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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 12/14/90 -- Vol. 9, No. 24

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

01/09 LZ: BRAIN WAVE by Poul Anderson (Intelligence)
01/30 LZ: RITE OF PASSAGE by Alexei Panshin (Adolescence)
02/20 LZ: MARTIANS, GO HOME! by Frederic Brown (Social Satire)
03/13 LZ: TOM SWIFT by Victor Appleton II (Juvenile 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.

12/15/90 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: Jim Frenkel
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
01/10/90 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 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. Okay, I am darn fed up now. It is time to revolt. I don't know
what form this revolt is going to take but I am telling you,
Madison Avenue, you better look out. This time you have gone just
one step too far. I mean, we know what you think of sports fans.
You seem to think that any ad is good if you have a football player
in it. How many times have we listened to some gridiron star who
sounds like he has been kicked in the head too many times? (Not
that if he stands still for this ad it shouldn't be one more time.)
He gets on camera and says, "That ... is ... right.... I ... get
... a ... close, ... clean ... shave every ... time ... with ...
the ... Gillette ... Ultra ... Track ... razor.... I ... wouldn't
... say that ... if ... it ... was ... not ... true."

THE MT VOID Page 2

Then we get the fake testimonial ads. Here they show you people
who have spent hours in makeup to get a polished but natural look
getting all excited when they hear for the first time how
"wonderful" the _S_p_o_r_t_s _I_l_l_u_s_t_r_a_t_e_d offer is. It used to be bad
enough when they gave you a cassette of fifty minutes of guys
getting kicked in the head so they are fit only to make shaving
ads. Now they've taken to cutting into my company's profits by
giving out football-shaped telephones which our made-up amateur
goes ecstatic over. "Wow! You mean I get 52 issues including the
softcore-porn swimsuit issue, and this nifty telephone for only two
dollars an issue. Boy, I sure hope Marge is watching." Let me
tell you. If there is a Marge, which I strongly doubt, she is
going to see this ad so many times she'll get nauseous when it
comes on. I know I do.

Then there are the guilt ads. "Bobby works so hard mowing the lawn
and painting the fence. I really owe him something nice. I'm
going to buy him that canned spaghetti." That's the guilt-to-
your-kids pitch. The kid they show you is a myth. The last "good
kid" like that was born in 1955. The other kids in the
neighborhood got so sick of their parents using him as a good
example that they torched the little zombie's house in 1969. It
was in all the papers. Besides, be informed that _n_o_b_o_d_y likes
canned spaghetti. Getting canned spaghetti is just what Bobby
deserves.

But the ad worked and we saw the guilt-to-your-dog pitch. The ad
told you how hard your dog works protecting your house, being
affectionate to your children, blah, blah, blah. Well, the vast
majority of American dogs sleep eighteen hours a day and don't work
hard at anything because we don't give them anything to do or even
think about. I think of dogs as being pretty intelligent, but the
best argument that they must have pea-sized brains is that more
don't go stir-crazy. If they deserve being felt guilty about it is
because of all the things they don't do, not because of all the
things they do do.

But the ad that set me off this morning told me how my moustache
goes with me everywhere, through hot and cold. And how it deserves
better than just a scissors cut--it deserves its own trimmer.
Look, I raised my moustache from a pup, but I am darned if I am
going to start feeling guilty toward it. I mean, without me it's
nothing--just a pile of hair on the carpet. My friends tell me it
doesn't do a thing for me, and I am sure not going to buy a gift
for it for it. Okay, Madison Avenue, ain't that a kick in the
head!

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

A PURSUIT OF MIRACLES by George Turner
Aphelion, 1990, ISBN 1-875346-00-7, A$12.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper

Question: What country has as many English speakers as Canada, has
hosted two World Science Fiction Conventions, has produced one of the
definitive reference works on science fiction, and _s_t_i_l_l gets forgotten
when people talk about science fiction authors? Answer: Australia. So
as you might expect, George Turner, an Australian science fiction
author, is virtually unknown in the United States. If this collection
of eight stories, published by a small press in Adelaide, is any
indication, someone should do something about this.

