@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society 07/31/26 -- Vol. 45, No. 5, Whole Number 2443
Table of Contents
Middletown (NJ) Public Library Science Fiction Discussion Group:
Aug 6 2010: THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT (1984) & novel
2010: ODYSSEY TWO by Arthur C. Clarke
https://archive.org/details/2010odyss00clar/page/n5/mode/2up
Picks for Turner Classic Movies for August (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
For those who think the new film THE ODYSSEY is inaccurate to its source, TCM Is running the 1930 MOBY DICK. Mark's review from the 01/03/1992 issue of the MT VOID is included below; it's a classic.
MOBY DICK (1930), Wednesday, August 5, 9:00 AM
August is also when TCM features a different star every day. For example, they are running ten Steve McQueen films starting at 8:15 AM August 8:
8:15 AM The Getaway (1972) 10:30 AM Nevada Smith (1966) 12:45 PM The Magnificent Seven (1960) 3:00 PM The Great Escape (1963) 6:00 PM The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) 8:00 PM The Blob (1958) 9:30 PM Bullitt (1968) 11:30 PM Papillon (1973) 2:15 AM The Cincinnati Kid (1965) 4:15 AM Soldier in the Rain (1963)
And there are *fifteen* Groucho Marx films starting at 6:00 AM August 12! (Well, Groucho's films were shorter.)
SATAN MET A LADY is the second version of THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett. The 1941 version with Humphrey Bogart was the third. (There was also a 1931 version titled THE MALTESE FALCON.)
[SATAN MET A LADY (1936), Thursday, August 27, 10:30 AM]
Other films of interest:
THURSDAY, August 6 12:00 AM Suspiria (1977) 2:00 AM House of Dark Shadows (1970) FRIDAY, August 7 1:45 AM Sleeper (1973) SATURDAY, August 8 12:00 AM Tower of London (1939) SUNDAY, August 9 12:00 PM The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) 2:00 PM Dragonwyck (1946) 6:00 PM Heaven Can Wait (1943) TUESDAY, August 11 4:00 AM The Power (1968) THURSDAY, August 13 4:15 AM The Story of Mankind (1957) FRIDAY, August 21 3:15 PM Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) MONDAY, August 24 6:00 PM Brainstorm (1965) WEDNESDAY, August 26 6:00 PM Bell Book and Candle (1958) THURSDAY, August 27 10:30 AM Satan Met a Lady (1936) FRIDAY, August 28 2:15 PM Soylent Green (1973) 4:15 AM Alligator II: The Mutation (1991) SUNDAY, August 30 4:45 AM The Most Dangerous Game (1932) MONDAY, August 31 3:30 PM Seven Days in May (1964)[-ecl]
MOBY DICK (1930) (film comments by Mark R. Leeper):
[This originally ran in the 01/03/1992 issue of the MT VOID.]
What follows is a true and accurate synopsis of the 1930 film MOBY DICK, starring John Barrymore (as Ahab) and Joan Bennett. Noble Johnson plays Queequeg. It is based on Herman Melville's classic of men and the sea.
The film opens with the camera moving in for a look at the book Moby Dick, or The White Whale. The novel begins, "There never was, nor ever will be, a braver life than the life of the whaler. Compared to the game they hunted the mightiest land beast was but a poodle dog." [Boy, that Melville! He sure can write!]
Fade to the harbor of the New Bedford seaport. The Mary Anne is pulling into harbor; all eyes are on the callow young seaman doing acrobatics on top of the mast. Why, it's handsome young Ahab showing off again! Ahab comes ashore and flirts with some of the girls and hilariously insults others. ("If they cut into you they'd certainly get plenty of blubber.") Ahab sees his brother Derek escorting a new girl in town--Faith, the parson's daughter-- to church. Ahab is struck with Faith's beauty but decides to go to the grog shop instead of church. There Ahab meets Queequeg, a primitive man who carries an idol he talks to. Queequeg becomes Ahab's sidekick. Eventually Ahab does go to church and flirts with Faith.
Before long Faith is losing interest in Derek's courting because, like all the girls, she is intrigued by the handsome Ahab. As Ahab is setting sail again Faith tells him that it is he, not Derek, that she loves. They agree to marry when Ahab returns. Ahab and the Mary Anne are at sea when Ahab sights Moby Dick, the black whale with a white hump and forehead. [This allows the use of stock footage.] As Ahab and his cronies chase the whale in the long boat, Ahab takes one risk too many. The whale turns on Ahab and bites him. Ahab loses a leg and it is replaced by a peg.
When Faith sees Ahab is returning she is overjoyed. But when she sees the peg leg she is momentarily shocked and runs away. Weeks later, we see Ahab unable to get work as a whaler. Faith asks Derek to tell Ahab that she still loves Ahab. Derek twists the message so Ahab thinks Faith does not really love him. Derek then tells Faith that Ahab has cursed her.
