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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 12/31/93 -- Vol. 12, No. 27
MEETINGS UPCOMING:
Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in Middletown 1R-400C
Wednesdays at noon.
_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C
01/05 A MILLION OPEN DOORS by John Barnes (Nebula Nominee)
01/26 Bookswap
02/16 Demo of Electronic Hugo and Nebula Anthology (MT 3D-441)
03/09 A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ by Walter M. Miller (Vividly Memorable SF)
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 MT 2G-432 908-957-5087 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 HO 2C-318 908-949-4156 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. The next book for discussion is the Nebula-nominee _A _M_i_l_l_i_o_n
_O_p_e_n _D_o_o_r_s by John Barnes. Alas, no one seems to have read this in
time to give a description, so we will be having a mystery meeting.
(Actually, since this meeting is in Middletown in a new room--1R-
400C--we figure that it will take some extra time for people to
find it, so having it will probably be a somewhat shorter
discussion than normal.) We will also probably be discussing what
people thought the best of 1993, so come join us! [-ecl]
===================================================================
THE MT VOID Page 2
2. I am in the process of writing a review of an art book and I ran
across a quote that started me thinking. The quote is by Carl Jung
and says, "The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and
most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens into the primeval
cosmic night .... In dreams we pass into the deeper and more
universal truth." Now I wonder how many of us have questioned
whether that is really true. Has anyone ever proven that the
content of dreams has more than superficial significance any more
than the position of the stars at the time of birth or the lines in
the palm of the hand? You can build something that seems like a
science out of reading deep meaning into any of these things, but
how do you know that any of them really have validity? Sure, you
can even appear to to get some positive results out of each, but
that does not make them valid necessarily.
In Japan there are a lot of people who sincerely believe in
biorhythms. This is the belief that you have three biological
cycles of 22, 27, and 32 days each, represented by sine waves
starting at zero the moment you are born. The important, in this
case dangerous, days are not the high or low points but where the
curves cross each other. Now this is a real load of duck tires
just about anyway you look at it. First, ask any woman if
biological cycles that go over many days are so precise that they
could be graphed with a sine wave. Or you can ask me and I will
tell you that some biological cycles really are somewhat precise,
but they are all precisely 24 hours in length and closely
synchronized by the sun. A flower opening and closing is an
example. Take away the sun--say move the flower into a cave--and
the flower's cycle get all bollixed up.
But the idea that it is crossover points that are significant is
ridiculous. Even assuming you can figure out the starting point of
a cycle, it is like saying that I am particularly accident prone at
an instant when I am 54.27% the way into my sleep cycle and just
that far into my breathing cycle.
Yet in Japan it has been shown if you are particularly careful on
the days when the curves cross each other, you can significantly
improve your safety record. And I believe it. However I also
believe that if you roll three dice each morning and are
particularly careful on days when two or more of the dice match,
that will be every bit as effective. Being particularly careful on
any randomly selected days will improve your safety record, but it
is not the choice of days that does the trick, is is the number of
them and the degree to which you are being careful. Just because a
psychological theory yields some positive results does not make it
a true reflection of reality. But it seems to me that deep down
there is no real evidence that dreams have any but the most
superficial connection with a person's mental state. Yet we seem
to take it as an article of faith.
THE MT VOID Page 3
===================================================================
3. THE VAMPIRE COMPANION: THE OFFICIAL GUIDE TO ANNE RICE'S "THE
VAMPIRE CHRONICLES" by Katherine Ramsland (Ballantine, ISBN 0-345-
37922-5, 1993, US$29.95) (a book review by Mark R. Leeper):
I occasionally have this problem reading novels. I like to read
just before bed. It relaxes me. Occasionally I even find myself
falling asleep and waking up to find the book has fallen on the
floor. That isn't the problem. The problem is that the next time
I pick up the book I find I have no memory of what I read last
evening. I can go back and skim and remember what I read, but that
takes time. I have this tendency to lose continuity. I won't
remember exactly who the characters are or what happened to them
before. I have often wished I had the book on-line so I could
search for some character's name and find what I have read about
that character earlier. As you might imagine, I am not a big fan
of mystery novels.
