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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 02/12/93 -- Vol. 11, No. 33

MEETINGS UPCOMING:

Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in Holmdel 4N-509
Wednesdays at noon.

_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C

02/17 ENTOVERSE by James P. Hogan (Fantasy Written as Hard SF)
03/10 WEST OF EDEN by Harry Harrison (Primitive Humans Vs.
Alternatively-Evolved Bio-Tech-Advanced Reptiles)
03/31 STEEL BEACH by John Varley (Near-Future Uptopias--
Or Are They?)
03/31 Deadline for Hugo Nominations
04/21 ARISTOI by Walter Jon Williams
(If This--AI, Virtual Reality, Nanotech--Goes On)
05/12 THOMAS THE RHYMER by Ellen Kushner (Fantasy in a Modern Vein)
06/02 WORLD AT THE END OF TIME by Frederik Pohl
(Modern Stapledonian Fiction)
06/23 CONSIDER PHLEBAS by Iain Banks
(Space Opera with a Knife Twist)
07/14 SIGHT OF PROTEUS by Charles Sheffield (Human Metamorphosis)

Outside events:
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the second
Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call 201-933-2724 for
details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society meets on the third
Saturday of every month in Belleville; call 201-432-5965 for details.

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 mtgzfs3!leeper
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 908-949-7076 homxc!11366ns
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 908-576-3346 quartet!lfl
MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzfs3!leeper
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 908-957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.

1.For our next discussion, on February 17 in Holmdel, Rob Mitchell
says:

THE MT VOID Page 2

James Hogan's _E_n_t_o_v_e_r_s_e, the fourth book in his Giants series, is a
classic hard-science SF novel in the spirit of Smith's _V_e_n_u_s
_E_q_u_i_l_a_t_e_r_a_l, Clement's _M_i_s_s_i_o_n _o_f _G_r_a_v_i_t_y, or even any of Clancy's
techno-thrillers. Ideas are the main attractions in these books.
The plot in _E_n_t_o_v_e_r_s_e is tightly-written, with suspenseful twists
and several points where I stopped reading to say, "Wow! What a
clever idea!" The characterization is rice pudding without
cinnamon -- bland, semi-solid in spots, but not memorable.

The Giants series postulates that millions of years ago, tall but
gentle aliens (the Giants) lived in the Solar System and engaged in
genetic engineering experiments. Humanity's ancestors were one
result of those experiments, but our forebears destroyed their
planet in a war and had to be relocated by the Giants. One side
was brought to Earth and reverted to barbarism, the other was
brought by the Giants to a distant planet called Jevlen. All this
was brought out in the previous Giants books, in large part due to
the efforts of Dr. Victor Hunt, a scientist with the United
Nations' Space Arm (UNSA) who is a major point of contact between
the Giants and humanity. A short prologue recaps this history.

In _E_n_t_o_v_e_r_s_e, we learn that Jevlenese society has become
increasingly decadent and dependent on JEVEX, an immense
supercomputer that managed all Jevlen affairs. The two-
dimensionally quiet and rational Giants (more properly called
Thuriens) then shut JEVEX down, but were distressed when Jevlenese
society deteriorated further. The Thuriens come to Earth to seek
advice on how to deal with the Jevlenese problem, since the
Jevlenese are biologically identical to Earth's humans and
presumably almost psychologically identical.

While all this is going on, an apparently unrelated story is
interwoven between the scenes on Earth and Jevlen. In this story,
entities (humans? can't tell...) live in a universe of magic, where
literally nothing is predictable, but where stars seemed to be
dying and new gods were coming to power. Hogan takes his time
integrating this story thread into the overall plot line, but
patience is rewarded when the reader says, "Aha! So *that's* it!
What a great idea, and it makes sense!" _E_n_t_o_v_e_r_s_e is in part a
mystery novel, and Hogan plays fair with the reader and delivers a
solution worthy of his set-up. In addition, Hogan's admiration of
technology does not blind him to the fact that technology sometimes
fails, and always can be subject to abuse.

I was delighted by the ideas in the book, and the excellent skill
with which Hogan told his story. The pages turned effortlessly as
I devoured each plot hook and eagerly anticipated the next. This
was a fun book, and I recommend it on that basis. It's not a Hugo
nominee, though, since the characters are generally cardboard. The
aliens are basically Friendly Intellects Without a Clue, the
villians are almost stereotypes, and the main characters such as

THE MT VOID Page 3

Dr. Hunt are simplistically intellectual and heroic. Nonetheless,
for the story Hogan wishes to tell, the characters do the job.

