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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 02/11/00 -- Vol. 18, No. 33
Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-817-5619, mleeper@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-332-6218, eleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@lucent.com
HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian Emeritus: Nick Sauer, njs@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
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
201-447-3652 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. When I was a young I remember seeing somebody from the
government making a speech on TV. It was probably some important
general talking about the strategy of the Vietnam War. It suddenly
dawned me from his way of making the speech that he was very
obviously reading what he was saying. All of a sudden I was
scandalized. My father's reaction was "Yeah, okay. So?". How can
they so transparently bring someone before the American public who
was just going to read what he was told. I suppose I confused the
concepts of just reading and uncritically reading someone else's
words. The latter would have been bad. The former was and is
common practice. I suppose I was reminded of that outrage when I
heard about the latest US Government outrage. (At least I hope it
is the latest government outrage.) It has become known that the
government is paying TV networks to put propaganda into their
programs. And this time my response is the "Yeah, OK. So?"
Here is what is apparently happening. At one time there was
relatively little Government funding for anti-smoking, anti-
drinking, and anti-drug commercials on TV. The ads that were
produced were crude, occasionally effective or at least memorable.
("This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any
questions?") These advertisements were the moral equivalent of
pop-guns against the big guns that money interests of smoking and
drinking could martial for their advertising. The American public
has been hurt by the abuse of these products all along, but it took
one heck of a long time for those sensations to reach its brain and
for it to say "ouch." FINALLY the tide has changed and people are
indignant about what Big Tobacco and Big Drugs (and to a lessor
extent Big Liquor and Big Guns) have been doing to the American
public. Now the networks in return for the licenses are supposed
to air a certain number of public service messages. The networks
had this problem, however. They were glad to take the licenses and
promise the public service ads, but they hated to have to actually
fulfill their end of the bargain. No two objects can fill the same
space at the same time, and unfortunately for the networks that
includes revenue-generating ads. While you are running an anti-
drug message you cannot in the same instant be running a highly
profitable ad for the new Buick Centra. And Buick was offering
bigger bucks.
So the entertainment industry, no doubt inspired by the success of
product placements, took advantage of a loophole. They could put
the messages into the programs themselves, just like they did with
other product ads. Where better to have an anti-drug ad than in ER
where people are being brought in from the street with drug
overdoses? So the public service messages where in the programs
and not the interruptions for quite some time.
Suddenly somebody has realized that there is money changing hands
to get specific propaganda messages into public programming. The
government (whose name is Clinton) is controlling what we watch.
OH NO!!!! And isn't this a First Amendment issue? (Well no. The
First Amendment deals with censorship. Censorship occurs when you
use government force to stop a message. The First Amendment says
nothing whatsoever against the government making people say what
they want them to say by forcing money into their hands. If
anything the First Amendment DEFENDS their right to do that.)
But what about the fact the government is effectively paying to get
propaganda messages in front of the American public? Hel-LO??????
You think this is something new and insidious? When I was growing
up there were lots of documentaries on TV about US military power.
Whole programs like VICTORY AT SEA were basically just government
propaganda. Others like I LED THREE LIVES and I WAS A COMMUNIST
FOR THE FBI were a little more than propaganda, but very little.
And if you think it was just the government doing it go rent
MOONRAKER and count how many familiar products you see James Bond
use. You can check your answer because each one appears on a
billboard that Bond passes in one of the chases. Talk about
blatant. You think this is not propaganda, maybe? I am going back
and re-watching a bunch of 1950s science fiction films. And in
just about every cheap one the characters stop and discuss things
over a cigarette. Do you think that is coincidence? Go back and
see the movie BRIGHT LEAF with Gary Cooper about the brave American
heroes who founded our country's tobacco industry. In films people
who fight disease are played by Edward G. Robinson types. People
who sell disease to the public for good money are played by the
Gary Coopers. When Gene Roddenberry was founding STAR TREK he was
told that if he rejected having smoking on the Enterprise, the
network would reject his plan to have women officers. He did and
they did.
