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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 02/07/92 -- Vol. 10, No. 32

MEETINGS UPCOMING:

Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon.
LZ meetings are in LZ 2R-158.

_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C

02/19 LZ: V IS FOR VENDETTTA by Alan Moore and David Lloyd (Dystopic
Graphic Novels)
03/11 LZ: THE FUTUROLOGICAL CONGRESS by Stanislaw Lem (Who defines
reality?)
04/01 LZ: THE LORD OF THE THINGS by Barry Trooks (Tolkien rip-offs)
04/22 LZ: WONDERFUL LIFE by Stephen Jay Gould (Science non-fiction as a
source of ideas)
05/13 LZ: ONLY BEGOTTEN DAUGHTER by James Morrow (Books we heard are
very good)

_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.
02/08 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Ginjer
Buchanan (Ace Books editor) (phone 201-933-2724 for
details) (Saturday)
02/15 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
03/30 Hugo Nomination Forms due

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: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 908-949-7076 homxc!11366ns
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 think something really has to be done about the trade
imbalance and these obstinate Japanese. The whole world knows that
the Japanese are the most adaptable people in the world. Look how
they took to rock and roll. We never adapted rock and roll to the
Japanese. Marilyn Monroe is also popular in Japan and we never had
to make a modified version of her. No, sirree! So why don't they
adapt better to American products?

THE MT VOID Page 2

All we get are the same tired excuses from the Japanese. The
American auto companies want to sell our cars; the Japanese people
won't buy. Why won't they buy? Well, for one thing, the steering
column is on the wrong side. That's how we make them. To re-tool
the plants to put the steering wheels on the right side would take
eighteen months. These changes take time! We explained that to
the Japanese in 1974 and we have told them about the eighteen-month
figure ever since and they keep complaining about which side the
column is on.

In January we sent the chairmen of the Big Three auto makers to
Japan to explain it again. (I forget their names; let's just call
them Larry, Curly, and Iacocca) to explain to the Japanese that we
will do whatever is necessary to sell cars in Japan. If right-
handed vehicles are what it takes to break into that market, we'll
sell them mail trucks. We've made mail trucks with right-handed
steering for years, but they don't seem to want to buy mail trucks
either. At this point you begin to wonder if they are bargaining
in good faith. Besides, Sweden used to drive on the wrong side of
the road too and they corrected the law so they drive on the right
side; Japan should be able to do the same thing.

It isn't like the United States hasn't bent over backwards to help
the Japanese adapt to American goods either. I remember hearing
one tractor company was having problems selling in Japan because
the Japanese were smaller and their feet did not reach the pedals.
The tractor company went that extra mile to develop blocks to strap
to the bottoms of Japanese shoes so they could reach the pedals.
We all know that if you go that extra mile for the customer you
should make the sale. But did we? No! The customer still went
with a Japanese tractor manufacturer. The Japanese have got to be
made to realize that it is not just Japanese who want to sell to
them any more. Now Americans want to sell to them. They have to
stop living in the past. I mean, who won the war anyway?

2. Thanks to Nick Sauer, who has agreed to be our new Holmdel
librarian (his location and contact information is listed above),
and thanks to Rebecca Schoenfeld for taking care of it until now
after our long-time librarian Tim Schroeder passed the torch.
(Okay, maybe that's a bad image when talking about books.) [-ecl]

3. Reminder: there will be an Japanese animation fest at the
Leeperhouse Sunday, February 9, at 1 PM.

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

The satisfied, the happy, do not live; they fall asleep
from habit, near neighbor to annihilation.
-- Miguel de Unamuno

ALTERNATE PRESIDENTS edited by Mike Resnick
Tor, 1992, ISBN 0-812-51192, $4.99.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper

(This is a very long review. If you'd rather skip the
commentary on each individual story, just read the first three
paragraphs and then skip to the summary in the last two. The same
is true if you want to avoid any possible spoilers.)

Now that alternate histories are experiencing a resurgence (or
can you have a resurgence without a previous period of great
interest?) and now that it's a Presidential election year, it's not
surprising that we have _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _P_r_e_s_i_d_e_n_t_s. What is moderately
surprising is that it is not edited by Gregory Benford and Martin
H. Greenberg (who edit the _W_h_a_t _M_i_g_h_t _H_a_v_e _B_e_e_n series), but by Mike
Resnick. Resnick also has _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _K_e_n_n_e_d_y_s in production, leading
one to believe in a division of focus here--Benford and Greenberg do
the international anthologies and Resnick does the ones with a
United States focus. This may be accidental, of course; only time
will tell.

