THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
04/09/04 -- Vol. 22, No. 41
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:
Weeding Books (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Take a Moment to Appreciate Our Sci-Fi World
(article pointer)
Michael Crichton and PREY (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The Neverending Series, Part 2 (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
HAUNTING AT HOME PLATE by David Patneaude (book review
by Joe Karpierz)
GOOD BYE, LENIN! (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (The Book of Exodus) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Weeding Books (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I recently had a exchange with Mark about weeding out books that
went thusly:
Mark: "We need to get rid of some of the old science books, but
we should keep major supporting works."
Me: "What exactly do you mean by 'major supporting works'?"
Mark: "The large books that we have at the ends of the shelves to
hold the other ones in place."
===================================================================
TOPIC: Take a Moment to Appreciate Our Sci-Fi World (article
pointer)
Andrew kantor has an interesting article on this topic in
USA TODAY online at . One sample:
"Remember watching the OJ Simpson car chase as it was beamed live
from the helicopters above? Ray Bradbury was there already in his
classic Fahrenheit 451. Although it's known more for its theme of
book burning, 451 featured a scene in which Montag--the hero--
watches the police helicopters chasing him on television. And this
was published in 1954." [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Michael Crichton and PREY (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
At one time I did not have a lot of respect for the writer Michael
Crichton. It was because of his disclaimer with the book TERMINAL
MAN. The book involved a man with a certain type of epilepsy that
made him a walking time bomb of sudden violence. Apparently
Crichton wrote the whole book and then found out that the premise
was not really true. A writer cannot afford to throw away a book
he has written so he put a disclaimer at the end saying that the
premise was not necessarily true and sufferers of this type of
epilepsy were not necessarily dangerous. My complaint was that
the disclaimer was tucked away where it might not be seen and
probably should have been in a more obvious place considering the
prejudice the public already has against epileptics.
These days, however, I am considerably more sanguine toward
Crichton. If anything he is not getting the respect he deserves.
I would guess hat he is one of the most successful science fiction
writers, even if he is not usually associated with the science
fiction community. He writes in the present while so many
technical science fiction writers write in a nearly
incomprehensible future. (Several readers in our local discussion
group gave up on Vernor Vinge's FIRE UPON THE DEEP because they
did not understand the world of that book.) I think Crichton is a
writer who takes the science that is happening now and turns that
into stories. He does a lot of research and he explains it
reasonably well. That is one of the important functions of
science fiction. It takes current science and extrapolates what
it might lead to. But very few writers do that any more.
The book I am currently reading, PREY, has five pages of technical
bibliography so clearly Crichton is sweating the details. Is the
science Crichton writes good science? I have read a review of
PREY by no less an expert than Freeman Dyson. [The review is
available at .] It is
something of a tribute to Crichton that he has such a
distinguished reviewer. Dyson's scientific complaints--I will
mention some later--are relatively few, implying that Crichton got
things about 90% right. That is a pretty good standard. I
certainly didn't find the problems with the premise. Then I am
reading the story more as a student than as an expert.
I should say something about Crichton's writing style. He does
not drag things out too long, the way most modern science fiction
novelists do. The book is 500 pages long, but they are large
print pages. That is probably a publisher's questionable decision
to make the book seem longer. The book goes very fast. Crichton
writes in a nice easy prose. The reader generally knows what is
going on. Most readers will even follow the science of what is
happening, though that is not really necessary to enjoy the
storytelling. His writing style is quite cinematic. This may be
why so many of his books get made into films. The translation to
a screenplay is already half done in the original novel. As with
JURASSIC PARK, something like three-quarters of the story takes
place in the space of a few hours. That is not true of all of his
books, but it does increase the immediacy of the action.
