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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 03/09/90 -- Vol. 8, No. 36
MEETINGS UPCOMING:
Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon.
LZ meetings are in LZ 2R-158. MT meetings are in the cafeteria.
_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C
(none scheduled at this time)
_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.
03/10 Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Terry Bisson
(author of WYRLDMAKER and WALKING MAN)
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
04/21 NJSFS New Jersey Science Fiction Society: Josepha Sherman
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 834-1563 hocpa!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 576-6106 mtuxo!jrrt
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 957-5619 mtgzx!leeper
HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3D-225A 949-5866 homxa!tps
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-3346 lzfme!lfl
MT Librarian: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
1. Every time you look around things are getting dog-eat-doggier.
Thirty years ago things were sort of fixed. America was the
industrial giant. The Big Three auto makers ruled the roost. Bell
Telephone was _t_h_e _g_i_a_n_t. The Soviets did not really compete with
us economically; they had their own non-competitive system. They
competed with us a little technically, I suppose. They put a cheap
third-class radio transmitter into orbit. We were trying to see
which of the two economic systems led to the larger nuclear bomb.
But this was sort of an esoteric competition that, like the World
Series, we watched but few participated in. The Milky Way galaxy
was just sort of an island universe. On a clear night you could
see other galaxies, but they were pretty far away and we rarely saw
the smoke from their campfires.
THE MT VOID Page 2
In the 90s everything is competition. The Soviets have
restructured for internal competition. "Nyet on this 'from each
according to his means, to each according to his needs.' Da on
supermarkets and Burger Kings. No more walls. Go if you like,
trade where you like." Europe is banding together into its own
United States to compete economically. I don't have to tell _y_o_u
about Bell and the Big Three autos.
And now for the 90s the whole dang galaxy is in competition. Wake
up. Take a look at what is happening around you. All of the
matter of the galaxy is under the influence of a huge competitor
for matter ... the Great Attractor. I am not kidding you. It is
150,000,000 light-years away and it wants to "eat your lunch."
Right now it looks to be a huge continent of hundreds of galaxies
of dark matter. That's why we haven't seen it until now. Now, I
know what you are telling yourself. "150,000,000 light-years is a
long, long way off. Why worry?" That's what General Motors
thought about Volkswagen.
Just a few years ago we thought everyone in the universe was just
traveling directly away from the site of the Big Bang. Nobody knew
where it was but we all were sure doing our best to get the heck
away because, who knows, it might happen again! But now we are not
just moving straight away--we are also veering to the right, right
towards the Great Attractor. I am sure that the core of our galaxy
is doing everything it can to keep us on course--I have always been
a great fan of the core of our galaxy. But the pull of the Great
Attractor may seem pretty inviting out at the rim.
These outer stars _m_u_s_t be made to realize the folly of their ways.
As long as we were running away from the Big One at uniform speed,
traffic problems were easily manageable. If we are all going to
try to go to this Great Attractor fellow, we may not even get
there. Galaxies may collide with each other in their headlong rush
to become part of the Great Attractor. How long can it be before
we start hearing reports of "near misses."
I will keep an eye on the situation and let you know when the
crisis is starting. In the mean time, I suggest you stock up on
canned goods.
2. Lorraine Kevra has donated Diane Duane's _S_p_o_c_k'_s _W_o_r_l_d and Peter
Morwood's _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k: _R_u_l_e_s _o_f _E_n_g_a_g_e_m_e_n_t to the LZ science fiction
club library. [-ecl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzx!leeper
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were
beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized.
I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any
new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method
it can be for creating the illusion of progress while
producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.
--Petronius Arbiter, 210 B.C.
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Even though very much cut down from
the novel, _T_h_e _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r is a good action yarn
with an air of authenticity. While it is less of a film
than fans of the book had hoped for, it is a crowd-
pleaser. Rating: +2.
