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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 5/13/94 -- Vol. 12, No. 46
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. These days America no longer seems to have the technological
edge that it once had. But France also appears to be losing a kind
of reputation. At one time the French were thought to be a fairly
sexy people. Foreigners would go to France for what was called a
"good time." Of course it is hard to tell how deserved that
reputation was since most of the people going to France were the
English. Having been twice to the vacation center of Brighton,
England, I can tell you that it doesn't take a whole lot to make
the English _t_h_i_n_k they are having a good time. Beach-sitting and a
mediocre fun pier is about all there is. Now take a hamburger that
dogs wouldn't eat in Jersey City, and even aptly call it a "wimpy
burger," and you can make a fortune in England. Hey it's got to be
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better than eating grilled kidney, isn't it?
England's standard of immorality is the (male) Member of Parliament
who thinks it is terribly, terribly smashing to wear women's
foundation garments. George Bernard Shaw pointed out "An
Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable." Even
in his time there were a lot of these "moral" people in England.
So being next to England it is not surprising that France has a
reputation as being a wild place to be. Just about any country
(but maybe Saudi Arabia) could get that reputation just by being
the country to where the English escape.
Anyway, France used to be the place to go for a wild time. It was
the home of the Moulin Rouge, the Folies-Bergere, the Can-Can, and
other institutions too tame for HBO. Paris was the City of Love.
It has always been a racy place, and it stayed that way as the rest
of the world became more explicit. Now, however, a Paris company
is trying to get the edge on both love and technology. I will go
into that next week.
===================================================================
2. WILL THE LAST PERSON TO LEAVE THE PLANET PLEASE SHUT OFF THE
SUN? by Mike Resnick (Tor, ISBN 0-312-85276-2, 1992, 353pp,
US$19.95) (a book review by Evelyn C. Leeper):
This collection contains twenty-eight of Mike Resnick's short
stories, including several Hugo- and Nebula-award nominated (and
winning) stories. And it has all the pluses of many of Resnick's
anthologies (for which I might note he was just nominated for
another Hugo, this time as Best Pro Editor)--and all the minuses.
On the plus side there are some outstanding stories, including
"Kirinyaga" (winner of the Hugo for Best Short Story, and nominated
for the Nebula for Best Novelette--don't ask me to explain the
rules!), "For I Have Touched the Sky" (nominated for both the
Nebula and the Hugo for Best Novelette), "Winter Solstice,"
(nominated for the Hugo for Best Short Story), and "The Light That
Blinds, the Claws That Catch," and "Winter Solstice." The first
two are stories in resnick's "Kirinyaga" cycle--and one hopes the
entire series will be collected in a single volume. (The latest,
"A Little Knowledge," is in the April issue of _A_s_i_m_o_v'_s _S_c_i_e_n_c_e
_F_i_c_t_i_o_n, and is already on my list of stories to nominate for the
Hugo next year.) "Winter Solstice" won the "Alexander" (the award
of the Science Fiction Club at AT&T--named for Alexander Graham
Bell, of course). "The Light That Blinds, the Claws That Catch" is
an alternate history of what might have happened if Theodore
Roosevelt's wife had not died in childbirth in 1884. Resnick has
written several alternate Teddy Roosevelt stories, but unlike his
"Kirinyaga" stories, these are mutually exclusive rather than
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connected.
On the minus side is the sheer volume of stories, which means that
it's almost inevitable that some will be primarily filler material.
Whether it's better to get more stories or a higher percentage of
great stories is a matter for debate, I suppose, but the lower
quality of some of the pieces tends to bring the overall rating of
the collection down. And Resnick's introductions to the stories,
while frequently enlightening, can also be irritating. No one can
introduce twenty-eight of their own pieces in a row without
beginning to sound just a little self-aggrandizing, so I suppose
this may be inevitable. On the other hand, reading this book a bit
at a time instead of straight through would probably solve this
problem, and Resnick doesn't give away any surprises in them (an
occasional failing elsewhere). If nothing else, his introduction
to "Kirinyaga" serves to remind us that there's probably some _g_r_e_a_t
stuff buried in _L_a_s_t _D_a_n_g_e_r_o_u_s _V_i_s_i_o_n_s.
