THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
03/11/05 -- Vol. 23, No. 37 (Whole Number 1273)
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:
The Weather Problem (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER (letters of comment)
Bookmobile and Children's Books (letter of comment
by Carl Aveyard)
Troy (Lletter of comment by Guy Ferraiolo)
IRON SUNRISE by Charles Stross (book review
by Joe Karpierz)
FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
OPEN WATER (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (THREE ONE-ACT PLAYS,
BOOKNOTES: STORIES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY,
BRIDE & PREJUDICE, and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE)
(book and film comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: The Weather Problem (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Russia is not known for its moderate climate. The winters in
Russia are a real force to be reckoned with. In fact Europe's
two greatest modern conquerors, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf
Hitler, can each be said to have destroyed their own military
might by throwing their armies against the Russian winter. It
has been said that Russia's greatest military heroes are General
December, General January, and General February. This year
General January did a real number on the city of Moscow. There
was a blizzard that dropped eight inches on the city overnight on
January 29. That does not sound like all that much but there
were insufficient street cleaners to clear the snow. This left
many roads impassible.
One reputed problem that the Muscovites face is that when really
bad weather is ready to strike they are not getting sufficient
warning from their weather bureau. The accusation of having way
too many inaccurate weather forecasts has been leveled at the
beleaguered local meteorological bureau. The Mayor has decided
to do something about it. He has decided to simply not fund the
meteorological bureau until he gets his demands. His demands are
that they would be paid, but only so long as they give accurate
forecasts. If they misjudge the weather and it double-crosses
them, they will have to pay fines that will come out of the
weathermen's pockets. The weathermen are protesting. They say
that weather forecasting is not an exact science and that they
get it right about 94% of the time.
Any weather forecast the Russians or anyone else makes is
something of a gamble. We have models for the behavior of weather
patterns, but chance plays a very large part in these forecasts.
(As an aside, I am writing this on a morning after a snowstorm
that was predicted to drop four to eight inches of snow on us.
I was relieved to find that for once things were a lot better than
predicted. We got barely two inches. Little enough that I
probably will not worry about clearing the driveway.)
To some extent we want weathermen to go out on a limb and risk
being wrong. What good is a weather forecast that says that
tonight there will be widely scattered darkness. The darkness
will be lifting toward morning. I think it was George Carlin who
forecast the weather that way. Robin Williams in GOOD MORNING,
VIETNAM forecast the weather for Saigon as "Today: HOT! Tonight:
HOT! Tomorrow: HOT!" This is useless information. Perhaps the
Moscow Weather Bureau should do it the way some weathermen do it
here. Rather than commit themselves they say there is a 23%
chance of rain. That passes the gamble on to the listener. If
it rains, well that was the 23% chance. On just one day it is
impossible to tell if the weatherman really had knowledge that he
imparted or was just bluffing. However, suppose the weatherman
says every day there is a 23% chance of rain and it rains 23% of
the time, he may not be helpful, but at least he is right. I
guess there are different degrees and breeds of prediction
correctness. It would be better information if he could tell the
probability day by day, but he isn't really wrong either. At
least by some interpretation he is correct. He would be more
helpful if on the days it rains he says there is a 100% chance of
rain and on the days it does not he would say there is a 0%
chance. But in weather forecasting there is correct and correct.
Now comes the question that has bothered me for years. If a
weatherman says each day that the probability of rain is 23% and
it rains 23% of the days, he is probably right. Suppose now that
he says some days that there is a 23% chance of rain and on all
other days he says it is a 77% chance of rain (or a 23% chance of
non-rain). Then if on 77% of the days the weather that had the
higher probability happens (rain when there was a predicted 77%
chance of rain, non-rain when there was a predicted 77% chance of
non-rain) again he will have been shown to be correct. But what
if many different days the probabilities he gives range all over
the place? One day he gives a 47% chance of rain, the next a 59
or an 83. If he does that is there a way to judge from the data
if his estimates are correct?
Maybe we have some statisticians reading this who know how you
judge the accuracy of those predictions? [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER (letters of comment)
On THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER (reviewed in the 03/04/05 issue),
Joseph T. Major writes:
The reason that the ending of "The Mysterious Stranger" is "more
nihilistic and bitter than the rest of the story" is that the
textual history of the story is rather more complex than it
seems.
When Twain died, he left several unfinished manuscripts. Two in
particular featured a "mysterious stranger" of dubious
supernatural background and power. In one, titled "The
Mysterious Stranger", he claimed to be an angel, came to a
printshop in sixteenth-century Austria that nevertheless was run
remarkably like a nineteenth-century printshop in Missouri,
provided artificial workers to replace the natural workers, and
ended up telling the narrator that the narrator is the only real
conscious being in all existence.
