@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society Club Notice - 12/9/88 -- Vol. 7, No. 24 MEETINGS UPCOMING: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon. LZ meetings are in LZ 2R-158. _D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C 12/19 Star Trek in the 20th Century Club: Future Science and Technology *Monday* (LZ 2D-305, 6:30 PM) (co-sponsored) 12/21 LZ: General Organizational Meeting 1989: 01/11 LZ: TBA 01/18 MT: "Space Colonies in Fact and Fiction" (video) (MT 3K-402) _D_A_T_E _E_X_T_E_R_N_A_L _M_E_E_T_I_N_G_S/_C_O_N_V_E_N_T_I_O_N_S/_E_T_C. 12/10 Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Party (phone 201-933-2724 for details) 12/17 New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA (Party?) (phone 201-432-5965 for details) 05/05/89 CONTRAPTION. MI. GoH: Mike Resnick; FGoHs: Mark & Evelyn Leeper. -05/07/89 Info: Diana Harlan Stein, 1325 Key West, Troy MI 48083. 08/31/89 NOREASCON III (47th World SF Con). MA. GoHs: Andre Norton, Ian & Betty -09/04/89 Ballantine; FGoH: The Stranger Club. Info: Noreascon Three, Box 46, MIT Branch P.O., Cambridge, MA 02139. 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. The future is coming faster than we thought! I got this piece of mail from Newton Lee. THE MT VOID Page 2 Mark, Sorry for the inconvenience, but our DSG president is coming to see our demo on Dec 20 at 6:00 p.m. so I have the change the date of our Star Trek/Science Fiction Club meeting to Dec 19 (Mon) at 6:30 p.m. Please note this change in MT Void. Thanks, Newton. As you probably don't remember, this is to be a discussion of the book _F_u_t_u_r_e _M_a_g_i_c by Robert L. Forward, author of _D_r_a_g_o_n'_s _E_g_g. _F_u_t_u_r_e _M_a_g_i_c is a survey of possible advances in technology and their possible implications. I am about halfway into it and I think people will find it worth reading, even if they cannot attend the meeting. 2. As I promised last week I would explain a study I am doing on entropy. As you probably know, universal entropy increases. This means things get more mixed up. If you put red marbles and green marbles in a large Tupperware snuff mull and shake them up and look inside, it is unlikely that all the green marbles are together and all the red marbles are together. The highest probability is that they will be mixed together and no amount of shaking the mull will separate them. Entropy says things get more mixed up. (I tell people that things are getting more confused, but they tell me the problem is all in my mind.) Anyway, one cannot decrease the overall entropy of a closed system. You can make a machine that will cool your Jolt cola and blow hot air out the bottom, but it has to expend energy to do it and that energy is dissipated as heat. These forces clearly apply universally or they are not true at all. It has been observed that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This goes against entropy in a limited area but that area is not a closed system. In fact, if the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, such a system must be expending energy as heat. This heat gets observed as racial friction leading to long hot summers. It may also be generally contributing to the heating up of the Earth's surface which will change climates so that our growing seasons will be affected and we will have more droughts. Poorer nations will get richer; richer nations will get poorer. Entropy will win out in the end. Anyone know if you can get Nobel prizes in economics _a_n_d physics for the same work? 3. In our last MT VOID, Estes Slade was told to look up the definition of "disenfranchised." He did so and this is what he reports: THE MT VOID Page 3 "dis-en-fran-chised - 1. Being formally part owner of a small hamburger chain. 2. An ex-citizen of France. 3. An over-weight person having had a stuck french fry removed from the lower gut." So now you all know. [-ecl] Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 957-5619 ...mtgzz!leeper ============================================= THE FALLING WOMAN by Pat Murphy Tor, 1987 (1986c), ISBN 0-812-54620-2, $3.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1988 Evelyn C. Leeper This book won the 1988 Nebula and deservedly so. It is a fantasy, but not one of those Tolkienesque elves-or-what-have-you-on-a-quest-to- save-the-world-from-the-ultimate-evil sort of novel. (No slur towards Tolkien--he did it early and he did it better. But, oh the imitators he spawned!) _T_h_e _F_a_l_l_i_n_g _W_o_m_a_n is about an archaeologist who is very involved with her work, so much so that she communicates with the spirits of those who lived and died where she is digging. Her work takes her to Dzibilchaltun in the Yucatan where she is visited by the spirit of a long-dead priestess. How she deals with this is the meat of the novel. There is not a lot of action, but there is a lot of thoughtful character development and a good use of the Mayan setting. As a well-written, literate fantasy, this is hard to beat. (Side-note: why don't more fantasy authors write in less over-used mythologies? Tiptree also wrote Mayan-based material, but I can't think of anyone else. LeGuin is doing some work in Native American legends, and one or two other authors have also done so, but again, I can't think of too many. Milton and Brust did the Christian Heaven; Dante and Niven and Pournelle did Hell. And then there are a wealth of Asian mythologies that almost entirely ignored....) Three Milli-Reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1988 Evelyn C. Leeper ALTERNITIES by Michael P. Kube-McDowell (Ace, 1988, 0-441-01774-6, $3.95): Kube-McDowell is a good author, and that makes this all the more disappointing. This parallel worlds story is muddled and confusing. Few of the characters make any sense or seem to have much consistent motivation. The thread with Senator Endicott is particularly meaningless and I figure was put in purely to add a sex- and-violence aspect to the novel. It seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the book. The ending is confusing and a deus ex machina to boot. It was interesting to follow the sidebars and see just where the split in worlds occurred, but that did not suffice to sustain my interest for almost 400 pages. (What did? I suppose the feeling that it must all tie together eventually. It didn't.) I had such hopes for this novel, but it did not live up to any of them. REMEMBER GETTYSBURG! by Kevin Randle & Robert Cornett (Charter, 1988, 1-55773-089-X, $3.50): This book seems to be aimed 1) those who like war stories packaged as science fiction, and 2) Civil War buffs. It consists mostly of long detailed descriptions of Civil War battles (which may or may not be accurate). There is an alternate history frame, disposed of in a couple of paragraphs and then brought back only to provide additional suspense. The characters are not well developed; apparently the authors assume the reader will have read their first book, _R_e_m_e_m_b_e_r _t_h_e _A_l_a_m_o! And at the end comes the now all too familiar twist that...there will be a sequel. Blech! WILD CARDS V: Down and Dirty edited by George R. R. Martin ( Bantam, 1988, 0-553-27463-5, $4.50): Well, much as I hate to say it, the "Wild Cards" series is wearing thin. There was so much I found dissatisfying about this book--none of it devastating, but added together, it makes me wonder if I'll buy the next one. And that is one of the problems. This book, more than any of the previous books in the series, screams out, "A SEQUEL IS COMING!" Yeah, after each of the others you realized there was more to tell, but