THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
03/03/06 -- Vol. 24, No. 36, Whole Number 1324
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:
Jingles (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
A Master of Horror and Science Fiction (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
2005 Final Nebula Ballot
Stephen King (letter of comment by Gerald W. Ryan)
GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE by Frank Herbert (book review
by Joe Karpierz)
This Week's Reading (INSIDE JOB, MURDER ON THE ORIENT
EXPRESS, and INTRODUCING AMERICAN POLITICS)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Jingles (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I was telling Evelyn that I thought her writing would be
remembered after her. And I would be her humble Boswell. She
sort of strutted a little but said I could not be her Boswell.
Boswell was a biographer. Just writing about Evelyn was not
sufficient. I would have to wrtie a biography if I wanted to be
her Boswell. Okay, I would have to settle to be her Tonto. Well,
maybe not even that. I think that I would be her Jingles. (If you
don't get the joke you may not have grown up in the 1950s.) [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: A Master of Horror and Science Fiction (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
I claimed recently that I do not have favorite authors. I have
favorite books, but no author do I pick out as one I particularly
like. That may not be strictly true. I suppose I do have a
special respect for John Steinbeck and one other author. This
may be someone that most readers here will have heard of, but few
would pick him out. Richard Matheson is one of the few authors
whom I really like. I will get back to him shortly.
It looks like ABC television is going to be broadcasting a new
anthology series called "The Masters of Science Fiction." You
can read about it at
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/cgi/pr.cgi?id=20060223abc01.
It will be adapting stories of some of the most respected names
in science fiction, or at least people who were respected at one
time. Names mentioned include Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Harlan
Ellison, and Robert Heinlein. Some of the best science fiction
on television has come from these and other real science fiction
authors writing for television. Adaptations of these people's
stories by other scriptwriters have been a spotty track record.
Certainly there have been a lot a bad movies made from classic
stories like Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" and Isaac
Asimov's "Nightfall".
The same production companies also made the recent cable offering
"The Masters of Horror". They is IDT Entertainment and Industry
Entertainment. I have seen one episode of that series and was
not very impressed. But in spite of the parallel names for the
two series, they have a somewhat different approach. The horror
series took the acknowledged successful horror filmmakers and did
original stories. By "successful" I mean financially successful.
I would not say their films are necessarily artistic successes.
In fact, most of the best horror directors are probably from
Japan these days. Even the best director working in the United
States would be Mexican-born Guillermo Del Toro who did his best
work in his native country.
"The Masters of Science Fiction" will not be using acknowledged
master directors or producers of science fiction. Indeed, it is
not clear there currently is anybody who would fit that title.
George Pal would have qualified in his day. Robert Wise would
deserve that title, though science fiction was just an occasional
genre for his work. Terence Fisher in Britain did some decent
science fiction films, though he did more in the field of horror.
These people are all dead, unfortunately. There are no obvious
living science fiction directors or producers that come to mind
who have a name for good work in science fiction films. That is
somewhat surprising given the number of big-budget science
fiction films that are made. If one includes comic-book
superhero films a science fiction there are a lot more. So
unlike the horror series, the science fiction series is
concentrating on science fiction writers rather than science
fiction directors.
One wonders what IDT would have done if for their earlier series
they *did* want to showcase the great American horror writers.
The problem is that Stephen King seems to rule the roost here.
(Indeed, TBS is doing a series this summer of films based on
Stephen King's short stories.) There are a few other popular
writers. Ones that I tend to like when I want to read a horror
novel--a rare occurrence--would be Dean R. Koontz or Robert
McCammon. Sometimes I will go back and read an A. E. Merritt or
a Richard Matheson. But these names are little known and
obscured by King.
That brings me to the real subject of this article, the writer
Richard Matheson. In my opinion he is the greatest neglected
writer of horror and science fiction. I have always had that
opinion, but recently hearing a reading, courtesy of the BBC, of
his I AM LEGEND has just reinforced it. Just as Dracula is
probably the great British horror novel, I consider I AM LEGEND
to be the great American horror novel. Its point was to reverse
the situation of Dracula. It deals not with one vampire in a
world of humans but with one human in a world of vampires. It
has been adapted twice into films (well, one-and-a-half times).
It was adapted into the Italian film THE LAST MAN ON EARTH with
Vincent Price. That was shortly followed by a semi-adaptation
with Charlton Heston called THE OMEGA MAN. The book and the
Italian adaptation strongly influenced George Romero when he made
THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Matheson did not like the Price
version and had his name taken off, preferring to use his "not-
my-best-work" penname Logan Swanson. Nevertheless, THE LAST MAN
ON EARTH remains the best adaptation of this very chilling horror
novel.