Tom Clancy created a new market for the techno-thriller genre of
story-telling with his 1984 novel _T_h_e _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r. This genre
is intended to tell a crackling good story about the military and at the
same time include a lot of "executive summary" explanations about what
equipment is used, how strategy is determined, and anything else about
defense that comes up in the course of the story. There was enough
technical detail--though its accuracy has since been questioned--that
the book became the first fiction publication of the Naval Institute
Press, whose usual fare was dry reference material on subject matter
such as tides. The book quickly became that rarity today, a book that
was not just a best-seller by its own admission, but also in the
public's perception. When _T_h_e _H_u_n_t _o_f _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r made it to paperback,
you saw _a _l_o_t of people reading the paperback. (Personal note: shortly
after the paperback came out, I read it on a boat with less than a
hundred passengers and I saw at least three other copies being read.)
Now that best-seller has been filmed.
Part of the irony of the film coming out now is that while the
source was greatly popular, it was all about the Cold War defense chess
game that the NATO countries play with the Soviet Union. It is quite
possible that the genre that the book fostered is itself going to be the
victim of new, friendlier relations with the Soviet Union as, at least
in the public perception, the Cold War seems to be coming to an end. I
have yet to hear anyone say that the nuclear submarine fleet is being
dismantled or that anyone has backed off of the edge-of-nuclear-war
defense routine, so there may still be material for new techno-thrillers
that work as something other than restricted period pieces.
The reason that _T_h_e _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r could still be filmed is
that the plot did not include anything the public would have known about
at the time so the film could still take the stance that this whole
story is true and the proof is that both the Americans and the Soviets
deny that it ever happened. However, some of the edge is taken off the
story because the book gets its real tension from the ever-present
possibility that the events told will lead to a nuclear strike on the
United States. Read as a contemporary novel in 1984 or shortly after,
that was a real possibility for what could take place in the story.
That Sword-of-Damocles tension is missing from the film because--and I
say this as only a minor spoiler--there do not appear to have been any
Hunt for Red October March 4, 1990 Page 2
nuclear strikes on major American cities at any time in the early 1980s.
"On November 13, 1984, approximately four months before Mikhail
Gorbachev took power in the Soviet Union" (the story begins), the
Soviets had a new super-submarine, the Red October, which featured a
nearly silent underwater jet-propulsion system. This nifty little
gimcrack has but one conceivable use. It is unstoppable as a first-
strike device that undetected could nuzzle up close to the American
coastline and then start firing nuclear missiles. And for the maiden
voyage of the super-sub they had chosen to command their top submarine
commander Marko Ramius (played by Sean Connery). Their joy at this
great Cold War victory was short-lived, however. Ramius steals the Red
October and heads it for parts unknown. Now both sides desperately want
to get their hands on the Red October and neither side knows for sure
what Ramius intends to do with the submarine.
It is, of course, impossible to take all of the action of a novel
such as _T_h_e _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r and put it into a film of standard
length. It is even more true with this novel than it would be for most
novels, since the original was very heavy with military aircraft of many
different sorts, very few of which made it to the film adaptation. They
seem to have whittled down the novel with a very large knife. One of
the most lamentable deletions was Ramius's actual motivation for doing
what he is doing. In the book that made the character what he was and
added a very tragic dimension to his character and at the same time said
something worth saying about life in the Soviet Union. Perhaps in an
efforts to make all its negative statements about the Soviets applicable
_o_n_l_y to the pre-Gorbachev years, the film blunts its social statement
that still might be applicable. The bad guy of this film is a Soviet
point of view that is seen as being strictly pre-Gorbachev. Another
lamented deletion, if only because I would have liked to see Industrial
Light and Magic's visual rendering, is that there is no nuclear meltdown
on a Soviet submarine. This scene was a descriptive centerpiece for the
novel and it should have been a visual centerpiece of the film.
That brings us to the visual effects that were in the film. They
were sufficient to tell the story and occasionally very nice indeed but
surprisingly shoddy in other places. One in particular that did not
work is showing a torpedo coming at the viewer. The technique they
used, harkening back to effects of the 1960s, is to superimpose a
picture of the torpedo on the background and then just increase the size
of the inset picture. You see this technique in films such as _R_o_b_i_n_s_o_n
_C_r_u_s_o_e _o_n _M_a_r_s, which had a budget a small fraction of that of _T_h_e _H_u_n_t
_f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r. In truth, it is done better here but it still robs the
scene of some of the three-dimensional effect. The film also had a
problem with some obvious matte lines. I suspect, however, the films
needs to take some liberties with visual effects if for no other reason
than that seeing actual submarine fights at the proper depth it might be
difficult for the viewer to see very much or to tell what is going on.
