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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 06/21/91 -- Vol. 9, No. 51
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
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.
07/13 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
07/22 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: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
1. This week discussion book in Lincroft is Roberts Adams' _B_o_o_k _o_f
_A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _W_o_r_l_d_s. (Actually Adams co-edited it with Pamela Crippen
Adams and Martin H. Greenberg, thereby satisfying the rule that
every anthology has to have Martin H. Greenberg's name on it
somewhere.) Time being short, I will content myself with
reprinting my 1987 review of this book later in this issue instead
of writing a fresh blurb. That's because as you read this, I am
touring Yugoslavia. This was actually written over a month ago,
but through the magic of electronic publishing (and a little help
from our friends), you continue to receive the MT VOID even while
we're off on vacation. In fact, we might even be dead at this
point. (But the discussion will happen June 26 even if we are.)
[-ecl]
2. Let me get the trivia from the last issue out of the way first.
There may be other films that involve food science but the three
THE MT VOID Page 2
post-1950 films I was driving at were _E_n_e_m_y _f_r_o_m _S_p_a_c_e
(a.k.a _Q_u_a_t_e_r_m_a_s_s _I_I) in which a government project to make
artificial food is doing just that, but it is food for aliens. A
human who comes in contact with the stuff is horribly burned. Come
to think of it, wouldn't that happen with Tabasco? The second is
_T_h_e _S_t_u_f_f, which is a paranoia film that was, I suspect, inspired
by the Dannon Yogurt ads where they tell you that you are eating
live bacteria cultures in Dannon and that is supposed to be a _g_o_o_d
thing. In this film there is a new dessert that is better-tasting
than ice cream that turns out to be 1) addictive, and 2) an
organism that is assimilating the people who eat it. _S_o_y_l_e_n_t _G_r_e_e_n
gave new meaning to the phrase "You are what you eat." _F_o_o_d _o_f _t_h_e
_G_o_d_s (I and II) could arguably be included also.
The film prior to 1950 that was really food science fiction is _T_h_e
_I_n_v_i_s_i_b_l_e _M_a_n. The scientists in this film are food scientists.
You have Dr. Cranley (played by Henry Travers, who went on to play
Clarence the Angel in _I_t'_s _a _W_o_n_d_e_r_f_u_l _L_i_f_e) explaining that food
science is not glamorous, but it prevents hundreds of deaths and
thousands of stomach aches each year. The of course it turns out
that Jack Griffin had been working with a dangerous food additive,
monocaine.
But my point from last time is that food science has taken a nasty
turn, perhaps because the science of making food preservatives has
gotten so much bad press. Its new aim is to find ways to fool the
consumer. They want to make artificial foods that taste and seem
natural. About a year ago there apparently was some real trouble
with cookie manufacturers sending spies to do food espionage.
Fresh, home-baked cookies dry out on the outside but stay moist
inside for a few days. That probably has become prized in cookie
aesthetics. One manufacturer found a way to make cookies that had
the duality of texture and what's more they were "better than
natural cookies" in that they retained that texture longer. Well,
another manufacturer wanted to find out why and sent spies to steal
samples of cookie dough. They got the secret, but by then it had
become public knowledge. You use two different doughs, a dry one
for the outside of the cookie and a wetter one for the inside.
Apparently you can't tell that there are sharp edges between the
crisp part of the cookie and the soft center. Fooled you, didn't
they? And so science marches on, making new materials more
enjoyable to eat than food.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper
A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth
scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every
other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell
whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit
anything except another lie.
-- Robert G. Ingersoll
Robert Adams' BOOK OF ALTERNATE WORLDS
edited by Robert Adams, Martin H. Greenberg, & Pamela Crippen Adams
Signet, 1987, ISBN 0-451-14894-0, $3.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1987 Evelyn C. Leeper
When I first looked at the table of contents of this book, I
noticed that the stories were novelettes or even novellas rather than
the usual assortment of short stories. And the editors have managed to
avoid the usual over-anthologized stories for some less well-known ones.
In his brief introduction, Adams says the two are connected: the better
alternate-history stories run to longer lengths and hence are usually
left out of anthologies, whose goal (it often seems) is to have the
longest table of contents possible. The nine stories included here
average fifty pages in length.
Murray Leinster's "The Other World" is the story of what might
happen if the ancient Egyptian magicians had found a way to travel
through portals to a parallel, uninhabited world and then sustain
themselves there by looting our own world. It's old-fashioned science
fiction, and written with such vibrant images that I couldn't help but
think it would make a great movie.
Subtitled "The Role of the Air Force Four-Door Hardtop," George
Alec Effinger's "Target: Berlin!" is typically bizarre Effinger,
applying what Darrell Schweitzer has called the "silly factor" in
alternate histories. In this case, the silly factor seems to be that in
this alternate world, the aircraft of World War II were all modified
cars: the Americans flew Mustangs, the Germans flew Volkswagens, and the
Japanese flew Toyotas. No, that not an anachronism; World War II was
delayed by agreement of all concerned (maybe to give them time to
develop cruise control?). This may be some people's cup of tea, but
frankly it doesn't do it for me.
Fritz Leiber's "Adept's Gambit" seems mostly an excuse to put
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser into our own world. After a few pages, I
decided I didn't care what world they were in, or what happened to them.
H. Beam Piper's "Last Enemy" I had read before and found fairly mundane
then, so did not re-read and cannot comment in detail on.
L. Sprague de Camp's "Aristotle and the Gun" is "Alternate History
Plot #2A": man goes back in time and tries to change things for the
better; things don't work out the way he planned. (For the curious,
Plot #1 is "things just happen to turn out differently," and Plot #2B is
that "man goes back in time and tries to change things for the better;
things do work out the way he planned." Plot #2B makes for a fairly
dull story and is not often used.) Since de Camp knows something about
history--a requirement that many alternate history authors seem to
overlook--the story has a very authentic feel to it and is one of the
Alternate Worlds July 20, 1987 Page 2
better ones in this anthology.
Larry Niven's "There's a Werewolf in My Time Machine" is one of the
many stories in which Svetz goes back in time to get some historical
animal and ends up picking up some fantastical parallel in a parallel
world instead. His time machine, like Dr. Who's Tardis, seems to have
some sort of permanent glitch.
Robert Silverberg's "Many Mansions" has so many parallel threads
that it's almost impossible to keep track of them all. Silverberg even
uses the old hackneyed Plot #2C: man goes back in time, kills
grandfather (either his own or someone else's, it doesn't seem to
matter), and things may or may not change. Silverberg, as usual, makes
even this old plot new.
T. R. Fehrenbech's "Remember the Alamo!" is a combination of Plot
#1 and Plot #2B. Normally, it would be a strong story, but it has too
much to compete with here. It does have the advantage of dealing with
alternate American histories, while most authors in the genre still seem
to prefer fooling around with European history.
Jerome Bixby's "One Way Street" is another common plot (okay, Plot
#3, if you want a number): man has an accident and finds himself in a
world similar to, but not exactly like, our own. Bixby is best known
for his story "It's a _G_o_o_d Life," adapted for _T_h_e _T_w_i_l_i_g_h_t _Z_o_n_e. This
story will remind the reader of another _T_w_i_l_i_g_h_t _Z_o_n_e story, "The
Parallel."
Though not all the stories are great, the assortment provides
something for everyone and a good look at some of the better alternate
history stories that you may have missed until now.