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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 10/25/91 -- Vol. 10, No. 17

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

10/30/91 LZ: MINDBRIDGE by Joe Haldeman
11/13/91 MT: THE RED MAGICIAN by Lisa Goldstein (Jewish SF)
11/20/91 LZ: THE PUPPET MASTERS by Robert A. Heinlein (Alien
Parasites)
12/11/91 LZ: MIRKHEIM by Poul Anderson (Novels with Names of
Scandinavian Mythological Places in Them)
12/18/91 MT: "The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke (Christian SF)
01/08/92 LZ: EXPECTING SOMEONE TALLER by Tom Holt (Operatic SF)
01/29/92 LZ: A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess (Dystopias)

_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.
10/29/91 Readings: Wayne Barlowe, Michael Flynn and Doris Vallejo
(Barnes & Noble, Route 17, Paramus, 7:30 PM) (Tue)
10/29/91 Readings: David Skal, Ellen Datlow, Barry Malzberg, and
Jack Womack (Tower Books, 383 Lafayette St., NYC)
(7 PM) (Tuesday)
11/09/91 Autographing: Ellen Datlow, Janet Kagan, Ellen Kushner,
Melissa Scott, Jack Womack (B. Dalton, Willowbrook
Mall, Wayne, 1-5 PM) (Sat)
11/09/91 Autographing: S. N. Lewitt (Science Fiction Shop, NYC)
(4-6 PM) (Sat)
11/09/91 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Bob
Eggleton, space artist (phone 201-933-2724 for
details) (Saturday)
11/16/91 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
(Barnes & Noble, Route 17, Paramus, 7:30 PM) (Tue)

HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 908-834-1563 hocpb!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 908-576-6106 mtuxo!jrrt
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
HO Librarian: Rebecca Schoenfeld HO 2K-430 908-949-6122 homxb!btfsd
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 908-576-3346 mtunq!lfl
MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzy!leeper

THE MT VOID Page 2

Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 908-957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.

1. Of the next discussion book (_M_i_n_d_b_r_i_d_g_e, to be discussed October
30 in Lincroft), Paul Chisholm offers this brief description:

Mankind has stumbled to the stars, but there's a price: the
instantaneous transportation method of getting there usually isn't
permanent, and exploring is dangerous. Mankind has stumbled onto a
way of making people telepathic, but there are several prices; the
loss of privacy for mental intimacy is pretty low on the list.
Mankind has stumbled across another intelligent race; the price may
be our extinction.

There are some problems with _M_i_n_d_b_r_i_d_g_e, Joe Haldeman's second SF
novel. It seems to violate Asimov's guideline that you can have
only *one* impossible element in your story (this has two or
three). Dale Skran has complained that it uses Haldeman's Standard
Wrap-EVERYTHING-Up Ending. If you don't like "dark capitalism"
settings (where corporations are very powerful, and most
individuals aren't, like Haldeman's Confederation in other
stories), _M_i_n_d_b_r_i_d_g_e will make you uncomfortable. But if you read
SF stories for ideas, for plots of adventure, for characterization,
for unusual settings, or for excellent writing, I can highly
recommend _M_i_n_d_b_r_i_d_g_e. [-psrc]

2. I have been talking about kosher cuisine in these last couple of
articles. I have figured out just what is wrong with kosher
cooking. I think the people who cook kosher really have their mind
on something else. There is a hidden agenda in kosher cooking--
perhaps more than one. If you want to get the idea of what a
cuisine is like with a hidden agenda, go into a health food store.
These places have all the gustatory appeal of the medicine section
of your local drug store. Most grocery stores choose food
primarily by what tastes good and secondarily by what is healthy.
Health food stores concentrate first on what is healthy and
secondarily on what tastes good or what anyone would want to eat.
They end up with lentil loaf mixes and boxes of blue corn flakes
(honest!). Blue corn, we are told, was what made Mayan
civilization all that it was. That may go a long way toward
explaining the archaeological mystery of why the Mayans abandoned
their civilization at its height and returned to the jungles. Blue
corn might have been what did it.

