THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
01/30/04 -- Vol. 22, No. 31
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
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Topics:
First There is a Mountain (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Las Vegas (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The MT VOID (letter of comment by Jerry Ryan)
A PROBLEM WITH FEAR (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CODE 46 (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
TOMORROW HAPPENS (book review by Joe Karpierz)
AMERICAN GODS (not really a book review by
Evelyn C. Leeper)
OSAMA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (BLACK HEART, IVORY BONES;
THE HAUNTED TRAVELLER; POEMS OF NEW YORK; and
EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS) (book comments by
Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: First There is a Mountain (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
It is amazing how many of the mysteries of the past no longer seem
so mysterious. I remember there used to be a sort of mystical
song that went "First there is a mountain. Then there is no
mountain. Then there is." People wondered at the mystical
significance of the lyric. These days it is not so mystical.
It sounds just like a minor data error in their virtual reality.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Las Vegas (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Well, I am writing this from Las Vegas, Nevada. In fact I am
actually on The Strip. What am I doing there far from my usual
haunts? Well, my parents are residing now in Arizona. It is a
little hard to see the parents I grew up with as cowboy and
cowgirl sorts, but the Fates frequently must have their little
jokes. So my staid parents are now living in a cowboy state, even
if not a cowboy state of mind. Another joke of fate is that to
visit them in Arizona, it makes sense to fly into Las Vegas rather
than into Phoenix's perfectly good airport. However, it is
cheaper and probably more interesting to fly into Las Vegas and
drive to Arizona. So in the years to come I expect to be in Las
Vegas frequently.
Why are the rates lower to fly to Las Vegas? It could be the
random vagaries of scheduling, but I suspect it has a more logical
reason. I think the casinos subsidize the airlines to keep the
rates into Las Vegas low. Decisions in this part of the world are
made on the sound principle that what is good for the Las Vegas
gambling industry is also good for Nevada. There is no big
industry in Nevada of any productive sort. You don't find farm
implements being made in Nevada. There is very little software
written here. There are no cars built in Nevada. For most of us
the only nationally respected professionals who reside in the
state seem to be some fictional crime scene investigators. The
prosperity of the State of Nevada is just about entirely bound up
in the setting of casino house odds. That seems to be what Nevada
does best. They are very good at setting house odds. They must
have the best odds setters in the world.
The other thing they do very well is in providing innocents like
myself the opportunity to gamble. That makes my trip to visit my
parent cheaper. It is because my parents live a few hundred miles
from a place where it is legal to gamble. The entire area for
hundreds of miles around is financed by the largess of the big
casinos and in turn funded by little people who come here to turn
over their savings in the hopes that a few will occasionally come
away with more. And when they do win that is a big day for them.
They will remember it more than all the times they lost. The few
times they won will stick out in their memories. They will
probably remember everything about that trip to Vegas. They will
forget the other times, but that time they won and it will stick
with them. It is like people remember when psychics guess
right and forget when there was nobody in the audience who knows
any recently deceased Aunt Miranda.
The moment you land in Las Vegas airport and are walking down the
gangway you can almost hear the slot machines jingling already.
It isn't your imagination. When you get to the are at the end of
the gangway the waiting room is filled with slot machines. "Hey,"
it calls to you, "it may take some time for your luggage to be
unloaded, why not feed your pocket change into a machine in the
meantime?" Actually they put the machines in the wrong place. If
they put them on the OTHER side of the security check you could
put your coins in a slot machine rather then letting them set off
the metal detector.
Now, Las Vegas is just the sort of vacation spot when I grew up I
always expected not to like. I was never that fond of the
Disneyland/world/whatever experience. It seemed like a very
artificial sort of place. Why travel to an invented world where
everything is predictable when you have a whole real world out
there. Why see a half-scale Temple of Heaven in the Epcot center
when you can see the real one? But Las Vegas is an equally
artificial world. Its scale models are of New York buildings and
the Eiffel Tower. I have known people who come all the way from
the New York City area to visit the scale model Empire State
Building. I wouldn't expect to like Vegas all that much. I don't
gamble since I tend to expect to lose just a little more
frequently than the laws of probability say I should. I don't
know why that is, but it seems to be true of me like the character
in the film THE COOLER.
Still I find I like Las Vegas. Next week I will explain just why
I am fond of such a place. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: The MT VOID (letter of comment by Jerry Ryan)
I thought you would find this amusing: Avaya has a product called
"Avaya Speech Access", which is a voice recognition and text-to-
speech engine that lets you ask the system to read you your
email. Very nice, very handy.