If one looks at chemistry and physics at a deep enough level the
two studies tend to converge. PREY looks at the fact that the
same thing is true of the intertwined subjects of biology,
computer science, and nanotechnology. PREY involves the very tiny
realm where these three fields converge. It is a FRANKENSTEIN for
the 21st century (with a little bit of DRACULA thrown in late in
the story). Nano-robots have been created and accidentally into
the atmosphere. There they behave like a swarm of insects, but
they evolve and reproduce faster and share a hive intelligence.
They are much tinier than insects and they look more like a mist
as they swarm through the Nevada desert.
Dyson points out that as such small individuals, they could not
derive their energy from the sun, as Crichton would have it,
because the individuals do not have enough of a cross-section to
collect enough sunlight. Further they could not be so mobile in
the air since at their tiny size, the air is very thick and
viscous. Dyson suggests that the speed an organism can achieve in
air is proportional to its body length.
I do not think that PREY has much potential as a film since a
monster that looks like a mist, while easy to create on film, is
not visually very interesting. In fact, the special effects
needed to film this story have been around since the 1940s and
generally it is cutting-edge effects that sell tickets. Also, the
behavior of the swarms of nano-bots is too similar to killer bees
and too many films on that subject have been done already.
But the book is entertaining and can be read at a high level or it
can be studied for the scientific content. You will not read much
about this book in LOCUS, but it is a decent to good piece of
science fiction. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: The Neverending Series, Part 2 (comments by Evelyn
C. Leeper)
Three weeks ago I wrote an article bemoaning the trend toward
series that come out one volume per year and so take years to
finish. And in fact, many are not fully written when the first
book comes out, so the reader is also betting on the author's
continued health (and interest). There are exceptions to this,
however. One recent exception was Mary Gentle's "Book of Ash: A
Secret History", for which all four volumes came out in the United
States in a single year. However, that had been issued as a
single volume in the United Kingdom before, and with the
availability of British books through amazon.co.uk, the publisher
here (Eos) had to suspect that people would order the book from
England if they had to wait three years for all the volumes.
Last week, though, I received a review copy of Jennifer Fallon's
LION OF SENET, volume one of the "Second Sons Trilogy". (I think
that syntaxes as a trilogy about second sons, rather than a
follow-up trilogy to a "First Sons Trilogy".) This is being
released in April 2004, and volumes two and three are following in
May and June, rather than in 2005 and 2006. This may be because
they are mass market paperback originals, and the publisher
(Bantam Spectra) figures that readers will pay $6.99 three months
in a row for the books, but will not pay $25 three months in a
row. (And of course this could apply to "The Book of Ash" as
well, as well as Paul Kearney's "Monarchies of God" series from
Orion.)
Does this mean that series, at least in paperback, will be coming
out faster? Well, only if the author has actually written the
whole series. This is likely to be the case for a new author, who
cannot sell a series unless the publisher sees that it is
complete, but established authors are still likely to be able to
sell a series without having finished all the volumes. Only time
will tell what will happen. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: HAUNTING AT HOME PLATE by David Patneaude (copyright 2000,
Albert Whitman & Company, ISBN 0-8075-3184-7, 181pp, $6.95) (book
review by Joe Karpierz)
A lot of firsts these last few reviews - first short story
collection review, first review of a Spider Robinson book (odd that
it took so long, since I got interested in reviewing books by
reading Spider Robinson's book reviews in GALAXY magazine a
gazillion years ago when I was young), and now, a book for
children.
I decided to do this one because a) it had a "fantastic" theme to
it, b) it was about baseball, c) some readers of my reviews may
have children and want to get recommendations for good books for
their kids, and d) my son gave it to me for my birthday last
week. So bear with me here - the first time for everything
principle applies (and besides, I'm typing with a cat on my lap -
*you* try it).
I'm a sucker for baseball stories. I've loved the game since I
was a kid, and have managed to hold on to that love no matter how
today's major leaguers try to mess with the game I knew. It also
helps that my daughter plays softball, and that while my son no
longer plays organized ball, he still likes to go out there and
play catch now and again. And of course, there have been a number
of terrific SF/fantasy baseball stories and novels over the
years - BRITTLE INNINGS comes to mind immediately. And the topic
of baseball in sf always makes for a decent panel at conventions -
Torcon 3 this past year included.
