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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 11/14/97 -- Vol. 16, No. 20
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. URL of the week: http://www.bylines.org. On-line non-fiction
"bookstore" where you can purchase downloadable articles and books
for anywhere from $0.19 to $1.99. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. President Clinton was giving a speech to a national gay rights
organization. How he can show his face there I am not sure after
he backed off on his gays in the military stance after his first
election. (I wonder how many soldiers afraid that someone was
going to look at them lustfully in the shower turned away in
disgust from STARSHIP TROOPERS's co-ed shower scene. Just a
thought.) But I guess gays are sort of forced to be friendly with
Clinton. They can hardly threaten to become Republicans.
Anyway Clinton made a statement in his speech that "discrimination
is always wrong." He actually said that. I am not going to get on
the bandwagon of Clinton-bashing, but I think that to make such a
statement is indicative of unclear thought processes. Realizing I
may prejudice people against my opinions in the future I would like
to say that I personally am a great believer in discrimination.
And I chose those words intentionally. Some people who like to
think they are against discrimination seem to have the strongest
prejudices of all.
Let me say that it is the responsibility of education to teach
people to discriminate and to be discriminating people. As an
example, at least in my opinion people who sit around and watch
professional wrestling are not very discriminating in their tastes.
I think of someone whose idea of entertainment is to listen to a
Gustav Mahler Symphony as being much more discriminating. And that
is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. I personally discriminate
against Chef Boy-Ar-Dee products every time. My experience is
their pasta is mush in a can and I feel when I buy food in a
grocery, I want to discriminate against them. That is what a free
economy is all about. It is about my right to discriminate.
On the other hand you really should hear the records of the
Portsmith Symphonia. They are a symphony orchestra that does not
discriminate on the basis of musical talent. A Portsmith Symphonia
album is painful to endure. And I think that is their point.
Anyone who has heard their music will be greatly pleased that
theirs is not policy of most symphony orchestras. The University
of Massachusetts, where I did my under-grad work thinks of itself
as a bastion of anti-discriminatory thinking. You should take a
look at their entrance application some time. They surely want to
know a lot about people before they decide if they want to teach
them how not to discriminate.
What is wrong in society is not that people discriminate. We would
not have a very good society if they did not. What is wrong is
that they sometimes discriminate systematically based on
irrelevancies. If I am hiring someone to do work for me, there are
relevant and irrelevant aspects about that person and I have a
responsibility to discriminate based on all the relevant aspects of
that person. I will choose someone who can do the job over someone
who cannot. Religion, skin-tone, orientation, eye-color, and
probably weight are things that are probably irrelevant. Or even
if they are relevant, the person should probably be protected from
me discriminating on that basis. But let's not indiscriminately
rule out all discrimination. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. STARSHIP TROOPERS (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: Perhaps Robert Heinlein's most
celebrated novel gets a big-budget Hollywood
treatment with an incredible number of glitzy
special effects. When Heinlein's right-wing
political philosophy mixes with a "blow 'em up
real good" film about a war on an alien planet
fighting giant insects, the results are limited
in how good they can be. This film is pretty
close to that upper limit. Not a great film,
but Heinlein would have probably been pleased
with the results. Expect a lot of blood (red
for humans, red or green for insects), a lot of
violence, and a little nudity. Rating: 6 (0 to
10), +1 (-4 to +4)
STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlein is one of the perennial
classics of science fiction. The novel may be so popular more for
the timing of its publication, 1959, than for quality, being
probably the first important piece of military science fiction.
The book itself is a look at life in the combat military during
World War II, but had it been written as such it would have been
forgotten two months after it was published. And it was, in fact,
probably inferior to many of its contemporary novels about the war.
But Heinlein was a science fiction author and so set the story in
an interstellar war. Having been written as science fiction, it
brought military fiction to a new audience and probably was pivotal
in creating military science fiction as a new sub-genre.
