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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 05/29/92 -- Vol. 10, No. 48

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

06/03 HO: THRICE UPON A TIME by James Hogan (Time Travel) (HO 1N-310)
06/24 HO: RAFT by Stephen Baxter (Gravity) (HO 1N-410)
07/15 MT: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SCIENCE FICTION by David Pringle (SF
reference books) (MT 1P-364)
08/05 HO: THE SILMARILLION by J.R.R. Tolkien (Alternate Mythologies)
(HO 1N-410)
08/26 HO: BONE DANCE by Emma Bull (Hugo nominee) (HO 1N-410)

_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.
06/13 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Trip
to Library of NASA in Manhattan (phone
201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
06/20 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. Of the next *Holmdel* discussion book, Rob Mitchell says:

Back in March 1990, the discussion book in Lincroft was James
Hogan's _T_h_r_i_c_e _U_p_o_n _a _T_i_m_e, and the theme was "Affecting the Past."
In keeping with the concept of time travel, and returning to the
same events over and over (a major element of Hogan's book), we
decided to revisit the book and discuss it anew. Perhaps we will
have a better turnout than last time, when everyone canceled out at
the last minute (there's probably a pun in there, but it's not
worth looking for).

THE MT VOID Page 2

A British scientist has invented a time machine, of sorts. This
device cannot send you back in time, but it can send tau particles.
With an amiably plausible bit of pseudoscience, the physicist tells
us these particles can not only travel in time, but they can carry
information, although the initial baud rate is slow, and the
"distance" traveled is only ten minutes. From this modest
beginning, though, the time travel process is enhanced... Imagine
bootstrapping a computer, backwards through time...

The best part of this book is not the hard science fiction content,
although Hogan delivers that in his typically engaging fashion.
No, the best part of _T_h_r_i_c_e _U_p_o_n _a _T_i_m_e is the almost playful
examination of time travel paradoxes. For example, a romantic
side-plot revolves around the grandfather paradox (if you went back
in time and shot your grandfather before your father was born, then
you were never born, hence you could not have gone back in time...
etc., etc.). The characterization is quite good, unusually so for
a Hogan novel, and I was surprised by how well Hogan had me gripped
with suspense with the various subplots. After all, the main
characters are forced (in several senses) to use the time machine
to save the world -- not once, not twice but thrice upon a time.

Hogan has written a fascinating and fun book on time travel, with
several twists that keep the novel fresh, not a rehash of old
ideas. Highly recommended!

And no, we haven't yet scheduled the third discussion of the book.
[-jrrt]

2. A while back I wrote a series of articles for the notice about
what were then popular beer ads which starred the incredible
"Spuds" Mackenzie. I was not keen on the ad campaign, which
featured several despicable falsifications. (First, Spuds was
passed off as being a male, and Spuds was definitely female.
Second, dogs are mostly logical animals and it is unlikely that
Spuds would have anything to do with drinking beer. Then there was
the poster showing Spuds standing on a surf board which was
captioned "Hang Twenty." The proper number was, of course,
eighteen. Nineteen if you count his tail.) Still, no beer
salesman has had Mackenzie's roguish appeal since the days of Al
Capone.

Well, since Spuds has left, beer ads have not been the same. As
far as I am concerned, there is no interest value to Bud-man, a fat
beer drinker with a bullet-shaped body, a mask, a cape, and a two-
day growth of beard. And if this ad campaign were not proof enough
that alcohol rots brain cells, there is a new one that goes even
further.

Picture the scene. Smallpox is ravaging Europe. A young doctor
with a sparse beard is talking to a milkmaid. No, she is not

THE MT VOID Page 3

afraid of smallpox because people who work with cows just never
seem to get the dreaded disease. The doctor muses aloud to
himself, "Why should working with cows protect you from smallpox?"
From stage left a character sticks his head in the scene and asks,
"Why ask why?"

That's the slogan: "Why ask why?" What does it have to do with
drinking beer? The only connection I see is that if you are
seeking answers you are probably not drinking beer. And vice
versa.

I take this beer ad as a personal affront, because since I was
small, my favorite w-question (you know: "who," "what," "why,"
"where," "when") was "why." No question is as important as "why"-
-with the possible exception of "what." "Who," "where," and "when"
rarely have profound answers. There just isn't much to chew on as
a rule. Generally they are short-answer questions unless you are
asking, "Who died in Vietnam?" Even then, most of the answer is
dull. It is hard to get much interesting out of a "who." "Where"
can be fun for those of us who travel, but it is limited. "When"
could be as much fun if the opportunities for travel to a when were
not so limited. Still, these three are very limited questions.

"What" can be fun, but it can also be as dull as the rest. Usually
when a "what" is good, it is a "why" in disguise. "What is the
capital of Montana?" is as dull as any of the others. "What made
you put banana slices on your shoulders?" There, "what" is really
a "why."

The best of the questions for me has always been "why," though I
profess a certain predilection for "how" also. Most of humanity's
progress from the caves has been from asking "why" and "how."

This is my answer to the beer commercial's question of "why ask
why?" One might better ask, "Why drink beer?" So now that I have
answered the question of "why ask why?" let me ask a question that
has been perplexing me. "Why ask why ask why?" I hope it will be
clear why I am asking.

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

We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the
face. We ought to make the best we can of the world,
and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will
still be better than what these others have made it in
all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness
and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after
the past, or a fettering of the free intelligence by the
words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a
fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope
for the future, not looking back all the time towards a
past that is dead which we trust will be far surpassed by
the future that our intelligence can create.
-- Bertrand Russell

THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK

Capsule review: Fury is a dreary, ugly prison
colony planet, made up of "double-Y-chromosome"
criminals who have rediscovered monastic life. To
this planet comes Ripley and her alien. And Ripley's
nightmare starts over. _A_l_i_e_n _3 will probably kill
the series. Director David Fincher's previous major
credit is music videos for Madonna. Rating: -1 (-4
to +4).

In 1979 Ridley Scott directed _A_l_i_e_n. Scott had previously
directed the moody story _T_h_e _D_u_e_l_l_i_s_t_s. The inspiration for _A_l_i_e_n
was the weird surrealist paintings of H. R. Giger. The world Giger
creates has the feel of an alien culture, the feel of a mind
incomprehensible to humans at work. In 1986 James Cameron directed
_A_l_i_e_n_s. Cameron had directed _T_e_r_m_i_n_a_t_o_r. His inspiration was
apparently to show how a company of marines reacts when faced with
something like the alien threat of the first film. While many of
the sequences are lifted from the previous film, Cameron brought
complexity to the character of Ripley and had a reasonably complex
plot. Now 20th Century Fox has made _A_l_i_e_n _3. For a director they
got David Fincher, who has had a successful career directing music
videos and television commercials. The inspiration appears to have
been an empty slot at the beginning of the 1992 summer release
schedule.

I thought the first film was the best of the series and the
second film was a step down. It borrowed whole sequences and ideas
from the first film. Also it seemed to sidestep very lightly the
moral issue of the earth people stealing and transforming a planet
already colonized by an intelligent alien race. It is genuinely
surprising and more than a little disturbing how many of the
audience were rooting to see the aliens exterminated because they
were hostile to humans and not cute and dewy-eyed. Unintentionally,
_A_l_i_e_n_s was an intriguing test of whether the audience would still
buy into attitudes that had caused major foreign policy failures in
the past. (And the answer was an undeniably "YES!" Audience
cheered ideas as blatant as, "Let's withdraw and nuke 'em from
orbit." Perhaps what it showed was that in the end we are just only
to those we find appealing.) There were many who preferred the
second film for its realistic treatment of marines in space.

The third film is easily the weakest of the three. On one of
the ugliest planets ever portrayed in film, human criminals and an
alien tear away at each other in the cinematic equivalent of a pit
bull fight. The pit is Fury 161, an evacuated lead mine and prison

Alien 3 May 23, 1992 Page 2

colony. There the worst outcasts of the galaxy have been isolated
and have formed a sort of monastic order living in the lead mining
facilities. They have no weapons and, to make the place even
uglier, they all have to shave their heads because the planet is
infested with lice. On this delightful planet crashes Ellen Ripley
(played by Sigourney Weaver), the future equivalent of Typhoid Mary.
When deaths start occurring on Fury 161, Ripley realizes what she
has done but--for reasons never explained--still refers to tell the
inhabitants even while people are being killed. Most of the rest of
the film is running and screaming through the ugly lead mine.

Fincher has filmed _A_l_i_e_n _3 with a lot of superficial attempts
at style. The foundry seems like one big dark and ugly basement.
One or two scenes with odd camera angles, shooting up or down on
characters, would be welcome. Fincher, perhaps used to short music
videos, does not seem to know that eventually this becomes very
tiresome. The plot takes a long time to advance and in the first
half is also short on action. Without sympathy for Ripley from
previous films and some minor flashes of humanity from the prison
doctor, the film is without sympathetic characters at all. The
screenplay is by three people with two different conjunctions: it is
by David Giller & Walter Hill and Larry Ferguson.

This is a film that I can recommend only to people into the
"Alien" series as a series. (And since this is a third director
with a third concept and a third style, this is much more loosely a
series than it might be.) As a film it is no better than much of
the low-budget productions that show up only on cable. I rate this
one a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.

[Minor spoiler]
The way the alien is killed ranks with one of the most absurd
sequences I can think of in a major science fiction film, and is
arguably inconsistent with previous entries in the series.
[End spoiler]