in this case, it's a lot of what _t_h_i_s book is about that's unresolved. Add to this that (at least in my opinion) there is a lot more graphic violence in this book that previously. And then I get a vague feeling that perhaps the "Wild Cards" series has reached the end of its inventiveness--there doesn't seem to be anything really original or fresh here. The technical details of the mosaic novel are well-handled, but technical proficiency does not a great novel make. THE NAKED GUN A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1988 Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: The Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams, who together made _A_i_r_p_l_a_n_e!, are back with a film version of their cult TV show _P_o_l_i_c_e _S_q_u_a_d!. It provides a few laughs but is actually of a very different style from the TV show and it is a misstep. Rating: 0. You are going to have to stick with the old arm-chair historian on this one. _T_h_e _N_a_k_e_d _G_u_n has a long history. In 1974 a film was made that was sort of a radical experiment in comedy films. _T_h_e _G_r_o_o_v_e _T_u_b_e was a sort of satire on television that was not a single story but a set of black-out sketches lampooning all aspects of television. It spawned a host of imitators, one of the best being _K_e_n_t_u_c_k_y _F_r_i_e_d _M_o_v_i_e, which was written in large part by three men, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker. Like _T_h_e _G_r_o_o_v_e _T_u_b_e, _K_e_n_t_u_c_k_y _F_r_i_e_d _M_o_v_i_e was mostly made up of very short sketches but it included "A Fistful of Yen," a very extended satire on the Bruce Lee film _E_n_t_e_r _t_h_e _D_r_a_g_o_n. It was clear that someone felt the same madcap style could be applied to longer satires. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, a production company called Quinn-Martin was making a set of popular television series including _T_h_e _F._B._I., _T_h_e _F_u_g_i_t_i_v_e, _R_u_n _f_o_r _Y_o_u_r _L_i_f_e, _T_h_e _I_n_v_a_d_e_r_s, and a police show or two, all using much the same style of story-telling, making them an easy target for satire. But television was not yet ready for the Abrahams/Zucker/Zucker style of comedy. What made all the difference was when the Abrahams/Zucker/Zucker took a mediocre but popular television movie _T_e_r_r_o_r _i_n _t_h_e _S_k_y (which was in itself a remake of _Z_e_r_o _H_o_u_r) and remade it using the same three-joke-a-minute style they had used in "A Fistful of Yen." The result was _A_i_r_p_l_a_n_e! It proved to the networks that there was a viable market for satire--or at least the Abrahams/Zucker/Zucker brand of satire. But could the Abrahams/Zucker/Zucker style of humor be applied to a regular television series and could it garner an audience big enough to sustain it. In a word: no. While _P_o_l_i_c_e _S_q_u_a_d! was certainly one of the most inventive comedy programs ever on network television, outside of a loyal core of fans (my wife among them), people saw it once or twice and then felt they had seen it. By the time it was on there were fewer Quinn-Martin productions on television anyway so perhaps fewer people even remembered the Quinn-Martin cliches like the dramatic voice reading the title of the episode. After one season of six shows the series was apparently no longer profitable enough to continue and was relegated to the ranks of cult television. Abrahams/Zucker/Zucker have since made three more theatrical films: _A_i_r_p_l_a_n_e _I_I, _T_o_p _S_e_c_r_e_t, and now the _P_o_l_i_c_e _S_q_u_a_d! movie, _T_h_e _N_a_k_e_d _G_u_n. While Police Lieutenant Drebbin (played by Leslie Nielsen) is off in Lebanon beating up every anti-American world and leader and warning Naked Gun December 4, 1988 Page 2 them to keep out of America, one of his own undercover agents is shot, left for dead, and framed for heroin running. Drebbin investigates and finds at the heart of the matter a drug kingpin (played by Ricardo Montalban, in his second film adaptation of a cult television show) with a plan to kill Queen Elizabeth. I will not spend a lot of time on the plot since it is clear the filmmakers did not either. I will say that notably missing are some of the best running gags like the omniscient shoeshine boy and the frozen-scene end titles. The real problem with the _P_o_l_i_c_e _S_q_u_a_d! movie is that it is not really a _P_o_l_i_c_e _S_q_u_a_d! movie. While it has a touch of the old style of three jokes a minute, it segues into the Inspector Clouseau style in which the jokes are as funny, probably, but each one lasts longer, and there are fewer. Clouseau humor relied on the personality that Peter Sellers was able to put into the character while the original _P_o_l_i_c_e _S_q_u_a_d!'s jokes were a steady barrage from all directions. Leslie Nielsen's Drebbin does not have the personal appeal that Sellers gave Clouseau. As a lampoon of police shows _P_o_l_i_c_e _S_q_u_a_d! took every cliche it could find and turned each one on its head. It took place in a uniformly insane world. _T_h_e _N_a_k_e_d _G_u_n, like the Clouseau films, takes place in a sane world with one insane man. This leads to a different character of film altogether. It is slower and less interesting. I would think it would be unlikely people would want to see Nielsen reprise his role again and again the way Sellers was able to. In spite of a number of funny moments, quite a number in fact, _T_h_e _N_a_k_e_d _G_u_n is a misfire and will probably be a one-shot. Rate it a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale. Readercon II Con report, suggestions, and general musings by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1988 Evelyn C. Leeper As I said last year: About twelve years ago, Mark and I were involved in a science fiction discussion group. We were discussing Niven and Pournelle's _I_n_f_e_r_n_o and I made the comment that I thought the original was much better, to which someone replied, "Oh, you read the magazine version too?" It was at that point that I first realized the need for Readercon. After Readercon I, we had to wait seventeen months for Readercon II, but it finally happened. (Note: we have to wait another seventeen months for Readercon III. An eighteen-month cycle might almost make sense, but a seventeen-month one?!) Dedicated to the written word, Readercon II was held the weekend of November 18 through November 20 at the Lowell Hilton in Lowell, Massachusetts. 350 people registered (up from 330 last year), with 300 of those actually attending (up from 280). Just as with Readercon I, people came from as far away as California and Utah, though the majority were from the Boston area. Hotel and Function Space The entire convention was on one floor, a definite plus. The main program room was at least half-empty most of the time and the Hucksters' Room overcrowded. Unfortunately, there isn't any easy way to reassign the rooms. The Green Room was attached to the Con Suite, and became basically an extension of that, and was at the opposite end of the hotel from the programming. The Staff Room was right next to the programming. Next year these will probably be swapped. The parking garage had an odd rate structure, with the rate per hour going _u_p the longer you parked, rather than down. The hotel had coffee and muffins for sale at a kiosk Saturday and Sunday mornings. I didn't use the restaurants in the hotel, but others said the breakfast buffet looked mediocre. Restaurants in the area were limited, though a multi-ethnic fast-food restaurant and a fairly decent Greek restaurant augmented the usual pizza/subs/burgers places (and a Brigham's--just like we used to have near Boskones in Boston). The major drawback to Lowell is that it smells bad--at least the canal right next to the hotel does, and this was in _c_o_l_d weather. I would not want to plan a summer convention there, and this may be part of why the hotel supposedly is in financial difficulty. The convention failed to provide attendees with a map of the hotel, instead relying on written descriptions of where the various rooms were. Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 2 They need to provide a map. Also missing was a restaurant guide, though one was posted late Friday night. (Strangely, there _w_a_s a map of downtown Lowell provided, so maybe the lack of restaurant descriptions was an oversight.) Hucksters' Room Again, the Hucksters' Room was entirely books. There were about twice as many dealers as last year (sixteen versus eight), with several selling affordable used paperbacks--reading copies rather than collectibles. However, there was no dealer selling _n_e_w paperbacks, which my friends from the Amherst area wished for, science fiction/horror/fantasy not being a major commodity in the bookstores near them. (New horror novels are especially difficult to get for many people _e_x_c_e_p_t at conventions.) Perhaps the Readercon committee can make a special effort to recruit a new paperback dealer for Readercon III. One other disappointment was how early the Hucksters' Room closed on Sunday. Apparently we had to vacate the space by 5 PM, so the room closed by 3 PM, and even then many of the dealers had already left. Programming If you are the sort who does not attend program items at conventions, Readercon is not for you. There was little to do other than the program items. There was a main track and a mini-track, the latter consisting mostly of readings. Again, this is the same as last year. This year we managed to arrive in time for the Friday night programming. _M_a_x_i_m_u_m _R&_D: _R_o_c_k '_n' _R_o_l_l '_n' _S_F Friday, 6:30 PM Okay, so I didn't actually attend this panel. But I have to ask how a convention dedicated to the written word, which specifically excludes "media SF" from its programming, can schedule a rock 'n' roll panel. (The answer that the two chairs are rock 'n' roll critics/writers will be considered by me an obvious, but insufficient, answer and only partial credit will be given.) (This was one of the two panels rescheduled--rather than make everything an hour late, they moved this one from 5:30 and shifted the 6:30 panel to the end of the programming.) _C_a_v_i_a_r: _A _T_e_d _S_t_u_r_g_e_o_n _A_p_p_r_e_c_i_a_t_i_o_n David G. Hartwell (moderator), Bernadette Bosky, Daniel P. Dern, Samuel R. Delany, Martha Soukup Saturday, 7:30 PM Theodore Sturgeon was designated the "Past Master" for Readercon II and several program items were dedicated to him and his work. On this panel, t this item, the panelists each spoke about what they felt Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 3 distinguished Sturgeon. Delany said that Sturgeon physicalized emotions--that he wrote about emotions as objects rattling around inside people (someone's tears were "like something scratching the inside of his face"). David G. Hartwell liked Sturgeon's use of opening lines that grab you: "They found him under the grandstand, doing something awful." [_T_h_e _D_r_e_a_m_i_n_g _J_e_w_e_l_s]. Bernadette Bosky named "Thunder and Roses" as her favorite and one of the stories used in the science fiction course she taught. The panelists concurred that Sturgeon was "obsessed with technique." He recommended that one way to distinguish different characters' speech in a dialogue was to use different metric systems for them, rather than using "he said, she said" constructs. Another approach was to characterize by profession. This seemed to be to think about how, say, a policeman in Boston would talk, and seems a bit obvious. Unfortunately, I could stay for only half the panel because I had to work the Green Room. _B_o_o_k_a_h_o_l_i_c_s _A_n_o_n_y_m_o_u_s Friday, 9:30 PM I missed the first half of this because of Green Room work, but the discussion didn't seem to have covered any amazing ground. When I arrived they were in the midst of a debate regarding the advantages of hardbacks versus paperbacks (size, cost, durability). Everyone agreed they hated series and multi-part books: no big surprise and it's not clear what this has to do with bookaholism. No agreement was reached on what to do with old books. No one wanted to throw them out, but the sheer quantity of books produced in this country makes that inevitable. If you give them to the library book sale instead of throwing them out, and they don't sell, the library will throw them out (well, some libraries will anyway). Other random observations made: Some people seem to be proud of never reading a book. There are people who buy books only for the cover art. (Of course, they probably think it's strange that anyone would buy a coverless book or a hardback book with the dust jacket.) And many people said they have the problem of being unable to sort their books without stopping to read them. _S_e_m_i_o_t_i_c_s _a_n_d _D_e_c_o_n_s_t_r_u_c_t_i_o_n_i_s_m: _A_n _I_n_t_r_o_d_u_c_t_o_r_y _T_a_l_k Samuel R. Delany Friday, 10:00 PM I didn't go to this talk, but Mark did and had the following to say: My first reaction to Samuel R. Delany's presentation was that it was incompetent as an introduction. Shockingly so. I will say very frankly that 95% of what Mr. Delany said was couched in jargon so obscure that nobody outside of his field could be expected to have any idea what he was talking about. There was no attempt to define any terms at all non-technically, even the terms of his Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 4 title. Now there are any number of possible interpretations to what I saw. You can decide which is the most likely. Delany, an acknowledged writer and a tenured professor at my alma mater--though he very frankly told a friend he would like to use it as a stepping stone to a professorship at Harvard--had no idea how to get his ideas across to a non-technical audience. I have heard scientists and mathematicians--people who unlike Delany are not in the craft of words--who have taken subjects I consider far more technical and subjects which have far more substance and made them understandable to laymen. The audience may not have gone away capable of carrying on the work, but they had left with a feel for what the work was. They went away with at least a few non- technical definitions, It is possible Delany is far inferior to these people when it comes to expressing himself. That was my most charitable explanation, I am afraid, but I do not believe that explanation. At least one reason is that I was able to understand 5%--with some difficulty--but that it was phrased in so obscure a wording as to hide the meaning or make it more difficult to ferret out. Sorry, Mr. Delany, you should eschew some obfuscations. I think you were intentionally being obscure to convince the audience of the technicality of your subject and/or to lose intentionally those members who did not already know the subject matter. (Note this is Mark's opinion, not mine, and people who wish to take issue with it should contact him.) _M_e_e_t _t_h_e _P_r_o_s(_e) _P_a_r_t_y Friday, 11:00 PM I dropped in on this early on. It was at that time sparsely attended. In addition, the only refreshments available were from the cash bar--there were no soft drinks and no munchies. I (and many other) ended up going to the con suite