviews; this is a difficult film not to spoil in the reviewing, but it is a really good script by David Mamet who earlier this year did _T_h_e _U_n_t_o_u_c_h_a_b_l_e_s. Rating: +2. David Mamet is becoming a name to conjure with. I first noticed him about a decade ago when he had a play on Broadway called _T_h_e _W_a_t_e_r _E_n_g_i_n_e. That play, set in 1939, wove together chain letters, the World's Fair, and the great American paranoia myth that the auto companies have an engine that runs on water, but they've hushed it up. Much more recently Mamet wrote _T_h_e _U_n_t_o_u_c_h_a_b_l_e_s, an enjoyable screenplay unencumbered by concern for historical accuracy. _H_o_u_s_e _o_f _G_a_m_e_s has a Mamet screenplay and Mamet also debuts as director. Lindsay Crouse plays Margaret Ford, a successful psychiatrist. Dr. Ford has doubts that she really can help any of her patients. Against the cautious rules of psychiatry she gets involved in the personal life of one of her patients and, in doing so, meets Mike (played by Joe Mantegna). That is not saying much about the plot and my personal recommendation is to stay away from any reviewer who is going to tell you any more about the plot than that. If you really want to know more about the plot to know if you will like the film, take my word for it, you will probably like _H_o_u_s_e _o_f _G_a_m_e_s. It has humor, it has suspense, and it had the audience spellbound. My biggest complaint with _H_o_u_s_e _o_f _G_a_m_e_s is that even when the final credits roll, the audience is still waiting for the other shoe to fall. No matter how many shoes fall in a film like this, you still expect that there will be another one and another one. And what further creates that feeling is that _H_o_u_s_e _o_f _G_a_m_e_s is so entertaining, it seems like a much shorter film than it really is. Perhaps a plot twist or two predictable. Lindsay Crouse's acting is a little wooden. But Joe Mantegna is mesmerizing on the screen. His is apiece of nearly perfect casting. Siskel and Ebert both admitted to talking to the screen when they saw this film. I'm glad I didn't see it with them, but I do remember grinning at the screen a few times. I rate _H_o_u_s_e _o_f _G_a_m_e_s a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE MASKS OF DEATH A film review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1987 Evelyn C. Leeper It isn't often these days that one gets to see a new Sherlock Holmes film. Well, okay, so it isn't _e_n_t_i_r_e_l_y new, having been made in 1983, but it's definitely an improvement over watching the umpteenth rerun of _H_o_u_n_d _o_f _t_h_e _B_a_s_k_e_r_v_i_l_l_e_s (any version). Tyburn Films, who made a few horror films in the 1970s and then seemed to vanish, has gathered together almost all the great classic names from Hammer Films to make this film. Directed by John Elder, starring Peter Cushing as Holmes, with John Mills as Watson, and a whole slew of familiar supporting actors and crew, _S_h_e_r_l_o_c_k _H_o_l_m_e_s _a_n_d _t_h_e _M_a_s_k_s _o_f _D_e_a_t_h is based on an original screenplay. Aside from an irritating tendency to shoehorn in famous lines from the Canon that don't belong there, and the unfortunate decision to re-introduce Irene Adler as a character (why do so many Holmes pastiches do this?), this is quite a satisfying movie. The film is set shortly before World War I. Holmes is semi- retired, but a request from the Home Secretary to assist in a matter of great urgency convinces him to resume his career for a short time. At the same time, Inspector MacDonald from Scotland Yard comes to ask Holmes's advice regarding some unusual deaths. Naturally the two threads cross, giving a story that is considerably more interesting and believable than the contrivances set in World War II for Rathbone and Bruce. Cushing has played Holmes before, and does a good job in this film, showing Holmes as an older man than he is usually portrayed. Mills is good as Watson, and the supporting cast is excellent, with the exception of Anne Baxter, who does not convey the impression of irresistible beauty and charm that with which Doyle imbues "The Woman." The availability of this film is its only problem. I believe my copy was taped from a premium cable channel, but I'm not sure which one (it was given to me by a friend). I had hoped in this centenary year that more such rare Holmes films would be shown, but that appears to have been a false hope.