@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @
@ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @
@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 03/16/90 -- Vol. 8, No. 37
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
03/28 LZ: Book Swap
04/18 LZ: L. RON HUBBARD PRESENTS WRITERS OF THE FUTURE #5 (New authors)
05/09 LZ: Incarnations of Immortality Series, by Piers Anthony
(Mythology as Science)
05/30 LZ: HOWLING MAD, by Peter David (The Lighter Side of Werewolves)
_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.
04/08 Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(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. The legal community has been particularly interested in
electronic communications of late. After all, where money is
involved you will find lawyers who want a piece of the pie or, more
accurately, want the whole pie. There are signs that too many are
feasting on the medical profession. How many of us remember a
couple of decades ago when nobody knew if doctors or lawyers were
the bigger scumbags? Eventually it turned out that unfortunately
lawyers didn't get sick as often as doctors got sued. And the
Hippocratic Oath prevents doctors from intentionally making lawyers
sick while lawyers are free to do everything they can to get
doctors sued. I don't know if lawyers take any sort of oath, but
with a lawyer, what does it matter? Because the lawyers have been
THE MT VOID Page 2
feasting on the medical community--bleeding it white--doctors are
making do with domestic wines, 280-Zs rather than Ferraris, that
sort of thing. And with all the lawyers feasting there, some have
had to move on to the telecommunications industry.
The issue now seems to be copyright over electronic media. In the
days of the printing press or even the photocopy machine , it was
pretty clear when you were making a copy of something someone else
had written. The author wrote it, the publisher typeset it, and
each time the presses came together, a copy was made or a printer
got his hand crushed. On a photocopy machine, you press the button
and you get either a sheet out or more often a paper jam with a
message to call the operator. Those instances when you don't get a
jam you do get a copy.
With electronic media, it is much less clear where the original
leaves off and the copy begins. As a message is relayed, at every
step it is copied in one form or another after it has been
digitized, and the original is destroyed. For the benefit of the
uninitiated: People first thought the world was made up of four
elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Then it was discovered
water was made up of hydrogen, oxygen, and toxic waste and things
got more complex. Then with the computer age things got simple
again as we discovered everything was really made up of ones and
zeroes. But you can't move ones and zeroes; you can only copy them
down and recreate them elsewhere. It is like the old "Star Trek"
episode when Captain Kirk stepped into the transporter and two
Kirks stepped out. Which is the original? Well, there cannot be
two originals. Obviously the original was destroyed and two copies
were made. Every time Kirk steps into the transporter, he is
destroyed and in effect dies. That thing that comes out the other
end is a copy--perfectly made right down to the memories. For most
of the Enterprise crew, perfect imitations are close enough for
what is after all government work. The transporter must be very
careful to disintegrate Kirk at the near end or you'd end up with
hundreds of Captain Kirks running around and falling in love with
alien women.
There was for a while a practice of electronically mailing to a
mailing list some popular newspaper columns. Now some bozo claims
he ahs bought the rights to be the exclusive person who can
electronically mail these columns and you must pay a fee to him to
receive them.
Now the question: If I buy a book, I can lend it to a friend. How
else can my friend tell me that he didn't like it and I have no
taste? Fine and dandy. If I buy a newspaper carrying the column
there is nobody who says I cannot paste the column on my wall for
whoever wants to read it. If the bozo who bought the rights can
tell me a reasonable way I can pass my own copy on to someone else,
that is one thing, but he is saying I cannot send the copy to
THE MT VOID Page 3
someone else. I would be perfectly happy to lend a friend just my
copy on disk, but how can I do that? If we are going to an
electronic world, is some legalistic bozo going to come along and
tell me I cannot share with anyone else anything that us
copyrighted? Are we headed for a pay-per-view world?
2. In response to Mark Leeper's article last week about the Great
Attractor, Bruce Szablak wrote, "_S_c_i_e_n_c_e _N_e_w_s (or _S_c_i_e_n_t_i_f_i_c
_A_m_e_r_i_c_a_n) in a recent issue reported that the Great Attractor does
not account for the perceived motion of the galaxy. It is
postulated that there is an Even Greater Attractor even farther
away in the universe. No kidding...."
To which Mark replies:
Do bigger masses have bigger masses
in hyperspace attracting?
And bigger masses still bigger masses
the universe compacting?
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzx!leeper
Perhaps my dynamite plants will put an end to war
sooner than your [peace] congresses. On the day
two army corps can annihilate each other in one
second all civilized nations will recoil from war
in horror.
-- Alfred Nobel
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER
Comments by Robert L. Mitchell
Copyright 1990 Robert L. Mitchell
When most people judge a movie, they do so based on their own balance of
plot, characterization, and theme -- and so do I. Once in a while,
though, you see a movie that tries to depict something you're quite
knowledgeable about, and your enjoyment depends mightily on how
accurately Hollywood presents your area of expertise. For example, many
computer-literate folks find _W_a_r_G_a_m_e_s great as a comedy, but not as
serious drama about plausible technology.
As an ex-submariner officer, I know subs. I know ours very well,
and theirs somewhat well. I know what they look like, how they move,
how the people in them look, sound, and act -- as I said, I know subs.
Apparently, so do the people who made _T_h_e _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r.
I won't comment on the movie as a movie; I leave that for better
wordsmiths than me. As a reasonably accurate portrayal of submarines
and submariners, though, _T_h_e _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r is the second most
realistic sub film I know (_D_a_s _B_o_o_t being the best). Thanks, no doubt,
to substantial assistance from the US Navy, the sets for the American
vessels (particularly the USS Dallas) were spot-on accurate (with one
exception). The layout of the Operations Room and its displays and
consoles was almost exact. The crews looked and sounded like real
bluejackets. Bart Mancuso (played by Scott Glenn) was the
quintessential sub skipper -- cool, somewhat aloof, knowing when to
listen and when to take action -- I felt I'd served under that man.
