@@@@@ @   @ @@@@@    @     @ @@@@@@@   @       @  @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@
         @   @   @ @        @ @ @ @    @       @     @   @   @   @   @  @
         @   @@@@@ @@@@     @  @  @    @        @   @    @   @   @   @   @
         @   @   @ @        @     @    @         @ @     @   @   @   @  @
         @   @   @ @@@@@    @     @    @          @      @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@

                        Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
                    Club Notice - 03/13/92 -- Vol. 10, No. 37


       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

       04/01  LZ: BAR A YEAR by Lois McMaster Bujold (Drinking in SF)
       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.
       03/14  Film Festival: SOME LIKE IT HOT and OSCAR (Sunday)
       03/21  Forbidden Planet: Signing by John Byrne (2-3 PM)
       03/21  NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
                       (phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
       03/30  Hugo Nomination Forms due
       04/11  SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Nicholas
                       Jainschigg (artist) (phone 201-933-2724 for details)
                       (Saturday)

       HO Chair:     John Jetzt        HO 1E-525  908-834-1563 hocpb!jetzt
       LZ Chair:     Rob Mitchell      HO 1D-505A 908-834-1259 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. Okay, many of you have come to look to the MT VOID to get a hint
       of  what  the  headlines of tomorrow are going to be.  (Okay, maybe
       it's only a few of you.)  But this time what I have for you is BIG.
       Really  big.   (Are  you  listening, Pulitzer committee?  I guess I
       don't know why you would be.  You never listened the other  times!)
       I'm talking about the BIGGEST U.S. GOVERNMENT SCANDAL OF ALL TIMES!
       I am talking about _O_p_e_r_a_t_i_o_n _D_e_s_e_r_t _S_t_o_n_e_w_a_l_l, the plot to not tell
       the  American  people  who  won the Persian Gulf war until after an
       election almost two years later, a plot to completely stonewall the











       THE MT VOID                                                  Page 2



       American people!

       Not that  the  government's  story  about  who  won  has  not  been
       crumbling  over  time.   Little chinks have been falling out of the
       stonewall.  As soon as the war was  over  and  Iraq  went  back  to
       business  as  usual,  people  started  asking,  where  was  the big
       victory?  How come we still saw Saddam Hussein  grinning  like  the
       Chesire cat on CNN.  And the answer we got was big victory parades.
       And of course there is the issue of the Iraqi nuclear program  that
       nobody  can stop.  And the chemical warfare program.  Maybe what we
       hit really _w_e_r_e baby food factories disguised to look like  defense
       plants disguised to look like baby food factories.

       Now we hear that all the smart weapons we used  really  were  smart
       only  by  America's education standards.  If a missile can name two
       major countries in North America, it's  considered  smart  by  high
       school  standards.   It  was  recently  revealed  that  the Patriot
       Missile had as much effect against SCUD missiles as  were  shooting
       date  palms  at the incoming SCUDs--which in two or three instances
       we did.

       Look in the near future to start hearing  leaks  about  the  tragic
       mistake  we  made  recently  because  our  President  confused  the
       Republican Guard with the Republican National Committee.   And  how
       much  longer  can Bush hush up that what we were told were big gas-
       guzzling limos in D.C. are really tanks  of  the  Iraqi  Occupation
       Forces.   Look for confirmation that that really _w_a_s Saddam Hussein
       who was seen buying everything in  sight  at  a  McLean,  Virginia,
       shopping mall.

       Oh, and remember you read it here first.

       2. I apologize for the messed-up table on page 5 of my Boskone  con
       report  in the last issue.  When I ported the document from the Sun
       to the Amdahl, one of the scripts scrambled the macros.  [-ecl]


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



            Wildest dreams *are* the necessary first steps
            toward scientific investigation.
                                          -- Charles S. Peirce




















                              BRAIN CHILD by George Turner
                William Morrow & Company, 1991, ISBN 0-688-10595-5, $20.
                           A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
                            Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper



               A year ago I reviewed _A _P_u_r_s_u_i_t _o_f _M_i_r_a_c_l_e_s, a collection of
          short stories by George Turner.  One of the stories was "On the
          Nursery Floor" and at the time I said it showed the influence of
          such works as Philip Wylie's _G_l_a_d_i_a_t_o_r and Olaf Stapledon's _O_d_d _J_o_h_n
          without adding a lot to them.  In _B_r_a_i_n _C_h_i_l_d Turner pulls his
          camera back, as it were, and shows us more of the surroundings of
          the experiment, and more of the consequences.

               _B_r_a_i_n _C_h_i_l_d, I should explain, is about a government experiment
          to enhance intelligence.  In this regard it is similar to Robert
          Charles Wilson's _T_h_e _D_i_v_i_d_e, which I recently reviewed, but while
          Wilson's work is set in present-day Canada (with the experiment
          having been carried out in the United States), Turner's is set in
          the Australia of the 2040s, a somewhat grotty, overpopulated,
          heavily structured and controlled society.  Into this world is
          thrown, only partially prepared by his eighteen years in a state
          orphanage, David Chance.  Seven years later, he gets a letter from a
          man claiming to be his father--a man who was one of the twelve
          children produced as part of an intelligence experiment in 2002.  So
          begins David's quest for the truth about the experiment, the
          children produced, and the "legacy" they were rumored to have left.