The title story, "A Pursuit of Miracles," is set in a future mixing
two classic science fiction ideas: "non-legals" (artificial humans) and
telempathy. This is probably the best-known story as well, as it was
commissioned by Terry Carr for one of the _U_n_i_v_e_r_s_e anthologies. "Not in
Front of the Children" looks at the old adage that "death [and age] is
the only obscenity" through a science fictional approach by postulating
a future society in which this is true. "Feedback" is a marvelous
exercise in solipsism, as covoluted as any labyrinth. "Shut the Door
When You Go Out" is sort of Thomas Wolfe ("You can never go home again")
meets Gaia, but a bit short and insubstantial. (Turner says it was done
in a single night. As someone else told him, it reads like it, but
there's a place in the world for pieces like this as well.)

"On the Nursery Floor" looks at supermen. The influence of such
works as Olaf Stapledon's _O_d_d _J_o_h_n and Philip Wylie's _G_l_a_d_i_a_t_o_r seems
obvious, and though Turner's story is well-written, it doesn't add
anything new to this genre.

"In a Petri Dish Upstairs" is a typical space station rebellion
story, but also a carefully drawn picture of the sort of insulated (and
insular) society that could develop in an orbital colony. I find it
interesting to speculate on how much Australia's own history, isolated
from much of the rest of the world for so long, was drawn upon for this
story. Certainly part of what makes Turner's stories attractive is
their different perspective.

"Generation Gap" (as Turner says) has been workshopped by two
different groups who couldn't agree on what it was or what to do with
it. I agree with them--there may be some valid observations on art and
artists here, but they're buried.

"The Fittest" is the "germ story" of Turner's novel _T_h_e _S_e_a _a_n_d
_S_u_m_m_e_r, though he claims the novel is not nearly as depressing as the
book. (Undoubtedly the novel is also published only in Australia, so I
can't say.) It is technically the most ambitious of the stories in this

Pursuit of Miracles December 7, 1990 Page 2

volume, with multiple points of view, and Turner handles them well. It
is also, I think, uniquely Australian in its treatment of evolution,
isolation, and the connectedness of the two.

On the whole this is a rewarding collection. While perhaps not
every Australian author writes differently from American or British
authors, Turner does, and _v_i_v_e _l_a _d_i_f_f_e_r_e_n_c_e!

Whether this book is available in the United States is not clear.
_L_o_c_u_s reviewed it, so I suspect some specialty stores would have it,
though you're more likely to find it on the West Coast than the East
(for obvious geographic reasons). In any case, you can write the
publisher: Aphelion Publications, P. O. Box 619, North Adelaide,
S. A. 5006, AUSTRALIA. Unfortunately, they don't take credit cards, so
send either a check in Australian pounds or do what I did and send cash
(A$12.95 is about US$10). (They say their bank can also handle checks
in United States dollars, but over a certain amount there is a service
charge. Personally, in the many years that my family has been sending
mail, we've never had a letter lost--and this includes thrice weekly
letters to various other countries. So I'm perfectly willing to put a
$10 bill in an envelope with a letter and hope for the best.)

======================================

HEATHERN by Jack Womack
Tor, 1990, ISBN 0-312-85078-6, $16.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper

This is a well-written book about an unpleasant world and the
rather unpleasant people who live in it. The world is our future, or
certainly a possible one. Part of the same series as _A_m_b_i_e_n_t and
_T_e_r_r_a_p_l_a_n_e, this novel does explain the language in the latter that I
found so annoying. Of this I had said in my review of _T_e_r_r_a_p_l_a_n_e,
"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." Well, it turns out this is not a language arrived
at my the usual evolutionary process, but rather starts out as a
language of the young, "post-literate" crowd. As such it is more
similar in origin to the language of _A _C_l_o_c_k_w_o_r_k _O_r_a_n_g_e than to a
"natural" language. While I personally didn't enjoy the novel, I think
those whose tastes run towards gritty futures would.

A TIMELY AFFAIR by Janice Bennett
Zebra Regency Romance, 1990, ISBN 0-8217-2930-6, $3.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper

Okay, I can hear you already--when did Evelyn start reading romance
novels and what is this review doing in a science fiction publication?
Well, it's like this....

_A _T_i_m_e_l_y _A_f_f_a_i_r is a time travel novel. When I read the
(favorable) review in _L_o_c_u_s, I decided to give it a try. After all,
science fiction is science fiction, and though the person I was with in
the bookstore when I bought it pretended not to know me, I persevered.
And then every time I opened it, he had some comment to make. But I did
read it, and here I am to tell you about it. And right up front I'll
say that this book constitutes my entire experience with the romance
genre (and the Regency sub-genre in particular), so take my comments as
coming from someone with no practical background. I know something
_a_b_o_u_t the genre, and understand the different time periods that show up
in romance novels, and know that the infamous "woman in a long white
dress fleeing from the house across the moor with a full moon in the
background" is found on Gothic romances rather than Regency ones, and
that these days heroines in romance novels are allowed to have sex
(whereas twenty years ago this wasn't true, at least not until after
they married the man in question), and so on. But I hadn't _r_e_a_d any of
these. (Or does _P_r_i_d_e _a_n_d _P_r_e_j_u_d_i_c_e or _T_e_s_s _o_f _t_h_e _d'_U_r_b_e_r_v_i_l_l_e_s
count?) Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

The novel's main character, Andrea Wells, is a romance novel fan in
current-day Minneapolis. In particular, she is a fan of Regency
romances. (Is this product placement for the Zebra line? Well, at
least they don't have her reading specific novels in their line.) So
much in love with Regency London is she that when she gets fed up with
her over-possessive boyfriend, she packs up and heads off to London to
visit all the places she's been reading about. (I can relate to this--
when we went to London, Mark pointed out where Gorgo came up out of the
Thames and where they found the alien spaceship in _F_i_v_e _M_i_l_l_i_o_n _Y_e_a_r_s _t_o
_E_a_r_t_h, and of course I visited Baker Street.) While there she sees an
article in a tabloid about an old manor which fascinates her. When she
goes there on a tour, she starts seeing apparitions: ghostly servants
dressed in Regency costume, well-dressed nobles, etc. The current
resident notices this and decides--on a truly flimsy bit of plotting--
that Andrea is just the person to go back in time to find a lost
heirloom that will save her from ruin. This is achieved via the same
method used in Jack Finney's _T_i_m_e _a_n_d _A_g_a_i_n: the time traveler places
her- or himself in a room full of objects from the period and wills her-
or himself back.

Timely Affair December 7, 1990 Page 2

Well, needless to say, it works. (If it didn't, there wouldn't be
much story now, would there?) She goes back, meets the man of her
dreams, looks for the treasure, etc., etc. This is all clouded by the
fact that she knows he will die in a fire in the West Tower on a certain
date.

As a time travel story, this is pretty thin. The period details I
assume are true to Regency romances, though perhaps not to reality. The
_L_o_c_u_s reviewer objected to the somewhat heavy-handed social commentary
about the harsh conditions of the time. But it's a no-win situation--
had the author left it out, her heroine, being a modern woman who should
know better, would appear insensitive. But there are a lot of period
details missing. True, people in novels seem never to go to the
bathroom, but certainly a modern-day woman sent back almost two hundred
years could be expected to notice the differences. (For that matter,
she is back for several months yet never seems to have to deal with any
feminine hygiene issues, to put it as delicately as possible.) A book
that does deal with all these questions, by the way, is _T_h_e _M_i_r_r_o_r by
Marlys Millhiser; readers may find it an interesting comparison.
Admittedly Andrea has picked up some information about dress, language,
etc., from her reading, but her ability to cope with all the things not
mentioned in most romances is a little unrealistic.

