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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 09/27/91 -- Vol. 10, No. 13
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
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 (Jewish SF)
11/20 LZ: EON by Greg Bear
12/11 LZ: MIRKHEIM by Poul Anderson
12/18 MT: "The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke (Christian 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.
10/12 Autographing: Margaret Bonanno, Michael Friedman, Janet Kagan
(B. Dalton, Willowbrook Mall, Wayne, 1-5 PM) (Sat)
10/12 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County:
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
10/29 Readings: Michael Flynn and two other authors TBA
(Barnes & Noble, Route 17, Paramus, 7:30 PM) (Tue)
11/09 Autographing: Ellen Datlow, Janet Kagan, Ellen Kushner,
Melissa Scott, Jack Womack (B. Dalton, Willowbrook
Mall, Wayne, 1-5 PM) (Sat)
10/19 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 834-1563 hocpb!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. I think we all know these are not the easiest of times to make a
living. It is pretty tough for some people to earn a living. I
think even some successful people may not be entirely happy with
the profession they have taken. Really the fellow I feel sorry for
is the author who hit upon the fantastically successful "Where's
THE MT VOID Page 2
Waldo?" series. This guy just cranks one book out after another.
This is one of those crazy ideas that shouldn't work but does.
Waldo is this little string bean in a red-striped stocking cap. He
looks like the teenage son of Crackle. (You remember Crackle,
don't you? You used to see him hawking cereal a lot. These days
he runs the ad agency Crackle, Peabody, Fisher and Snap.)
The artist draws a landscape that looks like a poster for Zero
Population Growth--you know, acres of solid people like Times
Square on New year's Eve--and you have to find one jerk in a
striped stocking cap. If you can do it in under five minutes they
offer you a career in aerial reconnaissance. I have little
patience for this sort of thing because they never say in anything
I have read why I should care where Waldo is. Waldo got himself
into the mess; let him get himself out. And I bet when he does
he'll find his wallet missing. He can do his own book, _W_h_e_r_e'_s
_W_a_l_l_e_t?
Anyway, what got me thinking about "Where's Waldo?" is that I saw a
list of upcoming "Where's Waldo?" books. It is one artist who
creates them and he just cranks them out. Now there is a job that
would drive me to the bughouse real quick. "What do you do for a
living?" "I draw little tiny people. Hour after hour. Tiny
little people. Nothing but tiny little people. Painting after
painting. Page after page. Book after book. Nothing but tiny
little people. Thirty an hour. 240 a day. 1200 tiny people a
week. 60,000 little tiny people a year." After three or four
years this guy's going to be the richest inmate at the booby hatch.
2. In the last notice I labeled part one of my convention report as
part one of three. However, mailer limitations on file size on
some systems has meant that I need to make the issues smaller,
hence the convention report will be in _f_o_u_r parts. Also, the space
project I called "Dinosaur" was actually "Dyna Soar." [-ecl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper
Liberty of speech inviteth and provoketh liberty to be
used again, and so bringeth much to a man's knowledge.
-- Francis Bacon
FESTIVAL OF ANIMATION 1991
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
It has now been a full two weeks since I have been to (and
reviewed) an animation festival. I guess it is about time I get to
another one. The last one, the _2_3_r_d _I_n_t_e_r_n_a_t_i_o_n_a_l _T_o_u_r_n_e_e' _o_f
_A_n_i_m_a_t_i_o_n, was something of a disappointment. I am very pleased to
say that the _F_e_s_t_i_v_a_l _o_f _A_n_i_m_a_t_i_o_n _1_9_9_1 is in no way a
disappointment. The _T_o_u_r_n_e_e' had several pieces that I thought were
only fair and nothing excellent at all. The _F_e_s_t_i_v_a_l _o_f _A_n_i_m_a_t_i_o_n
_1_9_9_1 is of a much higher quality overall, with only two fair pieces
and three pieces that were excellent. This somewhat disposes of my
idea that too many animation festivals were diluting the quality,
but I do think that the _I_n_t_e_r_n_a_t_i_o_n_a_l _T_o_u_r_n_e_e' is no longer getting
the best pieces. Or maybe this year is just a statistical anomaly.