In his introduction Resnick says these stories were all written
for this anthology, and they all bear a 1992 copyright date. Yet I
know that at least four (the Cadigan, the Gunn, the Moffett, and the
Resnick) appeared in magazines in 1991. Maybe I just don't
understand copyright.

For whatever reason, Resnick didn't or couldn't collect one
story for each President (is there anything interesting to be done
with James Polk or Franklin Pierce?), so we have twenty-eight
stories arranged chronologically by election year. (Some occur many
years after the change, so the stories are not in strictly
chronological order.) There are two 18th Century, ten 19th Century,
and sixteen 20th Century--not surprisingly, these are heavily skewed
to the most recent elections. This is probably for the best,
because (for whatever reason) the earlier stories are not as
involving. Whether this is due to the reader (or the author) being
less personally involved in the events, or whether the reader has
less knowledge of the earlier events (and this is of course related
to the first possibility), I don't know. But I do find alternate
histories set in ancient Persia or Byzantium involving, so it could
also be that the United States' early history is not inherently
interesting. (And how well will this anthology sell in other
countries, one wonders?)

"The Father of His Country" (1789) by Jody Lynn Nye, for
example, looks at what might have happened if Benjamin Franklin had
been chosen as the first President instead of George Washington.

Alternate Presidents January 18, 1992 Page 2

Told in the form of letters from John Adams to his wife, everything
is seen from a distance rather than in direct narration and, though
great change is implied, little is shown.

"The War of '07" (1800) by Jayge Carr puts Aaron Burr in the
White House instead of Thomas Jefferson in 1800. Burr's more
imperialistic tendencies effect some changes, though not always in
the direction one might expect. But again, the use of short
episodes keeps the reader from getting pulled into the story.

This changes with Thomas A. Easton's "Black Earth and Destiny"
(1824). Though the change-point here is the 1824 election, the
story takes place seventy-two years later, in a United States more
technological (at least in the biological sciences), but otherwise
little changed. Here at least we get to see a fully developed
character in the person of George Washington Carver as he struggles
between the desire for prestige and the desire to help his people.
I have a minor nit: Easton may carry this too far--he implies that
Carver's bachelorhood was due to his dedication to his work, but it
was certainly partially a result of his homosexuality. Still, the
description of Carver's background and how it affects his decision
at last give the reader something to grab on to.

Easton puts Jackson in the Presidency four years early. By
contrast Judith Moffett's "Chickasaw Slave" (1828) assumes he _n_e_v_e_r
gets in. Instead, Davy Crockett becomes President, and his land
reforms have unforeseeable--and far-reaching--consequences. The
story embodies the concept "tall oaks from little acorns grow,"
though I find the number of coincidences required dissatisfying.
Here, though, the main story is told on a small scale--the big
changes effected are almost all background, and so perhaps the
coincidences are forgivable. (This story first appeared in the
September 1991 _I_s_a_a_c _A_s_i_m_o_v'_s _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e.)

"How the South Preserved the Union" (1848) by Ralph Roberts is
a look at the different path North-South relations might have taken
had Millard Fillmore died at the same time as Zachary Taylor,
leaving David R. Atchison as President. (Resnick's claim that
Atchison, as President _p_r_o _t_e_m of the Senate, was actually President
for one day, when Zachary Taylor refused to take the oath on the
Sabbath, is open to dispute. One could equally claim that James
Polk remained President or that taking the oath is not required and
Taylor _w_a_s President.) Atchison, being less amenable to compromise,
would have accelerated the North-South rift--but with surprising
results. The story is unfortunately flawed by the first-person
narrator's interspersing comments about a cheap dime novel he is
reading which turns out to be an alternate history in his world that
actually describes our world. After a while, his comments on the
ridiculousness of it start to wear thin--Philip K. Dick may have
been able to pull it off in _T_h_e _M_a_n _i_n _t_h_e _H_i_g_h _C_a_s_t_l_e, but while
Roberts is a competent author, he is no Philip K. Dick. A more

Alternate Presidents January 18, 1992 Page 3

basic flaw, I think, was that the Civil War was fought over states'
rights as much as over economic issues, and the events Roberts
postulates ignore that, and so in the end fail to convince me.
(Okay, so now I sound like the narrator talking about his cheap
dime novel. Do as I say, not as I do.)

When I first saw that not every President would be covered, I
tried to guess which were skipped. The first one who came to mind
was Millard Fillmore so it was with some surprise that I discovered
that not one, but _t_w_o, stories centered on Fillmore: Roberts's story
and Jack L. Chalker's "Now Falls the Cold, Cold Night" (1856).
Roberts assumes Fillmore never became President; Chalker assumes not
only that he did but also that he won election in his own right in
1856. Sweet irony, then, that they both postulate very similar
results from very opposite premises. Chalker has the better
characterization and avoids the states' rights problem that Roberts
has, but leaves the reader up in the air at the end.

