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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 12/13/91 -- Vol. 10, No. 24
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
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.
12/21/91 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
01/11/92 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Katina
Alexis (horror writer) (phone 201-933-2724 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. I guess a couple of weeks ago around I was talking about
watching television via a VCR. I would have thought that was not
so uncommon an activity, at least not with all the ads from the
cable company that tell how perfect together cable and a VCR are.
Boy, their ads are heart-warming, aren't they? Anyway, the cable
companies surely know there are VCRs out there. But this seems
like a new idea to most of the broadcasters. You find this out
some time like four in the morning when their entire audience is
made up of one insomniac and one dog sitting in front of a
television that the kids forgot to turn off. That is when they say
it: "This programming is for the entertainment of our viewers. Any
recording without written permission from the broadcaster is
strictly forbidden." Right. And you know who came up with the
idea for this announcement? I bet it's the same jerk who invented
the tags on furniture that say "Do not remove this tag under
THE MT VOID Page 2
penalty of law."
I know just how it usually goes:
7-year-old: "Hey, Mom, I'm going to set up for 'Flintstones.'"
Mom: "Go ahead. Hey, someday you have to teach me how to do
that."
7-year-old: "Hey, Mom, where's the typewriter? I have to write
to Channel 7 if I want to get 'Flintstones' next Wednesday."
Mom: "Check Bobby's room. I think he was writing for
permission to record 'Dukes of Hazard.'"
Yeah, I believe that one.
Now more and more when you have watched a program and are ready to
press rewind, you see them come on and say, "If you would like a
videotape of this program, send $35 to ...." I think that is
actually a plot to make you buy a lot of videotape. I mean, I have
to think twice about re-recording over that tape now that I know it
is worth $35.
The final straw is the contest that one of the movie channels is
running. They show you a movie, then they give you multiple choice
questions on what you just saw. "Hey, if you are going to watch a
movie, pay attention. What do you think this is, MTV?" At least
in theory this should give you a real advantage if you are among
the select few--the elite--who own a VCR. Okay, I must be honest.
The questions _a_r_e so simple and stupid that generally it wouldn't
occur to anyone that they have to cheat by going back and checking
out the original. I got three correct for a film I hadn't seen.
But it's the principle we're talking here.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper
Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be so sure he
will never hit the mark, yet as sure as he is, he shall
shoot higher than he who aims at a bush.
-- Sir Philip Sydney
STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: This is a farewell to the
original crew in a minor political thriller about
Klingon perestroika and the old-line Cold Warriors
who do not want to accept change. True fans of _S_t_a_r
_T_r_e_k will be amazed at how closely the fall of the
Soviet Union predicted what was going to happen in
_S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _V_I. Not the best of the series, but it is
entertaining. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).
Dearly beloved, we are gathered for the final adventure of the
original crew of the starship Enterprise. The remote control has
been passed to a new generation who are less and less interested in
seeing swash-buckling heroes the age of their grandparents. And if
the truth be known, Captain Kirk, Scotty, and Uhura are all sporting
spare tires around the middle these days. Bones looks old. Spock
seems to be ageing the best of the original crew and comes the
closest to still being dashing. I guess on at least some level that
is not surprising. We always knew there was something very
different about Spock and it just sort of rubbed off on Leonard
Nimoy.
So what sort of adventure is the final outing? The title
implies that the plot in a major way involves "death--the
undiscover'd country, from whose bourn no traveller returns," an
allusion to the "To be or not to be" speech from Act III, Scene 1 of
_H_a_m_l_e_t. So did the filmmakers have the courage to kill off someone
we loved and make that death meaningful, or did they find some way
to cop out? Well, that would be telling! In any case, the main
story is an end-of-the-Cold-War thriller, much like _T_h_e _P_a_c_k_a_g_e but
reset in the "Star Trek" universe.
