THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
10/24/03 -- Vol. 22, No. 17
Big Cheese: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Little Cheese: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
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Topics:
The Best Radio Drama Web Sites (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET (book review by Evelyn C. Leeper)
DUNE: THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD (book review by Joe Karpierz)
MADNESS AND GENIUS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
THE TESSERACT (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (THEY ALSO RAN, ROYAL WHODUNNITS,
THOU SHALT NOT KILL, THE ANNOTATED INNOCENCE OF
FATHER BROWN, DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON,
and anti-Semitism in early 20th century British
writing) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: The Best Radio Drama Web Sites (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The last two weeks I have been writing listing radio drama sites
on the Internet. This week we get the loose ends and
miscellaneous sites.
DAILY SOURCES FOR RADIO DRAMA DOWNLOADS:
1. Mediabay: This seems to be another arm of Radio Spirits using
the same software, pop-up windows, etc. But it does not have the
same programs. The program changes daily. The source is radio
station KNX in Los Angeles.
http://www.mediabay.com/knx1070/drama.asp
FIXED REPOSITORIES FOR DOWNLOAD
1. The Mercury Theatre on the Air: Perhaps the greatest genius of
radio drama was Orson Welles. This site seems to be a complete
source for everything he did on radio. This includes the famous
October 30, 1938 "Panic Broadcast" based on THE WAR OF THE WORLDS,
but even better is his adaptation of DRACULA.
http://www.unknown.nu/mercury/
2. Radio One Crazy Dog Live: This seems to be Ireland's answer to
the Firesign Theater. These plays are pretty impressive when one
realizes that they are all done live. So far they have only six.
Science fiction fans will like "The Phantom Chancer."
http://www.radio1.ie/archive/crazydog/programmes.html
3. Seeing Ear Theater: The web site of the sci-fi channel produces
original plays and releases them on the PC. This is the site
where they can be downloaded. Unless the plays are written by
major SF authors, I tend to find that anyone need not fear the
plays will tax the listener's intellect, particularly if they
feature Star Trek actors.
http://www.scifi.com/set/
4. Quiet Please: Arch Oboler created one of the better horror
series of Old Time Radio. Some episodes of Quiet Please are very
good mood pieces.
http://www.quietplease.org/listepisodes.php
FOR MORE GOODIES:
I have not had the time to explore all the sites referenced in the
list at the side below. If someone out there finds something
good, do let me know.
http://users2.ev1.net/~ey/audio.html
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET edited by Michael Reaves and John
Pelan (Del Rey, 2003, 0-345-45528-2, $23.95) (book review by
Evelyn C. Leeper)
The high-concept tagline for this is "Sherlock Holmes enters the
dark, nightmare world of H. P. Lovecraft"--how could I resist?
But I will preface this review by saying that I read this (and
hence am reviewing it) from the point of view of an aficionado of
the Holmes mythos rather than the Cthulhu mythos.
The book has eighteen stories, with the two big-name authors (at
least to me) being Neil Gaiman and Brian Stableford. The stories
are arranged according to internal chronology (i.e., the year the
supposedly take place), even though they are not otherwise
connected (and in fact, often take place in mutually exclusive
worlds).
However, the anthology does follow the publishing rule of leading
with the best story, so I suspect that author was asked to set his
story particularly early. And that author is Neil Gaiman, who
leads off with "A Study in Emerald" and just when you think you
know what's going on, he shows you that you don't. He manages, I
think, to balance his emphasis on both the Holmes mythos and the
Lovecraft mythos so that neither feels "tacked on" to the other, a
feat not all the authors achieve. Gaiman has won two Hugos in two
years, and I would say this is worthy of nomination for this year
(as a short story). (I'll also note that the title, and indeed
some plots elements, are taken from "A Study in Scarlet", the
first Holmes story to appear in print, which supports my idea that
it was always intended that Gaiman lead off this anthology.)
Elizabeth Bear's "Tiger! Tiger!" is less successful, partly
because the only connection with Holmes is the presence of Irene
Adler and Colonel Moran.
"The Case of the Wavy Black Dagger" by Steve Perry tries too hard
to capture the feel of a Sherlock Holmes story, but the various
allusions end up sounding leaden. It is really nothing more than
a brief display of deduction about a visitor, followed by the
visitor telling a story without any participation by Holmes.
(It's a bit like "The Veiled Lodger" in this regard--and that is
considered one of the weakest Holmes stories.)
