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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 04/12/91 -- Vol. 9, No. 41
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
04/24 LZ: KNIGHT OF DELUSIONS by Keith Laumer (The Nature of Reality)
05/15 LZ: THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS by C.S. Lewis (Getting to Hell)
06/05 LZ: UBIK by Phillip K. Dick (Death and Hell)
06/26 LZ: ALTERNATE WORLDS by Robert Adams ("What If Things Were Different?")
_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.
04/13 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
04/20 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 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. Continuing with the African theme of our last film festival, we
are bringing you two more films with an African setting. On
Thursday, April 18, at 7 PM we will be showing two films made to be
seen together.
African Adventures
WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART (1990) dir. by Clint Eastwood
THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951) dir. by John Huston
(Shown out of chronological order for reasons that will become
obvious.)
THE MT VOID Page 2
THE AFRICAN QUEEN is one of the most respected films in cinema
history. Actually filmed under incredibly adverse conditions in
Africa, it is John Huston's story of a river trader (Humphrey
Bogart as Charlie Allnutt) who falls under the influence of
missionary Rose Sayer (played by Katherine Hepburn). Rosie wants
Charlie to become a one-man army against the invading Germans. The
interplay of the two main characters is legendary and won an Oscar
for Bogart as well as nominations for screenwriter James Agee,
director Huston, and Katherine Hepburn. The adventure comedy also
stars Robert Morley, Peter Bull, and Theodore Bikel. Peter Viertel
told the story of Huston coming to Africa and making the film in a
novel, WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART, which was filmed almost forty
years after the events. By an odd coincidence that film, starring
and directed by Clint Eastwood, will also be shown. Huston is seen
as a man who helps the weak and bullies the strong, who comforts
the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. For once I will say of
a film I am showing that it was over-rated by the critics and I
frankly think that it is good but nowhere nearly that good. But
you can decide. Since it makes a nice segue, we will show WHITE
HUNTER, BLACK HEART first.
2. Last week Mark talked about how everyone loves spring. Well,
Laura Cunningham of the _N_e_w _Y_o_r_k _T_i_m_e_s felt obliged to write a
rebuttal, which appeared in the April 5 issue (page C1). It said,
in part:
"Spring scares me," confides a friend. "Everything
pulsating. All the longer daylight means to me is
that I have to lower the window shades earlier to
watch TV." Many urban souls thrive on winter
depression, enjoying the flu as an excuse to cuddle
under covers, popping cough drops and
videocassettes. One recent afternoon, several city
friends refused to accompany me to the New York
Botanical Garden in the Bronx, saying they didn't
care to "see everything in bloom, looking, you know,
so hyper-real and computer-enhanced."
I understand. Spring can be pushy. I myself prefer
a moody day, wind-whipped and gray, to visit the
garden, before the true, manic spring begins, with
the overloud bird chirping and all the rest. So I
rushed up before most of the buds could open and too
much pollination was under way. There were spores
in the air, to be sure, but germination was discreet
and I had the muted experience I craved, and more.
So I guess you can't please everyone. [-ecl]
3. If Cunningham is complaining because she prefers a "moody day,
wind-swept and gray," to a spring day, I think she's comparing
THE MT VOID Page 3
apples and winesaps. It was not true in California, but at least
in this area I think spring might be the season with the most rainy
days. Also, I celebrate spring as the return of my favorite
weather, the crackling electrical storm. Bucolic weather comes in
only second.
4. Roberts Adams's _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _W_o_r_l_d_s and Keith Laumer's _K_n_i_g_h_t _o_f
_D_e_l_u_s_i_o_n_s are on loan to the Lincroft SF Library, thanks to Rob
Mitchell. C. S. Lewis's _S_c_r_e_w_t_a_p_e _L_e_t_t_e_r_s should be available at
any public library (if yours doesn't have it, complain!). [-ecl]
5. Item number three serves a double purpose. It also extends the
section to a new page. The first draft of this notice would have
made the comment section just the right length to be kept to an
even number of pages. Of course, to do that we would have had to
cut the quote. Then I might have gotten more angry mail from
readers like the redoubtable shori kempo expert Rajesh Shah (among
others) who are disappointed if the notice contains writing only by
people named Leeper. Okay, just for you folks we will move the
film review up front and start it on an even-numbered page. That
way trees won't die so that quote addicts can get their quotes.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper
Of the ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights, the First is
more powerful and has done more to shape the United States
than the other nine put together. Had we been given only
that one Amendment, we could have given ourselves the other
nine.