On balance, I recommend this collection. It _i_s the definitive
collection of the short fiction of an author who has, in spite, of
his own intentions otherwise, found himself one of the leading
short story writers of the last decade, and provides a wide sample
of his work.
[Resnick has again been nominated for the Hugo for Best Short Story
this year for "Mwalimu in the Squared Circle" in addition to his
nomination as Best Pro Editor. This makes eight Hugo nominations
with two wins for his writing, and six Nebula nominations, not
counting this year's which I don't seem to have anywhere.]
===================================================================
3. Lunacon '94 (part 2 of 3) (an abbreviated con report by Evelyn
C. Leeper):
Alternate Religion in SF and Fantasy
Saturday, 11AM
John Boardman, Mary Frey, Nancy C. Hanger,
Simon Lang, John Lee, Nancy Springer
I got to this a little bit late, and had a heck of a time matching
up participants' names to people on the panel, probably because I
didn't realize that Simon Lang was a woman.
Though the topic was alternate religions, there was much discussion
of present-day Earth religions (mostly Western religions), as you
will see. The panel began by defining religion as the "organized
worship of a deity." I guess that means that Buddhism, which has
no deity per se, is not a religion. Note that this definition also
makes a distinction between religion and faith.
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Boardman proposed the idea that many writers are anti-clerical and
use alternate religions as a safety net--they can attack a non-
existent religion to avoid getting into trouble by attacking a real
one. He gave as an example a Philip Jose Farmer story that
satirized Judaism in a post-holocaust world--if anyone knows the
name of that story, please let me know. Boardman also claimed
later that Glen Cook didn't care for any religion because he has
several fighting each other--which is not at all the conclusion
that I believe one should draw from that. In any case, even with
fictional religions, it is sometimes hard to get that part of the
story past the editor and the sales force.
Someone from the audience asked if a people's "aspect"
(appearance?) affects their interface with infinity. Someone else
said something about how people must "realize there's no order
without an orderer," an old--and not very respected--argument for
the existence of God. Lang said that religions all had three
parts: pathway, propitiation, and fertility. She felt that a
society certainly affected a religion, saying, "Religions are
created as mirrors to society." (As you can tell, non sequiturs
abounded here, as "answers" from the panel often had little or
nothing to do with the questions, and the whole hour had a very
stream-of-consciousness feel.)
Someone asked what effect the discovery of alien life will/would
have on our view of religion or God. From the answers, it was
clear that the panelists thought only of Western religions when
thinking of "our religions," since they commented that aliens who
had six arms would probably have six-armed gods, and that we would
have to deal with the aliens' view(s) of deity. First, this sounds
like an answer to the first question in the last paragraph, and
second, this assumes that there are no religions on Earth that have
such gods. One can only assume that the Hindu pantheon (for
example) is as alien to the panelists as, well, _a_l_i_e_n pantheons
would be. Lang did answer the question ("how will we deal with the
aliens' view of deity?") by saying we would "ignore it, despise it,
or make war on it." Later people noted that in religion, it often
seems that the closer a religion is to ours, the less we tolerate
it, and that the most violent wars are against "heretics" rather
than "pagans."
A long digression on the conflicting views of Jesuits and
Franciscans ensued, reinforcing my opinion of the Western (and even
more specifically Christian) emphasis of the panel.
Someone (probably in a desperate attempt to get back on-topic)
asked what an author does when inventing a religion. A panelist
said that when Stephen Donaldson was asked this, he responded, "We
are writers, we can invent; we don't have to do research."
Nevertheless, the panelists felt that authors do research religion
in general for commonalities that could be used (the pathway,
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propitiation, and fertility aspects mentioned earlier, for
example).
It seems to be possible, one person averred, to separate religions
into two types: the type that says, "God is out there somewhere,"
and the type that says, "God is next door and you can visit him."
I'm not sure whether these are differences between religions, or
between different types of faith. (Remember that at the beginning
there was a distinction made between religion and faith.)
Missionaries and their place in all this were mentioned.
L. Sprague de Camp wrote a story that used an analogy to represent
missionaries (according to one panelist--I guess this was an
example of trying to couch an anti-church bias in different terms).
In the story, humans meet a saurian race that uses body paint the
way we use clothing. The clothing market on Earth sees this as a
great chance to open a new market and goes off to sell clothes to
the saurians. When they return to Earth, however, they find that
the saurians have convinced humans to stop wearing clothing and use
paint instead. Unfortunately, I can think of no similar situation
where religion A goes off to convert people from religion B, and
vice versa--and both are successful.