"A Case of Royal Blood" by Steven-Elliot Altman needlessly
involves H. G. Wells. It also fails to sound suitably Victorian.
For example, at one point Holmes, in spite of only a nodding
acquaintance with Wells, calls him "Herbert". In all the years of
their association, on the other hand, Holmes never called Watson
"John". Still, at least there is a story here, and some deduction
involved.
"The Weeping Masks" by James Lowder, though dated 1890, is really
just a recounting of Watson's experiences in Afghanistan before
meeting Holmes. As with "Tiger! Tiger!" it is basically a
straight Lovecraftian-inspired story, with a few names from the
Holmes mythos hung on the characters.
In "Art in the Blood", Brian M. Stableford once again writes a
story based on physiological concepts, but does so within both the
Holmes and Lovecraftian milieu, and fairly successfully.
"The Curious Case of Miss Violet Stone" by Poppy Z. Brite and
David Ferguson is another story in which Holmes is not really
Holmes, and doubly so. Not only does he do nothing particularly
Holmesian in his "investigation", but he isn't even Holmes, having
been possessed by one of the Great Ones. Again, it has the names
of the characters from Doyle, but not the true characters
themselves.
Barbara Hambly is another major author (though not one I often
read), which may be why her story, "The Adventure of the
Antiquarian's Niece", is written skillfully enough to contain
enough elements of both Holmes and Lovecraft so as to be a melding
of the two rather than one being predominant and the other mere
accessory. It also captures a more horrific feel than some of the
other stories, which is difficult to do while keeping Holmes true
to his rational nature.
"The Mystery of the Worm" by John Pelan draws its premise from an
actual mention in the Canon ("A third case worthy of note is that
of Isadora Persano, the well-known journalist and duelist, who was
found stark staring mad with a match box in front of him which
contained a remarkable worm said to be unknown to science." ["The
Problem of Thor Bridge"]), which gives it the feel of a
traditional pastiche (however odd that phrase sounds).
Unfortunately, too much of the story, again, is told to Holmes
rather than being experienced by him.
On the other hand, "The Mystery of the Hanged Man's Puzzle" by
John Finch does not have this problem. Instead, Holmes and Watson
are in the action for most of the story, which seems to pay homage
in a way to Victor Hugo as well.
The explanation for "The Horror of the Many Faces" by Tim Lebbon
should be obvious early on, though the philosophy espoused is most
un-Sherlockian. That Watson doesn't grasp it immediately is
forgivable, however, because we have to make allowances for the
fact that the characters in stories don't know all the genre
conventions or possible premises that the author is using. (Damon
Knight talks of the "idiot plot" which only works because all the
characters are idiots, but I suspect he also fails to allow for
the fact that characters don't realize that certain conventions
are being followed. For example, characters introduced in novels
turn out to be long-lost relatives far more frequently than in
real life.)
"The Adventure of the Arab's Manuscript" by Michael Reaves is
another treatment of the "Necronomicon" (a common theme in general
and in this book), but balances the two aspects of the story very
well.
"The Drowned Geologist" by Caitlin R. Kiernan does not, and is yet
another story in which the names of Holmes and Watson are used,
but not their essences. (One gets the feeling that some of the
authors agreed to do stories for the anthology, but then realized
they were not able to do the Sherlockian part well. At any rate,
it seems as though if one of the two parts is lacking, it is the
Sherlockian part that is omitted while the Lovecraft aspect is
strong in all the stories.)
The resolution of "A Case of Insomnia" by John P. Vourlis rests on
the idea that 1) a lunar eclipse is visible simultaneously in
Egypt and England, and 2) it is darker during a lunar eclipse than
during, say, the night of the new moon. Neither are (to the best
of my knowledge) true.
"The Adventure of the Voorish Sign" by Richard A. Lupoff is much
closer to the classic Doyle style than many of the previous
stories, and as such is among the better in this volume.
"The Adventure of the Exham Priory" by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre was
acceptable, though with a slight touch of Stephen Vincent Benet
that seemed ultimately not to ring true.
David Niall Wilson and Patricia Lee Macomber's "Death Did Not
Become Him" would have been better if the resolution (and for that
matter part of the premise) were not based on a mistaken
understanding of certain legends. (Actually, the understanding
may be anachronistic as well, since the legends were not
popularized until after the time period of the story. Well, okay,
Holmes does have a lot of obscure knowledge, so I'll give it a
pass on this part.)
