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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 06/08/90 -- Vol. 8, No. 49
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
06/20 LZ: PRENTICE ALVIN by Orson Scott Card (Hugo Nominee)
07/11 LZ: HYPERION by Dan Simmons (Hugo Nominee)
08/01 LZ: A FIRE IN THE SUN by George Alec Effinger (Hugo Nominee)
08/22 LZ: RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA by Arthur C. Clarke
09/12 LZ: STAR MAKER by Olaf Stapledon (Formative Influences)
_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.
06/09 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: picnic
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
06/16 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: Social/Dance
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
07/13 Hugo Ballot Deadline
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 hotle!tps
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-3346 mtunq!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. We have been talking in the last few notices about my
experiences with sports--the ones that left me with something
valuable that has lasted me a lifetime: my hatred of sports. I
figure if I tell you about my sports experiences, maybe one of you
will be able to write back and tell me when I'm cured.
I should tell you my most amazing moment in sports. It happened
many years after my other stories. I was working for Burroughs in
Detroit. Now Burroughs was not the brightest company in the world.
If they were, why would they have their World Headquarters in a
place like inner-city Detroit? Sometime I have to tell you about
THE MT VOID Page 2
Burroughs.
Anyway, somebody at Burroughs got it into his head(s) that sports
would be good for morale. "Build team spirit that would carry over
into the job." Right. Now the old World Headquarters had no place
to put a gym. It had an office or two big enough for a tiddly-
winks match or a nerf-basketball hoop. But Detroiters know these
aren't Real Sports. Detroiters know Real Sports; that's about all
you find in the newspapers.
So the company that had put a White Owl cigar vending machine in
the cafeteria decided to worry about the health of its employees.
These guys, the big ones, would smoke stogies over their breakfast
coffee and greasy doughnuts, smelling up the whole cafeteria, and
they decided the employees weren't healthy enough. And there was
no place in the building to build a gymnasium and even if there
were the space, they wouldn't spend the money. Now across the
alley from the headquarters they had an old warehouse. One of the
execs decided the game would be _v_o_l_l_e_y_b_a_l_l!
Now there was a fair-sized lawn behind the warehouse and you would
think that would be where they would put up the net. You would
think that because you do not live in Detroit. First of all, there
is little fresh air in Detroit and if you think people are going to
get healthy playing volleyball out-of-doors unprotected in the
middle of urban Detroit, your definition of healthy differs from
mine.
No, they put up the volleyball net inside the dusty warehouse with
the concrete floors. Inside the warehouse the brightest it ever
got was pretty dim, just like the executives. Volleyball is a
different game played in the dusty dim. You did not go down on
your knees to hit the ball ... ever. The concrete of those rough
floors ate knees.
Now I just once dared to play volleyball in this warehouse that
would have been Home Sweet Home for Freddy Krueger. And here I was
playing volleyball and every ball that came over the net was headed
directly for my head. Then one of the guys on my team said it! It
was the first time I had ever heard this idea expressed in any team
sport I had played. He said to the other team, "Nothing like
pickling the weak man!" And by golly, the ball started going to
other people.
Now, this was a new concept for me in sports. In all my years of
sports I had always been the weak man. I admit it. But I had
always thought that the point of the sport _w_a_s pickling the weak
man. I was always the weak man and I always got pickled. That
actually wasn't a bad game for the rest of it. We lost, of course.
My team usually does, but for once it was because of mistakes other
people on my team made. That game was kind of fun.
THE MT VOID Page 3
It was only that once that I played volleyball. And it wasn't that
I did not like the game. But when I play I guess I do my best and
I expect the other team will also and that includes "pickling the
weak man." The reason I don't play sports is not that I don't like
them. In fact, I think I might enjoy sports. It's people I can't
stand.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzx!leeper
He who will not reason, is a bigot; he who cannot is a
fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
-- William Drummond of Hawthorne
LONGTIME COMPANION
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: The tragic effect of AIDS on the
gay community is movingly brought to the screen. This
American Playhouse production may be the most adult and
substantial film released this summer, albeit one of the
least expensive. Rating: high +1.
Some of the best films being shown in theaters are actually made
for television. They are productions for PBS's "American Playhouse"
that get their initial release in movie theaters before getting shown on
public television. It is a positive-sum strategy since a theatrical
release will help pay for the film. Since the film is already made for
another venue the investment to get it into the theaters is relatively
meager. And it is nice to see a film a little more substantial than
_B_a_c_k _t_o _t_h_e _F_u_t_u_r_e _I_I_I or _F_i_r_e _B_i_r_d_s playing on the wide screen.
Norman Rene directed Craig Lucas's screenplay. The subject is a
group of gay friends living on Fire Island and in Manhattan and how AIDS
changed their lives. They go from an apparently carefree existence in
the early Eighties through somber and often frightening changes as the
disease claims victims from among their numbers. The behaviors we see
are very much universal to epidemics and plagues. Initially the
diseases are taken with concern but also with an occasional flippant
optimism. We see weird explanations of what the epidemic "really is."
Paranoia poisons the former carefree friendships. All the while the
disease is taking its toll in the decreasing circle of friends.
_L_o_n_g_t_i_m_e _C_o_m_p_a_n_i_o_n has too many major characters to keep them all
straight (no pun intended), particularly because they all look like
wholesome, male WASPs, but the center of the group is David, played by
Bruce Davison. Davison's acting goes unnoticed until his character is
placed under a severe emotional strain. Then Davison does some
excellent acting that must be about the best he has ever done. Also
notable is Mary-Louise Parker as a close (heterosexual) friend.
A couple of touches in the script are worth mentioning. There is a
reference in the 1982 sequence to William Hurt playing a gay character.
I believe they are alluding to Hurt's performance in the 1985 _K_i_s_s _o_f
_t_h_e _S_p_i_d_e_r _W_o_m_a_n. Also, there are about ten dated sequences and all but
the last four take place on Fridays. That seems too many for
coincidence, yet none of the last four is a Friday. (I am probably the
only one who notices these things.)
_L_o_n_g_t_i_m_e _C_o_m_p_a_n_i_o_n is not great. I would give it a high +1 on the
-4 to +4 scale. But at a reported $1.5 million in production cost and
with a timely subject, this film is probably a very good choice for a
theatrical release.
TOTAL RECALL
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Violence, chases, thoughtful
plotting, special effects, gore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a
few intelligent ideas. They don't all seem as if they
could be in one film. Nobody will be totally happy with
_T_o_t_a_l _R_e_c_a_l_l, but there is a surprising degree of good
science fiction in what could be Arnold Schwarzenegger's
most intelligent fantasy film to date. Rating: +2.
I have to say that I usually am not very impressed by action or
violence in films. How much variation is there in chase scenes from one
film to the next? To my mind there is almost none other than the
background scenery changing. The same goes for violence. There are
about as many ways to tear apart a human as there are to carve a turkey.
It is a special effect that has been done so many times in film that it
no longer is of any interest to me to see it. I am well aware that
there are people who can enjoy chases and violence in film after film
and enjoy them every time, just as there are people who listen to the
"Top 40" radio stations and can enjoy hearing the same songs over and
over. Chase scenes and violence to me seem like unimaginative filler.
In addition and amazingly, I find I have this weird psychic ability to
know at the beginning of a fight scene who is going to win the fight.
If there are four armed thugs taking on an unarmed Arnold
Schwarzenegger, psychic vibrations tell me at the beginning of the fight
who is going to win. The vibrations work for chase scenes also and
there, too, they remove much of the suspense.
There have been a number of films that have tried to marry action
to a science fiction plot. They have been films such as _T_h_e _T_e_r_m_i_n_a_t_o_r,
_P_r_e_d_a_t_o_r, _T_h_e_y _L_i_v_e, and _R_o_b_o_c_o_p. I consistently like them less than
the general public does and it is more than likely because the action
and violence scenes have so little value for me. What I think I am
really rating is the science fiction film that frames the action and
violence--often making for a much shorter film. Take the action and
violence from the four films I mentioned and none is a particularly good
science fiction film. Only _T_h_e_y _L_i_v_e has a particularly engaging
premise. That may be because _T_h_e_y _L_i_v_e is an adaptation of a pre-
existing, published science fiction story so to some extent the story
has stood on its own. _T_o_t_a_l _R_e_c_a_l_l is a new action film also based on
an existing science fiction story and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
An Arnold Schwarzenegger action film based on a story by Philip
K. Dick sounds almost like a contradiction in terms. Dick writes
cerebral--not to say neurotic--science fiction about people who
generally seem to live inside their heads. You could not fit
Schwarzenegger into a Dick story with a crowbar. The main character of
Total Recall June 3, 1990 Page 2
Dick's "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" is a mousy, hen-pecked
government clerk. Changes were inevitable if the story was to be made
into an action vehicle and vast changes were indeed made. Yet the
screenplay has retained much of the plot and most of the engaging ideas
of the story before going off in its own direction. Even when it does
diverge, some of the concepts it adds are thoughtful and intelligent.
Of course, some unfortunately are not. I know of nobody who actually
liked the last ten minutes or so of the film. Like many films, _T_o_t_a_l
_R_e_c_a_l_l was damaged by somebody's idea of a big finish.
This is a story with a lot of twists, particularly early on when it
is still being faithful to the original story. This means that I cannot
be very informative about the plot, but I can say that it starts out
being about a sort of an average 21st century man with big muscles and
an unusual problem. He keeps dreaming about Mars. There is nothing in
life Doug Quaid wants more than to go to Mars. (In the story his name
was Doug Quail, but it was changed, possibly because it sounded too much
like Dan Quayle.) Unfortunately, only relatively few people can go to
the mining colonies on Mars and Quaid is not one. Well, the next best
thing to being there is having _b_e_e_n there. The difference between
having been there and not is having the memories. In this future world
a company called _R_e_k_a_l_l can put artificial memories into your head more
vivid and believable than real memories. So Quaid agrees to buy an
artificial memory of Mars--just a minor adjustment to his reality. But
any Philip K. Dick fan can tell you things go awry when you start
adjusting reality. They certainly do for Quaid. The script is a
remarkable piece of work that allows the viewer to look at the altering
of reality to be a minor plot complication in an action film or it could
be what the film is all about. My wife came up with reasonable internal
evidence that the surface interpretation of what happens in the film is
wrong and another interpretation of the reality is correct. Clearly the
script is richer than one usually expects from a Schwarzenegger action
chase film.
Visually there are some very unconvincing effects and some very
nice ones. Some of the model work is below average for Industrial Light
& Magic and Dream Quest, but there are some very impressive sights also.
Audiences seem to enjoy the subway security station as an effect
different from what ILM and DQ have done in the past. the special
effects have been described as "eye-popping," a pun that will be
appreciated in the first five minutes of the film but also an accurate
one. That brings us to the gore. This film is directed by Dutchman
Paul Verhoeven. He is generally good but uses a very great deal of gore
and violence, particularly in his later films. This is a very violent
film and viewers should go expecting that. Also go expecting to see a
lot of familiar brand names that helped to finance the film. (Of
course, Dick mentions a typewriter company by name in the original
story, so there are precedents.)
In summary, _T_o_t_a_l _R_e_c_a_l_l is a lot of different films. It should
please pretty much anyone who likes science fiction films. It should
Total Recall June 3, 1990 Page 3
have a broad range of appeal on many levels. I rate it a +2 on the -4
to +4 scale.
[The novelette "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" can be found
in the following magazines, collections, and anthologies:
- _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e _o_f _F_a_n_t_a_s_y & _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n, April 1966
- _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e _o_f _F_a_n_t_a_s_y & _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n, 30th Anniversary Issue
- _T_h_e _P_r_e_s_e_r_v_i_n_g _M_a_c_h_i_n_e by Philip K. Dick
- _A_l_p_h_a _5 edited by Robert Silverberg
- _T_h_e _B_e_s_t _f_r_o_m _F_a_n_t_a_s_y & _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n _1_6 edited by Edward
L. Ferman
- _E_a_r_t_h _i_n _T_r_a_n_s_i_t edited by Sheila Schwartz
- _N_e_b_u_l_a _A_w_a_r_d _S_t_o_r_i_e_s _2 edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison
- _T_h_e _R_o_a_d _t_o _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n, edited by James E. Gunn
- _T_w_e_n_t_y _Y_e_a_r_s _o_f _F_a_n_t_a_s_y & _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n edited by Edward
L. Ferman and Robert P. Mills
- _W_o_r_l_d'_s _B_e_s_t _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n: _1_9_6_7 edited by Donald A. Wollheim and
Terry Carr]
THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK
THE FANTASTIC WORLD WAR II: The War That Wasn't
edited by Frank McSherry, Jr.