Darn cat.
The story starts out in 1946, when a kid by the name of Andy Kirk
falls from a tree branch and is killed while watching his brother
play ball (finally got rid of that cat). Flash to the present
day, where a Little League (apparently) team loses its manager,
coach and best player because the manager acts like so many over
intense, idiotic parents these days in telling his son, Gannon, to
pitch at batters. Mr. Conger, Gannon's dad, typifies what is
wrong with youth sports these days - parents who act like they're
three years old. Anyway, our protagonist, Nelson, volunteers his
cousin Mike (well, Michelle, but you can't tell a bunch of boy
baseball players that they're going to be coached by a girl until
the last minute) who is an experienced softball player. This is
after no other parent would volunteer to do the coaching.
Well, as you might expect, the team blossoms once it gets out from
under the oppressive style of Mr. Conger. The weird, thing,
though, is that messages start appearing at home plate, scrawled
in the dirt. Some of them are signed with the initials A.K. Mike
relates creepy stories of Andy Kirk, weird things happening at the
park, etc. The writings at home plate are usually related to
things that would make the Dodgers, Nelson's team, a much better
team. Most of them involve teamwork (a couple of Dodgers fight
like cats and dogs, and some of the writings deal with that), and
some of the writings deal with that), and some involve hints to
Mike as to which position some of the players should play.
Eventually, of course, the good guys win the championship by
following the writings and beating the Expos, the team that Gannon
went to. The story does end on the obligatory creepy note the
reader is left wondering whether the entity writing the notes is
some real live human being, or really is Andy Kirk.
We can all remember stories we heard as a kid about this or that
being haunted, this or that weird thing happening after this or
that happened - you know, typical urban legend stuff. I remember
several from my elementary and high school days. Here, Patneaude
uses these stories to effectively get his point across - the point
that teamwork and good sportsmanship should be the aim of any
sporting endeavor.
It looks as if this book is targetted to the Little League age
kids, given the subject matter - 9 through 12. It's hard for me
to tell, though, since my kids go through stuff like this like a
hot knife through butter (really, I won't brag at all that my
9-year-old son has tested out to be reading at the high school
senior level, or that my daughter was asked to take the SAT exams
at age 11 for an Illinois talent search and scored 950 - I'll
refrain from doing that), but I don't think you can go wrong if
you use the 9 through 12 age as a guide. It's a good book - make
sure your kids (and you) read it. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: GOOD BYE, LENIN! (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Contrary to the title, this film is about one small room
in East Germany that has returned to the culture of Communist
rule. It is one man's attempt to protect his mother from the
shock of finding out that communism fell in the eight months that
she was comatose. While the film has many serious moments the
plot itself is more appropriate to a farce than to a semi-serious
comedy-drama. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Years ago when her husband defected to the West--and presumably
into the arms of another woman--Christiane (played by Katrin Sass)
threw herself whole-heartedly into patriotism for her country, the
German Democratic Republic. All her sexual energy was diverted
into public spirit. As a teacher she taught the virtues of
Communism to her young students. In 1989 when she saw her son
Alex (Daniel Bruhl) demonstrating against communism in a
demonstration that may be violently suppressed she has a heart
attack. She falls into a coma for eight months and is unconscious
while the old government dies, the Berlin Wall is toppled, and the
two Germanys are re-united. Also her daughter and later her son
fall in love. Then Christiane regains consciousness. It may be
too much of a shock to her to realize her beloved German
Democratic Republic is no more. She will be confined to her bed.
Alex decides to pull an elaborate ruse to make his mother believe
that the East of Germany is still under the control of Communism.
The task turns out to be more complex than Alex expected. He has
to recruit a friend and to film news stories for his mother's TV.