Well, if you think placing health considerations over flavor leads
to a weird set of foods (and you'd be right!), you should read the
article in _K_o_s_h_e_r _G_o_u_r_m_e_t on "Symbolic Eating." There you choose
your food for its symbolic meaning, not because it is healthy or
tastes good. You eat beets because their name in Aramaic is
"silki," which means "to remove." You eat beets to remove the bad
things in life, to remove your enemies. If you want to remove your

THE MT VOID Page 3

friends, I guess you eat garlic though presumably eating beets
might do it also. They just mean "to remove." You eat beans
because they are a symbol of abundance. That chunks of meat dish
with the beans and the fat sitting on top of the gravy, that had
beans for abundance. I'd throw in a beet or two to symbolically
ask for the cholesterol to be removed from my arteries. Then I'd
throw the whole mess out to avoid the cholesterol in the first
place. I wouldn't want to eat that muck anyway.

3. Several people have mentioned that they would love to get
summaries of the book discussions. If anyone attending them has a
urge to write up a summary, we would be more than happy to print
it. [-ecl]

4. And several (other) people have asked that I not include
underlining and backspacing in the electronic copy of the MT VOID.
Is there anyone who would object to my changing all underlined
words to all capital letters (in the electronic copy only)? If
not, I will start with next week's notice. (I still need to deal
with the problem of backspaces for other reasons, such as accent
marks. But that's another problem.) [-ecl]

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

If a man could kill his illusions he'd become a god.
-- Colin Wilson

THE SILENT STARS GO BY by James White
Del Rey, 1991, ISBN 0-345-37110-0, $5.99.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper

Healer Nolan is about to set forth on a starship to a new
world. Using cold sleep, ten thousand colonists will travel to a
new world. Led by the Kingdom of Hiberia, the voyage is a joint
venture with the Royal Court of Tenochtitlan, the Redmen of the
West, and the courts of Cathay and Nippon. Because of rivalries and
intrigues, however, Nolan is forced into a role he never expected.

Yes, it's an alternate history--but why? (The answer that
White is Irish and wanted to postulate a world in which the Irish
are the super-power is not acceptable.) Because the ship takes off
fairly early, there isn't enough time spent on the alternate Earth
to use the background to its fullest, and the intrigues after the
ship takes off could have been grounded in some future of ours, not
in an alternate past. The space travel adventure story is certainly
strong enough to stand on its own, and the alternate history just
necessitates long expository passages about the history that led to
this world. And the epilogue is the straw that breaks the camel's
back for the alternate history element.

Now what White _s_h_o_u_l_d have done (in my not-so-humble opinion)
would have been to write two novels, one set on the alternate Earth
and stressing that part of the story, and one stressing the story of
the spaceship traveling to a distant star system. They could even
have been issued as a Tor Double.

Because the adventure element, particularly the trek across an
alien planet, is more than enough to make up for the shortcomings of
(or short shrift given to) the alternate history plot. White does a
good job with his many characters and their situation and manages to
provide an enjoyable story that keeps you involved. So I recommend
_T_h_e _S_i_l_e_n_t _S_t_a_r_s _G_o _B_y as a space adventure novel, even though the
alternate history elements make it drag at times.

RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET
A theatre review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper

back in the 1960s there were a bunch of novelty records that
were popular. They would tell a story and illustrate it with little
snatches from rock 'n' roll classics. They would say something
like, "Martians have landed in Washington. How do you feel about
that, Mr. President?" Then you would hear Elvis Presley singing,
"I'm all shook up!" "Well, do you have a message for the Martians?"
Then you would hear from "Flying Purple People Eater," "Pleee-ese
don't eat me." It should be noted that the stories told this way
were a long way from winning Pulitzer Prizes, but of course nobody
expected a good story from one of these outings. The story was
secondary to the clever choices of rock and roll snatches.