Many of the "side-effects" of religion were mentioned. For
example, monarchies depend on the "divine right of kings"--without
gods, there would be no monarchies, at least in the sense we know
them. Hanger claimed that in addition all "higher" civilizations
had or have a benevolent deity, but since she didn't define
"higher" I suspect this turns out to be true because "higher" turns
out to be those civilizations that have a benevolent diety.
Someone in the audience complained that fantasy novels almost
always have everyone believing the same thing--there don't seem to
be any denominations on these other worlds. One of the panelists
claimed this was true in the Middle Ages (I would argue that it was
not--it's just that we ignore a lot of the distinctions or sects
that were eventually wiped out), but also agreed that a lot of it
was either laziness or economy on the part of the author. If the
story isn't about doctrinal differences, adding them to it just
complicates things unnecessarily.
As to whether a culture _a_l_w_a_y_s develops a religion, one person
claimed that even gorillas have ritual dances to the moon. (I
don't find this ultimately convincing.) Another quoted Disraeli as
having said, "We all believe in some sort of a something
somewhere." James P. Hogan's _W_o_r_l_d _f_r_o_m _Y_e_s_t_e_r_y_e_a_r was cited as a
book in which the society has no religion. Lang observed that
there might even be belief systems that we failed to recognize as
religions in real life, but if a book were that subtle it wouldn't
work, because that would defeat the purpose of having it in there.
And we have a definite tendency to label anything we don't
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understand as religious in nature: if we dig up an artifact that we
can't think of a specific purpose for, we say it is a ritual
object. David Macaulay's _M_o_t_e_l _o_f _t_h_e _M_y_s_t_e_r_i_e_s is the perfect
satire on this tendency.
Someone suggested that if we contacted aliens, their religion might
become the "religion du jour," as many people either adopted it, or
combined it with ours. Certainly on our world, religions have
adopted parts of other religions as they encountered them.
(Someone--I think it was Boardman--said that Rose Kennedy, a _v_e_r_y
devout Catholic, once fired a maid for dumping dishwater down the
back steps and insulting the "little people.")
Another theory of civilization and religion put forward by Boardman
was that increased "civilization" results in the diminution of the
number of gods. While it is true that originally Judaism didn't
claim that there existed only one God, merely that Jews should
worship only one, I think the generalization of this is totally
wrong. First of all, we need a metric to determine what is "more"
or "less" civilized. (Of course, this hearkens back to Hanger's
claim earlier that all "higher" civilizations had or have a
benevolent deity, with exactly the same stumbling block.) And
second, the obvious extrapolation of this is that the most advanced
civilization would have no gods. Actually, the correct answer is
that the most advanced civilization would have exactly the number
of gods that exist, and any claim by someone as to what this would
be is colored by their opinion of the number of gods that _t_h_e_y
think exist. However, someone else thought that the diminution of
the number of gods was merely a consolidation of the various
aspects into a single persona, and didn't represent a radically
different view of the godhead.
The panel closed with the observation that one thing was
predictable: as we meet more people (and aliens) who are different,
we will probably become "more" of our own religion. This has been
the pattern in the past, and one might consider it the spiritual
equivalent of "pulling the wagons into a circle" as a means of
defense.
The Once King: the Historical Arthur
Saturday, 1PM
Nancy C. Hanger (mod), John Boardman, Marina Frants,
Roberta Gellis, Debra Meskys, Jane T. Sibley
Two books were recommended at the start of this panel: _T_h_e
_A_r_t_h_u_r_i_a_n _E_n_c_y_c_l_o_p_e_d_i_a by Norris J. Lacy (1986, 649 pages) and _T_h_e
_K_i_n_g _A_r_t_h_u_r _C_o_m_p_a_n_i_o_n by Phyllis Ann Karr (1983, 174 pages) though
they are more about literature than about the historical Arthur.
(Actually, there is a 1991 revised and expanded version of the Lacy
called _T_h_e _N_e_w _A_r_t_h_u_r_i_a_n _E_n_c_y_c_l_o_p_e_d_i_a and having 577 pages--and,
yes, I know that's _f_e_w_e_r pages than the "unexpanded" version.)
