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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 07/13/90 -- Vol. 9, No. 2
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
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)
10/03 LZ: MICROMEGAS by Voltaire (Philosophy)
10/24 LZ: THE WORM OUROBOROS by E. R. Eddison (Classic Horror)
11/14 LZ: WAR WITH THE NEWTS by Karel Capek (Foreign SF)
_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.
07/13 HUGO BALLOT DEADLINE
07/14 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 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 3E-301 949-4488 hotld!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. Back on these delightful half-hour television commercials that
are showing up on cable. One piece of advice: Don't believe them.
While the commercials say at the beginning that they will teach you
in this half-hour something useful, they give away almost nothing
but paid testimonials. There are at least three different courses
on better memory and they each give away free one memory technique,
and each gives pretty much the same technique. And you could find
that same technique free by going to the library and getting out a
book on memory devices. Many of them, including each of the memory
courses, come on cassette. Now the library book will have about
160 pages of about 300 words each--that's about 48,000 words. The
cassettes will usually be eight cassettes, each with a 50-minute
THE MT VOID Page 2
lecture filled with music and pauses for exercises. You will get
roughly 6000 words per cassette or a total of about 48,000 words.
You are paying between $50 and $100 to save yourself the effort of
going to the library and reading one book. But how much money is
there is saying you can change your life by going to the library
and reading a book? Instead, some guy claiming to be from "The
Memory Institute"--you won't find that one in any list of America's
learning institutions--claims he learned these techniques from a
man who went from being an auto mechanic to a millionaire in two
years. (Hey, at the rates my mechanic charges, he is well on his
way without any secrets!)
The one thing these commercials are good for is to get an idea of
what is important to us as Americans. How often have you heard
someone get on television and say for $49.95 he will send you a set
of cassettes that will teach you about national fiscal policy or
particle physics. No, the topics are cellulite, weight loss,
memory, car polishes, paint pads, improving you sex life, being a
supportive wife (Hey, Evelyn, you want to take the "Light His Fire"
course? No, I thought not.), over-priced woks, and racks to stuff
into turkeys' rear ends to stand them up in the oven.
And now that this set of articles is over I don't feel I have to
watch another damn one of these stupid programs.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzx!leeper
The greatest vested interest is not property but ignorance.
-- William Jovanovich
TERRAPLANE by Jack Womack
Tor, 1990 (1988c), ISBN 0-812-50623-5, $3.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper
This starts out as a futuristic science spy type of novel. But
when the main characters try to escape from the Soviet Union in an
airplane, they trigger a device which catapults them into an alternate
world--or more accurately, a parallel world. Why the latter rather than
the former? Well, they find themselves not in the 21st Century, but in
1939, which they attribute to the rate of history being different in the
second world. This idea of a similar (or not so similar) world just a
step away from ours is more in line with the parallel universe
assumption, even though the use of a break-point to build a different
world than our own is more an alternate history convention.
And there is a break-point, though to reveal it would take much of
the enjoyment out of the novel, since part of Womack's skill is in
gradually showing us what has made this world what it is. It is not a
"steampunk" world, though the cover with its high-tech look around a
1930s car might give you that impression. The technology in universe
#2's 1939 has minor differences from our own, but there are no amazing
steam-driven spaceships or anything.
Womack also does a good job in showing life in universe #2 from the
point of view of the blacks. Too often, scientists who travel to an
alternate universe meet scientists in that universe, travel in
comfortable circles, and don't have to deal with any class problems.
The other variant, of course, is they find themselves a black scientist
in an America where slavery still exists or some such. But in
_T_e_r_r_a_p_l_a_n_e Womack draws something partway between these two extremes,
and does it well.
The weaknesses of the novel are minor. The claim of differing
rates of time to explain how the protagonists end up in 1939 is, I
think, not really convincing. (Is it that some critical event such as
the first multi-celled being occurred 60 years later in one universe, or
is it that everything in universe #2 happens at the speed of the life of
universe #1 minus 60 years, all divided by the life of universe #1?)
Some explanation of how traveling between universes sometimes results in
a time-slip might have served better. A couple of the subplots could
have been eliminated, but don't really detract greatly. A more annoying
distraction is the future lingo that the characters speak--evidently the
next major resource crisis is that all the verbs are used up and nouns
and adjectives must serve instead. So the characters talk about how
someone needs to be hospitaled, or how they curbsided their car. After
a while the reader is annoyanced by this, and wants to wallslam the
book. Luckily, for most of the book the characters normal-language
rather than future-speak, so it is bearable.
BLACK ALICE by Thomas M. Disch and John Sladek
Carroll & Graf, 1989 (1968c), ISBN 0-88184-506-X, $3.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper
The Tenniel-like illustration on the cover of this book
notwithstanding, _B_l_a_c_k _A_l_i_c_e has little if any connection to _A_l_i_c_e'_s
_A_d_v_e_n_t_u_r_e_s _i_n _W_o_n_d_e_r_l_a_n_d or _T_h_r_o_u_g_h _t_h_e _L_o_o_k_i_n_g _G_l_a_s_s. The plot of this
mystery novel involves the kidnapping of a young girl named Alice who
converses with an imaginary companion named Dinah. She is held for
ransom in a whorehouse and, to be sure she isn't recognized, the
kidnappers give her a pill that turns her black (not entirely
unrealistic--that's similar to how the author of _B_l_a_c_k _L_i_k_e _M_e did his
research). While the mystery proceeds--not even so much who did the
kidnapping, or even why, but some of the history and motivation behind
the whole sequence of events--we see how Alice, having previously led a
life of comfort and even luxury, must learn to live as a black child.