Abraham Lincoln won the Presidency in part because of his
success in the debates with Stephen Douglas. What if these debates
hadn't taken place? (Shades of 1960?) Bill Fawcett looks at this
in "Lincoln's Charge" (1860) and concludes that some things never
change: feelings, responsibilities, destiny. The story has three
weak points, though--one major and two minor. The major one is that
the debates did _n_o_t take place during the Presidential campaign of
1860 as indicated in the story, but in 1858 during the Illinois
senatorial campaign--an election which Lincoln lost. The debates
brought him into national prominence, true, and he did run again
against Douglas, but Fawcett clearly places the debates in the 1860
Presidential campaign and this is wrong. Beyond this, however, one
minor problem is the story's heavy emphasis on troop movements,
common in alternate history Civil War stories, but confusing to
those of us who are not Civil War buffs (even if we have seen the
entire PBS series). The other is the multiple points of view,
manageable in a novel, but distracting in a 7,000-word story. These
aside, though, "Lincoln's Charge" spends its time on the human price
of history, which makes it worthwhile as a story, and in fact more
so than as an intellectual exercise in historical speculation, given
its error. (It's ironic, because the same story could have been
written with the facts correct--by not debating in 1858, Lincoln
wouldn't be well-known to the national electorate and, assuming one
can find a rationale for his retaining the 1860 Republican
nomination, he probably would have lost.)

"We Are Not Amused" (1872) by Laura Resnick takes as its
extremely unlikely premise the election of Victoria Claflin Woodhull
in 1872. Even if this had occurred, getting Congress to pass all
the laws Laura Resnick postulates and approve all the Cabinet
appointments mentioned is beyond the realm of possibility. I
suppose this is being picky in a story meant humorously, but these,
combined with the _v_e_r_y stereotypical portrayal of Queen Victoria and

Alternate Presidents January 18, 1992 Page 4

the inclusion of a few too many anachronistic references intended as
humor (the Commissioner of Indian Affairs is named Talks Too Much
Woman, for example) kept me from enjoying this. I wasn't wild about
Howard Waldrop's "Ike at the Mike" either, so maybe I just want more
realistic alternate history, and need the "intellectual exercise"
part as well. I'm afraid that my reaction to "We Are Not Amused" is
that it is aptly named.

Just as Millard Fillmore figures in two stories, so does Samuel
Tilden. In Tappan King's "Patriot's Dream" (1876) Tilden manages to
avoid having the 1876 election stolen from him, but the story deals
more with his dreams, nightmares, and feelings than with the results
of such a change. In Michael P. Kube-McDowell's "I Shall Have a
Flight to Glory" (1880) Tilden loses the 1876 election but gets his
revenge in 1880. Some of the impact of the latter was telegraphed
to me because of a recent musical work which I suspect is unfamiliar
to most readers, but even so I found it one of the more thought-
provoking pieces in the book. (Kube-McDowell is one of the few
authors here who has written alternate history previously--in his
case, the novel _A_l_t_e_r_n_i_t_i_e_s.)

I guess it's politically correct to include a couple of stories
in which women become President, but Janet Kagan's "Love Our
Lockwood" (1888) suffers from the same fault as Laura Resnick's "We
Are Not Amused"--it's just not very likely. To take a candidate who
received a fraction of a percent of the vote (less than 150,000 out
of 10,5000,000 cast) and say, "What if this candidate had won?" may
be temporarily amusing but it is ultimately unsatisfying. This is
not to say that Kagan point is not a good one, but a more likely
scenario would have been preferable (at least to me).

"Plowshare" (1896) by Martha Soukup deals with women in
politics in a much more realistic fashion. William Jennings Bryan's
support of universal suffrage is well documented and figures
strongly here, as does his "anti-imperialist" position. But this
story, and others, also provides a counter-point to many alternate
histories by saying that frequently external forces can overcome a
local change, and international politics may not be swayed by the
choice of this leader over that.