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Meskys's magazine _N_e_i_k_a_s had a special Arthurian issue which is out
of print now, but scheduled to be reprinted.
The panelists talked about their experiences with the various
literary versions of the King Arthur story. Boardman said he was
turned off by Tennyson's _I_d_y_l_l_s _o_f _t_h_e _K_i_n_g, but turned on by
Malory's _M_o_r_t_e _d'_A_r_t_h_u_r, even though he agrees that Malory is
grossly anachronistic. Meskys liked T. H. White's _O_n_c_e _a_n_d _F_u_t_u_r_e
_K_i_n_g, which she described as being a sort of "alternate timeline."
She also recommended Mary Stewart's trilogy _C_r_y_s_t_a_l _C_a_v_e, _T_h_e
_H_o_l_l_o_w _H_i_l_l_s, and _T_h_e _L_a_s_t _E_n_c_h_a_n_t_m_e_n_t. As she put it, "Stewart
really makes it believable." Gellis said she liked Malory and
Coleridge. (If Coleridge did something on King Arthur, I can't
find it.) Silby likes them all.
Boardman sees Arthur as an archetype. When the panelists discussed
why other "heroes" were not as popular, Gellis said that Arthur was
more sympathetic than most, and gave the example of Charlemagne as
an unsympathetic hero. (Boskone XXVI in 1989 even had a panel
titled "Why Not Charlemagne?"--I will not include all my comments
on that here!) Sibley notes that Arthur is also British, and hence
"home-grown" to most English-speaking readers. (I suppose this
displays a certain Anglocentrism in her/our view of the world.
This tendency of preferring "home-grown" heroes explains why the
Golem of Prague is much more popular among Jewish science fiction
fans than among the fannish population at large.) Gellis thought
that in addition, the Arthurian story is more cheerful than the
French epics or other contenders. And the panelists noted that one
of the major sources of strife in the Arthurian legend, Lancelot,
was a purely literary invention, and was probably added by the
French. In terms of the historical Arthur, Lancelot represents a
merging of Gawain and Mordred, particularly as described in
Geoffrey of Monmouth's version from the 12th Century.
Hanger sees Arthur's appeal as being a noble yet tragic hero in a
story of love and betrayal. For all his virtues, Arthur also has
human faults. She sees him as a "continuation" of the Irish hero
Cuchulain (pronounced "koo-hoo'-lin"). (It was noted in this
discussion that Irish--Gaelic--is even less phonetic than English,
and that the Norse idiom for "It's Greek to me" is "He's talking
Irish." On the other hand, I am a bit sceptical of someone who
pronounces Celtic as "sel'-tik.") Classic Greek tragic heroes had
their fatal flaws (Oedipus had his hubris, for example), and even
the gods had their fatal flaws: Achilles's heel, Baldur's
susceptibility to mistletoe, etc. One of the causes of Arthur's
downfall was his seduction by his half-sister, which was a literary
addition, not by Malory, but some time around the 13th Century.
One theory proposed was that this was added to suggest to the
reader/listener that you always have the seeds of your own
destruction within you. (And Galahad was added because the Church
didn't want the "morally questionable" Lancelot as the hero.)
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Another theory was that the incest motif was added because
Mordred's claim to the kingship was originally as Arthur's sister's
son, a lineage valid in Celtic law but not in English law.
Therefore, English readers/listeners of the Middle Ages would not
be able to make sense of Mordred's claim to the throne, so a direct
claim was added.
Panelists discussed the many cultures that have a sleeper or
sleeping king who will return in times of trouble (the Golem
again?). One person mentioned Fletcher Pratt's _L_a_n_d _o_f _U_n_r_e_a_s_o_n as
having this theme; someone else suggested that Jesus was another
"sleeping king." From this thought someone else was reminded that
Arthur also ordered a slaughter of infants, which most people
thought would not make a popular story (though it was claimed James
Morrow was the ideal person to write it).
Hanger said one of the main problems with studying Arthur is the
proliferation of badly researched books that are attempting to jump
on a bandwagon rather than increase the knowledge of the subject.