Even the tactics were realistic. The Soviets really do conduct "Crazy
Ivans," and our tactical manuals use that name.
Obviously, Hollywood had room to be a little more creative in the
design of the Soviet subs. Missile Compartments, for instance, do not
have so much open space, nor catwalks (they have solid decks). Even in
one case for the Dallas, reality took an appropriate backseat to
imagination. The Sonar Room on a boat is so highly classified that they
better _n_o_t have accurately portrayed one in the film....
I'm glad I saw the film, in part because the realism brought back a
lot of memories. On the other hand, the verisimilitude of the book was
even better, so maybe I ought to go back and reread it.
MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: The story of one of the great
expeditions of history--and of the controversy that
surrounded it--is brought to the screen spectacularly and
intelligently. While the film takes a few liberties with
the facts, I found it a better adventure tale than _T_h_e
_H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r and give or take a fact or two, it
is all a true story. Rating: +3.
The Nile River came like a miracle out of the desert, the last
place you would expect a great river, to bring life to the great
Egyptian civilization. That civilization was a major world power--often
_t_h_e major world power--for 3500 years, and it was totally dependent on
the enigmatic Nile, the only major river that flows south to north.
Even today the Nile means life or death to countries in its path. Not
surprisingly, when Europeans came to Africa they were fascinated by this
strange river and in particular, where the waters originated. But it
was time when tracing the river to its origins meant an expedition on
foot under nearly impossible conditions. And the only reward would be
to go down in the history books as being the one who answered the great
question: "Where did the waters of the Nile come from?" When the
question finally was answered, it was only at very great cost and it was
an answer that would remain shrouded in controversy for almost two
decades. _M_o_u_n_t_a_i_n_s _o_f _t_h_e _M_o_o_n is an intelligent yet visually
spectacular adventure film about the expedition to find the source of
the Nile. It is about Sir Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning
Speke, two very different men who made that expedition, and the
controversy that came out of that expedition.
The film covers much of the same territory that the excellent BBC
mini-series "The Search for the Nile" covered in 1971 (and wouldn't this
be a good time for someone to rebroadcast that series?). It is the
story of how Burton and Speke came to go on such a perilous expedition,
of the experiences on the trek, and of the bitter controversy that arose
from their different conclusions about the sources of the Nile.
Sir Richard Burton was perhaps the most colorful explorer and
anthropologist of all times and the film hardly does justice to the
man's history. Burton had fluency in dozens of languages and was
sufficiently good at the art of disguise that he could make himself
appear to be a native through much of the world. Disguised as an
Afghani, he was the first European to enter Mecca and Medina. He had an
unquenchable thirst to learn about other cultures first-hand, especially
their sexual practices--in which he both observed and participated--and
their erotic literature. He was an eloquent writer and translator, but
because of his fixation on the sexual, many of his writings and
Mountains of the Moon March 11, 1990 Page 2
translations were considered unsuitable in British society. His was the
definitive translation of the "Arabian Nights" and it accurately has far
more sex and violence than the expurgated versions generally available.
Burton was a giant man with giant vices.
On the other hand, John Speke was a petty man with petty vices.
His greatest passion was for hunting and he looked upon Africa in large
part as one big game park populated with animals he could shoot and
populated with savages best avoided. Where Burton had a thirst for
knowledge about other cultures, Speke had an attitude of inflexible
superiority that more than once put his life in danger.
William Harrison's 1983 novel _B_u_r_t_o_n _a_n_d _S_p_e_k_e (recently re-issued
as _M_o_u_n_t_a_i_n_s _o_f _t_h_e _M_o_o_n) shows much more the personality conflict
between these two men and only vaguely hints that they may have had a
grudging respect and even an affection for each other. Curiously, this
film written by Harrison together with director Bob Rafelson--based on
the novel and on the logs the two men kept of the expedition--reverses
that viewpoint. It says the two were actually close friends and the
post-expedition conflict about the interpretation of their findings was
due more to English society wishing to take the opinions of an
Englishman, Speke, over those of Burton. Burton was, after all, an
Irishman, a free thinker, and a writer of what English society
considered pornography. Harrison seems to have changed his mind between
writing the book and the screenplay--or had it changed by Rafelson--
about what were Burton's and Speke's attitudes toward each other. The
irony of the conflict, of course, is that while reading the book and
probably while seeing the film you want to believe Burton, it was
Speke's interpretation that this "Lake Victoria" was the actual source
that was vindicated. Speke's measurements were eventually found to be
essentially accurate and his conclusions were correct.
The film's two main characters are powerfully played by Patrick
Bergin as Burton and Iain Glen as Speke, both relatively new to American
audiences. The film also has a good cast of supporting characters. In
a film with two such interesting main characters, it would be quite easy
for Fiona Lewis to go unnoticed as Burton's stay-at-home lover and later
wife Isabel. Not so, however. Shaw's Isabel is a major character
fiercely loyal to an idealized image of her husband, an image of which
even the great Richard Burton fell short. Shaw's expression when seeing
Burton seems to convey an emotion combining joy and astonishment, the
same expression she used as Christy Brown's teacher in _M_y _L_e_f_t _F_o_o_t.
The original Isabel Burton was by all accounts a remarkable woman
totally willing to turn a blind eye to her husband's philandering just
to be married to Burton. Eventually her unquestioning loyalty shamed
her husband into monogamy. On the night he died, she burned a priceless
collection of his unpublished notes and forty-one unpublished
manuscripts in a misguided effort to preserve her dead husband's
reputation.
