@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society Club Notice - 08/25/95 -- Vol. 14, No. 8 MEETINGS UPCOMING: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in Middletown 5T-415 Wednesdays at noon. DATE TOPIC 09/13/95 Book: TOWING JEHOVAH by James Morrow (Hugo Nominee) 10/05/95 Book: BRAIN CHILD by George Turner (**THURSDAY**) 10/25/95 Book: BEYOND THIS HORIZON by Robert A. Heinlein 11/15/95 Book: MIDSHIPMAN'S HOPE by David Feintuch 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. MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3F-434 908-957-5619 m.r.leeper@att.com HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 908-957-5087 j.j.jetzt@att.com HO Co-Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 908-949-7076 n.j.sauer@att.com HO Co-Librarian: Lance Larsen HO 2C-318 908-949-4156 l.f.larsen@att.com MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3F-434 908-957-5619 m.r.leeper@att.com Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell MT 2D-536 908-957-6330 r.l.mitchell@att.com Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-337 908-957-2070 e.c.leeper@att.com All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted. 1. I don't know if you have heard who may be eligible for a Hugo next year, but it is certainly long overdue. It may be over a loophole, but eligible for a Hugo next year is Jules Verne. An unpublished novel by him, PARIS IN THE 20TH CENTURY looks like it will finally be getting into print in English. It was rejected for publication at the time he wrote it but it has been rediscovered and is available in French. I would love to see him come pick it up. I would love to see him just show up for the Worldcon, come to that. Hey, I figure that if San Francisco had Mark Twain show up, I mean why not? A lot of his writing has proven to be even more visionary than most people ever thought. Sure people knew about some of the stuff that came true. Yes, everybody knows he predicted submarines and helicopters and trips to the moon. But THE MT VOID Page 2 have you actually looked at FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON to see how close that came. The moon shot was from Florida, sure. But I am talking about things prophetic about today. In FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON the space program was in the hands of a bunch of gun nuts. Well it may not be the Baltimore Gun Club today, it is in the hands of the gun nuts who control Congress. You know, if we were going to use a space gun, I bet the NRA would see it it that it was funded. Now people have thought that a space gun was far-fetched. These days it is called a mass-driver, but the idea is still around. It was suggested that a space gun would compact the passengers into a nearly solid mass of protoplasm. This was thought to be a bad idea, but the idea of traveling as a nearly solid mass of protoplasm turns out not to be so far-fetched after all. We know it as "coach class." I have been giving some thought to coach class since I have been doing a lot of flying these days. Mostly in aircraft. Flying is sort of an iron clad necessity if you live in New Jersey. The unofficial motto of the state is "New Jersey--where the good times crawl." I have a special interest in writing my own mottos for places, by the way. It all started when I was in Puerto Rico and found out that the official motto of Puerto Rico is "His name is John." I am sure there is a story there. But it cannot be nearly good enough a story to saddle all of Puerto Rico with a dumb motto like that. I think if they put it to a vote "His name is John" would come in a poor second to "Tuesday there will be doughnuts." What do you think of "The palm tree is stuck in my carburetor." Or how about "When I woke up it was an apple." More next week. [-mrl] =================================================================== 2. THE RESURRECTIONS by Simon Louvish (Four Walls Eight Windows, ISBN 1-56858-014-2, 1995, 215pp, US$18.95) (a book review by Evelyn C. Leeper): The last book I read from Four Walls Eight Windows publishers was Octavia Butler's PARABLE OF THE SOWER, and then Butler went on to win the McArthur Award. While I don't think Louvish will follow, it does seem that Four Walls Eight Windows is a publisher that science fiction fans should watch. This is an alternate history, based on the premise that Rosa Luxemberg survived to lead a successful Communist revolution in Germany in 1923. Because of this, the major National Socialist (Nazi) leaders never gained a foothold and emigrated to the United States instead. By the Sixties they're pretty old, but Hitler's THE MT VOID Page 3 sons are already into politics. The first problem that strikes the American reader is that Louvish (a Scot raised in Israel) seems to think that Presidential elections take place in years *after* years divisible by four (e.g., 1961). That's when the inaugurations take place; the elections are in the years divisible by four. This occurs more than once, so it's not just a typo. And there are typos, such as "hynotists" instead of "hypnotists" on page 26. And there are some other typographical oddities: a reporter spells words from an interview "nooclear" and "plootocratic" in order to make the interviewee seem uncultured, but that is precisely how those words are pronounced. Louvish has another character consistently spell "carcass" as "carcase" for no apparent reason. I found the book strangely compelling. I think Louvish assumes a greater level of influence for the exiled Nazis than would have occurred, but he draws an interesting picture of a Nazi-influenced United States which has a certain surrealism to it. He also looks at changes around the world: in England, in Israel, in Poland, in Greece, and in China. Not surprisingly, much of this book is from a Jewish point of view, and perhaps that is what helps me connect with it. My biggest complaint would be that the ending, which I suspect was supposed to be a surprise, wasn't, at least not to me. Still, even that is making a philosophical or psychological point of sorts, and serves as the cap for the novel as a whole. In short, this is a somewhat peculiar alternate history, written in a somewhat unusual multi-first-person style. It is not for everyone, but for some it will have a certain indefinable appeal. I do like the note at the beginning after the introductory quote from T. S. Eliot saying, "All other quotations in this book are from texts not published in our time stream." Though everywhere else the title is given as THE RESURRECTIONS, on the back of the title page the cataloguing data gives it as "Resurrections from the dustbin of history" (with no leading definite article). This is apparently the title under which a slightly different version has appeared elsewhere. If your bookstore doesn't have THE RESURRECTIONS, you can order it from Four Walls Eight Windows, 39 West 14th St. 3503, New York NY 10011. [-ecl] Mark Leeper MT 3F-434 908-957-5619 m.r.leeper@att.com The law, in all its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -- Anatole France THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK