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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 08/20/93 -- Vol. 12, No. 8
MEETINGS UPCOMING:
Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in Holmdel 4N-509
Wednesdays at noon.
_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C
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)
10/06 SARAH CANARY by Karen Joy Fowler (Nebula Nominee)
10/27 THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert A. Heinlein (Classic SF)
11/17 BRIAR ROSE by Jane Yolen (Nebula Nominee)
12/08 STAND ON ZANZIBAR by John Brunner (Classic SF)
01/05 A MILLION OPEN DOORS by John Barnes (Nebula Nominee)
01/26 Bookswap
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 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. Of our next discussion book, _C_o_n_s_i_d_e_r _P_h_l_e_b_a_s, Dale Skran says:
Iain Banks has written an interesting, albeit dark, vision of a
conflict between the "Culture" and the "Indirians. " One of the
things I liked was the fine detailing of the two antagonists and
their varying assumptions that led to the war. This is not a
standard space opera, and indeed may be creating a new sub-genre,
"dark space opera." Banks is literate, and the backgrounds
THE MT VOID Page 2
interesting, yet there is an appropriate amount of galaxy smashing
action.
There is one rather gross sequence near the middle that reminded me
of the middle part of _N_e_v_e_r_n_e_s_s. In any case, don't expect an
uplifting ending. Also, be warned that Banks really has only
anti-heros. For a quick intro, read the appendix on how the war
started and who won, the casualty lists, etc. This is the best
part of the book.
I advocated this book since Iain Banks is a relatively new author,
and I think an interesting one as well. After this book, I read
_T_h_e _U_s_e _o_f _W_e_a_p_o_n_s and _A_g_a_i_n_s_t _a _D_a_r_k _B_a_c_k_g_r_o_u_n_d, but _C_o_n_s_i_d_e_r
_P_h_l_e_b_a_s has by far the best background and largest scope. However,
after having read three of his books, I don't see Banks on an
improving track to the Hugo level--he seems stuck in the sub-genre
he has created for himself. [-dls]
By the way, our Scottish members have expressed an interest in
seeing a summary of the discussion, so we hope to publish one in
the next issue. Maybe we can even get some comments from the folks
you can't attend! [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. I have been talking about how places I go on vacation tend to
end up in a mess, or at least making news. I don't think this is
just because I visit there, though it's true that Evelyn looks for
people to disagree with like a dog looks for fire hydrants. But
for a lot of places I don't think you can trace the controversy to
her directly. And I am not even counting places like Nairobi which
had problems with protesters against President Daniel Arap Moi,
Cairo with fundamentalist uprisings, or Leningrad with the fall of
Communism--though they did change the name of the city in the hopes
that Evelyn could not find it again. Most of these places made
news well after our visit. If you stand in any one place long
enough, I am sure the place will eventually make some news. (If
nothing else, it will make a "Believe-It-or-Not" that this weird
person has been standing in this one place for years and years
waiting for something to happen.)
But I mean sometimes trouble comes really quickly. A couple of
years ago we got back from a trip my parents had been worried
about, so we called them and said, "There was no reason for you to
worry. They are still just talking in Yugoslavia." Next morning
we turned on the news. Croatia had seceded from Yugoslavia;
Slovenia would do so the following day. Our plane had gone from
Dubrovnik (in Croatia) to Beograd (which for some reason you insist
on calling Belgrade, in Serbia). I bet the next day's flight was
no so happy, if there was one the next day.
THE MT VOID Page 3
So we gleefully watched the news. ("Oh, boy, look, Evelyn: that's
a tank rolling right by where we bought ice cream!") The fighting
and shooting brought us happy travel memories. ("Hey, I remember
what Sarajevo looked like before it was blown up like that. That
was a month or so ago.")
Meanwhile there are riots in Bangkok, of all places--peaceful
Bangkok--and the wounded protesters are brought into the lobby of
the Royal Hotel. ("Hey, Evelyn, look at the lobby! Up at the top
of those stairs was our room!") The newscaster said that
protesters were taken out the back door to ambulances. ("That's a
side door, jerk! Who's doing your reporting for you?")
Then Czechoslovakia broke up. Now it is interesting to have news
coming from places we know, but it also is a bit disconcerting. So
last year we decided we were going to go some place stable ... some
place in the United States. Arizona and New Mexico. How much room
is there for upheaval in Arizona and New Mexico? Now we are
hearing about weird virus outbreaks on the Navaho reservation. The
Tribal Council is meeting in Window Rock. ("Pretty town, Window
Rock. That weird formation of rock towers over the town. The
Navajo were really nice people. Good sense of humor. And there
were the friendly people at that trading post where the storm
started as we arrived and knocked the power out. Do you think that
was a bad omen?") Actually, maybe I should shut up. We are
filling out visa applications for India and if the word of what we
bring to a country gets back to them we will be about as popular as
a rat in a bottle of milk.
===================================================================
3. THE THREAD THAT BINDS THE BONES by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (AvoNova,
ISBN 0-380-77253-1, 1993, $4.99) (a book review by Evelyn C.
Leeper):
I rarely read fantasy, but I have liked Nina Kiriki Hoffman's short
fiction in _P_u_l_p_h_o_u_s_e, _W_e_i_r_d _T_a_l_e_s, and elsewhere, so I picked up
this book. the cover makes it look like a drawing room comedy with
ghosts cavorting about. It isn't. It's a rather dark tale of
enchantment and slavery and power and twisted emotions and mis-used
talents.
