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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 06/11/93 -- Vol. 11, No. 50

MEETINGS UPCOMING:

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

_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C

06/23 CHINA MOUNTAIN ZHANG by Maureen McHugh
(Non-European Futures)
07/14 SIGHT OF PROTEUS by Charles Sheffield (Human Metamorphosis)
08/04 Hugo Short Story Nominees
08/25 CONSIDER PHLEBAS by Iain Banks
(Space Opera with a Knife Twist)
09/15 WORLD AT THE END OF TIME by Frederik Pohl
(Modern Stapledonian Fiction)

Outside events:
07/31 Deadline for Hugo Ballots to be postmarked
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 holly!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell HO 1C-523 908-834-1267 holly!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 mtgpfs1!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.

1. Our next discussion book is _C_h_i_n_a _M_o_u_n_t_a_i_n _Z_h_a_n_g, winner of the
James Tiptree, Jr. Award (for works which expand and explore gender
roles in science fiction and fantasy) and nominated for this year's
Hugo, The premise of _C_h_i_n_a _M_o_u_n_t_a_i_n _Z_h_a_n_g may be unlikely--a 21st
Century proletariat revolution in the United States, followed by a
civil war which results in a _d_e _f_a_c_t_o Chinese takeover--but then
many good books are based on equally unlikely premises. The
question is whether the follow-through is both well-developed and
true to the premise, and in this McHugh gets full marks.

THE MT VOID Page 2

Undoubtedly the time McHugh spent living in China helped her to
draw a believable Chinese, especially since it needn't be precisely
the same as the present: time and events will effect changes in
China, and outside of China her societies are blends of the Chinese
influence with existing cultures. Even the main character, Zhang
Zhong Shan, a.k.a. Raphael Luis, is a blend--half-Chinese, half-
Hispanic. Though he "passes" as Chinese, he lives in fear that his
Hispanic background will be discovered and his status lowered as a
result. And he has other secrets, yet more dangerous.

McHugh's short fiction (her "Protection" was also nominated for a
Hugo) shows her knowledge of China and this, her first novel, shows
that she can project this into a future that has complexities which
are to us at the same time both strange and familiar. I recommend
this compelling story of a society and the people within it.

(More than likely there will also be discussion of _J_u_r_a_s_s_i_c _P_a_r_k,
dinosaurs, and Harry Harrison's _W_e_s_t _o_f _E_d_e_n, a recent discussion
book.) [-ecl]

2. Well, I guess it doesn't do me much good to say it now, but I
_k_n_e_w it was going to happen. I was even going to write a column
about it at the time, predicting it was going to happen again and
it has. There was a fire at the Spanish Riding School connected to
the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. I think all the royal families of
Europe are going to want to have their own fires now that the royal
family of Britain had their successful fire at Windsor Palace.

You know that when you are as rich as the Windsors, it is darned
hard to get public sympathy. But you know that family is having
its difficulties. Oh, the kids are all going bad and none of them
is really interested in carrying on the family business of
monarchy. It is probably a little daunting also to think that some
day you may have forced upon you the title of "Supreme Head of the
Anglican Church," particularly if really all you are looking for is
a bit of crumpet on the side.

But then there is this fire and everybody wants to be sure the
Royal Family is okay. But then the story still isn't over. How's
the art collection? Most people in England may have been only
dimly aware that there was an art collection. Suddenly the papers
were saying that the Renoirs were undamaged and that there was
minor smoke damage to the Rembrandts. Now everybody can "ooh" and
"aah" at the royal art collection. It is better than being
selected for "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." It gets the faces
of the Royal Family published in the papers again.

But the price is that now every royal family in Europe wants their
own fire. The Hofburg Palace fire is only the second "Me, too"
fire; there will be more. Mark my words.

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

JURASSIC PARK
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1993 Mark R. Leeper

Capsule review: As few films in the past have
ever managed to do, Steven Spielberg has tapped into
the mother lode of human dreams and sense of wonder.
Michael Crichton's story may be "Westworld" with
dinosaurs, but for once the biotechnology and the
special effects are phenomenal. Rating: high +3.