Mountains of the Moon March 11, 1990 Page 3
Somewhat understated in the film as well as all European accounts
of the expeditions is the presence of Sidi Bombay, at this point an
inexperienced African hired by Burton and Speke as a guide and treated
very poorly by Speke, but who went on to become one of Africa's great
explorers.
The film's account of the great expedition, much abridged from the
novel and logs, remains harrowing and gives a feel for the courage it
must have required to venture into Africa on foot in 1857. The most
horrifying sequence, for me all the more so since I had previously read
the account in both Harrison's novel and in Burton's account of the
expedition, was the incident that resulted in Speke losing his hearing
in one ear. Nearly as disturbing is the account of why Burton had to be
carried and of the primitive first aid. (I will withhold the details of
these incidents for the benefit of readers who do not yet know the
story.) All along the way, there are contacts with the local tribes,
each with its own culture, and many of whom were not happy to see
strangers. The stories of the three expeditions, naturally, had to be
greatly abbreviated for the film--in fact, we are only told that the
third expedition took place--but what we do see is sufficient for good
storytelling.
Harrison and Rafelson's screenplay, while based on the novel and
the expedition logs seem to have invented details not in either. At one
point in a speech, Burton says that no white man can claim to have
discovered a body of water well-known to the local tribes. Even for
Burton with his enlightened views, this would seem an anachronistic
viewpoint. In actual point of fact it is not the discovery of the body
of water that was important so much as its association with the river
that is the lifeblood of Egypt, and Speke really was the first person to
make the association that the two really were the same body of water.
He also gathered reasonable evidence for that point of view. As much as
we would like to credit both the local tribesmen and Burton over the
priggish Anglo-chauvinist Speke, it really is Speke to whom the credit
belongs. As a side note, Burton's views toward Africa were less
enlightened than his attitudes toward Arab peoples. As Robert Collins
observes in his 1967 introduction to Burton's _T_h_e _N_i_l_e _B_a_s_i_n:
Burton's insatiable appetite for travel soon brought
him to Africa. He observed Africa and the Africans at
best with the assumptions of a Victorian Englishman, at
worst with the attitudes of an Arab slave trader. Not
surprisingly, he judged African culture, which he made no
attempt to understand, as hopelessly inferior to the
Asian and European civilizations he knew so well.
African customs, manners, and morals repulsed him,
perhaps because they did not fit his preconceived notions
of civilization. Moreover, he never sought to separate
race and culture. Thus African cultural inferiority
became obvious proof of African racial inferiority.
Mountains of the Moon March 11, 1990 Page 4
This "Afrophobia" led Burton, as well as other
Englishmen, to place Africans at the bottom of the
evolutionary scale of national and racial development.
True, Burton was sufficiently condescending to consider
Africans human beings, but humans of the lowest kind. He
argued that only through emigration, or, perhaps, by the
adoption of Islam, could they hope for salvation.
Burton's bigoted ideas of African inferiority colored all
of his writings about Africa, and the more he saw and
learned, or rather mislearned, the more vicious became
his contempt for the continent. One should not read
Richard Burton without keeping in mind this deep-seated
prejudice.
It is perhaps a pity that _M_o_u_n_t_a_i_n_s _o_f _t_h_e _M_o_o_n should be released
withing days of another adventure film, _T_h_e _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r. Since
I had read both novels, it was _M_o_u_n_t_a_i_n_s _o_f _t_h_e _M_o_o_n that I was more
looking forward to. My reasons were at least two-fold. First, however
realistically Tom Clancy writes and however well-researched his facts
were, _T_h_e _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r is fiction and the Burton-Speke
expedition is authentic history. It really happened. Harrison had some
latitude with the interpretation of events but most of what we are
seeing is true. The second, and perhaps more important, reason was that
Clancy's heroes sit in large and relatively comfortable machines and
play out their game. True, if they lose they die, but if they win the
only price they have paid is that they are exhausted. Arguably most of
the impressive feats are done by the machinery. But to set off on foot
across mid-19th Century Africa with no more defense than a few rifles
requires a different character of courage. Burton and Speke set out
knowing that even if they found the source of the Nile, by the time they
returned Africa would have eaten a big piece of each of them. Speke
could not predict that he would have to mutilate horribly his own ear
and leave himself deaf; Burton could not predict the diseases he would
be stricken with, but that or something just as bad was nearly
inevitable. And Burton and Speke went anyway because a question had to
be answered. To that degree they were greater heroes than Tom Clancy's
fictional imaginings. And yet they were real people. And to find not
one but two different books by Burton describing his expeditions in his
own words I needed to go no further than my public library.
Because I had greater expectations for _M_o_u_n_t_a_i_n_s _o_f _t_h_e _M_o_o_n than
for _T_h_e _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r, I knew it was much more likely that I
would be disappointed by Rafelson's film. Surprisingly, _M_o_u_n_t_a_i_n_s _o_f
_t_h_e _M_o_o_n came much closer to meeting my high expectations that _T_h_e _H_u_n_t
_f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r came to meeting lower ones. Rafelson, whose earlier
films were very different low-budget films (_F_i_v_e _E_a_s_y _P_i_e_c_e_s and _S_t_a_y
_H_u_n_g_r_y), has made an intelligent adventure film to be savored for years
to come. I rate it a +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
PHASES OF GRAVITY by Dan Simmons
Bantam Spectra, 1989, ISBN 0-553-27764-2, $4.50.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper
Is this book science fiction? Hard to say. Is James Michener's
_S_p_a_c_e science fiction?