In another, titled, "Young Satan", the "mysterious stranger"
claimed to be the nephew of Satan, demonstrated various
supernatural powers devised to show the random cruelty of God and
associates, and intervened maliciously to get a popular priest
nearly sent to prison for theft.
Twain's literary executors combined the two stories, tacking the
ending of "The Mysterious Stranger" onto the unfinished "Young
Satan", making some other revisions (such as making the accuser
of the priest an astrologer, instead of another priest), and
publishing the whole thing under the title "The Mysterious
Stranger".
I have (somewhere in my house) a version of the original
"Mysterous Stranger", titled "No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger".
It's less interesting than the other version.
[Thanks, Joe. I had known that there was the "No. 44" story, but
didn't know how it was related. -ecl]
And Dan Kimmel writes, "I'm also a Twain fan, having spent most
of last summer reading the most recent massive biography of him.
I have a relatively recent edition of 'Captain Stormfield' that
includes an essay by Frederik Pohl! Apparently it's part of a
series of reprinting Twain's complete works with essays by
current authors."
[My one problem with the fact that Twain is always being
reprinted is that it is very difficult to figure out what I
already have and what I don't, since they keep mixing and
matching stories (and essays) in various collections. -ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Bookmobile and Children's Books (letter of comment by Carl
Aveyard)
In response to Mark's bookmobile article (02/25/05), Carl Aveyard
asks if we have children, adding "Kids today are so spoiled for
choice. Thirty years ago, I grew up visiting the library as a
regular school activity--go in, choose a book, leave. I remember
when I was old enough (about 10/11) to be allowed in the library
unaccompanied after school. I could pick any book (hence was
born my Sci Fi habit). It felt then like the greatest of
honours. Today my daughter can read a book, watch a DVD
"book"/game/puzzle, play educational games on the PC CD ROM, play
on the Internet . . . and, oh, use the phone for free to call her
friends. This diversification is good if supported and
controlled. Just my 2 cents..." [-ca]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Troy (letter of comment by Guy Ferraiolo)
In conjunction with Mark's writing in his TROY review (05/28/04),
"However, since there are no accounts of the first ten years of
the war as far as I know, ...", Guy Ferraiolo informs us, "I just
had to mention 'The War at Troy' by Quintus of Smyrna (available
from amazon.com)."
[Oh, of course. How could I forget Quintus of Smyrna? -mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: IRON SUNRISE by Charles Stross (Ace, 2004, ISBN
0-441-01159-4, 355pp, $23.95) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
Charles Stross continues to get high praise from SF critics and
readers alike, and the latest object of their affection is IRON
SUNRISE, the follow-up novel to last year's Hugo-nominated
SINGULARITY SKY. IRON SUNRISE is set in the same universe as
SINGULARITY SKY, with the same main cast of characters dealing
with another sticky situation involving the Eschaton, the
sentient machine intelligence that was introduced in
SINGULARITY SKY.
This time, the big thingie-do is that the sun around which the
planet Moscow orbits has been blown up by an iron bomb--never
mind the details, other than to note that the opening of the
novel contains the best ever in the history of science fiction
description of a star blowing up. After that, the novel could
have fallen apart, but it sped off in three different directions
that kept my interest up throughout all 350+ pages. But I
digress. The surviving Musovites in other systems blame the
neighboring system of New Dresden, in large part because there
has been a dispute between the two systems, and, well, who else
were they going to blame?
The problem is, of course, that New Dresden didn't do it. So,
into the fray jump our two heroes from SINGULARITY SKY, Rachel
Monsour and Martin Springfield. They are tracking down a series
of assassinations of Muscovite ambassadors. It seems that Moscow
launched an automated retaliatory strike against New Dresden, and
the only way to stop it is to get these ambassadors to send a
signal to stop the weapons before they hit New Dresden. However,
somebody doesn't want that signal sent. But who?
So now we have two mysteries: Who blew up Moscow Prime, and who
doesn't want the retaliatory attack prevented?
Enter teenage girl Wednesday, who along with her family lived on
a space station that was part of the Moscow system. She and her
family are exiled along with the rest of the residents of the
station before the shock wave of the iron sunrise reaches it.
However, Wednesday has some knowledge that she doesn't know about
but the ReMastered (ah, you knew there were some bad guys
involved) do. So, she's being hunted by the ReMastered, and her
family is killed in the process. Oh, yeah--you can count among
her friends an entity named Herman, an agent of the Eschaton who
just happens to also be in touch with Martin Springfield.
