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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.