--Mark Leeper
DEFENDING YOUR LIFE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Find out where Southern
Californians go when they die. Albert Brooks's life-
after-death comedy is charming and fun, but sidesteps
substance. Rating: low +1.
Albert Brooks writes, directs, and stars in subtle little comedies
about human foibles. He has a good feel for small characters and a good
ear for dialogue. His _M_o_d_e_r_n _R_o_m_a_n_c_e has him wooing a beautiful woman
with whom he is unable to get along. His _L_o_s_t _i_n _A_m_e_r_i_c_a has him
quitting a good job in a fit of pique and then going out in an RV to
discover a real America that is not what he thought it was. Each gives
a hint what he thinks life is about, but it is open to some
interpretation. In _D_e_f_e_n_d_i_n_g _Y_o_u_r _L_i_f_e he turns to fantasy so instead
of hinting he can come right out and state his values.
A Brooksian character, Daniel, dies on his birthday and finds
himself in a very Californian view of an afterlife. In Judgment City he
is given a hearing to defend his life and the way that he has led it.
At stake is whether he will attain a higher plane in the next life or
not. Rather than just hint at his values, the way Brooks as
screenwriter did in previous films, he now can posit a heavenly host who
can say, "This is the standard by which you will be judged." And his
standard comes down to "Be brave." If you do not insist on the salary
you think you deserve, if you do not take a chance on your investments,
if you do not have sex with someone when you want it, it will be held
against you in Brooks's afterlife. Ethics count for nothing. Helping
others if not done in a spectacular feat of courage counts for nothing.
Courage is what counts. What could have been a view into Brooks's
personal philosophy suffers greatly from the apparent shallowness of
that philosophy.
At heart then, the film misses a chance to be about something
profound and instead is just another film like _L. _A. _S_t_o_r_y and _S_c_e_n_e_s
_f_r_o_m _a _M_a_l_l about California values. This particular vision of Limbo-
adjusted-for-Californians is a vision of what Brooks thinks his
contemporaries would like in an afterlife. It is garish hotels and
gourmet food. You can eat as much as you like without worrying about
calories, cholesterol, or capacity. During the day you have hearings on
your integrity as a person, then at night you can go hear a comic or see
what you were in previous lives in a sort of upscale convention center.
Brooks's character meets and falls in love with the perfect woman,
Julia (played by Meryl Streep). She is easy-going and affable and was a
hero in her previous life. Julia is not so much a woman as a walking
good example. She is sailing through judgment while Daniel is having
serious problems with a strident prosecutor (played by Lee Grant) and an
enigmatic and strange attorney played by Rip Torn.
_D_e_f_e_n_d_i_n_g _Y_o_u_r _L_i_f_e is diverting, but the ending is weak and the
philosophy is shallow. I rate it a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
FULL SPECTRUM 3 edited by Lou Aronica, Amy Stout, and Betsy Mitchell
Foundation Books, 1991, ISBN 0-385-41801-9, $15.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper
I had originally thought the first _F_u_l_l _S_p_e_c_t_r_u_m anthology was
okay. Then I thought the second not as good as the first. By the time
the third has come around, the first seems wonderful in retrospect.
Yes, I found this book a real disappointment. The edge that the stories
in the earlier volumes had (primarily in the first volume) is gone,
leaving us with a series of not very original, not very subtle parables.
But before I talk about the negative aspects, I suppose it's only
reasonable to tell you what I liked in the anthology. The best in the
book is Peg Kerr's "Lethe," a well-crafted story about a doctor's
encounter and coming to terms with a "death dealer," a person who helps
the dying to pass on. This was a story of genuine emotion, though
marred somewhat by having some of the characters as (apparently) natives
of Callisto--an unnecessary and off-putting touch. Still, the story
overcame this problem rather quickly and (as I said) is probably the
best in the book.