Richard Baedecker is an Apollo astronaut who must now deal with his
earth-bound existence. Once a hero who walked on the moon, he must live
in a world where his "home town" (that he lived in for only a couple of
years) cannot even spell his name right when they name a day in his
honor. His son has gone off to an ashram in India, his wife has left
him, and in general, he is discovering that once you achieve the
ultimate goal--whatever your ultimate goal is--there is nowhere to go
but down.
In another sense, this book is about our coming to terms with the
modern age. When the extraordinary becomes ordinary, what happens?
When one man walks on the moon, it's amazing. When a dozen do it, it
becomes mundane. Modern science (or technology) can take us half-way
around the world in a few hours, but it can't help us adjust to the
cultural changes we experience when we get there. Technology makes
everything so easy that we find ourselves looking for ways to make
things difficult; you can take a helicopter to the top of a mountain,
but people still do mountain climbing.
Baedecker tries to find the answers to his dilemma through other
astronauts. But they have their own problems and their own solutions.
One has "found religion": he needed something beyond all that he had
experienced and all that he had seen, and only God could give him that.
Another continued to challenge himself (on a smaller scale)--he did not
need a higher goal, but rather needed to strive toward _s_o_m_e goal.
This book doesn't have pulse-pounding action. But that's part of
the point: when the pulse-pounding action has passed, what then?
Simmons deals with this, and does it well.
QUEST FOR APOLLO by Michael Lahey
DAW, 1989, ISBN 0-88677-364-4, $3.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper
Dante's _I_n_f_e_r_n_o has fascinated fantasy authors. Larry Niven and
Jerry Pournelle did a science fictional version of it, Salman Rushdie
based his first novel on a variation of it, and now Michael Lahey takes
a different approach to the meeting of Dante and Virgil. Unfortunately,
Lahey hasn't managed to deliver either as interesting a world as Niven
or Pournelle or as introspective a book as Rushdie.
In _Q_u_e_s_t _f_o_r _A_p_o_l_l_o we find that Virgil has been meeting poets with
the initials "D. A." ever since he died. Now he meets the main
character, Delbert Alderini, but this time is different. They are told
by the goddess Diana that Apollo has been put under a curse, which
causes him to be reborn as mortal over and over, dying a tragic death
each time. They are given six nights to go back in time (through their
dreams), find Apollo, and make him aware of his divine nature. If they
fail, the world will be destroyed. So the first night they go back and
find Apollo in ancient Rome, but just as they are about to make him
aware of his identity, circumstances prevent them, and they wake up.
So as you the reader sit there, about one-quarter through the book,
how difficult is it to figure out what the rest of the book will be
like? Or, for that matter, how it will end?
Lahey has a talent for writing comedy that does show through, but
the book is a disappointment in that it seems to be aiming for a much
higher level than just light reading. In particular, the scenes of
battlefield hospitals and Nazi concentration camps seem out of place in
a book intended only as humor, and lead me to believe that Lahey was
trying for more, but couldn't quite reach it. "[La] diritta via era
smarrita," or in other words, he has lost the straight path to his goal.
Boskone 27
(Part 2)
Con report by Evelyn C. Leeper and Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1989 Evelyn C. Leeper and Mark R. Leeper
_S_h_e_r_l_o_c_k _H_o_l_m_e_s?
Saturday, 1 PM
Tony Lewis (mod), Ann Broomhead, Esther Friesner, Evelyn C. Leeper,
Priscilla Olson, Joe Siclari, Stu Shiffman
This started somewhat obscurely by panelists saying things like
"Holmes is a Jungian archetype" and "Holmes is Faust moderated through
King Arthur." This got everyone sufficiently off topic that the entire
hour drifted more or less aimlessly.
Esther Friesner claimed that Brihtric Donne (in her novel _D_r_u_i_d'_s
_B_l_o_o_d) is not Sherlock Holmes, and hence the novel should not be on Tony
Lewis's list of "science fictional Sherlock Holmes." No one else was
convinced; by her reasoning Poul Anderson's "Martian Crown Jewels" would
not be included either, and no one was willing to throw that out.
The Holmes panel at Noreascon (or was it last year's Boskone?) had
discussed Gandalf as Holmes: tall, thin, with grey eyes, supposedly
killed in a fall from a cliff, but not really dead. So someone here
claimed this made the Balrog the Moriarty figure. This led to a
discussion (listing) of various books in which Moriarty is the main
character, rather than Holmes.
Someone in the audience asked about the movie portrayals of Holmes
and Watson, in particular about Rathbone. Someone (Friesner?) said that
the problem was that the movies want the main character/hero to be
Everyman. In the Holmes stories, Holmes is something above Everyman;
Watson is Everyman. When Holmes is dropped to the Everyman level,
Watson--who can't be his equal--must also be dropped, which results in
Watson being a buffoon in most cases, and the Rathbone-Bruce films are
the prime example of this. Some films avoid this: _T_h_e _S_e_v_e_n _P_e_r _C_e_n_t
_S_o_l_u_t_i_o_n, and the Jeremy Brett television series (both Watsons).
Lewis pointed out that even such an esteemed authors as T. S. Eliot
used Holmes. Moriarty showed up as Macavity in _O_l_d _P_o_s_s_u_m'_s _B_o_o_k _o_f
_P_r_a_c_t_i_c_a_l _C_a_t_s (and Gus the Theater Cat supposedly had Sherlockian
references as well), and the Musgrave Ritual was used in _M_u_r_d_e_r _i_n _t_h_e
_C_a_t_h_e_d_r_a_l. John Lennon also did a Holmes pastiche in _A _S_p_a_n_i_a_r_d _i_n _t_h_e
_W_o_r_k_s ("The Singularge Experience of Miss Anne Duffield").
