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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 11/06/92 -- Vol. 11, No. 19
MEETINGS UPCOMING:
Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon.
_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C
11/18 HO: DOOMSDAY BOOK by Connie Willis (Plagues) (HO 4N-509)
12/09 HO: A FIRE ON THE DEEP by Vernor Vinge (HO 4N-509)
_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.
11/14 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
11/21 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 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. Episodes of _S_u_r_v_i_v_o_r_s have remained a favorite with Leeperhouse
attendees. Want to know why? Why not join us for the second
season? Is it good? Who knows? I have seen only the first season
and it was great. This is not science fiction with monsters and
zappers. _S_u_r_v_i_v_o_r_s has intelligent and well thought-out scripts.
As the story begins, an epidemic has reduced England to about
10,000 people. They are attempting to put together working
societies. This is entertainment, but it will also make you think
about how societies work and how they differ from each other. Why
not join us on Thursday, November 12, at 7 PM for episodes 1, 2,
and 3 of the second season of _S_u_r_v_i_v_o_r_s?
2. In honor of the month of November being Jewish Heritage Month,
attached you will find reviews of two books, one of which recasts a
famous Jewish legend in modern terms, and one of which recasts a
famous non-Jewish fairy tale in Jewish terms. The two books
together provide a new perspective on the uses of myth and legend
THE MT VOID Page 2
in literature and in life, and I recommend them. [-ecl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
...mtgzfs3!leeper
There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the
whole government working for you.
-- Will Rogers
HE, SHE, AND IT by Marge Piercy
Knopf, 1991, ISBN 0-679-40408-2, $22.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper
_H_e, _S_h_e, _a_n_d _I_t is about so many different things I don't know
where to start. It's about determinism and free will, about ecology
and electronic networks, about Jewish mysticism and advanced
genetics, about freedom and slavery, and (ultimately) about what it
means to be human.
That's a lot to pack into one book. Piercy does it by
concentrating on what is important to her plot and her goal. Not
for her the long descriptive passages so characteristic of a lot of
"cyberpunk" writing (though Piercy acknowledges her debt to
cyberpunk). Her characters don't luxuriate in the Net--they get in,
do their task, and get out.
_H_e, _S_h_e, _a_n_d _I_t is really two parallel stories. One is the
story of Shira Shipman, living in a future world almost destroyed by
pollution and other ecological abuse, controlled by multi-national
corporations, and almost universally connected by the Net. After
losing custody of her son in her divorce, she leaves the multi that
she worked for/lived in and returns to Tikva, the independent Jewish
community where she was raised. But it is not the safe haven she
expected; a scientist has built a cyborg to defend the community, a
cyborg so advanced that its existence precipitates the very attack
by the multi it was built to defend against, who wants the
technology.
The other story is that of the 16th Century Golem of Prague,
told by Shira's grandmother Malkah to Yod (the cyborg) as a parallel
to the reasons for Yod's creation and the results of that creation.
The two stories are inter-leaved--one or two chapters in Shira's
world, then a chapter of Riva's story-telling, then back to Shira's
world, and so on. At first, this is a bit jarring, but the reader
rapidly comes to realize how effectively this highlights the
relevance of this 16th Century legend, even--or perhaps especially-
-in the world of today and tomorrow.
In spite of her lack of science fiction credentials (or maybe
because of it), Piercy has written an extremely competent and
readable science fiction novel. Avoiding many of the snares that
often catch mainstream writers on their first forays into science
fiction, Piercy gives us a work that engages our interest, involves
us in its characters, and at the same time illuminates the fact that
the "foolish" myths and superstitions of the past may not be so
foolish after all, and may teach us a lot about the human condition.
Readers familiar with the golem legend will find it treated here
with as much accuracy as one can expect for a legend, but readers
unfamiliar with it will not be lost either, because Piercy does not
assume prior knowledge of the legend in her telling. Highly
recommended!
BRIAR ROSE by Jane Yolen
Tor, 1992, ISBN 0-312-85135-9, $17.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper
Thank you, Jane Yolen.
I thanked you last year for _T_h_e _D_e_v_i_l'_s _A_r_i_t_h_m_e_t_i_c, a young
adult novel in which a young girl travels back through time to the
Holocaust and comes to a better understanding of her heritage and
her family. And now I thank you for _B_r_i_a_r _R_o_s_e, in which a woman
tries to find out the secret of her grandmother's past, and why her
grandmother was so obsessed with the fairy tale Briar Rose
(a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty).
For as long as Rebecca can remember, her grandmother Gemma has
told Rebecca and her sisters the tale of Briar Rose (which we know
as Sleeping Beauty). But more than that, she has told them that _s_h_e
is Briar Rose. Now that Gemma has died, Rebecca is driven to find
out who her grandmother really was and why she told this story.
Even from the beginning, Rebecca discovers that much of what she
believed about her family history isn't true. Eventually her search
takes her to Poland and the truth about the dark time of the
Holocaust.
Yolen has done a very good job in describing a Jewish family
and its history, but what is worth noting is that she has not
ignored the other aspects of the Nazi regime during that period.
One of the primary sources of information for Rebecca when she
travels to Poland is a man who was imprisoned for his homosexuality.
And the history involves other groups persecuted as well. Yolen
manages this without minimizing anyone's suffering--it is not a
contest of what group suffered more, but a look at the people who
suffered and how they often worked together against the horror.
In my review of Marge Piercy's _H_e, _S_h_e, _a_n_d _I_t, I talked about
how Piercy told a 16th Century legend, both in its own time and then
as a re-telling in a near-future time, so that we could see that
what seemed like just an old story was still very relevant to the
issues that face us today. In _B_r_i_a_r _R_o_s_e, Yolen takes a fairy tale
rather than a legend, but then does the same thing: shows us that it
would be a mistake to write it off as just another story--shows us
that even a fairy tale may have much underlying truth in what it
says. I have not read the other stories in the "Fairy Tale" series
(of which this is one), so I don't know if that is the usual
approach, but I highly recommend this book.