Mike Resnick has written several alternate history stories, all
centered around Theodore Roosevelt and all mutually contradictory.
The ones I know of are "Bully!" (in the September 1991 issue of
_I_s_a_a_c _A_s_i_m_o_v'_s _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e and _B_w_a_n_a & _B_u_l_l_y! (Tor SF
Double #33)), "Over There" (in the April 1991 issue of _I_s_a_a_c
_A_s_i_m_o_v'_s _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e and _W_h_a_t _M_i_g_h_t _H_a_v_e _B_e_e_n _3:
_A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _W_a_r_s edited by Benford and Greenberg), and the one which
appears here, "The Bull Moose at Bay" (also in the November 1991
issue of _I_s_a_a_c _A_s_i_m_o_v'_s _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e). This one assumes
that Theodore Roosevelt was not injured during the 1912 campaign and
went on to victory. And once again, universal suffrage is the

Alternate Presidents January 18, 1992 Page 5

focus. Alas, Resnick--who has written many stories that make a
point without having the characters make long speeches about it--has
turned this into a series of declamations from Theodore Roosevelt on
why universal suffrage is right. And his "surprise" ending was not
a surprise to me. But that may be because...

...I know more about history than Resnick expects. In his
introduction to "A Fireside Chat" (1920) by Jack Nimersheim, Resnick
asks, "But how many of you know that [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt was
the defeated vice presidential candidate in 1920?" That hand madly
waving in the back of the room? That's me. But what if he had won,
or rather James Cox had won (because Warren G. Harding died shortly
before the election instead of after it) and then Cox was
assassinated by an isolationist, having the dual result of making
Roosevelt President and pushing the United States into the League of
Nations and a stronger international role in the 1920s? For better
or worse, Nimersheim leaves the ultimate results up in the air,
though historical parallels (and the story's closing line) seem to
indicate which direction Nimersheim thinks events will take.
(Obligatory nitpick: In our world Roosevelt got polio in August
1921. So too did he in Nimersheim's, but I would claim that being
President would have changed the course of his life enough that this
would be unlikely--he would be going different places, meeting
different people, and doing different things.)

Kristine Kathryn Rusch's "Fighting Bob" (1924) assumes the
Progressive Party candidate in 1924, Robert La Follette, won
(somehow--he did get a fair number of votes but still placed a
distant third in the popular vote and got few electoral votes). In
Rusch's world he still dies in 1925 (as in ours) but her story is
_n_o_t about President Burton K. Wheeler, but about how politicians in
1931 are trying to use La Follette's name and reputation to get
their candidates elected--even if their philosophies are
diametrically opposed. It's a cautionary tale on how politics does
indeed make strange bedfellows, and a warning to us all that one
must look behind the mask (in more ways than one!) to see the real
candidate. Many of the stories here have a point to make; Rusch's
may be the most immediately relevant. (Note: The Joe Stanislawski
they are trying to elect as Senator from Wisconsin is _n_o_t Joseph
McCarthy--he was only 25 years old and not eligible to run for the
Senate for another five years. I mention this because he's the
first person I think of when I hear of a Senator named Joe from
Wisconsin.)

"Truth, Justice, and the American Way" (1928) by Lawrence
Watt-Evans made me think a lot. Though in the end I disagreed with
his conclusions, I have to say he puts forth an interesting idea.
Briefly, the premise is that Franklin Roosevelt did not defeat
Herbert Hoover in 1932. Watt-Evans proposes that a Republican
victory would have led to our involvement in the war in Asia in the
1930s. Japan's defeat would have served as a warning to Germany's

Alternate Presidents January 18, 1992 Page 6

expansionist faction, resulting in the elimination of Hitler by more
"moderate" elements. Without a war to keep the people in line,
Stalin would also be removed. Sounds idyllic, right? Well, if you
don't want the gist of the story revealed, skip to the next
paragraph. Here goes. In this new world, the Holocaust never
happens. But in 1953, the Nuremberg Laws are still in effect in
Germany, and the whole world is as anti-Semitic as it ever was.
Without the collective guilt brought on by the death camps, no one
reconsiders their anti-Semitism or even feels guilty about it. The
President has a candidate for a diplomatic post--but he's Jewish.
The Japanese refuse to accept him as an ambassador. So where to
send him? The President and the Secretary of State eliminate a lot
of countries based on the countries' purported anti-Semitism. But
would England really be that anti-Semitic, even with Zionist
rebellion in Palestine? After all, until the Holocaust the idea of
a Jewish state in Palestine hadn't been a universal Jewish agenda.
(Come to that, it isn't even now.) Other countries he lists are
also questionable. But worse, he skips a whole collection of
possibilities: the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Greece,
Thailand, China, Korea, .... But even with these complaints, I
think this story is one that will stay with me for a long time. I
have said in the past that everyone who writes a "what if World War
II never happened?" assumes things would be better; I wanted to see
it done with things being worse. Watt-Evans doesn't quite do that,
but he does suggest that World War II and the Holocaust forced
people to face their own bigotry and prejudice, and that without
those events, bigotry would proceed unchecked. Watt-Evans is _n_o_t
saying that given a choice we should _c_h_o_o_s_e Holocaust and
adjustment, but that given the Holocaust, maybe we've learned
something from it. Have we? As I write this, the legislature of
New Jersey if fighting over whether to guarantee gays and lesbians
the right to work and live in peace and security. Will we use the
lessons of the past or not? (Watt-Evans has also written several
crosstime stories; this seems to be his first alternate history.)
[Note: The bill did in fact pass and has been signed into law.
Perhaps there is hope for the future after all.]