Do I recommend this? Well, if you like both genres (science
fiction and romance), you would probably like this book. And if you
liked Jack Finney's _T_i_m_e _a_n_d _A_g_a_i_n, I would recommend this, with the
disclaimer that Bennett is not as good a writer as Finney. So if you
haven't read Finney, read that first.

Capsule review: Rob Reiner had a real coup casting
unknown Kathy Bates as Annie Wilks in _M_i_s_e_r_y. But it
wasn't good enough to save this from being his most
unpleasant and least exceptional film. There are sparks
of wit but they do not kindle much warmth. Rating; high
0 (-4 to +4).

Stephen King showed up as advertised at a World Fantasy Convention
I attended in Ottawa. I have a review copy of _C_a_r_r_i_e I found cheap in a
used bookstore and I thought this would be a good opportunity to get it
autographed. I had no idea the investment of time it would require.
The limit was three books per person and even with that limit King could
have easily spent twelve hours straight just autographing books for his
fans. But the number was not so amazing as the fervor of some of his
fans. Some fans scouted at the front of the line to find people who
were holding fewer than three books and who could be coerced into
getting someone else's book autographed. Now recognize, King is only a
reasonably competent writer. But he is a celebrity and every celebrity
seems to have a cult of admirers in which a fair percentage carry their
adulation to the point of being nuisances. Martin Scorsese's _K_i_n_g _o_f
_C_o_m_e_d_y shows not too unrealistically the fervor of some fans, including
King's.

That King knows the extremities of what fans will do and uses it as
the basis of a book is hardly surprising. What is a little more
surprising is that King would, knowingly or not, combine the idea with a
plot that had previously been done on _N_i_g_h_t _G_a_l_l_e_r_y. In the "Marmalade
Wine" episode a man, played by Robert Morse, takes refuge from a storm
in the secluded house of a lonely surgeon, played by Rudy Vallee. The
surgeon seems only too pleased to have a guest he can care for. The
visitor finds himself drugged and wakes to the surgeon cheerfully
informing him, "I've taken the liberty of amputating your feet. Have
some oatmeal." (There are further plot parallels, but revealing them
would be a _M_i_s_e_r_y spoiler.)

Well, there you have the basic plot of Rob Reiner's adaptation of
the Stephen King novel _M_i_s_e_r_y. James Caan plays Paul Sheldon, author of
eight melodramatic books about a heroine named Misery. He mangles
himself in a car accident in a Colorado snowstorm and awakes to find
himself in the overly loving care of his self-professed "Number One
Fan," Annie Wilks. Kathy Bates plays Nurse Wilks, who refuses to share
her patient with any hospital and instead cares for him attentively in
her own home. Wilks takes the occasion to read the eighth book about
Misery. When the Number One Fan finds out Sheldon has killed off
Misery, the number two really hits the fan. Sheldon will be held a

Misery December 8, 1990 Page 2

prisoner until he writes a novel resurrecting Misery. Wilks flashes
from adulation to rage to depression. Bates's combination of winning
child-like innocence and monstrous menace--perhaps not so far apart--is
really what makes the film tick. Caan's flat performance goes almost
unnoticed next to Bates. Richard Farnsworth and Frances Sternhagen as a
husband and wife sheriff and deputy have some chemistry but not enough
screen time really to show it.

It seems as if every popular lead actor in Hollywood will
eventually be cast as "the good cop" in an action film and every
director in Hollywood will eventually direct a Stephen King horror film.
Maybe it only seems that way. But _M_i_s_e_r_y is certainly Rob Reiner's
least remarkable film to date. It is hard to imagine that _M_i_s_e_r_y is
from the same director who made has a very distinguished set of films
including _T_h_e _S_u_r_e _T_h_i_n_g and _T_h_e _P_r_i_n_c_e_s_s _B_r_i_d_e. Reiner seems to have
been gambling very heavily on Kathy Bates's performance to set this film
apart and make it a Reiner film. Bates was good but not that good.

In the end _M_i_s_e_r_y is a very minor horror film not too different
from _D_e_a_d _o_f _W_i_n_t_e_r or several others. My rating would be a high 0 on
the -4 to +4 scale.