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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 11/29/91 -- Vol. 10, No. 22

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

12/11/91 LZ: MIRKHEIM by Poul Anderson (Novels with Names of
Scandinavian Mythological Places in Them)
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.
12/14/91 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Denise
Little of Barnes & Noble and B. Dalton (phone
201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
12/21/91 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)

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 mtfme!lfl
MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 908-957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.

1. Well, we have now shown 253 movies for the film festival, so
we're going to do something different: we're going to show
television. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Television? I can
see that on ... on ... my television!" Ah, but not _t_h_i_s
television. On Thursday, December 5, at 7 PM we will be showing:

Classic SF Television
TALES FROM TOMORROW: "Dune Roller"
ONE STEP BEYOND: "Reunion"
TWILIGHT ZONE: "Printer's Devil"
OUTER LIMITS: "Demon with a Glass Hand"
THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR: "Sign of Satan"

THE MT VOID Page 2

We will be showing these in chronological order (as usual). The
first is "Dune Roller," a 1951 show based on the short story by
Julian C. May, who has recently become much better known for her
"Pliocene Saga." "Dune Roller" was her second sale, written just
four years after she discovered science fiction, and made a big
splash, in part because it was about a then-new science: ecology.

"Reunion," from 1959 is classic _O_n_e _S_t_e_p _B_e_y_o_n_d--a reunion of
glider pilots doesn't turn out quite as they had planned....

The half-hour _T_w_i_l_i_g_h_t _Z_o_n_e episodes have been shown a lot on
television, but the hour-long ones (from the fourth season, 1963-
1964) are much rarer. So it makes sense to show one of these
rarely-seen episodes, and what better one than "Printer's Devil"
with Burgess Meredith in an unforgettable performance as the
linotype operator who is just what publisher Douglas Winter needs-
-or is he?

If there is one episode of _O_u_t_e_r _L_i_m_i_t_s that everyone remembers, it
is "The Demon with a Glass Hand" written by Harlan Ellison. So I
guess that means I don't have to describe it! :-)

And finally, we will finish up with an episode of _T_h_e _A_l_f_r_e_d
_H_i_t_c_h_c_o_c_k _H_o_u_r full of Christopher Lee and satanism (and written by
Robert Bloch). And, no, it doesn't have a leg of lamb in it.

2. Well, this week there was an earthquake in the Aleutians.
According to the National Bureau of Standards, we lost about a
quarter of a second, but there was no permanent damage to the
overall structure of time. However, the fact that the earthquake
did affect precise timepieces all over the world gives physicists
just one more confirmation that Time is an Aleutian.

3. A recent _D_e_t_r_o_i_t _F_r_e_e _P_r_e_s_s had an article about a rather
interesting sounding restaurant, the Traveler, on the Connecticut-
Massachusetts border on I-84. On the restaurant side, dishes
mentioned are turkey potpie, charbroiled ham steak, fried clam
strips, and quarter-pound burgers. On the book side, every diner
gets a free book with their meal. And they get to keep the book.

Marty Doyle, the owner, has been handing out free books for seven
years. It started when his wife told him to get rid of some of his
own books. By now, he goes to auctions and estate sales to buy
enough books to give away over 100,000 per year (50 tons).

There's also a used bookstore in the basement, where books are sold
for $1 to $5. The restaurant has a full-time librarian, and the
waitrons sometimes have to go down and fetch customers whose meals
have arrived while they were browsing.

Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper

KINSHIP WITH THE STARS by Poul Anderson
Tor, 1991, ISBN 0-812-51814-4, $3.99.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper

These nine stories from the 1950s and 1960s are not Anderson's
best. True, Anderson on an off day is at least as good as many
authors on their best day. And you probably already have the best
Anderson, given that he (and Harlan Ellison) have collected more
Hugos than anyone else (at least in the fiction categories)--seven
each. (Interestingly, both have won all of them in the shorter
fiction categories. Zelazny and Leiber have won six each--two in
novels and four in short fiction.) And Anderson has not lacked for
appearances in various anthologies. It's true you probably don't
have these, which have been unavailable for years. (I don't think
"Uncleftish beholding" was ever widely available.) But I can't
really recommend this collection except for die-hard Anderson fans.

The lead novella, "A Bicycle Built for Brew," is about--as the
back blurb reveals--a spaceship powered by beer. My disinterest in
beer made me leery of the story, but even teetotalers can enjoy the
humorous politicking in the asteroid belt. Harder to enjoy is the
blatant sexism of the story. "Inside Straight," which first
appeared in the August 1955 _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e _o_f _F_a_n_t_a_s_y _a_n_d _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n,
postulates a society based on gambling (shades of Jorge Luis
Borges's "The Lottery of Babylon"). An outsider who sees the custom
as a foolish quirk soon learns not to be so hasty in his judgements.