The first of Barry N. Malzberg's two stories in this volume is
"Kingfish" (1936). What if Huey Long had survived the attempt to
assassinate him in 1935 and had succeeded in displacing Franklin
Roosevelt as the Democratic candidate in 1936. What would his
down-home, common-sense philosophy have wrought? Malzberg's
conclusions are believable, but don't leave the reader with a
feeling of any real change. (Malzberg has written several previous
alternate histories, including two about other "alternate
Presidents": "All Assassins" in _W_h_a_t _M_i_g_h_t _H_a_v_e _B_e_e_n _1: _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e
_E_m_p_i_r_e_s edited by Benford and Greenberg and "January 1975" in the
January 1975 issue of _A_n_a_l_o_g.)

Barbara Delaplace's "No Other Choice" (1944) puts the decision
of whether or not to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Thomas

Alternate Presidents January 18, 1992 Page 7

E. Dewey's hands instead of Harry Truman's. But the real change is
not the person deciding, but what is decided, and why, and what it
leads to. For those who blame Truman for his decision, this story
provides some additional food for thought.

"The More Things Change ..." (1948) by Glen E. Cox is a fluff
piece whose entire point is revealed by the cover art. No great
historical changes are wrought. Yes, they might be in the future,
but an alternate history is supposed to give some answer to the
question "What if A happened instead of B?" not just ask it.
Explaining how A might have happened instead of B is interesting,
but more is needed. How Napoleon might have won at Waterloo makes
the background for an alternate history story; what happens after he
wins is the story.

"The Impeachment of Adlai Stevenson" (1952) by David Gerrold
suggests that even if Stevenson had won in 1952, the tenor of the
country would have eventually brought about his downfall. Here at
least there is some indication of on-going change, but I disagree
with what Gerrold seems to say would happen, or at least what his
characters believe. Then again, that may be Gerrold's intent--that
we cannot truly predict the results of our actions. It's not that
"the best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft a-gley," but that
even when they don't "gang aft a-gley" we don't get what we expect.
(Gerrold has previously written one "changing the past" story.)

Barry N. Malzberg's second story here is "Heavy Metal" (1960).
(I have no idea what the title means in this context.) This suffers
to some extent from the same problem that Cox's story had: it tells
the how of the change rather than the what then. But Malzberg's
look at the machinations behind the election are more serious than
Cox's and provide more insight into his characters. I'm not
claiming, mind you, that Malzberg's characters are completely
accurate representations of their historical parallels. After all,
this is fiction. But they are deeper, more three-dimensional
characters than those in "The More Things Change ...." And Malzberg
has always cultivated a more interesting writing style than others,
so stylistically "Heavy Metal" stands out as well.

What if Goldwater had won in 1964 and Richard Nixon became a
talk show host? "Fellow Americans" (1964) by Eileen Gunn (which
first appeared in the December 1991 issue of _I_s_a_a_c _A_s_i_m_o_v'_s _S_c_i_e_n_c_e
_F_i_c_t_i_o_n _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e) goes off in this highly unlikely direction. I
mean, if Nixon had any television charisma he would have won in
1960, right? There are some cute parts here, but I can't say that
scenes of the Nixons and the Quayles in a hot tub are what I read
alternate histories for.

Pat Cadigan follows an alternate path of history from the
campaign of 1968 in "Dispatches from the Revolution" (1968) (which
originally appeared in the July 1991 issue of _I_s_a_a_c _A_s_i_m_o_v'_s _S_c_i_e_n_c_e

Alternate Presidents January 18, 1992 Page 8

_F_i_c_t_i_o_n _M_a_g_a_z_i_n_e). Her technique in this, one of the last stories
in the book, is reminiscent of the first. That was a series of
letters; this is a series of excerpts from diaries, letters, and
other documents. The style makes the reader work a little harder at
piecing it all together, but the richness of the mosaic formed makes
it worthwhile.