Ahab goes to sea for seven years, but not as a whaler. Faith realizes too late that she should not have trusted Derek. Eagerly she awaits Ahab's return. Eventually Ahab manages to buy his own whaling ship, the Shanghai Lady. He sails it back to New Bedford to get a crew to go after Moby Dick.
[It should be noted that we are now fifty minutes into a seventy-five-minute movie and are ready to start telling Melville's story.
Melville tells only the last third of the story, which, of course, is why Moby Dick is such a thin book.]
Ahab is unable to get a crew so must shanghai one from the brothels and grog shops. The meaner and nastier the crew, the better, he decided since he really wants revenge on Moby Dick. Once at sea, however, the shanghaied crew is surly and unmanageable. They are cutthroats one and all. There is one exception. It is Derek who was shanghaied onto the Shanghai Lady with the rest. Derek finds out his brother Ahab is the captain, but the mates don't believe it and will not let him see Ahab.
During a storm Derek decides to break out of the hold to confront Ahab. The rest of the crew take this opportunity to mutiny. With storm and mutiny raging, Derek finds Ahab at the wheel and accuses him of intentionally shanghaiing him. The two fight and Ahab is winning when Derek throws a knife into Ahab's back. Queequeg--Ahab's old friend--picks up Derek and breaks his back. There is no explanation about what happened to the mutiny, but it seems to have ended by the next scene.
Fair weather returns, but Ahab is depressed. He decides Moby Dick has beaten him. "He's licked me, Mr. Stubbs," he says. Just then Moby Dick is sighted. The longboats hit the water. Moby Dick turns on Ahab's longboat but Ahab swims to the whale and, demoniacally laughing, repeatedly stabs the whale with a harpoon. Moby Dick dies. We last see pieces of Moby Dick being cut up on the deck of the Shanghai Lady.
Ahab and the Shanghai Lady return to New Bedford. There Ahab discovers that Faith has waited for him. The two fall into each other's arms.
Boy, that Herman Melville! He sure can write! [-mrl]
A DROP OF CORRUPTION by Robert Jackson Bennett (copyright 2025, Random House Audio, 15 hours and 51 minutes, ASIN: B0D5Z15LZ7, narrated by Andrew Fallaize; copyright 2025, Del Rey, 480pp, paperback, ISBN-10: 0593723848, ISBN-13: 978-0593723845) (audio book review by Joe Karpierz):
A DROP OF CORRUPTION is the second novel in Robert Jackson Bennett's "Shadow of the Leviathan" series, with the third and currently final book in the series to be published in early August of 2026. THE TAINTED CUP, the first novel in the series, netted Bennett the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2025. It is not inconceivable that A DROP OF CORRUPTION will win that award in 2026. While I did enjoy THE TAINTED CUP quite a bit, given my TBR pile and my preference for science fiction over fantasy (although Cup did blur the lines between the two), I was not planning on reading the follow up. Then the Hugo finalists for 2026 were announced, and well, here we are. And I'm glad of it.
Anagosa (Ana) Dolabra and Dinios (Din) Kol once again take center stage, this time in the investigation of the death of a treasury official named Sujedo, a servant of the Empire, which Ana and Din represent. The Empire and the Kingdom of Yarrow have a fraught and antagonistic relationship. Yarrow is not part of the Empire, but due to an agreement forged many years prior to the story will become part of the Empire shortly. In fact, many members of the Empire's Treasury are in Yarrow for one of their periodic meetings to discuss the eventual merger--although that's really not the right word, as Yarrow will become part of the Empire. In any event, Sujedo is killed inside a room that was locked from the inside. Actually, the word killed is a little mild and not as descriptive as what really happened, but it's better if I spare the reader the details. And thus, the investigation begins, and as usual Ana and Din are hip deep in the mystery. And as you might expect, what starts out as a murder investigation turns into something significantly more complex than the reader might imagine.
Again, Yarrow is at odds with the Empire, and the current crop of leaders, including the King of Yarrow himself, don't actually want to be annexed (yeah, that's a better word) by the Empire. At the center of the more complex plot is the Shroud, a laboratory floating in the Bay of Yarrow which is central to the Empire's research into creatures called the Leviathans (introduced in the first book) as well as uses for the blood of the Leviathans, which among other things contributes to the potions that result in the creation of Sublimes. Sublimes (if you remember from THE TAINTED CUP) have different abilities that are useful to the Empire, such as perfect memory, which is Din's specialty (I do like the name for this ability: Engraver. It just seems to fit quite nicely.)