As usual for animation fests, I will rate films poor, fair,
good, very good, or excellent. There will be mild spoilers.
- "Mother Goose" (David Bishop; U.S.A.; 2:30): This is animation
to illustrate a man reading three Mother Goose rhymes to a
class of small children. Each is illustrated in black and
white with blood drawn in bright red. Each rhyme is bloody,
making the point that nursery rhymes do have a strong element
of violence. It turns out to be an argument against the MPAA
rating system. Rating: good
- "All Alone with Nature" (Alexander Fedoulor; U.S.S.R.; Special
Jury Prize Annecy; 4:30): This story may well have been
inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov's _H_e_a_r_t _o_f _a _D_o_g. In any case, it
is on a theme that shows up a lot in Russian satire, the
bestial in the smug, sanctimonious, and officious bureaucrat.
There is some interesting use of color, but the story lacked
originality. Rating: good.
- "Winter" (Pete Doctor; U.S.A.; 4:00): Years ago this gag was
used in _M_a_d _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e. It has since shown up in a "Peanuts"
cartoon, in the writings of Jean Shepherd, and in Shepherd's
film _A _C_h_r_i_s_t_m_a_s _S_t_o_r_y. I won't give away the gag, but you
will probably see coming. Rating: good.
- "Grasshoppers" (Bruno Bozzetto & Richard Denti; Italy; 1990
Academy Award Nominee; 8:20): The last couple of new pieces by
Italy's Bruno Bozzetto (who did _A_l_l_e_g_r_o _n_o_n _T_r_o_p_p_o) have not
been very good. His "Big Bang" at the _T_o_u_r_n_e_e' was just not
very good. It was didactic and lacked finesse. His
"Grasshoppers" is not only better than "Big Bang," it is better
than any film at the _T_o_u_r_n_e_e'. We are given a worm's-eye view
Fest of Animation 1991 September 22, 1991 Page 2
of the entire history of human conflict. Parts are very funny
and at the same time very perceptive. Rating: excellent.
- "Denny Goes Air-Surfing" (Lance Kramer; U.S.A.; 2:00): What
does a dragon do for fun? It goes air-surfing. How does a
dragon go air-surfing? That would be telling. This piece
looks like an immature work of someone with potential. And it
is not a bad gag. Rating: good.
- "Balloon" (Ken Lidster; U.K.; 12:00): This one uses a lot of
different media and touches a lot of different emotions in just
twelve minutes. As a fantasy it is okay, as an allegory it is
rich with possible interpretations. The story is of a little
girl who has made friends with a balloon, but sells it for
something prettier. Rating: excellent.
- "How to Kiss" (Bill Plympton; U.S.A.; 6:30): Like Bozzetto,
Bill Plympton has a much better entry at the _F_e_s_t_i_v_a_l than he
had at the _T_o_u_r_n_e_e'. This is a satire on a 1950s instructional
film on kissing. (Did such a thing really exist in the 1950s?)
Of course, everything gets grotesquely and horribly
exaggerated. The mean spirit of his _T_o_u_r_n_e_e' piece is here
missing but not missed. Rating: very good.
- "Eternity" (Sheryl Sardina; U.S.A.; 2:20): Souls falling into
their own private hell is the subject of this short and rather
clever gag. This is a fairly original idea also. Rating:
good.
- "Grand Day Out" (Nick Park; U.K.; 1990 Academy Award Nominee;
23:00): Nick Park did the excellent "Creature Comforts," also
shown in this _F_e_s_t_i_v_a_l. This, I think, is an earlier work and
suffers from its length. Brevity is the soul of wit and this
piece has a definite lack of brevity. A man and his dog want
to go on a vacation some place with cheese. They decide on the
moon and build their own spaceship to get there. The story
goes on and on with no real point other than an over-estimated
cuteness. I rate this good but Park can do better.