Baen, 1990, ISBN 0-671-69881-8, $3.50.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper
Though this book is credited as being edited solely by Frank
McSherry, the copyright is listed in the names of Frank McSherry, Martin
Greenberg, and Charles Waugh, so those of you who thought that somehow
an anthology got released that Greenberg _h_a_d_n'_t worked on were fooled.
In addition to those three, and of course the authors of the stories
themselves, There is also S. M. Stirling, who wrote the introductions to
the stories. It seems that everyone got into the act somehow.
The title and description of this book might lead one to think it
was a collection of alternate history stories about World War II. Well,
it led me to think that, anyway. This is only partially true. There
are some alternate history stories, yes, but there are also fantasy
stories and straight science fiction stories as well.
The lead story is Charles Beaumont's "The Howling Man" (1959),
probably the best-known of all the stories due to its translation into
an episode of the old "Twilight Zone" television series. This is a
horror story which provides an alternate explanation for World War II
(or perhaps it's just another layer deeper explanation).
Next are three fantasy pieces. "Take My Drum to England" (1941) by
Nelson S. Bond, set during the evacuation of Dunkerque, is reminiscent
of Kim Stanley Robinson's "Black Air" (or is it that "Black Air" is
reminiscent of "Take My Drum to England"?). Malcolm Jameson's
"Vengeance in Her Bones" (1942) is about a ship with a personality--and
a grudge. And "Red Moon on the Flores Sea" (1942) by H. Bedford-Jones
is a ghost story set in Malaya (now called Malaysia).
Manley Wade Wellman delivers another horror story with "The Devil
Is Not Mocked" (1943), albeit distressingly predictable. The
contemporary stories are rounded out by A. E. Van Vogt's "Secret
Unattainable" (1942), a typically Van-Vogtian idea of a machine that is
affected by the thoughts and attitudes of those who are running it, and
"My Name Is Legion" by Lester Del Rey, a well-done time travel story
with a twist. Well, I suppose that is redundant--part of what makes a
time travel story _i_s the twist. But in this case, I found myself
surprised by the denouement while at the same time saying that of course
it was perfectly obvious.
Edward Wellen's "Barbarossa" (1973) is set in a Nazi submarine
twenty years after V-E Day; setting up a parallel to the legend of the
12th Century German hero Barbarossa (a.k.a. Frederick I) is not enough
to sustain the story.
Fantastic World War II June 8, 1990 Page 2
The last two stories are alternate histories. "Two Dooms" (1958)
by C. M. Kornbluth is a classic in the field. Its depiction of the
world years after the Axis has won World War II is suitably chilling,
and seems to have inspired any number of lesser imitators (only Sarban's
_S_o_u_n_d _o_f _H_i_s _H_o_r_n comes to mind as its equal--and no, I have not
forgotten Philip K. Dick's _M_a_n _i_n _t_h_e _H_i_g_h _C_a_s_t_l_e). And once again, we
find Harry Turtledove's "The Last Article" (1988), which is an
acceptable story, but runs a real risk of being over-anthologized. (As
far as alternate histories go, the definitive anthology in this area may
already have been done: Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg's _H_i_t_l_e_r
_V_i_c_t_o_r_i_o_u_s (Garland, 1986), eleven "what if Germany had won the war?"
stories. The Kornbluth story, not surprisingly, was included in that
anthology as well.)
On the whole, I was disappointed by this anthology. Maybe I was
just expecting something different. None of the stories was actively
bad (well, maybe the Van Vogt), but I got the impression that the book
was put together more because someone thought this would be a sellable
theme than because someone had a lot of good stories to anthologize.