When Apollo 11 touched down on the moon, I got this funny
feeling in my back and in the back of my neck. This was where a
dream that I'd had became a reality. The feeling was one of "Oh
boy! Here we go!" and one of real anticipation. In Michael
Crichton's novel _J_u_r_a_s_s_i_c _P_a_r_k, a little girl drew a very detailed
picture of the animal that had bitten her. And the expert looked at
the picture and identified it as a known type of lizard. But
several of the details were wrong in her picture and that type of
lizard was not known to bite people. But the case was closed. And
then someone else looks at the picture and says, "Whose kid drew the
dinosaur?" And even though it was just a story, I got that same "Oh
boy! Here we go!" So I was hoping that sequence would make it to
the film. It didn't. Instead, paleontologist Alan Grant (played by
Sam Neill), not knowing what the Jurassic Park concept is all about,
suddenly sees an incredibly majestic sight that is undoubtedly
something he had dreamed of his entire life and he is so overcome
with joy and excitement and wonder that he has to look away. And I
was feeling just about the same thing the character was. "Oh boy!
Here we go!" Who hasn't dreamed about getting the dinosaurs back?
Now you can indulge that fantasy for two hours and people are going
to flock to do it.

Michael Crichton's story itself is really a variant on
_W_e_s_t_w_o_r_l_d. A theme park is created with genuine dinosaurs,
resurrected thanks to the magic of DNA cloning from blood found in
mosquitoes who sucked on dinosaurs and then were preserved in amber.
Two paleontologists, a mathematician, and a lawyer come to certify
that the park is real and safe. Of course it turns out that the
park is very, very real but just a bit lacking in the safe category.
Neill's Grant epitomizes the stereotype of the soft scientist who
does not get along with machines, even seatbelts. Laura Dern plays
Ellie Sattler, a second paleontologist who lives and works with
Grant, every bit his equal. Like Grant she is at first enchanted by
the island where live dinosaurs live, but soon discovers that live
dinosaurs have their downside also. Jeff Goldblum has many of the
best lines as an obnoxious but witty chaos mathematician. He uses
her acerbic wit to point out just what can go wrong with the
implementation of billionaire entrepreneur John Hammond's (Richard

Jurassic Park June 13, 1993 Page 2

Attenborough's) plan for the park. Attenborough finds a human side
to Hammond that is not apparent in the book. Instead of a vicious
maniac for success, he is more enthusiastic but likable. Other
familiar faces include Bob Peck (who has done some excellent work in
the past, including the BBC's _E_d_g_e _o_f _D_a_r_k_n_e_s_s), Martin Ferrero, and
Wayne Knight.

As enjoyable as Crichton's story is, there is much that cannot
be fully appreciated without actually seeing it. No description can
come close to the visual impact of this film. It has been suggested
that _J_u_r_a_s_s_i_c _P_a_r_k ranks with _S_t_a_r _W_a_r_s and _K_i_n_g _K_o_n_g (1933) as a
giant leap in representing images on the screen. However, there is
actually little here that is really a breakthrough in technology,
though virtually every effect that has ever been used to show
dinosaurs on the screen was resurrected and perhaps refined. There
are hand puppets, dinosaur suits, stop-motion, and computer
graphics, seamlessly and flawlessly integrated. It took about four
decades, but somebody has finally surpassed Ray Harryhausen at
showing dinosaurs on the screen. It no longer is easy to tell that
this effect is stop-motion and that one was a computer image, and
the dinosaurs look as if they were in the scene with the people, not
rear projections. Clearly inspired both by the work of Ray
Harryhausen and by a recent revolution in scientific dinosaur art
and paleontology, these dinosaurs show a lot of anatomy, including
the wrinkles, the breathing, the bone structure, and often
tremendous scale. They do not drag their tails on the ground and
even the heaviest sauropods will rear up on their hind legs to reach
the tops of trees. The one major aspect of modern dinosaur art
technical speculation that was left behind is choice of color. The
fossil record, of course, is silent on the color of dinosaurs and
some artists these days suggest that it is likely that dinosaurs
were brightly colored, but _J_u_r_a_s_s_i_c _P_a_r_k's dinosaurs are dully
colored. Still, the film does give a real air of authenticity.
When the credits say no animals were hurt in the filming, one
wonders, "How did they film that scene without killing that
velociraptor?"

It is a tribute to the special effects that in some of the
horror scenes I was genuinely tense. A really good film will make
me tense, though I have not been actually frightened by a film since
I was nine years old. (And just as an aside, I treasure those
moments when I was young and actually frightened by film. I did
even then, especially being terrified by _W_a_r _o_f _t_h_e _W_o_r_l_d_s before I
was three years old. I am very thankful that nobody "protected" _m_e
from them.) But along with the horror are also the moments of joy
and wonder. I am pleased that the John Williams score concentrates
on the wonder, not the horror of having the dinosaurs return. It
would be nice if that wonder might push some younger viewers into
fields such as paleontology that pay off in sense of wonder and
fulfillment of curiosity, even if they are not as financially
rewarding. It helps that _J_u_r_a_s_s_i_c _P_a_r_k is reasonably scientifically

Jurassic Park June 13, 1993 Page 3

accurate. Most skepticism seems to center around a belief that
dinosaur DNA would deteriorate in amber over the tens and hundreds
of millions of years. You could not really clone DNA that old. But
even that is open to conjecture. What does seem odd is that at one
point early in the script one of the scientists surprisingly fins a
supposedly extinct leaf from something other than a tree. I do not
think that's its presence is explained by the premise of cloning.