- "Deadsey" (David Anderson; U.K.; 6:00): This is a story by
Russell Hoban. It is supposed to be a horror story for adults,
but the story is poor. Some of the visual imagery is nice, but
usually has nothing to do with the story. This one is only
fair.
- "The Housekeeper" (Brent Thompson, Ian Gooding, Doug Walker;
U.S.A.; 6:00): A scientist develops a time-travel helmet that
he tries on his housekeeper. After a few false starts it works
and the housekeeper changes history a l
_T_i_m_e _T_u_n_n_e_l and _Q_u_a_n_t_u_m _L_e_a_p. Visually this one is no great
shakes, but it is a good story told with humor. This one gets
Fest of Animation 1991 September 22, 1991 Page 3
a very good from me.
- "Panspermia" (Karl Sims; U.S.A.; 2:00): This is a short science
fiction speculation with some good art work. In some ways it
is reminiscent of _F_a_n_t_a_s_t_i_c _P_l_a_n_e_t. It is too short to contain
much but the basic idea, but that is handled just fine.
Rating: good.
- "Feet of Song" (Erica Russell; U.K.; 6:00): Abstract human
figures dance to music. That's all. There is a Latin beat.
Rating: good.
- "Western" (Gabor Homolya; Hungary; 2:00): Overdramatic,
operatic spaghetti Westerns, particularly those of Sergio
Leone, are lampooned in this clever Hungarian sight gag. Not
much there, but what is, is choice. Rating: very good.
- "Primiti Too Ta" (Ed Ackerman; Canada; 2:45): Primitive vocal
sounds are spoken for rhythm and typed. There is a certain
beat, but mostly this is an uninteresting exercise. Rating:
fair.
- "Creature Comforts" (Nick Park; U.K.; 1990 Academy Award
Winner; 5:00): Once or twice the _I_n_t_e_r_n_a_t_i_o_n_a_l _T_o_u_r_n_e_e' showed
the Academy-Award-winning short and the also-rans. Seeing them
side-by-side generally gives the audience a fairly good
appreciation for just how far the Academy members have their
heads up their armpits. This year no such appreciation is
forth-coming. Nick Park's _C_r_e_a_t_u_r_e _C_o_m_f_o_r_t_s is amusing,
original, and thought-provoking. Clay-animated zoo animals
discuss the pros and cons of living in zoos rather than in the
wild. Oddly enough, some of the smaller animals prefer the
security of captivity. A young polar bear shocks his parents
by breaking taboo and talking about an animal who died in the
zoo. A gorilla complains about the cold climate of England.
AN exasperated Brazilian cat explains to the audience that the
food they get is like dog food, that England is a cold country
while Brazil is a warm country, that Brazil has a lot of space
and this zoo just does not. This is really a very nice film--
funny and sad at the same time. I give it an excellent and it
rounds off a very good animation festival.
SAN FRANCISCO KILLS by Denny Martin Flinn
Bantam, 1991, ISBN 0-553-28044-9, $3.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper
In the immortal words of the Bard (or someone), "Ack, ptui!"
I really wanted to like this book. After all, it was the first
of a new S. Holmes series. (The second, _K_i_l_l_e_r _F_i_n_i_s_h, just came
out and the third _L_a_d_y _K_i_l_l_e_r is due out around the end of the
year.) Well, okay, it was Spencer Holmes, grandson of Sherlock
Holmes, rather than the Great detective himself, but what can one
expect these days? Needless to say, Spencer's grandmother was Irene
Adler (who else?) and why he carries the name Holmes rather than
Adler is never adequately addressed. But I could live with that.
And Flinn's style is captivating. For example, right after the
groom is shot (on page 4, so I'm hardly giving anything away) Flinn
describes the subsequent action thusly: "The bride, kneeling over
the body of her fiance', and presumably in a state of shock, made
repeated attempts to rouse him. Since she had never before
(surprising though it may be in this new world of premarital
freedom) been required to execute this intimate morning-after
maneuver, he blandishments were as awkward as they were ineffective.