Now suppose you wanted to do that sort of thing in a larger
format--say a play. You want to tell the story of the film
_F_o_r_b_i_d_d_e_n _P_l_a_n_e_t and cut to rock and roll classics. Of course, it
would have to be a campy retelling, but then you have a tradition
and audience from _R_o_c_k_y _H_o_r_r_o_r _S_h_o_w and _L_i_t_t_l_e _S_h_o_p _o_f _H_o_r_r_o_r_s you
can play to. And say, isn't _F_o_r_b_i_d_d_e_n _P_l_a_n_e_t a reworking of
Shakespeare's _T_e_m_p_e_s_t? Let's write all the dialogue in pseudo-
Shakespearean style. (A minor aside: _F_o_r_b_i_d_d_e_n _P_l_a_n_e_t does take the
basic situation of _T_h_e _T_e_m_p_e_s_t as a springboard and borrows an idea
or two. In my experience the people who most vehemently say that
_F_o_r_b_i_d_d_e_n _P_l_a_n_e_t retells _T_h_e _T_e_m_p_e_s_t are also the people least
familiar with _T_h_e _T_e_m_p_e_s_t.) Now as long as we are imitating
Shakespeare, let's throw in a bunch of puns on the Bard's most
famous lines ("I cannot tell if it is one beep or two." "Two beeps
or not to beeps....").

To bring all this together into one rambunctious stage play
requires a great deal of undeniable talent. So does building a huge
standing structure out of many decks of playing cards. In each
case, however, whether you are really entertained watching them do
it is a matter of taste. Certainly the plot itself does nothing to
entertain the audience nor is it intended to. It intentionally is a
stupid skit borrowing a little from _F_o_r_b_i_d_d_e_n _P_l_a_n_e_t but avoiding
any real human drama and certainly any science fiction value. As I
am sure even author/director Bob Carlton would tell me, the plot is
not really the point. This story has less to do with the human
condition than a liverwurst sandwich has to do with the kings of
Siam. This is the sort of play where if it is easier to have the
spaceship inexplicably drawn to the planet rather than told to stay
away, you do that. So what makes this planet "forbidden"? Well, it
was expected you would not notice the title does not fit. That
isn't the point. For that matter, if there is not even an
explanation in the plot why the spaceship is drawn to the planet,

Return to Forbidden Planet October 20, 1991 Page 2

that is not the point either. The point is to sit there and have a
good time and to turn your mind off. Way, way off. Unfortunately
even turning my mind to its lowest setting, I still found the lack
of any sort of story to be a serious problem.

The point, of course, is first of all to hear some classic rock
and roll music performed live. Next it is to see some gimmicky
pyrotechnic staging, in some cases quite literally pyrotechnic.
Third, it is to hear some jokes. Acting is optional, though talent
is not. The actors in this play are also the band and they seem to
trade musical instruments as readily as they trade quips. If one of
the trombone players has a bad cold he could take out a big piece of
the cast. Most talented is Gabriel Barre, who plays Ariel the robot
and does pretty much anything anyone else in the cast can do, but he
does it on roller skates. If this play has another actor it is
Louis Tucci as Cookie the ship's cook. The cook ends up in a rather
silly love triangle competing with the ship's captain, a Robert
Goulet look-alike. Cookie demonstrates emotions deeper than a
quarter of an inch, which makes him a real stand-out.

The staging is a very important part of this play. The entire
theatre becomes the inside of a spaceship. The ship itself is a
cross between junkyard-parts-tacky and Las Vegas lights. At
appropriate moments strange and unexpected things happen which are
mechanically triggered. And, of course, the set only enhances to
pre-show hi-jinx. This is one of those plays that actually starts
fifteen minutes before the time on your ticket, so arrive early if
you go.

This is a play that never works well, but with all the
patchwork of intentionally mismatched parts, it is amazing it works
at all.

Capsule review: Strange and disturbing thriller
about a Jewish policeman torn between two cases.
David Mamet's best film so far is one of those films
you cannot fairly even give thought to until it is
all over. A spoiler included after the review
discusses several of the questions raised by the
film. Rating: +3 (-4 to +4).

Bobby Gold (beautifully played by Joe Mantegna) is a respected
cop on the homicide squad who has reacted to police department
anti-Semitism by struggling to assimilate and to ignore his Jewish
roots. Early on we see him be the butt of a totally unreasonable
tirade from a bigoted black superior who gets his jollies calling
Gold a "kike." Gold is already involved in a case trying to find a
black cop-killer before the FBI can find and kill him. He is
getting enthusiastic about this project and its prospects for him to
redeem himself in the department's eyes. Then, by accident, he
becomes involved in another case and is told he must take charge of
this case also. An elderly Jewish woman who ran a candy store in a
black neighborhood has been murdered. The last thing he wants is an
assignment that will tie himself in with the Jews, and it does not
help that the woman's family seems to think that there is a deeper
conspiracy involved. But then evidence starts appearing that may
point to an anti-Semitic conspiracy. That and an unmasking of
Gold's own self-hatred as a Jew start pushing him to value this case
more and to neglect the other.