Lewis quoted his daughter that Holmes was popular with adolescents
because Holmes gets to eat when he wants, sleep when he wants, do what
he wants, and be rude to grown-ups, and someone else added that he also
has someone (Mrs. Hudson) pick up after him as well.
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 2
After this, the panel degenerated into a list of "who would you
like to see Holmes meet?" The list included Frankenstein, Richard
Burton (the explorer, not the actor), Fu Manchu (though this has been
done once, and Solar Pons met him as well), and Captain Nemo (apparently
also done by Philip Jose' Farmer).
Since I was on this panel, my reporting of it is less thorough than
of the other panels (it's hard to take notes and talk at the same time).
My list of Sherlock Holmes related works is available on request.
_E_l_e_c_t_r_o_n_i_c _F_a_n_d_o_m--_T_h_e _F_i_r_s_t _W_i_r_e-_H_e_a_d_s
Saturday, 2 PM
Jim Turner (mod), Linda E. Bushyager, Bill Davidsen,
Saul Jaffe, Myrrh Mist
Once upon a time, everyone on an electronic fandom panel was
talking the same language. This is no longer the case.
Jim Turner, for example, is familiar with GEnie, Usenet, and the
_S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t. Saul Jaffe works with the _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t and
Usenet. Myrrh Mist knows BIX. The issues raised by these various forms
are all over the map.
I would divide electronic fandom into five major categories:
1. Single-site bulletin boards
2. Multi-site bulletin boards
3. Moderated bulletin boards
4. Electronic fanzines
5. Electronically distributed fanzines
Single-site bulletin boards are those in which the contributor
throws his or her message up on a single machine that everyone reading
the bulletin board accesses. This makes it extremely interactive (there
is no propagation delay). Also, a user can easily retract a message.
An example of this would be (I believe) GEnie, BIX, or CompuServe.
Multi-site bulletin boards are those in which a message is sent to
many different machines, but still resides in a single location on each
one of them. It is much less interactive; one can have propagation
delays of hours or even days. A user may theoretically be able to
__________
* GEnie is a trademark of General Electric.
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 3
retract a message, but will probably not be able to "catch" all the
copies that have gone out. Usenet news groups are a prime example of
this form.
Moderated bulletin boards can be single- or multi-site, but only
sys-ops (system administrators, moderators, what have you) can post or
delete messages. This increases the signal-to-noise ratio considerably.
Electronic fanzines are those which are designed to be read on-
line, but are delivered as mail to each individual subscriber, rather
than stored in a common area. They are similar to moderated bulletin
boards in that there is an editor, but they are different in that it is
impossible to retract a message once it is sent out. ("The Moving
Finger writes and, having writ,/Moves on: nor all your Piety nor
Wit/Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,/Nor all your Tears wash
out a Word of it.") _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t is a good example of this
category.
Electronically distributed fanzines are those which are designed to
be read on paper, but are distributed to some or all subscribers
electronically. The individual recipients can then print them out
locally. They differs from electronic fanzines in that the layout, page
breaks, etc., assume a hard-cover product eventually (though recipients
can read it on-line if they prefer). I publish one of these (the _M_T
_V_O_I_D) and the reason for doing it this way is that I'd rather each
person print and staple their own issue than I have to do 150.
So it seems to me that this panel, in discussing the issues, was
often working from different assumptions. For example, one question was
whether the faster turnaround time cut down on "flame wars." Those who
worked mainly with single-site bulletin boards thought it did, but those
who worked with multi-site boards or electronical(ly distributed)
fanzines said quite the opposite. (On Usenet, "flame wars" are
legendary!)
In terms of volume, Jaffe was the only one able to cite figures:
about 300 messages a day are submitted to _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t (mostly
through Usenet) and about 80 messages a day are included in the _D_i_g_e_s_t.
Many people seemed to "object" to electronic fandom because it is
limited to the technologically literate. Perhaps there is truth in this
claim, but books at one time were available only to the reading
literate, and they were as rare as (or rarer than) the technologically
literate today. And just as there were live readings for the illiterate
(and even today, professional letter writers and readers in less
literate cultures), electronic fandom has its equivalent in commercial
and public-access systems which enable the fan to access sf-related
bulletin boards with a bare minimum of expertise on the part of the fan.
(In fact, many claim that the fan doesn't even need to know how to
spell, punctuate, or be polite!)
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 4
I had to leave before the end of the panel, since I was appearing
on another panel at 3 PM, but I am sure the last word has not been said
on this subject. One panel worth considering for future conventions
might be "Producing a Dual-Media Fanzine: The Worst of Both Worlds."
Chuq Von Rospach (_O_t_h_e_r_R_e_a_l_m_s) and I could certainly provide some
insight.
_F_a_n_z_i_n_e _W_r_i_t_i_n_g: _M_i_m_e_o? _W_h_a_t _t_h_e _H_e_c_t_o _I_s TTTThhhhaaaatttt?
Saturday, 1 PM
Mark Keller (mod), Janice Eisen, Evelyn C. Leeper,
Laurie Mann, Ed Meskys, Teresa Neilsen-Hayden
In spite of Mark Keller's attempt to stir things up by claiming
electronic fandom was ruining fanzine writing, this was a fairly low-key
panel. There was some argument about whether something like _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s
_D_i_g_e_s_t was a fanzine (more on this later). At one point, Mann claimed
it was not eligible for the fanzine Hugo because of the general low
quality of the submissions. I pointed out that nowhere in the rules did
it say the nominees had to be good--that was supposedly what the voting
process was for.
Once again, people said that fandom was getting too large. ("Ah,
yes, I remember the good old days....") Someone quoted a hallway
conversation in which a fan complained that "the bookworms have taken
over Boskone." (To which I can only reply, "Thank Ghod!")
