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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 01/28/94 -- Vol. 12, No. 31
MEETINGS UPCOMING:
Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in Middletown 1R-400C
Wednesdays at noon.
_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C
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. I don't know if you saw it in the news--the _N_e_w _Y_o_r_k _T_i_m_e_s
reported it--but New Jersey is the center of a bitter international
humanitarian conflict. The issue is over a five-year-old who has
already spent almost three years of his short life on Death Row.
Appeals for clemency have come from such diverse places as Kenya,
Japan, and France (from actress Bridget Bardot). The debate is
going on on the floor of the State Legislature.
The accused is Taro, an Akita dog facing execution for injuring a
ten-year-old at a party on Christmas day of 1990. Taro was first
quarantined and then ordered killed. So far the owners of the dog
have spent about $30,000 in the dog's defense and Bergen County has
spent about $60,000 to oppose them. A Kenyan businessman has
started a clemency campaign in Africa, the government of Japan have
offered asylum to Taro, noting that his Akita breed makes him
THE MT VOID Page 2
ethnically a Japanese-American.
But at stake is the question of the actual purpose of the canine
penal system. Is it to remove a menace from society? If so, would
not exile to Japan serve just well? Is it to exact some sort of
societal revenge? Is it to reform the inmate? The fact is that
incarceration is not enough. Often if you send dogs to penal
institutions, do they not learn bad habits from other vicious dogs
and return to society all the meaner?
Governor James Florio has not been willing to intercede on Taro's
behalf with an election this year. It is speculated he has taken a
hard line, not wanting to turn the dog into another Willie Horton.
However the issue will not go away. Only now after the election is
it coming out that Taro has also killed another dog at one point in
the dog's spotted past, but that dog's owner may have not been
willing to testify against Taro in the proceedings--possibly having
been paid to remain silent during the gubernatorial campaign.
For Taro's part, he insists that the time spent on death row has
given him an opportunity to contemplate his past and to reform
himself. He claims to be Bred-again and having looked within
himself he claims to have now found Dog.
===================================================================
2. WORLDWAR: IN THE BALANCE by Harry Turtledove (Del Rey, ISBN 0-
345-38241-2, January 1994, 488pp, US$21) (a book review by Evelyn
C. Leeper):
First, a warning: this is the first book of a four-book series. (
According to what I've heard, the other three are _W_o_r_l_d_w_a_r: _T_i_l_t_i_n_g
_t_h_e _B_a_l_a_n_c_e [already in Del Rey's hands], _W_o_r_l_d_w_a_r: _U_p_s_e_t_t_i_n_g _t_h_e
_B_a_l_a_n_c_e [just finished], and _W_o_r_l_d_w_a_r: _F_i_n_d_i_n_g _t_h_e _B_a_l_a_n_c_e [still
to be written].) Nowhere on the cover (or inside) does Del Rey
warn you of this, and unlike some first novels which can be read as
stand-alone stories, this ends on a very open-ended note, with
little if anything resolved. Shame on Del Rey for not warning the
reading! (Oh, and the cover art by Bob Eggleton has been flip-
flopped. One assumes this is for some arcane marketing reason, but
the result is that all the swastikas are backwards.)
It is May 1942. War is raging around the world. Major Heinrich
Jager is fighting for the Third Reich on the Eastern Front. George
Bagnall is a flight engineer for the RAF. Ludmila Gorbunova is a
pilot, but for the Soviet Air Force. Moishe Russie is a Jew in the
Warsaw Ghetto. Liu Han is a Chinese peasant woman. Jens Larssen
is an American physicist on the Manhattan Project. Sam Yeager us a
minor league outfielder and science fiction fan from Nebraska.
Atvar is the fleetlord of the invading spaceships of the Race.
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Say what?
Oh, didn't I mention it? It seems that in this alternate universe,
lizardlike aliens from outer space invade Earth in 1942. Needless
to say, this changes the progress of World War II considerably.
Alliances shift in interesting ways as humans attempt to repel the
invaders. This often involves uneasy truces and alliances, as
countries unite with their erstwhile (human) enemies to fight the
invaders while trying to avoid conceding any advantage to these
(human) enemies that might backfire if and when the Race is
defeated.