The mother of the bride, easily the most exitable member of the
family and the person responsible for the first memorable _g_e_s_h_r_a_y_e
had followed that active contribution with the simple expedient of
passing out." Flinn's talent for understatement is not to be
underestimated.
But there is a problem--or rather, four problems. First--Flinn
doesn't do his research well. If he did, he would know that the
dialect is Hindi, not Hindu (page 57). If he does know it and has
Holmes say it wrong anyway in spite of having had an Indian
assistant for several years, then Holmes isn't a detective I'd want
to hire. Actually, if one wants to be precise--and a Holmes should
be nothing if not precise--Hindi is a written form of the spoken
language Hindustani (and it was a spoken language Holmes was
referring to), but since apparently the term "Hindi" has come to
include spoken dialects, we will let that go. And about that
"Indian" assistant--Flinn gives a long history for him, but the fact
remains that the name "Sowhat Dihje" is about as Indian as bagels
and lox. After all, you would think newer writers would have
learned from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's experience: Doyle came in for
a lot of criticism for naming his three Indians in "The Sign of
Four" with such unlikely names, or as D. Martin Dakin says in _A
_S_h_e_r_l_o_c_k _H_o_l_m_e_s _C_o_m_m_e_n_t_a_r_y, "[Small] insists they were Sikhs....
But two of the name, Abdullah Khan and Dost Akbar, are Muslim names,
and the third, Mahomet Singh, is an incredible combination of the
San Francisco Kills September 19, 1991 Page 2
_S_i_n_g_h (=Lion) which every orthodox Sikh bears in his name, and the
name of the founder of Islam which would be blasphemy to a Sikh. No
one could possibly have such a name." Flinn has avoided this
inappropriate juxtaposition by choosing a name that makes _n_o sense,
but is just a collection of syllables that sounded good to him. (I
suspected this when I first read it, but I also confirmed it with my
Indian co-workers. One thought the name must be Scandinavian!)
Flinn (and Holmes) should also know that one can't detect the
presence or absence of a concussion merely by feeling the head (page
102). I found the chemical formula presented on page 131 extremely
suspicious, and my friend with a Ph.D. in chemistry said he thought
that 1) it was missing some parentheses and a dot, and 2) he "would
have serious doubts about a compound with this formula being stable
for any of the shortest time periods you can think of." And anyone
whose grasp of geography is so weak as to allow them to say "They
traveled throughout India, venturing as far as Asia on occasion"
(page 35) does not inspire me with confidence.
Second--Flinn is inconsistent. Holmes's assistant, the
aforementioned Sowhat Dihje, is described on page 36 as having the
"ability to mimic local dialects, customs, and attitudes
instantaneously," and well enough to deceive people into accepting
him as local, but by page 39 Flinn is saying, "Even after some years
in [the United States], Mr. Dihje has a tendency to fracture the
English language." These are hardly consistent.
My penultimate objection may at first seem overly political (or
politically correct): I find Flinn's attitude toward gays
offensive. Now, I am not complaining that none of his characters
are gay or lesbian--that is his decision. But when he writes, "Aunt
Dorothy, the large, grey-haired woman draped in some homosexual's
idea of an Arabian caftan" (page 19), it is hard to excuse. This is
not a character speaking, but the omniscient narrator, i.e., the
author. This is not the only slur, though it is probably the most
blatant. (And I feel obliged to say that his treatment of Dihje
verges dangerously close to stereotypical as well.)
And finally, without giving it all away, I should mention that
Flinn also breaks two of Father Knox's "Ten Commandments" for
mystery writers*, as well as using another trick that I think Knox
__________
* See Josef Skvorecky's _S_i_n_s _f_o_r _F_a_t_h_e_r _K_n_o_x for details. An
example is #3: "No more than one secret room or passage is
allowable. I would add that a secret passage should not be
brought in at all unless the action takes place in the kind of
house where such devices might be expected."