instead and partying there. The con suite was well supplied throughout the weekend with soft drinks, juice, coffee, tea (including herbal tea), chips, fruit, vegetables, and cheese and was a popular gathering place without being too loud or unruly. _S_e_e _D_i_c_k _R_u_n, _S_e_e _J_a_n_e _R_e_v_e_a_l _D_e_p_t_h_s _o_f _t_h_e _H_u_m_a_n _C_o_n_d_i_t_i_o_n: _T_h_e _J_u_v_e_n_i_l_e _a_s _L_i_t_e_r_a_t_u_r_e Terri Windling (moderator), Paul Hazel, Barry B. Longyear, Patricia A. McKillip, John Morressy, Delia Sherman Saturday, 10:00 AM This panel would have done well to define its terms ahead of time. What is a juvenile novel? A young-adult (YA) novel? A children's book? (Note that children have books, not novels.) I was reading Campbell and Franz Werfel at fourteen--does that make them juvenile authors? (No, it makes me weird!) It wasn't even clear what defined a Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 5 juvenile/YA/children's book. A teenage protagonist isn't sufficient (e.g., _T_h_e _R_e_d _M_a_g_i_c_i_a_n by Lisa Goldstein) or necessary (_T_h_e _H_o_b_b_i_t by J. R. R. Tolkien). Towards the end they seemed to settle on a three- part division. First came picture books designed to be read to children while they followed along. Then came simple books designed to help a child learn to read. Lastly, from about age eight, came books that assume a certain basic reading ability and start to concentrate more on characters, story, etc. One thing the authors on the panel agreed on was that authors shouldn't write down to their audiences by using only short words and sentences (though obviously one can err in the other direction as well). Morressy claimed something he tried to do was to "learn how to say the big things in little words." It wasn't clear if he still thought this was a good idea. Windling talked about books meant to be read only by children as having a parallel in books meant to be read only by fans. (I have this feeling neither are great literature, but that's my personal prejudice. I enjoyed _B_i_m_b_o_s _o_f _t_h_e _D_e_a_t_h _S_u_n but it's a fun read rather than a great read.) The obligatory list of recommendations followed (I have listed recommenders in parentheses after the titles): _T_h_e _T_r_i_c_k_s_t_e_r_s, _T_h_e _C_a_t_a_l_o_g_u_e _o_f _t_h_e _U_n_i_v_e_r_s_e, and _T_h_e _C_h_a_n_g_e_o_v_e_r, all by Margaret Mahy (PK, DS); _A_t _t_h_e _B_a_c_k _o_f _t_h_e _N_o_r_t_h _W_i_n_d, _T_h_e _P_r_i_n_c_e_s_s _a_n_d _t_h_e _G_o_b_l_i_n, and _T_h_e _P_r_i_n_c_e_s_s _a_n_d _C_u_r_d_i_e, all by George MacDonald (DS); anything by Nancy Garden or Diana Wynne Jones (DS); _T_h_e _F_o_r_e_s_t _o_f _A_p_p by Gloria R. Dank (DS); _K_i_n_d_e_r_g_a_r_t_e_n by Peter Rushforth (TW); _T_o_m _S_a_w_y_e_r and _H_u_c_k_l_e_b_e_r_r_y _F_i_n_n by Mark Twain (BL); _T_r_e_a_s_u_r_e _I_s_l_a_n_d by Robert Louis Stevenson (BL); almost anything by L. Frank Baum (BL); the Hornblower books of C. S. Forester (BL); _F_a_r_m_e_r _i_n _t_h_e _S_k_y by Robert A. Heinlein (BL); _T_h_e _E_g_y_p_t _G_a_m_e by Zilpha K. Snyder (BL); _T_h_e _H_o_b_b_i_t by J. R. R. Tolkien (JM); the Narnia books by C. S. Lewis; the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen (JM); _T_h_e _W_i_n_d _i_n _t_h_e _W_i_l_l_o_w_s by Kenneth Grahame (JM); and _T_h_e _L_i_g_h_t _i_n _t_h_e _F_o_r_e_s_t by Conrad Richter (JM). This panel suffered from the same problem many of the panels had (at all conventions, not just Readercon): authors pushing their own books. In this case, it was Longyear who kept recommending his own works. I wonder if it's possible for authors to be told that they can mention their latest/most relevant book when introducing themselves on a panel, but then have to refrain from talking about any other books. (I admit this wouldn't always work--see my comments below on the "Alternate Sexual Lifestyles in F & SF" panel.) Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 6 _I_s _C_h_i_p _D_e_l_a_n_y _t_h_e _W_o_o_d_y _A_l_l_e_n _o_f _S_F? (_o_r, _I _R_e_a_l_l_y _L_i_k_e _Y_o_u_r _B_o_o_k_s..._E_s_p_e_c_i_a_l_l_y _t_h_e _E_a_r_l_i_e_r, _S_i_m_p_l_e_r _O_n_e_s...) David G. Hartwell (moderator), Paul DiFilippo, Arthur Hlavaty, Stan Levanthal, Patrick Nielsen Hayden Saturday, 11:00 AM The first thing this panel did was to decide that _D_a_h_l_g_r_e_n was the dividing point between the early Delany and the later Delany, though I would claim (and I think they might agree) that _T_r_i_t_o_n, while coming after _D_a_h_l_g_r_e_n chronologically, more closely resembles the earlier Delany in its tighter structure and "standard" science fiction concepts. The later Delany was characterized by the panel as having a looser structure, or at any rate a less obvious structure, and less predictable concepts. (The structure of the earlier works are more like an exoskeleton that you can see; the later Delany has an endoskeleton hidden from view.) The later Delany also has a freer sexuality and (according to Levanthal), "sheds light on an increasingly dark culture." As far as freer sexuality goes, for example, _D_a_h_l_g_r_e_n was cited as the first book to give a more naturalistic view of sex--people sweat, get pinched, etc. DiFilippo thought that a preference for the early Delany represented a resistance to change (which others paralleled to the "series mentality" that makes authors write book after book in the same series) and a nostalgia for the 1960s. Someone (Levanthal?) compared the reception given to _D_a_h_l_g_r_e_n to that given to Bob Dylan when he first used an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival. Hartwell felt that the path Delany took was the classical one; in earlier times poets started with lyric and pastoral poetry and advanced to epics (e.g., Milton). Nielsen Hayden thought that _D_a_h_l_g_r_e_n had been "selected" as a symbolic book to represent a whole trend in science fiction occurring about that time. When it came to specific post-_D_a_h_l_g_r_e_n books, the panel tended to split on whether they loved them or hated them (well, no one would admit to hating a Delany book, but there were definitely some lukewarm comments). _T_r_i_t_o_n seemed to be perceived as a basic piece of the feminist dialogue of the 1970s, along with Russ's _T_h_e _F_e_m_a_l_e _M_a_n and LeGuin's _T_h_e _D_i_s_p_o_s_s_e_s_s_e_d. _T_a_l_e_s _o_f _N_e_v_e_r_y_o_n_a was disliked by some because of its pre-technological setting. Most wanted to reserve judgement on _S_t_a_r_s _i_n _M_y _P_o_c_k_e_t _L_i_k_e _G_r_a_i_n_s _o_f _S_a_n_d until the second half of the diptych came out. At the end Hartwell asked Delany, who was sitting in the audience, if he wished to comment. Delany's comment was that he had never read this author he was discussing, which I take to mean that since he is _i_n_s_i_d_e the author, he can't examine the author from the _o_u_t_s_i_d_e. It was an unusual discussion, though, since Delany and everyone else kept referring to Delany in the third person (Borges used to do this also). Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 7 _E_l_f_l_a_n_d _U8"9_b_e_r _A_l_l_e_s: _H_i_d_d_e_n _R_a_c_i_s_m (_a_n_d _o_t_h_e_r -_i_s_m_s) _i_n _F_a_n_t_a_s_y _a_n_d _S_F Ellen Kushner (moderator), Terry Bisson, Samuel R. Delany, Paul Park, Darrell Schweitzer, Joan Slonczewski, Lawrence Watt-Evans Saturday, 2:00 PM The panelists seemed to start out by agreeing that all science fiction futures used to be white Anglo-Saxon Protestant futures. I'm sure counter-examples could be found, but in general that was probably the case. They seem to think it's still the case, though I would certainly contend that the majority of cyberpunk works seem to postulate a Japanese or Third-World future instead. Past examples of blatant racism were mentioned, but Delany pointed out that he read the Conan books (one common example) without ever seeing the racism. Schweitzer wondered aloud what readers fifty years from now would find horrifying in our books ("What? They didn't let dogs vote?"). Everyone patted science fiction on the back that it had less racism than mainstream, or at least occasionally ran counter to the mainstream (the first interracial kiss on network television was on _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k). Of course, someone pointed out that while the stories might be supposedly integrated, everyone in them still talked and acted as if they had gone to Oxford--there were no real "ethnic" characters. As for whether they consciously worked at eliminating racism in their works (whatever that means), the authors had different response. Park said that "you write what you write." Sherman said that "we write what we believe to be true." Delany said that racism or sexist characterizations are copies of what other authors do (they have to be or they wouldn't be stereotypes), so that if you try to write original characters, you will avoid the stereotypes. He also felt that censorship is bound to fail in its goals because it tries to guess what the objections will be. Watt-Evans gave the example of describing a black villain as having "kinky hair." The publishers objected, not to the race of the villain in general, but to the word "kinky." Every, including Delany, thought this was ridiculous. Slonczewski pointed out that you needed to know people of various types to write about them successfully. The panel closed with a discussion of classism: why is the science fiction community, or more accurately (in my opinion), the fantasy community, so enamored with monarchies? There is a perceived thread that the lower classes are good ("the noble savage"), the upper classes are good ("noblesse oblige"), but the middle classes are evil (all the evil wizards are basically of the merchant class). One panelist suggested that this was the result of the authors, who come mostly from middle-class backgrounds, rebelling against their parents. Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 8 _U_n_f_o_r_t_u_n_a_t_e_l_y _S_t_i_l_l _T_o_o _S_e_n_s_i_t_i_v_e _a _T_o_p_i_c _f_o_r _a _S_i_l_l_y _T_i_t_l_e: _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _S_e_x_u_a_l _L_i_f_e_s_t_y_l_e_s _i_n _F & _S_F Stan Levanthal (moderator), Samuel R. Delany, Ellen Kushner, Laurie Mann, Delia Sherman Saturday, 4:00 PM Levanthal introduced this panel with a long speech about how difficult it was to find books with gay themes or characters. (I will be using gay in its original sense, referring to both male and female homosexuality. We can argue till the cows--and bulls--come home about whether this is politically correct, but not in a con report.) While it is true, as he said, that the gay community is not entirely successfully informed about books published as science fiction that have gay themes and that the science fiction community is not entirely successfully informed about books published as gay books that have science fiction content, it's not evident to me that this represents a major failing on the part of the science fiction community as he seemed to imply. I mean, how many people in the science fiction community find out about mainstream novels with science fiction content? How many environmental groups hear about environmental science fiction? The problem is the fragmentation and overlap of groups, not the exclusion of groups. (One example of a science fiction novel published in the gay community was _L_o_v_e _i_n _R_e_l_i_e_f by Guy Hocquenghem). Two other points irritated me. One was Levanthal's constant use of the pronoun "we," as referring to the gay and lesbian community. Now in most contexts this would be reasonable, but as the moderator he is under a certain obligation to reserve the word "we" for the panel unless he says otherwise, and not everyone on the panel was gay. After the first few times I found it grating--we (all of us in the room) had some interest in the problem or we wouldn't have been there, but Levanthal seemed to be drawing it as an "us-versus-them" situation, with the battle lines drawn along sexual orientation lines rather than those of social philosophy. A related irritation was that Levanthal seemed to be intent on taking the science fiction community to task for not doing whatever it was we should have been doing. Patrick Nielsen Hayden pointed out from the audience that science fiction has been one of the openest fields, that there have been panels on homosexuality in science fiction for the last ten years, and that trying to paint this panel as a groundbreaker was a mistake. The second irritation was that although the title was "Alternate Sexual Lifestyles in F & SF," the panelists (except for Mann) seemed to want to talk only about homosexuality (or perhaps bisexuality, if pressed). Any attempt by Mann or audience members to ask about any other aspect of sexuality was fairly quickly shunted aside and the discussion returned to homosexuality. What is disheartening about this is that I get the impression that the committee _w_a_n_t_e_d a panel on homosexuality and was afraid to use the word. (Just my uninformed opinion, mind you.) Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 9 Now that I've bored everyone with my complaints, I can proceed to the rest of the subject. One question the panel thought worth examing- -but didn't--was whether authors should be trying to write gay characters or trying to redefine the entire society (Varley being a good example of the latter). Regarding censorship (de facto as well as de jure), Delany talked about a session with a book buyer from a major chain that someone recounted to him. Book covers were thrown onto the table and after about ten seconds, the buyer would say, "I'll take 10,000 of those" or "I'll take 12,000." When one of Delany's books came up, the buyer said, "I'll take 15,000," at which point someone else said, "I've read that; it has gay characters." The buyer then said, "Okay, better make that 7,000." It's not clear what to do about this, since the buyer can buy or not buy what s/he chooses. If enough people buy Delany or other authors such that the sales figures are high enough, the chains will buy the books. You don't believe me? If Asimov, McCaffrey, or Clarke wrote a book with gay characters, what do you think the chains would do? One panelist mentioned that gay science fiction had been around for a long time, citing Ray Bradbury's "The Cold Wind and the Warm" as an early work from an unexpected source. Naturally the K/S (Kirk/Spock) phenomenon was brought up. Discussed at length in Joanna Russ's "By Women, For Women, with Love" (in _M_a_g_i_c _M_o_m_m_a_s, _T_r_e_m_b_l_i_n_g _S_i_s_t_e_r_s, _P_u_r_i_t_a_n_s, & _P_e_r_v_e_r_t_s), this phenomenon was pointed to as "pseudo-gay." Delany, for example, said that Russ sent him five pounds of K/S material for his opinion (as a gay male) and none of it turned him on. This seemed to be the general consensus; one panelist described it by saying, "They're not gay, they just have sex together." (Kate disagrees with this assessment, but I think on this issue Delany's credentials are more substantial than hers.) In response to someone's wondering why "straight" porno films (aimed at men, presumably) always have a lesbian scene, Delany observed two things. One, the "lesbians" in these scenes don't act