When the film opens, a Klingon Chernobyl incident has convinced
the evil empire that the time has come for perestroika. On each
side there are hard-liners who still live with the paranoia of the
past, and new-liners who want to see a reconciliation and a new
universe order. One Federation hard-liner is that crusty old Cold
Warrior, Captain James Kirk (played somewhat against type by William
Shatner). One of the new-liners is an old associate of his,
Commander Spock (played this time around by Leonard Nimoy). The
plot then proceeds to set up a fairly intriguing mystery and puzzle.
An incident occurs that seems totally inexplicable. Kirk is framed
to appear to have sabotaged the peace. This is the high point of
the film. Unfortunately, the mystery's solution is very
unconvincing. It is nearly as bad as the strategy puzzle in _S_t_a_r
_T_r_e_k _I_I: _T_h_e _W_r_a_t_h _o_f _K_h_a_n. That one was solved by the scriptwriter
Star Trek VI December 8, 1991 Page 2
saying, "Oh, didn't you know? The Enterprise has the power to shut
down the shields on other federation ships!" The solution to the
puzzle here is not as bad as that of the _W_r_a_t_h _o_f _K_h_a_n problem, but
it is bad. I will explain why in a spoiler after the review.
Other touches were irritating, like repeated allusions to both
Shakespeare and Sherlock Holmes. It is a strange and unlikely touch
that Klingons revere William Shakespeare and even claim him as a
Klingon.
With the exception of one violent scene in zero gravity the
special effects are not particularly new or creative, though many of
the exteriors in space are still quite beautiful. Occasionally
narrow-angle shots were used when showing a new locale on a planet.
This was probably to save on the creation of sets since less would
be within the range of the camera, but it is a stark contrast to
earlier chapters.
Two problems in casting were minor problems. The first was an
unaccountable resemblance between the Klingon David Warner played in
_S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _V_I and the kidnapped diplomat he played in _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _V.
Also, Christian Slater plays the kid who has won a contest and got
to play in a scene of a real "Star Trek" movie. He has one brief,
no-talent-needed scene.
All told, this is a minor thriller and a just okay entry in the
series. I give it a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
**SPOILER**
Spoiler: For two reasons I think that the solution to the
mystery torpedo problem is bad. First, it assumes a new piece of
technology to come along at a perfect but unlikely moment. That is
possible but it seems a plot contrivance. What bothers me more is
the geometry of the situation. A photon torpedo travels in a
straight line. If that line does not intersect your torpedo tubes,
it was not your torpedo. It would be hard to position another
torpedo tube so the trajectory could be close enough to fool the
bridge. Ideally the attackers would want to be in front of your
torpedo tubes, but they could not because of the instantaneous loss
of cloaking. Their would have to position themselves so that their
torpedo would fly in just the right plane. Even then, if the
trajectory was observed from elsewhere on the Enterprise, the jig
would have been up. If the victim ship were watching the
Enterprise, they would have seen an impossible torpedo trajectory
and also, for an instant, the ship that was firing on them.
Question: if a shape-changer wanted to prove she was a shape
changer, wouldn't she just change her shape? Evelyn asked this one.
ON THE THIRD DAY by Piers Paul Read
Random House, 1990, ISBN 0-679-40089-3, $20.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper
The jacket blurb of this book starts off, "Suppose Christ did
_n_o_t rise from the dead? This question is the startling premise of
Piers Paul Read's new novel." Yeah, and several billion people's
belief systems to boot. What the blurb writer meant (or at any
rate, should have said) is "Suppose someone found proof that Christ
did _n_o_t rise from the dead?"
The premise of the novel is, in fact, that there is a
"Lithuanian codex" to Josephus's writings that says that the body of
Jesus was taken from the tomb and put in a clay jar in the cistern
under the Temple Mount, and that the Israelis, while secretly
excavating under the Mount, find the skeleton of a man crucified in
the 1st Century with marks that match the "crown of thorns" and the
wound in the side supposed given by a Roman soldier's spear. Now,
clearly, whether this premise is fantasy depends on the reader's
belief system as much as anything in the book itself. But the
subject matter makes it reasonable to review it here, so do not take
this review as promoting one belief system over another.