San Francisco Kills September 19, 1991 Page 3
would have felt was not cricket either. This alone makes the
solution somewhat unsatisfying and, when added to all my other
objections, leaves me with no choice but to say that I cannot
recommend this book _e_v_e_n for Holmes fans.
Chicon V 1991
Con report by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper
(Part 2 of 4)
Panel: TTTTaaaallllkkkk oooonnnn PPPPhhhhaaaannnnttttoooommmm ooooffff tttthhhheeee OOOOppppeeeerrrraaaa
Friday, 5 PM
Julie Zetterberg (mod), Elaine Bergstrom, John Flynn,
Heather Nachman, Bob Tucker
Official Description: "The play-within-a-play philosophy of the
show and its SFX, physical (real) and psychological." (This was listed
under the "Illusion" track of programming--one wonders who thinks this
stuff up.)
Well, as I said before, there was much confusion on what this panel
was about. John Flynn was a late addition; he is currently working on a
book titled _P_h_a_n_t_o_m_s _o_f _t_h_e _O_p_e_r_a. He wanted to talk about the Leroux
novel and all the various film and theater versions, but had a difficult
time of it. As he told us later, one panelist said to him, "Oh, good,
now we can have a man's opinion of the sexuality [in the Andrew Lloyd
Webber version]!" Bob Tucker was on because he had worked on the stage
crew for the Ken Hill version of the story and gave a brief description
of how some of the special effects were done for that, but he hadn't
seen any other versions that he remembered.
This diversity was reflected in the answers the panelists gave to
the question of why they liked the story. Zetterberg fell in love with
the Lloyd Webber music rather than the thematic content. Nachman likes
the aspect of sexuality, so she is not as pleased with the Claude Rains
version (in which the Phantom is more a father figure). The Rains
version also suffers (in many people's opinion) by having the Phantom
scarred late in life rather than by having him deformed since birth and
hence suffering constant rejection all his life. With this change, the
story goes from the tale of a man who has never known love or happiness
to a tale of simple revenge. Flynn thought the message of not judging
what is in a person's soul (or mind) by his or her outward appearance
was a very powerful one. He also saw it as an updating of the beauty
and the beast story: Eric believes Christine's love would let him lead a
normal life, go out riding on Sundays in a coach, etc. Bergstrom was
attracted to the idea of the "remaking of the Phantom": how he is
changed by his love for Christine.
One problem with the Lloyd Webber production is that the Phantom is
made attractive. As someone pointed out, Leroux has him dressed in
shabby clothes, looking repulsive, and smelling bad as well. This is a
far cry from what is presented by the Lloyd Webber production in any of
its venues. Throughout the hour, it was almost impossible to drag the
discussion _o_f_f the Lloyd Webber version, even though Flynn had
distributed a survey listing eighteen book, theater, and movie versions.
Chicon V September 1, 1991 Page 2
No one had seen the Hong Kong version, but I was able to provide some
information on the Mexican one (_F_a_n_t_a_s_m_a _d_e _l_a _O_p_e_r_e_t_t_a, with Tin Tan,
not to be confused with the Argentinian version made five years earlier,
which Flynn did _n_o_t list). Flynn hadn't seen either one, but I was able
to direct him to one of the two Spanish-language stations in New York as
where the one I saw was broadcast.
Someone in the audience asked about the filming of the Lloyd Webber
version. It is apparently on permanent hold as a result of Lloyd Webber
and Brightman's divorce. People were divided on the making of this
movie, and many (most?) felt that filming the stage production would be
better than making a movie. My feeling is that while this is true, a
film of any sort would lack the emotional intensity of the play that
comes from being physically in the same room as the actors. People
agreed with this, but still wanted it made into a film. Why? Well, one
answer was, "I want to own it!" This is certainly evidence that
videocassettes have changed our attitudes toward performances, and
perhaps not for the better. (Yes, I know I "own" thousands of books,
and hundreds of movies, but the feeling that the public is _e_n_t_i_t_l_e_d to
own some artist's work does not sit entirely easy with me.) Someone
else said they knew a group of monks in a monastery who had heard the
music but would never have a chance to see the play unless it was on
videocassette. First of all, I doubt that this would be a major factor
in someone's decision of whether or not to film the play. But even
disregarding that, it seems to me that if the purpose of isolating
oneself in a monastery is to get away from the temptations of the world
(such as the theater), then bringing in a videocassette of _P_h_a_n_t_o_m _o_f
_t_h_e _O_p_e_r_a is not actually in keeping with the philosophy.