On the other hand one of the best books I ever read was _N_j_a_l'_s
_S_a_g_a, an Icelandic saga of the 13th Century about a blood feud that
took place in the 10th Century. I read it a little bit at a time
over about five years. When it was over I felt I had been witness
to a big chunk of history as well as a true epic. I never lost the
continuity. Why not? Because the Penguin edition, translated by
Magnus Magnussen, had this terrific appendix. For each character
there was an entry telling what happened to that character, chapter
by chapter. I could get quick reminders of what happened to that
character in the last chapter and the chapter before and very
quickly picked up the continuity, even if the last time I read a
chapter was two month earlier. Without that appendix, the book
would have been impossible to read. That book demonstrated to me
the value of having a good guide to the characters in a book.
I read _I_n_t_e_r_v_i_e_w _w_i_t_h _t_h_e _V_a_m_p_i_r_e when it first came out and
enjoyed it, but never bothered with any of the sequels since they
required memory of the first book really understand what was going
on. For me the chief value of Katherine Ramsland's _T_h_e _V_a_m_p_i_r_e
_C_o_m_p_a_n_i_o_n will be as a memory aid in reading the books. The book
also serves another function, namely it tells a little something of
the allusions made in the novel. Here _T_h_e _V_a_m_p_i_r_e _C_o_m_p_a_n_i_o_n may be
a little less successful. In twenty-six words it explains who
Leonardo da Vinci is. There is no way anybody could give a
satisfying description of Leonardo in so short a space. At least
it gives the reader a little bit that might prompt further reading,
though to maintain the atmosphere there is no indication that
Leonardo is real and that Laurant is a fictional character, though
in this case it is obvious, of course since Laurant is a vampire
and most people will already know of Leonardo (it would be hoped).
But if that is the case, does a reminder of who Leonardo was serve
any purpose? There are some notable factual errors. For example
THE MT VOID Page 4
we are told that H. Rider Haggard's novel is _S_h_e: _W_h_o _M_u_s_t _B_e
_A_d_o_r_e_d. The correct title is simply _S_h_e. Each entry is complete
with a book and page reference. The page references are keyed to
the paperback editions of the novels, making one wonder who is
likely to read the novels in paperback, yet would still spend $30
on a hardback guide to the contents.
Some of the entries are clearly of more interest than others,
depending on how obscure the reference is. However, it is hard to
tell an obscure real-world reference from one that is fictional.
This book pretends that the Rice stories are true and treats
entries for fictional people and places identically to references
to real people. Of course, fans of Sherlock Holmes have done the
same thing for years--at least since the Thirties. People have
been doing the same thing with Santa Claus for a lot longer.
C. Northcote Parkinson did it for Horatio Hornblower in his
biography of C. S. Forster's character. Nonetheless, even with
Sherlock Holmes the practice gets tiresome. It is a matter of
taste, but I would have preferred Ramsland not to follow the same
affectation.
The main text is a sort of dictionary of people, places, and things
referred to in the stories. Following that is a timeline going
back to 4000 B.C. and up to 1992. It mixes events of the stories
with publication dates of the books, again mixing fiction and
reality. The next section is the "Vampire Atlas," showing maps of
where events occur in the stories. I would like to think that some
of these maps are somewhat unnecessary. Page 496 has a map of the
Western Hemisphere showing things like where San Francisco is.
Actually even there the maps are less than helpful. San Francisco
is shown somewhat to the south of where it really is. St. Louis is
shown a bit to the east of its actual location. Other maps show
street layouts of San Francisco or New Orleans. It is hard to
believe these high-level maps could be of all that much value in
reading the stories. The book ends with a bibliography.
While there are a few irritations in how this book is written, just
going through the pages impresses one with how much vampire lore
really is packed into Rice's novels. At a cost of about $30
Ballantine may have put the book outside the reach of many of
Rice's readers, but for those who pay the price the 500+ pages of
reference material in the book should enhance the experience of
reading the series.
