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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 03/30/90 -- Vol. 8, No. 39
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
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 list of Hugo nominees for 1990 is included in this issue of
the MT VOID. The Fan Writer category may be of interest. [-ecl]
[Actually it is interesting that both Evelyn and I are at the same
time being considered for writing prizes. Evelyn's is more
visible, of course, since the Hugo is voted on by the fans while
the Pulitzer committee can be much more secretive.]
2. Well, spring is coming up and the news is turning to gobs of
spring-like news stories. Every year we hear of various beaches--
from various communities in Florida preparing for the annual
onslaught of college so-called students migrating like seagulls
south to Florida for spring break. Back in pagan times the coming
of spring was celebrated as that time of year when you could stop
THE MT VOID Page 2
shoveling pagan-time driveways and skidding oxcarts on roads. In
all piety young adult pagans would dress in their skimpiest fur
loin cloths, drink gallons of mead, and putting down their scrolls
for copies of _P_l_a_y_p_a_g_a_n and _P_e_n_t_h_o_v_e_l, head out for the beaches,
where they would shake their bodyparts for each other and for
primitive pagan television cameras. Actually, it was surprising
they could find beaches given the state of knowledge of the ancient
pagans who were just learning things like how to read and write and
that there was a world outside their village. At that time,
reading, writing, and geography were advanced knowledge.
Today's college students--who are also just learning to read and
write and who cannot name you the three major countries in North
America--rest up from all the heavy learning they do by going south
to tie up roads and drink beer and to shake barely covered
bodyparts for each other and for television cameras, as if the
growing of those parts was an engineering feat equivalent to
building the Eiffel Tower.
What sparked all this was a news story that many traditional haunts
that spring break "students" infest are now trying to discourage
them from coming. Now that should give you some sort of hint as to
how these visits are valued. As one of the students pointed out,
"48 weeks a year Florida runs ads saying 'Come down to Florida,'
and the other six weeks they say 'Stay home.'"
One of the locals, however, said he welcomed the onslaught of
students. "These are the leaders of tomorrow," he said, climbing
back into his beer truck. Now I might question that statement.
Everybody looks at young people and calls them the "leaders of
tomorrow." I wonder how many of today's leaders participated in
spring break mating migrations. You'll never know because how many
will admit it even if they did? I could almost believe it of
Congresspeople. But when I look at these spring-breakers on the
news, in my heart of hearts I don't tell myself that these are
people who will be running the nation; I tell myself that these are
people who will be running a cash register at Food Town. The
cashiers of the future have got to come from somewhere and these
look like prime candidates. At least once automatic pricing
machines are installed.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzx!leeper
Nothing that is contrary to, and inconsistent with,
the clear and self-evident dictates of reason, has a
right to be urged or assented to as a matter of faith,
wherein reason has nothing to do.
-- John Locke
1990 Hugo Nominees
Courtesy Laurie Mann @ Stratus.