Ed Meskys seemed to have the largest supply of fannish anecdotes,
though I must confess that many of them were about people I had never
heard of. I suspect I am one of this new generation of fans, or at
least fan writers, who came in through the electronic door and doesn't
spend a lot of time discussing fannish rumors and doings, but rather
concentrates on reviewing and discussing science fiction itself (and
conventions, of course). The claim was made that the newszines (of the
gossip variety) seemed to be dying out. In part, this is due to their
place being taken by such professional magazines as _L_o_c_u_s and _S_c_i_e_n_c_e
_F_i_c_t_i_o_n _C_h_r_o_n_i_c_l_e. (Don't tell me these are technically "semi-
prozines"--I already know that, but they sure seem to waddle to me.)
And what they don't cover is disseminated rapidly via electronic
bulletin boards; authors' deaths are now known to almost all of fandom
within a day or so. And I don't mean authors such as Heinlein, whose
obituaries appear in daily newspapers, but also authors such as Tiptree
whose deaths are less widely reported in the mundane press. _F_i_l_e _7_7_0 is
the only major newszine left in the fanzine area.
Parties
For dinner, we went to our traditional Saturday night place, the
Peking Duck House across the street from the hotels. Since we went at 5
PM instead of after 6 PM, and since Boskone was much smaller this year,
the restaurant was practically empty when we arrived--a nice change from
the usual half-hour wait for a table. We had planned to eat with Jerry
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 5
Boyajian, but he was detained in Boston, so it was just Mark, Dave, and
me--and of course, great Chinese food.
After dinner, we returned to the hotels. I walked through the Art
Show, where I bought a print of an unpublished painting inspired by
_W_a_n_d_e_r_i_n_g _S_t_a_r_s (an anthology of Jewish science fiction). Then we
mostly sat around talking until the banquet was over and events resumed.
One problem with this was that there was a couple with not one, but two,
crying babies who seemed to think that remaining in the common area
while their babies squalled was acceptable behavior. (I discovered
later that one of the babies was Glen Cook's son, being watched while
the banquet went on.) Future Boskones and other conventions may want to
consider setting aside a small room as a crying room, although in this
case I would think the make-up room in the women's room would have been
sufficient. (Yes, I know that means a woman has to take the baby in.
I'm not the person who decreed women's rooms have extra space, and for
that matter, I don't know that the men's room didn't have comparable
space.)
Kate and I went in at 9 PM to hear the Guest of Honor speech. At
9:30 PM, when they were still going through the raffle winners, the
Skylark winner, the this and the that, I decided to head on out to the
parties. I presume eventually a speech was delivered. Were it prefaced
only by "real" awards, I might have waited, but to make the attendees
sit through the raffle drawing seemed a bit unfair.
So I headed up to the Readercon party, which was in full swing when
I arrived. I picked up a copy of Progress Report 2, which I hadn't seen
yet (mine had arrived in New Jersey after I left, it turned out). I'll
have to pick out some books to bring for autographing--I wonder what
Thomas Disch will say about autographing _M_a_n_k_i_n_d _U_n_d_e_r _t_h_e _L_e_a_s_h, or
John Morressey of seeing a copy of _S_t_a_r_b_r_a_t.
One attendee there was reading through the list of authors and we
started talking about which authors we had read and which we had liked.
She mentioned she found Gene Wolfe boring, and I tried to convince her
to tell Eric Van that, but couldn't.
At 10 PM, I decided to move to the _P_r_o_p_e_r _B_o_s_k_o_n_i_a_n party. _T_h_e
_P_r_o_p_e_r _B_o_s_k_o_n_i_a_n is a quarterly fanzine put out by NESFA which last
appeared about four years ago. (Think about it.) This party was to
kick off the next issue, which should be issued some time this year.
There was a cake-cutting, but if the attendance at the party is any
indication, this will be a small issue. (The party was in the Tara,
while all the other parties seemed to be in the Marriott, so that might
explain it.)
I got into a further discussion with Saul Jaffe about whether _S_F-
_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t was a fanzine. The definition of fanzine used for the
Hugos is that they are "generally available non-professional
publications (press run under 10,000) devoted to science fiction,
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 6
fantasy or (for fanzines) related subjects, which have published 4 or
more issues, at least one of which appeared in [the year for which the
awards are being made]." There are further tests for whether a
publication is a semi-prozine; for now, trust me that _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t
does not meet these.
I contend that _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t is indubitably non-professional,
certainly has a press run of under 10,000 (in fact, it has nothing that
could be defined as a press run unless it is the issue Saul prints up
for himself), and is devoted to the appropriate topics. But is it
"generally available," is it a "publication," and has it "published
issues"? (If it has, it has certainly done "4 or more, etc.")
My dictionary (_W_e_b_s_t_e_r_s _N_e_w _C_o_l_l_e_g_i_a_t_e _D_i_c_t_i_o_n_a_r_y) defines
"publish" as "to make generally known, to make public announcement, to
place before the public, to disseminate." Printing is recognized in a
subsidiary definition, but is not necessary for publishing to have
deemed to taken place.
Now, Saul contends that _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t is not generally available
and has not "published issues." I would say that going by my
dictionary, it has indeed published issues ("issue" defined as "the
thing or whole quantity of things given out at one time"). But is it
generally available?
Saul says (rightly) that one needs a modem and computer (or access
to one) to get _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t. He also says anyone can get a "hard-
copy" fanzine if they pay the subscription price, since all it requires
is a physical address to send it to. True or false?