Tom Renfield has always had special powers but tried to deny them.
Laura Bolte comes from a family that revels in their powers, but
she has rejected them until a return to her home triggers events
that will force both her and Tom to use their powers to take sides
in the coming fight.
_T_h_e _T_h_r_e_a_d _T_h_a_t _B_i_n_d_s _t_h_e _B_o_n_e_s is reminiscent of those witchcraft
movies that some studios such as Hammer Films used to make (_T_h_e
_D_e_v_i_l'_s _B_r_i_d_e comes to mind). It's not about witchcraft or devil
THE MT VOID Page 4
worship, but there is some of the same feel of strange powers and
hidden secrets and dangers. The beginning also brought to mind _T_h_e
_T_w_i_l_i_g_h_t _Z_o_n_e, with its outwardly normal town that a bit at a time
starts seeming strange. Hoffman has always seemed to specialize in
the dark side of the human soul, and she puts this talent to good
use here. Unless you have a complete aversion to fantasy, you may
want to give _T_h_e _T_h_r_e_a_d _T_h_a_t _B_i_n_d_s _t_h_e _B_o_n_e_s a try.
===================================================================
4. HARD DRIVE by David Pogue (Diamond, ISBN 1-55773-884-X, 1993,
$4.99) (a book review by Mark R. Leeper):
I am willing to be corrected on this one, but I think that the
techno-thriller was invented by Michael Crichton with _T_h_e _A_n_d_r_o_m_e_d_a
_S_t_r_a_i_n. Certainly that was the first techno-thriller I had ever
read. The idea was to tell a good story set in a technical
environment and give understandable explanations of that
environment as you go along so that the reader learns something
interesting to take away from the reading at the same time that the
reader is entertained. The same thing had been attempted in
science fiction before but in all the cases I know of the accuracy
of the science was dubious or the explanation not done very well.
_T_h_e _A_n_d_r_o_m_e_d_a _S_t_r_a_i_n was not afraid to use illustrating figures
that could have come from technical papers, but it explained them
so that the reader felt they were something comprehensible, and
they did lend an air of reality to the story. Since then many
others have tried to write stories that taught you about some new
technical field, most notably Tom Clancy. Of course one problem
with these techno-thrillers is that you never know if the
descriptions are being made simplistic. You never knew if the
explanations would seem foolish if you only knew the field. David
Pogue's _H_a_r_d _D_r_i_v_e is about a field where I do have some knowledge:
computer systems.
_H_a_r_d _D_r_i_v_e is the sort of novel that immediately strikes you as
surprising that nobody wrote sooner. It is about how a computer
virus gets loose and the attempts to save the world from the virus.
Of course, the Internet worm made national headlines in late 1988
and yet there have been no computer techno-thrillers to explain and
exploit the presence of computer viruses. In fact, the only
computer techno-thriller preceding _H_a_r_d _D_r_i_v_e was Clifford Stoll's
non-fiction _T_h_e _C_u_c_k_o_o'_s _E_g_g. The fact that Stoll's book was such
a good story and was a true story in a field where there had been
no notable thrillers published to date combined to give _T_h_e
_C_u_c_k_o_o'_s _E_g_g the status of a "classic" within weeks of publication.
So the field was ripe for _H_a_r_d _D_r_i_v_e (or a novel like it) for quite
a while.
Pogue presumably has the credentials to write such a novel. As the
book says, he is a contributing editor of _M_a_c _W_o_r_l_d and a computer
THE MT VOID Page 5
consultant. The problem is that he is only mediocre as a
storyteller. This is a first novel and is very light stuff indeed.
A bright young computer scientist, Danny Cooper, comes to work at a
start-up company, Artelligence. There the chief guru and most
respected programmer is Gam Lampert. Gam is brilliant and
mysterious, and he considers himself above company security rules.
From there the plot is fairly predictable. In fact, things are so
predictable that one might almost suspect the novel of being
written by a computer if there were not mistakes that a computer
would know better than to make. The first two lines of the novel
are the title "Prologue" and the line "The Wall Street Journal,
Friday, April 2, 1983." Come on, Pogue. I can figure in my head
that that was a Saturday. Don't you have a calendar program on
your computer?
So the thriller aspect of the story is slight. Unfortunately, the
technical aspect is also. Pogue clearly wrote this assuming little
technical expertise on the reader's part. One of the characters
asks Danny what a computer virus is, and he and the reader get a
simple explanation. Somehow Tom Clancy gets away without ever
having a character ask, "What is sonar anyway?" I have had a
friend tell me that some of the windows printed in the book as in-
line illustrations have a crude layout. If so, that did not bother
me. At some point the same virus goes from a MAC to a UNIX system;
the same friend (well, let me credit him: Robert Schmunk) said this
was unlikely. I am unconvinced that a virus could not be designed
for cross-operating-system infection, particularly since presumably
it would be valuable for a virus to be able to make the jump. In
any case, if you are going to read both _H_a_r_d _D_r_i_v_e and _T_h_e _C_u_c_k_o_o'_s
_E_g_g, read _H_a_r_d _D_r_i_v_e first since its explanations are more basic
and simple. But if you are going to read only one, you can skip
Pogue's book.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
leeper@mtgzfs3.att.com
The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost
wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end
of the gun.
-- P. G. Wodehouse
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