The underwater visuals probably told the story more clearly than was
realistic for them to tell it.
Hunt for Red October March 4, 1990 Page 3
Also adding to the effect is a score by a master film composer
whose work is all too rarely heard, Basil Polidouris. He has scored at
least two films before on the them of American-Soviet relations, _R_e_d
_D_a_w_n and _A_m_e_r_i_k_a, though his masterpiece was his rich and varied score
for _C_o_n_a_n _t_h_e _B_a_r_b_a_r_i_a_n, by far the best thing about that film. In _T_h_e
_H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r, his score seems to have been influenced by the
music of the Russian Army Chorus and Band. And while it may not have
been a very original or creative choice, it certainly was a proper one
and the choral pieces do make for magnificent sections of music.
Finally, some mention should be made of the casting. Sean Connery,
of course, was not the first choice for Ramius. That choice was German
actor Klaus Maria Brandauer whom Sean Connery defeated in _N_e_v_e_r _S_a_y
_N_e_v_e_r _A_g_a_i_n and whom he beat one more time in the casting of _T_h_e _H_u_n_t
_f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r. I suspect Brandauer could have done Ramius a little
better since he does not have a Scottish accent. And perhaps to the
ears of the public a German accent sounds more Russian than a Scottish
one does. However, if the public thinks that Edinburgh-raised Connery
does not sound sufficiently Russian, the producers could counter that he
really is not supposed to be. Ramius is not Russian--he is Lithuanian!
Actually, accents brings up one of the film's major implausibilities.
It is hard to believe that any Biblical passage, no matter how powerful,
could make an entire Soviet submarine crew speak English and not even
realize they were doing it. (That's an inside joke for people who have
seen the film.)
Second lead went to Alec Baldwin as CIA analyst Jack Ryan, a
continuing character in Clancy's novels. Baldwin, who played the
somewhat simpy ghost-husband in _B_e_e_t_l_e_j_u_i_c_e, is actually a very good
Ryan, a family man with a fear of flying who also has just a bit of
Sherlock Holmes in him. He has a very winning combination of high
competence and vulnerability. Like Ramius, he is also a renegade with
very strong opinions. One of the nice touches of the script (and
counter to the cliche) is that while Ramius has actually read Ryan's
books on military history, he does not think very much of them.
_T_h_e _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r has a heavy sprinkling of familiar faces
in other roles. Scott Glenn is crisp as submarine captain Marcuso. Sam
Neill is a little too sugary as Ramius's second-in-command. Then there
is James Earl Jones, Joss Ackland, Richard Jordan (in a role as a wily
politician that is somewhat of a departure for him), Peter Firth, Tim
Curry (as the Red October's goggle-eyed surgeon), and Jeffrey Jones.
While this seems more a Readers' Digest condensation of the Clancy
novel, much scaled down for the big screen, it certainly is a good
adventure yarn, particularly welcome because it was not saved for a
summertime release. I rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
GRUMBLES FROM THE GRAVE by Robert A. Heinlein
Del Rey, 1989, ISBN 0-345-36246-2, $19.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper
This collection of letters and letter excerpts was apparently
planned by Heinlein before his death as a way to provide some income to
his widow. (Of course, the royalties his books continue to collect help
as well.) The letters cover a wide range of topics, concentrating
mostly on his writing style, but also covering cats, houses, politics,
fans, penguins, and just about everything else. There are a few cases
in which names have been omitted, on the advice of his lawyers, and many
of the letters are excerpted rather than included in full.