As with SINGULARITY SKY, the whole situation is convoluted and
twisted, and, again, not everyone is as they appear. At the end,
I wasn't quite sure whether the ReMastered were actually bad guys
or not. But in the end, the situation is resolved, although not
all loose ends are tied up. In fact, no matter what a couple of
reviewers in "Locus" said in their 2004 recommended reading
issue, I don't think this is the last novel that Stross will
write that is set in this universe. On the other hand, even if
it is, if he continues to turn out books like this one and
SINGULARITY SKY, he'll have quite a career ahead of him. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Director John Moore remakes one of the better-remembered
adventure films of the 1970s and actually makes a version that
compares favorably with its original. A plane crashes in the
desert and, with rescue unlikely, the survivors hit on a plan to
save themselves that might be genius and might be madness. The
original was a white-knuckle film in its time and the remake
almost matches the tension. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 8/10
For a filmmaker who wants to get good critical attention it is a
gamble remaking a well-liked film. Simply reproducing the
original film is not enough. If the film is too different from
the original, the audience who loved the first movie will hate
the remake. On the other hand, if the films are too similar,
what is the point of remaking the film? To remake a respected
film, the filmmaker needs to make a list of things that can be
done better in spite of the first film's popularity.
The new film FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX is based on Elleston Trevor's
1964 novel THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX and on Lukas Heller's
screenplay for its 1965 film adaptation. It would be difficult
to discuss the new film without comparing it to the now classic
original version. Scott Frank (who wrote for the television
series "The Wonder Years") and Edward Burns (who wrote and
starred in THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN) wrote the new adaptation. In
some ways the script is better that the original and visually it
is more sensational. There are spectacular shots of flying over
the desert before and during a windstorm. The film features one
of the most harrowing plane crashes in memory. We have a better
feel for the mechanics of the survival plan in the film.
Without revealing too much of the plot, the story deals with an
airplane that crashes in a desert. [In the original the crash
was in the Sahara. Perhaps for political reasons the site was
moved to the Gobi.] Faced with almost certain death, the
survivors find an ingenious and seemingly impossible plan to
rescue themselves. But to escape the desert they must overcome
the personality conflict between the grizzled pilot, Frank Towns
(played here by Dennis Quaid), and an enigmatic passenger who
suggests an unexpected plan for survival. Here the passenger
(renamed Elliot) is played in a fascinating performance by
Giovanni Ribisi. In the original the corresponding character was
called Heinrich Dorfmann and was played by Hardy Kruger. Kruger
played the character disdainfully laid back. Ribisi almost
resembles Kruger but he plays the part entirely differently. He
fashions himself as a tightly wound little martinet with a nasal
voice. He stands almost at attention with his hands behind his
back. He projects being naturally detestable even before he
gives his first order. In the original film there supposed to be
doubt whether this expert was really right or wrong, but the
viewer knew deep down that he was right. The tension between him
and Frank Towns was all in whether Frank would overcome his
personal demons and recognize the assertive passenger really had
reason on his side. Ribisi makes it much harder to sympathize
with that character in this film. He is precisely what the story
requires and while Kruger was merely good.
The original film has a soaring and beautiful orchestral score by
Frank De Vol. It had one piece of source music, Gino Paoli's
song "Senza fine." Marco Beltrami's score relies heavily on
familiar source songs starting with Johnny Cash's "I've Been
Everywhere." It does not capture the emotion I expected. It
seems a cheapened effect. On the other hand the visuals,
enhanced by digital effects, are stunning. That is particularly
true of the early flying scenes and the plane buffeted by the
dust storm. The air crash may be the most exciting I have seen
filmed. It is far more dramatic than the one in the original
film. Perhaps it is overstated, but it is a real experience and
is literally breathtaking.
FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX has not gotten good critical response.
Still, I think that even for those who have see the 1965 film
version this film has much that is worth seeing. If I had seen
this film before the original, I might have actually preferred
it. I recognize the first adaptation as being a great adventure
film and for me it is the better film. But I also greatly
enjoyed Director John Moore's take on the story. I rate it a
high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10. The original would have
been a +3 or a 9/10.
Trivia note: the novel is credited to well-known thriller writer
Elleston Trevor. This is one penname for Trevor Dudley Smith.
He is the same man who wrote under the penname Adam Hall the
Quiller spy books, starting with THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM, which
was also adapted into a popular film. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: OPEN WATER (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: A simple and ingenious horror premise drives Chris
Kentis's film of two tourists who are accidentally left abandoned
in shark-infested tropical waters. Chris Kentis is the director,
writer, editor, and the cinematographer in this low-budget and
sparse, but very effective thriller. The film is short and
anything but sweet. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4) or 8/10
OPEN WATER really is one of the grimmest and most frightening
horror films that come to mind. The reason is simple. It does
not rely on ghosts or vampires or science-created monsters. The
horror is brought about by something as common as a counting
problem. To most viewers the concept of a vampire has a
distancing effect, since few of us ever expect to meet a vampire.
But we have seen people make counting errors all the time. And
we rarely think about the cases when such a small error could be
the difference between life and death. And the story of OPEN
WATER is inspired by actual incidents.