Well, I suspect that fans in Albania, for example, cannot get
copies of _L_a_n'_s _L_a_n_t_e_r_n because the government won't allow them to be
imported. Does that mean _L_a_n'_s _L_a_n_t_e_r_n is not generally available? No,
so I think we agree that "generally" does not have to mean that _e_v_e_r_y_o_n_e
can get it. So what proportion need to be able to get something before
it is generally available? If a fanzine is available only to women, is
it generally available? That _i_s more than 50% of the population. What
about only to men? Now we're talking about less than 50%. What about
only to fans born after 1950? Over the age of 21?
Most fanzines cost a couple of dollars an issue. What about one
that costs $10? $100? $1000? If the cost of a fanzine doesn't make it
ineligible, then the fact that a fan has to purchase a modem and
computer access shouldn't make a fanzine ineligible either.
If I look at the circulation figures for _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t as
compared with other fanzines, I see that upwards of 100,000 people get
_S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t where only a few hundred get _L_a_n'_s _L_a_n_t_e_r_n. One may
claim that _L_a_n'_s _L_a_n_t_e_r_n is generally available and _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t is
not, but the facts don't seem to support that contention.
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 7
Then again, I also think the San Diego Yacht Club's catamaran won
the America's Cup.
_D_i_f_f_e_r_e_n_c_e _B_e_t_w_i_x_t _D_a_r_k _F_a_n_t_a_s_y _a_n_d _H_o_r_r_o_r
Saturday, 10 PM
Rick Hautala (mod), Aline B. Kaplan, Charles Lang
[written by Mark R. Leeper]
Rick Hautala opened the panel saying that he himself was not sure
what the term "dark fantasy" meant. Both horror and dark fantasy
attempt to scare and the term "dark fantasy" seems designed only to hide
that goal. Hautala considers dark fantasy to be a "yuppie-ization" of
horror. He quoted Craig Spector in saying that he tries to scare the
reader to the point that he gets every gland secreting at once.
Just before the panel, Aline Kaplan had been talking to her son
about the film _C_h_i_l_d_r_e_n _o_f _t_h_e _C_o_r_n. (Kaplan's son looked nine and
talked like someone twice that age.) He, however, enjoyed a scene in
the film in which a child puts a man's hand in a bologna slicer. Kaplan
said that slice-and-dice is not really horror. It is graphic, but not
horror. Hautala said that he does not have "lunchmeat" characters.
When he kills a character, he has put enough into that character so that
the reader has "an investment" in that character. Apparently Hautala
does have graphic horror but better done. Charles Lang took a crack at
the difference, saying, "Horror is a serial killer; dark fantasy is the
demon." As an example, he gave Thomas Harris's _R_e_d _D_r_a_g_o_n and _T_h_e
_S_i_l_e_n_c_e _o_f _L_a_m_b_s, both of which were horror enough to make his skin
crawl, but were not dark fantasy. Dark fantasy is an effort to take
supernatural fantasy and break out to a larger market.
Kaplan asked why the Stephen King sort of novel was so popular and,
while Lang thought that it was just because King tells a good story that
a broad market wants to read, Hautala quoted another panel as saying
that science fiction is weird fiction for weird people, while horror
fiction is weird fiction for normal people.
The discussion then turned, as it often seems to in these panel
discussions, from the actual subject matter to the business of
publishing. Lang said that the popularity of horror goes in cycles and
currently it is falling. Also of falling popularity are Westerns and,
surprisingly, romance novels. That all three fields are falling at the
same time is surprising, but perhaps the popularity of reading in
general is falling. Kaplan responded that horror brings the reader's
attention to "other realities" and helps to explain them. While it is
informational, it is popular; when it starts to scare, it loses
popularity.
Hautala said horror is declining because there is too little of the
_H_a_u_n_t_i_n_g _o_f _H_i_l_l _H_o_u_s_e sort of thing being written. While horror
"connects" with ordinary sorts of people it does well. Writing about
heavy-metal satanists brings horror's popularity down. Lang thought
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 8
King writes too much about ordinary people. How many times can he write
about the same people who are really just his neighbors in Maine?
Hautala shifted the conversation to what books really are horror.
Much that is written in the mainstream could really be considered
horror. Particular examples were Kafka's _M_e_t_a_m_o_r_p_h_o_s_i_s and Tolstoy's
_D_e_a_t_h _o_f _I_v_a_n _I_l_y_c_h. Once you specifically separate out horror it can
be found or ignored as a whole. He feels that the "kiss of death" for
the horror genre was the policy of putting horror on a separate shelf of
its own.
Hautala claims that publishers make decisions of what they want to
buy based on popular trends, on what length fiction pieces are, on all
sorts of criteria that they can judge without ever reading the books
they are buying. As with horror films, the commercial interests say to
deliver something safe. Do not experiment. "Art," Hautala said, "does
not succeed by appealing to the lowest common denominator, but commerce
does." (I found it somewhat ironic that with the panelists' high regard
for the art of horror writing and their low regard for the commerce of
horror selling, they returned so often to talk about the latter.) The
panel concluded with how backward the publishing industry is. Soap
companies put most of their publicity funds behind their new products
and less behind their established products. Publishers put their
promotion funds behind their established authors and very little behind
their new authors. (I happen to feel that analogy is imperfect. Most
soap companies feel relatively safe that they can make a soap popular
and it will not quit and go to another soap company.)
_T_h_e _H_o_r_r_o_r _P_a_n_e_l
Saturday, 11 PM
Rick Hautala (mod), Ginjer Buchanan, John R. Douglas,
Christopher Fahy
[written by Mark R. Leeper]
If the midnight horror panel is supposed to in some sense frighten,
this one succeeded. All night long I had nightmares of balance sheets,
best-seller lists, and of not making the income I thought I deserved.
