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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 08/09/91 -- Vol. 10, No. 6
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
08/28 LZ: QUEEN OF ANGELS by Greg Bear (Hugo nominee)
09/18 LZ: THE FALL OF HYPERION by Dan Simmons (Hugo nominee)
10/09 LZ: THE QUIET POOLS by Michael Kube-McDowell (Hugo nominee)
10/30 LZ: MINDBRIDGE by Joe Haldeman
11/13 MT: THE RED MAGICIAN by Lisa Goldstein
11/20 LZ: EON by Greg Bear
12/11 LZ: MIRKHEIM by Poul Anderson
_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.
08/10 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
08/10 **Hugo Ballots due**
08/17 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: Rebecca Schoenfeld HO 2K-430 949-6122 homxb!btfsd
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. Lorraine Heine commented on my piece about cheeses to say that
Kraft had openned a branch in the Holy Land and called it "Cheeses
of Nazareth."
2. It is generally acknowledged that my taste in films is bad and
certainly not to be trusted. It seems to be generally acknowledged
among the fans that the worst of the "Star Trek" movies is _S_t_a_r
_T_r_e_k _V, and most commonly what is thought to be the best of the
films is _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _I_I. In my typical bass-ackward fashion I would
THE MT VOID Page 2
say just the reverse. I would say that in spite of about six
embarrassingly stupid scenes the most interesting of the "Star
Trek" films, the one with the most engaging ideas, is _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _V.
At some point I should explain what I like so much about _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k
_V and what I consider so important that it says.
But what I was reminded of recently was why I _d_o_n'_t like _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k
_I_I. Evelyn mentioned that on Usenet they have foolish discussions
like "What would happen if the Enterprise met the Deathstar?" To
me the answer is obvious. It is the legacy of _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _I_I that
what would happen is whatever the scriptwriter would like to have
happen. While _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _V is a good story with superficial (very)
bad touches, _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _I_I has excellent examples of bad writing
that cheat the audience, and the Star Trek audience that values
emotional impact over logic falls for the little con game without
even noticing.
What happens in _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _I_I is that the script sets up interesting
problems, then sidesteps the problems rather than solving them.
And by doing that it suckers the audience. A particularly nasty
example is the question of what the Enterprise would do if it was
half-crippled and fighting a totally uncrippled starship. We watch
with rapt anticipation. And what is the answer? The Enterprise
would use previously unknown powers to shut down the shields of the
other starship! Is that feeble writing or what? It sounds like
something a seven-year-old would come up with: "Using the special
magic code that only the Enterprise knows, it shuts down the
shields of the other starship." Now let me ask you, even if the
Federation would be stupid enough to give the Enterprise powers
over other starships, wouldn't they make it the ability to shut
down another ship's _o_f_f_e_n_s_i_v_e systems, not _d_e_f_e_n_s_i_v_e ones? It
would be really hard on the Federation's strained budget to leave
their ships so they could blow each other up but not so they could
defend themselves. Of course, it is a great excuse for a special
effects sequence.
Similarly, the scriptwriter put himself in a position where he had
to have Kirk come up with a clever solution to the "Kobayashi Maru"
dilemma. He just didn't have a clever or even a credible approach
to the problem. He came up with a solution, but not one which
showed much thinking at all.
I am not even discussing the technical foolishness of the concept
of the Genesis Effect, which seems to do things such as produce a
star at the right distance from the object planet, then produces
chemical compounds which form trees in hours. Good science fiction
requires solving problems that it raises and thinking about the
concepts. As such, _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _I_I, in spite of good action
sequences, has the most slap-dash plot of any of the series' films.
THE MT VOID Page 3
3. Anyone who wants a copy of Mark's travelogue of Eastern Europe
(45,000 words long!) should contact him.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books,
history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled,
thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books,
the development of civilization would have been impossible.
They are engines of change, windows on the world,
"lighthouses" (as a poet said) "erected in the sea of
time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers
of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.
-- Barbara W. Tuchman
=================================================
THE MOUND AND OTHER SF STORIES FROM THE LOW LANDS
edited by Roelof Goudriaan
Special theme issue of _S_h_a_r_d_s _o_f _B_a_b_e_l, ISSN 0168-2776
Babel Publications, 1990, Rijswijk, the Netherlands
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper
This anthology of King Kong Award Winners was specially translated
and produced for the 48th World Science Fiction Convention (Confiction)
held in the Hague, the Netherlands, August 23-27, 1990. An introduction
gives a brief summary of the state of science fiction in the
Netherlands. (Interestingly, though it mentions "strong American
influences," some of the translations follow British English rather than
American English.)
The first story is "The Winter Garden" ("De wintertuin") by Paul
Harland (translated by the author). I cannot in fair conscience review
it, however, because my copy of the book is missing pages 17 through 20!
(Odd--one normally would lose an entire signature, yet that is not the
case here.) I presume that this is not true of a large number of
copies, but if you are buying this, you might check. (At least the
missing pages are all in one story, rather than spanning stories.)
Mound August 2, 1991 Page 2
"The Mound" ("De terp") by Jan Bee Landman (translated by the
author) is a somewhat typical dystopian future story, not very different
from many other similar ones. Reading it, however, I was struck by how
like a synopsis of a half-hour television show it was. In the United
States, this might even have been its origin; in the Netherlands it
seems less likely.
Thomas Winter's "The Desirable Lot of the Slender Ones" ("Het
begerswaardig lot van de ranken") (translated by Jan Bee Landman) bears
a marked similarity in premise to such works as Frederik Pohl's "Midas
Plague" and even David Brin's _P_r_a_c_t_i_c_e _E_f_f_e_c_t. But unfortunately, it is
written in such a way as to make reading it tough going. This could be
the translation, but Landman's other translations don't display the
problem.
"Knowfather" ("Westvader") by Gerben Hellinga, Jr. (translated by
the author) is science fiction adventure in the old tradition--a
Golden-Age-type tale of humans against the elements and a story of
contact between alien races. Hellinga's characters are well drawn and
the message, while old, is well delivered. (Is it just a quirk of
translation or does this contain an homage to a famous science fiction
story best known for its last line?)
As with two other stories in this anthology, "Their Descriptive
God; Softly Weeping" ("Hun descriptieve god, zacht jankend") By Jan
J. B. Kuipers (translated by Jan Bee Landman) hearkens back to a classic
science fiction story: in this case, Sam Moskowitz's "Microcosmic God."
However, Kuipers demonstrates a totally different style--perhaps
Silverberg tinged with Borges.
Earlier I mentioned that some stories use British English and some
American English. This is most noticeable in the spelling (e.g.,
"color" versus "colour"), and checking the translators explains this:
Landman prefers the American spellings, while Harland and Hellinga use
the British. This leads to a somewhat inconsistent volume, and when
combined with typographical errors ("and" is misspelled twice and in two
different ways on page 62 alone!) and the missing pages, the result is a
less than totally satisfying volume. And if this represents the best of
Dutch science fiction, I have to say there seems to be much room for
improvement.
[Disclaimer: The original Dutch may be of a higher literary quality
than the translation. But I am reviewing the translation, not the
original.]