Now, everyone else has oohed and aahed over this book, and I don't
mean to rain on their parade, but as someone who did _n_o_t grow up reading
Heinlein, I just can't get that excited about this book. (My childhood
was spent reading John W. Campbell's _T_h_e _M_o_o_n _I_s _H_e_l_l and "Black Star"
series, which probably explains why I've ended up the way I have, but
that was what my library had.) My personal opinion (which you are free
to ignore, of course) is that Heinlein wrote some great short stories
and some okay novels--and some really bad novels as well. Given that, I
don't view this book as the Apocrypha of a great body of work, an
appellation more suited to L. Ron Hubbard than to Heinlein anyway
(though with _S_t_r_a_n_g_e_r _i_n _a _S_t_r_a_n_g_e _L_a_n_d one might make the religious
connection for Heinlein as well). It is of interest, but no more or
less so to me than a similar book of another's author's letters would
be. I found the parts dealing with his writing more interesting than
the parts discussing the building of his house, for example. On the
other hand, I would go into ecstasy over a book of Olaf Stapledon's
letters, so let that tell you something about my tastes.
In any case, as they say, your mileage may vary.
Boskone 27
(Part 1)
Con report by Evelyn C. Leeper and Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1989 Evelyn C. Leeper and Mark R. Leeper
[This con report is a joint effort. Most of the general
information has been written by Evelyn; the panels on which Mark is
reporting are so labeled.]
Boskone was at last able to move back to Presidents' Day weekend,
though with fewer people getting this "holiday" off work than in the
past, the programming was limited to Friday evening through Sunday
night. Just as last year, traffic was wretched between Hartford and
Springfield, leading me to believe it is now a permanent traffic jam, at
least in winter. (I suspect skiers heading north on Friday make the
situation worse, since our summertime trips don't seem to meet these
delays.)
Mark's and my registration materials were both in the Green Room as
planned. (Since Boskone doesn't pre-stuff envelopes but hands out the
loose items, all this meant was that the badges had to be in the right
place.) Upon reading my schedule I discovered that they had scheduled
me for an autograph session! On the participant's form, they had asked
"Should we schedule you for an autograph session?" and I had jokingly
answered, "Yes, but I have no books." I had also added that it was a
joke, but the person scheduling didn't see that, so there I was. (I
eventually found the person and un-scheduled myself; apparently no horde
of fans were waiting for my autograph anyway!)
Hotels
They had finished the construction that made travel between the
Tara and the Marriott so difficult last year, so the easiest way was out
the door and across the street. The only problem with this was that it
was very cold and windy and unless you carted your coat around with you
it was not inviting. The seating space in the hotel areas near the
meeting rooms was less than last year, but still sufficient, and fans
when necessary will sit on the floor anyway.
Whereas last year there was a shortage of hotel rooms, this year
Boskone didn't make its block, but did turn back the sixty extra rooms
in time for the hotels to re-sell them (at higher rates!) to the general
public, probably skiers.
Dealers' Rooms
The setup of having a dealers' room in each hotel continued, and
will for the forseeable future. There just isn't enough space in any
one room to put all the dealers there without seriously impacting the
programming.
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 2
Some people said there were too many books in the dealers' rooms.
Impossible! Well, it is true that some of the dealers feel that there
may be more book dealers than a 1000-person Boskone (which this was) can
support, but no one seems to want to be the one cut out, so they'll just
have to live with it, I suppose. They could always pull themselves out
if they were losing money. I found out later that the dealers' room is
mostly books because a certain percentage of the space is reserved for
book dealers, and that in addition, they pay a cheaper rate for the
space.
In any case, I had a chance to talk to several of the regulars. I
discussed the Readercon Small Press Awards with Greg Ketter, owner of
Dreamhaven Books in Minneapolis and another judge on the panel. I also
stopped by Mary Southworth's table. She has just opened a mystery and
science fiction shop in Saratoga Springs in upstate New York. Her table
used to be a bastion of used books; now it seems to be mostly new, and
in addition they are all filed together, so you can't look through just
the used books (for example). And, of course, this also means that
there are far fewer used books, since her table space hasn't increased.
Dick Spelman was there, with all new books--and right across from Mary.
I can't help but feel that her new sales were lower because of the
competition.
(I also managed to accumulate a lot of old issues of _A_m_a_z_i_n_g and
_F_a_n_t_a_s_t_i_c from the freebie table where someone got rid of a couple of
hundred old magazines.)