Even respected authors seem to have gone astray. From the
beginning, William of Malmesbury's account differed from Geoffrey
of Monmouth's. More recently, Norma Lorre Goodrich claimed that
the French word that is translated as "bird" in most texts should
really be translated as "altar" (or maybe it was the other way
around). The Round Table was a 19th Century addition to the legend
(I'm not sure this is correct--at least one source I read
attributes it to Malory in the 15th Century), yet that is what most
people know the best. The romance between Guinevere and Lancelot
is from Cretien de Troyes in the 12th Century. And who knows what
else people think of that was only introduced in the Lerner & Lowe
musical? (Certainly the reference to stopping for a cup of tea was
grossly anachronistic there!) But since even the earliest sources
dispute the dates of Arthur's life and death, it is impossible to
be completely accurate. One theory is that some of the events
attributed to Arthur may actually have been connected with a son or
nephew also named Arthur.
On the other hand, do we really want or care about historical
accuracy? Gellis thinks not. What we want, according to her, is
to fulfill the goal of the Society for Creative Anachronism--"to
celebrate the Middle Ages as it should have been."
There was a dispute between Gellis (who claimed the sacrificial
elements in the Arthur story were Christian) and Sibley (who
claimed they were Celtic). As a disinterested bystander, I might
claim that they are both, because the concept of sacrifice, and in
particular sacrifice of/by the leader of the community, is a common
thread through many religions. (I think the panelists also
mentioned this, and suggested _T_h_e _G_o_l_d_e_n _B_o_u_g_h by Sir James Frazer
as a basic text about comparative religion; Frazer is best known
for his theory of the sacrifice of the priest-king as archetypal
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across cultures.) Boardman described this as "government strong
enough to protect us and just enough not to oppress us"--one can't
help but feel that he has a definite political agenda here, but the
concept of a "benevolent monarchy" has appealed to people in the
past.
All this is similar to the tales of Robin Hood, which tend to be
added to, modified, and moved around in time. Another similar hero
who transcends time and space seems to be the Flying Dutchman, also
found as Peter Rugg and even Charlie of the MTA.
The movie _K_n_i_g_h_t_r_i_d_e_r_s was given as an updating of the Arthur
legend worth seeing. Marion Zimmer Bradley's _M_i_s_t_s _o_f _A_v_a_l_o_n got
favorable mention, as did William Mayne's _E_a_r_t_h_f_a_s_t_s, and also _T_h_e
_C_h_i_l_d _Q_u_e_e_n by Nancy MacKenzie, due out in August.
(Note to convention program planners: Nancy Hanger is very good at
"taking the panel back" from panelists who tend to monopolize it; I
recommend her as a moderator.)
Reinventing the Wheel of If: Alternate History
Saturday, 3PM
Moshe Feder (mod), John Boardman, Evelyn C. Leeper,
Vonda N. McIntyre, Mark Olson, Christopher Rowley
[Thanks to Mark, who took notes for me for this panel.]
There were the usual introductions. People who have read my
various Boskone reports know that Olson is a long-time fan of
alternate histories, and Boardman, McIntyre, and Rowley are well-
known authors. Feder is the editor of the Military Book Club.
We began with definitions. I said that an alternate history, for
me, has to be something grounded in a historical change. Just
saying that it's the same world except that magic works, for
example, does not make an alternate history (which is not to say
that those can't be enjoyable--I loved Esther Friesner's _D_r_u_i_d'_s
_B_l_o_o_d, which falls into this category). Why is it science fiction?
Well, you could do some hand-waving and say that it is because the
changes are caused by changes at the quantum level, etc., but the
fact is that alternate history stories are science fiction because
science fiction fans read them. (This is addressed later--stay
tuned.) Boardman said that he started reading alternate histories
with such stories as Sir Winston Churchill's "If Lee had not Won
the Battle of Gettysburg," something by Anatole France (though I
can't find any Anatole France stories in the Usenet alternate
history bibliography), and Murray Leinster's "Sidewise in Time,"
which were the stories that got the field moving and got people
thinking how nice things would be if they had turned out
differently. Olson said that he started with L. Sprague de Camp's
_L_e_s_t _D_a_r_k_n_e_s_s _F_a_l_l and Mark Twain's _C_o_n_n_e_c_t_i_c_u_t _Y_a_n_k_e_e _i_n _K_i_n_g
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_A_r_t_h_u_r'_s _C_o_u_r_t. (Boardman noted that in the latter all the changes
were eventually negated, so perhaps it should be classified as a
secret history rather than an alternate history.)