The topic may be Presidents, but no anthology of American
alternate histories could avoid the Vietnam War. In "Suppose They
Gave a Peace ..." (1972), Susan Shwartz suggests that nothing is as
simple as people want to make it. As many of the stories suggest,
so this one too says that there is an inertia to history that may be
difficult to overcome.

1972 is the only Presidential election year which has two
stories. The first dealt with Vietnam; the second, Brian Thomsen's
"Paper Trail" (1972), deals with the other major event of the time:
Watergate. What if the break-in and other events had been revealed
_b_e_f_o_r_e the election. Unfortunately, the resulting changes are
hardly surprising (though admittedly it could have gone differently)
and in this case, the use of memos and headlines to unfold the story
results in a choppy, disjointed style and a somewhat unclear
description of the resulting events. Both Cadigan and Nye used
extended segments in clear prose, but Thomsen uses rapid-fire
headlines and brief memos, which give flavor but at the expense of
clarity.

Gerald Ford was not the President with the shortest term of
office, but he was the President with the shortest term in living
memory. Even so, Alexis A. Gilliland uses the idea of a victory by
him in 1976 as the beginning of the story "Demarche to Iran" (1976).
Gilliland's contention here--that Ford could have done better with
bumbling than with diplomacy--is not even very original. Many
humorous stories attribute success to luck, even the luck of
incompetents, rather than brains. But in those at least you get the
humor of the pratfalls. Now in our timeline Ford had his share of
pratfalls, but in this story even that is missing. (I suppose this
falls in the category of ironical humor, but it didn't do much for
me.)

Moving right along (have faith--we're nearing the end),
"Huddled Masses" (1984) by Laurence Person assumes that Walter
Mondale won in 1984. This apparently leads to changes in Central
America and Mexico, but Person never explains them or what decisions
or policies led to them. (Person has previously written one
crosstime story.)

And finally we have "Dukakis and the Aliens" (1988) by Robert
Sheckley, a grand master of off-beat science fiction who delivers
here a prime example to end this volume on a light-hearted note.
(Sheckley has done one previous "changing the past" story.)

Alternate Presidents January 18, 1992 Page 9

Okay, there we have it. Twenty-eight stories covering almost
all the Presidents as either primary or secondary characters.
(Missing were Madison, Monroe, Van Buren, William Henry Harrison,
Tyler, Polk, Pierce, Johnson, Arthur, McKinley, Wilson, and
Coolidge.) What I find most surprising is the absence of the
obvious turning points. No one wrote about Lincoln, McKinley, or
Kennedy _n_o_t being assassinated (any stories on the last may be being
held for _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _K_e_n_n_e_d_y_s), Franklin Roosevelt _b_e_i_n_g assassinated
by Zangara, William Henry Harrison not catching pneumonia at his
inauguration (his three-hour speech in the cold rain didn't help--a
warning to speech-makers) and dying a month later, and so on.
Whether this was a conscious effort on everyone's part, or just
coincidence I don't know, but it means the stories don't seem stale.

Of the stories, the best (in my opinion) are "Black Earth and
Destiny," "Lincoln's Charge," "I Shall Have a Flight to Glory,"
"Love Our Lockwood," "Truth, Justice, and the American Way,"
"Dispatches from the Revolution," and "Dukakis and the Aliens." The
others range from good to fair to so-so--there are no stinkers
(which is more than can be said of Presidents or Presidential
candidates). Obviously, this is a must-buy for alternate history
fans, but worthwhile even for the reader just looking for good
stories. Some knowledge of United States (and world) history is
strongly recommended.

THE EXILE KISS by George Alec Effinger
Doubleday Foundation, 1991, ISBN 0-385-41424-2, $11.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper

This, the third novel in Effinger Marid series, takes place in
large part outside the Budayeen, that great Arab metropolis of the
future. Mariid Audran and Friedlander Bey are kidnapped at the
start of the novel and left to die in the desert. The first half of
the book covers their struggles and adventures there; the second
half is about their revenge on those who arranged for their
kidnapping. The first part seems to draw rather heavily on the film
_L_a_w_r_e_n_c_e _o_f _A_r_a_b_i_a at times, but works well and even events that
seem superfluous turn out to be important.

Effinger has done his research well, but may expect more
knowledge of his readership than they have. For example, he follows
Arab custom in referring to a mother as "Um Jirji" (where Jirji is
her eldest son's name), but since she is also sometimes referred to
by her own name, this may lead to confusion. And he keeps his
calendar based on the Hegira, which requires some mental arithmetic
at times. But all this also means that _T_h_e _E_x_i_l_e _K_i_s_s feels
authentic. Effinger doesn't give the reader New York or London with
a couple of minarets stuck on and a reference to Friday prayers.
Instead he extrapolates from Cairo or Damascus, and achieves a much
better result. (He also has his final manuscripts read over by Arab
friends for errors--a highly commendable practice that other
authors would do well to emulate.)