When the newsletter goes through the text-to-speech engine, it
tells me that it is reading me "The Montana Void". :-) [-jr]
[I find that many people who don't know it's the "empty Void" call
it the "Mount Void". -ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: A PROBLEM WITH FEAR (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Rating: +1 (-4 to +4)
This is a quirky science fiction film with some odd approaches.
The viewer never knows what is going on. Something is being done
to the people in a major Canadian city. We know who is
responsible for the strange things we are seeing but not how they
are doing it or even what it is they are doing. What is happening
is a man-made "fear storm." People are letting their fears--any
kind of fears--get the better of them. There are strange
incidents of bad luck and they become front-page news. The phobic
Laurie Harding (played by Paulo Constanzo) is the center of this
fear storm. Listing Laurie's fears could go on for a long time.
He fears escalators, pasta with red sauces, elevators, just about
everything. He is the perfect customer for Global Security
Corporation, a corporation that monitors their customers, predicts
accidents, and dispatches police where needed. The system is
called Early Warning System 2. It has made Global Security a
powerful international corporation.
The fear storm is not a chance event. It is all a plot. Global
Security is secretly producing the fear storm to boost sales. And
Laurie is somehow the eye of the storm and we follow him and his
insecure girlfriend Dot (Emily Hampshire), a sociology student, to
whom he is afraid to commit. Laurie is protected by his security
system, but it seems to distribute bad luck to all those around
him. And there is a strange man who seems to know Laurie is doing
this and is chasing Laurie, trying to convince him to kill
himself. The city is paralyzed with strange fear and the stock
market is crashing. Newspapers are taking freak accidents and
turning them into banner headlines. When one high school girl get
the hiccups, it becomes an epidemic of mass hysteria.
So much is unexplained the film has aspects of both weird comedy
and horror. Certainly the acting and characterizations are in a
tongue-in-cheek style to keep the nightmarish potential in check.
So what is this all about? The director says it is about people
dominated by fears. Perhaps it is making a statement about the
post-9/11 United States, but the film's incoherence gets in its
way. It is more a set of strange off-the-wall sketches. Director
Gary Burns shot a large part of the film in a shopping mall, much
like his WAYDOWNTOWN. This is a film with some interesting ideas
but the film's elliptical approach limits its appeal.
(Although this film supposedly is set in Canada, the local TV
station is KPYT, call letters that would be assigned only to a
station in the United States.) [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: CODE 46 (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Rating: 0 (-4 to +4)
CODE 46 is a very odd piece of science fiction. It is a film with
some very nice material that tries some interesting ideas, but it
fails to capture the viewer. Its flaws outweigh its virtues. It
is an extrapolation of the global community twenty years into the
future. The world is very different and the differences are often
not explained. Giant cities now seem to have the status that
countries do today. Global warming has turned most of the rest of
the world into a desert. (Much was filmed in Dubai, which stands
in for Shanghai.) Rather than simply carrying identification
people need to identify themselves with their insurance
identification document, called a "papelle." Without a papelle
you are exiled to the desert. William (Tim Robbins) comes to
Shanghai looking for someone smuggling papelles out of a security
building. To aid in his investigation he has infected himself
with an empathy virus that allows him to know everything about a
person if they will just tell him one thing about themselves.
(Oddly, some people are very surprised he has this power, though
it seems to be common knowledge other places in the society. It
is one more detail not well explained.) With his power it does
not take him long to track down Maria (Samantha Morton) who is his
smuggler, but he is not sure he wants to turn her in. They are
attracted to each other. But soon they find that their lives are
connected by more than just their attraction.
The story telling is just not very involving, unfortunately. The
plot just does not go anywhere. The viewer is kept interested in
the background of this world but there is little development of
the foreground. The plot resolution seems to come out of left
field just when the writer gets tired of writing. Director
Michael Winterbottom captures a style reminiscent of both
BLADERUNNER and GATTACA, but those films had more interesting
characters and action. This film is static and uninvolving.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: TOMORROW HAPPENS, by David Brin (copyright 2003, NESFA
Press, $25.00, 219pp, ISBN 1-886778-43-4) (book review by Joe
Karpierz)
I embark today upon something a bit different--reviewing a book of
short pieces, both fiction and non-fiction. Well, what's even
more different is actually reading a book that's something other
than a novel. I'm a big fan of novels, but I like short stories
as well. I usually get my fix of short stories from the
magazines--in the last few years I've read "SF Age," "Analog," and
to a lesser extent, "Asimov's." But what I found was that I'd
fall behind on my magazine reading, and so would read
significantly fewer short stories than I'd like. So, much to the
chagrin of the publishers, I'm sure, I'm slowly phasing out my
magazine subscriptions. Well, to be honest, "SF Age" started the
deal by ceasing publication all on its own. I then dropped
"Asimov's" (I was never a fan of the type of story that Dozois was
fond of anyway), and "Analog" will go when the subscription runs
out. So, where will I get my short stories?