Art Show
I got to the Art Show only once, and found it again of little
interest. They seem to have turned into a combination of bad art for
sale and good art marked NFS ("Not For Sale"), which someone has pointed
out seem to be mostly large advertisements for the print shop. It is
nice that the print shop has some affordable art, but it used to be that
the originals were affordable.
Film Program
The film program consisted of science fiction films without special
effects. Films included _C_h_a_r_l_y, _A_l_p_h_a_v_i_l_l_e, _A_r_o_u_n_d _t_h_e _W_o_r_l_d _i_n _E_i_g_h_t_y
_D_a_y_s, _T_h_e _M_a_n _i_n _t_h_e _W_h_i_t_e _S_u_i_t, _A _C_o_n_n_e_c_t_i_c_u_t _Y_a_n_k_e_e _i_n _K_i_n_g _A_r_t_h_u_r'_s
_C_o_u_r_t, _Q_u_i_n_t_e_t, and _S_e_c_o_n_d_s. Good choices, but since I have already
seen them all (and have several of them on videotape) I had no great
desire to spend my convention time watching them.
Programming
The science track seems to have vanished, though there were a
couple of items that might qualify--such as a panel on lab accidents.
Somehow this is not the same as a real scientist talking about what's
happening.
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 3
The First Night
When we arrived Laurie Mann asked if we wanted to join her at
Champions (the hotel bar) for a quick snack. This sounded good until we
got there and discovered the decibel level was such that no conversation
would be possible. So she went off to grab something in the staff
lounge, and we made a quick pass through both dealers' rooms and, sure
enough, found Dave, Kate, and Barbara just outside the Tara one. (I
also grabbed up three books for a friend in one as I was whipping
through.)
Since they wanted to try the Student Prince's "game festival," we
went there. I had bear stew; Mark had pheasant. The bear was not
strong-tasting and very tender. Mark's pheasant, on the other hand, had
a very strong flavor.
We returned too late for the "Meet the VIPs" party, so went
directly to the Noreascon 3 party. First we had a long discussion with
Laurie, culminating in our decision that she was really a neo, since she
hadn't attended Noreascon _1. Then we got into an extended discussion
with Eric Van about Readercon and Gene Wolfe. I complained that given
that Readercon has rock-'n'-roll panels, and was thinking about having
an art show next year, it was getting just too media-oriented. Eric
defended the rock-'n'-roll panels by saying that rock-'n'-roll has
lyrics; I countered by pointing out that movies have dialogue. I think
I was awarded the point.
Then Dave started in baiting Eric about Gene Wolfe, saying that he
thought Wolfe a boring writer. (He does think this, but admitted to us
later that he was perhaps more argumentative than he might have
otherwise been.) Much of the argument was about semantics: Eric said
that Wolfe was provably the best respected writer in the field, which
Dave chose to interpret as saying that Wolfe was provably the best
writer in the field. (And yes, I mean "provably," not "probably.") The
former claim can be tested: just count up reviewers' opinions. The
latter is, however, not "provable" in any objective fashion. In spite
of all this, we spent more than a half-hour arguing about this topic,
which led Mark to label Dave as "the goy who fried Wolfe."
We also discussed the Kirk Poland Bad Prose Contest, which in spite
of previous assurances will be held this year at Readercon. Eric says
after this year they will give it a rest, but I've heard this before.
Luckily, it is being held separately from the awards ceremony so I will
not be forced to attend.
We finally left about 1 AM. On the way out we passed a stuck
elevator--containing Robert Colby and Eric Van. Well, at least they had
a chance to do some more planning for Readercon!
When we finally got back to Dave's house and got out of the car, we
heard the most amazing noises. After a couple of seconds, I realized
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 4
what it was. It was the ice that covered the trees creaking, clacking,
melting, and falling. For a normally quiet area, it was extremely
noisy!