Feder wanted to make a distinction between worlds in which the
change is a given, and those in which someone is doing the changes.
Well, yes, you can split them that way, but to what purpose? (I
guess the latter imply time travel, while the former don't.)
Rowley felt that in today's market--presumably meaning readers who
were historical literate as well as science fiction fans--you
needed to work out your consequences well. When alternate
histories were young, the novelty would carry them to some extent,
but today everyone is looking closely at exactly what happens in
your story after you decide to have the Manhattan Project fail (or
whatever). For that matter, they are also looking at _w_h_y your
Manhattan Project fails, and if _t_h_a_t makes sense. Olson agreed
that this attention to detail was what made a novel such as Harry
Turtledove's _G_u_n_s _o_f _t_h_e _S_o_u_t_h such a good book, and that even
though he (Olson) wasn't a Civil War buff, he could appreciate it.
He also felt that Turtledove did a good job of presenting a
balanced view of the South, as opposed to what one used to see in
less sophisticated alternate histories (or for that matter,
probably still do in some markets). (There was some concern that
we were revealing too much of the plot in discussing the book, but
I don't think the key points were actually supposed to be kept a
secret.)
Someone in the audience asked if there were any alternate histories
in which Charles I won the English Civil War. Yes-- John
Whitbourn's _A _D_a_n_g_e_r_o_u_s _E_n_e_r_g_y (that chronological listing by
divergence is _r_e_a_l_l_y useful for questions like this!) Someone else
said that everyone does the same old thing, giving the example that
no one has Germany winning World War _I. Immediately several people
jumped on that, mentioning among other stories, Fritz Leiber's
"Catch That Zeppelin." Other stories with this premise include Tom
Purdom's "Redemption of August," Stephen Leacock's "If Germany Had
Won," and Guido Morselli's _P_a_s_t _C_o_n_d_i_t_i_o_n_a_l: _A _R_e_t_r_o_s_p_e_c_t_i_v_e
_H_y_p_o_t_h_e_s_i_s. But Feder agreed that World War II was far more
popular, no doubt because it was bigger and "juicier." Also,
Americans don't understand World War I. We came in late in the
war, it happened a long time ago, and it happened somewhere else.
Feder gave the example that there might be some fascinating
critical points in Japanese history but he hasn't read enough to
know what they are. Conversely, the common change points are
overdone because authors just don't know enough of any other
history.
Someone suggested that we should "talk favorites." Rowley's
included Philip K. Dick's _M_a_n _i_n _t_h_e _H_i_g_h _C_a_s_t_l_e and Keith
Roberts's _P_a_v_a_n_e. Olson repeated that Turtledove's _G_u_n_s _o_f _t_h_e
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_S_o_u_t_h was very good. Boardman said that he liked James P. Hogan's
_P_r_o_t_e_u_s _P_r_o_j_e_c_t, "which gives you three alternate histories for the
price of one." He particularly liked that Hogan told us why he was
writing it--that he had read a claim that Germany was rebuilt as a
bulwark against Communism. (Of course, that's why the Church
backed Nazi Germany during the 1930s, after all.) I mentioned Ward
Moore's _B_r_i_n_g _t_h_e _J_u_b_i_l_e_e as a classic, though other panel members
didn't think it was very good. (Well, I didn't like _T_h_e _M_a_n _i_n _t_h_e
_H_i_g_h _C_a_s_t_l_e that much, so I guess it evens out.) I also
recommended Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg' first two
anthologies _W_h_a_t _M_i_g_h_t _H_a_v_e _B_e_e_n _1 and _2 and Mike Resnick's
_A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _P_r_e_s_i_d_e_n_t_s and _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _K_e_n_n_e_d_y_s. (I didn't think his
later _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _W_a_r_r_i_o_r_s or _B_y _A_n_y _O_t_h_e_r _F_a_m_e were that good.)
Feder asked if there were any alternate histories in which
Christianity doesn't rise to prominence and "Rome goes Jewish"?
Boardman immediately responded yes, and I was able to add that
there was one by Kim Newman Eugene Byrne in Brian Stableford's
_T_a_l_e_s _o_f _t_h_e _W_a_n_d_e_r_i_n_g _J_e_w called, perhaps not surprisingly, "The
Wandering Christian." McIntyre mentioned John M. Ford's _D_r_a_g_o_n
_W_a_i_t_i_n_g in which Christianity is a minor, almost unknown cult.