BEST NOVEL OF 1989:
THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS, Poul Anderson (Tor)
PRENTICE ALVIN, Orson Scott Card (Tor)
A FIRE IN THE SUN, George Alec Effinger (Doubleday/Foundation)
HYPERION, Dan Simmons (Doubleday/Foundation)
GRASS, Sheri S. Tepper (Doubleday/Foundation)
BEST NOVELLA OF 1989:
"The Mountains of Mourning," Lois McMaster Bujold (ANALOG,
May 89; BORDERS OF INFINITY, Baen)
"A Touch of Lavender," Megan Lindholm (IASFM, Nov 89)
"Tiny Tango," Judith Moffett (IASFM, Feb 89)
"The Father of Stones," Lucius Shepard (IASFM, Sep 89;
THE FATHER OF STONES, WSFA Press)
"Time-Out," Connie Willis (IASFM, Jul 89)
BEST NOVELETTE OF 1989:
"Dogwalker," Orson Scott Card (IASFM, Nov 89)
"Everything but Honor," George Alec Effinger (IASFM, Feb 89;
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, Vol. 1, Bantam Spectra)
"The Price of Oranges," Nancy Kress (IASFM, Apr 89)
"For I Have Touched the Sky," Mike Resnick (F& SF, Dec 89)
"Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another," Robert Silverberg
(IASFM, Jun 89; TIME GATE, Baen)
"At the Rialto," Connie Willis (OMNI, Oct 89;
THE MICROVERSE, Bantam Spectra)
BEST SHORT STORY OF 1989:
"Lost Boys," Orson Scott Card (F&SF, Oct 89)
"Boobs," Suzy McKee Charnas (IASFM, Jul 89)
"Computer Friendly," Eileen Gunn (IASFM, Jun 89)
"The Return of William Proxmire," Larry Niven (WHAT MIGHT
HAVE BEEN, Vol. 1, Bantam Spectra)
"Dori Bangs," Bruce Sterling (IASFM, Sep 89)
"The Edge of the World," Michael Swanwick (FULL SPECTRUM II,
Doubleday/Foundation)
BEST NON-FICTION BOOK OF 1989:
ASTOUNDING DAYS, Arthur C. Clarke (Gollancz, Bantam Spectra)
HARLAN ELLISON'S WATCHING, Harlan Ellison (Underwood-Miller)
GRUMBLES FROM THE GRAVE, Virginia Heinlein, ed. (Del Rey)
DANCING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, Ursula K. Le Guin (Grove)
THE WORLD BEYOND THE HILL, Alexei & Cory Panshin (Tarcher)
THE NOREASCON THREE SOUVENIR BOOK, Greg Thokar, ed. (MCFI Press)
Hugo Nominees March 26, 1990 Page 2
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION OF 1989:
THE ABYSS
THE ADVENTURES OF BARON VON MUNCHAUSEN
BATMAN
FIELD OF DREAMS
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE
BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR OF 1989:
Ellen Datlow (OMNI)
Gardner Dozois (IASFM)
Edward L. Ferman (F&SF)
David G. Hartwell (Morrow/Arbor House, Tor)
Beth Meacham (Tor)
Charles C. Ryan (ABORIGINAL)
Stanley Schmidt (ANALOG)
BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST OF 1989:
Jim Burns
Thomas Canty
David A. Cherry
James Gurney
Tom Kidd
Don Maitz
Michael Whelan
BEST SEMIPROZINE OF 1989:
LOCUS
NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION
THRUST
SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE
INTERZONE
BEST FANZINE OF 1989:
FILE 770
FOSFAX
LAN'S LANTERN
PIRATE JENNY
MAD 3 PARTY
BEST FAN WRITER of 1989:
Mike Glyer
Arthur Hlavaty
Dave Langford
Evelyn Leeper
Leslie Turek
BEST FAN ARTIST OF 1989:
Steve Fox
Teddy Harvia
Merle Insinga
Joe Mayhew
Hugo Nominees March 26, 1990 Page 3
Stu Shiffman
JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST NEW WRITER OF 1988-1989 (not a Hugo):
John Cramer^1
(TWISTOR)
Nancy Collins^1
(SUNGLASSES AFTER DARK)
Katherine Neville^1
(THE EIGHT)
Kristine Kathryn Rusch^2
("Fast Cars" [10/89 IASFM], "Phantoms" [06/89 F&SF],
and "Fugue" [11/89 AMAZING])
Allen Steele^2
(ORBITAL DECAY, "John Harper Wilson" [06/89 IASFM],
"Red Planet Blues" [09/89 IASFM], and "Free Beer
and the William Casey Society" [02/89 IASFM])
^1 First year of eligibility
^2 Second year of eligibility
BEST ORIGINAL ARTWORK of 1989 (Not a Hugo):
QUOZL cover by James Gurney (Ace)
THE STRESS OF HER REGARD cover by James Gurney (Ace)
RIMRUNNERS cover by Don Maitz (Warner/Questar)
HYPERION cover by Gary Ruddell (Doubleday/Foundation,
Bantam Spectra)
PARADISE cover by Michael Whelan (Tor)
RENEGADES OF PERN cover by Michael Whelan (Del Rey)
Note: No Award is an option for each category.
