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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 08/17/90 -- Vol. 9, No. 7

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

08/22 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)
11/07 MT: WANDERING STARS ed. by Jack Dann (Jewish Science Fiction)
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.

08/18 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
09/08 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(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 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. Charlie Harris offers this summary of the book scheduled for
discussion at the 8/22 meeting in Lincroft:

Maybe I should have learned to think metric back when that was
fashionable. Maybe that would have given me a better appreciation
for Arthur C. Clarke's _R_e_n_d_e_z_v_o_u_s _w_i_t_h _R_a_m_a.

I do have a pretty good idea of how long a meter is, and I have
guzzled my way to a pretty good grasp of two liters. But I have no
image whatever of a kilometer, much less 10 or 50 kilometers. And
vivid quantitative imagery is essential for the reader of

THE MT VOID Page 2

_R_e_n_d_e_z_v_o_u_s _w_i_t_h _R_a_m_a. Without it you miss out on much of the
sense of wonder that Clarke expected to engender with his exacting
descriptions of Rama--the huge, lifeless alien spacecraft that
drifts mysteriously into our solar system. I did realize that it's
huge, because on page 17 Clarke says that its mass is at least ten
trillion tons. That's a lot of mass. (Or is it metric tons rather
than regular American tons? Are tons of mass as big as tons of
weight? Why didn't I pay more attention in Physics 1?)

After page 17, though, I was hopelessly out of it. On page 36 the
commander of the exploratory crew mentions that the entry tunnel is
"half a kilometer long....about the thickness of the shell."
Pretty thick shell, eh? On page 43 we learn that the interior
cavity is 50 kilometers long and 16 wide. Sounds like plenty of
room to stand up in and look around breathlessly.

"Radiating from the central hub, 120 degrees apart, are three
ladders that are almost a kilometer long." Good thing there's no
gravity to impede their traversal of the ladder--at least not until
they've gone some fraction of a kilometer away from the hub toward
the outer hull of the vessel (spinning at "over eight hundred
kilometers an hour"). Now (page 44) we get to a really awe-
inspiring sight: "the ten-kilometer-wide dark band running
completely around it at the halfway mark" which they christen "the
Cylindrical Sea" because it appears to be made of ice and because
"right out in the middle there's a large oval island, about ten
kilometers long and three wide," which they christen New York.

The commander realizes they are facing a daunting task: "We've
four thousand square kilometers to explore, and only a few weeks to
do it in." I figure that they better cover, at a minimum, 143
square kilometers a day--however much that is. In the distance,
they can see several towns--"If they are towns." "And the nearest
is only eight kilometers away," says a crewmember hopefully. Yes,
thinks the commander, "but it's also eight kilometers back." Even
with my poor grasp of metrics, I believe that checks out.

On page 80, only a kilometer to the right of their exploratory
path, he sights a "rather mysterious...long groove or trench, forty
meters deep and a hundred wide...almost ten kilometers long." By
page 120 he has found out what the groove is for (it's not a
canal), but now he's "clinging to the face of a curving, sixteen-
kilometer-high cliff." And he still has 183 pages to go.

Perhaps by now you're wishing I'd say something about the plot of
_R_e_n_d_e_z_v_o_u_s _w_i_t_h _R_a_m_a instead of just quoting more measurements.
The problem is, there isn't much of a plot. The little ad hoc
crises and the cutaways to the petty politicking back in the United
Planets committee meetings seem to have been inserted as
perfunctory padding between the fascinating statistics. None of
the characters is particularly captivating, and the puzzles Clarke

THE MT VOID Page 3

sets for them and us are not very engaging. Just about the only
interesting action is some spectacular "weather" inside the huge
spacecraft (e.g. violent winds with "velocities of between two and
three hundred kilometers an hour"). The book's conclusion, and its
"surprise" ending, fall flat.

So how come _R_e_n_d_e_z_v_o_u_s _w_i_t_h _R_a_m_a won not only the Hugo and Nebula,
but also the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Jupiter Award
for 1973? Peter Nichols, in his _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n _E_n_c_y_c_l_o_p_e_d_i_a,
says: "To what extent the book deserved it, and to what extent the
awards merely celebrated the return to the field after many years'
comparative silence of a much loved figure, is unclear." [-ch]

2. I guess I tend to assume that many of the animals we think of in
nature are also reasonably intelligent. Once you have fought your
way to the top of your food chain, your brains which are to the top
of your body have room to expand up and then to scheme. Take for
example the Great White Shark in _J_a_w_s, who was so big and mean that
nobody dared pick on him or make fun of his looks. He clearly was
at the top of _h_i_s food chain. And at the same time he was not only
able to plan an effective attack campaign on that little boat but
in scenes cut from the film in the final editing, also played a
very mean game of canasta. The things in _A_l_i_e_n were pretty mean
also and nobody ever had them in hollandaise sauce on toast points.

Humans are almost an example also. We are just one step from the
top of the food chain ruled over by the New Jersey mosquito, and we
tend as a species to be promising and bright but still listen to
Bruce Springsteen music. My understanding is that Bruce
Springsteen counts few, if any, New Jersey mosquitoes among his
fans.

