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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 11/02/90 -- Vol. 9, No. 18
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
11/07/90 MT: WANDERING STARS ed. by Jack Dann (Jewish Science Fiction)
(MT 4A-229)
11/14/90 LZ: WAR WITH THE NEWTS by Karel Capek (Foreign SF)
12/05/90 LZ: EQUAL RITES or THE LIGHT FANTASTIC by Terry Pratchett (Humorous SF)
12/26/90 LZ: TOM SWIFT by Victor Appleton II (Juvenile SF)
01/09/91 LZ: BRAIN WAVE
01/30/90 LZ: RITE OF PASSAGE
02/20/90 LZ: MARTIANS, GO HOME!
_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.
11/10/90 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
11/17/90 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: Barry Malzberg
(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 mtgzy!leeper
HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3B-301 949-4488 hotsc!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. In honor of Jewish Heritage Month, we have having a discussion
meeting in Middletown (yes, that's right, folks--Middletown, like
the phoenix, rises from the ashes of the last meeting to live
again) to discuss Jewish science fiction. Many science fiction
authors are Jewish, but we will be focusing on stories which have
Jewish themes. The best-known collection of these is _W_a_n_d_e_r_i_n_g
_S_t_a_r_s, edited by Jack Dann, and its sequel, _M_o_r_e _W_a_n_d_e_r_i_n_g _S_t_a_r_s.
Though the club doesn't have these, they should be readily
available in your local public library. These stories deal with
THE MT VOID Page 2
questions of how Jewish law would apply in space, what implications
Jewish philosophy will have in the future, and similar topics.
Come join us even if you haven't read the book, as there will be
questions and ideas presented for discussion independently of the
stories. [-ecl]
2. There's an old chart that rates employees on a scale. The
highest rating is "leaps tall buildings with a single bound." Next
is "leaps short buildings with a running start." Going on down the
list we get to "argues with himself." Lowest rating is "loses
these arguments." Well, confession time is here. I am not sure if
it is a reflection on my work, but I do lose arguments with myself.
What's more, I do it all the time. Just yesterday I was hearing on
the radio about how Dayton-Hudson Company stopped funding Planned
Parenthood and was boycotted by pro-choice groups, then restored
funding and was boycotted by pro-life groups.
MARK: I guess you can't win [chuckling].
SELF: Oh, you think that's funny, huh?
MARK: Are you back? Why don't you go pester Saddam Hussein or
something?
SELF: Sorry, you're stuck with me. Now what's so funny about all
this boycotting? You think boycotting is a laughing matter?
MARK: What's the matter with boycotting? It's a free country. You
should be allowed to buy from whomever you want.
SELF: You really think that is a reasonable hiring practice?
MARK: You lost me. What does boycotting have to do with hiring
practices?
SELF: Okay, I'm going to spell it out for you 'cause you can be
really dense at times. When you work for AT&T they are buying a
commodity from you: your labor. And the money they pay you is your
livelihood. That's called "hiring you." When you buy a commodity
such as a shirt or a quart of milk, aren't you also exchanging
money for a commodity? Isn't that money also the provider's
livelihood? When you buy a shirt, aren't you essentially hiring
people to perform a service for you?
MARK: Okay, I grant you there are parallels. So what is your
point?
SELF: Now what if AT&T suddenly announced that it was going to
refuse to buy labor from anyone who legally participated in pro-
life activities ...~or pro-choice? Wouldn't that be a boycott
also?
MARK: I guess it would sort of be the same thing.
SELF: Now didn't you just say that people should be allowed to but
from whomever they want? Does that or doesn't it apply to AT&T's
hiring practices?
MARK: Uh, no. But if AT&T hired by politics that would be illegal.
Boycotting is _n_o_t illegal.
SELF: Sure, because big corporations are much easier targets than a
whole lot of individuals participating in a boycott. Also, if you
turn a corporation upside-down and shake the money out of its
THE MT VOID Page 3
pockets you get more than if you shake a single person.
MARK: Well, there you are. Boycotting is legal, discriminatory
hiring practices are not. That's the difference.
SELF: But is boycotting based on politics ethical?
MARK: The law says it is. Or at least says nothing and it does say
discriminatory hiring practices are illegal.