One thing that Turtledove has managed to do is take plot devices
and writing techniques that often fail, and make them work. For
example, the book starts with a bit of a cliche: the Race surveyed
Earth eight hundred years ago and is amazed at the amount of
progress made since then, since they show change or progress only
over periods of millennia rather than years (for example, between
steam engines and powered flight, or between dynamite and atomic
bombs). But there is further explanation and elaboration of this
as the story progresses and as the history, biology, and psychology
of the Race is revealed. the result is that there are _r_e_a_s_o_n_s
given for this "slowness" on the part of the Race. That's the
flip-side of an alternate history, I suppose. An alternate history
asks, "What would have happened if Y had happened instead of X?"
Here Turtledove asked, "What would have had to have been different
for X to happen instead of Y?" It's the difference between
induction and retroduction (as described by Charles Peirce).
Detectives use retroduction (also known as abduction) to figure out
what could have led to a certain result; Sherlock Holmes was famous
for it. It is seen in science fiction, but more common is the
inductive aspect: build a world, then decide what would populate
it. (There's also some rather obvious foreshadowing when the Race
complain of the cold in Poland--in the middle of the summer.)
The characters on the whole are well fleshed out, though with as
many major characters as _W_o_r_l_d_w_a_r: _I_n _t_h_e _B_a_l_a_n_c_e has, it's not too
surprising that a couple of them are still thinly sketched
(undoubtedly some of these will be further developed in the
remaining volumes). The multiple points of view do give a very
good "global" feel to this book that many alien invasion stories
lacked--how often is everything told through American eyes, with
only passing reference to the rest of the world? Here the parts of
the world not portrayed are those which are not on a war footing
when the Race arrived, and so have less ability to resist the Race.
(The end papers contain a list of all the major characters--and
some minor ones--with indications as to which are real and which
are fictional creations. I would have hoped the latter
clarification wasn't necessary, but after someone asked Connie
Willis whether the General Grant character in her _L_i_n_c_o_l_n'_s _D_r_e_a_m_s
was real or fictional, one never knows. And admittedly some of
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Turtledove's "real" characters are less famous than others. At any
rate, I hope Del Rey continues this for the rest of the series--in
a story published over a period of years, some memory joggers are
helpful.)
Turtledove knows how to write a plot and characters that keep the
reader interested and turning the pages. Whether he can sustain
this for two thousand pages remains to be seen, but this book is at
least a good start.
===================================================================
3. STRONG SPIRITS by Elisa DeCarlo (Ace, ISBN 0-380-77405-4,
January 1994, 151pp, US$4.50) (a book review by Evelyn C. Leeper):
This is apparently the prequel to DeCarlo's earlier book, _T_h_e _D_e_v_i_l
_Y_o_u _S_a_y, since that deals with the adventures of two characters who
meet in this book. I heard DeCarlo read some of _T_h_e _D_e_v_i_l _Y_o_u _S_a_y
on "Hour of the Wolf" on WBAI radio and that was part of what made
me pick up this book: the P. G. Wodehouse influence is not
immediately obvious from the cover. (The cover is reminiscent of
that of Nina Kiriki Hoffman's _T_h_r_e_a_d _T_h_a_t _B_i_n_d_s, but here the
whimsical effect is accurate to the book.)
This is the story of Aubrey Arbuthnot, good-for-nothing playboy,
whom his father's death has left somewhat impoverished, and his
adventures with ghosts, spiritualists, hell hounds, and music hall
singers. Playing Jeeves to Aubrey's Wooster is Hornchurch, a
gentleman's gentleman and clearly the more intelligent of the pair.
Though the story attempts a serious tone and a bit of horror for
its climax, even that gives way to the general frivolity of the
book. All in all, this is a pleasant little book in a delightfully
refined style.
===================================================================
4. THE INTERNET DIRECTORY by Eric Braun (Fawcett Columbine, ISBN
0-449-90898-4, 1993, 704pp, US$25) (a book review by Evelyn C.
Leeper):
It seems as if every day brings a new book about the Internet.