Marcos Donnelly's "Tracking the Random Variable" is based on chaos
theory, and of one man trying to get order from chaos. If a butterfly
sneezes a China, this can create a hurricane in the Caribbean. So why
shouldn't a man's marriage be affected by the number of spark plugs sold
by certain garage? There is some unnecessary business, such as having
the main character put his coupons in order of value, which serves
mostly to confuse the plot, but on the whole this is an intriguing
application of chaos theory.
"Loitering at Death's Door" by Wolfgang Jeschke (translated by
Sally Schiller and Anne Caveley) is classic science fiction with
historic and mythical overtones. Though it doesn't break new ground, it
is well worth reading, because Jeschke knows how to write and how to
communicate ideas without hitting the reader over the head with a
sledgehammer.
A few stories are okay, but nothing to rave about. "Dogstar Man"
by Nancy Willard is one of those "quiet fantasies" that is mostly
setting, some character development (in this case minimal), and a slight
fantasy varnish. For some reason I was convinced the first-person
narrator was female until it was clearly stated otherwise; but this
probably indicates a blurring of gender stereotyping these days rather
than the inability of the author to delineate between the two. Another
quiet fantasy is Tony Daniel's "Prism Tree," though I would perhaps more
specifically label this a self-conscious Southern fantasy--self-
conscious in the sense that the author seems to be working very hard at
writing a down-home, put-your-feet-up sort of story. I have nothing
Full Spectrum 3 March 1, 1991 Page 2
against such stories, but they should appear effortless rather than
strained, and the parallel of the map and the territory which Daniel
uses is also a bit over-worked in fantasy these days.
"Desert Rain" by Mark L. Van Name and Pat Murphy is about art and
artificial intelligence. Unfortunately the two aspects don't mesh very
well and one is left with the same feeling that ones gets from many
"Star Trek" episodes these days: there were two plotlines that together
added up to the right length. Of the two halves, I think the authors
would have done better to have concentrated on the art aspect, since the
AI part has been done before (in Lester Del Rey's "Helen O'Loy," on the
old "Twilight Zone," and, yes, even in "Star Trek").
Unfortunately, that's about the extent of the stories I enjoyed.
The unsubtlety I complained about starts with the very first story in
the volume. James Morrow's "Daughter Earth" is superficially Kafka-
esque, but superficial is perhaps the perfect word, since it trades the
subtlety of _T_h_e _M_e_t_a_m_o_r_p_h_o_s_i_s for the heavy-handedness of a tract.
While it does at times achieve a certain level of whimsey, the obvious
preaching detracts from the reader's enjoyment. (Since this is clearly
a parable, I won't even analyze all the scientific errors--once you
accept that a woman can give birth to a talking biosphere, complaining
that its gravity seems inconsistent seems pointless.)
There are several other stories which seem more written for the
moral or the message. "Precious Moments" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch is a
weary tale about using one's abilities wisely. (I also had a hard time
shaking the feeling that the first person narrator was female, even
though it became obvious he wasn't.) "Division by Zero" by Ted Chiang
tries to give us a new twist on mathematics and fails: the mathematics
is suspect (at least to me, and I do have a B.S. in Mathematics) and the
parallel to real-life a bit heavy-handed. Ursula K. LeGuin continues
her nature-based writing (or is this trend of hers just my
imagination?) with "Newton's Sleep," in which astronauts living in a
space habitat find that they can't really leave the Earth behind, no
matter how hard they try. I am not a big fan of this sort of story,
even when well done, so perhaps my negative reaction is to the message
rather than to the medium. "The Helping Hand" by Norman Spinrad is so
obvious from the word "Go" (well, perhaps not that early, but certainly
from about the third page) that I kept hoping against hope that it
wouldn't be what it seemed to be. It was. Rod Serling would have loved
it. (Actually, the "Outer Limits" did love it, or a story very
similar.)