Part of the premise of I AM LEGEND is that vampires are not
supernatural but preternatural. That is they are real and as
understandable as wolves. They are the products of disease
rather than the Devil. That has become a standard idea and
discussions of blood type of vampire, etc. show up in many horror
stories. I know of only one use of the idea of preternatural
vampires prior to Matheson's use is in Edward T. Lowe, Jr.'s
script for THE HOUSE OF DRACULA. And there (as in later uses
like the BLADE films) it seems to be a preternatural explanation
combined with a supernatural one, which seems a little contrived.
However, to limit the praise of Matheson to just one novel would
be absurd. This is one man who wrote THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING
MAN, several scripts for the original "The Twilight Zone", the
scripts for Roger Corman's Poe films, and the script for one of
Hammer Films' best films, THE DEVIL RIDES OUT (a.k.a. THE DEVIL'S
BRIDE). He wrote the script for THE NIGHT STALKER. He wrote
novels that were the sources of the films SOMEWHERE IN TIME, WHAT
DREAMS MAY COME, and A STIR OF ECHOES. As I write this I see he
did do a script for the above-mentioned "Masters of Horror". Now
I see that there is another film production of I AM LEGEND (good,
good!). That is rumored to star Arnold Schwarzenegger (bad,
bad!)
But if your want to read a real Master of Science Fiction and a
Master of Horror, dig up a copy of the novel I AM LEGEND or read
other stories by Matheson
More information on Richard Matheson and his phenomenal career
can be found at:
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=richard+matheson
and at
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0558577/.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: 2005 Final Nebula Ballot
The Nebula Award nominations have been announced this week. This
is what is nominated.
Novels
AIR, Geoff Ryman (St. Martin's Press, Sep04)
CAMOUFLAGE, Joe Haldeman (Analog, Mar-May 04; Ace Aug04)
GOING POSTAL, Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins, Oct04)
JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR NORRELL, Susanna Clarke
(Bloomsbury, Sep04)
POLARIS, Jack McDevitt (Ace, Nov04)
ORPHANS OF CHAOS, John C. Wright (Tor, Nov05)
Novellas
"Clay's Pride", Bud Sparhawk (Analog, Jul/Aug04)
"Identity Theft", Robert J. Sawyer (DOWN THESE DARK SPACEWAYS,
Mike Resnick, Ed., Science Fiction Book Club, May05)
"Left of the Dial", Paul Witcover (SCI FICTION, Sep04)
"Magic for Beginners", Kelly Link (MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS,
Small Beer Press, Jul05; also F&SF, Sep05)
"The Tribes of Bela", Albert Cowdrey (F&SF, Aug04)
Novelettes
"The Faery Handbag", Kelly Link (THE FAERY REEL: TALES FROM
THE TWILIGHT REALM, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Ed.,
Viking Press, Aug04)
"Flat Diane", Daniel Abraham (F&SF, Oct/Nov04)
"Men are Trouble", James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's, Jun04)
"Nirvana High", Eileen Gunn and Leslie What
(STABLE STRATEGIES AND OTHERS, Tachyon Press, Sep04)
"The People of Sand and Slag", Paolo Bacigalupi (F&SF, Feb04)
Short Stories
"Born-Again", K.D. Wentworth (F&SF, May05)
"The End of the World as We Know It", Dale Bailey (F&SF,
Oct/Nov04)
"I Live With You", Carol Emshwiller (F&SF, Mar05)
"My Mother, Dancing", Nancy Kress (Asimov's, Jun04)
"Singing My Sister Down", Margo Lanagan, (BLACK JUICE, Eos,
Mar05)
"Still Life With Boobs, Anne Harris (TALEBONES, Summer05)
"There's a Hole in the City, Richard Bowes (SCI FICTION,
Jun05)
Scripts
Act of Contrition/You Can't Go Home Again, Carla Robinson;
Bradley Thompson; and David Weddle. (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA;
Jan. 28, '05 / Feb. 4, '05 [two part episode])
SERENITY, Joss Whedon (Universal Pictures, Sep05)
Andre Norton Award
THE AMETHYST ROAD, Louise Spiegler, (Clarion Books, Sep05)
SIBERIA, Ann Halam (Wendy Lamb Books, Jun05)
STORMWITCH, Susan Vaught (Bloomsbury, Jan05)
VALIANT: A MODERN TALE OF FAERIE, Holly Black
(Simon & Schuster, Jun05)
Most of our readers do not get a vote, but the choices are always
of interest. Reminder to those who are members of either
Interaction or LACon IV: the deadline for nominating the Hugo
Awards is March 11. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Stephen King (letter of comment by Gerald W. Ryan)
Regarding Evelyn's comments on "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank
Redemption", Jerry Ryan wrote:
"Evelyn: I am pretty sure that "Apt Pupil" was made from yet
another of the King stories in DIFFERENT SEASONS. I am not a