_H_o_m_i_c_i_d_e is just a sort of typical David Mamet. That is, there
is a fair amount to say about it, but most of it falls under the
classification of spoiler. Any review that does not ruin some of
the surprises of this marvelous puzzle of a film will be so general
as to be nearly pointless. David Mamet, like the Coen Brothers,
specializes in crime films with a sort of unexpected spin. I first
became aware of Mamet through a radio play called "The Water Engine"
which had a marvelous 1939 period feel and dealt with one of the
great American myths, the engine that runs on water for fuel and
that the insidious auto companies have hushed up. Mamet wrote
DePalma's _U_n_t_o_u_c_h_a_b_l_e_s, but also has directed his own screenplays
_H_o_u_s_e _o_f _G_a_m_e_s and _T_h_i_n_g_s _C_h_a_n_g_e. Both were good; _H_o_m_i_c_i_d_e is
better. _H_o_m_i_c_i_d_e lacks _B_a_r_t_o_n _F_i_n_k's visual style and
craftsmanship, but its story is better and a case could be made that
the two are thematically linked. They are the two of the best films
I have seen this year and they would be very interesting seen as a
pair.

Homicide October 21, 1991 Page 2

Mamet's excellent screenplay is a grabber from the very first
scene. The film is already tense and suspenseful before the first
word of dialogue is spoken. Most enigmatic is Joe Mantegna's Bobby.
Does he suddenly feel a solidarity with the Jewish community or is
he reacting from guilt and to prove something. How real was his
anti-Semitism earlier; how real was his reversal? Was he doing what
he believed or was he first professing not to like Jews in order to
win approval from his buddies, then reversing to prove something to
the Jews he met through the case. There is a lot to this film. I
give it a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.

*****VERY HEAVY SPOILER WARNING******VERY HEAVY SPOILER WARNING*****

Mamet's story is an amazing orchestration of smoke and mirrors.
Like _T_h_e _D_a_y _o_f _t_h_e _J_a_c_k_a_l, we follow the reasoning each step of the
way to its logical conclusions. But in _T_h_e _D_a_y _o_f _t_h_e _J_a_c_k_a_l at
least we feel we know our logic was wrong earlier. At the end of
this film we do not even have the security of knowing anything. We
have no idea to what degree Bobby was right, to what degree he has
misled himself, and to what degree he has been intentionally
manipulated.

In a bad James Bond film, such as _M_o_o_n_r_a_k_e_r, the clues are all
laid out for Bond. He gets into a fight in a factory, knocks into a
crate, finds an address on it, and goes to that address only to get
into another fight and find another clue. Bond never goes off in
the wrong direction. In _H_o_m_i_c_i_d_e the clues seem a little too easy
to find. It is almost as if they were left lying around
intentionally. Bobby never stops to reason, for example, that
organizations like 212 do not put their addresses on stationary. On
the other hand, it is a tenuous chain of events that brought Bobby
to that clue. If Bobby were intentionally being brought to 212,
there were a lot of people in on the plot. How could they have been
sure Bobby would could to that yeshiva and overhear the mention of
212. If the finding of 212 was just chance, how did the
organization know so fast what it wanted from Bobby?

It seems almost impossible that there was not a Jewish
conspiracy. But if there was a Jewish conspiracy to get back the
names, the question is why? The law is not going to go after people
who ran guns to the Israelis forty-five years ago. There might be a
revenge plot going on against the gunrunners that would explain the
murder. And we did catch a glimpse of someone on the roof. But
that implies there are two opposed conspiracies. That seems a
little far-fetched, particularly since the police think they know
who committed the primary murder.

Then maybe there was no conspiracy at all. Except that 212 did
seem to know they wanted Bobby's list. The plot is constructed like
a bedsheet that you can tuck in only three corners on. If you try
to tuck in the fourth corner, one of the other corners pops out.
There is no consistent explanation of what we saw. And in the
middle of this confusion is Bobby, who would be betrayed by his own
people, much like Randolph was.