The final story, Simon Clark's "Nightmare in Wax", has both Holmes
and Moriarty, but only by proxy, and with an ending that seems to
leave the way open for a continuation--which I suppose is fitting
for the last story, but not what I'd call satisfying.
In summary, the stories here are liable to appeal more completely
to a Lovecraft fan than to a Holmes one (though obviously a
Lovecraft fan might disagree!). But with only seven out of
eighteen stories that are reasonable as Holmes tales (the Gaiman,
Stableford, Hambly, Finch, Reaves, Lupoff, and MacIntyre), I can't
really recommend buying the hardcover. (It's from Del Rey, so
there will almost definitely be a paperback next year.)
(I must note in passing that the art of proof-reading is dead,
else the introduction would not begin with "The deerstalker hat,
the pipe, the tobacco-filled slipper on the mantel . . . the image
conjured, whether of Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Irons, or the reader's
own conception, is unmistakable.") [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: DUNE: THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD by Brian Herbert and Kevin
J. Anderson (copyright 2002, TOR, $27.95 HC, 619 pp., ISBN
0-765-30157-1) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
It just seems like Herbert and Anderson are milking the Dune
franchise for all it's worth. They probably don't believe that
they are, but it sure does seem like it.
I've met Kevin J. Anderson. He's a really nice guy, and a huge
Dune fan, which is what prompted him to get into this thing to
begin with. After convincing Brian to go along with this, and
finding Frank's notes for the Dune universe, how could they not go
on?
I may have mentioned this in a prior review, but I'll try to
summarize it quickly. They want to write DUNE 7 - the final Dune
novel that Frank was planning to write to tie off the cliffhanger
at the end of CHAPTERHOUSE DUNE. And they found the notes for
*that* too, so it would be easy. But rather than jump right in to
DUNE 7, they thought they'd get more people interested if they
started by writing the "House" prequels. So they did. I guess
they then thought it would be a good idea to go all the way back
to the event that gave this book its name, the Butlerian Jihad,
and tell the tale of the war against the Thinking Machines that
freed humanity, oh, about 10,000 years prior to the events of the
original Dune novel.
It really wasn't necessary. But they did it anyway. I still
think they're milking it for all it's worth, although I'm sure
they don't believe that (see the almost never-ending Middle-Earth
books published in the last twenty years or so as another
example).
I was never really curious about the Butlerian Jihad. It was one
of those "mysterious, long ago" events that make a particular
universe interesting. I'd classify my interest level in this
about the same as that of my interest in knowing the events that
happened in 2010: ODYSSEY TWO. 2001 was mysterious, and should
have stayed that way. I have way too much information about HAL
now that I didn't want. Well, I have way too much information
about the Butlerian Jihad now, but I guess I just don't care.
But wait. That's not to say that this is a bad book. It's just
not necessarily a good one either. It's okay. If it hadn't been
written, I wouldn't have missed it. And it's mis-titled. Heck,
the darn Jihad doesn't start until the last hundred pages or so,
and will not finish until the last book, entitled DUNE: THE BATTLE
OF CORRIN, is published. They should have called the whole
trilogy the Butlerian Jihad.
I guess I'm rambling.
The book opens much (but not all) of humanity already enslaved by
Omnius, the network-spanning evermind that was inadvertently
created by one of the Titans. You see, the Old Empire was
stagnant, so a bunch of humans, who called themselves the Titans
and named themselves after the old Greek gods and heroes like
Agamemnon, Ajax, Juno, etc., revolted to take over and breathe new
life into humanity. They then were able to separate their brains
from their bodies and put those brains in mechanical canisters to
give themselves infinite life by ridding themselves of the weak
bodies. But one of the Titans got lazy and delegated too much
responsibility to one of his computers, who became self aware and
all-powerful. Thus was born Omnius. Omnius subjugated not only
humanity but the Titans as well. He used the Titans to control
humanity, and tied it all together with the "Synchronized Worlds",
which were all the planets under his power. There was a copy of
Omnius on every planet in the Synchronized Worlds, which were kept
updated (synchronized!) by a ship that traveled between the worlds
carrying Omnius updates. Earth was one of the Synchronized
Worlds, and one of the humans on the update ship was one Vorian
Atreides (I'll bet you thought there was no recognizable tie in
here), son of the Titan Agamemnon.