Why, collections, of course.
TOMORROW HAPPENS is another one of my Torcon 3 purchases. There
actually weren't that many to begin with, since the dealer's room
was woefully short of booksellers. However, being a David Brin
fan, I picked this little book up, steep though its price be for
219 pages. It was a nice, fast, easy read. I'm glad I picked it
up.
The fiction was pretty good. Some of it I had read earlier, when
published in places like "Analog" or "SF Age." "Stones of
Significance" came screaming back to me as I fondly remembered
this story that started out being about "human" rights for
artificial software entities but turned into something quite
different. "Paris Conquers All", written with Greg Benford, turns
the "War of the Worlds" story on its ear as we follow Jules Verne
through Paris as it is under attack by Orson Welles's Martians.
"An Ever-Reddening Glow" is a cautionary tale about how our
choices for space travel propulsion can have an effect on the rest
of the universe. "Aficionado" gives us a very brief but
intriguing look at what was the beginning of the Uplift program
here on Earth. "Fortitude" is a cute little story about the
origins of life on Earth. Then there's my personal favorite, "A
Professor at Harvard", which give us some insight as to what
secrets you can unravel if you just look hard enough.
As for the non-fiction, all of it is vintage Brin. I've listened
to him speak much over the last twenty years or so, and he seems
to have gotten a LOT more outspoken as the years pass. The pieces
here are no exception, and he makes no apologies for any of it.
"Seeking a New Fulcrum" presents a different way of looking at
parapsychology and psi abilities. "We Hobbits are a Merry Folk"
is a look at Tolkien through the eyes of a fellow who, while he
likes his "Lord of the Rings," doesn't mind ruffling a few
feathers in Tolkien fandom. "The Robots and The Foundation
Universe" is a trip back to the beginning of it all, and how Brin
and the rest of the Killer Bs (Benford and Bear being the other
two). "Goodbye Mir! (Sniff!)" gives Brin's personal take on the
coming down to Earth of the Russian space station. "The Self-
Preventing Prophecy" gives us his view as to why the world of
George Orwell's "1984" didn't happen, and how lots of things may
or may not be happening because of what people write and think
about.
Those are the highlights. There are more pieces, both fiction and
non-fiction, and they're all good reading. I'm not sure this is
ever coming out in paperback, but the book made clear that there
would be no more hardcover copies printed once the initial 1500
copy print run was gone. If you're a Brin fan (or completist),
you'll want to have a copy, so contact NESFA press. Otherwise, go
borrow someone else's copy. You'll be glad you did. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: AMERICAN GODS by Neil Gaiman (William Morrow/HarperTorch,
(c) 2001, 608pp, ISBN 0-380-78903-5) (not really a book review by
Evelyn C. Leeper)
Our library's science fiction discussion group read Neil Gaiman's
AMERICAN GODS this week. As part of my preparation for the
discussion, I jotted down the following thoughts and questions.
(Spoiler warning: some of these questions assume you have read the
book and give away plot points and much of the ending.)
Basic idea: I think the appeal of this book is that it creates in
the reader a feeling of the numinous.
It also postulates that gods need worship to survive, or at least
knowledge of their existence. (For example, Anubis doesn't seem
to be worshipped, but people do know about him. On the other
hand, the Greek and Roman gods are notably missing.) THE CASE OF
THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP by Harry Turtledove is the only other book I
can recall that assumes a two-way, exclusive relationship between
gods and those who worship them, but AMERICAN GODS seems different
in that the gods are far more dependent on the humans, but that
their influence also extends to believers of other gods.
There is no Yahweh here--what does this mean? Is Yahweh too
distant to become involved in these squabbles? Are the other gods
simply more personal and approachable than Yahweh? Is Yahweh not
worshipped in the same way or sense as these gods?
The universe of this novel is henotheistic--that is, it assumes
that many religions are "right," in that they reflect at least
part of reality. Is that why there is no Yahweh--because that's
the one belief system that denies the validity of all others, and
hence can't be resolved into this universe?
Is this book related to (and perhaps inspired by) the idea
expressed in the film JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS: "The gods of Greece
are cruel. In time all men will learn to do without them." In
that film, too, the gods use humans as players in their game. (In
fact, the imagery is explicit, as humans are seen as stone figures
on a game board.)
Is there a parallel between the "head gods" trying to manipulate
the gods under them to fight and political leaders in our world?