Boardman again brought up the point made earlier by Feder that
there are two kinds of alternate histories, one with time travel
and one without--or rather, one in which the change is internal and
one in which the changes are made by time travelers.
McIntyre pointed out that changes occurring a thousand years ago
make even five hundred years ago unrecognizable. Feder agreed that
this led to a certain artificiality in alternate history stories,
where they have to follow only one change, but history wouldn't
work like that. Boardman gave the example of a world in which the
South won the Civil War, but all the (Northern) Presidents were the
same--this is _e_x_t_r_e_m_e_l_y unlikely. I again mentioned _D_r_u_i_d'_s _B_l_o_o_d,
in which the change was long, long ago, yet most of the famous
people in our 18th Century have exact parallels in that world. Of
course, I am willing to forgive that (maybe because the book is
intended humorously rather than as a serious study), but am annoyed
when I see it in a more serious work.
This led Feder to ask the panelists' most and least favorite
mistakes. Olson said his was forgetting that history goes on.
Though it's true that China remained moderately static for a long
time, it is also unlikely that a Rome that didn't fall sixteen
hundred years ago would still look the same today. Boardman
disliked when the change was caused by something silly (and gave
the example _B_r_i_n_g _t_h_e _J_u_b_i_l_e_e, though that didn't strike me as
based on a silly change).
I said that what bothered me the most was that authors don't seem
to understand causes and they don't seem to understand effects.
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That is, they make changes that won't bring about the scenario they
have, and they have some things remain static that certainly would
have been changed. My standard example of the latter is a world in
which World War II never happened, yet John Kennedy is still
elected President in 1960. Of course, having said that, I also
confessed that Robert Silverberg's "Via Roma," set in a 19th
Century Rome which never fell, avoided these pitfalls (with a
couple of very minor slips) but the result was a story that left me
nothing familiar to grab on to or relate to. With me, you're
damned if you do and damned if you don't. Rowley suggested that
this may be another reason why World War II and the American Civil
War are used so often--they were recent enough that the resulting
world of 1994 would have something recognizable. (Regarding World
War II, Boardman said that even without Hitler, there would have
been World War II, but no Holocaust. He figured Hugenberg might
have been in control.)
McIntyre asked if anyone had read Peter Dickinson's stories in
which Edward Duke of Clarence did not die in 1887 and went on to
become King of England instead of his younger brother George. (So
far there have been two: _K_i_n_g _a_n_d _J_o_k_e_r and _S_k_e_l_e_t_o_n-_i_n-_W_a_i_t_i_n_g.)
There were also mentions of Avram Davison's _A_d_v_e_n_t_u_r_e_s _i_n
_U_n_h_i_s_t_o_r_y, which Olson recommended for a Hugo this year.
Feder suggested that there are two ways to write an alternate
history: as a conventional story, or as a textbook-style
description. In the latter category, the outstanding example is
Robert Sobel's _F_o_r _W_a_n_t _o_f _a _N_a_i_l ...; _I_f _B_u_r_g_o_y_n_e _H_a_d _W_o_n _a_t
_S_a_r_a_t_o_g_a, a 1973 book which assumes Burgoyne beat Gates at Saratoga
and the American rebellion collapsed. It is a full-length history
text of the "Confederation of North America" and the "United States
of Mexico," complete with completely fictitious bibliography and
completely fictitious publishing information on the copyright page!
Why someone doesn't reprint this, I don't know--it is marvelous!
It was mentioned that Harry Turtledove, in addition to his
"Worldwar" series, was working on an alternate history in which
there was no American Revolution. Called _T_h_e _T_w_o _G_e_o_r_g_e_s, it is
being co-authored with Richard Dreyfuss. Olson noted that there
was a famous painting by Gainsborough called "The Two Georges"; I
added that people on the Net were already suggesting that it should
be used as the cover art.
Someone in the audience asked about _F_a_t_h_e_r_l_a_n_d (by Robert Harris).
This and Turtledove's _G_u_n_s _o_f _t_h_e _S_o_u_t_h have become the best-known
alternate histories in the last few years. (The announcement that
_F_a_t_h_e_r_l_a_n_d is "soon to be a major motion picture" didn't hurt it.)