Since not enough voters nominated non-English works, this category
will not appear on the final ballot.
ConFiction received 281 ballots and there were two three-way ties
for fifth place.
Hugo ballots will be in the mail to all members of ConFiction this
spring. Completed ballots must be postmarked by 7/13/90.
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: NBC had the money and the time to
tell Gaston Leroux's story correctly and accurately to
the book. Instead they gave it to people with no respect
for the novel (by their own admission) and got a slow and
uninteresting version with most of the power of the
original story missing. Rating: low 0.
The day that Tony Richardson's made-for-television version of _T_h_e
_P_h_a_n_t_o_m _o_f _t_h_e _O_p_e_r_a was due to be shown, my local newspaper did a
feature on it quoting the writer Arthur Kopit as saying, "[After having
read the novel] what struck me was that this story ... wasn't very good.
Still it captured the imagination of people. Why? What bothered me
about [the previous dramatic] versions, what I thought they essentially
missed, was that you never knew why the Phantom was in love with
Christine."
I had very high hopes for this version. There were four announced
film adaptations in the wake of the success of the Broadway play. One
starred Richard Englund, whose most famous role was the razor-gloved
Freddy Krueger; one was simply a film version of the musical; one was
set in Nazi Germany. Of the four versions, the only one that sounded
like a genuine new adaptation of the novel was the announced four-hour
television version. Then I read Kopit's quote.
What Kopit is saying is that he has no respect for the material
itself, only for its ready-made market. He also thinks that the
dramatic versions missed the point of why the story is popular. I could
easily believe his comment if it really was the novel that people
remember but, in fact, the book has not been what people have liked.
For most of the years the story has been liked, Gaston Leroux's novel
has been hard to find. Andrew Lloyd Webber tells an anecdote about how
difficult it was to find a copy of the novel when he wanted to read it.
The dramatic adaptations that Kopit thinks missed the point of why the
story is remembered are really what made the story popular. And here
they cannot have missed the point. Actually I would contend that they
have all missed what I like in the novel, but not what has made the
story popular.
The novel is about a man with a great intellect and a horribly
deformed face. All his life he was treated as a freak and just
occasionally exploited for his genius. Eventually he finds the
opportunity to build for himself an empire in the darkness beneath the
Paris Opera House. There he can enjoy the music and can be seen only
when he wants. This is Gaston Leroux's Erik but he has never been done
satisfactorily in a film or play. I had hoped that in the three and a
Phantom of Opera (1990) March 23, 1990 Page 2
half hours or so of story there would be time to show Erik's history.
In fact, this version did show Erik's history but it bore little
relation to anything in the novel.
Kopit missed the point entirely by making his Phantom a petulant
young man (played by Charles Dance of _T_h_e _J_e_w_e_l _i_n _t_h_e _C_r_o_w_n), who is
being shielded by a former manager of the opera house (over-played by
Burt Lancaster).
Kopit's screenplay intends this Erik to be likable and steers clear
of the question in the novel of whether Erik might be psychotic. This
Erik does not kill, at least in the course of the film. Oh, his face
may startle and early on this causes a death, but that does not appear
to be Erik's fault. This Erik has lost the feel of the sinister and
instead controls the fate of the opera house with practical jokes. Even
the cutting down of the chandelier is not a murder attempt but an act
of angry vandalism intended to vent rage and for which the audience was
intentionally given time to get out of the way. Of course, this Erik
had less reason for rage than the one in the book. The script claims
that Erik's mother at least found his face "flawlessly beautiful." In
the book Erik's mother gave him his first mask because she could not
stand to look at his face.
There are a few nice touches to the script. One of them is the
handling of the issue of how to handle the unmasking. Sort of
independently of the quality of the rest of the production there is the
question of how to shock audiences when they do see the Phantom's face.
