@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society Club Notice - 5/27/94 -- Vol. 12, No. 48 MEETINGS UPCOMING: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in Middletown 1R-400C Wednesdays at noon. _D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C 06/01 GREEN MARS by Kim Stanley Robinson (Hugo Nominee) 06/22 Hugo-nominated short stories 07/13 MOVING MARS by Greg Bear (Hugo Nominee) 08/03 GLORY SEASON by David Brin (Hugo Nominee) 08/24 VIRTUAL LIGHT by William Gibson (Hugo Nominee) 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 j.j.jetzt@att.com LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell HO 1C-523 908-834-1267 j.j.jetzt@att.com MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 m.r.leeper@att.com HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 908-949-7076 n.j.sauer@att.com LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen HO 2C-318 908-949-4156 l.f.larsen@att.com MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 m.r.leeper@att.com Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 908-957-2070 e.c.leeper@att.com All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted. 1. Our next book discussion is of the Hugo-nominated _G_r_e_e_n _M_a_r_s by Kim Stanley Robinson. A few months ago, Evelyn Leeper had this to say about the book: This is the second book of Robinson's "Mars" trilogy. The first was last year's Hugo-nominated _R_e_d _M_a_r_s, and the series will be finished with the upcoming _B_l_u_e _M_a_r_s. _G_r_e_e_n _M_a_r_s, it must be said, suffers from the same flaws and difficulties as most middle-of-a- trilogy novels. It does not start at the beginning, nor does it go through to the end. You must know what happened in _R_e_d _M_a_r_s for _G_r_e_e_n _M_a_r_s to make any sense or have any meaning. There is also (to my tastes) far too much technical discussion of terraforming THE MT VOID Page 2 and areology, though some may really like this part. It is only in the second half of _G_r_e_e_n _M_a_r_s that Robinson returns in force to the political and historical aspects of the series. All in all, I have to reserve final judgement on _G_r_e_e_n _M_a_r_s until _B_l_u_e _M_a_r_s concludes the series, and then see if _G_r_e_e_n _M_a_r_s serves its purpose in the overall picture. That is the only way to view this book and much as I want to see Kim Stanley Robinson finally get a Hugo, it makes no sense to me to look at this as a possibility. But of course, your mileage may vary. [-ecl] =================================================================== 2. I was talking last week about a French company that is working on touchy-feely suits to employ virtual reality to allow lovemaking to be done at a distance over data communications lines. Now is this a growth industry that AT&T could get into on the ground floor or am I nuts? (Don't answer that. Whether I am nuts or not has nothing to do with it.) Talk about giving the customers a product they can relate to, this is it. I mean all you hear about these days is safe-sex. Well, this really is really safe. You might get an electric shock, but you darned sure are not going to get a virus--unless maybe a computer virus. Now think of the special expertise AT&T could bring to this market. Think of the possibilities that get added if we just apply what we know about conference calls. Then we can bring in answering technology, particularly the capability to record messages. If you are not home when your lover called you can record the message and play it back when you want. As often as you want. You can even keep a recording and play it back when you feel the urge. You can record a library of your favorite calls and play them back whenever you need some excitement. Then you can trade them with your friends. Soon people will be selling them. You might even be able to get great performances on CD ROM. Then you could put the data into a computer, analyze it, and compose new scenarios and new compositions. It gives a whole new meaning to the Turing Test. We are talking here about what could become a new form of art. You start by giving young people something they really want and would be willing to pay for ... guilt-free, risk-free, one-night stands. Lots of communities already have numbers you can phone in to be part of a big conference call where you meet strangers. With the use of this technology, those community numbers could replace singles bars. (One imagines pickup lines like "Hey baby, wanna plug me into your serial port?") There is a cartoon showing two dogs sitting at a computer and the older dog is telling the puppy "On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog." That line has new meaning here. In fact with virtual reality You can appear to be a stranger who is just your correspondent's type. Your lover need never know what you look THE MT VOID Page 3 like and can instead set some required parameters, and let the system choose others at random. There are no dogs on the Internet. You know, I do this to myself all the time. This started out as a joke. I read a real article in _W_o_r_l_d _P_r_e_s_s _R_e_v_i_e_w and I thought I could get milk some humor from describing it to you. It is sort of a whimsical science fiction speculation. Right now it just doesn't seem all that whimsical. I wonder if in fifteen years we won't see this article--those of us who remember it--as more prophecy than humor. It all sounds like it is a bit sleezy for AT&T, but I wonder if it is. AIDS has lent an air of respectability to the makers of condoms. The mores of society are changing. Sooner or later somebody is going to make _a _l_o_t of money off of this idea. But I bet you it won't be AT&T. =================================================================== 3. INTERFACE by Stephen Bury (Bantam Spectra, ISBN 0-553-37230-0, 1994, 592pp, US$12.95) (a book review by Evelyn C. Leeper): Stephen Bury is a pen name for the writing team of Neal Stephenson (_S_n_o_w _C_r_a_s_h) and J. Frederick George. (Someone on the Net claimed that George is Stephenson's father; I have no further evidence of that.) And _I_n_t_e_r_f_a_c_e is a high-tech political thriller about a politician who suffers a stroke and undergoes a radically new treatment--with some startling side effects. In many ways this was reminiscent of Stephen King's _D_e_a_d _Z_o_n_e-- there's a political campaign, complete with fascists, seedy politicians, and schemes and plots galore. There are some everyday sorts of characters who find themselves caught up in the sweep of events. The plot device may be different (though both deal with extraordinary mental powers), but a lot of what surrounds it is the same. It's true that Bury uses his humor slightly differently from King. King uses a slapstick approach, while Bury has a more intellectual tack: "Brain cells didn't grow. But the connections between them did. The network of linkages was constantly shifting and reconnecting itself in a process that was usually described as 'learning.' Dr. Radhakrisnan did not really care for this terminology because it contained a value judgment. It implied that every time new synapses were formed inside a person's head it was because they were memorizing Shakespeare or being taught how to integrate transcendental functions. Of course, in reality most of the internal rewiring that went on in people's brains took place in response to watching game shows on television, being beaten up by family members, figuring out the cheapest place to buy cigarettes, and being conditioned not to mix plaids with stripes." Unfortunately, the careful plotting slips up in a couple of spots. On page 10 it is established that Clinton is no longer President, THE MT VOID Page 4 yet on page 356 a televised debate is running the theme of "Campaign '96." (Yes, there could have been an impeachment, but the story seems to rule this out.) Later, someone seems to think a Presidential term runs eight years. And would a whiz-bang political campaign manager really hire someone from _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 as someone he was trying to pass off as a news anchorman? If the science-fictional device is not entirely convincing, well, I'm willing suspend my disbelief given that most of the rest of the story is believable. The book moves along briskly (I read it in five hours of plane flights) and keeps the reader's interest. But it's more a political thriller than hard science fiction. Readers who enjoyed _S_n_o_w _C_r_a_s_h may also miss the philosophical underpinnings that were present in that earlier work. Of course, this may be one reason why Stephenson's name does not appear on this volume. Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 m.r.leeper@att.com "There is no 'i' in 'team'." -- ON DEADLY GROUND "There's none in 'Cyclops' either, now" -- Odysseus