Blanchard Ryan plays Susan and Daniel Travis plays Daniel, two
young successful people who go together to the Caribbean for a
vacation of sun and fun and water. They go out with a boatful of
tourists to open water to dive in the deep azure waters of the
Caribbean. While they are out swimming the crew's count of who
has gotten back on the boat is confused by one obstreperous
tourist who apparently could not go in the water and then could--
again a normally pedestrian situation. A mistake in counting is
not unlikely and is a common sort of mistake, but in this case it
is a very dangerous one. Susan and Daniel surface to discover
that they are floating in the water without any boats around.
They have been told that the sharks in these waters are harmless,
but sharks are not the only hazards of the open sea. Writer
Chris Kentis has a good feel for the dialog and the stages of
reaction that people in this situation would go through. (I am
not saying that I believe my wife and I would blaming each other
and giving in to recriminations so soon if we were in a situation
of this type, but I am not denying it either.)
The basic story is so uncomplicated it could have been told in
half an hour, so even this short film of 79 minutes has been
stuffed with a fair amount of island paradise and nature
photography. It does a little to enhance the mood but mostly
seems filler to act as spacer between plot developments. Kentis
treads a narrow path between having this nice photography create
the mood and having it be an annoyance distracting from the
central story. Luckily he is able to make sure that even as we
see the tropical paradise footage, our minds are elsewhere
worried about the fate of the two swimmers. There is also some
attractive ocean photography which at the same time advances the
story. Where I think that Kentis does make an artistic mistake
is having a musical score that includes human voices singing.
This tends to undercut the feeling that the two swimmers are so
utterly isolated. The musical score better enhances the
"tropical paradise" feel than the terrifying situation that the
two unlucky swimmers are feeling.
Kentis had an intelligent idea how to make a really good tense
believable horror film on a modest budget and that has not been
done so effectively since the BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and classics
like CARNIVAL OF SOULS. To do so much with so little is a talent
to be admired. I rate OPEN WATER a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale
or 8/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Woody Allen's THREE ONE-ACT PLAYS (ISBN 0-812-97244-9) was
published only recently (2004) but the plays seemed older.
"Riverside Drive", for example, seemed to be a work that he later
expanded into one of his movies. (I won't say which one, though
I suspect you'll recognize it about a third of the way through.)
Well, checking on it, I discovered that "Riverside Drive" was
apparently written *after* the movie, and could be considered a
condensation of it--not the usual direction a writer takes.
[And successful writers don't usually plagiarize their own works.
At least not ones of Allen's stature. -mrl]
"Old Saybrook" is an Escher-esque sort of work that examines
whether life reflects art, or art reflects life, or maybe
neither. And rounding out the set is "Central Park West".
Brian Lamb's BOOKNOTES: STORIES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY (ISBN
0-142-00249-6) is a collection of essays derived from the
interviews on Lamb's show from C-SPAN, in specific with those
authors who wrote books about American history. (Unfortunately,
Lamb has decided to end the show.) Whoever did the editing did a
reasonably good job, though at times the bracketed words and
phrases used to cover elisions and references to dropped material
get a bit obtrusive. Arranged chronologically by history (rather
than by interview date), this book provides a way to dip into
American history in small, conversational pieces. While it may
seem superficial or skimpy at times, don't forget that these were
interviews with authors of *books" about these topics, so the
articles should be thought of as "free trials" for the books
themselves.
Last week we went to see the film BRIDE & PREJUDICE, a Bollywood-
UK co-production that is an adaptation of Jane Austen's PRIDE AND
PREJUDICE (ISBN 0-553-21310-5). Screenwriters Paul Mayeda Berges
and Gurinder Chadha have transposed the Bennets into an Indian
family in Amritsar, made the Bingleys an Indian family living in
the United Kingdom, and made Darcy and Wickham Americans. This
allowed them to film in three countries, giving a wide visual
palette for the film. I definitely enjoyed the film, and
particularly enjoyed the songs. (Many of them were dubbed into
English, and fairly well, because I didn't realize that they were
dubbed until I went to a web site to play samples of them and
discovered that there they were in Hindi.) One song ("No Life
Without Wife") was staged in a manner reminiscent of a song from
"Fiddler on the Roof", and the songs in general showed a wide
range of other influences. And the adaptation worked--the use of
the Indian culture allows for a stronger emphasis on arranged
marriages and family dynamics in a modern-day version than if
someone attempted to set it in a strictly Anglo-English family.
Of course I recommend the book, but I recommend the film as well.
Even if you're not an Austen fan, if you like romantic musicals,
go see BRIDE & PREJUDICE. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Woe to him inside a nonconformist clique
who does not conform with noconformity.
--Eric Hoffer