The approach here was unusual and not badly done, though it was perhaps
dictated by the screenplay's efforts to keep Erik as a romantic Phantom.
Less endearing is Erik's unexpected forest beneath the ground. It isn't
like the metal forest of the novel but a real forest with live trees and
unexplained sunlight. It appears that Erik must have built himself a
holodeck.
Charles Dance is a little whiny for my tastes, as well as not being
sufficiently sinister. Lancaster as the former manager is overripe and
Teri Polo as Christine Daee (in the book Daae) is unmemorable. She and
her lover Adam Storke as Phillipe, Comte de Chagney, are pretty people
but boring actors. (Again, they got the name wrong on the Comte. The
character's name was Raoul. Phillipe is the name of Raoul's brother,
older by twenty years.)
The whole mediocre revision of the story is directed by Tony
Richardson, who directed _T_o_m _J_o_n_e_s. I am not a fan of that film but it
certainly was better directed than this slow-moving version. If I had
never heard of the story before I would have rated this a little higher,
but as it is I would give Richardson's version a low 0 on the -4 to +4
scale.
[Postscript: Of the dramatic versions of _T_h_e _P_h_a_n_t_o_m _o_f _t_h_e _O_p_e_r_a I
have seen, I would list them best to worst as: the Webber play (which is
Phantom of Opera (1990) March 23, 1990 Page 3
surprisingly faithful to the book), the Lon Chaney film (1925), the
Claude Rains film (1943), the animated cable version (1987) (lackluster
but very faithful to the book), the made-for-television Maximillian
Schell version (1983), the Herbert Lom film (1962), the made-for-
television Charles Dance film (1990), and then there is a very long gap
down to Richard Englund's putrescent version (1989). I do not count
films only inspired by the story, such as _P_h_a_n_t_o_m _o_f _t_h_e _P_a_r_a_d_i_s_e, _T_h_e
_P_h_a_n_t_o_m _o_f _H_o_l_l_y_w_o_o_d, and _P_h_a_n_t_o_m _o_f _t_h_e _O_p_e_r_e_t_t_a.]
[Post-postscript: For someone with a better command of French than
my own: the name of the novel as "The Phantom of the Opera" but in the
novel he refers to himself less dramatically as "The Opera Ghost."
Isn't that distinction purely on the part of the translator? Don't both
translate to the same words in French?]
=========================================
EVERYBODY'S FAVORITE DUCK by Gahan Wilson
Mysterious Press, 1989 (1989c), ISBN 0-445-40841-3, $4.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper
What we have here is Yet Another Sherlock Holmes Pastiche.
In addition to Sherlock Holmes (here called Enoch Bones), we also
have "the Professor," "the Mandarin," and "Spectrobert," not to mention
tunnels filled with booby-traps worthy of an Indiana Jones movie,
Lovecraftian monsters, and inter-dimensional shenanigans. The duck of
the title, Quacky Duck, is not the detective, but rather a famous
cartoon figure, with his own following and song and a theme park
designed around him. You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out
who _h_e'_s supposed to be.
Told mostly in the first person from John Weston's (Watson's) point
of view, this novel shows that Gahan Wilson can write a good tongue-in-
cheek detective story, even though the crime and its perpetrators are
perfectly obvious. The occasional interludes told by an omniscient
third party point of view do mean that Bone/Holmes is on stage perhaps
less than we would like, or rather, less than we are used to. Still,
the Flying Purple Cloud of Destruction does help make up for that.
It's a lot of fun.