"The Critique of Impure Reason" (November 1962 _I_f) was based,
according to Anderson, on a cover--and not even a real cover, but a
cover invented by his wife one day when Anderson asked her, "Tell me
a cover." Her reply inspired this tale of robots, literature, and
pulp fiction. "Backwardness" (March 1958 _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e _o_f _F_a_n_t_a_s_y _a_n_d
_S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n) takes a quick look at what _m_i_g_h_t happen if aliens
land.

The first four stories all feature con men, a theme that occurs
far more frequently in this volume than in Anderson's writing
overall. So it is with some relief that we get a change of pace
with "Duel on Syrtis" (March 1953 _P_l_a_n_e_t _S_t_o_r_i_e_s), a story as
serious as the previous are, if not humorous, at least whimsical.
"Duel on Syrtis" is an all-too-possible story of what our contact
with aliens _c_o_u_l_d be.

The one truly unusual story is "Uncleftish Beholding." It
seems to have had limited exposure before this, perhaps because it
is hard to classify. Think of it as a science article from a world
in which the Norsemen conquered Europe.

Kinship with the Stars November 13, 1991 Page 2

"Escape from Orbit" (October 1962 _A_m_a_z_i_n_g) returns us to the
familiar, this time to the science fiction puzzle story. Even
Anderson can't make this tale of astronauts trapped in orbit--and
how they inevitably get out--more than average. The problem, of
course, is that there's only one unpredictable approach and Tom
Godwin used it up years ago (seven years before Anderson wrote this,
to be precise).

Anderson returns to the political theme in "Enough Rope"--
again, predictable, but more entertaining than "Escape from Orbit."
And the final story, "The Live Coward" (June 1956 _A_s_t_o_u_n_d_i_n_g) is
more politicking and diplomacy, albeit a bit too neatly wrapped up
for my tastes.

Readers should be warned that many of the sensibilities of the
stories are of their time. (In plain English, this means that the
female characters are often there for decoration only, and their
decorative features are dwelt upon at length.) If you can accept
that as an artifact of the time these works were written, you might
find these stories of some interest. But unless you have exhausted
all the better-known Anderson of the period, this is not
recommended.

Capsule review: A great idea for a film
disappointingly squandered. This is a two-person
play about a woman accused of treason and a
government interrogator trying to force her to sign a
confession. This could have been a powerful
statement for Amnesty International, but its special
power is lost on far-fetched plot contrivances and
misjudgements in atmosphere. It's still worth
seeing, though. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4).

Charlie Brown asked it after a particularly bad performance by
his baseball team: "How can we lose if we're so sincere?" Sad to
say, sincerity is not enough. Radha Bharadwaj wrote the play _C_l_o_s_e_t
_L_a_n_d and directed the film with what I am sure was nothing but great
sincerity and the best of intentions. And if this film had been
done correctly, it would have been a film that is desperately needed
with what is a very important message. That message is blunted with
what turns out to be a contrived plot and a set of unbelievable
circumstances.

In an unnamed country a woman (played by Madelaine Stowe) has
been kidnapped and is brought before an interrogator (played by Alan
Rickman). At first it appears to have all been a mistake. She is
non-political--a simple writer of children's stories. One of the
stories, "Closet Land"--still unpublished--has fallen into the hands
of the government. They interpret it as a bitter anti-government
allegory and now the government wants the woman to sign a confession
of sedition. She is put through a mind-numbing succession of mental
and physical tortures to debase and humiliate her in an attempt to
get her to sign.

So far, so good. If that was all there was to this film it
would be a painful film to watch but it would make a powerful
statement for Amnesty International, for whose benefit this film
seems to have been made. The incident portrayed here could be seen
to be in many ways typical of crimes committed by far too many
governments today. This view of government political sadism is and
should be a bitter pill to swallow. But there is more of a plot to
_C_l_o_s_e_t _L_a_n_d than that and there is where the film goes frustratingly
wrong, making this incident anything but typical.

When we see the real reasons behind the woman writing her story
"Closet land" and the real motives of the interrogator, both seem
extremely contrived and built around an incredible coincidence. The
interrogator pulls off a number of odd deceptions; some require

Closet Land November 10, 1991 Page 2

talents beyond even the capabilities of Rickman to bring off. One
doubts that a man as talented as the interrogator would become a
government interrogator/torturer. Surely we are not meant to
believe most people in this profession are this intelligent.
Further undercutting the credibility is the set design of the
interrogation center. One suspects in real life such places are at
best utilitarian. This chamber, with its fancy furniture, its sound
and light equipment, its decorative columns, its functional yet
decorative file drawers, creates just the wrong feel.

What is needed is a story that one can tell oneself is being
repeated on a daily basis in many countries around the world.
Instead, we have a story we doubt could have ever happened. That
makes this film a curiosity rather than a powerful statement. I
give it a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.