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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 06/19/92 -- Vol. 10, No. 51

MEETINGS UPCOMING:

Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon.

_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C

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.
06/20 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
07/11 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 908-834-1267 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 (Wednesday, June 24),
Evelyn Leeper says:

After four people independently recommended _R_a_f_t in a period of
only five days, I decided I had to read it. Okay, it may not be
the greatest thing since sliced bread, 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." Somehow a spaceship from our universe crossed into this
one and got stranded many generations ago, and at the time of the

THE MT VOID Page 2

story we have three distinct societies: the Raft, the Miners, and
the Boneys, each of which hates and/or distrusts the other two, but
will have to learn to cooperate with them because of a newly
discovered menace to them all. This is more a space adventure book
than an idea book. There are some intriguing ideas, yes, but all
have to do with weird physics or biology. The values are
Heinleinian, as are the characters. (Whether this is good or bad
is left as an exercise for the reader.) In fact, I would probably
describe _R_a_f_t as what we would have gotten had Hal Clement and
Robert Heinlein ever collaborated.

So join us in Holmdel and lend your opinion. (Note: _R_a_f_t is
available only in paperback, so you will probably have more luck at
the bookstore than at your library, unless your library is one of
the rare ones that buys paperbacks.) [-ecl]

2. Dale Skran announces another Japanese animation film festival:

On Thursday, May 25, starting at 7:00 PM the Leeperhouse Film
Festival will show "Bubble Gum Crisis, Part II"--the last four
episodes (i.e., 5-8). Return to a future Cyberpunk Japan where
vampire androids, robots, giant corporations, the police, and a
group of adventurers in powered suits struggle for control of the
future direction of human evolution. A fair amount does get
wrapped up in these episodes, but since there is sequel ("Bubble
Gum Crash"--three episodes), don't expect total closure. It helps
to have seen the first four episodes, but the stories are
reasonably self-contained.

For those not familiar with Japanese animation, expect fast-paced
action, rock-n-roll, English subtitles, and more violence and
nudity than normally seen in US animation. The backgrounds are
excellent, the imagination outstanding, the plots fairly complex,
but the animation itself a bit on the cheap. Not for the little
ones, but if you'd let your kid see _T_e_r_m_i_n_a_t_o_r _I_I, nothing here is
going to bother you here. [-dls]

3.It is the policy of this notice not to endorse any Presidential
candidate. I do, however, join the political pundits who say that
for George Bush to win this election he's going to have to see what
needs to be done and actually do it. For George Bush to win he's
going to have to prove he still stands for the old-fashioned
values. He's going to have to prove his integrity in an
emergency. George Bush is going to have to haul off and give Dan
Quayle a good crack across the chops.

Dan Quayle has called himself "the pit bull of the '92 elections."
Quayle has been pitbulling against the cultural elite. I guess he
must mean the people who watch "Murphy Brown." But now he is
actually taking steps to improve the situation, at least as he sees
it. As part of his pit bull campaign, Quayle was running an

THE MT VOID Page 3

elementary school spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey. That should
be harmless, you'd think. "Potato," he gave young William
Figueroa. Figueroa wrote "potato" on the board. "No, you left out
the 'e' at the end." (It is true that vegetables have gone through
a bad time with this administration. Broccoli has taken its licks
from Bush.) Of course, Figueroa knew perfectly well which of the
two of them needed a course in remedial spelling. But he knew a
little kid cannot correct a Vice-President. On the other hand,
Bush can and I say he should. One crack across the mouth would
give the whole country as much satisfaction as they got from
winning the Persian Gulf War (back when we thought we did!).

I will say that after I announced my candidacy, campaign
contributions have been three or four times what I expected. I
think I may form my own None of the Above political party.

4. Does anyone have a copy of the March *1991* _A_m_a_z_i_n_g (with the
story "Dog's Life" by Martha Soukup) that I could borrow? I've
read all the Hugo nominees but this one, and naturally I can't find
it anywhere. [-ecl]

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

God was able to create the world in only seven days
because he had no installed base to consider.
-- Andy Finkel, Commodore-Amiga Inc.

CLOVEN HOOVES by Megan Lindholm
Bantam Spectra, 1991, ISBN 0-553-29327-3, $4.99.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper

I have to admit that the description of this book as being
about a woman who leaves her husband to go to live with a faun in
the forest did not make me want to run out and read it. It sounded
just a bit too "woodlands-cutesy." But a friend who knows me said
that I might enjoy it--it wasn't quite what I was thinking.

Well, she was right that it wasn't woodlands-cutesy, and I
think Lindholm shows promise, but I can't wholeheartedly recommend
the book. The problem is the characters--they are all one-
dimensional (with the possible exception of the main character, who
avoids being one-dimensional only be being a collection of quirks,
"funny hats" in an almost literal sense, as her clothes are a large
part of her characterization). Take the husband, for example. The
whole point of his character is that he has no independence--he
functions only as an appendage of his family. The son seems present
in the book only as a plot device, not a fully realized character.
Ironically, the faun is perhaps the most fully realized character--
ironic because he is the one whose nature is the least complex.
(Well, maybe it's not so ironic after all.)

As far as the main character goes, she seems so spineless as to
be almost a non-entity. She puts up with an unbelievable amount of
emotional abuse from her family and her husband's family until one
day she just leaves and runs off with the faun. Now I'm sure that
there are people who put up with emotional abuse, so I can't say
it's unrealistic, but I can say that to me it was unconvincing.
Your mileage may vary. (It shouldn't be necessary to say that in a
review, but my experience is that it is.)

Maybe this is all a modern-day fairy tale and I should look
more at the meaning that at the characterization. (How much
personality did Snow White have?) There is a power in Lindholm's
writing that kept me reading even when I wanted to shake some life
into the characters. So I give _C_l_o_v_e_n _H_o_o_v_e_s a conditional
recommendation.

Capsule review: A weird and hypnotic film, but
ultimately a disappointment. The viewer is
apparently hypnotized and regressed to be a German-
American in Germany shortly after WWII. He becomes a
train conductor pulled into the conflict of the
Americans against the anti-American resistance.
Rating: high 0 (-4 to +4).

You are being hypnotized and regressed to an earlier existence.
The hypnotist puts you to sleep and makes you live the life of an
American of German descent who went to Germany a few months after
World War II ended to become a sleeping car conductor. You are
under the supervision of a stern uncle whom you have just met, and
he pushes you through a Kafkaesque world that places impossible
demands on you, all to meet the incredibly high standards of being a
sleeping car conductor on the Zentropa train line. But this is only
the beginning. You are about to be drawn into an intrigue that pits
the Americans occupying Germany against werewolves--the secret
German resistance against the occupation.

_Z_e_n_t_r_o_p_a is a complex and confusing film, very heavy on style.
Sometimes it is dense with ideas, sometimes totally
incomprehensible. It is filmed mostly in black and white with
selective use of color. Some scenes are all black and white, some
are all color, some have only the foreground in color. Sometimes
just one object will be in color like in a Nuprin ad. The black-
and-white photography is usually crisp and sharp, with some amazing
images. One of the best is a train speeding through a tunnel seen
from a few feet ahead with the smoke forming a streaming "hair-do"
over the top of the train.

_Z_e_n_t_r_o_p_a (original title: _E_u_r_o_p_a) is Danish director Lars Van
Triers's strange look at Germany after war. Parts of the world seem
as if they could never have been. The Zentropa Railroad is a world
out of _B_r_a_z_i_l crossed with Kafka in which the individual is beaten
into submission by the system. In the film's one obvious joke, our
main character has just had to pay for his uniform--which
nevertheless belongs to the company--and several other expenses he
must pay in order to start work on the railroad. "I now understand
German unemployment," he says. "Nobody can afford to work."

Ultimately _Z_e_n_t_r_o_p_a is a muddled thriller that only partly
makes sense. The viewer is never certain if the historical detail
has any validity or is being made up from the whole cloth. There
are certainly moments of tension, but more of confusion. It won the
Jury Prize at the Cannes Film festival of 1991, but lost out to
_B_a_r_t_o_n _F_i_n_k for the Golden Palm, at which Van Trier reportedly was
extremely indignant. Stylistically it is an achievement, but the
viewer will have to decide if it is really is an entertainment
experience. For me it had all the elements to work but a few
logical questions left unanswered. For that I rate it a high 0 on
the -4 to +4 scale.

6TH ANNUAL SUMMER FESTIVAL OF FANTASY, HORROR, AND SCIENCE FICTION
Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, New York City, NY 10014, 212-727-8110

Fri-Thu Aug 14-20 THE TINGLER (in Percepto)
Fri-Sat Aug 21-22 DRACULA (new print); FRANKENSTEIN
Sun-Mon Aug 23-24 AELITA, QUEEN OF MARS; SHE (1935)
Tue Aug 25 THE BEAST FROM 20,00 FATHOMS
Wed Aug 26 HANGOVER SQUARE; THE UNDYING MONSTER
Thu-Fri Aug 27-28 DIABOLIQUE; EYES WITHOUT A FACE
Sat-Mon Aug 28-31 INVADERS FROM MARS (1953);
THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T.
Tue-Wed Sep 01-Sep 02 DELUGE; CHANDU THE MAGICIAN
Thu Sep 03 BRIDE OF THE GORILLA;
THE NAVY VS. THE NIGHT MONSTERS
Fri-Mon Sep 04-07 PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE (in 3-D);
SEA DREAM (in 3-d) (Friday only!)
Tue-Wed Sep 08-09 PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE; NIGHTS OF THE GHOULS;
JAIL BAIT
Thu-Sat Sep 10-12 VAMPIRE HUNTER D (animated);
AKIRA (in Japanese with English subtitles)
Sun-Mon Sep 13-14 THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL;
THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE;
THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS
Tue-Wed Sep 15-16 THE MAZE (in 3-D); CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON
Thu-Sat Sep 17-19 THE BLOB; WORLD WITHOUT END
Sun-Mon Sep 20-21 PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN;
BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE
Tue Sep 22 KRONOS; WOMEN OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET
Wed-Thu Sep 23-24 CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (in 3-D);
REVENGE OF THE CREATURE;
THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US