As with the first two books (_W_h_e_n _G_r_a_v_i_t_y _F_a_i_l_s and _F_i_r_e _i_n _t_h_e
_S_u_n, both Hugo nominees), the story follows Marid's character
development and how he is changed by events. Unfortunately, _T_h_e
_E_x_i_l_e _K_i_s_s probably does not stand well on its own. Fortunately, I
can recommend that you read all three books, and since Effinger
writes clear prose with no padding, it will take less time to read
all three than to read a single bloated novel from the best-seller
list. In fact, it's probably worth re-reading them even if you have
already read them--Effinger is a solid writer.

Capsule review: _G_r_a_n_d _C_a_n_y_o_n is an iridescent
film. It looks entirely different from different
angles. As with a Picasso, each person must find
his/her own interpretation. Don't believe anyone
else as to what the film is about. Rating: high +1
(-4 to +4).

You made a mistake. Because of your mistake you are about to
die. Your loved ones will have to get along without you because
they have seen you alive for the last time. You have just lost what
would have been the rest of your life. Then a perfect stranger
reaches out a hand and saves your life. It is just a tiny action,
but it means you are back again in the world of the living. You are
going to have that rest-of-your-life after all. Do you see the
world any differently now? Darn right you do! Every good thing
that happens to you--and every bad thing--is a gift of the stranger.
Now the whole world looks surreal. You are much more aware of the
happy and unhappy events that make up the life you almost lost. You
suddenly have a sense of wonder about incidents you might never have
thought about the day before. That is at least one way to look at
Lawrence Kasdan's enigmatic _G_r_a_n_d _C_a_n_y_o_n. My wife sat on my right
and claimed to have seen a film making a philosophical point about
what comes of good intentions. A friend who sat on my left (even
slopping over into my seat) saw a film intended to make a strong but
not overly familiar political point that our cities are
deteriorating beyond the point of repair. These are remarkably
different interpretations of a single film. Perhaps the greatest
virtue of _G_r_a_n_d _C_a_n_y_o_n is its strange ambiguity.

Mack (played by Kevin Kline) is on his way home from a
basketball game in urban Los Angeles when his car breaks down in
just the wrong neighborhood. He calls for a tow truck but has the
feeling he may not see it come. Sure enough, five youths with
obviously bad intentions are about to attack him when the tow truck
driver, Simon (played by Danny Glover), arrives and diplomatically
defuses the situation. Mack is so grateful to Simon he feels he
wants to help improve Simon's life. Then an unrelated "miraculous"
event happens to Mack's wife Claire (played by Mary McDonnell of
_D_a_n_c_e_s _w_i_t_h _W_o_l_v_e_s and _M_a_t_e_w_a_n). Soon events are intertwining the
lives of these three people, Mack's secretary Dee (played by Mary-
Louise Parker of _L_o_n_g_t_i_m_e _C_o_m_p_a_n_i_o_n and _F_r_i_e_d _G_r_e_e_n _T_o_m_a_t_o_e_s), Dee's
friend Jane (played by Alfre Woodard, who played Winnie Mandela to
Glover's Nelson Mandela in--what else?--_M_a_n_d_e_l_a), and Mack's best
friend Davis (played by Steve Martin).

Grand Canyon January 30, 1992 Page 2

Lawrence Kasdan co-produced, directed, and co-authored the
screenplay with his wife. Together, the Kasdans create a story of
rapture and disaster. It is a story of mysticism and self-reliance.
It is about good luck and bad luck, yet it never becomes soap opera.
It is always captivating, yet it is never clear where it is coming
from. When the film ends, you sit watching the credits asking,
"Well, what was that about?" I give it a high +1 on the -4 to +4
scale. (P.S. Checking the _V_a_r_i_e_t_y review, I find out that _t_h_e_y
think it is a film about survival strategies in L.A.)

Capsule review: Melanie Griffith plays a half-
Jewish woman who during World War II goes to Germany
to spy on the Nazis and to save some of her family
hiding in Berlin. This is an old-fashioned sort of
spy film much like Hitchcock might have made in the
1940s. This film is good fun. Rating: low +2 (-4 to
+4).

