@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society 05/01/26 -- Vol. 44, No. 44, Whole Number 2430
Table of Contents
Mini Reviews, Part 13 (film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper):
EDWARD THE KING (1975): This British mini-series assumes to some extent that the viewers are familiar with all the characters, so (for example) when the viewer sees Princess Vicky's son Willy and Queen Victoria says that he will undoubtedly be a great friend of England, the viewer is supposed to know that this is the future Kaiser Wilhelm II who led Germany against Britain in World War I.
I have to ask--were Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as portrayed? Queen Victoria seems totally unbalanced, with constant bouts of depression over having children, having children marry and move away, over the death of her mother, and famously over the death of Albert. (She blames Edward for Albert's death because they took a long walk in the rain together, but what killed Albert was typhoid, which one doesn't catch from walking in the rain.) These depressions are interspersed with rages over not getting exactly what she wants. And Prince Albert is impossibly strict with Prince Edward, keeping him in isolation and his every waking hour devoted to study: his treatment of Edward verges on child abuse.
Released televised 01 April 1975.
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072925/reference
THE EDWARDIANS (1972): this is a mini-series of episodes in various Edwardian personalities' lives. The people covered are Henry Royce and Charles Rolls, Horatio Bottomley, E. Nesbit, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Baden-Powell, Marie Lloyd, Daisy Greville, and David Lloyd George. To paraphrase Alice in THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, they are all very unpleasant characters, with the exceptions of Arthur Conan Doyle and Marie Lloyd.
The casts are promising, with Robert Powell as Rolls, Timothy West as Bottomley, Nigel Davenport as Doyle, Ron Moody as Baden-Powell, and Anthony Hopkins as Lloyd George, and the Marie Lloyd episode does give you several musical numbers from the music halls of the time. But even if Bottomley was a grifter, Baden-Powell a militaristic colonialist, Lloyd George a womanizer, Greville a blackmailer, and so on, watching them in these episodes doesn't really explain their flaws, but just flaunt them.
Released on television 07 July 1974.
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068527/reference
THE LETTER (1940): THE LETTER is a great film, in large part because it is based on a W. Somerset Maugham story. Having Bette Davis in the lead and Gale Sondergaard in a supporting role didn't hurt. The only problem is that this is likely to push me into my biennial (or so) re-reading of Maugham's collected short stories. Well, it's only a problem in that my to-read stack is already mountainous.
THE LETTER was directed by William Wyler. I just saw a documentary on Wyler that pointed out that his films won more Oscars than any other director's. His films won 40 Oscars; Spielberg is second with 32. Wyler was personally nominated a record 12 times for Best Director (and won three), and his films saw actors in all four categories win Oscars. Davis was nominated for THE LETTER, but lost that year to Ginger Rogers in KITTY FOYLE. I haven't seen KITTY FOYLE, but was Ginger Rogers really better than Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine (in REBECCA), or Katherine Hepburn (in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY)?)
Released theatrically 23 November 1940.
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032701/reference
What others are saying: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1012264-letter
[-ecl]
Where to Get the Hugo Finalists (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
I've been asked about where to get the Hugo finalists and in specific about the "Hugo Voter Packet", so here goes:
Back when I was a finalist there was no "Hugo Voter Packet", though there was the "Hugo and Nebula Anthology 1993" CD-ROM which was the first attempt at something like that. It had all the Hugo-nominated fiction, as well as artwork and other materials in other categories. See https://archive.org/details/hugo_nebula_1993 and https://www.netfunny.com/h-contents.html for details.
The current Hugo Voter Packet was started in 2014 (by John Scalzi). It originally had the full texts of all the (fiction) works, but gradually changed to include only excerpts of the novels as publishers pushed back on either giving away thousands of copies of novels to the very market they were aimed at, or became concerned with pirating of those novels. The same was true for many of the Related Works. And of course, Hollywood was not going to give away entire movies.
The year "Wheel of Time" was a finalist for Best Series I believe the entire series was included, which really boosted the appeal to people and led to the spread of information about the Hugo Voter Packet.