               "On the Nursery Floor" consisted of interviews with various
          people who had contact with the children.  _B_r_a_i_n _C_h_i_l_d expands these
          interviews and adds the events surrounding the interviews.  The
          interviews are no longer an end in themselves, but the means to an
          end (an end, I might add, considerably changed from what is
          described in "On the Nursery Floor").  As a result, Turner can add
          to the texture of his society and this, rather than the "supermen"
          themselves, is where he does best.  His society is much the same as
          the ones he has used in other stories, but these are not all part of
          some single "Future History."  Instead, they form a set of "Possible
          Histories"--a variety of paths Australia might take.  (There seems
          to be little interaction between Australia and the rest of the world
          in Turner's stories, reflecting perhaps Australia's biological and
          historical isolation.)  Turner shows how information will become a
          commodity of great value--and how this will lead to more forms of
          control.  Given Turner's society, the ending of the book is more
          satisfactory than that of the short story, and perhaps it was seeing
          the ramifications of his society as he fleshed it out that led
          Turner to change the resolution.

               I recommend _B_r_a_i_n _C_h_i_l_d for its combination of societal
          extrapolation, inquiry into the nature of intelligence, and











          Brain Child                March 4, 1992                      Page 2



          scientific mystery.  Turner's books are gradually becoming more
          available in the United States (and a good thing that is), so look
          for them.

               (Note: On page 58, Turner has a character describing his search
          for support for the intelligence project say: "The group I thought
          would back me by hitting the public in the entertainment field--and
          that's where the ratbag opinions were really formed--was the science
          fiction writers and fan clubs.  Not a bit of it!  They didn't _l_i_k_e
          science.  It was intrusive, obscure, boring, and unimaginative--got
          in the way of real creativity!  I tell you, Davey, in politics you
          learn something new and silly every day.  It makes you wonder how we
          ever came out of the caves."  Turner may not make any friends with
          this line, but he's right on the money.)




















































                                 RAFT by Stephen Baxter
                         ROC, 1992, ISBN 0-451-45130-9, $4.99.
                           A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
                            Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper



               Sunday, 10 AM, Boskone, talking to Mark's college roommate: "So
          what have you read that you liked lately?"  "Oh, [some books and] I
          really liked _R_a_f_t by Stephen Baxter."

               Sunday, 11 AM, Boskone panel on nominating for the Hugos: "Yes,
          you over there?"  "I recommend _R_a_f_t by Stephen Baxter."

               Sunday, 11 PM, logging into Usenet, Chuq Von Rospach talks
          about: "...  a fine first novel like _R_a_f_t (by Stephen Baxter, ROC.
          If you're a hard SF junkie, grab it, especially if you liked
          _R_i_n_g_w_o_r_l_d)"

               Thursday, 3 PM, chatting with a friend about books, he says:
          "You know what I really enjoyed recently?  _R_a_f_t ...."  "... by
          Stephen Baxter, right?"

               By this point, of course, I was convinced that _R_a_f_t had not
          only a perfectly constructed plot, marvelous multi-dimensional
          characters, and more ideas than Plato, Kant, and Olaf Stapledon
          combined, but also the cure for AIDS and the Mrs. Fields cookie
          recipe.

               It doesn't have the cookie recipe.

               Well, okay, it doesn't have the cure either, and it's not the
          greatest British novel since _D_a_v_i_d _C_o_p_p_e_r_f_i_e_l_d, but it is a very
          competently done hard science story a la Clarke and Niven (both of
          whom are quoted on the cover) and Clement and Heinlein (who aren't).
          The back blurb gives you the premise in its first sentence: "Imagine
          a universe whose force of gravity is one billion times stronger than
          today's."  (Though clearly that last word should have been "ours,"
          and is this an American billion or a British billion?)  Somehow a
          spaceship from our universe crossed into this one and got stranded
          many generations ago, and at the time of the story we have three
          distinct societies: the Raft, the Miners, and the Boneys.

               The plot is not all that original.  There is a menace.  The
          three groups, each of which hates and/or distrusts the other two,
          will have to learn to cooperate.  Forgotten knowledge will have to
          be relearned.  Our hero, a seventeen-year-old boy, will have many
          adventures.  Odd physical effects in this universe will amaze the
          reader, and so on.













          Raft                       March 5, 1992                      Page 2



               There are some intriguing ideas, but all have to do with weird
          physics or biology.  As far as sociology, psychology, or philosophy
          go, no new ideas are put forth.  The values are Heinleinian, as are
          the characters.  In fact, I would probably describe _R_a_f_t as what we
          would have gotten had Hal Clement and Robert Heinlein ever
          collaborated.  (The scenes with Rees carrying books of logarithm
          tables had me practically yelling, "_S_t_a_r_m_a_n _J_o_n_e_s!")  It also
          suffers from a section seemingly heavily inspired by George Pal's
          _W_h_e_n _W_o_r_l_d_s _C_o_l_l_i_d_e, which was at times painful to read.  A
          derivation needs to vary from its source or it reads as a stock
          piece at best, or plagiarism at worst.  In this case, it is the
          former, since the original is far to well known for anyone to think
          it would be unfamiliar to the readers.