The script does include reasonable debates as to whether this
particular scientific wonder is really what the world needs.
Because it is a disaster story, of course the anti-science side has
the upper hand, though not all the anti-science articles are
convincing. The theme voiced by the mathematician that life _w_i_l_l
find a way to survive at first is a warning that the dinosaurs will
not be contained, but eventually applies to the people as well.

The script was co-authored by Crichton, and David Koepp with
more than a little humor borrowed from such diverse sources as
Buster Keaton and Gary Larson, as well as a few jokes of their own.
In total, this is one of the most enjoyable adventure films in
years. I rate it a high +3 on the -4 to +4 scale, but then I am
biased toward science fiction.

THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK

Capsule review: Michael Apted gives us a
powerful documentary about the 1975 shoot-out at the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This is far more
powerful than its cliche-ridden companion film
_T_h_u_n_d_e_r_h_e_a_r_t. Rating: low +2 [-4 to +4].

In April of 1992 I reviewed _T_h_u_n_d_e_r_h_e_a_r_t, one of a pair of
films made by British filmmaker Michael Apted about the Lakota
Indians of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. I was
and remain fairly negative on _T_h_u_n_d_e_r_h_e_a_r_t because, as I said in my
review, the story-telling was not very good. I see the story as
being extremely cliche-ridden and weak. I did--and still do--think
Apted's implication that Indian magic really works weakened rather
than strengthened the film. (This was not intended as and anti-
Indian sentiment, as I feel the same way about any magic in a non-
fantasy film. As a strict empiricist, I just do not believe in the
supernatural, religious or otherwise.) At the time I expressed my
belief that _T_h_u_n_d_e_r_h_e_a_r_t was the wrong film for the right movement
and I expressed my hopes that _I_n_c_i_d_e_n_t _a_t _O_g_l_a_l_a would be better.
It is.

In spite of Apted having more experience with fiction films,
his fiction films are often melodramatic. His more political films
seem to give loaded arguments, making the villains dehumanized
nasties. His _I_n_c_i_d_e_n_t _a_t _O_g_l_a_l_a is a solid piece of political
argument that cuts right to the bone. It has its "good guys" and
"bad guys" also, but they are condemned by their own words and by
the testimony of people actually involved in the incidents. It is
the authenticity of the documentary style rather than the whim of a
fiction scriptwriter in complete control that makes _I_n_c_i_d_e_n_t _a_t
_O_g_l_a_l_a so much better than _T_h_u_n_d_e_r_h_e_a_r_t.

The fundamental conflict documented in _I_n_c_i_d_e_n_t _a_t _O_g_l_a_l_a is
the conflict between the traditionalist Indians and those more for
assimilation into the dominant society. In 1975 the two groups were
so much in conflict that the Pine Ridge Reservation became a literal
battlefield with both sides killing each other in a reign of terror
that claimed over sixty victims, mostly traditionalists. The FBI
aligned itself with the assimilationist Indians. On June 26, 1975,
two FBI agents were killed in the violence. _I_n_c_i_d_e_n_t _a_t _O_g_l_a_l_a is
the story of that shoot-out, what led up to it, and the aftermath.
One man, Leonard Peltier, went to prison and is serving two
consecutive life sentences. The film gives apparently strong
evidence that Peltier was railroaded. Major witnesses are
discredited. Evidence used in the trial is apparently shown to have

Incident at Oglala June 6, 1993 Page 2

been falsified. In general, the argument is very forceful.

_I_n_c_i_d_e_n_t _a_t _O_g_l_a_l_a is a powerful piece of documentary
filmmaking, far better than Apted's companion film. The evidence
shown here seems more than ample to justify a re-trial, so much so
that it undermines somewhat Apted's argument. It is hard to believe
the entire judicial system up to the Supreme Court is so corrupt
that this weight of evidence would be insufficient to justify a re-
trial. Like _J_F_K, while it is not totally convincing, it certainly
raises questions that should be answered. I give it a low +2 on the
-4 to +4 scale.