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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 05/08/92 -- Vol. 10, No. 45
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
05/13 LZ: ONLY BEGOTTEN DAUGHTER by James Morrow (Books we heard are
very good)
06/03 HO: THRICE UPON A TIME by James Hogan (Time Travel) (HO 1N-310)
06/24 LZ: RAFT by Stephen Baxter (Gravity)
07/15 LZ: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SCIENCE FICTION by David Pringle (SF
reference books)
08/05 LZ: THE SILMARILLION by J.R.R. Tolkien (Alternate Mythologies)
_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.
05/09 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
05/16 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 908-834-1563 hocpb!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell HO 1D-505A 908-834-1267 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. Lance Larsen sends us this description for the next Lincroft
discussion book (and thanks to Lance for being the first in a long
time to actually write a description!):
ONLY BEGOTTEN DAUGHTER by James Morrow: This book is blasphemous.
This book is profoundly religious. A contradiction? On the
surface, yes. But not really. The questions "Why are we here?"
and "What are we supposed to do?" have haunted humanity for as long
as we have been able to ask questions. Many writers--novelists,
philosophers and theologians--have examined these questions. For
most of us, be we proles or people of destiny, these questions are
THE MT VOID Page 2
just as difficult to answer as they are to ignore. But, can you
imagine what these questions would be like if you were God's ONLY
BEGOTTEN DAUGHTER? James Morrow can.
If America were to become a fundamentalist Christian theocracy,
James Morrow would be its Salman Rushdie. Not because he is
vandalizing the sacred, but because he is asking questions and
examining the implications of both the questions and their answers.
I suspect that James Morrow is a Jesuit at heart. [-lfl]
2. [I haven't written fiction for a good long while, but this story
came to mind inspired by an incident at this year's Boskone that
only I noticed.]
If there is one thing I could tell from the start, it was that this
guy had done something. He invited Pete, William and me into his
rooms. It was one of those old buildings on El Dorado. God, I
hate those buildings. They all look like a strong wind would blow
them over. They're gray and dark inside. At two in the morning
they are all the worse. The only light in the hallway had been
coming under his door.
"Sorry to bother you so late, Mr. ... Wilson?" Pete asked.
"Yes, Bill Wilson." His eyes flew from Pete to Willie. "What is
it, Officer?"
"Mrs. Lee upstairs she said she heard a shout."
"Uh, that may have been me. Yes, it was me. I had a nightmare. I
fancy she can even hear me breathing, eating, ...."
Pete cut him off. "You live here by yourself?"
"Yes. Well, no. Well, you see, my father-in-law lives with me.
Well, at least temporarily. But he's not here now."
"You and your father-in-law? No wife?"
"Lenore died four months ago." He was fidgeting and the boards
were creaking beneath his feet. "Her father had lived with us.
He'd lived with Lenore before we were married and he came to live
with us. Such a nice old gentleman." He seemed to be looking
around the room again. I could just see a few beads of sweat
forming on his forehead. "His eyesight was failing, you see.
Blind in one eye. Yes, one eye. But it still seems to look at
you. It is all milky white, but it stares like a beam in a
lighthouse. Like a beacon." His eyes kept jumping from the floor
to Willie to me to the floor to Pete. The veins on his hands
THE MT VOID Page 3
pulsated as he held the arms of his chair. "But he isn't here now.
He's away. He has business. Business."
He smiled at me. I tried not to react. If you just wait some of
these guys will break themselves.
"Business?" Pete asked. "What kind of business is he in?"
"Oh, uh, investments. I guess I don't really know. He doesn't
tell me a lot."
"And he still can travel with his failing eyesight?" The gaslights
distorted Wilson's shadow on the wall.
"He has part... partners. They take care of him when he travels."
"Oh, I see," said Pete. Wilson turned that faltering smile on
Pete, but Pete did not react. He had an answer for every question,
but he stammered more and more and stared at the floor. The
minutes passed slowly as Pete asked question after question.
Finally Wilson just stared wide-eyed at the floor. Then he was up
on his feet. His answers became more and more elaborate. Pete's
questioning seemed to touch a nerve. Wilson began lapsing into
incoherence. His words made no sense at all. Then with a shriek
he said, "Villains, dissemble no more! I admit the deed!--Tear up
the planks!re, here! is the beating of his hideous heart!"
Well, that was it then. We picked up the floorboards and found the
old man's body. It probably wasn't there more than a couple of
hours. Pete said, "Well, one of us should probably go up and tell
Mrs. Lee she was right. Can't blame Wilson for going crazy. The
sound of her damn rocking chair was driving me crazy too."
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper
The question of whether a computer can think is no more
interesting than the question of whether a submarine can
swim.
-- Edsger W. Dijkstra
FOURTH ANIMATION CELEBRATION
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
It is time again for Expanded Entertainment to send touring
around major cities their annual animation celebration. These used
to be better than they are now. In large part that is because what
used to go into just the Tournee of Animation is now spread over the
annual Tournee, the celebration, and into competing festivals such
as the British Animation Explosion. There just isn't enough
innovative animation for four new animation anthologies a year.
This year's animation was almost entirely traditional flat
animation.
Notably missing was clay animation. Also missing was any entry
from Pixar with their simulated 3-D animation. (Hey, Craig, if you
are reading this, when is Pixar going to get more into story-
telling? Is computer animation cost-effective for the sort of
story-telling Will Vinton does? I think it is probably pretty tough
to create likable characters with computer animation, at least for
now.) Also fewer were the number of pieces with an
ecology/conservation theme. (This may not be such a bad time to
re-evaluate conservation, actually. Fact: carbon dioxide is
building in the atmosphere _s_l_o_w_e_r than we expected. Interpretation:
each year nature is becoming more, not less, efficient at converting
CO-2 to oxygen. Apparent conclusion: in spite of massive losses at
the Amazon, worldwide vegetable biomass is on the increase.
Hindsight explanation: excesses of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in
the atmosphere are healthy for plant life. If there is an excess,
plant life can adjust to take up the slack. This is not confirmed
as yet, but there does appear to be more to it than just wishful
thinking. Source: Morning Edition, National Public Radio.)
I generally rate the pieces excellent (E), very good (VG), good
(G), fair (F), and poor (P). I thought this year there were neither
poor films not excellent ones; there was only one fair.
- "Madcap" (Phil Denslow; USA; 2:05): Apparently meaningless
gyrating spots and lines are interspersed with title cards
containing increasingly weird disclaimers. (G)
- "Canfilm" (Zlatin Radev; Bulgaria; 18:11): The best (and
longest) piece of the fest. It took me a little while to
figure out what the analogies were in this allegory. We see a
country whose citizens are food cans. As we open, the proper
contents to have are cherries. Then a new regime comes along
that wants all the cans to hold tomatoes. Secret police cans
carry off cans of cherries to teach them proper contents. Some
very nice ideas. (VG)
4th Animation Celebr. May 5, 1992 Page 2
- "Dancing" (Bruno Bozzetto; Italy; 2:41): Bozzetto had at the
1991 _F_e_s_t_i_v_a_l _o_f _A_n_i_m_a_t_i_o_n a very nice piece on the history of
warfare ("Grasshoppers"). This piece is unfortunately a good
deal more cryptic. It is an image of a man dancing on a rock
and visited by Death. (G)
- "The Song of Wolfgang the Intrepid, Destroyer of Dragons"
(Mikhail Tumelya; USA?; ?:??): Wolfgang sets off to slay a very
large but sleeping dragon. Light and fun. (This and the next
two items were not listed in the program, so the country and
running times are unknown.) (G)
- "A Smaller World" (Corky Quakenbush; USA?; ?:??): A satire on
soap operas told with dolls facing life. A doll couple
ordering a baby doll from a catalogue discovers it is bigger
than either of them. Not as funny as it sounds. (G)
- "Buttons" (?; USSR?; ?:??): This piece (as well as the previous
two) was not in the program. Nevertheless, it is one of the
better pieces. A wealthy official goes through his day
oblivious to the fact that every time he pushes a button--like
a doorbell or light switch--a bomb detonates somewhere in his
city. He ignores the destruction he is causing and continues
his life as normal. (The title and all the credits were in
untranslated Cyrillic, so the title is more descriptive than
accurate.) (VG)
- "World Problems" (miscellaneous; miscellaneous; 6:00):
Sponsored by American and European MTV. Several international
animators do small blackout sketches on the subject of world
problems and their solutions. Most popular was about a boy,
uncertain if he should recycle paper, being threatened by a
militant tree. (?)
- "Green Beret" (Stephen Hillenburg; USA; 3:19): A man's house is
besieged by a different kind of Green Beret: a cookie-selling
Girl Scout. Some of the images are quite funny. (G)
- "Weeds" (Thomas Stellmach; Germany; 4:22): In a vast plane
tiled over by stone a snail and some plants survive on the last
square not yet tiled. Can the snail survive against man's
machinery? (G)
- "Fantastic Person" (Candy Guard; Great Britain; 3:32): Candy
Guard's work is so consistent, there is very little need to see
more than one of her animation pieces. Her characters are
disenfranchised English women. The title character is
currently out of work, but has great plans for the future. She
just cannot work up the motivation to get started. (G)
4th Animation Celebr. May 5, 1992 Page 3
- "The Tale of Nippoless Nippleby" (Keith Alcorn, Paul Claerhout,
John Davis; USA; 4:00): This is a variation of the "Ugly
Duckling." It is a bit off-color and droll, but it makes its
point. (VG)
- "Office Space" (Mike Judge; USA; 1:57): A very short piece
about the office nerd upset about the way he is treated and
with dreams of quitting. (G)
(Next come three pieces intended as tributes to Tex Avery.)
- "Unsavory Avery" (John Schnall; USA; 2:19): A wolf-like night
club singer is obviously considered incredibly sexy by the
women in the audience. However, he is not the good catch he
appears. While some of the visual gags are borrowed from the
Avery cartoons, the art is considerably simpler. I would say
the story is not as good as an Avery story either. (G)
- "RRRINGG!" (Paul de Nooijer; The Netherlands; 2:50): Even
further from Avery's style, posed with live-action figures
(like people) rather than with sketches. I am not really a fan
of de Nooijer's animation from previous fests. Again, there
are some visual gags borrowed from Avery. (G)
- "Pre-Hysterical Daze" (Gavrilo Gnatovich; USA; 7:23): The best
of the three Avery tributes is a caveman being chased by
dinosaurs (after a disclaimer saying that the two were not
contemporary). There is some fun with the medium. (VG)
- "The Boss" (Alison Snowden, David Fine; UK; 1:32): Ninety-two
seconds done by IBM show there are creative ways to solve a
problem. This is just a little piece about how someone who
liked his job but not his boss got out of his dilemma. Perhaps
the fellow the "Office Space" should see this one. (G)
- "The Hunter" (Mikhail Aldashin; USSR; 4:18): Entertaining but
not very engaging story of a primitive hunter going after big
game. Various absurd ploys of camouflage are used. (G)
- "Quinoscopio" (Juan Padron/Quino; Cuba; 4:40): This is a Cuban
film with a series of blackout-style jokes. None are really
hilarious, but many are reasonably witty. (VG)
Overall, this was a very mediocre film festival. If the
British Animation Explosion comes your way, that is still the most
recommended Festival of Animation in recent memory.
SHELTERED LIVES by Charles Oberndorf
Bantam Spectra, 1992, ISBN 0-553-29248-X, $4.99.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper
This is a story about AIDS.
Oh, it's not called AIDS, but its victims are called "hivers,"
a clear reference to the HIV virus, and it is transmitted the same
way as the HIV virus, and the results are the same. And the victims
are being sent to quarantine camps, a "solution" that has been
proposed for AIDS victims. (Please, no PC objections--if we can
have cancer victims and heart attack victims and stroke victims and
flu victims, we can have AIDS victims.)
Unfortunately for the suspension of my disbelief, the societal
structure seems to have gone off in a direction quite different than
that the quarantine camps would imply. There is some neo-Puritan
backlash, but there is also legalized prostitution beyond anything
we have today: "companions" available by the hour, the day, or even
longer. Even with instant-result blood tests, I'm not sure I find
this convincing. Michael Kube-McDowell's _Q_u_i_e_t _P_o_o_l_s, with its
extended marriages giving people multiple partners within a limited,
presumably "safe" population, seems more likely. Oberndof also
supposes that same-sex marriages will become legal in most states
and relatively common. (Consider how long it took for inter-racial
marriages to become legal, and how much longer it took for them to
become even as common as they are today. This novel takes place
considerably less than that in the future.) Oh, and in this future
would there are monitor cameras everywhere and just about everyone
seems to think they're a great idea. All this seems just a bit
contrived to me.
Oberndorf tries hard, and writes well, but the whole plot is
too predictable and mechanical. Rod Lawrence, professional
companion, is hired for a long-term contract by Anna Baxter.
Baxter's father's company built the quarantine camps, but Baxter is
involved with groups opposing them. Lawrence is under pressure from
the government to spy on Baxter, from opposition groups to spy on
the authorities, and from his family to give up his sinful life.
But perhaps most irritating is Oberndorf's reluctance to let
the work speak for itself. Instead he interjects long philosophical
discussions between characters about the morality of the monitors,
the camps, and all the other changes, and closes with a long
dialogue between Lawrence and the senior Baxter in which Lawrence
asks,"It's one hundred years into the future. There has been a cure
for ... all disease transmitted sexually. People have discovered
how to live sexually free lives without jealousy or guilt. ... A
Sheltered Lives May 4, 1992 Page 2
historian from that period ... looks at Baxter Construction. He
looks at the camps your company built.... He doesn't believe the
inmates did anything wrong. How will that historian portray you?"
By presenting this rather unlikely hypothesis as practically a _f_a_i_t
_a_c_c_o_m_p_l_i (let's face it, we haven't figure out how to live sexually
free lives without jealousy or guilt for the past several years, and
disease was only a minor contributing factor, so why will the next
hundred years do the trick?), Oberndorf apparently hopes to get the
reader to agree with his message, but all it did to me was to annoy
me at the lack of subtlety. (One could of course also hypothesize a
hundred years in the future historians saying that the camps were
the only thing that saved humanity from being wiped out. One can
hypothesize anything, and make it sound logical. The trick is to
predict what will happen, not hypothesize what might.)
There will undoubtedly be many books whose roots are in the
AIDS plague; one can only hope that some of these will use their
material better.
MY TOP TEN FILMS OF 1991
A film article by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
This was supposedly a very bad year at the box office. I guess
I find that strange, since on the whole I thought we had more good
films this year than in most previous years. I don't usually rate
five films as +3 (or low +3) in a single year. And the idea that a
Sylvester Stallone film would make my top ten list would have been
unbelievable at the beginning of the year.
1. CYRANO DE BERGERAC: For those unafraid of subtitled films,
there is a lot to like in the new film production of CYRANO DE
BERGERAC. The play is excellent and this is perhaps the best
production of the play ever done. Rating: +3. [Technically a
1990 film, this never got a wide release until 1991.]
2. BARTON FINK: Very strange but supremely well-crafted film
from Joel and Ethan Coen. The Coen Brothers have the best
batting average in Hollywood. They have made four films and
each of the four is highly recommended. During a bout of
writer's block (which they obviously got over) writing
MILLER'S CROSSING they wrote this strange film about a young
playwright facing the same problem in Hollywood. Great
performances, great photography, weird film! Rating: +3.
3. HOMICIDE: Strange and disturbing thriller about a Jewish
policeman torn between two cases. David Mamet's best film so
far is one of those films you cannot fairly even give thought
to until it is all over. This is one of those films you may
spend more time thinking about than you will have spent
watching it. Rating: +3.
4. IRON AND SILK: Mark Salzman stars in the film based on his
autobiographical book about his two years teaching in China in
the early 1980s. While the film places too strong an emphasis
on his martial arts training, it is a valuable film to help
understand what is happening in modern-day China. Rating: low
+3.
5. PROSPERO'S BOOKS: Peter Greenaway's Christmas package for
really jaded fans of fantasy or Shakespeare. This film breaks
a lot of rules, but it is still a marvelous and fascinating
retelling of THE TEMPEST in visionary terms. It may be one of
the great fantasy films for just the right audience. Rating:
low +3.
6. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS: A dark and fascinating thriller that is
a genuine departure in the depiction of the psychopathic
Top Ten of 1991 April 30, 1991 Page 2
killer on the screen. Hannibal Lecter is a screen villain as
memorable as Norman Bates. Rating: high +2.
7. THE ROCKETEER: The 1981 graphic novel comes to the screen as
what may be the best film ever made based on a comic book.
This is a wonderful tying together of odd historical detail in
the story of a man who becomes a super-hero with the help of a
rocket pack. Rating: high +2.
8. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Disney's animated feature films are, in
my opinion, over-rated. They lack plot and complexity. Their
emotional impact is limited. The usual excuse is that they
are only supposed to be simple children's films. BEAUTY AND
THE BEAST demonstrates that a lot more can be done in this
medium. It beats BAMBI, CINDERELLA, SNOW WHITE, SLEEPING
BEAUTY, and all of the other classics, including FANTASIA.
Parents should go with their kids. If you don't have kids, go
anyway. This one may not be on cassette this century.
Rating: +2.
9. OSCAR: A delightful surprise. OSCAR is a throwback to manic
screwball comedies of the 1930s that takes chances and them
makes them work. Undemanding as a star vehicle for Sly
Stallone, OSCAR is packed with eccentric weirdos, funny hoods,
and lots of nutty dialogue. It has been a good long time
since I laughed so much at a comedy. Rating: +2.
10. OBJECT OF BEAUTY: A well-crafted comedy with some nice
dramatic moments and some serious things to say. This story
is of the theft of a valuable piece of art from a spendthrift
American couple living in London. The story touches a broad
range of emotions with some of the minor characters more
interesting than the main ones. Rating: +2.