For some stories, the moral wasn't heavy-handed, but the plot
(particularly the ending) was predictable. This is true of Spinrad's
story, but others fall into this trap as well. For example, "The Dark
at the Corner of the Eye" by Patricia Anthony, a story about a psychic
policeman who may also be clairvoyant, had a good build-up, but then
ruined it with a cliched cop-out ending. (Ooooh, a pun! Sorry, I
couldn't resist.) And David Zindell's "When the Rose Is Dead" closes
Full Spectrum 3 March 1, 1991 Page 3
the anthology with a story with a predictable ending (which is bad
placement, leaving as it does a rather sour taste in the reader's
mouth). Even the narrator's compulsion to tell his story is recycled--
Orson Scott Card uses a similar device in _R_e_d _P_r_o_p_h_e_t.
Admittedly sometimes predictability can be overcome by a good
author. Michael Bishop's "Apartheid, Superstrings, and Mordecai
Thubana" is a bit too predictable and heavy-handed in the fantasy aspect
to be great fantasy, but it is certainly successful as straight fiction.
If this sounds as if I am applying a different standard to fantasy than
to non-fantasy, so be it. (By the way, Bishop seems on his way to
joining Mike Resnick in the small set of authors known as "The Africa
Mikes." Okay, so I just coined the name, but what the heck. Bishop
previously wrote _N_o _E_n_e_m_y _b_u_t _T_i_m_e, set in prehistoric and modern
Africa.)
Almost as annoying as stories with predictable endings are stories
with great build-ups, but no endings. "Lake Agassiz" by Jack McDevitt
is about an old sailboat buried in an ancient lake bed and capable of
restoring itself--and the past. It read somewhat like an _A_n_a_l_o_g story,
except that _A_n_a_l_o_g would have had some sort of clever twist ending to
it, and McDevitt doesn't. (This is set in his "Fort Moxie" universe.)
Kevin J. Anderson's "Fondest of Memories" is another story that is all
build-up and no pay-off. Maybe that isn't fair, because the build-up is
to some extent the point of the story: our anticipation doesn't always
match the event.
Some stories just don't make it. They're not too predictable, or
too heavy-handed, or too anything else negative, but they're not
anything positive either. Poul Anderson's "Rokuro" is based on some old
artificial intelligence ideas, but couched as a play instead of a story.
While it would be interesting to see this produced, when read it seems
flat--strange for such a good author. "Police Actions" by Barry
N. Malzberg spends most of its time communicating to the reader the
hopelessness of it all, but otherwise is a not very coherent complaint
about urban decay and the modern world. Karen Joy Fowler's "Black
Glass" is the story of Carry Nation raised from the dead by voudon
("voodoo") to help fight the drug war. If this sounds relatively
unpromising, well, I can't say I was thrilled with the execution any
more than the idea. "Snow on Sugar Mountain" by Elizabeth Hand is a
story of a shape-changer and an astronaut and their respective needs to
return to their origins. It's well-written, but opens no new doors for
the reader.
And some were just so orthogonal to my experience that I can't
really judge them. Maybe it was the translation (by Kim Stanley
Robinson) of Joelle Wintrebert's "Transfusion," or maybe it's a
difference in style between English-language science fiction and
French-language science fiction, or maybe I'm just dense (and I'm not
taking a vote, so you needn't send me _y_o_u_r opinion on which one it is!),
but I didn't get this one at all. "Chango Chingamadre, Dutchman, & Me"
Full Spectrum 3 March 1, 1991 Page 4
by R. V. Branham is another one of those stories that centers around
rock music--or at any rate some sort of music I don't follow. So, as
with Howard Waldrop's "musical" stories that I reviewed recently, it
left me cold, but I have to abstain from casting a vote.
So there you have it (as they say). There were two or three good
stories, but on the whole I can't recommend this anthology.
TRAVELLER by Richard Adams
Knopf, 1988, ISBN 0-394-57055-3, $18.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper
At first glance, this sounds like a pretty silly idea: to tell the
story of the Civil War from the point of view of General Robert E. Lee's
horse. But then, Adams's first book, _W_a_t_e_r_s_h_i_p _D_o_w_n, was rejected by
dozens of publishers because it was a "bunny story." When Penguin
finally published it, it went on to become their best-seller ever, and
was recognized as an adult story told with non-human characters, rather
than "just" a children's story. Adams followed this up with _S_h_a_r_d_i_k,
the story of a bear revered by a primitive tribe, and _P_l_a_g_u_e _D_o_g_s, a
dark tale of animals used in medical research. So Adams has a history
of taking unlikely approaches to fiction and making them work.