Imagine going to a doctor and he says he has something to tell you and
he takes you aside in his office. Then for an hour he tells you how bad
his business is, how the prices of his equipment are up and the clinics
are taking away business, and how his insurance rates are terrible. If
this happened time and time again, you might find yourself another
doctor. But time and time again these days you find panels at
conventions filled with authors who seem incapable of getting their
minds off of their financial state for an hour. At this point I know
more about the business and financial problems of being an author than I
ever imagined I ever wanted to know and I have lost a lot of respect for
authors who can talk about little else.
The hour started innocently enough with Rick Hautala asking the
other panelists what the future of horror would be and suggesting,
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 9
rather unprofoundly, that it would be different from the past. Ginjer
Buchanan, with equally few examples, said the future would be like the
present. "The more things change, the more they remain the same." John
Douglas said, "I have seen the future of horror and its name is Clive
Barker," repeating the Stephen King quote that often appears on Barker's
less and less popular books. There was general consent that Barker is
no longer what people want. What they want is more _F_r_i_d_a_y _t_h_e _1_3_t_h and
more Stephen King. Now because King is as popular as he is, he can
write just about anything. Buchanan suggested he could even write a
romance novel. (She gave an example of a romance novel King wrote; I
did not write it down but I think it was _M_i_s_e_r_y.)
Hautala said that he himself writes pretty much what he wants,
though his publisher tries to get him to write the sort of thing he has
written successfully before. The real danger in writing horror, he
said, is that there is one writer who dominates the field and eclipses
all the others. In science fiction there is no equivalent dominant
writer. It influences new horror writers, who all want to be the next
Stephen King.
Buchanan talked about best-selling authors and best-seller lists
which she does not trust. She asked if anyone thinks P. D. James really
is currently the best selling author. James is currently at the top of
the New York Times best-seller list.
Still without mentioning the content of a single book, the
conversation returned to Stephen King and the quote about Barker. As
powerful a force as King is to reckon with, he could not name Barker as
his own successor. Buchanan points to Dean R. Koontz as an author who
did it the right way with twenty-five years of "busting his ass" before
he really caught on as an author.
At this point a recently-arrived fan from the audience, one Evelyn
Leeper, attempted to pull the conversation back to something a little
more relevant by asking what out-of-print horror novel the panelists
would like to see come back in print. Here at last was a chance to get
the discussion on books rather than publishing. Hautala said he was
going to pass because he is intensely jealous when another author makes
it. Buchanan named John Coyne's _H_o_b_g_o_b_l_i_n which she had published.
Christopher Fahy suggested that his own _N_i_g_h_t_f_l_y_e_r should come back into
print. Douglas gave the most selfless answer by saying he had no
answer.
Hautala seemed to realize that everybody flogging their own books
might not have been a response in the spirit the question was asked. He
reframed the question, asking the other panelists if they could simply
name solid examples of horror. Douglas, an editor at Avon, said he did
_n_o_t like Dan Simmons's _S_o_n_g _o_f _K_a_l_i and turned it down as did three
other publishers. Fahy at first said he did not know what to say, but
gave examples such as _M_i_s_e_r_y and books by Pat McGraf and Clive Barker.
Douglas asked if the point of the question was that they just plug other
Boskone 27 Feburary 19, 1990 Page 10
people's books, then settled on Katherine Dunn's _G_e_e_k _L_o_v_e as a
recommendation. Buchanan recommended Robert McCammon's _B_e_t_h_a_n_y _S_i_n_s and
Tom Tryon's books. Tryon is a name that has been recently forgotten,
but who she says has been very influential on other writers, in specific
Stephen King. Hautala added to the list McCammon's _T_h_e_y _T_h_i_r_s_t.
Describing it, he repeated his quote from Craig Spector, saying that the
horror writer has achieved his goal if he can make every gland in the
reader's body secrete at once. He also liked Elizabeth Massey's _S_i_n
_E_a_t_e_r. Buchanan added Skipp and Spector's _L_i_g_h_t _a_t _t_h_e _E_n_d and any of
several books by Shirley Jackson. According to her Jackson was a very
good horror writer ... also a loon.
In response to Evelyn's question on what is the most over-rated
horror, Buchanan suggested _T_h_e _D_a_r_k _T_o_w_e_r series by Stephen King.
[the following addendum to this panel was written by Evelyn C. Leeper]
I arrived at this towards the end. Someone was talking about
Whitley Streiber's latest works, _C_o_m_m_u_n_i_o_n and its sequel,
_T_r_a_n_s_f_o_r_m_a_t_i_o_n. S/he described a button he had seen with a smiley-face
with the elongated eyes of Streiber's aliens, captioned, "They're here
and they insist you have a nice day." They had apparently been saying
negative things about Streiber, because someone said that not all horror
authors had such a bad reputation, and cited Dean R. Koontz as someone
who was very friendly and had a wonderful reputation.
As far as recommending horror novels, Ginjer Buchanan mentioned
John Coyne's _H_o_b_g_o_b_l_i_n, which she says is a departure from his usual
"gerund horror" (_T_h_e _P_i_e_r_c_i_n_g and _T_h_e _S_e_a_r_i_n_g, apparently, although he
has also written _T_h_e _F_u_r_y, _L_e_g_a_c_y,, and _T_h_e _S_h_r_o_u_d, so his non-gerunds
outnumber his gerunds two-to-one). There were also several other
recommendations that Mark has already related.
When I asked the panelists what out-of-print horror they would most
like to see brought back into print, some panelists named other people's
books, but Christopher Fahy named one of his own books. I will have to
remember to disallow this the next time I ask the question. (Mark said
most of the first part of the panel consisted in people promoting their
own books.)
[to be concluded]