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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 11/21/97 -- Vol. 16, No. 21
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.scottiedog.co.uk/welcome.html. All
about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. I was told something fairly scary the other day. There is a
make of car on the road today. I don't know the make.
The car has a pollution control system.
If the pollution control fails the car will not simply not start.
The heart of the pollution control system is a chip.
The chip uses something called a dithering algorithm.
The dithering algorithm uses a random number generator.
The random number generator needs a seed.
The seed is computed as the ratio of a product of numbers in the
numerator and a product of numbers in the denominator.
One of the numbers in the denominator is that last two digits of
the year.
January 1, 2000, 26 months from now, those two digits will go to
zero.
The denominator of the seed will go to zero.
The seed will become an undefined quantity.
The random number generator will fail.
The dithering algorithm will no longer work.
This will make the chip fail.
Without the chip the pollution control system will fail.
Without the pollution control system the car will not start.
This means that there are going to be cars that suddenly will break
because we hit the year 2000. Now, a car is not like an accounting
machine; it is a mechanical device. If you cannot trust a car to
work in the year 2000, there is not much you can trust.
A few months ago someone asked me how serious the Year 2000 (or
"Y2K" as it is called) problem was. At the time I said that nobody
knows and there will be a lot of people running around making fixes
in January. 2000. I realize now I was wrong. I don't think
anybody knows how big the problem is going to be, but the more I
know the more I am betting on the high side. I think technology is
going to take a really heavy hit come January 1, 2000. And the
problem will have a multiplier effect. People don't know how
important it is but are worried about it. So even if it turns out
that we had had it pretty much covered (and don't believe for a
moment that we do), there will be enough people uncertain that the
stock market will fall.
I will tell you something else. People in technology are used to
somewhat flexible deadlines. Even out of technology, people are
used to stopping the clock. People who produce are used to getting
things out a week or two late. Nobody really minds. This is not
that kind of deadline. You can be pretty sure that the year 2000
is coming right on schedule, ready or not. And I'm betting on not.
This is going to be a tough one to ride out.
(I should say that much of this article is based on a conversation
I had with club member George MacLachlan). [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. And now, comments from our Distinguished Heinlein Apologist
about STARSHIP TROOPERS (the movie):
STARSHIP TROOPERS (a film review by Rob Mitchell):
STARSHIP TROOPERS (the movie) is a visually stunning, but mentally
unsatisfying film, doubly irritating to me in that its hatchet job
of the book will convince many viewers that Heinlein was indeed the
fascist he was often accused of being.
With the possible exception of FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD, no Heinlein book
has generated as much controversy as STARSHIP TROOPERS. A review
of the book itself must wait for another day (Evelyn -- need a book
review in the near future?). Suffice it to say Heinlein offers a
view of social duty and individual responsibility, set during a war
that the main characters feel is as morally correct as many
Americans felt World War II was.
The movie surprised me by including more presentation of the "moral
philosophy" of the book than I expected, and was reasonably
balanced by including Johnny's parents, who have not performed
Federal Service and hence are not citizens, but clearly are well-
off. The movie was also quite impressive with the special effects;
as Dale Skran noted in his review. Alien swarms, alien close-ups
and interactions with live actors, the battles over the planet --
all were executed cleanly and believably.
On the other hand, I wish some of the special effects budget had
gone to another rewrite of the script. Verhoeven decided to make a
satire ROBOCOP-like in tone, which detracts from the thought-
provoking aspects of the book. Earth society in the movie has
gratuitous sadism that appears nowhere in the book (e.g. the
propaganda clip of children gleefully smashing cockroaches while
their parents beamed approvingly). I didn't object to the violence
in the combat scenes (war *is* hell), but the ennobling aspects of
the Mobile Infantry, as portrayed in the book, were never
presented. What happened to "the MI always takes care of its own,"
or why make Sgt. Zim to be sadistic and vicious? And why not cast
a Filipino, or at least a swarthy actor, to portray Johnny as
Heinlein presented him?
In sum, I did not care for the film. If it had any other title, I
could overlook some of its excesses, bask in the "blow-'em-up-
real-good" computer-based wizardry, and promptly forget the movie
as I walk out the theater. But to take one of my favorite novels,
remove most of its stimulating aspects and hold the rest of them up
for ridicule against a backdrop of tacked-on sadism -- this I
resent. I do not recommend this film if you like to think about
what you watch -- read the book instead. [-jrrt]
===================================================================
4. SAINT LEIBOWITZ AND THE WILD HORSE WOMAN by Walter M. Miller,
Jr. (Bantam, ISBN 0-553-10704-6, 1997, 448pp, US$23.95) (a book
review by Evelyn C. Leeper):
In 1961, Walter M. Miller's CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ won the Hugo
Award for Best Novel. (Miller, by the way, shares with Octavia
Butler of having the best "Hugo batting average": both have been
nominated two times for Hugos and both won both times.) Now,
thirty-six years later, comes a sequel, or rather, a coquel, since
the action of SAINT LEIBOWITZ AND THE WILD HORSE WOMAN takes place
between the second and third parts of the original novel. (SAINT
LEIBOWITZ AND THE WILD HORSE WOMAN was written primarily by Miller
before his death, and completed by Terry Bisson.)
A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ is a great book. Part of what made it
great was that it was fresh and new in its use of the Catholic
Church as the lightbearer through the Dark Ages following the Flame
Deluge. But SAINT LEIBOWITZ AND THE WILD HORSE WOMAN doesn't have
that. As I read it, I found myself thinking, "Been there, done
that." The story, of Brother Blacktooth's spiritual quest, is an
acceptable post-holocaust story, but it isn't great. This is much
more a story of politics and warfare than of theology or faith.
The other problem is not as obvious, and I needed Gary Wolfe to put
words to it: what we're reading here is an alternate history in
which the Flame Deluge occurred--in the early 1960s. The
Catholicism here is pre-Vatican II, pre-liberation theology, and in
general more the Catholicism of the past than the present. Having
made his bed in 1959, Miller decided to lie in it rather than
remake it (as Asimov attempted to do with his "Foundation" series,
for example). But Miller has made some changes, with more emphasis
on religious images and ideas apparently drawn from Native American
religions.
Does SAINT LEIBOWITZ AND THE WILD HORSE WOMAN have flaws? Yes. Is
it worth reading? Yes. Does it stand on its own? No, but then, A
CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ is a classic in the field of science fiction
that everyone should read.
(I find it interesting--and a bit depressing--that Bantam's cover
blurb for SAINT LEIBOWITZ AND THE WILD HORSE WOMAN calls it "the
sequel to the best-selling classic A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ,"
making it sound as though A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ is in the same
category as Danielle Steel.) [-ecl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com