I'm quite fond of Hogan's work in general, especially proto-
classics like _C_o_d_e _o_f _t_h_e _L_i_f_e_m_a_k_e_r and _I_n_h_e_r_i_t _t_h_e _S_t_a_r_s (the
first Giants book). _E_n_t_o_v_e_r_s_e is a worthy successor to those
works, and I look forward to re-reading it.

2. Okay, science fans, we have an interesting phenomenon to call to
your attention. Those of you who are extremely alert will have
noticed that the last two issues were both called Volume 11, Number
31. The current issue is number 33. The volume corresponds to the
year of publication and the number to which week in the year we are
publishing. In actual fact, when Volume 10, Number 33, came out,
the Earth was in roughly the same place in its orbit around the sun
as it is now. The number actually tells you where in the orbit
around the sun the Earth actually is. Whenever the number on the
issue is 33, the Earth is just about at the same point in its
orbit.

Now, what happened last week is a very unusual celestial
phenomenon. You see, the orbit is nearly, but not quite, perfect.
Due in part to a recalibration of the intervals to compensate for
the leap year February last year and due to uneven gravitational
influences on the movement of the Earth in its orbit, the Earth
actually spent just the slightest touch more than a week in orbit
interval number 31. It was at one end of the interval one Friday
and at the other end the next Friday. Now this Friday the Earth is
just at the beginning of the 33rd interval. This means that there
were two different issues Volume 11, Number 31, and no Volume 11,
Number 32.

If all this bothers you, don't worry about it. I am reliably
informed that the next similar orbital anomaly will be in the year
2067. By then I hope to have a more reliable mechanism for
numbering issues, assuming I am still editor. Ideally this should
never have happened, but once again the real world has fallen short
of my high standards. One more screw-up like this and I will start
looking for a replacement world.

Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
...mtgzfs3!leeper

Transportation is the action of intentionally creating
an artificial scarcity of yourself in one location while
simultaneously creating an artificial excess of yourself
in another.
--Mark Leeper

ARISTOI by Walter Jon Williams
Tor, 1992, ISBN 0-312-85172-3, $22.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper

The Aristoi are the technocrats of Earth-2 (Earth-1 having been
destroyed, presumably before society realized that the rulers should
be scientists). With the help of nanotechnology, they have
basically unlimited power. Unfortunately for the reader, they seem
to use a lot of this power to throw fancy parties. It's sort of
like "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," but with nanotechnology.

This is not to say there aren't some good ideas in _A_r_i_s_t_o_i.
The problem is that there is too much stuff around them. It took
almost half of the book to get to some of the ideas I found most
interesting: that of the responsibility of a creator to the created,
that of free will, the drawbacks of freedom over slavery, and so on.
And getting to that point was not easy. For some books you need a
dictionary by your side; for this you need a _G_r_e_e_k dictionary.

Towards the middle of the book we leave the neo-Greek society
that Williams has drawn (one friend thought it seemed more Oriental,
but I kept feeling as if I had fallen into a Hellenic SCA creation)
and enter a sort of Euro-feudal society. It is here, in this
microcosm, that the conflict begun on the macrocosm is engaged.
Layers within layers, here as in so many other areas of the novel:
multiple levels of personality, multiple levels of reality, multiple
levels of Life. (I was reminded of this watching a recent _S_t_a_r
_T_r_e_k: _T_h_e _N_e_x_t _G_e_n_e_r_a_t_i_o_n episode!)

_A_r_i_s_t_o_i is certainly a thought-provoking novel, but a bit
tough-going in parts. Williams uses some stylistic techniques
which, while serving a useful purpose, are often more distraction
than guide. I personally would have preferred a different focus,
but I can't say this is a bad novel or not worth reading. But you
should know what you're getting into.

AMMONITE by Nicola Griffith
Del Rey Discovery, ISBN 0-345-37891-1, 1993, $3.99.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper

This is the first of the "Del Rey Discovery" series that I have
read, though there have been six previously published. Most of them
seem to be of the space adventure mold, but with some New Age
philosophy, shamanism, and ecology added on.

_A_m_m_o_n_i_t_e, to take this specific book, starts with the idea that
the colonists on the planet GP ("Jeep") were struck by a virus that
killed most of the colonists--including all of the men--and left
them isolated. Now, hundreds of years later, the Company is trying
to regain a foothold on jeep. They have a vaccine against the
virus, which _m_a_y work, and they have an all-female team to try to
make contact with the inhabitants. The team soon becomes just one
person trying to make contact with the various tribes and draw them
together, while at the same time trying to discover the secret of
their survival.

It sounded vaguely reminiscent of _T_h_e _L_e_f_t _H_a_n_d _o_f _D_a_r_k_n_e_s_s,
but much of the anthropological story and even the biological riddle
ends up wrapped in New Age channeling and the lifestyles of various
indigenous peoples. While some might find this to their liking, I
am not one of them. Books that see the solution to problems as
"becoming one with the world" tend to strike me more as political
tracts than as stories (so for that matter do the technophilic
stories that one finds in _A_n_a_l_o_g these days), and I prefer my
messages a bit subtler and a bit less pat.

This could have been a very good novel, and in spite of its
flaws is still worth reading, but if the trend that the "Discovery"
series seems to be taking continues, I suspect it will end up
focused on a fairly small market.

(Some reviewers have said that this is the first "lesbian
science fiction novel" marketed by a major publisher. Assuming by
this they mean a novel in which the main character or characters are
lesbian, I suppose it's about time, but calling it a "lesbian novel"
is like calling _S_t_a_r_s_h_i_p _T_r_o_o_p_e_r_s a Filipino novel. While
_A_m_m_o_n_i_t_e's theme won't appeal to everyone, it certainly should work
across gender and sexual orientation lines.)

Capsule review: This is a surprisingly
satisfying remake and enhancement of _T_h_e _R_e_t_u_r_n _o_f
_M_a_r_t_i_n _G_u_e_r_r_e. It may offer as much to people who
have seen the original as to those who have not.
Rating: +2 (-4 to +4).

The day I am writing this review Siskel and Ebert had an
episode in which they reviewed five films of which four--_S_o_m_m_e_r_s_b_y,
_T_h_e _V_a_n_i_s_h_i_n_g, _H_o_m_e_w_a_r_d _B_o_u_n_d, and _G_u_n _C_r_a_z_y--are remakes. There
are hard choices to make when you remake somebody else's film. Do
you just reproduce the original or do you vary things? When you
vary the telling, can you really improve on the original? Does your
film have something to offer people who have seen the original?
_S_o_m_m_e_r_s_b_y is a rather remarkable remake of the 1982 film _T_h_e _R_e_t_u_r_n
_o_f _M_a_r_t_i_n _G_u_e_r_r_e. _S_o_m_m_e_r_s_b_y is Nicholas Meyer and Anthony Shaffer's
retelling of the _M_a_r_t_i_n _G_u_e_r_r_e story with some very ironic
complexities added. And there is enough complexity in this film
that, in fact, it may be a better film the first time through if you
have some idea what twists are coming. Meyer and Shaffer have
balanced their story so it is equally rewarding if you have or have
not seen the original.

The Civil War has been over for two years in Vine Hill,
Tennessee, and Laurel Sommersby (played by Jodie Foster) is about
ready to declare herself a widow and remarry. If the truth be
known, Jack Sommersby was always better at being a "good old boy"
than he was at being a husband. But then Jack (played by Richard
Gere) returns from a Union prison camp determined to improve Vine
Hill in general and his marriage in specific. His six-year absence
has made a new man of Jack, so much so that people start to question
if perhaps this new man might really not be Jack. Jack sets about
trying to fix up the war-ravaged valley and to give a boost to the
economy. Or is he just trying a confidence scheme? What Jack is
doing and why he is doing it make this a very different film from
the original. One negative touch is that the film's attitudes
towards race relations seem a bit anachronistic, but they are not
quite as pat as they first seem.

Kudos goes to Meyer and Shaffer's story which was adapted by
Meyer and Sarah Kernochen into a screenplay. Director John Amiel,
who also directed television's "Singing Detective," gives us a
complex story beautifully photographed to give a strong post-Civil
War feel. While the score has a much more traditional tone than
most of Danny Elfman's scores, it is a very likable, melodic score.
_S_o_m_m_e_r_s_b_y is at least satisfying and often is poignant. I give it a
+2 on the -4 to +4 scale.