_S_F _S_p_e_c_i_a_l_t_y _H_o_u_s_e_s
Saturday, 11 AM
David Hartwell (mod), Darrell Schweitzer, Brian Thomsen,
Gordon Van Gelder
Apparently one of the great advantages of being a specialty house
(a.k.a. "small press") is that you can get away with a lot more without
being sued. David Hartwell gave the example of Paul O. Williams's
upcoming book on the "100 Best Rock 'n' Roll Songs." Normally, one must
pay royalties when one quotes a song. However, this would have run into
somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000 for royalties alone, so Williams
went to a small press to have the book published sans royalty payments
on the theory that the Beatles et al would not think it worthwhile to
sue someone with hardly any money. (Apparently the idea that being in
such a book would be good publicity is not likely to occur to the
Beatles et al, and as one panelist pointed out, the Beatles do not
really need this publicity anyway.)
This is not to say that small presses are dishonest. True, some
take a long time to pay the authors their royalties, but you also have
people such as Lloyd Eshbach, who sold off his own collection to pay off
Fantasy Press's debts when it went under.
One area in which small presses specialize is the limited edition.
Here the opportunities for fraud, or at least something resembling
fraud, abound. A publisher may, for example, claim that a book has been
published in a limited, numbered edition of 500 copies. But s/he may
also produce another 26 lettered copies as presentation copies. This is
not unusual, and is frequently openly announced. But it may go further,
and a hundred presentation copies be produced, or more. For a large
print run an extra hundred copies is insignificant; for a "limited
edition" it can have a major impact on the scarcity, and hence the
value.
The upshot of all this is that the panelists look very askance at
the limited edition field. There are some genuine limited editions, but
people looking for books as an investment would do better to buy
ordinary first editions of future "mega-authors." Early Stephen King
novels, for example, are quite valuable, as are 1950s hardcover editions
of such authors as Heinlein and Farmer. The trick, of course, is in
knowing who will become popular. If you can do that, you belong in the
publishing industry to start with. A very small print run, or the
accidental destruction of most of the print run, can increase the value
of "large press" books as well; examples given included first editions
of Jonathan Carroll's _L_a_n_d _o_f _L_a_u_g_h_s, Gene Wolfe's _S_h_a_d_o_w _o_f _t_h_e
_T_o_r_t_u_r_e_r, Roger Zelazny's _N_i_n_e _P_r_i_n_c_e_s _i_n _A_m_b_e_r, and R. A. Lafferty's
_F_a_l_l _o_f _R_o_m_e. (First editions of first books in series that later
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 5
become enormously popular are good bets.) Something else that can make
a book valuable is its poor construction--yes, _p_o_o_r construction.
Giger's _N_e_c_r_o_n_o_m_i_c_o_n is valuable because it is so large and so poorly
bound, that most copies have already fallen apart. So if yours is in
one piece, you have something unusual. But I digress.
Even less honest than the "limited edition" ploy is the technique
of choosing authors for an anthology such that the autograph plate is
what is valuable. Hartwell cited Don Herron's _R_e_i_g_n _o_f _F_e_a_r (published
by Underwood-Miller) in which a couple of authors whose autographs were
valuable seem to have been chosen solely for that reason. What you have
then is the situation in which the book is little more than an extremely
fancy ad for the autograph plate.
The nostalgia of older fans is something else that small presses
have tried to cater to (or capitalize on, depending on your point of
view), yet this is generally unsuccessful. There aren't enough older
fans buying small press books to support a publication aimed just at
them. An example of this that was given was an attempt to reprint
Nelson Bond's books. I have to agree that this was not likely to reach
the latest generation of fans, but I suspect something like the Donald
Wandrei collection just issued may be more successful.
Another stumbling block is overprinting. A book that is a
financial success in a print run of 500 copies, may lose money in a
print run of 750. The margin may, in fact, be even tighter. This is
not the same thing, by the way, as the deliberate overrun of a "limited
edition." If anything, I suppose it is the reverse, and has the reverse
effect. A deliberate overrun in limited editions often results in more
profit for the publisher, while overestimating demand results in a loss.
One area in which the small press has been very successful is the
collection/anthology field. According to Darrell Schweitzer, the small
press has "taken this area away" from the larger press. This may be
true of the critically acclaimed collections and anthologies in
hardcover, but there are still a lot of good anthologies out there in
the "large press."
