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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 6/26/92 -- Vol. 10, No. 52
MEETINGS UPCOMING:
Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon.
_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C
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.
07/11 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Nicholas
Jainschigg (artist) (phone 201-933-2724 for details)
(Saturday)
07/18 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. I want to enlist your help in a good cause. If any of you see
Evelyn, I want you to say to her, "Eighty miles a week." That's
it. "Eighty miles a week." Thanks, I appreciate it.
Well, let me tell you about why you are telling her this. Evelyn
has certain house responsibilities. For example, Evelyn's
responsibility is arranging for the driveway to be shoveled and
ending world tyranny. (But that's another story.) Another of her
responsibilities is setting up the VCRs. If there is going to be a
program on, she sets up the machine, pops in one of the buffer
tapes, and makes a note as to which tape the program is going on in
a sort of tape-tracking program. At least 95% of the time this
goes just fine. Occasionally a recording is just not where she has
THE MT VOID Page 2
said that it was. Often she updates the program from memory long
after the fact, and she misremembers where she put the program. So
I came up with a great solution. An index card with digits "0" to
"9" and a paperclip. "Just move the paperclip when you put in a
tape and you have a record of what tape you put in," I explained
proudly.
"WHAT?!"
"It's just one more quick step."
"YOU WANT TO TAKE OVER THE RECORDING?"
"Uh, no, Buttercup, I just thought this was a better way to do
things."
"IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE WAY I DO THE JOB, YOU ARE WELCOME TO IT!"
"But it takes two seconds to move that clip."
"GREAT. YOU DO IT."
"Sorry I said anything."
Now for you to understand the next part, you have to know about THE
CARPET FROM HELL. We recently got new carpeting in the den. Now
we don't know a lot about carpets. I assume many of you out there
already know about THE CARPET FROM HELL, but you didn't tell us.
You see, it looked like a dark carpet, but when the light hits it
right it is almost white. This makes it an "easy-care" carpet.
With some carpets it is hard to tell when they need cleaning. THE
CARPET FROM HELL leaves no doubt. One poppyseed and from thirty
paces the carpet visually calls to you and says, "Hey, Jerk. Come
over here and get this thing off me."
Then there is speedy recovery. If I do pushups on THE CARPET in
the morning, I can still read my fingerprints off THE CARPET FROM
HELL that evening.
Now, the exercycle poses a problem since I turn it toward the
television when I use it. For days afterward you can see just how
I had it turned. So Evelyn has a solution. She puts a towel under
the exercycle and a rug on top to hide the towel. I try to explain
to her that a rug on a carpet goes like a cheeseburger on a bagel.
But as the last straw, when I turn the exercycle she wants me to
rearrange the rug and towel so they stay under the exercycle. So
next time she tells me I have to rearrange the carpet, I am going
to tell her she has to do the exercycling. And it's eighty miles a
week I do, so I'll expect her to. So if you see her, just remind
her it's eighty miles a week. But she doesn't listen to me. So I
want her to hear it from you.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper
BATMAN RETURNS
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Three angry costumed neurotics
battle in a big, silly, lovable comic book on the
screen. Two lesser villains from the comic turn out
to be much more intriguing than the Joker on the wide
screen. This is a terrific, surrealist film.
Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4). Warning: minor plot
spoilers in this review, almost all taken from the
film's publicity.
A book may be very amusing with numerous errors, or
it may be very dull without a single absurdity.
Oliver Goldsmith, preface to _T_h_e _V_i_c_a_r _o_f
_W_a_k_e_f_i_e_l_d
In 1983, for the 50th anniversary of _K_i_n_g _K_o_n_g, engineers tried
to inflate a fifty-foot gorilla balloon on the Empire State
Building. It was a real fiasco. It never got more than half
inflated, looked absurd, and became a real embarrassment. When
asked what he thought of it, a Japanese tourist said, "I love it!
It's so American! It's big, it's silly, and it doesn't work."
_B_a_t_m_a_n _R_e_t_u_r_n_s is a film that could be made only in America. It's
big; it's silly; it doesn't work. And above all it is lovable. It
is a mammoth King Kong balloon of a film that is nearly as endearing
for what doesn't work as for what does. It is one of those rare
films that could end up appealing to art film fans and to Friday-
night fun-seekers. It is genuinely one of the most bizarre films
ever made. Its explosions of surrealism and its warped characters
make its predecessor _B_a_t_m_a_n seem pale and lukewarm. Rather than one
villain, this film offers three and manages to make two of them much
more interesting than Jack Nicholson was as The Joker. In _B_a_t_m_a_n
film the viewer knew how the Joker became the Joker. In this film
the viewer goes the additional step of saying, "Yeah, if that
happened to me, I think I'd become like the Penguin or Catwoman."
The film opens with a monster child being born to a rich
household. Rather than keep this horrible little creature, his
parents set him adrift in a basket in a sewer. There he is adopted
by the penguins living in the sewer. ("What penguins in the sewer?"
you ask. Shhh! Let Mr. Burton tell his story! Just accept it that
there are a lot of intelligent penguins living in the sewer ... with
the clowns.)
Meanwhile, a big industrialist who pollutes the same sewer and
is planning to steal a giant electrical charge from the city. (No,
Batman June 21, 1992 Page 2
don't ask about that one either.) Max Shreck (played by Christopher
Walken) is the industrialist and he is _r_e_a_l_l_y nasty to his mousey,
frumpy secretary Selina Kyle (played by Michelle Pfeiffer). Between
him and her lackluster lifestyle, she is getting ready to explode.
Selina comes home each night to her lonely apartment, calls, "Honey,
I'm home," reminds herself that she is not married, feeds her cat,
and listens to her mother's brow-beating phone messages. Eventually
when circumstances make Shreck see Selina as a threat he throws her
out a very high window. Miraculously she is not killed and in some
mysterious way is rescued by alley cats. (Hey, look, if the sewer
penguins can save a monster baby....) Selina completely makes
herself over as the super-feminist, militant Catwoman, complete with
skintight vinyl cat suit. ("Life's a bitch; now so am I!" she
says.) Suddenly she is wreaking havoc with a bullwhip and doing
amazing athletic flips. ("How come she can do that now?" you asked.
Shhh! Now I've warned you.) _V_a_r_i_e_t_y aptly calls her "a kitten with
a whip." About this time the adult version of our monster baby
emerges from the sewer with his army of clowns to make himself loved
and to find his parents. He is nicknamed the Penguin (and played by
Danny DeVito). Shreck decides to use the Penguin in a plan to
discredit Batman and to have the Mayor ousted and replace him with
the Penguin. He is going to create a crime wave and make the Mayor
look so bad that the people will replace him with the Penguin. ("If
that scheme works, how come Dinkins is still Mayor of New York?" you
ask. Shhh! Now I'm not going to warn you again.) Catwoman and the
Penguin team up, knowing that with the Mayor thrown out they will be
sitting in the catbird seat. After that the plot gets strange and a
little hard to believe.
To say there are gaps in the plotting of _B_a_t_m_a_n _R_e_t_u_r_n_s is a
gross understatement. This is a film that somehow survives major
lapses in logic. You never know what is going to turn up in the
sewer next without rhyme or reason. There seem to be whole rooms of
furniture, troops of clowns, and colonies of penguins. Also in this
world anyone who dons a weird suit suddenly becomes an athlete ready
for the Beijing Circus. We see Batman, the self-appointed
vigilante, use lethal force on criminals in the street. Then later
he lectures Catwoman on the importance of letting the law punish the
bad. In another inconsistency Batman berates Alfred for revealing
his identity to Vicki Vale, but carelessly allows Catwoman to learn
who he is, and later intentionally reveals his identity to Max
Shreck. (It is interesting that the film does go back and explain a
plot hole from the previous film.) Other places the plot assumes
impossible capabilities for the Batmobile (it can be wider on the
inside than it is on the outside). Then it assumes that every
family in Gotham would make the same mistake of leaving the same
valuable unguarded.
And with all these gaffes there is a lot to like in the new
Batman film. The late Anton Furst's set designs from the first film
have been made more dreamlike and often given an _E_d_w_a_r_d _S_c_i_s_s_o_r_h_a_n_d_s
Batman June 21, 1992 Page 3
feel by the new production designer Bo Welch. There are numerous
allusions and touches in the film. The Batman character was
initially inspired, at least in part, by the idea of a crime-fighter
as stealthy, dark, and mysterious as Dracula, the original bat-man.
The first screen adaptation of the novel _D_r_a_c_u_l_a was the 1922 German
classic _N_o_s_f_e_r_a_t_u, in which the actor who played the animal-like
vampire was Max Schreck (whose name was slightly modified for the
allusion, but is still noticeable).
A rather nifty but probably nearly unnoticed allusion is a
woman clown dressed in 18th Century French attire who delivers her
lines in a sleepy monotone. Could this be an allusion to Glenda
Jackson playing a manic-depressive playing Charlotte Corday in
_M_a_r_a_t/_S_a_d_e? There are multiple allusions to Burton's best previous
film, _E_d_w_a_r_d _S_c_i_s_s_o_r_h_a_n_d_s. Much of the photography has very similar
visual images. Statues in the snow, such as are shown at the old
zoo, look a lot like Edward's topiary. The opening logo is over
snow, not unlike the snow of the opening of _E_d_w_a_r_d _S_c_i_s_s_o_r_h_a_n_d_s.
Danny Elfman, who scored all three films, in _B_a_t_m_a_n _R_e_t_u_r_n_s has
borrowed themes from _B_a_t_m_a_n, but also style from his _E_d_w_a_r_d
_S_c_i_s_s_o_r_h_a_n_d_s score. Choral voices under the snow scenes show up a
lot in this film as they did in _E_d_w_a_r_d _S_c_i_s_s_o_r_h_a_n_d_s. One almost
wonders, incidentally, with all the Christmas imagery if this film
was really intended for a summer release. One nice visual touch is
that what looks like a line of virile Batmen standing in line in one
scene is a closet of costumes. The only thing missing from the
Batmen are chins. If Batman is a dramatic-looking figure in
costume, it is the costume that looks so impressive, not him. You
could put Rick Moranis in that costume and he would look dangerous.
Indeed, after all the discussion prior to the first film as to
whether Michael Keaton could really play Batman, the role has once
again turned out to be surprisingly undemanding. The suit gives
Batman his stature, the script gives him a little complexity, and
Keaton steps through the role fulfilling its demands without
contributing anything extra. While that made him the best thing in
the first installment, this time it just did not hack it. This is
Pfeiffer's and DeVito's film. Living secretly in the sewers,
hatching his plans, the Penguin clearly borrows heavily from _T_h_e
_P_h_a_n_t_o_m _o_f _t_h_e _O_p_e_r_a. Yet at the same time he can turn hot and
angry in seconds, like Joe Pesci's character in _G_o_o_d_f_e_l_l_a_s. He has
not in my memory had a role that allows him such rage or such range.
Until now I have always considered Michelle Pfeiffer to be a
marvelously sexy woman who wears a lot of make-up and who does not
have a whole lot of talent. Sex appeal and make-up pulled her
through _D_a_n_g_e_r_o_u_s _L_i_a_i_s_o_n_s and _T_h_e _F_a_b_u_l_o_u_s _B_a_k_e_r _B_o_y_s, but not for
one moment of her acting have I ever considered her impressive.
However, I can no longer imagine anyone else being better as the
Catwoman. Her uncompromising fury makes her a male chauvinists'
worst nightmare. One moment she is pretending to be shocked that
Batman June 21, 1992 Page 4
Batman would dare hit a woman, the next striking out at him for so
much as daring to hesitate. Forget chivalry--this woman wants blood
and will do whatever it takes!
As a side note: it is good to see Tim Burton taking a risk for
a friend: Paul Reubens is back working again in spite of what is now
rumored to be a rather unfair rap.
There is a surprising richness of themes in this film.
Batman's own story is distorted and reflected in the two colorful
villains. All three have their origins in pain. All three have
donned their costumes to work out their own personal neuroses. All
three characters seem to live by the motto that in rage and solitude
there is strength. Even animals are compassionate compared to the
brutal humans. The two tortured villains are each save in their
moments of weakness by animals. The Penguin, like Edward
Scissorhands, longs to be normal instead of a freak. Does Batman
wear the animal costume to set himself apart from humanity and to
make himself a freak?
To extent the sentiment of the Japanese tourist, _B_a_t_m_a_n _R_e_t_u_r_n_s
could have been made only in the United States. Only in the United
States could $80M be spent bringing a comic book story to the
screen, unembarrassed. One need only look at _B_a_r_b_a_r_e_l_l_a or the
Perry Rhodan film _M_i_s_s_i_o_n _S_t_a_r_d_u_s_t to see how it could have gone
wrong. I think America still leads the world in big, brash, silly
films. That may not be much, but it still something in which to
take some pride.
While I thought the first Batman film rated only a 0, I'd give
this one a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. You ain't seen nothing
like this film.
CITY OF TRUTH by James Morrow
St. Martin's, 1992 (1990c), ISBN 0-312-07672-X, $14.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper
In the 1950s C. M. Kornbluth wrote two classic stories which
centered around lying as a way of life: "The Marching Morons" and
_T_h_e _S_p_a_c_e _M_e_r_c_h_a_n_t_s (the latter co-authored with Frederik Pohl).
Whether Morrow's novella is a response (of sorts) to these, or just
the result of being quoted John 8:32* once too often, I cannot say.
But Morrow has given us a society in which everyone tells the truth,
everyone knows the truth, and it does not set them free.
Veritas (the "City of Truth" of the title) would seem to be
following perfectly Kant's categorical imperative ("Act as if the
maxim of your action were to become by your will a general law of
nature"), which might lead the reader to question whether Kant's
"Metaphysical Foundations of Morals" might not need a few revisions.
It is the rare science fiction book today that takes on both the New
testament _a_n_d Immanuel Kant, which is probably reason enough to read
the book. But Morrow manages to write a very funny book even while
examining these weighty issues. When one character asks her husband
whether he copulates with a lot of women to strengthen their
marriage, he says no, he just likes to ejaculate inside other women.
I also liked the aptly named Camp Ditch-the-Kids. In fact, it's
probably Morrow's injection of honesty into the advertising and
mercantile aspects of society that reminds me of Kornbluth. There
is much, much more, but to tell it would ruin a lot of the enjoyment
of the book.
But it's not all humor and jokes. Morrow constructs a
situation in which the main character needs something besides the
truth--he needs the hope and innocence that lies (of commission or
of omission) can bring. And he finds that he is not alone in this
need. In the end, it is not the truth that sets him free, but the
lies.
Morrow is writing some of the most thought-provoking short
fiction today, and I highly recommend his work in general and _C_i_t_y
_o_f _T_r_u_t_h in particular. I would nominate this for a Hugo next year,
but a British edition appeared in 1990. (In fact, this edition was
apparently done from those plates and follows British spelling
conventions.) Maybe I'll just lie on the nomination form and hope
no one notices.
__________
* "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free."
UNIVERSE 2 edited by Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber
Bantam, 1992, ISBN 0-553-08038-5, $21.50.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper
As Silverberg says in his introduction, "This is the second of
a new series of anthologies of previously unpublished science
fiction stories, carrying on the name and spirit of the
distinguished _U_n_i_v_e_r_s_e series that the late Terry Carr produced
between 1971 and 1987." (Of course, he then goes on to explain how
that's not entirely accurate, but you get the idea.)
_U_n_i_v_e_r_s_e _2 contains twenty-two stories, ranging from the
memorable to the unremarkable to the incoherent. The best is "The
Passing of the Eclipse" by Donna Farley, about a future society in
which people all wear masks and, by extension, about the
(figurative) masks we all wear in our society. It's a moving story,
and a thought-provoking one, worthy of consideration come Hugo time
next year.
Almost as good is Kathe Koja's "By the Mirror of My Youth,"
about the consequences to one family when cloning humans becomes a
real possibility. It did remind me a lot of Faye Weldon's "The
Cloning of Joanna May" (I hope I have the title right there), though
I suspect coincidence rather than influence. (For reasons
surpassing _m_y understanding, Silverberg and Haber follow this story
with a protagonist named Rachel with another story with a
protagonist named Rachel. This is as bad as _F_u_l_l _S_p_e_c_t_r_u_m _2's
placement of David Brin's "The Giving Plague" immediately following
Karen Haber's "A Plague of Strangers"--and there's an irony that one
of the "victims" of the latter is one of the "perpetrators" here.
Part of editing is sequencing, and alas, this sometimes seems
random.)
Sean McMullen's "Souls in the Great Machine" is a must-read for
people interested in the history of technology, alternate
technologies, and what it really means to become "cogs in the
machine." (If this story seems unlikely, I suggest you read Kevin
Anderson and Doug Beason's _T_r_i_n_i_t_y _P_a_r_a_d_o_x for a demonstration of
how the idea here was actually applied in our world.) Other stories
worth reading include "Bruning Bush" by Carolyn Gilman and "Lost in
Transmission" by Tony Daniel.
I found this anthology spotty, but with five very-good-to-
excellent stories (including one of Hugo caliber), I feel I can
recommend it.
DELICATESSEN
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Weird and morbid comedy about
life in some strange post-Holocaust future.
Cannibals and vegetarians battle in a world where the
only meat available is from other people. Meanwhile,
life goes on in a strange apartment house over a
delicatessen. Offbeat is putting it mildly. Rating:
high +1 (-4 to +4).
The time is the future, perhaps ten years after it all went
bad. The sky is thick yellow fog. Humans have two legs and frogs
have four, but the only other animals left alive have six or eight.
Legal tender is bags of lentils or corn. And something else has
disappeared with the world we knew. What is missing is something
like sanity. With so few animals around, society has been broken
into two classes, vegetarians and those who have taken to heart the
adage that one man's meat is another man's person, so to speak. The
setting is an apartment house standing over one of the few remaining
delicatessens. And only rarely does the delicatessen have meat. In
the apartment there are the long-term residents and the transients.
The transients do not so much move out as disappear. And as their
luck would have it, they always disappear just in time to miss one
of the meat days at the delicatessen.
In the apartment building live a typical bunch of people.
There is the supremely myopic cello player who has nearly given up
on finding a husband. There are two men who make those toy
cylinders that when turned upside down moo like a cow used to. Then
there is the nice woman who hears voices telling her to commit
suicide. She tries to oblige in complex and creative ways.
Fortunately or not, her Rube-Goldberg-like suicide mechanisms just
don't work. Into this old neighborhood moves an ex-circus clown
ear-marked to be literally dead meat. Somehow he evades the
butcher's knife and falls for the nearly blind cello player.
With many a supremely gruesome twist and turn, this film is a
logical descendent of the British film _T_h_e _B_e_d-_S_i_t_t_i_n_g _R_o_o_m and the
French _L_e _D_e_r_n_i_e_r _C_o_m_b_a_t--two very strange slice-of-post-holocaust-
life black comedies. And it perhaps is the most entertaining of the
three. Some of its visual style is also reminiscent of _B_r_a_z_i_l. the
style is mostly short gag scenes that eventually add up to a plot
which in the final third is somewhere between madcap and frenetic.
This is a film for particularly morbid tastes in comedy. I give it
a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
GOOD MORNING, IRENE by Carole Nelson Douglas
Tor, ISBN 0-812-50949-8, 1992 (1991c), $4.99
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper
First there was _G_o_o_d _N_i_g_h_t, _M_r. _H_o_l_m_e_s, in which we get "A
Scandal in Bohemia" told from Irene Adler's point of view. Now we
have a sequel, in which Irene (now Norton rather than Adler)
investigates another mystery in which _j_u_s_t _c_o_i_n_c_i_d_e_n_t_a_l_l_y, Sherlock
Holmes is also involved.
The mystery involves tattooed corpses, Sarah Bernhardt, and the
royal family of Monaco. This seems like enough already without
adding Sherlock Holmes, and indeed the sections with Holmes are the
weakest in the book and seem pasted on. (Not to mention that having
two different first-person narrators, Penelope Huxleigh and Sherlock
Holmes, is extremely confusing to the reader.) The solution also
seems to depend on a lot of unlikely coincidences, including the
idea that one can copy a drawing and get exactly right those
features that are important, even when they seem superfluous to the
drawing as a whole.
There are those who really like Douglas's Irene character. To
me, she seems as much a stereotype of the "Victorian woman with
modern ideas" as Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody or any number of
other examples. And while I could accept the occasional foray into
male disguise, Irene is _c_o_n_s_t_a_n_t_l_y changing into male garb--to
investigate, to explore, to fight a duel.... There's such a thing
as overkill.
The flaws are not so glaring as to keep me from reading the
next book in the series (_I_r_e_n_e _a_t _L_a_r_g_e), but I can't get very
enthusiastic over _G_o_o_d _M_o_r_n_i_n_g, _I_r_e_n_e either.