What starts out as a locked room (well, yes, but not the way we normally think about it) mystery morphs into a very twisted and tricky investigation into familial and governmental politics (yeah, I know that's obvious, but upon reading the book what I'm saying will probably explain it a lot better than I can), almost cult-like groups, intrigue, multiple deaths and, well you get the idea. Along the way Ana and Din perform the same kind of wizardry (not with actual magic, mind you) they did in THE TAINTED CUP to solve the much larger issue that they've found themselves involved in.
Aside from the terrifically told story, Bennett expands the scope of information he supplies to the reader about the world of these stories. We learn more about the structure of the government of the Empire, the source of the powers of the Sublime, and the relationship between Ana and Din. If you squint really hard (okay, not so hard), you can see Ana's growing fondness for Din, and Din's loyalty to both Ana and the Empire. I found myself liking the two characters more as the story went on.
The story, as with THE TAINTED CUP, was well written and fun to listen to, which brings me to my next point. As I've mentioned elsewhere, my reading generally consists of listening to audio books. Thus, my impression of the novels I listened to is heavily influenced by the narrator and how they approach and read the material. A DROP OF CORRUPTION is narrated by Andrew Fallaize, who is also the narrator of THE TAINTED CUP. Fallaize does a terrific job, and I especially like his portrayal of Ana. A good narrator can go a long way in influencing the listener, and in the case of the first two books of the "Shadow of the Leviathan" series, is actually going to make me go and get the audio book of the third book in the series, A TRADE OF BLOOD. For someone who doesn't intentionally read fantasy very often, this is saying something. A DROP OF CORRUPTION is an excellent book, and worthy of its status as a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2026. [-jak]
How Seriously Should We Take UFO Sightings? (pointer by Taras Wolansky):
Article begins:
On a recent Monday afternoon, Columbia astrophysicist David Kipping was strolling through the quiet streets of Tunbridge Wells, a town thirty miles southeast of London, when his phone rang. The caller was a journalist seeking his thoughts on the new Steven Spielberg film Disclosure Day. The sci-fi thriller, starring Emily Blunt and Colin Firth, will serve for many viewers as a primer on modern UFO mythology, with flying saucers crashing down in the American Southwest, US military personnel swooping in to sequester the spaceships and their egg-headed crew members, and Men in Black-style agents fanning out to silence anyone with knowledge of the visitation. Kipping, a Cambridge-educated Brit who is spending the summer writing a book about the search for extraterrestrial life, let out an audible sigh when he heard the question. "I'm a bit disappointed it's coming out," he admitted. "I'm afraid it may hoodwink people, and lead them down the wrong path."
Full article at:
https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/how-seriously-should-we-take-ufo-sightings
Can Giant Space Mirrors Boost Green Energy on Earth? (pointer by Taras Wolansky):
[Or will they just mess up astronomers' work and the biological clocks of all living beings in the target areas? -ecl]
Full article at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02218-9
This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
Finishing the comments on the stories in "Masterpieces of Short Fiction"...
13. "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson: I find that there is little I can add to the vast amount that has been written about this story, other than observing what I'm sure other have noted: this seems to be a major inspiration for the premise of THE HUNGER GAMES.
14. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor: This is in some way a monster story--with the grandmother as the monster. She brings the cat in a basket, which is the cause of their accident. She insists they go down a dirt road to see some mansion she remembers, and convinces them by lying and saying there is silver hidden behind a panel since the Civil War (except she later realizes that the mansion was not here but in Tennessee, so it's the wrong road anyway).
After the accident she is the one who flags down the car with the three escapees, and then admits she recognizes them (and even they say it would have bene better if she hadn't).
By this point, it seems pretty clear that if the grandmother wasn't totally senile before, She doesn't seem to recognize Bailey's shirt or the pistol shots, or realize what they mean. She reminds me (and others) of Amanda Wingfield, the mother in THE GLASS MENAGERIE, totally out of touch with the present reality, even to the extent of similarly talking about being courted by a gentleman when she was a "maiden lady" (though she doesn't use the term "gentlemen callers").
Ironically, the first thing O'Connor describes the grandmother as doing--trying to get the trip changed from Florida to Tennessee--is one of the two "good things" she does, or tries to do--she fails. (She also keeps the children from throwing the trash out the car window.)
15."An Interest in Life" by Grace Paley: This has made so little impression on me that I cannot recall enough to be able to write about it. Even looking up the plot brings no recollection.
16. "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Krasny talks about how the woman who is turned into a spider, but with "the head of a sad maiden", and how Marquez is making a pun on "maidenhead", e.g., she retains her virginity. This would be more convincing if it were not for the fact that Garcia Marquez wrote in Spanish, which does not have the same "constructed word". The Spanish reads, "Era una tarantula espantosa del tamano de un carnero y con la cabeza de una doncella triste," which is a straightforward, non-punning description of someone with the head of a young girl. One is reminded of the translation of Isaiah 7:14, where the Hebrew "almah" means "young woman" but the Septuagint translates it as "virgin". (Well, actually "parthenos", since it was a translation into Greek.) There is a word for "virgin" in Hebrew, "bethulah", but that was not the word used.