As for the other categories, in general most of them provide either the full works (e.g., for Fanzine), or a sample (e.g., for Professional Artist). See https://file770.com/whats-in-the-2025-hugo-voter-packet/ for what was in last year's packet. (That one seems to have had complete novels and related works--the contents vary from year to year, as each finalist can decide what can be included. It is not known what this year's will have.)
Yes, what used to be called a "Supporting Membership" and is now called "WSFS Membership" (listed as "WSFS Membership Only") costs $50 and will get you the Hugo Voter Packet. The packet is expected to become available around May 6, when voting opens.
For those who are not planning to join the 2026 Worldcon, Nicholas Whyte has posted an article at https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/where-to-get-the-2026-hugo-finalists/. The novel, novella, series, graphic story, Lodestar, and some related works links are to Amazon (or in one case, the publisher's website), where you can purchase them. The rest of the links are to the works themselves. [-ecl]
Hal Clement Trivia (from a column by James Davis Nicoll):
"Anyone who met Clement and was unfamiliar with Clement’s past might be a bit surprised to discover that the amiable old fellow racked up an impressive body count before he learned to drive. I don’t have a number, but it’s possibly up to three or four figures. That’s how much thirty-five combat missions in a B-24 Liberator might have added up to."
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/fair-trade
SHROUD by Adrian Tchaikovsky (copyright 2025, Orbit, $19.99, trade paperback, 436pp, ISBN-13: 978-0-316-57902-5, audio book published by Orbit, 14 hours and 37 minutes, narrated by Sophie Aldred, ASIN: B0DKGB3458) (audio book review by Joe Karpierz):
Adrian Tchaikovsky is ridiculously prolific. He regularly publishes several novels a year--or at least seems to--of both science fiction and fantasy(*). And that doesn't cover the number of novellas he writes. Like I said, ridiculously prolific. His work is also high quality. In 2025 he had not one but two novels on the ballot for Best Novel Hugo (ALIEN CLAY and SERVICE MODEL), and his latest science fiction novel, SHROUD, is a finalist for the 2026 Hugo Awards and top-ten finalist for the Best Science Fiction Novel in the 2026 Locus Awards.
On the surface, SHROUD is a hard science fiction novel about first alien contact, which is something we've seen before over and over again with a varying degree of quality. SHROUD takes place in a universe where once again, humanity has had difficulties on its home world and is branching out across the stars to find moons and planets that can provide resources and a place to call home. The moon dubbed Shroud is one of those places. Shroud is a high gravity, lightless moon with an unbreathable atmosphere. The CONCERNs (think of them as big corporations) have chosen Shroud as a potential place to strip mine for resources for the survival of humanity. They send an exploration and strip mining ship, the Garveneer, to investigate. The CONCERN running this mission is less interested in human safety than it is on corporate profit. A space elevator is built, and the hope is to be able to get down to the service to perform the aforementioned strip mining. There is an accident in which the Garveneer collides with a supply shipment, and our two main characters Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne escape the accident in a pod which crash lands on the surface of Shroud. Their boss, Bartokh, crashes and survives in a separate pod.
It is at this point that the story turns into a classic science fiction tale--the heroes using science and ingenuity to solve all sorts of problems--including encountering the local life--to survive and make it back to a location where they can be rescued. The local life may be the biggest challenge. The Shrouded, as Juna dubs them, do not communicate in the same way that humans do. It seems they communicate via the electromagnetic spectrum in some way. Juna and Mai develop a rudimentary way of communicating with the Shrouded, but it doesn't amount to much--at least early on.
The Shrouded are intelligent and inquisitive and above all else, a hive mind of sorts. The creatures that Juna and Mai are encountering are all one mind spread across many. They call the pods the "Stranger", because they think that the two pods are like them and are two parts of the same individual. In order to try and learn more about the Stranger, the Shrouded captures and opens up the pod that Bartokh is in, which kills him instantly. The Shrouded splits off a part of itself to follow Juna and Mai's pod in order to protect it and learn where it is going. And where it's going is back to the space elevator to try and make contact with the Garveneer.