===================================================================
4. OUT OF TIME by James P. Hogan (Bantam Spectra, ISBN 0-553-
29971-9, 1993, US$3.00) (a book review by Evelyn C. Leeper):
THE MT VOID Page 5
This could be described as a story that fell through a time warp--
it reads like the old "science puzzler" stories you used to see in
the 1950s. A strange phenomenon has struck New York. Time is out
of joint (with apologies to Philip K. Dick)--everyone's clock or
watch seems to be running at a different speed, with the result
that people find themselves losing time. For example, their watch
says an hour has passed, but the clock at City Hall says two hours
have passed. (One assumes everyone is syncing up with the sun,
though this is never actually stated.) Joe Kopeksky is trying to
find out why this is happening and how to stop it. Along the way
he meets the same stereotyped and cliched characters one would have
found in the 1950s: a German scientist (complete with thick
accent), an Irish priest (complete with thick brogue), and so on.
(If it is politically incorrect to write racially stereotyped
characters, why is it apparently not politically incorrect to write
nationally stereotyped ones?)
In any case, this is not a book one reads for the characterization.
Hogan's solution is derived from one way of expressing the laws of
physics, but he may be taking some philosophical concepts too
literally for this to be strictly science fiction. There is a
certain element of fantasy here (in my opinion), or at least the
sort of scientific "babble-speak" that _S_t_a_r _T_r_e_k has become known
for. This book is a definite departure from the usual literary
bent of this series of novellas, and will probably disappoint the
series' regular readers, while not reaching the audience for the
1950s nostalgia that it seems to be.
===================================================================
5. GRUMPY OLD MEN (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule review: This is a trite and formulaic
comedy for people who think it is funny to see old
men acting like naughty children. Good actors
cannot save this thin script with shallow characters
facing straw crises. Better films than this are
being made for TV. Rating 0 (-4 to +4).
For years the town of Wabasha, Minnesota, has seen the battle of
two now crotchety next-door neighbors, friends from youth and at
the same time enemies most of that time. John (Jack Lemmon) and
Max (Walter Matthau) seem to live to play nasty jokes on each
other. In their 70s now, there is little in either's life but
watching television, ice fishing, and tormenting the other. Then a
likable, sexy kook moves in across the street and so the two old
men have a new activity, staring out the window at Ariel (Ann-
Margaret). And they have a new conquest to be rivals for. Ariel
is someone who lives life rather than retreating from it the way
John and Max do. She is like a mystical force in Max and John's
THE MT VOID Page 6
lives. The script never really explains her presence in Wabasha,
nor is what she lives on,
_T_h_e _O_d_d _C_o_u_p_l_e, _T_h_e _F_o_r_t_u_n_e _C_o_o_k_i_e, and _T_h_e _F_r_o_n_t _P_a_g_e. But
director Donald Petrie seems at a loss as to how to tap into that
comic potential. The fault is not his and is certainly not his
actors' but that of a poorly written screenplay by Mark Steven
Johnson. At its best, the screenplay makes palatable some trite
points about living life and taking risks. But the film indulges
itself too much in showing old men cussing and using sexually
explicit language as if that was in itself supposed to be
hilarious. Actually we get to see that Lemmon and Matthau really
do have a chemistry together still as we see them joking with each
other in the outtakes run under the final credits. But when the
cameras were rolling for real and they had to follow Johnson's
script, somehow all the chemistry evaporates. Petrie did much
better with _M_y_s_t_i_c _P_i_z_z_a a much more keenly observed regional
comedy.
_G_r_u_m_p_y _O_l_d _M_e_n is over-powered with a very good cast who just are
not needed in the parts they have gotten. At 52 Ann-Margaret is
starting to lose her figure but little of her appeal. And in
addition somewhere along the way she has learned to act to the
point I would almost classify her as under-appreciated. Burgess
Meredith is incredibly wasted as a foul-mouthed nonagenarian.
Daryl Hannah and Ossie Davis are around in smaller parts than they
deserve and ones they should have let go to less familiar actors.
_G_r_u_m_p_y _O_l_d _M_e_n is a very fluffy film people who think it is funny
to see old men fighting like children and repeatedly calling each
other "putz" and "moron." If you list ten crises that old men
might face, two of them will probably be in this film. This one
has a moment or two, but the rest fails to click. I give it a 0 on
the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
leeper@mtgzfs3.att.com
Who dares not speak his free thoughts is a slave.
-- Euripides