We also follow the action on the League Worlds, where we meet
Serena Butler(!) and her lover Xavier Harkonnen (there, another
tie in). We also meet Tio Holzman (yet another tie in), and on
Arrakis (there you go) we meet Selim (eventually Selim Wormrider),
an exiled member of the group that would eventually come to be
known as the Fremen. Serena leads an attack on Giedi Prime to rid
it of the infestation of the Thinking Machines, which had just
taken the planet over. In the attack she was captured by the
Thinking Machines, and taken to Earth to be studied by the robot
Erasmus. Mistaken for dead, Serena carries Xavier's child.
Serena and Xavier were to be married, but Xavier marries Serena's
sister Octa.
Meanwhile, the Sorceresses of Rossak (yep, the precursors of the
Bene Gesserit) help the League worlds attack the Thinking
Machines. Well, you're starting to get the idea, aren't you?
Eventually, the whole thing comes together in the last hundred or
so pages of the novel, when the Jihad actually begins via an act
of Erasmus, who unwittingly set the whole thing in motion to begin
with.
This really wasn't a bad book. It's far enough removed from Dune
that it doesn't seem like Dune, so I really couldn't compare it to
the Dune novels. It's okay, but that's all. If you're not a Dune
fan, you won't care. If you are a Dune fan, you *might* care.
Wait for the paperback. Or borrow it from the library. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: MADNESS AND GENIUS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Rating: +2 (-4 to +4)
Robert Rodriguez is famous for overcoming a tiny budget to create
what is essentially a polished but mindless action film. Ryan
Eslinger has trumped him by on what must be a similar budget
making a film that engages the viewer with ideas and one which is
a cut above even most art house films. Perhaps the most
remarkable thing about the film MADNESS AND GENIUS is that it has
been a ten-year project of a director who is only twenty-two years
old. He has been working on this story since he was thirteen
years old. The film is set in a major University, never named.
We see studies of three distinctive character types. One is
Jordan, a student who can learn the material in the books, mostly
by memorization, but he has no capacity for original thought. He
will be a repository for other people's ideas. Nigel is the sort
of student who does comprehend and love the material and is
anxious to move forward and play with the ideas he is learning.
In this case, however, there is some question on how far he will
be able to progress since like Stephen Hawking he is also hobbled
with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and will soon be imprisoned in
a wheelchair. The third is Professor Frank Donovan (played by
veteran character actor Tom Noonan). He is an internationally
known physicist who is a little past his prime. He is behaving
eccentrically. He has taken to finding five- and six-year-old
children in public places and trying to explain to them
complicated physics much to their bewilderment. He find himself
unable to move forward with his work, not because of any technical
problem, but because the next step will be a technical
breakthrough that will have huge positive and negative effects on
humanity, and he is not sure he wants to be the one who will let
this particular genie out of the bottle.
With the exception of Donovan's cutting-edge work, all of the
technical discussions in this film, and there are several, are the
real thing. Even the concerns that Donovan has about his the
implications of his research are what would be considered. Ryan
Eslinger is the writer and director and producer on this film and
with the exception of a few beginners' stylistic problems he has
created an intelligent and remarkable film. Shot economically on
black-and-white video with only one even somewhat known name actor
he has produced a film not just acceptable but in fact very
good. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE TESSERACT (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Rating: 0 (-4 to +4)
Admittedly what first attracted me to this film was the title. I
had played around with tesseracts as a budding mathematician.
(Actually I think the film gets the definition wrong. I always
heard it as simply a four-dimensional hypercube. It is to four
dimensions what cube is to three dimensions. The filmmakers would
have it that it is an unfolded version of a 4D hypercube.
Ironically, my definition is better for their purposes. They are
interested in it only as an example of a highly interconnected
object. They have a highly interconnected plot.
The plot involves three apparently disconnected plot lines of
three people at one cheap Bangkok hotel ironically named Heaven.
There is a woman assassin for a local gang, a British drug dealer,
and a psychologist who has come to Thailand to do a study of Thai
children. Each has some contact with Wit, a young Thai boy who
works at the Heaven as a porter. He also steals from the guests
and that pulls all three guests into a single plot line.
The camerawork for the film combines a lot of extremely trendy
photographic effects. There is extensive use of slow motion in
scenes very imitative of the visual style and art direction of THE
MATRIX with cold dark images in blue and gray. Other scenes use
shots in slow motion that suddenly shifts gears and speeds up.
Some scenes mute the color almost to black and white. Frames may
be removed to give a jerky look. While the violence is restrained
compared to Hong Kong films, it is a very violent film compared to
most American films. Most of the characters are poorly developed.