Another aspect of the small press is that it can publish books
cheaply. Robert Price was cited as someone who has published several
books of bad poetry and _T_h_e _C_r_y_p_t _o_f _C_t_h_u_l_h_u. Since they cost only a
few dollars apiece, he is able to sell enough of them to pay for the
print run of a few hundred, whereas a large publisher could never sell
enough to pay for their minimum print run in the thousands.
From a bookseller's point of view, the small press is a problem.
To attract the buyers away from the mainstream bookstores, a specialty
science fiction shop or mail order business has to offer them, yet
unlike most books they are unreturnable to the publisher for credit.
This means a bookseller has to have a very good idea of how many s/he
can sell, or be willing to keep a large backlog. In addition, the
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 6
discounts given by small presses to dealers are minimal.
At some point, the term "self-published" was mentioned. When I
asked how this was different from a vanity press, Schweitzer replied
that the difference was the profit motive. "Self-published" authors
plan on making a profit; authors using a vanity press usually do not.
This led to a discussion of whether Bridge Publications is a vanity
press; the panelists seemed to feel that its main function was to make
L. Ron Hubbard respectable. (Schweitzer suggested a panel on "Great
Science Fiction Frauds: L. Ron Hubbard, Whitley Streiber, and Beyond.")
I finally asked for a definition of "small press." Apparently
Readercon has one ("a small press is one that supports fewer than two
people full-time") but didn't bother to let the judges know. Someone on
the panel pointed out that by this definition, _F&_S_F was a small press.
(I asked Robert Colby about this later; he said that there were some
additional rules, and one was that any magazine ineligible for the
semi-prozine or fanzine Hugos because of circulation was no longer
considered "small press.")
When asked what they would like to see the small press do, the
panelists seemed to like the idea of a horror series similar to Lin
Carter's "Adult Fantasy Series." But they would prefer to see this more
as reading copies than as collectibles. (That makes sense--they want
people to have a chance to read the stuff!)
_W_r_i_t_i_n_g _A_b_o_u_t _t_h_e _U_n_t_h_i_n_k_a_b_l_e
Saturday, 11:00 AM
James Morrow (mod), Bruce Coville, Kathryn Cramer,
Patrick Neilsen-Hayden
[written by Mark R. Leeper]
This panel was a sort of a counterpoint to the midnight panels
where the panelists tend to be thinking about the unwritable. Here
instead was a discussion of catastrophe and Armageddon in science
fiction. James Morrow, who moderated, opened the panel with three
discussion questions:
1. What is the morality of writing about a serious subject such as
the Apocalypse "for fun and profit"?
2. Why is there an almost sexual fascination with Armageddon?
3. In the light of recent events in Eastern Europe, has nuclear war
lost its place as a theme of science fiction?
It was these three interesting questions that the panelists
proceeded to ignore in the discussion. Cramer made the observation that
almost by definition there is something optimistic about Armageddon
fiction. After all, these stories pretty much have to be told by
survivors. She also discussed how each generation thinks about
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 7
disasters differently. Two decades ago the common perception was that
the major disasters threatened us all. The view in fiction was that the
whole world would buy it. Today we have grown used to the threat of
disaster and we think more in terms of how to protect ourselves
individually. Rather than worrying about the dam breaking and what can
be done to stop it, people now think more in terms of finding a plot of
land on high ground. Back at the turn of the century the literature did
not look so much at survival at all but at the effects and horror of the
disaster. Their with descriptions of disasters were punctuated with
images of screaming women carrying dead babies. There is far less of
that in current fiction.
Coville picked up on the need to have a survivor, saying that no
matter how bad things get in the catastrophe story, it should leave the
reader with the impression that there is some hope so as to give the
reader the strength to go on. I personally disagree here since the only
hope that need be present is that the disasters have not yet happened.