Or is that just a conspiracy theory?
The notion of places of power seems to be in all religions. Why?
Is Gaiman's argument that places such as The House on the Rock are
subconsciously built on such places, or that they create them?
The idea that the gods walk among us and we don't recognize them
is another recurring theme in religions. Why?
For people who want to read (or re-read) the book, there is a
useful page of annotations at http://www.frowl.org/gods/gods.html
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: OSAMA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Rating: +3 (-4 to +4)
In spite of the title, this film is not about Osama bin Laden,
though parts of the film definitely reflect on him. Instead, it
is a moving drama about the plight of women in Afghanistan under
the Taliban. The Taliban was a regime so paranoid that some
immorality would take place between men and women that they made
women virtual prisoners. The film opens with a women's
demonstration. These are women who are not allowed to work under
the rule of the Taliban and who do not have husbands. They are
not allowed out of their houses without chaperones and have no way
to get even the minimal food to live. The Taliban is unconcerned
about the plight of the women and suppresses the demonstration.
We look at one family in which the husband was killed in war. His
wife had worked at a hospital, but has not been paid for many
weeks and now the Taliban closes the hospital. The woman will not
be able to feed her mother and daughter. The solution would be
for the daughter to go to work, but that is not permitted to
girls, so she must dress as a boy and pose as a boy.
The girl takes a job in a small shop, but soon the Taliban
interfere again. The "boy" is dragged to a sort of indoctrination
school. The girl who appears to be a boy is taken to the school
where she gets the name Osama. (To this point we have not been
given anybody's name.) The school is supported by Osama Bin Laden
and is more for ingraining of Islamist culture than for any sort
of useful information. The other students torment her because the
"he" looks so feminine. And she cannot keep the secret that she
is a girl for long.
There is no happy ending coming and Osama has a sad and horrifying
fate. Yet even it is small compared to the fate of death by
stoning another woman gets. We see the Taliban in their big black
turbans roaming the streets and spreading their power with terror.
Some drive around with machine guns to enforce the rules of Islam.
That is what life is under the Taliban. Siddiq Barmak wrote and
directed the film based on true stories. He shows us a society in
which there is little but pain because the resources are put into
fear and paranoia rather than helping the people. It is a
difficult vision to forget.
This is the first fully Afghan production to be made since the
fall of the Taliban. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I finally got around to requesting through inter-library loan a
couple of books I had been interested in reading for years.
Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling edited six anthologies of "modern
fairy tales" (in the sense of traditional fairy tales either
retold in a modern setting or in a traditional setting, but with a
modern sensibility). And I enjoyed BLACK HEART, IVORY BONES, just
as much as all the others and recommend all of them. The other
five are SNOW WHITE, BLOOD RED; BLACK THORN, WHITE ROSE; BLACK
SWAN, WHITE RAVEN; RUBY SLIPPERS, GOLDEN TEARS; and SILVER BIRCH,
BLOOD MOON--and, boy, is it impossible to remember which ones you
have read and which you haven't!
I also finally read Barry Yourgrau's THE HAUNTED TRAVELLER, which
are a series of vignettes told by a traveler. I would describe
this as magical realism in the style of Lisa Goldstein's TOURISTS
or some of Jorge Luis Borges's works. It was also more what I
expected Ursula K. LeGuin's CHANGING PLANES to be (and wasn't).
Some of this week's reading, alas, consisted of books that aren't
actively bad, but that I can't quite recommend either.
Elizabeth Schmidt's POEMS OF NEW YORK sounded appealing, but
suffered from a couple of problems. One, the poems' connections
with New York were at times tenuous, as some seemed more about
people who just happened to be in New York than about New York
itself. The other problem was a bit stranger--the poems were
arranged chronologically, but by the author's birth date, rather
than by the date of the poem. The result is that when one reads
them, one is jerked back and forward in time. (This is
particularly notable when one reads a poem written in response to
9/11, and then the next one takes place years earlier.) Still, I
have no complaint with the poems per se.
Peter Biskind's EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS was recommended as a
good summary of the 1970s in Hollywood. However, it seemed to
spend more time on all the scandal and gossip than I was
interested. Also Biskind has an annoying habit of referring to
people sometimes by their first names and sometimes by their last,
often in the same paragraph. This made it hard to keep track of
what was going on. ("Who the heck is this 'Bob' he's talking
about here?") (I found out later it was put together from a lot
of articles which Biskind wrote for "Premiere" magazine, which
would explain some of the inconsistencies in name references, as
well as the very jerky writing style, where one feels one is being
whipsawed around.) [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
They that can give up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin
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