Play: RRRR.... UUUU.... RRRR....
Friday, 8 PM
The Moebius Theatre did a production of Karel Capek's _R. _U. _R.,
featuring a complete translation by Claudia Novack-Jones. At three
hours (with two intermissions), it was considered overlong by many (me
included) and I wonder how big an audience it got Saturday and Sunday,
when it was opposite the Masquerade and the Hugo Awards ceremony.
I have no other productions of _R. _U. _R. to compare this one to, but
it seemed as if--at least at the beginning--this production stressed the
humorous elements of the play more than was usual. The play seems
somewhat dated, though Gregory Winston, who played Alquist, did a
reasonable job. Unfortunately, the others were not as good and Joseph
Adlesick, Jr., as Gall, seemed particularly overripe, while Alan
Ziebarth as Domin was simply not convincing. On the other hand, it's
possible that some of the problems arose because they may have been used
to playing in a larger room and had gotten used to projecting the
gestures and voices more than was needed or desired in the room they
were in. Certainly the make-up looked unnatural (at least on the white
actors, who looked positively orange).
Chicon V September 1, 1991 Page 3
What may have been needed most, however, was an announcement at the
beginning telling everyone to turn off the hourly beeps on their
watches!
After the play, we dropped in the Louisville and Winnipeg bid
parties for a while and chatted with Laura Resnick (at the former) about
her travelogue of Tunisia that appeared in _L_a_n'_s _L_a_n_t_e_r_n. Winnipeg had
an amazing spread of food: brie, smoked fish, and hot food being cooked
by the chef from their Convention Centre. It was clear that all the
stops were being pulled out in their attempt to win the bid.
WSFS Main Business Meeting
Saturday, 10 AM
At this session we actually got to vote on some of the items
scheduled at the preliminary meeting Friday. There were the usual
preliminaries, including the Sergeant-at-Arms producing her mace
(courtesy of McCormick's Spice Company). Winnipeg and Louisville
presented their bids. Because of the constant interruptions at the
preliminary meeting while the parliamentarian referred to _R_o_b_e_r_t'_s _R_u_l_e_s
_o_f _O_r_d_e_r, it was requested that the Sergeant-at-Arms peace-bond the
book. Elections were held for the vacant positions on the Mark
Registration and Protection Committee. (Even for this the Chair had
difficulty figuring out how the balloting would work. In general I was
unimpressed by the Chair's knowledge of parliamentary procedure--or even
by the Parliamentarian's. Where is Bruce Pelz when you need him?)
All five amendments passed on from ConFiction were passed: Best
Original Artwork Hugo, Sunshine Amendment, One Person One Vote
(a.k.a. "Teddy Bear Amendment"), MRPC [Mark Registration and Protection]
Name Simplification ("Liposuction Amendment"), and Amendment
Simplification. The rules require that at least one person speak for a
measure and one against before a vote could be taken, so most of these
went like:
Speaker 1: "I think this is a good idea."
Speaker 2: "But it could be better."
Speaker 3: "I move to call the question."
Chorus of Seconds.
All these took effect at the end of the Business Meeting.