               Is this damning with faint praise?  I don't think so.  Okay, so
          _R_a_f_t won't win the Pulitzer Prize this year.  But I think it a not
          unworthy choice for a Hugo nomination.  Even with its flaws--and it
          is, after all, a first novel--it is far better than most of what
          I've seen from the past year.















































                                Nebula Nominees (1992)
                            (Courtesy of Chuq Von Rospach)


       NOVEL

       Barnes, John, _O_r_b_i_t_a_l _R_e_s_o_n_a_n_c_e (Tor)
       Bujold, Lois McMaster, _B_a_r_r_a_y_a_r (Baen)
       Bull, Emma, _B_o_n_e _D_a_n_c_e (Ace)
       Cadigan, Pat, _S_y_n_n_e_r_s (Bantam/Spectra)
       Sterling, Bruce and Gibson, Bill, _T_h_e _D_i_f_f_e_r_e_n_c_e _E_n_g_i_n_e (Bantam)
       Swanwick, Michael, _S_t_a_t_i_o_n_s _o_f _t_h_e _T_i_d_e (_I_A_S_F_M; Morrow)


       NOVELLA

       Ash, Paul, "Man Opening A Door" (_A_n_a_l_o_g)
       Bishop, Michael, "Apartheid, Superstrings and Mordecai Thubana"
               (Axolotl, _F_u_l_l _S_p_e_c_t_r_u_m _3, Doubleday/Foundation)
       Kress, Nancy, "Beggars in Spain" (Axolotl; _I_A_S_F_M)
       Resnick, Mike, "Bully!" (Axolotl; _I_A_S_F_M; Tor)
       Rusch, Kristine Kathryn, "The Gallery of His Dreams" (Axolotl;
               _I_A_S_F_M)
       Willis, Connie, "Jack" (_I_A_S_F_M)


       NOVELETTE

       Aldrige, Ray, "Gate of Faces" (_F&_S_F)
       Connor, Mike, "Guide Dog" (_F&_S_F)
       Fowler, Karen Joy, "Black Glass" (_F_u_l_l _S_p_e_c_t_r_u_m _3,
               Doubleday/Foundation)
       Kelly, James Patrick, "Standing in Line with Mr. Jimmy" (_I_A_S_F_M)
       Lethem, Jonathan, "The Happy Man" (_I_A_S_F_M)
       Shepard, Lucius and Frazier, Robert, "The All-Consuming" (_P_l_a_y_b_o_y;
               _I_A_S_F_M)
       Shwartz, Susan, "Getting Real" (_N_e_w_e_r _Y_o_r_k, Roc)


       SHORT STORY

       Bisson, Terry, "They're Made Out of Meat" (_O_m_n_i)
       Brennert, Alan, "Ma Qui" (_F&_S_F; Author's Choice Monthly,
               Pulphouse)
       Fowler, Karen Joy, "The Dark" (_F&_S_F)
       Kessel, John, "Buffalo" (_F_i_r_e_s _o_f _t_h_e _P_a_s_t, St. Martin's Press;
               F&SF)
       Soukup, Martha, "Dog's Life" (_A_m_a_z_i_n_g)
       Stewart, Gregory, "the button, and what you know" (_A_m_a_z_i_n_g)

















                                   MISSISSIPPI MASALA
                            A film review by Mark R. Leeper
                             Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper



                    Capsule review:  What could have been prosaic
               Romeo-and-Juliet material has more interest when the
               communities are Indian and black and the woman's
               father is an Indian exile from Uganda who dreams of
               returning.  Rating: +2 (-4 to +4).
          The advance publicity made _M_i_s_s_i_s_s_i_p_p_i _M_a_s_a_l_a look like another
          Romeo and Juliet story told on the backdrop of a  cultural clash.
          In a way that us what it is, but it also rises above that to tell
          the more interesting story of a man who has lost his country because
          of the color of his skin and how he must decide whether he is
          willing to pay the price to get it back.  It is a story of Indian-
          black racial tensions on two continents in the 1970s and the 1990s.

               In 1972 Idi Amin's reign of terror is reaching out to all non-
          black residents of Uganda.  Jay (played by Roshan Seth) is a liberal
          Indian lawyer practicing in Uganda.  After having given too frank an
          interview to the BBC, Jay is thrown in jail.  A friend bribes Jay's
          way out of prison but, like all non-blacks, Jay is thrown out of
          Uganda together with his wife and his young daughter Mina.  He flees
          first to England, but finally settles down with an Indian community
          in Mississippi.  There he does little but dream of getting the new
          Ugandan government to restore his lands.  His wife supports the
          family by running a liquor store in a black neighborhood.  Mina
          (played by Sarita Choudhury), now grown up, becomes romantically
          involved with a black man, Demetrius (played by Denzel Washington),
          who runs a  carpet cleaning company.  There are the predictable
          repercussions in the two communities.

               There are several nice ironies in the resulting conflict.
          Demetrius believes that the Indians behave too much like the whites.
          Yet what we see of Demetriius's family shows them living very much
          the standard white American lifestyle.  They look a lot like the
          All-American family.  Joe Seneca, incidentally, gives a stand-out
          performance as Demetrius's father.  It is Mina's family that lives
          int he squalid Motel Monte Cristo and maintains their traditional
          customs.  It is the Indian Jay who wants to go back to Africa to
          live, not the blacks.  One black does toy with the idea, but it is
          clear the black family has roots too deeply set in the United
          States.  There are some nice character portraits and vignettes of
          the Indian community.  In one amusing scene we see a motel clerk
          practicing his bicycle riding and his phone answering at the same
          time.