Stephen King fan at all, but I loved the stories in DIFFERENT
SEASONS. I found that I liked "FIRESTARTER" but could not get
through any of the other stuff (CHRISTINE, CUJO, PET SEMETARY,
etc., etc)." [-gwr]
[Yes, "Apt Pupil" was made into a movie, but it was not as highly
thought of as the other two (THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and STAND
BY ME). -ecl]
"I think THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is one of the best films I've
ever seen. I knew how it was going to end, and I was still
surprised. . . . The addition of the hangin' rope loaned to Andy
probably added some drama for me, I guess. I still believe that
Morgan Freeman's Oscar for his work in MILLION DOLLAR BABY was
really for his work in SHAWSHANK :-)" [-gwr]
===================================================================
TOPIC: GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE by Frank Herbert (copyright 1981,
Putnam, $12.95, 411pp, ISBN 0-399-12593-0) (book review by Joe
Karpierz)
The fellow who would eventually end up being the Best Man at my
wedding was a huge "Dune" fan, and we would have long discussions
about the novels back in the early and mid-1980s. We even came
up with alternate names for each one. GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE was
"God-awful of Dune." As I picked up the book for what I believe
is the first time since I read the book when it was originally
released twenty-five years ago, I wondered if I would still have
that opinion of it. After all, as I have been noting in my
earlier reviews of books in the "Dune" series, I'm coming at
these things from a much different perspective than I did back
all those years ago, and age and wisdom (well, maybe that) might
cause me to look at the book differently than I did back when I
was in my early 20s.
Nope.
Well, to be fair, I don't think the book is "God-awful", but I do
think it's the weakest of the first four. That much has not
changed in the intervening twenty-five years.
The time is 3500 years after the events of CHILDREN OF DUNE.
Leto II, one of those children, continues to undergo the
transition from human to giant sandworm of Dune. Arrakis is
nearly desert-free--only a small portion of the planet has a
desert now, where Leto is able to roam as would a sandworm. Leto
is also Emperor of the known universe. He is the caretaker of
the Golden Path, which humanity must follow if it is to survive.
Leto has taken over the Bene Gesserit breeding program, this time
breeding his Atreides descendants with a purpose in mind--in part
to perpetuate the Golden Path, but also to breed an Atreides that
cannot "be seen" by an Oracle like him, which leads to his
downfall. Leto is seen as a Tyrant, one who is stifling his
subjects. Maybe he is, and maybe he isn't--but he believes that
what he is doing is the best for humanity.
We have the usual players--the Bene Gesserit, the Tleilaxu, the
Ixians; we have Leto's descendants, Moneo Atreides, Leto's
majordomo, and Siona Atreides, Moneo's daughter and a current
member of the rebellion. We also continue to have Duncan Idaho
gholas, which leads to very convoluted relationships indeed. And
we have Leto's all-female army, the Fish Speakers--a name which I
find just too silly for words.
Nothing really happens in this book. Oh, there are a couple of
major events, but for the most part we spend the book reading
dialogues between Leto and one of the other characters, wherein
Leto is spouting all sorts of religious, philosophical or
political doo-dah that is either brilliant beyond words or
utterly inane beyond belief. What this book does do is set up
the events of HERETICS OF DUNE and CHAPTERHOUSE: DUNE.
GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE is just not a very good book at all, in my
opinion. I may never read it again. [-jak]
[Joe's reviews of previous "Dune" books have appeared in the
following issues:
10/13/00: DUNE--HOUSE ATREIDES
12/14/01: DUNE--HOUSE HARKONNEN
05/02/03: DUNE--HOUSE CORRINO
10/24/03: DUNE--THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD
08/06/04: DREAMER OF DUNE (biography of Frank Herbert)
09/24/04: DUNE--THE MACHINE CRUSADE
10/15/04: DUNE--THE BATTLE OF CORRIN
09/30/05: THE ROAD TO DUNE (collection)
12/02/05: DUNE
12/30/05: DUNE MESSIAH
02/03/06: CHILDREN OF DUNE]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA (film review
by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: When a Mexican illegal alien is killed, his employer and
friend Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones, who also directs) is
unsatisfied that the authorities are going to do anything.