like _a_n_y lesbians he knows (this was met with general agreement from the audience, and two, "if you desire X, why shouldn't you desire 2 X more...especially if you rub them together." A bibliography of gay science fiction does exists (though it is currently both outdated and out of print): _U_r_a_n_i_a_n _W_o_r_l_d_s by Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo, who along with Camilla Decarnin are the co-editors of the reasonably well-known anthology of gay science fiction, _W_o_r_l_d_s _A_p_a_r_t). No one got a chance to talk about one of the ways in which science fiction can handle this whole topic, namely, by changing it into a science fiction theme. George R. R. Martin, for instance, in the "Wild Cards" series runs a lot of obvious parallels between those who have been affected by the mutant alien virus and gays in our society--the Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 10 struggle for equal rights, for acceptance, and so on. When he says, "My own creed is distressingly simple--I believe that jokers and aces and nats are all just men and women and ought to be treated as such. During my dark nights of the soul I wonder if I am the only one left who believes this," the substitution in the reader's mind of "gays and straights" for "jokers and aces and nats" is almost inevitable. Dinner For dinner, the con asked people to list their three favorite authors and then organized groups around the half-dozen most popular entitled "If you Like X, You'll Love Y." For some reason, there were no groups organized around Jorge Luis Borges or Olaf Stapledon (though one other person did list Borges), so Mark, Pete, Barbara, Kate, and I had our own dinner discussion: "Why Does No One Else Like the Authors I Like?" To those who like Stapledon, I would recommend John Brunner's _T_h_e _C_r_u_c_i_b_l_e _o_f _T_i_m_e and James Michener's _H_a_w_a_i_i and _T_h_e _S_o_u_r_c_e. _S_a_m_u_e_l _R. _D_e_l_a_n_y: _Q_u_e_s_t_i_o_n_s & _A_n_s_w_e_r_s Saturday, 8;30 PM I only heard bits and pieces of this from outside the hall. Sample question: "Comment on Philip K. Dick, Gene Wolfe, John Crowley." Answer: "Golly, gosh!" _T_h_e_o_d_o_r_e _S_t_u_r_g_e_o_n'_s "_S_l_o_w _S_c_u_l_p_t_u_r_e": _A _D_r_a_m_a_t_i_c _R_e_a_d_i_n_g Anita Van Saturday, 9:00 PM I didn't attend this, but Mark did and reports that it was excellent. From his comments, I might suggest that Boskone may wish to approach Anita Van about doing a dramatic reading there. _T_h_e _T_h_i_r_d _K_i_r_k _P_o_l_a_n_d _M_e_m_o_r_i_a_l _B_a_d _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n _a_n_d _F_a_n_t_a_s_y _P_r_o_s_e _C_o_m_p_e_t_i_t_i_o_n Saturday, 10:00 PM I was working the Green Room during this by my own choice, but I am pleased (?) to report that they did pick a different author to make the butt of all the jokes this year. There was, on the whole, less negative programming at Readercon II than at Readercon I, making this slightly less obnoxious than previously. Geary Gravel won again, having also won the first and second competitions. This makes him either the "trashmaster of science fiction," or (as I prefer to think of it) as the "Rich Little of science fiction," able to imitate any author's style. I must report that in the Con Suite during this time was a discussion of movies (gasp!), but I can't help but feel that a discussion of good movies is better than a discussion of bad prose. Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 11 Actually if Readercon wants to discuss bad prose, perhaps a "Three Most-Overrated Authors" panel or poll would be an interesting future event. This would be to discuss authors who generally are considered good authors but, in the panelists' opinions, are not. This might also be extended to include authors who sell well but are not very good. (I hesitate to suggest this for fear of encouraging more attacks on authors, but fools rush in....) _T_h_e _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _H_i_s_t_o_r_y _T_a_g _T_e_a_m _W_r_e_s_t_l_i_n_g _M_a_t_c_h _P_l_a_n_n_i_n_g _S_e_s_s_i_o_n Eric Van (moderator), Evelyn C. Leeper, Jim Mann, Laurie Mann, others Saturday, midnight The idea was to come up with the rules for a game similar to the Kirk Poland Competition in which people had to come up with alternate timelines to connect given events. The latest of the hour meant that many of the participants were falling asleep, so all we came up with were some vague concepts which may get hammered out at Boskone. Besides, it I tell you the rules ahead of time, you'd have an unfair advantage! _I_n_t_r_o_d_u_c_i_n_g "_T_h_e _N_e_w _Y_o_r_k _R_e_v_i_e_w _o_f _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n" David G. Hartwell (moderator), Greg Cox, Samuel R. Delany, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden Sunday, 10:00 AM Given that Hartwell is the editor of _T_h_e _N_e_w _Y_o_r_k _R_e_v_i_e_w _o_f _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n (hereafter referred to as the _N_Y_R_S_F, even though several people call it "N Y Sci-Fi"), it was not surprising that this panel was not entirely impartial. Hartwell began by citing two other "serious" review magazines, Britain's _F_o_u_n_d_a_t_i_o_n and _T_h_e _A_u_s_t_r_a_l_i_a_n _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n _R_e_v_i_e_w. However, in this country most magazines that carry reviews carry what Delany calls a "market review"--a review that tells the reader whether s/he wants to buy/read the book. (This is not always explicit; it may be inferred by the reader based on the plot summary. For example, the panelist mentioned earlier who dislikes books with pre-technological settings will know that he is not interested in a book described as "wonderful evocation of a pre-technological world." I personally would steer clear of any review that said, "This is a wonderful Celtic trilogy," and buy a book of which was said, "This is a run-of-the-mill Sherlock Holmes alternate history novel," but that's my personal bias.) Anyway, Hartwell said the _N_Y_R_S_F would provide a critical analysis of novels and other works, rather than a market review (or a critique, which would fall on the other side of _N_Y_R_S_F's content on the critical scale). He hopes that his audience will include editors, book buyers, and writers to get them to read critical reviews instead of market reviews. This, he feels, will bring them to understand that readers want serious science fiction. Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 12 Delany pointed out that, unlike mainstream novels, in which the publication date is timed to match the review dates, based on when advance review copies are sent out, science fiction reviews in general appear much after the book has hit the stands and so do not affect sales as much. Because of this, reviewers of science fiction can be more impartial, without feeling that they are taking the food from an author's mouth in doing it. Delany also said that editors _w_a_n_t a serious dialogue about science fiction. Hartwell says that Owen Locke (editor of Del Rey Books) doesn't read reviews at all. I have yet to resolve those two statements. After the panel, I went to the Green Room to work and happened to come across an essay by Primo Levi in _T_h_e _N_e_w _Y_o_r_k _T_i_m_e_s _B_o_o_k _R_e_v_i_e_w (11/20/88) entitled "This Above All: Be Clear" in which he said: "So he who writes in the language of the heart can turn out to be indecipherable, and it is then right to ask oneself what was the purpose of his writing: in fact ... writing serves to communicate, transmit information or feelings from mind to