SELF: I hate to be the one to break it to you, but what the law
says is legal and what is ethical are not always precisely the same
thing. The law may not be able to do anything about boycotts, but
that doesn't make them ethical.
MARK: Didn't a film executive once say, "If people are not going to
go to a film, you can't stop them"? You can't force people to buy
a product.
SELF: We aren't talking about forcing anyone to buy a product. We
are talking about what are ethical reasons for buying decisions.
If you say, "Don't buy from a Korean grocer," you are saying, "In
hiring it is okay to discriminate based on race." Because in fact
that is precisely what you are doing. You are refusing to hire
this grocer on the very short term as a provider because he is
Korean. If you don't hire AT&T or Dayton-Hudson because they take
legal political action you disagree with, you justify them taking
your political actions into account in their decision to hire you.
This sort of thing happens to me all the time. Maybe that's why it
takes me two bounds to leap a tall building.
3. Note that the peripatetic Holmdel SF Library has moved again.
[-ecl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper
Passion and prejudice govern the world, only under the
name of reason.
-- John Wesley
RITNYM'S DAUGHTER: A Fantasy Novel by Sheila Gilluly
A book review Frank R. Leisti
Copyright 1990 Frank R. Leisti
The story of _R_i_t_n_y_m'_s _D_a_u_g_h_t_e_r is the final part of a trilogy. Of
course, being the last, it has built upon the adventures in the prior
two books -- both of which remain unread at this time.
This story concerns itself with reflections of nobler lives impacting on
less fortunate ones - all around the Greenbriar Queen. It tells the
story of family deceit, to open warfare. Within plots are subplots, and
plots within them, twisting the sense of a story into fantasy. The
lives of the main characters are intertwined considerably, considering
that one of the players is an immortal who, out of a sense of living and
duty guards and protects the Greenbriar Queen, even when banished from
the kingdom. The story tells of friendship flying in the face of death,
and of abilities to seek the truth and to let it be known. It covers
the growth of a young prince as he comes to his day of reconning,
reconciling himself to know the man who killed his father in a fit of
rage. This fantasy even brings together the sense of Christmas when at
the darkest of times, hope and salvation come running in.
Peewit is the Littleman. Often referred to as Captain, he is part of a
group of tinkerers and stumbles across a shallow grave of his own kind.
A jewel is the only remainder amongst the bones and it carries an
importance in Peewit's life -- that is discovered later. Kursh
Korimson, previously known as the First Watchman, sees his old friend,
Peewit in his glass works. The old friendship is warmly renewed and the
adventure begins when disaster strikes in the house of the Master
Glassmaker. From here, forces of evil -- shadows and the skinwalker
seek the end of civilization. In a land where demons can strip the skin
off of a man, to a magical land beyond the land, the fight for right is
on. When the day light dims, the shadows rule and when the healing
crystal is stolen on a day of celebration, the children begin to die.
All events bear terrible stress on the kingdom of the Greenbriar Queen
-- as we find war coming to her lands when the disaster overcomes her
people. We seek the answers to dreams and history made, following
Peewit in search of answers and the sacrifice that he must do -- which
started when he was born.
This fantasy tale draws together many rich ideas from other authors and
brings a sweet flavor to the story of a protector of right over wrong.
An enjoyable, yet lighthearted book.
Yet Another Batch of Skran Mini-Reviews.
by Dale L. Skran Jr.
Copyright 1990 Dale L. Skran Jr.
_R_e_a_c_h
by Edward Gibson
Gibson, a former Skylab astronaut has some favorable jacket blurbs
from his astronaut buddies and _P_u_b_l_i_s_h_e_r'_s _W_e_e_k_l_y, but I couldn't
generate enough interest to get past page 104 of this turgid tale. This
isn't the worst writing, but the story lacks interest, at least for me.
_A_g_v_i_q
by Michael Armstrong
Excellent post-nuclear fiction! One of the best after-the-bomb
stories of all. There are four main things to survive in a nuclear war,
and very few authors handle them all with any degree of realism. The
first is surviving the immediate blast effects. Armstrong does this by
placing his main character, a female anthropologist, in a remote corner
of Alaska. The second is the radiation effects over the first month or
so. Armstrong solves this by having Claudia (the anthropologist) and a
co-worker, Rob, use Dean Ing's shelter handbook, _P_u_l_l_i_n_g _T_h_r_o_u_g_h, to
build a sealed, positive air pressure shelter with a filter in an
underground Inuit house.