All this said, I now have to tell you that, as fascinating as
the premise is, Read has managed to make the book extremely dull.
(I found myself thinking, "This man could make the Resurrection
dull"--a particularly apt image!) His writing style is flat, and
his characterization consists of telling you about people's feelings
in a very analytical fashion rather than by showing, through actions
or dialogue, what their emotions are. He is also a sloppy writer,
since he has religious Jews referring to "Christ" rather than
"Jesus." The former is a title and Jews consider its use improper
because it implies that the speaker believes it to be an accurate
one. A parallel example would be that during the Second Great
Schism of 1378, followers of Urban VII did not call Clement VII
Pope, and vice versa. This is not followed strictly by all Jews,
but it would have been by the ones Read is writing about. But worst
of all, he relies on stereotypes for most of his characters, and
even more offensive stereotypes for their motivations. (To tell
more would be a spoiler, so I will discuss this further at the end,
after the "spoiler warning.")
If you are interested in good writing along similar lines,
there are better books to read. I would recommend Irving Wallace's
_T_h_e _W_o_r_d, whose premise is that a fifth gospel is found which was
written contemporaneously with Jesus (or, if you prefer, the actual
document found dates from a time indicating the writer of the
document was relating first-hand knowledgee actual documents of four
gospels extant all date from the 2nd Century or later). There are
On the Third Day December 5, 1991 Page 2
other, non-fiction works in this area, including _T_h_e _P_a_s_s_o_v_e_r _P_l_o_t
by Hugh J. Schonfield (the contention is that Jesus and his
disciples faked his death on the cross), and _H_o_l_y _B_l_o_o_d, _H_o_l_y _G_r_a_i_l
by Michael Baigent. The contention in the latter, even more far-
fetched, is that after the Resurrection Jesus moved to France, got
married, and raised a family whose descendents still control much of
Europe. Look, I don't make them up, I just report them.
I should note that my first-ever book review was of _T_h_e
_P_a_s_s_o_v_e_r _P_l_o_t. I wrote it in 1967, when I was seventeen, for the
high school paper. The town was over 75% Catholic, the principal
always checked over the newspaper's content, and my review didn't
get printed.
***SPOILER WARNING***
This paragraph describes the end of the novel--stop now if you
don't want to know. Okay? It seems that Ya'akov (an Israeli and a
member of the Mossad) was worried about the shifting power in the
world. The Jews in the United States would soon lose their power in
New York and California to other immigrants, mostly Catholic, and
the United States wouldn't support Israel as much. And Japan and
the other powerful nations would have no reason to back it, since
Israel has no oil to sell. But if the Christians no longer believed
that Jesus had superseded Judaism, they would all become Jews--or
barring that, at least more supportive of Israel even if Israel
didn't have oil. Ya'akov was captured in Lebanon during the Israeli
invasion and interrogated in Syria by a Russian Jew. During the
interrogation, Ya'akov mentioned that he had been thinking of ways
to undermine Christianity. It turned out that the Russian also was
worried about the power of Christianity, especially the Catholic
backing of the independence movement in the Baltics (this was
written in 1990, remember). So the Russian arranges for Ya'akov to
be released, goes back to the Soviet Union, and arranges for the KGB
to forge a codex with the burial comments, which is then
"discovered." Meanwhile, Ya'akov finds a 1st Century skeleton, has
it doctored to have the correct wounds, then "plants" it under the
Temple Mount. He waits a couple of years, then arranges for the
Mossad to excavate (secretly, of course) under the Temple Mount, and
has a noted archaeologist along, "just in case we find anything."
Yes, folks, what we have here is that old standby, that hoary
stereotype, the International Jewish Conspiracy to undermine
Christianity! As if this weren't bad enough, he also claims that
it's really only the Jews in the United States who support Israel,
and that they manage to force it on everyone else.
Ptui!
I'm glad I checked the book out of the library rather than
buying it. (But I suppose I shouldn't have expected more for an
author who best-known work is an account of the Andes plane
survivors who resorted to cannibalism to survive.)