For East German brands that his mother liked, but that went away
with Communism, he must find old jars and refill them. The
script's biggest problem is in the complexity of the ruse. In a
farce the viewer is willing to suspend a great deal of disbelief
and ignore large logic holes. However GOOD BYE, LENIN! is not a
farce and has some serious drama. Much of the story is about
Alex's relationship with the father who defected leaving his
family behind. GOOD BYE, LENIN! might better be described as a
comedy-drama with some serious emotional interplay. Somehow that
seems to require a more logical world and the viewer needs to
believe the premise of the story. Much of the ruse is possible
only because of the contrivance that Alex's job selling satellite
television allows him to play his fictional news programs for his
mother. And he has the talent to write and photograph these
programs. (That is not as easy as it sounds. If you doubt me,
try writing a news story that could pass for an authentic piece of
network news.) He also is able to quickly improvise explanations
when his mother notices inconsistencies in this fantasy world he
has created.
The film never completely explains Christiane's apparent passion
for the German Democratic Republic. The story works only if we
believe the shock of the political change is sufficient to kill
Christiane. Certainly her children have long since eagerly
grasped the changes and newfound freedoms of the succeeding order.
Her son sells satellite TV and her daughter works at a Burger King
and has brought home a West German boyfriend. Of course there
must have been some patriots in East Germany, but it seems the
majority did not believe very strongly in the socialist political
system. Alex himself was inspired to believe in his country years
before when an East German became a cosmonaut, but he does not
have much disappointment in the political change. Among other
things, this film seems to be a paean to capitalism and the
changes it brought. So many of the Germans seem to have embraced
the new system and East Germany filled with the vibrant colors of
capitalism, even if they are the colors of advertisements.
The plot of GOOD BYE, LENIN! has holes, but the film itself is by
turns light and amusing and then dramatic and even affecting. But
somehow it just is not greatly believable. I rate it +1 on the -4
to +4 scale or 6/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
In celebration of Passover, I just re-read the book of Exodus, and
have a question, an observation, and what I think is a radical
theory.
The question: Exodus 4:24-26 says, "And it came to pass by the way
in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. Then
Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son,
and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art
thou to me. So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband
thou art, because of the circumcision." There are way too many
"he"s without clear antecedents here--what exactly is going on?
The observation: All those people opposed to same-sex marriage on
the "slippery slope" argument that it could lead to incest don't
seem to comment on Moses's parentage as related in Exodus 6:20
("And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she
bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were
an hundred and thirty and seven years."). And while this is
before the explicit prohibition at Sinai, so was Lot and his
daughters, which they do consider wrong.
And finally, the radical theory: The general consensus seems to be
that the "Ten Commandments" engraved on the tablets are those
given in Exodus 20:3-17. But those first ten there are followed
by a bunch of others. And later in Exodus 34:1 we read, "And the
LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the
first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in
the first tables, which thou brakest." And then in Exodus 34:10-
11 we get, "And he said, Behold, I make a covenant.... Observe
thou that which I command thee this day...." And finally in
Exodus 34:17-27 we get the following (my divisions, and my
numbering added in brackets):
[1] Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
[2] The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days
thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time
of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from
Egypt.
[3] All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among
thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. ...
[4] Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt
rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.
[5] And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits
of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
[6] Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before
the LORD God, the God of Israel....
[7] Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven;
[8] neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be
left unto the morning.
[9] The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto
the house of the LORD thy God.
[10] Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.
And then Exodus 34:27 concludes with "And the LORD said unto
Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words
I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel."
Now, *that* strikes me as clearly stating that *these* are the
"Ten Commandments" engraved on the tablets, rather than the
earlier ones. Comments?
(I also wish those politicians who always want to point to the
various commandments would engrave *this* one in their offices:
"And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and
perverteth the words of the righteous" (Exodus 23:8).) [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
A wise man gets more use from his enemies
than a fool from his friends.
-- Baltasar Gracian
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