The third problem is surviving the other survivors, and the deadly
environment. Rob doesn't. Claudia does, in part because she is highly
trained as a survivalist by her years in the backcountry, and in part
since the "Inupiaq," or native Alaskans, are trying to rebuild the old
ways, and she may be the only living person who actually knows what they
are. An appropriately large number of characters die before order is
established, many in an ideological struggle over whether to attempt to
rebuild the old ways or leech off the remains of civilization.
The fourth, and toughest, problem is surviving the inevitable
nuclear winter. Armstrong solves rather neatly by placing the story in
one of the few places where people _a_r_e equipped to live through an
extended winter. The only thing I found a bit stretched was the
survival of enough radiation-free whales and seals to allow a hunting
economy to be re-established.
Overall, this is a cleanly written, fast-paced, yet evocative book.
There is a lot here, and I hope to hear more from Armstrong in the
future.
_N_o_r_t_h_w_o_r_l_d
by David Drake
Forgetable space adventure, but more readable than some of the
recent "Hammer's Slammers" that focus on small group action.
- 2 -
_T_h_e _S_w_o_r_d_b_e_a_r_e_r
by Glen Cook
If you like the "Dread Empire" and the Black Company stories,
you'll like this sword-and-sorcery pastiche. It explores in some depth
the idea that having a magic sword might not be all it's been cracked up
to be, and ends with a promise of more action to come (what else?). I
can't help it -- I'm a sucker for Cook's brand of dark fantasy.
_W_i_l_d _C_a_r_d_s: _D_e_a_d _M_a_n'_s _H_a_n_d
Volume VII
edited by George R. R. Martin and John J. Miller
At this point, it is no longer possible to recommend a new book in
this series to anyone who isn't reading the entire thing. I find it hard
to believe that any newcomer could follow this complex story without a
long briefing on all the characters. Basically, it follows Jay Ackroyd
(a projecting teleport) and Jack Brennan (Yoeman -- a Batman/Green
Arrow/Ninja type hero) as they hunt Chrysalis's killer. It's a fair
read -- Brennan is one of the more interesting characters in the series.
_S_u_p_p_o_r_t _Y_o_u_r _L_o_c_a_l _W_i_z_a_r_d
(_S_o _Y_o_u _W_a_n_t _t_o _B_e _a _W_i_z_a_r_d)
by Diane Duane
I've wanted to read Diane Duane's childrens series ever since I
heard a reading from it at a convention. Recently the SF Book Club
published three of the books in a single volume, and I immediately
ordered a copy. Alas, I only got through the first one. There are many
cute touches, but you may have to be a kid to really like this series.
_R_a_m_a _I_I
by Arther C. Clarke and Gentry Lee
Avoid this book -- it is not worth your time to read. Gentry Lee
has taken about 20 pages worth of plot skeleton and stretched it over
406 pages, with the threat of two more volumes to come. Quit while you
are ahead -- don't start.
_F_o_u_c_a_u_l_t'_s _P_e_n_d_u_l_u_m
by Umberto Eco
We've all heard about weird conspiracy theories involving the
Catholic Church, the Templars, Roger Bacon, Voltaire, the Unknown
Superiors, and so on. Suppose that after receiving a report of an
unusual message, a group of Italian vanity-press editors began to create
a "might-be" story that threaded all history into one vast pattern of
struggle over a mystic secret. Suppose that people started
disappearing. Suppose that bodies started appearing. Suppose that
behind all that superstition there was a deadly truth. This is the
premise of _F_o_u_c_a_u_l_t'_s _P_e_n_d_u_l_u_m, an absorbing, even brilliant book that
takes the reader on a journey into ever stranger realms.
In the end, _P_e_n_d_u_l_u_m is about a lot more than an ancient plot. Eco
weaves a web with the lives of his characters, and indeed, with reality
itself. Enjoy this excellent book. Be warned that it demands a bit
more intelligence from the reader than the average best-seller.