The film is designed to appeal to fans of guns, cars, chases, and
violence. Scenes seem to be designed to appeal to high school
kids. The story improves as it progresses but ends in the
expected violently filmed killings. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Of interest to fans of alternate history (and of regular history,
come to that) is THEY ALSO RAN by Irving Stone. Written in 1944,
it tells the stories of all the candidates for President who
didn't win. Well, almost all--it covers from 1824 through 1948,
and does not include anyone who actually won a presidential
election either before or after his loss, or any third-party
candidates. The candidates are grouped by category (e.g.,
newspapermen) rather than considered chronologically. (This makes
sense since a couple ran and lost in multiple non-consecutive
elections.) Each candidate's chapter includes Stone's speculation
on how good a President he would have made, and what he might have
done (hence the alternate history connection). My edition is from
1966 and has a chapter on Dewey and an updated transitional
section on Stevenson, Nixon, and Goldwater, though Nixon would get
dropped as someone who did finally win if the book actually were
updated. (It's out of print, but widely available used.)
I have been doing a lot of "popcorn" reading--short mystery
stories that can fill in short periods. These include Mike
Ashley's anthology ROYAL WHODUNNITS, Cynthia Manson's anthology
THOU SHALT NOT KILL, and THE ANNOTATED INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN
by G. K. Chesterton with annotations by Martin Gardner.
The first is one of a series of mammoth mystery anthologies by
Ashley; in fact, many are called "Mammoth" (e.g., THE MAMMOTH BOOK
OF HISTORICAL DETECTIVES). He has also done science fiction and
fantasy anthologies (e.g., THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF COMIC FANTASY) as
well as other categories, and may be the British Martin
H. Greenberg. Though the forward of this book, by Paul
C. Doherty, talks only about English kings (and queens), the book
also include Scottish, Bohemian, Italian, and Russian royalty as
well in its twenty-five stories. (I find it interesting that
Morgan Llywelyn, best known for her many books about Ireland,
wrote instead about Anatasia of Russia.) I got started on
Ashley's theme anthologies (for so they are, with all the stories
written especially for this volume) with his two on Shakespearean
mysteries. I have since branched out, and find them all pretty
good for what they are--basically puzzle stories with an
occasional literary piece thrown in. (I miss the sort of science
fiction puzzle story one used to see fifty years ago or so.)
Cynthia Manson's THOU SHALT NOT KILL has only a dozen stories,
centering on clerical sleuths.
And reading the Chesterton story in THOU SHALT NOT KILL led me to
re-read THE ANNOTATED INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN. I know these
have their (dare I say) devout followers, but I find them far less
engaging than the Holmes canon, or even the better pastiches (such
as Solar Pons). In part this is because they are a very different
style, but also because they seem to have underlying flaws.
Gardner points some of these out in his all-too-sparse
annotations. He says he is attempting to do with his annotations
what Baring-Gould did for Holmes, but he fails. Most of the
annotations are to give explanations of British usages that are
clear from context, and little to examine other details. He does,
however, point out the major logic errors in some of the stories'
plots. And I find Father Brown annoying in his speech. (I also
don't agree with his theology, but I don't think that is why I
have a problem with the stories--I think A CASE OF CONSCIENCE a
fine book.)
And in connection with this, I'll mention George Orwell's DOWN AND
OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON. (Bear with me; there is a connection.)
DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON purports to be an
autobiographical work about Orwell's (Eric Blair's) young bohemian
life. However, research has revealed it to be full of (at best)
exaggerations as to his level of poverty and inaccurate in other
details as well. What stuck me was its casual and completely un-
self-conscious anti-Semitism--and here is the connection. Orwell,
and Chesterton, and Agatha Christie as well, seem to have put in
their writing all sorts of off-hand anti-Semitic remarks and
characterizations that would seem to indicate just how pervasive
that attitude was in Britain in the earlier part of the 20th
century. This is ironic, because Orwell was also an outspoken
critic of anti-Semitism. (I would also add T. S. Eliot to this
list, but he seemed even more stridently anti-Semitic and did not
have the counter-balancing attitudes of the others. Yes, he was
American by birth, but English by choice.) One could write a book
on anti-Semitism in early 20th century English writing, and I'm
sure several have. The one book I've seen close to that subject
is Montagu Frank Modder's THE JEW IN THE LITERATURE OF ENGLAND,
and it goes only through the end of the 19th century. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
The worst government is the most moral.
One composed of cynics is often very
tolerant and humane. But when fanatics
are on top there is no limit to oppression.
-- H.L. Mencken
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