The newer amendments had more discussion. The amendment to change
the lead time for site selection to four years was voted down after much
discussion centering on the trade-off between the advantage of locking
in a hotel versus the ability to hold a committee together for a couple
of years of bidding plus four years after winning the bid. The modified
amendment regarding the counting of "No Award" votes (which basically
requires that when a "winner" is decided using the old method, a check
is made to verify that the winner placed _a_h_e_a_d of "No Award" on more
ballots than it placed behind it on) passed. The clarification of the
tallying of "No Award" was postponed. The amendment to allow the
Chicon V September 1, 1991 Page 4
worldcon to mail the Hugo ballots and rules separately from the WSFS
Constitution and pending business was passed, as was the amendment to
call the Hugo Award the Hugo Award (it is actually named the "Science
Fiction Achievement Award," but this has been ruled ineligible for
registration protection, hence the proposed change). The motion to
allow a fan writer to be nominated for writing in generally available
electronic media as well as in fanzines was passed. (This really only
matters if a fan writer has not been published in any fanzines over the
year in question. Both Theresa Nielsen-Hayden and I were probably
nominated as much for our electronic writing as for our traditional
fanzine writing, but because we have been published in traditional
fanzines, we qualify even without this proposed amendment. Still, it's
best to clear this stuff up early.) The new amendments that passed must
be ratified by the WSFS business meeting at MagiCon to take effect.
Panel: SSSSFFFF aaaannnndddd tttthhhheeee PPPPrrrroooopppphhhheeeetttt
Saturday, 1 PM
Nancy Kress (mod), George Alec Effinger, Doug Fratz, R. A. Lafferty,
Harry Turtledove
Official Description: "About Arabic material in current SF."
Well, the first order of business (as usual) was figuring out what
the heck the panel was about. The three guesses seemed to be:
1. SF and Mohammed
2. SF and Kahlil Gibran
3. SF and Predicting the Future
(Admittedly the second one was a dark horse candidate.)
When the official description was read from the Program Book,
Lafferty was clearly disconcerted, saying he had signed up to be on the
panel thinking it was the third one. (This was particularly unfortunate
since he kept referring to Mohammedans and Mohammedanism, two terms that
went out of favor years ago. As Effinger commented part way through the
hour as politely as he could, Muslims were offended by those terms
because the terms elevated Mohammed to a level of implied godhood and
this was strictly counter to Islam.) Kress also felt somewhat at sea--
though she had written a story set in an Arab culture (_A_n _A_l_i_e_n _L_i_g_h_t),
she was obviously outclassed by Turtledove and Effinger in terms of
quantity (not to mention Turtledove's academic background in Byzantine
history).
It's worth pointing out, by the way, that although the "official"
topic was Arabic material, the panel expanded it to include all Islamic
cultures, while making quite clear the distinction (which seems to have
escaped the writers of the Program Book, if you think about it). Islam
is spread through most of Africa and much of Asia, while the Arabs are
indigenous to the Arabian peninsula and parts of Asia Minor. Even
within the Arab peoples there is wide diversity, though. As one
panelist pointed out, we have a tendency to think that everyone in
Chicon V September 1, 1991 Page 5
another culture is the same, or worse yet, that everyone in _a_l_l other
cultures are the same. While it's true that Muslims have a language
that holds them together as a culture, they are _n_o_t all the same. (Jews
also have this cohesive language: when Mark and I were trying to
communicate with a woman in a synagogue in Sofia, Bulgaria, the only
common language we had was Hebrew.)
Effinger talked about the difficulties he had with _W_h_e_n _G_r_a_v_i_t_y
_F_a_i_l_e_d. Even though he had given the manuscript to a Lebanese friend
and an Egyptian friend to make sure he was accurate and did not
accidentally offend anyone, Bantam (his publisher) was still nervous.
Well, "terrified" is actually the word Effinger used. This was right
about the time of the _S_a_t_a_n_i_c _V_e_r_s_e_s uproar and Bantam insisted on air-
brushing out all the minarets in the cover painting! And after all
their fears, Effinger got only two negative letters--and one was only
objecting to his wearing an Arab headdress in his photograph on the back
cover.