So yes, this is a classic novel about first alien contact in a hostile environment, but it is really much more than that. It's a novel of survival, a novel of communication--not only between humans and aliens (And really, another age old question is that in a story like this, which entity is the alien anyway? The Shrouded are alien to the humans, but since the story takes place on the Shrouded's moon, aren't the humans the aliens here?)--but between Juna and Mai. They are two completely different types of people. Mai is the crack engineer. She designed the pods that they are using to traverse the surface of Shroud. Juna is a scientist, for sure, but she is around more as an intermediary between the workers and the superior officers, or maybe it's more accurate to say she performs an intermediary function between two people that are having trouble communicating and getting along. She eventually proves her worth during the adventures that she and Mai have, and as a result they become closer and gain an appreciation for each other.
I haven't talked much about the CONCERNs, the companies that are running the whole show. They are greedy corporate entities who have one goal in mind, and that's to strip the planet of all its resources and the consequences are irrelevant. They do not treat their employees well. Once an employee like Juna (or Mai) are done with a mission, they are put in hibernation until they are needed again. Those put in hibernation don't know if or when they will be awakened again for duty, and the CONCERN doesn't care. They also don't care what stands in their path, and learn the hard way when they try to kill some of the Shrouded that there are consequences for their actions. There is a resemblance here between the CONCERNs and the ruling party in ALIEN CLAY, as well as the theme of contact between aliens and humanity. You might say that the two novels are cousins of a sort.
SHROUD is a really good novel. It has a terrific blend of science and character elements. The story is intriguing and interesting, and the writing is superb as well. SHROUD is a novel I highly recommend, and feel like it should be on many awards lists this year. [-jak]
* A quick look at the ISFDb shows for the last ten years, Tchaikovsky has published 2 novels in each of 2016 through 2020, 3 in 2021, 4 in 2022, and 3 in each of 2023 through 2025, plus short fiction. [-ecl]
A GIRL AND HER FED by K. B. Spangler (webcomic review by Paul S. R. Chisholm):
The Girl is the world's worst psychic (and living without a real goal in her life). The Fed is the cyborg Agent assigned to observe her (and damaged almost to the point of suicide). When they meet, they mix like oil and water ... no, more like sodium and water. Then they discover a conspiracy only they can fight. They'll need help from their best friends: respectively, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and a hyper-intelligent koala.
And then it gets weird.
The writer, K. B. Spangler, was really angry about George W. Bush and the Patriot Act. (Ah, those innocent days.) She wondered, what if the government stopped prevaricating and got *really* serious about surveillance? The result is fascinating.
Caveat 1: The art appears to start looking okay, but only because Ms. Spangler went back and redid. Then it gets bad because she didn't redo all of it. Then okay again because she'd gotten better as an artist. At the beginning of Act 3, in strip number 1759--the comic's been going on for a while!--the writer pairs up with a professional artist, Alexandra "Ale" Presser. It looks good.
Caveat 2: The language quickly gets R-rated.
Caveat 3: The plot sometimes advances slowly.
As of October 2025 (strip number 2288), the first three acts are complete and the strip is on hiatus. Each act is a complete story. There are also eight novels set in the same world, not counting three smutty novellas (no longer available).
A GIRL AND HER FED was nominated for a Hugo in the category Best Graphic Story or Comic but Ms. Spangler wasn't nominated individually. Dave Kellett was nominated for Best Professional Artist, but his SF webcomic DRIVE (which he both writes and draws) was not. Both are worthy.
Start at https://agirlandherfed.com/1.1.html.
[-psrc]
Memorial Day weekend is basically all war films, all day, every day. WATERSHIP DOWN has shown up before on TCM, but rarely, and is worth seeing; the same is true of THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL.
MONDAY, May 25 11:30 PM Seven Days in May (1964) TUESDAY, May 26 6:00 AM Remember? (1939) WEDNESDAY, May 27 10:00 PM The Bad Seed (1956) FRIDAY, May 29 10:00 PM The Boys from Brazil (1978) SATURDAY, May 30 12:15 AM On the Beach (1959) 2:45 AM Marooned (1969) 10:00 AM Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963) SUNDAY, May 31 11:45 AM Watership Down (1978) 1:30 PM The Seventh Victim (1943)
[-ecl]
SOUTH PACIFIC (letter of comment by Gary McGath):
In response to Evelyn's comments on SOUTH PACIFIC in the 04/24/26 issue of the MT VOID, Gary McGath writes:
"Period pieces" can still be powerful. We need reminders of what things were like in the past. But Wikipedia says that SOUTH PACIFIC premiered in 1949. Since it's set against a World War II background, the 1927 date is unlikely unless it was heavily rewritten after that.
When I hear "Some Enchanted Evening" in my mind, it's always in Ezio Pinza's heavy Italian accent, which is odd considering he played a Frenchman. [-gmg]
Evelyn responds:
I have no idea where I got the 1927 date; that clearly was wrong, since it was based on James Michener's TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC, which was published in 1947. (Maybe I saw "1947" and read it as "1927"?) [-ecl]
THEM! (SPOILERS) (letters of comment by Hal Heydt, Scott Dorsey, and Tim Merrigan):
In response to Evelyn's mention of THEM! in the 04/24/26 issue of the MT VOID, Hal Heydt writes:
Amusing "Big Bug" movie. The ants are, apparently, living in the Los Angeles storm drain system, since they emerge into the (concrete) bed of the Los Angeles River. [-hh]
Evelyn notes:
Not just "apparently"; the Army et al go into the storm drains to rescue the boy and kill the ants living there. [-ecl]
Scott Dorsey responds to Hal:
YOU JUST GAVE AWAY THE WHOLE PLOT!
I will say that this is the best giant bug movie ever made. Even better than MOTHRA. [-sd]
Hal replies:
Somehow... I suspect that the plot of a movie released in 1954 is probably rather widely known. [-hh]
Tim Merrigan adds:
If that's the whole plot, it was given away in the first reel, as I recall. [-tm]
Peter Trei also replies:
THEM! is great, but let's not forget "Mant!", the movie within a movie of 1993's MATINEE.
Does STARSHIP TROOPERS count as a giant bug movie? [-pt]
Scott answers:
Definitely. And not a good one. [-sd]
This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
Last week I talked about the Teaching Company course "Physics in Your Life", which was produced in 2004. In one lecture, on physics in the kitchen, Prof. Richard Wolfson said, "This is probably as close as you're going to get with the Teaching Company to a cooking show."
If only.
Since then The Teaching Company has mutated into The Great Courses in2006 when it was acquired by Brentwood Associates, and offers "The Everyday Gourmet", "Great Meals in Less Time", "Mediterranean Cooking, "Cooking with Vegetables", and many other cooking courses.
How the mighty have fallen, to borrow a phrase from 2 Samuel 1:25 (NIV).
(In fairness it also still offers plenty of history, literature, science, and philosophy courses.)
THE PILGRIM PROJECT by Hank Searls (Crest Books, 1964) was made into the film 1967 COUNTDOWN. The book reads very much like an early 1960s book. For example, women are often called "girls" (especially secretaries and waitresses) and time is spent talking about how attractive they are, and by having the male characters thinking about them as objects. (Needless to say, this book fails the Bechdel Test.)
It is worth noting that one character talks about John Glenn running for the Senate, and while Glenn didn't serve in the Senate until 1975, he did run in 1964 until he fell in the bathroom and withdrew in March. So Searls was reflecting the very latest when he wrote this book in 1964.
But it's clear that after that point the timeline of the book is not our timeline (because Searls was not psychic). It has an Apollo 3 mission (and hence no Apollo 1 fire in 1967). There are a lot of references to real Mercury astronauts (enough that one reviewer figured out that the unnamed Mercury astronaut called just "the colonel" had to be Scott Carpenter (except he was Navy and they don't have colonels), since the other six were other characters that were mentioned by name). The Gemini program is barely mentioned (not surprisingly, since the first Gemini mission was in 1965), and it is difficult, if not impossible, to figure out precisely when THE PILGRIM PROJECT takes place. [-ecl]
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
Quote of the Week:
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve
the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes
it hard to plan the day.
--E. B. White
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