Some are about what the Internet is and how to use it, aimed at the
novice user. _T_h_e _I_n_t_e_r_n_e_t _D_i_r_e_c_t_o_r_y, in spite of brief
instructions on the syntax for such commands as _g_o_p_h_e_r and _f_t_p, is
not in that category. It is, as its name implies, a directory of
data available on the Internet. So far I have used it to find some
public library catalogues to access (trying to find the name of the
author of an old book), to locate various archives for Project
Gutenberg and the Online Book Initiative (looking for an online
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text of Bram Stoker's _D_r_a_c_u_l_a to do searches for certain phrases),
and to look for Sherlock Holmes and Jewish mailing lists. In the
latter test, the book was less helpful; I know if one Sherlock
Holmes list and at least four Jewish lists, but none was included.
While it's true no directory like this can be complete, these
omissions make me wonder at its overall hit ratio.
Another criticism would be in its description of Usenet groups.
Braun (or whoever wrote them) frequently opted for a "witty"
description which would be meaningful only to those who already
knew what the subject matter of the group was. For example,
alt.history.what-if is described as "what would the net have been
like without this group"? It's actually about alternate histories
and parallel worlds. And rec.arts.sf.misc is _n_o_t "no-so-on-topic
discussion from rec.arts.sf.written"--it is discussion about
science fiction that doesn't fit into any of the other rec.arts.sf
subcategories. These description failures are particularly
noticeable in the "alt" groups. (And by the by, there's a major
typo in defining the "misc" hierarchy--it's not "Groups on all
sorts of miscelations topics"!)
Is this book worth $25? That depends on how often you look things
up in general and on how long the information in it remains
current. It certainly seems a worthwhile addition to a library
where many people may use bits and pieces of it. And for writers
who use their local reference librarian's services a lot, this may
save some trips to the library. For the casual user, however, it's
probably overkill.
===================================================================
5. SHORT CUTS (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule review: Several unrelated stories by
Raymond Carver are braided together into one
overly-long telling. Carver's Pacific Northwest
tales are moved to Los Angeles. Unfortunately none
of the individual stories is particularly
interesting and the whole is little more than the
sum of those parts. Rating low +1 (-4 to +4).
By all accounts the stories of Raymond Carver are strong on
describing the texture of life in the Pacific Northwest, but
plotwise have been described as "minimalist." In _S_h_o_r_t _C_u_t_s,
Robert Altman relocates those stories to give a feeling for the
texture of life in Los Angeles. In fact, they probably could have
been moved to Massachusetts, Texas, or Wisconsin without doing much
harm. The narrative approach is a lot like that of 1980's _S_e_r_i_a_l,
though the end result is neither so cohesive nor so humorous.
THE MT VOID Page 6
There is no single unifying element to the stories tied together in
_S_h_o_r_t _C_u_t_s, though many of the plotlines do involve men who act
selfishly and in unfeeling ways. A philandering traffic cop
secretly rids himself of the family's obnoxious but loved dog.
Some friends on a fishing trip put off reporting the discovery of a
body in order to get in more fishing. An alcoholic keeps pestering
his long-suffering wife who seems unaccountably to love him in
spite of his personality. Another man executes a painstaking
revenge against his former wife. Revenge is also on the mind of
another man who terrorizes a woman over what seems like a trivial
offense. This film is over three hours long to tell all these
stories simultaneously, yet none of the stories is particularly
enthralling in itself. What becomes more interesting is the manner
in which these minor stories are tied together with each story
touching nearly all the others. However, that also strains the
credibility a bit since all these people have dramatic stories
which start within hours of each other and end the same way. The
main story line is of Ann and Howard Finnigan (played by Andie
McDowell and Bruce Davison) facing a crisis when their son is hit
by a car. Ralph and Marian Wyman (Matthew Modine and Julianne
Moore) have unfinished business about and incident in Marian's
past. Jerry Kaiser (Chris Penn) can't quite come to terms with his
wife's (Jennifer Jason Leigh) phone sex business. And the list of
plots could go on and on.
Robert Altman directs and co-authored the screenplay with Frank
Barhydt. The style is remiscent of _N_a_s_h_v_i_l_l_e with its set of
intertwined stories, but without nearly so much a sense of why tell
this particular set of stories. Perhaps one advantage to this
manner of story-telling is to allow the viewer to see the diversity
of lifestyles that can be found in one small community. The
stories include liberal amounts of female nudity, often with no
more necessity than to dress up (or undress) a scene. There are
several scenes of light comedy, warm humanity, or cold tragedy.
One sequence will seem very timely but at the same time the flaws
of the sequence will be more obvious than when the film was made.
_S_h_o_r_t _C_u_t_s is yet another film this year that did not quite come up
to most critic's estimation. My rating is low +1 on the -4 to +4
scale.
The Raymond Carver stories adapted in _S_h_o_r_t _C_u_t_s as reported in
_V_a_r_i_e_t_y are "Jerry and Molly and Sam," "Will You Please Be Quiet,
Please?," "Collectors," "Neighbors," "A Small Good Thing," "So Much
Water So Close to Home," "They're Not Your Husband," "Vitamins,"
"Tell the Women We're Going," and the poem "Lemonade."
===================================================================
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6. SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule review: This adaptation of the Broadway
play is diverting but eventually doesn't tell very
much story and left this viewer with the vague
feeling that he missed some of the point. An
enigmatic young black man turns upside-down the
lives of some glib high society New Yorkers. When
you find out what is really going on, you also find
it very unlikely. Rating low +1 (-4 to +4)
BACKGROUND: Humanity is like a group of people walking around in a
fog. Nobody is very far from anyone else, but you can see only the
people nearest to you. And they can see only the people
immediately around them. So everybody sees just a small part of
the crowd. People drift closer in the fog and you see them for a
while, then they move further away and cannot be traced. That, I
think, is a big piece of what this film is about, thought I admit a
certain fog between me and _S_i_x _D_e_g_r_e_e_s _o_f _S_e_p_a_r_a_t_i_o_n. That is not
a lot for a film to be about, but an odd and convoluted mode of
storytelling makes this film entertaining and at the same time
enigmatic. Whatever else the film is about is really in the eye of
the beholder.
Our story is told in large part through flashbacks as several
groups of friends, families, and acquaintances tell each other
about a mysterious young black man Paul (played by Will Smith) who
has insinuated himself into their lives and then has gone back out
of it. Primarily we see the stories through the eyes of Ouisa and
Flan Kittredge (Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland). They are
wealthy pseudo-intellectual members of the upper crust. Flan makes
his money through dubious trading in fine art. On a night that
they are having an important dinner with a friend who might finance
their next big deal, Paul shows up on their doorstep claiming to be
the a friend of the Kittredge children and the son of Sidney
Portier. The refined Paul makes an immediate hit and helps Flan to
swing his deal. They invite Paul to stay the night only to have
him hire a male hustler and bring him to the house. They throw
Paul out. Almost immediately they start hearing that others of
their friends have had run-ins with the same person. Soon they
decide that they have to learn more about this young man who seems
to know so much more about them than they know about him.
The people in this film are much like adult versions of the young
people in _M_e_t_r_o_p_o_l_i_t_a_n. The have superficial conversations on
profound subjects. While what they are saying seems erudite, it is
only banality phrased well. What Paul says to keep up his end of
the conversation occasionally does border on profundity, which
makes him all the more enigmatic to the people he visits.
Conversation and how things are expressed is very important to this
film since so much of it is carried on by social conversations,
THE MT VOID Page 8
often recounting other conversations. This slows down the plot
development, but eventually this 111-minute film tells a nearly
complete story that could have been told in twenty or thirty
minutes. In the final analysis film is a light fantasy. The story
is contrived and very unlikely to occur in the way it was told. I
think that credibility is not the point here. Even the title is
never clearly explained; it seems to refer to some idea that there
are at most six intermediate people between anybody and anybody
else in the world. Considering how isolated some tribes are to
this day in the Amazon and other parts of the world, it seems very
unlikely. Also it is not clear what counts as a direct adjacency.
This is a film with a terrific cast and a lack of characters. Will
Smith is actually fairly charismatic as Paul, but the characters
played by Channing, Sutherland, Ian McKellan, Mary Beth Hurt, Bruce
Davison, Richard Masur, and Anthony Michael Hall are all quickly
forgettable as indeed John Guare's screenplay based on his Broadway
play would have them be. Perhaps like "Cats," this is just a play
that cannot be done on the screen."
The film is a departure for director Fred Schepisi, but will not be
one of his more memorable accomplishments. I give it a low +1 on
the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
leeper@mtgzfs3.att.com
The majority of people believe in incredible things
which are absolutely false. The majority of people
daily act in a manner prejudicial to their general
well-being.
-- Ashley Montagu