During World War II the sort of spy film that was made had
generally normal sorts of people with normal sorts of goals. People
like James Cagney would be normal, everyday Americans shocked by
what they saw in Germany or Japan. The sort of thing we got was
_F_o_r_e_i_g_n _C_o_r_r_e_s_p_o_n_d_e_n_t or _B_l_o_o_d _o_n _t_h_e _S_u_n. When the war was over,
Hitchcock added some gloss and star power with films like _N_o_t_o_r_i_o_u_s.
By the early 1960s, however, the personal sort of behind-the-lines
spy story, such as _T_h_e _C_o_u_n_t_e_r_f_e_i_t _T_r_a_i_t_o_r or _T_o_r_n _C_u_r_t_a_i_n, was rare
and the spy film was giving way to the more spectacular sabotage
films such as _T_h_e _G_u_n_s _o_f _N_a_v_a_r_o_n_e. When James Bond came along,
there was much more gloss and in addition, the spy had become the
infallible super-spy. Even then the stakes could be as small as a
decoder. But that was not true for long. Soon Bond had to fight
bigger and bigger threats. The villains threatened Fort Knox,
Miami, the space program. The stories got more and more tongue-in-
cheek. In _M_o_o_n_r_a_k_e_r the plot was to destroy the whole world. Then
our agents started being people like John Rambo, who knows that you
don't need brain power--you need fire power. _T_h_e _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d
_O_c_t_o_b_e_r restored some of the need for brain power, but it was brain
power together with fire power. Now there is _S_h_i_n_i_n_g _T_h_r_o_u_g_h and it
is a story that Hitchcock might have done in 1946. We have
relatively normal people who make mistakes and get hurt and feel.
Producer/director/writer David Seltzer seems to have forgotten
everything we have learned about the spy film since 1950. Gee, I
hope he makes a bundle.

We are told the entire story from a regrettable framing
sequence (more on that later). Linda Voss (played by Melanie
Griffith) is being interviewed by the BBC about her experiences in
World War II. In flashback we see the young Linda as a romantic who
loves movies, particularly about Germany. Her father is a German
Jew who fled because of the oppression. But Voss still dreams of
visiting Germany to bring the rest of her family out. With her
quick mind and a general high efficiency she becomes a legal
secretary and is assigned to lawyer Ed Leland (played by Michael
Douglas). There seems to be more to Leland than meets the eye,
however. He seems to disappear on mysterious missions for the

Shining Through February 2, 1992 Page 2

government. Voss is intrigued by both the man and his job. In the
first hour there is a romance between the two, but the film takes
off in the second hour when Voss gets her opportunity to go to
Germany to rescue her family and at the same time do some spying for
the government.

The technical aspects of _S_h_i_n_i_n_g _T_h_r_o_u_g_h are for the most part
well-executed. The recreation of the streets of Berlin during the
war feels particularly realistic. David Seltzer was both executive
producer and director; as director, he could see what was needed to
make a street look authentic and then as holder of the purse strings
he could allot himself the budget to create the effect he wanted.
The script is witty and suspenseful though occasionally it stretches
credulity a bit. There are some far-fetched coincidences (Hitchcock
films often have the same problem). But the biggest flaw is a
framing sequence which robs the story of much of its suspense. As
the story is related by Voss years after the war, there is no doubt
that Voss will survive all the events. The old age makeup,
incidentally, is not nearly as good as it is in _F_o_r _t_h_e _B_o_y_s.
Perhaps that is the only area where that film is better than this.
The framing sequence does give Seltzer a very clever excuse to have
the German sequences shot in English. Michael Kamen provides a
score including an interesting piano theme under the opening
credits.

Besides Douglas and Griffith, _S_h_i_n_i_n_g _T_h_r_o_u_g_h features Sir John
Gielgud, generally considered to be one of the greatest living
actors. This film does not sufficiently show off his talents,
though it is hard to imagine any film that would. Liam Neeson, best
known for the title role in _D_a_r_k_m_a_n, plays a Nazi officer and Joely
Richardson plays an attractive high-born German woman who befriends
Voss. (Richardson is the daughter of director Tony Richardson and
actress Vanessa Redgrave.) Overall a very enjoyable--I would rate
it a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.

Very mild spoiler: Seltzer might have done well to study his
history a little better. Peenemunde is not a town in central
Germany as it appears on the map in the film. It is an island at
the north-east tip of Germany at the mouth of the Peene River. I
could be wrong about this, but I do not believe that there were
factories at Peenemunde. The V-1 and A-4 (a.k.a. the V-2) were
launched from Peenemunde but the A-4 (at least) was built at
Nordhausen, which may well be the place Seltzer called "Peenemunde."
Nordhausen was at least inland some distance and might have been in
that position on the map Voss saw. One more comment about the
framing sequence: it almost certainly was an after-thought to make
the film more commercial and to give it a much happier but less
realistic ending.