But anyway, my point is that you tend to think of spiders as being
toward the top of their particular food chain; at least indoor
spiders are. In my whole life I have eaten at most two and thank
heavens my Boy Scout days are over forever. So I tend to think of
spiders as being reasonably intelligent animals. Not so, however.
I mean you'd think they've got a pretty good thing going in my
house. I do not kill spiders and have never intentionally eaten a
campfire omelette flavored with one. In return I would expect that
the spiders in my house would be smart enought at least to stay out
of my way. But no, you give these little ladies an inch and they
take eight feet. (Yes, I don't mean to be sexist, but I think of
the spiders in my house as females. The males are considerate
enough not to make webs. They are not mean like the females. And
they end up being a quick lunch for the females. Not that _i_s
sexist, if you ask me.)

But I was telling you about this one spider in my bathroom. Very
tiny. She's wearing a T-shirt that says "Go climb a sesame seed."
At least three times she has built a web in my bathroom right where

THE MT VOID Page 4

I might step just before getting into the shower. I guess when you
are her size the side of the tub looks "majestic." It looks like
prime real estate and a great place to set up a little home and
catch the occasional gnat who comes by just filled with luscious,
wholesome gnat juice. Every morning I try to give her the message
that she might get hurt homesteading in the Great Bathroom Valley.
I make my ugliest monster faces and rip up her web, droning:
Fee, fie, foo, fider.
I smell the blood of a gnat-sucking spider.
Since she's too small for me to ride 'er,
I'll drink her down with apple cider.
She looks at me with those eight dewey eyes and giggles, then runs
to hide in a little nook while her house is demolished. Next
morning, there is that web again. I don't get any more respect
from her than I get from Evelyn. Maybe I can get a Boy Scout with
spider on his breath to scare her.

Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzx!leeper

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand. This
is the sport, the luxury, special to the intellectual man.
-- Jose Ortega y Gasset

Capsule review: An original and hypnotic horror
film. The music, the acting, the photography, and the
script all get very high marks. It is a horror film with
intelligent characters who do things rather than have
things done to them. Strong on atmosphere and intriguing
in ideas. Rating: high +2.

Horror films tend to be very derivative. They take many of the
same themes and rework them over and over. How different is _F_r_i_g_h_t
_N_i_g_h_t from _D_r_a_c_u_l_a really? It is very rare for me to come out of a
horror film feeling I had seen something really new for the horror film.
And, be warned, usually when I feel have seen something new, most
audiences do not like the films. In the last ten years there have been
five horror films I have liked in this way. They are _S_o_m_e_t_h_i_n_g _W_i_c_k_e_d
_T_h_i_s _W_a_y _C_o_m_e_s, _L_i_f_e_f_o_r_c_e, _P_r_i_n_c_e _o_f _D_a_r_k_n_e_s_s, _L_a_d_y _i_n _W_h_i_t_e, and now
_F_l_a_t_l_i_n_e_r_s. _F_l_a_t_l_i_n_e_r_s is a mesmerizing horror thriller about life and
death and redemption. From about two minutes into the film I was
constantly anxious to find out what happens next. And when it did
happen, I was never disappointed but still never appeased.

A group of medical students are fascinated by the brink-of-death
experience that some of their patients have had. But their curiosity
certainly goes beyond just collecting other peoples' accounts second-
hand. As long as they have the ability to induce death and to bring
people back, why wait for it to happen by chance and to other people.
Why not go off exploring the undiscovered country for themselves. As
one student says of the quest to know what is beyond death, "Philosophy
failed. Religion failed. Now it's time for medical science to try."
So one tries it and is brought back But now things seem different to
him and reality is not quite the same.

At least in theme _F_l_a_t_l_i_n_e_r_s is reminiscent of some of the classic
old Karloff films like Michael Curtiz's _T_h_e _W_a_l_k_i_n_g _D_e_a_d, and where that
film was a little pat in its description of life after death (Karloff
just had time to describe it as "peace" before dying a second time, and
more permanently), this film is only a little less pat in other ways in
its "meaning of death." However, it is not concentrating so much on
what the other side looks like as on what it is like to have been there
and be back.

This is a movie to see in a theater; it will lose a lot of its
visual impact on the small screen. Almost the entire film is shot in
either twilight half-tones or at night. The medical school has got to
be the most baroque in the world. It would have done credit to any
1930s expressionistic horror film. Its architecture is almost gothic

Flatliners August 12, 1990 Page 2

with immense vaulting rooms; dark, dismal corridors; labs with immense
statue heads as if gods were looking on. Director Joel Schumacher's
previous _T_h_e _L_o_s_t _B_o_y_s had little to recommend it but atmosphere. This
time he has better atmosphere and a far more compelling story to tell.

Kiefer Sutherland (of _L_o_s_t _B_o_y_s) plays Nelson, who is exploring
death partially for curiosity and partially for glory. Julia Roberts is
Rachel, who has her own private demons to face. Roberts has the best
developed character. Keith Bacon is Davis, who is just a little too
good to be true. Alec Baldwin's younger brother William plays Joe,
whose story is somewhat less interesting than the others and could by
itself have been an episode of "The Hitchhiker."

_F_l_a_t_l_i_n_e_r_s is intelligently filmed and written. It has irony but
happily not apparently tongue-in-cheek. In short, it deserves to be a
classic horror film and may well make it. I rate it a high +2 on the -4
to +4 scale.