THE CITY, NOT LONG AFTER by Pat Murphy
Bantam Spectra, 1990 (1989c), ISBN 0-553-28370-7, $4.50.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper
The time is the near future. The place (the city of the title) is
San Francisco. And what it's not long after is a plague that has killed
off most of humanity. If this sounds a lot like George R. Stewart's
classic _E_a_r_t_h _A_b_i_d_e_s, rest assured Murphy is not simply rehashing
Stewart. In fact, _T_h_e _C_i_t_y, _N_o_t _L_o_n_g _A_f_t_e_r is as much a rebuttal, or at
least a counter-proposal, to _E_a_r_t_h _A_b_i_d_e_s as anything else. Stewart's
novel champions the American way, with the main character as "The Last
American" mourning its passing and only reluctantly accepting a new way
of life (which is still very similar to life as we know it); Murphy's
novel puts forth a society directly opposed to "the American way of
life" as presented by General Miles (a.k.a. "Fourstar") in the novel. I
can't claim that Murphy stacks the deck either; both novels emphasize
the structure and discipline of an orderly government, as represented by
the hammer in _E_a_r_t_h _A_b_i_d_e_s and the Fourstar's troops here. I can only
claim that Stewart characters also remember the personal liberty that
America gave them, and this balance is missing from Murphy's portrait.
(I am trying very hard here to avoid attributing to the authors
philosophies that may belong only to their characters, not to them, but
this makes for some awkward sentences, so if I slip up, bear this in
mind.)
We are introduced to Jax (who remains unnamed until half-way
through the novel, but for clarity's sake I will call her that
throughout this review), the daughter of a woman who has fled the city.
We find out that Jax's mother is somehow blamed for the catastrophe that
has overtaken humanity, but we do not learn until much later in the
novel what did happen. (And when we do, it seems to hearken back to
Ursula LeGuin as much as Stewart.) Stewart and Murphy both gloss over
the health implications of millions of rotting bodies. (I believe
Stewart at least has his main character avoid the city for a while after
the plague has run its course.) When Jax, directed by her dying mother,
does return to the city, she finds it has become a city of artists. Jax
warns the residents that Fourstar is coming to take over the city, but
rather than fight a traditional battle (which would have been what
Stewart's characters would have done), they decide to fight Fourstar's
armies using art. This use of art is more like a highly refined use of
psychological warfare, but to call it that would have undercut the
"message" of the novel. (After all, on page 15 Murphy declares, "When
Danny-boy was eight years old, he learned that art could change the
world.") Call it what you will, though, it does have an effect. (My
favorite line of the novel is "Lily and Zatch lay on the roof of a
warehouse, their bellies flat against the gravel and tar paper. Down
below them, the army was overreacting to a work of art.")
City, Not Long After March 27, 1990 Page 2
Now all this sounds implausible (or worse). And it pretty much is.
For example, before Fourstar's arrival, one artist is making a giant
harp by stringing wires across the Opera House Plaza so that when the
wind blows it will make music. Another builds elaborate mechanical
creatures that run (or fly) around the city. All this works, in large
part, because there is so much food to be scavenged that people don't
need to farm or hunt for a living. Shelter, clothing, all the
necessities of life are provided by the city.
But as a novel it still works. And the reason it works is that,
contrary to what it says on the spine of this book, this is not a
science fiction novel. This is a fantasy novel. Or even closer, this
is a "magical" novel. The characters in this novel live with ghosts,
just as Murphy's characters in _T_h_e _F_a_l_l_i_n_g _W_o_m_a_n did. The ghosts walk
and talk and communicate with the characters. When someone decides to
paint the Golden Gate Bridge blue, he is aided by the sudden arrival of
a swarm of blue butterflies. Flowers fall from the sky. Angels give
people advice. This is the city, not long after, and not quite real.
Jax spends most of the novel coming to terms with people who live
through their art. She must struggle to understand that life for
everyone does not consist in following the same path day after day, just
because that is how it has always been done. By the end of the novel,
she hasn't completely come around to the artists' way of thinking, but
she has been affected and changed by it. By the end of the novel, the
reader won't necessarily be ready to throw it all over and become an
environmental artist either. But s/he will look at life, and art, and
society, differently.
[Bantam/Spectra Special Editions may very well be taking the place
of the Ace Science Fiction Specials as the leading edge of science
fiction/fantasy. I was a bit put off by the number of them published--
it sometimes seems that there are three new "Special Editions" every
month--but I have been very impressed with the three I have read so far
and plan to read more. My only caveat to the buyer is that some of them
are reprints.]