There have for a long, long time been money interests, including
the government but certainly not restricted to them, controlling
the messages we get from films and TV. What is important is that
this time around the government is doing it with the carrot of
money (as opposed to the stick of blacklisting and insidious Senate
Sub-committees) and they at least have a reasonable message. [-
mrl]
===================================================================
FOUNDATION'S TRIUMPH, by David Brin (1999, Harper Prism, ISBN 0-
06-105241-8, Hardcover, 328 pp. $25.00) (a book review by Joe
Karpierz)
A few years ago, in a review of Gregory Benford's FOUNDATION'S FEAR
(the first book in the second "Foundation" trilogy), I wrote
something to the effect of "but do we really want to know more
about the life of Hari Seldon?" Well, after it was all said and
done, the answer is an emphatic yes.
The story that began with that Benford entry, and continued in Greg
Bear's FOUNDATION AND CHAOS, came to a terrifically satisfying
conclusion in David Brin's FOUNDATION'S TRIUMPH. It starts not
long after the events of CHAOS, and ends, appropriately, on good
old mother Earth, setting the stage very nicely for the ideas and
stories that Isaac Asimov told us about in the later "Foundation"
novels as well as later entries in the "Robot" universe, as he
attempted to join all his various universes into one huge
storyline.
By way of quick summary, Hari Seldon is nearing the end of his
life. He has just finished recording all the various appearances
he would make in the original "Foundation" stories--those
appearances that would nudge the crumbling Galactic Empire toward
Hari's vision of a better life for humankind. There are two
factions (more or less) of robots: the Giskardians, those that
follow the existence of the Zeroth Law of Robotics; and the
Calvinians (of which there are many subsects), which believe that
the Zeroth Law is heresy. Seldon's working of psychohistory is
complete. The Encyclopedists are on their way to Terminus, to
begin the work that Hari has set out for them, including writing
the Encycolpedia Galactica. The final years before the collapse of
the Galactic Empire are upon us.
I believe that Brin had the time of his life writing this novel.
Asimov's "Foundation" stories are among the foremost classics of
the sf field from the 50s, and many fans cut their sf teeth on the
"Foundation" trilogy. And here's Brin, getting to play in the
universe that a legendary writer created nearly 50 years ago. Brin
does a terrific job not only telling the story that needs to be
told here, but summarizing and weaving in just about every piece of
Asimovian fiction that needed to be included to make the story
work. And he does it in a way that is seamless and smooth. It's
hard to know where to start. He pulls in events from the early
robot novels, talking about the early days of R. Daneel Olivaw,
the mastermind and driving force behind everything that's happening
to the human race, and Elijah Baley. He talks about the Great
Diaspora, when all of humanity left earth for the stars millennia
ago. He talks about all the things that those of us have wondered
about since we first read the "Foundation" trilogy: Why aren't
there any aliens?; Why is the Galactic Empire so peaceful and
tranquil?; Why is the Galactic Empire going to crumble?; Why
hasn't some genius in some basement somewhere invented robots
(remember, at this stage, humanity is almost completely ignorant of
the existence of robots)? And he weaves all this stuff together
(with the earlier help, of course, of Benford and Bear) as if
Asimov had left him the notes to finish up the story. It all makes
sense.
There is a terrific series of vignettes where R. Daneel Olivaw is
conversing another robot, R. Zun Lurrin, about all the things he
has seen and all the hard choices he has had to make over the
thousands of years to bring humanity to this point. These little
vignettes give us some insight into the story, of course, but they
also shed some light on the mind of the being that has been
humanity's guardian for tens of thousands of years. Oddly enough,
although he explores backgrounds of many characters, Daneel's is
the one most fleshed out.
I was initially dissatisfied with the ending, thinking that there
had to be something more; it just couldn't end like THAT. Upon
further reflection, however, the ending made perfect sense because
of the story the second "Foundation" trilogy was trying to tell,
and where it was placed within the scheme of the "Foundation"
novels.
All in all, a very satisfying ending to a better than expected
trilogy. While the novel just doesn't stand alone, and thus won't
(or shouldn't) garner any nominations or awards, it stands as one
of the better novels that I've read of 1999. [-jak]
Mark Leeper
HO 1K-644 732-817-5619
mleeper@lucent.com