This may be an intentional pun inserted by translator Gregory Rabassa. Or it may be just Krasny's desire to find puns where none exist. (He also claims that the miracle given the paralyzed man is that he doesn't get the use of his legs back, but that he wins the lottery; however, Garcia Marquez says that he "didn't get to walk, but almost won the lottery" ("que no pudo andar pero estuvo a punto de ganarse la loteria")).
In terms of the elements of magical realism, Krasny notes that this bears not a little resemblance to Franz Kafka's METAMORPHOSIS (and also to "A Hunger Artist", though more because of the setting), and perhaps even Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" in its invoking of the fantastical, or at least the mostly unbelievable. The willing suspension of disbelief is definitely at work, though in various degrees. (I remember trying to explain the willing suspension of disbelief to my niece when we were reading a book about horses with wings. I think she was about six at the time.)
17. "The Jewbird" by Bernard Malamud: Birds (or at least winged creatures) seem to recur in fantasy stories: Poe's raven, Garcia Marquez's very old man with enormous wings, and now Malamud's Jewbird. Both Garcia Marquez's old man and Malamud's Jewbird are pitiful creatures, with bedraggled wings, in need of food, shelter, and aid.
18. "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin: At this point, it became harder to find the stories. This was not because they were more obscure, but because unlike the early stories, these were still under copyright, and unlike the Garcia Marquez and the Malamud, I could not easily put my hands on them in my collection. And the Garcia Marquez and the Malamud were fantasy, meaning I could look up in the ISFDb where they had been anthologized. On the other hand, for "mainstream" stories there is no easy way to do this. Back in the day, there was a set of books where one could look up where stories were anthologized, but "the day" was over fifty years ago, when the number of short stories, and of collections and anthologies, was much smaller than now.
"Sonny's Blues" was relatively easy to find, because Wikipedia said which Baldwin collection it first appeared in, and that collection was available through inter-library loan (although not in my library).
Of course, none of this has anything to do with "Sonny's Blues", but frankly, I have no specific comments on it. This does not mean it's not an important story; it just means I had no specific response.
19: "A&P" by John Updike: Readers of the future (or even the present) will presumably figure out that the A&P of the story is a grocery store, though as a title that is never referenced in the story, it could stand for just about anything. Updike wrote the story in 1961, when the chain was just over a hundred years old; it lasted a little over another fifty, finally going out of business in 2015. Will readers in another twenty years recognize "A&P" as a store name? (For that matter, will they recognize that the bathing suits being described were considered inappropriate off the beach then? Certainly going into a store now with your shoulders exposed is not anything that makes people grab their pearls.)
I have to say that Updike's style doesn't appeal to me. He seems to love repeating words (or syllables). In the following passage, he repeats "round" three times in the first two short sentences, and "heels" twice in the third, longer one:
"She kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their shoulders round. She didn't look around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima donna legs. She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it."
Updike does do something that Stephen King may have picked up from him; he mentions specific brands (HiHo crackers, Diet Delight peaches, Kingfish herring, a Falcon station wagon, and of course, A&P itself) to make the story more "real".
20. "No Name Woman" by Maxine Hong Kingston: Some stories just don't generate any special comments from me; this is one of them.
21. "Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood: Krasny says about this story that Atwood is breaking down the third wall. Actually, it's the fourth wall (unless you have a triangular stage).
Atwood claims that all plots lead to death. Well, this may not always be true in science fiction or fantasy, but Atwood wrote this before she didn't write science fiction, or rather before she wrote science fiction but didn't realize it. (I think she's come to terms with the field now.)
Interestingly, what Atwood has written here could be thought of as a form of science fiction--a pseudo-alternate history--in which she starts with two characters and then spins out different timelines for them.
22. "The Moment Before the Gun Went Off" by Nadine Gordimer: It is hard to discuss this without spoilers, but I'll give it a shot. (Sorry, couldn't resist the pun.)
The story is told from the point of view of a friend of the main character, so there's a lot left unsaid. We don't find out how much any other characters know: not Lucas, not Lucas's mother, not Alida Van der Vyer's, not Van der Vyer's little son, not even Marais Van der Vyer himself. And there is much we don't know either--what is the true back story, what are the true feelings? And is the narrator an unreliable narrator?
23. "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver: Again, no special thoughts. As Angelica says in JOE VS. THE VOLCANO, "I have no response to that."
24. Why Short Fiction Masterpieces?: That's easy--because they don't take forever to read!
[-ecl]
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
Quote of the Week:
Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice
to deceive.
So if deception doth attract us we must have a lot
of practice.
--Mark R. Leeper
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