And it does work. Clayton Cramer said, "I can see it now. 'Hmmm.
Today we went to a place with very tasty grass. Spent much of the day
walking slowly past thousands of boots, standing on lovely green grass.
Had my shoes replaced today. Nice blacksmith -- very gentle on my
hooves.'" This is not far off the mark, at least as far as style goes,
but it misses the point of the book. Traveller (Lee's horse in real
life, by the way; many of the events recounted in _T_r_a_v_e_l_l_e_r are based on
documented events in history) does see things from a horse's viewpoint,
but he sees more than just eating grass and getting new shoes.
One of the things that struck me when reading _T_r_a_v_e_l_l_e_r is that
what we have here is a different point of view (in the technical sense)
than one usually has. We have seen third person omniscient, and third
person non-omniscient, and first person, but what we have here is first
person _r_e_a_d_e_r-_o_m_n_i_s_c_i_e_n_t. That is, because the story is based on
history the reader knows what is coming, and what is really going on, in
a fashion not normally encountered. Well, perhaps other historical
novels would have this, but the ones I can remember are either third
person omniscient or first person, but with the narrator finding out
everything of importance in the course of the book. This is not true
here. As is mentioned on the dust jacket (so I fell it's not a major
spoiler), Traveller never realizes Lee _l_o_s_t the war--he thinks Lee _w_o_n!
But Adams does this in such a way that the reader finds herself asking
whether that is really so unreasonable a conclusion. Certainly many
people have asked of World War II whether we really won, or whether the
Germans and Japanese won in the end, for many of the same reasons. So
do we really understand what is going on in the world better than
Traveller? (Adams does help out the reader a bit by interspersing
historical summaries every few chapters, so that we can keep track of
what is going on in terms _w_e can understand.)
Adams does a good job of giving his characters individual
personalities. His animals (in other books as well as this one) are not
Traveller April 3, 1991 Page 2
the usual caricatures, but real individuals. His horses act like
horses, not like "humans in horse suits," and his rabbits act like
rabbits, and so on. He manages the dialects well in _T_r_a_v_e_l_l_e_r,
balancing readability with accuracy of sound. The only quibble might be
that his animals can communicate inter-species (he talks to cats and
other non-horses), but not with humans.
Some of the techniques in _T_r_a_v_e_l_l_e_r parallel techniques Adams used
in previous novels. For example, there is a prescient horse (Sorrel) in
_T_r_a_v_e_l_l_e_r who seems patterned after a prescient rabbit in _W_a_t_e_r_s_h_i_p
_D_o_w_n: both see vague hints of what is to come, but not specific events.
The use of an animal as a narrator also allows Adams to make some
strong statements about slavery. Traveller's constant comparison's of
his life to that of the slaves ("always saying goodbye") brings home the
reality of slavery more than writing it from a human point of view
might. And again, Traveller's incomplete understanding of reality leads
him to believe that Lee's black valet Perry is the most important man
around other than Lee himself, because Perry is so close to Lee.
Traveller sees things from a horse's perspective. This leads him
to conclude, for example, that there are fewer guns at some point
because there are fewer horses around to pull them, rather than that
there are fewer horses around because the guns have been damaged and so
the horses aren't needed. When Lee talks to himself, Traveller
naturally assumes that Lee is talking to him, and when Lee says, "Lord
God, why is this happening?" Traveller naturally assumes that Lord God
was a previous horse that Lee had, and Lee is just confused about who he
is talking to. And all this talk about "the War" makes Traveller think
"the War" is a place with glorious soldiers and fine grass and a big
white house. When all is over, his one regret is that they never got to
this place called "the War." We laugh at this naivete, but is this so
difference from our preoccupation with the glory of war and our tendency
to brush over the ugly reality?
Yes, maybe Traveller is just a horse. And maybe he is a little
dense. But he's no more dense than we are at times, and maybe seeing
things through his eyes can help remove the blinders from our own.