Probably the best apocalyptic novel I can point to is Philip Wylie's _E_n_d
_o_f _t_h_e _D_r_e_a_m, and there is little doubt that that novel ends within
minutes of the end of mankind. Coville sees us as what he called the
"disempowered generation." Disasters before the 1950s dealt with either
anarchist plots or Martians causing the disaster. There is more of a
sense now that we are all part of a machine moving to its own
destruction. (I am not sure that _T_h_e _P_o_i_s_o_n _B_e_l_t or _T_h_e _P_u_r_p_l_e _C_l_o_u_d
were really happening to a more "empowered" generation.) It is no
longer aliens or anarchists at fault, but we all are in small part the
people bringing about the end.
Morrow, who now has children, saw that as a need for optimism in
spite of the fact that even the home, once the bastion of security, is
now besieged by radon gas and electro-magnetic radiation. Still, there
is some solace that the predictions of disaster are not all that
accurate. In the 1970s Paul Ehrlich predicted the 1980s as being a
decade of world-wide starvation. The truth was not nearly so bad.
Neilsen-Hayden saw a fascinating deconstruction in apocalyptic
stories. In _T_h_e _W_a_r _o_f _t_h_e _W_o_r_l_d_s Wells wanted to show that society is
vulnerable and power is transient. Neilsen-Hayden enjoys seeing boring,
self-important Victorians meeting screaming death by heat rays.
Neilsen-Hayden enjoys a sort of lyrical beauty in the destruction of
Earth at the end of _F_o_r_g_e _o_f _G_o_d.
Morrow warned against writers making the reader identify too
closely with the survivor since that breeds a sort of complacency. To
me a prime example would be _W_h_e_n _W_o_r_l_d_s _C_o_l_l_i_d_e, but his example was
_A_l_a_s, _B_a_b_y_l_o_n, a novel that he found "immoral" for this reason. Cramer,
carrying on with this idea, suggested that in the really classic
disasters--the Biblical stories of Noah's Flood and the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah--the people who were killed were evil and we are the
descendants of the good people who were saved. While this attitude
seems less appropriate in literature that is trying to get away from
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 8
ethno-centricity, it did show up in real life after the recent San
Francisco earthquake. The attitude was that there is availability of
information on where the fault lines lie and what the effects of quakes
are on cities. The people who ignored this information were stupid and
that is why they died.
With the assistance of David Hartwell in the audience, the
conversation turned to why there is not a great literature of disasters.
There are no really good novels written about disasters with the
possible exception of Brunner. (I am surprised there was no mention of
Ballard.) When the literature shifted to man-made disasters in the
1950s, it became harder to do a dramatic story about responses to the
disaster. With billions of people participating in the cause of the
disaster you cannot do a good story about the man who saves the world by
recycling.
Cramer expressed the opinion that in the last hundred years we have
started living longer but, ironically, in more fear. It may actually be
more tragic to be aware of so many threats, most of which are held at
bay, and finally to be gotten by one, than simply to remain unaware of
them and "to be squashed like a bug." She also feels that in some ways
the apocalyptic story has to be stylistically similar to the utopian
story. While they are basically opposite in their implications, one
positive, one negative, they really are similar in that each must be
told by someone actually in the society experiencing the fate of that
society.
From the audience Hartwell suggested that we really have a need to
feel that society will get either much better or much worse. He has
gotten complaints for teaching and recommending _3_3_4 by Thomas Disch. It
describes a future society neither much better nor much worse than our
own.
The apocalyptic story is one in which the proceedings cannot be
described objectively, Cramer suggested. In a real apocalypse there is
no way for the main character to remain detached. Coville added that
readers prefer that the narrator not remain detached anyway. Readers
will want to know how things looked and felt during the Apocalypse.
People want to see the effect on the individual. After the San
Francisco quake, the first thing people wanted to know was what was
being in the quake like. Someone in the audience said actually people
first wanted to know how many were killed. After that, however, they
wanted first-hand descriptions of the experience and pictures so they
could better imagine it.
Finally, Morrow discussed the emotional impact of the apocalyptic
novel. Real despair, he said, is in seeing no choices. For this reason
he does not like _A _C_a_n_t_i_c_l_e _f_o_r _L_e_i_b_o_w_i_t_z which he thinks "does not have
the pain."
[to be continued]