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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 9/19/97 -- Vol. 16, No. 12
MT Chair/Librarian:
Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 732-957-5087 jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 732-949-7076 njs@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
Rob Mitchell MT 2D-536 732-957-6330 rlmitchell1@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-2070 eleeper@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
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. The Denver Area Science Fiction
Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of every month at
Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
1. URLs of the week:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6960/alaska.htm and
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824/alaska.htm.
Our trip logs for Alaska. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. In Vancouver, where I visited recently, there is a Chinese
Cultural Center with a big Chinese gate. Behind it is a small park
with a pond and duck and very large carp. Now a lot of people
would just look at this and continue with their business. And they
might be better off. But I am not a lot of people. I started
trying to see the pond from the point of view of the carp.
It strikes me that to a fish, a duck is a weird fish that hugs the
top and has two big funny-shaped fins. Sometimes the weird fish
will disappear entirely into the above-the-surface world. Sometime
it will just materialize from no place. When you are a fish you no
longer have a law of conservation of matter. You can be staring at
the surface, which for you is the edge of you world and suddenly a
creature will be there where there was none before. It is one
thing being a large carp that no duck would attack, but for smaller
fish this could be a pretty scary situation.
Of course, some fish would know there is more to the world above
the surface. For them the above-the-surface world is probably a
source of wonder. There are some fish that realize there is
something in the other world and funny creatures up there.
Most have no idea. They just look in wonder as some pieces of
floating food actually pull fish into the strange world above the
surface. Some of these fish disappear forever, some come back
someplace else. And those fish that come back have a real fish
story to tell if only they could figure out how. I guess we are
getting into the realm of piscine theology. Flying fish must be
mystics among fish. They routinely jump into the mystic world,
take a quick look at it, and return to the real world.
Take a look at the movie JAWS again, but from the point of the
shark. The shark knew there was a world above because he could
stick his head out to see. But this shark, who we are told is one
smart fish, is actually caught in a life and death struggle with
creatures from that other world above the surface. All the shark
knows is it is eating food as it has to do--and it is pretty bad
food, a lot of bones and almost no meat-- and suddenly it has a new
friend. The friend from beyond the surface. I say friend because
it is certainly dropping tasty food down, the surface aliens call
it "chum." Suddenly the aliens attach it, trying to pull it into
the other world. "Barrels" are nothing more than surface huggers,
or strange devices that try to hug the surface if you pull them
down. The aliens try to shoot sharp pieces of metal into you to
tie you to these top- huggers. Now you know you are in a life and
death struggle with these aliens who are invading your space. You
can no longer escape. You have to kill the aliens. But what are
they? And why are they attacking you? It makes no sense. You
have to think how to fight back. Think. What you see of them is
mostly this big hard shell of their attack ship with the spinning
flesh-cutter at the back end. That's not where the enemy but it is
where your enemy is attacking you from. Think. The aliens drop
into your world in some sort of funny square bubble with a hard
shell around them. You can tear up the bubble but the alien inside
swims away. Your only hope is to destroy the alien craft. You
jump on it with the full force of your weight. Just the tipping
pulls one alien into your mouth. Serves him right. Go for the
last invader! He's put something in your mouth. You can't close
your mouth. He's wedged your jaws open. Can you bite through it?
What the... [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
Politics, n. strife of interests masqueradading
as a contest of principles.
-- Ambrose Bierce