               Director Mira Nair previously did _S_a_l_a_a_m _B_o_m_b_a_y which was
          popular with the critics, but this is the more entertaining film.  I
          rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.














                                     WAYNE'S WORLD
                            A film review by Mark R. Leeper
                             Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper



                    Capsule review:  It never Waynes, but it bores.
               Wayne and Garth have the potential to do some funny
               comedy but most of this film just sparks without
               igniting.  Rating: 0 (-4 to +4).

               One of the most standard architectures for a comedy team is the
          straight and the wacky.  The straight person will generally seem
          either just very normal or perhaps romantic.  The wacky person is,
          well, wacky.  Examples are Crosby and Hope, Burns and Allen, Abbott
          and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Rowan and Martin, and even Bergen
          and McCarthy.  Generally the wacky person gets most of the laughs
          and the straight person gets top billing just for setting up the
          wacky person's jokes.  There is more potential when you have two or
          more comics playing off each other as you did with the Marx Brothers
          or what is to my mind the best of the teams, Laurel and Hardy.  So
          Mike Myers and Dana Carvey--playing their _S_a_t_u_r_d_a_y _N_i_g_h_t _L_i_v_e alter
          egos Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar--start with a plus.  Both are
          comics.  There is potential for some really good humor.
          Unfortunately, they rarely play off each other for laughs.  Either
          each does his own thing or they just both do the same thing.
          Wayne's main thing is to make a joke or do something clever and then
          flash a big open-mouthed grin as if he were standing in front of a
          cheering audience.  He also negates sentences by adding a belated "
          ... not."  Garth's thing is to act a little befuddled and stupid.
          Not the most auspicious starting material, but with enough
          personality the team could have potential.  Where they go wrong is
          that they are just not all that winning, and most of their gags are
          familiar and not funny.

               Wayne and Garth have a public access television show on cable
          television.  The show is done on almost no budget from the basement
          of the house where Wayne lives with his parents.  The idea is that
          in spite of the low budget of the cable production, they are
          supposed to be the best thing on television.  Sadly, their cable
          hijinx are not all that funny and leave one wondering what the
          attraction is to their cable program.  (SPOILER ALERT: They sell out
          to commercialism but realize that commercialism is not what they
          really want.  George Romero did the same basic plot considerably
          better in _K_n_i_g_h_t_r_i_d_e_r_s.)

               Besides the two main characters, the film features Tia Carrere
          as Wayne's singer girlfriend from Hong Kong.  Her singing, like
          Wayne's program, is just never as good as the script calls for it to
          be.  Rob Lowe is a sleazy, slimy television promoter who is more
          style than substance.  One of the better bit parts is Ed O'Neill as











          Waynes World               March 7, 1992                      Page 2



          the doughnut shop owner with a darker side.

               As in an _A_i_r_p_l_a_n_e! film, about a quarter of the jokes but, but
          unlike in an _A_i_r_p_l_a_n_e! film, the jokes do not come nearly fast
          enough.  At times the film drags.  That is particularly bad since
          the plot is predictable and if you know what is going to happen, you
          wish it would get it over with.  Nearly every funny joke in the film
          is an allusion to or lampooning the entertainment industry.  Most
          are meta-jokes that poke fun at product placements or actors talking
          to the camera.  There are several film and television allusions.
          They give the film some chuckles but still too few laughs.  _W_a_y_n_e'_s
          _W_o_r_l_d is often on the edge of being funny, but rarely crosses that
          line.  Even at 95 minutes the film is often too slow and just not
          rewarding enough.  I give the film a flat 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.




















































                                      Boskone 29
                                    (Part 2 of 2)
                            Con report by Evelyn C. Leeper
                           Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper

                             Hugoes for Electronic Fanac?
                                    Saturday, 4 PM
                           Saul Jaffe (mod), Evelyn Leeper

            Originally Teresa Nielsen Hayden was scheduled to be on this panel,
       but she didn't make it.  Probably just as well, because this way we
       didn't outnumber the audience.  Well, actually, there were four people
       in the audience: Barbara Cormack, George Flynn, Mark Leeper, and Kate
       Pott.

            The discussion centered more around whether electronic fanzines
       should be eligible for any Hugoes than whether a person could be
       eligible as a fan writer for what they had written in the electronic
       media.  This is probably because asking the latter question is useless:
       if someone writes 100,000 words electronically, but has only 100
       published in a traditional paper fanzine, s/he is just as eligible as
       someone whose work all appeared in traditional fanzines.  Yet it's
       obvious that the 100,000-word writer is being judged on the electronic
       work far more than the non-electronic.

            I somehow don't feel like recounting all the old arguments for
       electronic fanzines.  An appeal to environmental consciousness is not
       likely to sway many minds, but what the hell, I'll throw it in here.

            Okay: ground rules.  Currently a "professional publication" (zine
       or other) is one with a press run of over 10,000.  A semi-prozine is any
       "generally available" non-professional publication which fulfills two of
       the following conditions: a press run over 1000, accepts paid
       advertising, pays contributors in other than copies, provides half the
       support of at least one person, or declares itself a semi-prozine.  A
       fanzine is a "generally available" non-professional publication which is
       not a semi-prozine.

            The major problems seem to be in deciding what "generally
       available" means and what a "press run" is.  I think we agreed that
       "generally available" did not mean universally available (of course,
       "we" here is a very small number).  For example, a homeless person has
       no address to which a traditional fanzine could be mailed, yet that does
       not mean that a traditional fanzine is not "generally available."  So
       the argument that "not everyone has a computer and a modem" doesn't
       apply; it's rather whether _e_n_o_u_g_h people have them, or access to them,
       to make an electronic fanzine "generally available."  If someone insists
       on faxing their fanzine, is it "generally available"?  After all, there
       are fax machines for rent in libraries, drug stores, and mail drop
       stores across the country.  If faxing is allowed, then I should point
       out that ATTMAIL will send electronic mail to a fax number, so that











       Boskone 29                 Feburary 17, 1992                      Page 2



       straight-text electronic fanzines are at least as accessible as faxed
       fanzines.  For that matter, if a fanzine publisher refuses to send any
       copies of his/her fanzine overseas (because of the trouble and expense),
       does that disqualify it?  That would eliminate 95% of the potential
       audience, yet most people would not rule such a fanzine out as being not
       "generally available."

            As far as press run, it would seem that changing that to
       "circulation" would make sense, since "circulation" is the commonly-used
       term these days.  Of course, one then has to determine the circulation
       of a publication.  But given that editors of hardcover lines have been
       nominated for best professional editor when those lines had average
       press runs/circulations of under 10,000, it seems as if it's only in the
       fanzine category that the committees have decided to be strict about the
       10,000 limit.  (It is, of course, ironic that on the one hand, the
       complaint is that the circulation of electronic fanzines is too high--
       though most have circulations comparable to paper fanzines--and on the
       other hand that the fanzines aren't "generally available."

            (As a side note, I would say that the first step is to say that a
       professional publication has to have some monetary aspect connected with
       it.  If a science fiction fan won the lottery and started distributing
       15,000 copies of his/her fanzine to everyone at every convention s/he
       went to, would that make it a professional publication?)

            Fashioning rules to make things fit where they should isn't easy.
       The test cases we proposed were _A_n_a_l_o_g, Baen hardcovers, _F_r_e_d'_s _F_a_n_z_i_n_e
       _f_o_r _t_h_e _B_l_i_n_d, _L_o_c_u_s, _N_e_w _Y_o_r_k _R_e_v_i_e_w _o_f _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n, Pulphouse
       "Author's Choice" series, _Q_u_a_n_t_a, and _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t.  _F_r_e_d'_s _F_a_n_z_i_n_e
       _f_o_r _t_h_e _B_l_i_n_d is a fictional (not fiction!) fanzine--what if someone
       took a traditional fanzine, but recorded it on audio-cassette (or CD)
       for the blind?  Assuming anyone, blind or not, could get it, is this
       still a fanzine?  Even though it requires special equipment to play
       back?  Does it matter if it's cassette or CD?  _Q_u_a_n_t_a is an electronic
       fiction fanzine that comes out quarterly and is transmitted in
       Postscript* so it must be printed to be read; does this make it a
       hard-copy fanzine?  (By the way, it has a distribution of under 500.)

            Anyway, the consensus in categorizing these things was:

            _A_n_a_l_o_g                                prozine
            Baen hardcovers                       prozine
            _F_r_e_d'_s _F_a_n_z_i_n_e _f_o_r _t_h_e _B_l_i_n_d          fanzine
            _L_o_c_u_s                                 prozine
            _N_e_w _Y_o_r_k _R_e_v_i_e_w _o_f _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n      semi-prozine
            Pulphouse "Author's Choice" series    semi-prozine
            _Q_u_a_n_t_a                                fanzine
            _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t                      ?
       __________
         * Postscript is a registered trademark of someone.












       Boskone 29                 Feburary 17, 1992                      Page 3



            Since there's no consensus on which category _S_F-_L_o_v_e_r_s _D_i_g_e_s_t falls
       in, I suppose I'll have to nominate both it as a fanzine and Saul as a
       professional editor and see what the committee decides.  (If you're
       planning on nominating it, this may be the best approach to make sure it
       makes _s_o_m_e category on the ballot.)

            After the panel a bunch of us went to the Student Prince for
       dinner.  Leaving the convention at 5 PM rather than 6 meant that we had
       no trouble getting a table, though it did get crowded later on.  Dave
       ordered the grilled game assortment (bear, buffalo, venison, elk, and
       lion).  Mark suggested that he order a plate of lamb chops as well, so
       the lion could lie down with the lamb.

            After dinner we returned for the play, but the sound system was so
       bad that anyone who didn't attend the banquet had no chance of hearing
       the dialogue, so we skipped out after the awards for the parties
       instead.  Yolen, in presenting the Skylark Award, told of her experience
       when she won it.  The Skylark is a very nice piece of crystal, so she
       set it on the window ledge in her kitchen.  Then, as she put it,
       something unusual in New England happened--the sun came out.  The next
       thing she knew she smelled something burning and, rushing in, discovered
       that the sunlight through the award had set fire to her coat.  So she
       called up the person in charge of the award to tell him to warn future
       recipients and closed her phone call by saying, "I am going to put it
       where the sun doesn't shine." Only later did she realize her choice of
       words could be misconstrued.  In any case, this year they gave a smoke
       detector with the award.

            The parties were not going very strong when we were there (but
       then, the play was opposite them).  I did drop into the Readercon party
       and buy a supporting membership in Readercon V--even if I can't attend,
       I like to get the publications.  The Niagara bid party was small, but
       the bid sounded intriguing.  It would be nice to get away from the
       "big-city" syndrome, and although the bid is officially only for the
       United States side, this might be the closest yet to a two-country
       convention.

                 1991: The Year in Review -- Nominating for the Hugos
                                    Sunday, 11 AM
            Evelyn Leeper (mod), Don D'Ammassa, Janice M. Eisen, Jim Mann

            Not surprisingly, this panel turned out to be more a listing of
       books people liked than a bona fide discussion.  Mann started out by
       recommending Orson Scott Card's _X_e_n_o_c_i_d_e and Robert Silverberg's _F_a_c_e _o_f
       _t_h_e _W_a_t_e_r_s.  D'Ammassa (who read about five hundred books last year)
       chose Ian McDonald's _K_i_n_g _o_f _M_o_r_n_i_n_g, _Q_u_e_e_n _o_f _D_a_y, and Bradley Denton's
       _B_u_d_d_y _H_o_l_l_y _I_s _A_l_i_v_e & _W_e_l_l _o_n _G_a_n_y_m_e_d_e.  Eisen suggested Roger McBride
       Allen's _R_i_n_g _o_f _C_h_a_r_o_n (actually a 1990 book, if you're reading this for
       ideas for Hugo nominations), Stephen Barnes's _O_r_b_i_t_a_l _R_e_s_o_n_a_n_c_e (a 1992
       book), and C. J. Cherryh's _H_e_a_v_y _T_i_m_e.  I mentioned George Alec
       Effinger's _T_h_e _E_x_i_l_e _K_i_s_s, Robert Charles Wilson's _A _B_r_i_d_g_e _o_f _Y_e_a_r_s,











       Boskone 29                 Feburary 17, 1992                      Page 4



       George Turner's _B_r_a_i_n _C_h_i_l_d, and (my personal choice for the Hugo)
       Martin Amis's _T_i_m_e'_s _A_r_r_o_w.

            Other books named by panelists or audience members included Norman
       Spinrad's _R_u_s_s_i_a_n _S_p_r_i_n_g, Lois McMaster Bujold's _B_a_r_r_a_y_a_r, Michael
       Swanwick's _S_t_a_t_i_o_n_s _o_f _t_h_e _T_i_d_e, Stephen Baxter's _R_a_f_t (which was also
       recommended independently by Mark's old college roommate, a co-worker in
       new Jersey, and Chuq von Rospach).

            As far as short fiction went, we decided to lump all lengths
       together rather than try to figure out exactly how many words each piece
       had.  Mann liked two stories by Nancy Kress, "Beggars in Spain" and "And
       Wild for to Hold." D'Ammassa seconded the recommendation for "Beggars in
       Spain" (and I "thirded" it, if that matters), but admitted that he had
       read very little short fiction (which is how he managed to read five
       hundred novels, I guess).  Eisen liked Karen Fowler's "Black Glass" and
       Connie Willis's "Jack." I liked Willis's "Miracle" better, but I pretty
       much like anything Connie Willis writes.  (I think her latest--"Even the
       Queen"--is a scream!)  Other mentions included George R. R. Martin's
       "Doors" and J. Michael Straczynski's "Babylon 5."

            As far as anthologies went, _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _P_r_e_s_i_d_e_n_t_s was mentioned by a
       couple of people as being possibly the year's best anthology--though of
       course it's actually a 1992 book.  (And contrary to what some people
       have said, they _a_r_e looking into marketing it in other countries, at
       least according to D'Ammassa.)

            Towards the end of the hour, someone asked how valuable a Hugo was
       as a way to judge a book, and how it compared to the Nebula.  There was
       some disagreement, but the general feeling was that you wouldn't go far
       wrong buying a book that had won either of them.

            The panel adjourned with a mad dash by everyone to the dealers room
       (conveniently located next door--intentional or just good luck?) to buy
       all the recommended books.

         Turning Points in History: The Weak Spots Where Fiction Can Slip In
                                     Sunday, 1 PM
         Evelyn Leeper (mod), Elisabeth Carey, Michael F. Flynn, Mark Keller

            This seems to have been the OAHP (Obligatory Alternate History
       Panel), the "Meeting of the Society for the Aesthetic Rearrangement of
       History" notwithstanding.  Keller said that Readercon is planning a
       panel item on "What's My Timeline?" where the panelists are given some
       information about an alternate world and have twenty questions to figure
       what the turning point is.  I pointed out that they had been planning
       this event since Readercon I and this year was Readercon V, so I wasn't
       holding my breath waiting for it.

            We agreed that turning points should be as close to _p_o_i_n_t_s as
       possible:  the North losing the Battle of Gettysburg could count as a











       Boskone 29                 Feburary 17, 1992                      Page 5



       point, but "the South winning the Civil War" was far too vague and non-
       specific.

            Were there over-used turning points?  Certainly.  Almost any
       turning point having to do with the Civil War and World War II could
       qualify, although here admittedly I am allowing the same vagueness I
       ruled out earlier.  It's possible that someone could come up with a new
       turning point for World War II, but if the result were an alternate
       history just like all the others in which the Axis wins, what's the
       point (you'll pardon the pun)?  On the other hand, turning points for
       the Revolutionary War seemed under-used (though my chronological list
       shows at least a half dozen).

            One suggestion put forward was, "What if the Black Plague were even
       more virulent?" followed by, "What if it were less virulent?"  This
       naturally resulted in a suggestion for an alternate history volume
       titled _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _P_l_a_g_u_e_s.  (More such suggestions will follow.)  There
       was a lot of discussion on what the differences would have been without
       the Black Plague, with some people claiming that our higher technology
       would have arisen anyway, and others claiming it was the decreased labor
       pool that caused technology to develop.  Do social structures make
       technology, or does technology make social structures?  The truth is
       probably some of both:  read James Burke's _C_o_n_n_e_c_t_i_o_n_s.

            The Spanish conquest of Mexico was suggested as a turning point,
       since Cortez had only four hundred Spaniards against the Aztecs.  Ah,
       but a panelist noted that Cortez also had 15,000 Indians, a fact
       frequently overlooked by the history books.  The Aztecs were _n_o_t popular
       with the surrounding tribes.

            What about a Norse North America?  There have been a few such
       stories: John Maddox Roberts's _K_i_n_g _o_f _t_h_e _W_o_o_d, John Christopher's _N_e_w
       _F_o_u_n_d _L_a_n_d, Neal Barrett's _T_h_e _L_e_a_v_e_s _o_f _T_i_m_e, and Juanita Coulson's
       "Unscheduled Flight." On the other hand (or coast, at any rate), the
       Chinese had been great explorers, and had apparently reached the
       California coast in the 14th Century.  What if they had stayed and
       settled?  (These could very well show up in Benford and Greenberg's _W_h_a_t
       _M_i_g_h_t _H_a_v_e _B_e_e_n _4: _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _A_m_e_r_i_c_a_s, due out in October.) There have
       been a couple of stories by Joe R. Lansdale which assume Japanese
       settlement of North America rather than Chinese: "Letter from the South
       Two Moons West of Nacogdoches" and "Trains Not Taken."

            How about a history without a Mongol invasion of Europe?  (Is this
       a "turning point"?  It depends how it's written, I suppose.)  No one
       could think of any such stories, but I don't doubt there is at least one
       somewhere.

            Keller said that while several works used the {non-}extinction of
       dinosaurs as the turning point, none seemed to go back to the dying-off
       of all the phyla discussed in Stephen Jay Gould's _W_o_n_d_e_r_f_u_l _L_i_f_e (a book
       I _h_i_g_h_l_y recommend).











       Boskone 29                 Feburary 17, 1992                      Page 6



            Martin Luther started the _P_r_o_t_e_s_t_a_n_t Reformation, but attempts to
       reform the Church were already under way.  What if Luther were more
       flexible?  (Kingsley Amis has Luther elected Pope in _T_h_e _A_l_t_e_r_a_t_i_o_n, but
       doesn't seem to show a lot of Church reform.)  Go further back.  What if
       Paul of Tarsus hadn't set out to convert the Greeks, or had otherwise
       changed his plans?  Well, there was one piece on this idea which
       appeared in _C_h_r_i_s_t_i_a_n _C_e_n_t_u_r_y about twenty years ago, but on the whole
       no one has looked at one of the most pivotal figures in early Christian
       history.  It seems as though people figure if they're going to muck with
       that era of Christian history, they might as well just use Jesus as the
       key figure.

            Similarly, there would seem to be a wealth of possibilities in the
       life of Mohammed, though Salman Rushdie would probably advise treading
       very carefully here.  (Then again, science fiction usually doesn't get
       the publicity Rushdie did, and there have been at least a couple authors
       who have done "alternate Mohammed" stories, notably Harry Turtledove.)

            Someone observed that a lot of alternate histories have the same
       events happening as in our world, just sooner or later.  That is,
       something makes the Civil War happen ten years earlier, or delays the
       fall of the Roman Empire for five hundred years.  The result ends up
       looking a lot like our world, just in a different time period.

            Somewhere along the line, someone asked what you get when you cross
       a deconstructionist with a mafioso.  The answer?  An offer you can't
       understand.  (This has nothing to do with alternate histories, but I
       wanted to include it anyway.)

            As an aside, why don't more publishers allow/encourage authors to
       have an afterword to their alternate history stories in which they
       explain what changed assumptions they used?  Robert Silverberg has done
       this on some of his recent stories and it provides more insight into the
       story; I'd like to see more of this.

            Okay, here's the summary; we're waiting for the following volumes
       (Benford, Greenberg, Resnick--are you listening?):

          - _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _P_l_a_g_u_e_s
          - _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _P_a_u_l_s
          - _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _J_e_s_u_s_e_s (unlikely, but I do love the title!)
          - _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _M_o_h_a_m_m_e_d_s
          - _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _P_h_y_l_a

                          The Star Trek Movies: A Look Back
                                     Sunday, 2 PM
                   Mark R. Leeper (mod), David E. Bara, Arne Starr

            The original panel for this consisted of Leeper and Starr, so
       Leeper (as moderator) invited our friend Dave Bara to join them on the
       panel.  (Since Dave has been a film fan for as long as Mark, he does











       Boskone 29                 Feburary 17, 1992                      Page 7



       have qualifications.)  Starr is the ink artist for the DC Comics _S_t_a_r
       _T_r_e_k comics.

            Starr (I believe) started out by saying that the odd-numbered _S_t_a_r
       _T_r_e_k films were more introspective, hence less liked.  But the panel
       then took a more detailed look at the series, film by film.  (The
       comments below represent their consensus rather than my own opinions.)

            The consensus on _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k: _T_h_e _M_o_t_i_o_n _P_i_c_t_u_r_e was that though it
       had good visuals and a good score, it suffered from flat acting and from
       being too long.

            _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _I_I: _T_h_e _W_r_a_t_h _o_f _K_h_a_n had in many ways far more wrong
       with it:  scientific blunders including a totally illogical Genesis
       effect, over-acting, and characters cheating their way out of problems,
       but is liked because it provided a "good time" and also because of the
       introduction of Saavik as a new and interesting character.

            _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _I_I_I: _T_h_e _S_e_a_r_c_h _f_o_r _S_p_o_c_k was a sequel with a larger
       context (according to Leeper), rather than just more of the same.  On
       the other hand, Starr called it _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _L_i_t_e: it was less filling in
       terms of content.  He said that this was the film where the crew gets to
       swap the Enterprise for Spock because ILM hated the model of the
       Enterprise and wanted an excuse to destroy it.

            _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _I_V: _T_h_e _V_o_y_a_g_e _H_o_m_e (a.k.a. "Save the Whales") was,
       according to the panelists, not _t_o_o badly done.  They compared it to
       _T_i_m_e _A_f_t_e_r _T_i_m_e, the film in which H. G. Wells follows Jack the Ripper
       through time to modern-day San Francisco (though in this case the time
       travel is in the reverse direction).  Seeing the familiar characters in
       a modern-day setting provided much of the entertainment value, and it
       did have halfway decent humor.  The score, however, was awful; Leonard
       Rosenman is apparently a friend of Leonard Nimoy's and had always wanted
       to do a _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k score.  Letting him do one was a big mistake.  This is
       not to say he's a bad composer, but his style is not _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k's style.

            _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _V: _T_h_e _F_i_n_a_l _F_r_o_n_t_i_e_r was a film almost universally
       disliked by most fans, yet Leeper thought if he could remove about eight
       scenes (totally less than fifteen minutes), he would have a pretty good
       movie in what was left.  (The scenes included the rock-climbing scenes
       with the boots, the marshmallow scene, the fan dance scene, and the
       "bumping into the bulkhead" scene, among others.)  Part of the problem
       was seen by some to be _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k's tendency to preach: "We agree that
       good dental hygiene is important, but I'd hate to see a _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k movie
       based on it." Leeper, on the other hand, thought that the basic message
       was worth doing:  "Human rationality is more important than religious
       faith." Of course, _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _V had others problems: the special effects
       were bad, and the editing was bad.  The directing, oddly enough, was _n_o_t
       as bad as most people seem to think or say, but the story _w_a_s bad, and
       no one seems to have picked on that very much.  As far as the effects
       go, the feeling was that Paramount shouldn't cut corners--they owe the











       Boskone 29                 Feburary 17, 1992                      Page 8



       fans more than that.

            And finally, _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k _V_I: _T_h_e _U_n_d_i_s_c_o_v_e_r_e_d _C_o_u_n_t_r_y, a.k.a. _T_h_e
       _H_u_n_t _f_o_r _R_e_d _O_c_t_o_b_e_r _i_n _S_p_a_c_e: As a swan song, it would be good, but if
       Paramount makes more films in the series, its standing will fall
       considerably.  For one thing, "the undiscovered country" referred to is
       _d_e_a_t_h, not the future, and for as much as everyone runs around quoting
       Shakespeare, they should know this.  Yet after setting all this up--
       including that final shoot-out where it seems obvious that _s_o_m_e_o_n_e from
       the Enterprise was supposed to die--they have it contrived so that
       everyone survives.  Gack!  (That last comment was mine, not the
       panelists'.)

            The panelists also mentioned the new _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k spin-off, _D_e_e_p _S_p_a_c_e
       _N_i_n_e, but not enough is known about it yet to make a judgement.

                                    Miscellaneous

            Membership seems to have settled in around 900, though this may
       rise with the return to the Boston area next year.

            Panel ideas I suggested last year which remained unused but which I
       would still like to see or be on include:

               - The Influence of Beowulf on Science Fiction

               - How to Pick a Reference Book (both literature reference and
                 media reference)

               - Fantasy Opera (or Science Fiction Opera) (the former would
                 cover Wagner's "Ring"; the latter would include Blomdahl's
                 _A_n_i_a_r_a and Todd Mackover's _V_a_l_i_s)

            And I would now add to this the suggestion to narrow the focus of
       the alternate history panel(s); last year's Civil War panel attracted a
       large enough crowd that this won't hurt the attendance.  How about an
       "alternate Jesuses" panel?

            Next year for Boskone 30 (February 19-21, 1993) the Guest of Honor
       is Joe Haldeman, Artist Guest of honor is Tom Kidd, and Editor Guest of
       Honor is Beth Meacham.