Rowley said that he thought _F_a_t_h_e_r_l_a_n_d was good; it was "coherent
and pretty believable." I mentioned that earlier Len Deighton had
written _S_S-_G_B along similar lines.
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Feder asked if we imagined our own history as an alternate world,
where did we go wrong? Rowley suggested that the invention of
gunpowder was a bad idea. Olson pointed out that since we are all
the results of this world and its population explosion, he isn't
too thrilled with changing things. McIntyre felt that she would
like to change the contempt of the Christian church for women.
Boardman thought that the status of women had reached a nadir in
the 19th Century (at least in Western civilization), and that now
only was it better now than a century ago, but it had been better
earlier as well. He also asked if anyone knew of a non-religious
argument against feminism.
I noted that much of what is wrong with the world is also what
brings about progress, and I want to know if I get rid of the Black
Death, what am I getting instead? Olson added that the Black Death
freed Europe from being static (like China).
After all this discussion, the panel agreed that one thing science
fiction and alternate histories have in common is that they are
both about world-building. Classical science fiction changes the
physical constraints; alternate histories change the historical.
So maybe this "world-building" is the science fiction/alternate
history connection.
Someone in the audience asked about the 14th and 15th Century
Chinese explorations--what if they had reached Europe? Boardman
thought they were probably referring to the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty
which was from 1279 to 1368. Of course, it wasn't as if China
didn't know about Europe. As someone asked, "Did you ever hear of
Marco Polo?" Olson felt that the expansion was doomed because the
emperor required too much control. McIntyre asked what might have
happened if the Chinese had gotten across the Pacific. This was
deemed somewhat unlikely unless they went via Alaska--the Pacific
Ocean is _v_e_r_y wide. Olson added that had the Chinese gotten to
North America, they might have released horses there, and that
would have made a difference, since all native American horses had
gone extinct before the Spaniards arrived. Boardman said he
thought the Appaloosa of the Nez Perce tribe was a native breed
that had not become extinct during the Ice Ages, but I don't
believe that is true. According to _G_r_o_l_i_e_r'_s _A_c_a_d_e_m_i_c _O_n-_L_i_n_e
_E_n_c_y_c_l_o_p_e_d_i_a, for example, "the [Nez Perce] Plateau culture
acquired Plains traits after the introduction (c. 1700) of the
horse simulated trade and war contacts." (As an observation, this
means that some of the "traditional" culture that the Europeans are
accused of destroying was in fact created by their presence as
well.)
Someone wanted to get back to the Chinese Khan whose fleet was sunk
in a storm. (Feder noted that storms seem to stop armadas in many
cultures.) Someone else said that the Khan Dynasty (Mongol
Dynasty?) extended all the way to the Caspian Sea, and the Chinese
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were well aware of Europe. (Well, we knew that.) Feder said he
thought the original question would have been better phrased as
referring to oceanic contact with other civilizations.
An audience member said that it seemed to him as if most alternate
histories were based on some violent premise (although I'm not sure
the non-existence of a war could properly be termed that), and
asked if there were any based on non-violent events. Well of
course there are dozens, probably hundreds, based on changes in
scientific discoveries, etc., but a recent source might be Mike
Resnick's _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _P_r_e_s_i_d_e_n_t_s anthology, which looks at what might
have happened if various Presidential elections or other events
turned out differently. Boardman thought that most of the stories
were wildly improbable (I have to agree that the premise that
Victoria Woodhull might have been elected President in 1872 is
extremely unlikely). Feder mentioned a story in which Lincoln
becomes a sad and forgotten man, but I don't think he gave the
title or author. (It could possibly be Lloyd Lewis's "If Lincoln
Had Lived" or Oscar Lewis's "The Lost Years: A Biographical
Fantasy.") Olson said that de Camp's _L_e_s_t _D_a_r_k_n_e_s_s _F_a_l_l eliminates
the "Dark Ages" through technology. Someone noted that Carl Sagan
had once asked what might have happened if the ancient Greeks had
not become mystical. Olson responded that it wasn't mysticism; it
was that they made experimental science lower class.
[End of Part 2]
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
m.r.leeper@att.com
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something
to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a
Republican.
-- H. L. Mencken