(Historical note: 1959 was also the year of military science
fiction novel DORSAI by Gordon Dickson. The only major military
science fiction novel prior to that year was 1952's GUNNER CADE by
Cyril Kornbluth and Judith Merrill writing as Cyril Judd.)
Heinlein's story is a set of forays into Heinlein's own political
philosophy combined with a sort of enthusiastic--but somehow
unsavory--look at military discipline. He wrote it after serving
in the military in the war, albeit behind a desk. The philosophy
for me was more engaging than the discipline. After all, if one
feels threatened by people's different ideas, one should not be
reading science fiction. But Heinlein's admiring descriptions of
good, harsh military discipline--up to and including the use of the
lash--are often hard to take. So that humanitarian concerns would
not get in the way of Heinlein's military philosophy he dehumanized
the enemy well beyond even the level of gooks to spiders with hive
insect habits. (The film goes a step further, and in the wrong
direction, calling them both "insects" and "arachnids." Of course
they cannot be both.) Making the enemy bugs neatly reduces them in
the reader's concern and disposes of any humane consideration for
them. Ironically, this is just the aspect that Paul Verhoeven
seizes upon in his film. He wants to examine what would a war of
infantry against an implacable army of giant insects be like? And
with the advent of good computer graphics, giant insects could be
shown attacking in the thousands.
The story of the film is at least roughly that of the novel. It is
a world where veterans have taken over the government and military
service is a prerequisite of having voting rights. The film
follows Johnny Rico (played by Casper Van Dien) through the
military experience from his high school experience coming under
the influence of pro-military teacher Jean Rasczak (Michael
Ironside). It follows him and a few of his friends though
enlistment and an extended sequence of training. About an hour
into the film it takes him to battle and to becoming a hero
fighting the giant insect like inhabitants of Klendathu. Overlaid
on the military plot is the much less interesting story of the love
lives of the main characters. It is hard to build up a whole lot
of interest on whether Johnny will get together with girlfriend
Carmen Ibenez (Denise Richards) or Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer) when
giant insects are ripping people apart. That whole subplot seems a
little bit like unneeded padding in a film that is 129 minutes
long.
As far as acting, this is a film in which all the interesting
characters are in minor roles. The only real tension on screen in
the relationship between Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards is to
see when they finally do kiss, how will they keep those jutting
chins from getting in the way. On the other hand in a more minor
roles are Clancy Brown as the violent, sadistic drill instructor
with the heart of gold. Always watchable is Michael Ironside as
the gruff, hardened teacher-turned-commander with the heard of
gold, Rasczak. Anybody who is military seems gruff and
insensitive, but that is because they really love the troops.
Edward Neumeier wrote the screenplay which shows similarities to
his screenplay for Paul Verhoeven's previous ROBOCOP, particularly
in its send-up of the popular media. Special effects--some showing
incredible swarms of giant insects--are produced by Industrial
Light and Magic among other contributors. Things have come a long
way since Warner Brothers made THEM! with one full-sized ant mock-
up and the front half of a second ant. These giant insects are too
realistic at times. The film has a right-wing-slant so it comes a
no surprise that the score is by Basil Poledouris who also scored
CONAN THE BARBARIAN, RED DAWN, IRON EAGLE, ROBOCOP, AMERIKA, FLIGHT
OF THE INTRUDER, and THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER. It is not one of
his better scores and is regrettably well below that quality he
showed with CONAN THE BARBARIAN.
My feeling is that it is not the most ambitious project in the
world to make a film of STARSHIP TROOPERS. The best film you could
possibly make would be none too good. But I also feel this very
nearly is the best film you could possibly make from the book. It
is not accurate to the book, but most of the changes are probably
for the best. There are places that this version diverges from the
novel, but they seem to be modifications that the author would have
endorsed. Heinlein gave us an all-male army that just does not
square with our 90s vision of the future. If serving in the
military is a prerequisite for voting rights, it is unlikely that
women would be excluded and they would have to serve under the same
conditions as the men. The script does that very handily. Also
scenes like the one with co-ed shower facilities are very much
within the style of later Heinlein books. That idea could have
almost come from a Heinlein book.