mind, from place to place and from time to time. And who is not understood does not transmit anything, he cries in the wilderness." This struck me as particularly relevant, especially vis-a-vis Mark's comments on semiotics and deconstructionism. _H_o_w _D_o_e_s _a _B_o_o_k _R_e_v_i_e_w _M_e_a_n? David G. Hartwell (moderator), Bernadette Bosky, Algis Budrys, Janice M. Eisen, James Morrow Sunday, noon For some reason this ended up being a panel that recommended books to read (I have listed recommenders in parentheses after the titles): _W_h_i_t_e _N_o_i_s_e by Don DeLillo (JM), _T_h_e _T_h_a_n_a_t_o_s _S_y_n_d_r_o_m_e by Walker Percy (JM), _T_e_r_r_a_p_l_a_n_e by Jack Womack (DGH), _A_r_s_l_a_n by M. J. Engh (DGH, AB), _D_i_v_i_n_e _E_n_d_u_r_a_n_c_e by Gwyneth Jones (DGH), _T_h_e _D_a_y _t_h_e _M_a_r_t_i_a_n_s _C_a_m_e by Frederik Pohl (JE), _D_r_u_i_d'_s _B_l_o_o_d by Esther Friesner (JE, AB), _D_r_i_v_e-_I_n by Joe R. Lansdale (BB), _T_h_e _S_e_r_p_e_n_t _a_n_d _t_h_e _R_a_i_n_b_o_w by Wade Davis (BB), _K_o_k_o by Peter Straub (AB), _W_y_v_e_r_n by A. A. Attanasio (AB), and _U_n_q_u_e_n_c_h_a_b_l_e _F_i_r_e by Rachel Pollack (DGH). This out of the way, they got down to what a review should say/do. Contrary perhaps to the philosophy of the _N_Y_R_S_F, most panelists felt a review should tell you if you want to buy and read the book. The way to do this seems to be for the reviewer to tell what s/he liked and disliked about the book and let the reader draw her/his own conclusions. Delany expressed much the same opinion: Where and when did I get pleasure reading this book? Where and when did I not? Hartwell, still pushing his magazine somewhat, said a review should tell you what it will do to you to read the book. (How can the reviewer tell? What a book does to you is as much a function of you as of the book.) Morrow wanted the review to say what the author was trying to achieve and how well s/he did. Eisen and Bosky agreed with this, though this seems to Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 13 be the classic intentional fallacy. (See the _T_w_i_l_i_g_h_t _Z_o_n_e episode in which Shakespeare comes forward to the present and takes a course in Shakespeare.) As far as what they want in novels themselves, the panelists differed. Morrow wants "great lines"; novels should take at least two years to write. He should also consider Shakespeare--how long did he spend on _H_a_m_l_e_t? Budrys wants technical and artistic coherence--I can agree with that. As for books and magazines about books, the panelists recommended Damon Knight's _I_n _S_e_a_r_c_h _o_f _W_o_n_d_e_r, James Blish's _T_h_e _I_s_s_u_e _a_t _H_a_n_d and _M_o_r_e _I_s_s_u_e_s _a_t _H_a_n_d (and for that matter almost anything from Advent), Neil Barron's _A_n_a_t_o_m_y _o_f _W_o_n_d_e_r, E. F. Bleiler's _G_u_i_d_e _t_o _S_u_p_e_r_n_a_t_u_r_a_l _F_i_c_t_i_o_n, Algis Budrys's _B_e_n_c_h_m_a_r_k_s, Samuel R. Delany's _T_h_e _J_e_w_e_l-_H_i_n_g_e_d _J_a_w and other works, David G. Hartwell's _A_g_e _o_f _W_o_n_d_e_r, John Clute's _S_t_r_o_k_e_s, Ursula K. LeGuin's _L_a_n_g_u_a_g_e _o_f _t_h_e _N_i_g_h_t, Barry N. Malzberg's _E_n_g_i_n_e_s _o_f _t_h_e _N_i_g_h_t, Judith Merril's "Best of" series (for the commentaries), Peter Nicholls's _E_n_c_y_c_l_o_p_e_d_i_a _o_f _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n, David Pringle's _S_F: _T_h_e _1_0_0 _B_e_s_t _N_o_v_e_l_s, Robert Silverberg's _W_o_r_l_d_s _o_f _W_o_n_d_e_r, _T_h_e _A_u_s_t_r_a_l_i_a_n _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n _R_e_v_i_e_w, _E_x_t_r_a_p_o_l_a_t_i_o_n, _F_o_u_n_d_a_t_i_o_n, _O_t_h_e_r_R_e_a_l_m_s, _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n _S_t_u_d_i_e_s, and _T_h_r_u_s_t. By the time all this was done, there wasn't much time to touch on an issue raised earlier--the moral issues of reviewing. Do you give a book a bad review and maybe cut into an author's sales so that he can't support himself any more? How do you review a friend's book? Oh, well, maybe next convention. _Y_o_u'_v_e _C_r_o_s_s_e_d _t_h_e _R_e_a_l_i_t_y _B_o_r_d_e_r: _A_n_y_t_h_i_n_g _t_o _D_e_c_l_a_r_e? Jeffrey A. Carver (moderator), Terry Bisson, Richard Bowker, Barry B. Longyear, Patricia A. McKillip Sunday, 2:00 PM This panel discussed the differences between mainstream fiction and science fiction. They started with the true-or-false premise: "Mainstream writers who attempt to write science fiction usually fall flat on their faces and vice versa." Various examples of crossovers in either direction were given. Paul Theroux, Walker Percy, Margaret Atwood, and Thomas Pynchon being some recent mainstream-to-science- fiction crossovers. Bowker was one type of science-fiction-to- mainstream crossover in that his _R_e_p_l_i_c_a was not marketed as science fiction but as mainstream. Longyear was another type in that his latest novel, _S_a_i_n_t _M_a_r_y _B_l_u_e, is a mainstream novel about drug and alcohol rehabilitation. One problem facing mainstream authors who try to write science fiction is that ideas that they think are new and original are often old and well-worn in science fiction. See any of the many lists of ideas editors never want to see again (sample: "A spaceship crash-lands on a planet. There are only two survivors, a man and a woman. As they get Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 14 out, he says to her, 'Well, what now, Eve?" and she says, "I don't know, Adam; what do you think?'"). This sort of listing is becoming a semi-standard panel at science fiction conventions. Mainstream authors often don't realize that they have to do research to write a science fiction novel, just as they would to write a novel set in Tudor England (for example). This is what Hollywood often doesn't do, and that's why a lot of movies turn out the way they do. When authors crossover they occasionally have to deal with editors, publishers, and readers who have certain expectations about what a book of theirs is supposed to be. Longyear, for example, had some problem selling _S_a_i_n_t _M_a_r_y _B_l_u_e because everyone kept saying, "But it's not science fiction...it's not a Circusworld novel...it's not a "Longyear" book!" As for using a pseudonym to get around this, the authors all felt that they were proud of their work and wanted their names to appear on it. No consensus on the original question was reached, or at any rate none was expressed. _H_u_g_o _G_e_r_n_s_b_a_c_k, _C_h_i_c_k_e_n _F_a_r_m_e_r: _I_f _S_F _H_a_d _N_e_v_e_r _B_e_e_n _G_h_e_t_t_o_i_z_e_d Eric M. D. Van (moderator), Samuel R. Delany, Scott E. Green, Darrell Schweitzer Sunday, 4:00 PM This, the final panel of the convention, was nominally devoted to the ghettoization of science fiction and how it came about, but got more into how "literature" came about. Hugo Gernsback didn't follow the advice of writing what he knew about; his profession before becoming a science fiction author/editor was installing doorbells in nunneries. But he left this promising career to become an editor. However, he did not create science fiction. He changed it by introducing tech hobbyists to the field, similar to how at least some of the current cyberpunk genre is fed by computer hackers. The hobbyists wanted "nuts and bolts," not literary values, and Gernsback responded to this. After the Depression, realism began to dominate in "mainstream" literature and this serves to distance science fiction even further. Gernsback did not invent the specialized pulp magazine either. The first genre pulp magazine was _D_e_t_e_c_t_i_v_e _S_t_o_r_y _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e. This was the result of the dime novels and general pulp magazines, which created a much larger reading audience than existed before. These in turn were created by the invention of cheap paper. Technology begets techno- fiction. Literature, on the other hand, was "invented" around 1915, when the first professor of English literature at Oxford University said in his inaugural speech, "The purpose of literature now that religion has failed is not only [to inculcate literary values] but to heal the Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 15 state." (I may have the bracketed part of that quote wrong, but that was the gist.) So Dickens et al became "literature" so that the lower classes could be taught the "proper" values. Much of pre-World War II literary criticism was based on this and was as a result (or cause, take your pick) WASP-based and somewhat racist. (All this information came, not surprisingly, from Delany, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts.) Delany also pointed out that science fiction talks about the object, literature about the subject. Thus, because fantasy is more subjective, it is "closer" to literature. What struck me listening to all this was that this explains a lot of the differences between British and American science fiction. American science fiction tends toward the hard sciences because they are more universal, egalitarian, etc. Scientific laws know no class or privilege (as Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" drives home so well). British science fiction tends toward the soft sciences because they deal with classes and class barriers. As I say, this is my perception and anyone who wants to argue it can probably find lots of holes in it. No one managed to ask (much less answer) the question of why mystery fiction is much more acceptable than science fiction. It even gets reviewed in the _T_h_e _N_e_w _Y_o_r_k _T_i_m_e_s _B_o_o_k _R_e_v_i_e_w. An interesting phenomenon, and one which relates back to the previous panel on crossover authors, is that many books initially published and considered as mainstream have been preserved solely within the genre; George R. Stewart's _E_a_r_t_h _A_b_i_d_e_s and Leonard Wolfe's _L_i_m_b_o were two examples mentioned, though I'm sure you can think of many others. It was predicted that in twenty years Margaret Atwood's _A _H_a_n_d_m_a_i_d'_s _T_a_l_e would be such a book. Terry Eagleton's book _L_i_t_e_r_a_r_y _T_h_e_o_r_y was recommended. Other programming items that occurred without the benefit of my attendance were: _V_a_l_i_s: The Opera: A Presentation (by Tod Machover, the composer) Sox Win Sixth Straight World Series: The Future of Boston Writers of the Future Presentation (Q&A with Algis Budrys) Persona (Character Creation) Workshop The Notion of Lives on Paper: Self and Science Fiction 1929-1988 In the Future, Everyone Will Be Bohemian for Five Minutes Six Judges in Search of an Award: Honoring the Small Press Markets (talk by Scott E. Green) Who Cares: Creating Sympathetic Characters Writers' Workshops: Friend or Menace? Writers' Workshop (led by Barry B. Longyear) Lifestyles of the Poor and Obscure Firing the Canon: The Public Perception of F and SF Speculative Poetry (talk by Mark Rich) Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 16 Really Heart-Rending: The Horror Novel as Literature Auction The panel "The Oprah Winfrey Show: People Who Love People Who Read _D_a_h_l_g_r_e_n Too Much" was first rescheduled and then canceled entirely. No reason was given, but I suspect that Eric Van (the scheduled moderator) found himself over-extended with other convention responsibilities. Readercon may very well have grown to the point that the con chairs should not plan on moderating many panels or events. There were also many authors' readings. Miscellaneous The Program Books and schedules weren't there when registration opened, leading me to ask if this was Nolacon III, but they arrived within an hour and things ran smoothly (well, relatively) after that. The panel starting times tended to shift as the day went on (e.g., "Every panel will start ten minutes late."). There were no major program changes. They had some difficulty finding my registration. Registration told me it was in the Green Room; the Green Room sent me back to Registration. The problem was apparently that I was a participant, but only for the Alternate History Tag Team Wrestling Match Planning Session, so my badge was not with the other participants' badges in the Green Room. This was fairly easily sorted out, though. The badges could use some improvement; the script chosen was hard-to-read (it seems to have been designed assuming a laser printer but done with a dot matrix printer) and too small. Boskone 25 had ideal badges, readable across the room--other cons take note. On the plus side, Readercon badges had names but no numbers. There were fewer "freebies" than last year--no free magazines or program books from other conventions. In writing about Nolacon, I described the newest phenomenon, "Beasties," or fans of _B_e_a_u_t_y _a_n_d _t_h_e _B_e_a_s_t. I told how a friend went to a _B_e_a_u_t_y _a_n_d _t_h_e _B_e_a_s_t party and when she introduced herself to a couple of the women there, one told her, "My tunnel name is Squirrel," and the other said, "My tunnel name is Water-Running-Through-Pipes" and how Mark later suggested that Kate could take the tunnel name "Small- Brown-Floating-Turd," but Kate decided not to. Well, two of the committee members read this and listed joke tunnel names in their biographies in the program book. Also, when Kate mentioned the tunnel names in the biographies to one of the committee members, they said, "Oh, you're the Kate!" I told Kate it could have been worse; they could have said, "Oh, you're the Small-Brown-Floating-Turd!" Summary Last year I said Readercon was like Classic Boskone, meaning Boskone of fifteen to twenty years ago. I'm starting to feel old: someone at Readercon II complained it was too small and needed to be Readercon II November 21, 1988 Page 17 more like the old Boskones. It turns out she meant the Boskones of ten years ago (attendance of about 2000). I think the Readercon committee would go into cardiac arrest if 2000 people signed up for Readercon III. As Guest of Honor, Delany was accessible--on several panels and in the audience for many others. But he had no scheduled autograph session, and many fans hesitate to go up to an author in the middle of something else and ask for his/her autograph. I think all conventions should be sure to schedule an autograph session for the Guest of Honor as well as the usual panels and speeches. There was one problem with a false fire alarm, though I think it was the result of someone accidentally disengaging the fire hose in the hallway. Readercon has shown that it can deliver more than just one convention. Now if it can just get itself on an annual schedule instead of the somewhat erratic schedule it has now, then people will be better able to plan to attend future Readercons. Also, now that Readercon is growing I think the "inner circle" of planners has to work harder at delegating some tasks. I found that frequently when I asked about something it was always the same couple of names that were mentioned as the people in charge of it. Also, the Program Chair was moderating or running five different program items (20% of the main programming!). This may be part of the reason for the long gaps between Readercons. But, as I did last year, I again recommend Readercon as a convention for the _r_e_a_d_e_r. THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK