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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 07/17/92 -- Vol. 11, No. 3

MEETINGS UPCOMING:

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

_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C

08/05 HO: Hugo-Nominated Short Stories (see below) (HO 1N-410)
08/26 HO: BONE DANCE by Emma Bull (Hugo nominee) (HO 1N-410)
09/16 HO: THE SILMARILLION by J.R.R. Tolkien (Alternate Mythologies)
(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.
07/18 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
08/08 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Multi-media
astronomical presentation (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 hocpb!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. There is nothing like listening to what is new in science to
flip around your world view. Everybody knows that we are cutting
our own throats by letting the Amazon rain forests be burnt down.
That's where we get a lot of our oxygen, and as a species we find
that oxygen is one of our favorite things. There is reason now to
question just how deeply we are cutting our throats. Perhaps that
burning is not a serious threat. Perhaps the Gaia people are right
and Nature does defend itself.

What is this all about? Well, people are putting greater and
greater volumes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.
And there is a greater amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
each year, but not nearly in the volume any of us expected. CO-2
is going somewhere faster and faster each year. We still have an

THE MT VOID Page 2

excess, just not as serious an excess as we would expect we would
have. Where is all the CO-2 going?

Well, about half goes into the ocean, it is now thought. And half
does not. That leaves only plant life out of the water. We have
always assumed that air pollution is bad for nature, and seen some
good examples, I might add. But we never gave Mother Nature a
vote. Now it is beginning to look like the vegetable biomass is
expanding each year. Mother Nature is having a field day, so to
speak. In fact, there are reports from Europe that some of their
forests are not just healthy, but getting thicker and healthier.
Why might this be? There is a bit more carbon dioxide and nitrogen
available in the air.

Does this say that air pollution is a good thing? Certainly not.
There will probably be plenty of negative effects from it. But it
may well be that Nature is better adapted to animal life than we
ever thought. _S_i_l_e_n_t _R_u_n_n_i_n_g may have been all wet as a predicter
of the future. We may end up with a future of jungles encroaching
on cities. It's not exactly the nightmare future that has been
predicted.

2. Do I actually believe what I said in item 1? I don't know what
to believe. I am just presenting it as a possibility. Next thing
you know somebody is going to call me a dupe of industrial
capitalists.

3. Since all Hugo-nominated short stories are now readily available
to just about everyone in the Club, it was decided to have a
meeting which actually discussed them (and probably we'll vote on
them at the end).

For those of use into the traditional forms of publication, the
stories are available in magazines as follows:
Terry Bisson, "Press Ann," IASFM, August 1991
John Kessel, "Buffalo," F&SF, January 1991
Geoffrey A. Landis, "A Walk in the Sun," IASFM, October 1991
Mike Resnick, "One Perfect Morning, With Jackals,"
IASFM, March 1991
Mike Resnick, "Winter Solstice," F&SF, October/November 1991
Martha Soukup, "Dog's Life," _A_m_a_z_i_n_g, March 1991
Connie Willis, "In the Late Cretaceous,"
IASFM, Mid-December 1991
(IASFM is available at many local public libraries. _A_m_a_z_i_n_g is a
little harder to find.)

As stated in the last issue, the stories are also available via E-
mail. Send mail to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com or att!decwrl!ftpmail.
The subject is ignored; The text should be as follows:
connect
chdir pub/sf

THE MT VOID Page 3

dir
ascii
get READ.ME
get cretaceous
get dogs_life
get perfectmorn
get pressann
get walkinthesun
get wintersolst
get buffalo
quit

The stories are also available via anonymous ftp from
"sf.clarinet.com" in the directory "sf".

IMPORTANT NOTE FROM THE PROVIDER: These stories are all
copyrighted, professional stories. The writers should be thanked
for taking this sort of new venture, allowing you to have the
stories for free. They are granting you permission to download
these stories for your personal use. However, you may not copy
them further, forward them to others, put them in archives or
republish them in any way. Please respect the rights of these
superb SF Pros.

[Further details, including how to give a small "thank you" to the
authors for this, are in last week's issue. Note that per Brad
Templeton's request, I cannot forward these files to you. Since
all but one or two members have e-mail access, this should not be a
major problem. -ecl]

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

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all
its pupils.
-- Hector Berlioz, "Almanach des lettres francaises"

Capsule review: Romance, comedy, fantasy, and
even a little softcore horror combine in an
intelligent and thoroughly enjoyable film. _P_r_e_l_u_d_e
handles an old idea, but at the same time says a lot
about life and human relationships. Even the acting
by minor characters is good. (This is one of those
films whose actual premise comes as a surprise well
into the film. I will be very vague below rather
than spoil the plot.) Rating: high +2.

Peter Hoskins (played by Alec Baldwin) and Rita Boyle (played
by Meg Ryan) are made for each other. They are both bright, lively
people. Peter is quiet, sedate, and thoughtful. Rita on the other
hand
is all over the map. She clearly playfully loves life in the
daylight but at night has terrors that something terrible will
happen to her world. She does not know how right she is. Something
will happen to her on her wedding day. It is something that is
weird, right out of the Twilight Zone with touches of Kafka. At the
same time Peter is going to be pulled into a strange struggle to
prove his love.

Take an idea that has been done many times in films. Make it
one that everybody thought could not be done one more time. Give
this idea to a good enough writer and you occasionally can find
fresh new approaches. In this case the writer is Craig Lucas who
proves that an old fantasy mechanism can be given a new spin and can
reveal insights into human nature and the aging process that nobody
has seen in it before. Lucas wrote his story first as a Broadway
play. Now he adapted his story into a screenplay. _P_r_e_l_u_d_e _t_o _a
_K_i_s_s was his fifth play and second produced screenplay. His
previous film was the excellent _L_o_n_g_t_i_m_e _C_o_m_p_a_n_i_o_n. Lucas's play
_M_i_s_s_i_n_g _P_e_r_s_o_n_s, his film _L_o_n_g_t_i_m_e _C_o_m_p_a_n_i_o_n, and now his film
_P_r_e_l_u_d_e _t_o _a _K_i_s_s were all directed by Norman Rene'. Rene' who must
be a great director, since just about every speaking performance in
his films seems to be very good. I think many people will be
enthralled by Richard Riehle's performance as an elderly man who
crashes the wedding. I found myself fascinated with a small but
magnetic performance by Stanley Tucci playing Peter's best friend,
Taylor. It is just a small role, but Rene' invests the character
with a lot of personality. Also notable is Ned Beatty as Rita's
father, but most people expect Beatty to turn in a good performance.
It is some of the lesser known actors who give this film its
texture.

_P_r_e_l_u_d_e _t_o _a _K_i_s_s is a light fantasy with some heavy ideas that
audiences can think about or choose to ignore. Operating on
multiple levels, it is a surprisingly satisfying film to be coming
out in the summer fluff season. I rate it a high +2 on the -4 to +4
scale.