With the proper set of substitutions this could be a fairly typical
John Wayne film about World War II. As a science fiction piece
with good special effects, this makes for an entertaining two hours
plus, and it is fun to hear some of Heinlein's political ideas. I
would rate this film a +6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4
to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
4. STARSHIP TROOPERS (a film review by Dale L. Skran, Jr.):
I prepared for viewing STARSHIP TROOPERS by not reading the book
again, as I was confident Verhoeven would abuse the original text,
especially after seeing the Worldcon trailer, which although
intriguing, contained a brief clip of Verhoeven mumbling about
Heinlein's "fascist society." And I was not disappointed! What
is indeed unfortunate is that a number of excellent elements have
been jumbled into a disagreeable hash.
First, consider the good. A substantial amount of the plot and
character does indeed derive from Heinlein, and to the extent that
the movie sticks either to the literal substance of the book, or
combines elements appropriately, it works well. Most of the battle
scenes, the "administrative punishment," the "moral philosophy"
lecture, and the general substance of the character Johnny Rico and
Sargeant Zim work well.
The aliens are top-notch, defining a new level of movie monster
skill, and the space battles beautiful. The scene of the giant
ship cut in half by a powerful beam has appeared on many magazine
covers, but appears here for the first time on the big screen.
The gradual growth the of aliens' abilities was well handled and
plausible.
Michael Ironsides is quite plausible as Rasczak, of "Rasczak's
Roughnecks" and moral philosophy. The actors portraying Rico,
Dizzy, and Carmen, as well as the various soldiers generally put in
a solid performance.
Verhoeven introduces two elements that were not in the original
story, but not really in conflict with Heinlein's world view. One
is sexual equality in the Mobile Infantry. Although in the book,
the "Fleet" is essentially all female and the "MI" all male, with
powered suits there is no real reason for a sexual division of
labor, and that is removed here (along with the powered suits as a
budgetary measure). Another is the addition of a fair amount of
sex. As is now well known, although Heinlein's early novels were
sex-free, once the 60s hit he become a bit more liberated than
most, and I suspect he would have enjoyed the flesh on display
here.
On to the Bad. A really horrible touch, completely at odds with
Heinlein, and pure Verhoeven, are the 50's style TV adds for the
"Federal Service" which are insulting, trite, and odious. They are
pure parody, 100% out of synch with the rest of the movie. The
film could have been improved dramatically by simply cutting them
out. They are the same adds the Verhoeven used in Robocop to make
fun of Star Wars, Reagan, and conservative ideas in general. Here
he uses them to mock Heinlein's society and the battlefield values
on display in the rest of the film.
Another revolting change from the novel is the reconceptualization
of Zim as a sadist who breaks a boy's arm to show he is tough, and
impales a hand with a knife to make a point. The points are scenes
are straight from the book, the sadism is all Verhoeven, who
apparently believes the military mind is intrinsically sadistic.
The various news reports suggest that Verhoeven believes Heinlein
has written about a fascist society, neatly avoiding the paradox
that the Federal Service is voluntary (really voluntary), anyone is
taken regardless of handicap (a point lost in the film), and that
except for the requirement of Federal Service to vote, the same
kind of democratic rights we have today prevail (you can say
whatever you like, you just can't vote!). The shots of the trial
of a murderer suggest a mock-trial instead of swift justice.
On to the ugly. In many ways this is an ugly film. The future
cities are mock-Gernsbackian. The battlefields set a new record
for the liberal distribution of body parts. Some of this ugliness
is an inevitable result of an honest portrayal of violence. Some
of it is Verhoeven making fun of Heinlein. And some, like the
"Iron Cross" style Eagle that adorns the Federal Shield, is purely
political in attempting to link Heinlein's world with the great
fascist regimes of this century. Another silly touch is when the
"sensitive" intelligence specialist appears to read the mind of the
"brain" alien, he is wearing a long Nazi-style SS trench coat
straight out of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" even though the scene is
a desert and soldiers are wearing T-shirts!