The question was raised about whether non-Muslims could write about
Islam effectively, or whether they even had the right to try. I think
the consensus was that as long as they tried to be fair, yes. After
all, Jews write about Christians and Christians write about Jews. And
science fiction traditionally consists of stories about aliens,
interstellar travel, and the future written by people who have never met
a Russian (let alone an alien), who have never traveled to Mars (let
alone another solar system), and who plod along through time at one
second per second, just like the rest of us. "Write about what you
know" has always been interpreted as "write about what you can learn
about" by science fiction authors.
But what was meant by being fair? Lord knows (pun intended) that
there is a substantial amount of science fiction today which ridicules
fundamentalist Christianity, yet it seems clear that one could not do
the same with Islam (or Judaism, for that matter) and expect to get
published. (In private conversation, of course, there is much more
bashing of minority religions. But it's not considered "politically
correct" or "safe"--take your pick--to publish this sort of thing.)
Kress pointed out that it is important to show both sides, to have bad
characters who are Muslim as well as good, but I think there is still a
double standard in how the basic religion is treated. Why this is, why
authors and publishers feel one religion is fairer game than another, I
leave to more analytical minds. But one answer may lie in an
observation I made in my Boskone 26 (1989) convention report, where I
asked, "Is it possible that many religions go through a "holy war" phase
about 1100 to 1300 years after their inception?" (Interestingly,
Turtledove made basically the same observation on this panel, saying
that Islam was at the stage Christianity was at about 622 years earlier,
that being the difference in starting times of the two. I'm sure the
similarity in comments was due to synchronicity rather than influence.)
It's probably worth noting that while Christianity went through the
Crusades and then the Inquisition during its 11th through 15th
Chicon V September 1, 1991 Page 6
Centuries, and Islam is going through similar stages, Judaism went
through them as well, only a couple of thousand years ago, during _i_t_s
same period (shortly before the Babylonian captivity).
In terms of older works with Arabic influences, the obvious one
mentioned was Frank Herbert's _D_u_n_e. I asked about the possibility of
seeing works dealing more with Arabic/Islamic elements without a totally
Islamic setting, and the panelists seemed to agree that the current
dispersion patterns throughout the world, which have resulted in large
Muslim populations in such unlikely places as France and London, will
also produce their share of science fiction set in future cities in
which there is a strong Islamic influence without other cultures being
totally absent. This dispersion has also led people to have to alter
their incorrect "understandings" of Islam. For example, people used to
talk about Muslims praying while facing east, because that was correct
for Muslims in Egypt and the Middle East (more or less). But now people
are coming to realize that this is incorrect: Muslims pray facing
Mecca, which means in Malaysia, for example, they face _w_e_s_t. And on
other planets, one supposes they would face Earth or Sol. (But in what
direction would they pray at the antipodal point on Earth? And how do
they determine prayer times at the North Pole et al, since prayer time
are defined in terms of sunrise and sunset? Of course, these are all
problems that Jews face too, and I have a whole file of opinions on this
sort of thing if anyone's interested.)
How can we learn more about Arab or Islamic cultures? Well,
Effinger said the best way to learn about a culture was by reading its
fiction, which was almost always truer to how people lived than the
history or other non-fiction works. In the non-fiction books, for
example, you hear that everything stops at prayer times in Muslim
countries, but in fiction you learn that there are ways people get
around the requirements--for example, by traveling (even on a bicycle)
at the appointed time, since travelers are exempt. The Nobel prize-
winning Egyptian author Nagib Mahfouz was highly recommended. Also
recommended was the non-fiction book _T_h_e _C_r_u_s_a_d_e_s _T_h_r_o_u_g_h _A_r_a_b _E_y_e_s
edited by Amin Maalouf (published, interestingly enough, by Schocken
Books, a pre-eminent Jewish publishing house--but then the Jews didn't
like the Crusaders all that much either).
After this panel we picked up some souvenirs, including the
"unofficial" convention T-shirt, which had the Frank Paul "City of the
Future" with it labeled as Chicago 1991, etc. We also voted in the site
selection, and I even managed to get a "press" ribbon. Why? Because I
was reporting on the convention. Where? Why, here, of course!
(To be continued)