While I would not claim this is primarily a biting commentary on race
relations, I would say that one feature of the story is its
demonstration that outsiders' perceptions are frequently more important
than one's own feelings about one's place in society. William Blake may
have said, "A sincere belief that anything is so will make it so," but
he didn't say whether he was referring to a long-term transformation or
the more immediate problem of convincing the policeman at a race riot
that you as a black person just happened to be walking by on your way to
the store. One suspects it was more the former.
While no one aspect of this book is outstanding, they are all
well-done: the plot has a reasonable level of complication, the
characterization results in interesting yet believable characters, the
social commentary is there yet subtle. Fans of Disch or Sladek will be
interested in this, of course, but even for those who are not I would
give this a mild recommendation.
DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: McClane is back, picking his wife
up at the airport and foiling a plot by mercenaries to
free a Noriega-like dictator. Much in the mold of a
James Bond film, _D_i_e _H_a_r_d _2 has some good suspense, good
action, nice visuals, and minorities in good roles that
did not necessarily call for minorities. McClane is not
as creative as in _D_i_e _H_a_r_d, but his powers of deduction
are tested just as much. Rating: high +1.
This year there is no James Bond film, in fact, but there is a
reasonable substitute. There is no film about British superspy James
Bond being sent out to save England, but there is a film about
L.A. supercop John McClane sending himself out to pick up his wife from
Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. McClane is played by Bruce Willis who
is my idea of no actor, but in films such as this can be a reasonable
substitute. Of course, dealing with an airport during Christmas rush is
never easy. McClane has to deal with airport police who ticket him for
parking in a no-parking zone and with a bunch of Army-bred mercenaries
who are trying to free Manuel Noriega (thinly disguised under the
character name Esperanza). _D_i_e _H_a_r_d _2 is the story of how McClane gets
the airport police to tear up the parking ticket and how he picks up his
wife on a night when Dulles is not at its dullest. I will not say
exactly how McClane gets the ticket torn up but it involves killing a
bunch of "bad guys" and saving a lot of "good guys" (to use his
sophisticated jargon). It also involves him being just about the only
guy with intelligence and pluck in an airport full of and run by jerks.
_D_i_e _H_a_r_d _2 _i_s a big beefy action film much in the style of a James
Bond film. It follows the time-honored traditions of Bond films, like
all the luck working for the hero. McClane makes no false moves while
trained commandos make mistakes such as running out of ammunition
without realizing it. Eight bad guys can be having a showdown with
McClane but they will very obligingly attack one at a time so McClane
can pick them off like Horatio at the Bridge. Later, when there is one
piece of equipment that McClane really needs it just sort of falls into
his hands, no muss, no fuss. That is not to say there is not a whole
lot of mussing and fussing in the film. But McClane is the sort of hero
who can go through a trash compactor, wince and maybe bleed a little to
remind the audience that it is painful to be compacted, and five minutes
later he is back to normal. His bones must be made of the stuff they
built Patton tanks from (or perhaps should build them from).
There are a number of reasons the plot could not really proceed as
it does. McClane gets an identification on a character based on
fingerprints that he faxes from a car rental stand. Even assuming he
Die Hard 2 July 8, 1990 Page 2
could coerce the car rental agency to do his faxing, it is very unlikely
the print at the other end would have anything but black blotches. But
I guess part of the fun of seeing a film like this is picking holes in
the screenplay, which in this case was written by Doug Richardson and
Steven de Souza. The latter wrote _4_8 _H_o_u_r_s and here is adapting _5_8
_M_i_n_u_t_e_s, the novel by Walter Wager on which _D_i_e _H_a_r_d _2 is based.
Visual effects are impressive and provided by Industrial Light and
Magic. One very nice shot involves McClane sort of flying away from an
explosion but toward the camera. The musical score is by Michael Kamen.
Rare is the film review that has a spoiler warning for a comment about
the musical score, but this one does. Jump to the next paragraph if you
wish to avoid it. Through the film Kamen often uses a theme for the
villains that sounds just like the first eight notes of Sibelius's
"Finlandia." Well, I had always thought they did sound ominous, but was
it coincidence or was Kamen really quoting? Sibelius's tribute to
Finland has, after all, little to do with the story at hand. Then in
the final suspense scene the orchestra finally breaks out into a big
chunk of "Finlandia." The end credits then are a full orchestral
performance of "Finlandia." It sounds mighty good in Dolby
Surroundsound. That's worth fifty cents of the admission price all by
itself.
This is an enjoyable action film: nothing requiring great thought,
but certainly enjoyable. I would give it a high +1 on the -4 to +4
scale.