Another ugliness (and bad as well) is surely the addition of a
high-school love triangle to the story. This wastes a lot of time
at the beginning of the film with a sophomoric note passing scene,
and a love-fight on the football field. I am not objecting to the
love-triangle per se, but to its introduction in this hackneyed and
uninteresting fashion. It also adds the childish puke-scene where
they dissect a strange alien bug. The scene adds something to the
story, the puking doesn't.
Least this review be taken as an endorsement of Heinlein's personal
philosophy, or that of STARSHIP TROOPERS, this is not the case. I
simply feel that Heinlein deserves to have a film version of
STARSHIP TROOPERS that presents his society as he intended it,
right or wrong. What we have here is more a parody of STARSHIP
TROOPERS than the real thing. Unfortunately, it is about 20%
parody, and 80% pretty good. I have rarely seen a film that could
so easily have benefited from the liberal use of a pair of
scissors.
Rating: +1 on the Leeper Scale. Keep in mind that this is a
combination of a -2 adaptation/parody with +3 special effects. Be
warned: STARSHIP TROOPERS is a very hard "R" with lots and lots of
violence, and some frontal nudity/sex. Not a Hugo candidate. Not
recommended as an introduction to SF or Heinlein! [-dls]
===================================================================
5. THINK LIKE A DINOSAUR by James Patrick Kelly (Golden Gryphon,
ISBN 0-9655901-9-4, 1997, 275pp, US$22.95) (a book review by Evelyn
C. Leeper):
This volume contains fourteen of Kelly's best stories, including
two Hugo nominees and four Nebula nominees (a fifth, "Saint Theresa
of the Aliens," is missing). The title story is the best known,
and the most discussed, of all of them. Some see it as a response
or follow-up to Tom Godwin's "Cold Equations." It can be seen that
way, but the "equation" in Godwin's story is a function of the
physical universe, while that of "Think Like a Dinosaur" is more
artificially created. And in fact it's not a new idea, but has
been part and parcel of teleportation discussions for a long time
now. Kelly combines it well with an alien sub-plot, though, and
makes it interesting from that perspective.
The other stories represent the best of Kelley's work, and make it
available in a permanent form.
This is the first volume from a new publisher, Golden Gryphon, and
is a very well-produced volume. The single-author short story
collection is not as dead as some claim. It isn't even relegated
to the small press, as some would have--just this month sees the
publication of a single-author collection by Ace, for example. But
these collections do have an extra hurdle (as do reprint
anthologies, for that matter): readers may decide they already have
some or most of the stories and pass them up. In the case of THINK
LIKE A DINOSAUR, what will work against its success is the fact
that all but one of the stories in it were first published in
ASIMOV'S, and most readers who know of Kelly are probably
subscribers to that magazine. On the other hand, libraries should
definitely acquire this book. In fact, I hope someone is bringing
the single-author collections being produced these days to the
attention of libraries, since they provide the only way for most
libraries to get some of the best work of today's leading authors.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
6. A DYBBUK, OR BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (a theater review by Mark R.
Leeper):
One of the perennial favorites of the Yiddish theater is Shalom
Ansky's play A DYBBUK. A dybbuk is a possessing spirit. The story
is a famous mystical work of the that has been done many times on
the stage as well as having been made in 1938 Poland into an
effective film by Michael Waszynsky, in Yiddish. That film was
restored in 1989 and offers a priceless look at the Polish Jewish
community exterminated in the Holocaust. The Joseph Papp Public
Theater in New York are doing a production of the Ansky play
adapted by Tony Kushner.
This is conceivably a spoiler, but like opera, most people who see
a version of this story already know the story. Sender and Nissen
are two Yeshiva students and the closest of friends. To seal their
friendship they swear that should they ever have children and they
are of opposite gender they shall be betrothed. But later Sender
goes off and loses touch with his friend Nissen. He eventually
finds out Nissen has died, but does not forget his friend. Over
the years Sender prospers and becomes wealthy. He has a beautiful
daughter Leah for whom he must find a husband. He wishes his son-
in-law to be someone of power and wealth worthy of so beautiful a
daughter. One suitor after another he turns away. Leah is just as
happy to see suitors fail. The man she really loves has knowledge
but neither money nor power. It is the young Rabbi Khonen who is a
great scholar of the approved books like the Talmud. But his real
interest is into the forbidden mystical knowledge of the Kabbalah.
That is the book that gives humans God-like power if they can
understand it and use it. The power is tempting to Khonen.
Khonen would be a good son-in-law, but he has neither money nor
earthly power so Sender instead finds a wealthy boy and arranges a
marriage. Khonen and Leah are heart-broken. Khonen determines to
use forbidden knowledge to avoid losing the woman he loves. On the
day of Leah's marriage she feels the presence of the mystical.
More and more she feels herself controlled by morbid forces.
Meanwhile Khonen performs a secret mystical ceremony of great
power. It is power he cannot control and the forces overcome him
and kill him. Soon after Leah is being married. She falls in a
faint. But when she rises it is no longer her who speaks through
her lips, it is Khonen. He has died, but his soul has occupied
Leah. The two are united, not as a man and woman, but in a single
body.
Sender must find a way to separate the two souls. Another town has
a the great Rabbi Azriel, the former teacher of Sender and Nissen,
and Sender calls upon him to come to the aid of his possessed
daughter. The rabbi discovers through dream interpretation that
the soul of Sender's old friend Nissen is still earthbound and
angered at Sender. Nissen had died leaving a pregnant wife. The
wife had indeed had a son. The son was Khonen who without knowing
it had been promised Leah as a wife. Unknowingly he had been
cheated of Leah. But now he had her anyway, possessing her body
from within. The rabbi can exorcise the spirit, but only if Leah
agrees. Leah cannot. Though the soul of Khonen leaves her body
Leah's soul does not stay long. It too leaves to be with Khonen's
soul and Leah's body, now empty of souls, falls dead.
The story is powerful, but the Public Theater's production only
once or twice rises to the occasion. A forceful and charismatic
personality is required for Rabbi Azriel. He must tower over the
proceedings as a great and learned man. The role goes to Ron
Leibman, best known as the labor organizer in NORMA RAE and more
recently as an over-ripe district attorney in NIGHT FALLS ON THE
CITY. Leibman can be an interesting actor, but is too brash and
shrill to play a greatly learned man. Another familiar actor, Josh
Mostel of CITY SLICKERS, plays a relatively minor role as one of
the elders in the village where Leah lives. The only really
interesting acting is from Marin Hinkle (of ANGIE, I'M NOT
RAPPAPORT and "Another World') as Leah. She has to go through the
greatest number of changes a normal Leah, morbid Leah, possessed
Leah, Khonen, and depossessed Leah. What is good about this
production is largely due to her.
Definitely not one of the better things on the stage is the stage
design. It starts out cleverly with a building on stage that
splits in half to represent parts of a room inside. Later in the
play it inexplicably flips upside-down and hangs from the ceiling
almost down to the floor for the rest of the play. Act Two starts
with a train on the stage (well, an engine and a single car) that
Ansky never imagined. Later in the second act the train car
inexplicably levitates and it too hangs from the ceiling for the
rest of the play. The purpose may have been some sort of other
worldly symbolism, but it did not convey well. Music for the
production is provided by the Klezmatics and they do a nice job,
particularly with a weird little song about Leah's mother coming to
the wedding from the world of the dead. Still, with the exception
of the casting of Ms. Hinkle, the Public Theater have done nothing
with the play that would not have been improved just doing a
straight production as Ansky had written. My recommendation: get
ahold of the Waszynsky film instead. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
Conservative, n.: A statesman who is Enamored
of existing evils, as distinguished from a liberal,
who wishes to replace them with others.
-- Ambrose Bierce