Perkins finds the killer is a trigger-happy new border patrolman
and decides that some justice will be done. Perkins forces the
patrolman to execute the dead man's final wish. This is a
modest, low-budget, and low-key film but Jones shows a sure hand
and real directing power with handling his actors. Rating: +2
(-4 to +4) or 7/10
Once it gets going, THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA is a
sort of road film over territory where there are no roads. A
trigger-happy border patrolman Mike Norton (played by Barry
Pepper) accidentally kills a Mexican illegal immigrant. Pete
Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones), a friend of the dead man conducts his
own investigation and finds the killer was Norton. He kidnaps
Norton and takes him at gunpoint on a journey to Estrada's
village on the other side of the border. Chased by border
patrolmen on horseback and in helicopters, the two ride and walk
over difficult country in south Texas and northern Mexico.
Though the issues are not the same, there are echoes here of
1962's great LONELY ARE THE BRAVE. Screenwriter Guillermo
Arriaga cannot match the combined skills of that film's writers,
Edward Abbey and Dalton Trumbo, but there is some of the same
power in this story.
Arriaga is not very subtle in showing where his sympathies lie.
His Mexican characters are somewhat idealized. All are decent,
earthy people just trying to survive in a harsh world. There is
rarely even a "chinga" in their speech. Most of his gringos live
hopeless, dull lives that crawl at a snail's pace under the hot
Texas sun. Their personal relationships are dysfunctional. They
live at the boring, slow, and languorous pace of people living in
Larry McMurtry novels. A few, mostly law enforcement officers,
are actively nasty and evil. Mike Norton sees the illegal
immigrants who pass by his territory as little more than animals,
not unlike how he sees his wife. He seems to enjoy his job
because it gives him a chance to hunt them and with little
supervision he can read Hustler Magazine on the job. Pete, the
Jones character, is a decent man who knows something should be
done when his friend is killed. Jones usually plays his
characters with the crispness of the characters he played in MEN
IN BLACK and in THE FUGITIVE. Here he has the resolve, but seems
more to be a man beaten down by the world. He finds there will
be no justice from the authorities, so he has to take matters
into his own hands. Arriaga won acclaim for his 21 GRAMS in
which the sequences of the story were told in non-chronological
and apparently random order. The early parts of this film are
told in much the same way and it is quite difficult to keep track
of the order of events. Chris Menges, who also recently filmed
NORTH COUNTRY, captures the mountainous, sun-beaten beauty of the
border country.
THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA is a simple, likable
portrait of the personalities one find near the border. There is
some anger at the American law enforcement officers but the
film's main thrust is not anger for the Americans but respect for
the aliens who come over the border looking to improve the lives
of their families. I rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or
7/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
INSIDE JOB by Connie Willis (ISBN 1-59606-024-7) is described on
the jacket as being "a tale of spiritualists, seances, skeptics,
and a love that just might be able to rise above it all." This
makes it sound like a love story. It isn't. And while Connie
Willis is arguably "the master of the science fiction novella,"
this is not one of the best examples of that. It has what I
consider a major underlying flaw, which I cannot describe without
spoiling the story. (Email me if you really want to know.)
Subterranean Press has done a very nice job with this book, with
cream-colored pages and dark blue (rather than black) print. Of
course, at $35 for a hundred-page hardcover, they should. (I
hope it's acid-free paper!) If, like me, you can check this out
of your library, then I can recommend it. (All praises to my
public library in Old Bridge, New Jersey, for getting books like
this rather than just the major releases of the big publishers.)
INTRODUCING AMERICAN POLITICS by Patrick Brogan and Chris Garratt
(ISBN 1-840-46098-9) was written in 1999 by two Brits primarily
for a British audience. It is clearly not impartial; talking
about internal party divisions, they say, "This ideological
woolliness never strikes Americans as in any way odd." They also
say that before 1947 "black athletes [baseball players] had
played only in black teams against each other." First of all, at
the very beginning of baseball, there were integrated teams. And
secondly, even during segregation, there were exhibition games
where black teams played against white teams. I suppose it is
worth reading this to see what some British think of American
politics, but a bit misguided to be read as an accurate look.
I read MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (a.k.a. MURDER IN THE CALAIS
COACH) (ISBN 0-425-17375-5) because I had just heard the BBC
radio version and seen the 1974 movie. There seemed to be some
gaps in explanation in these dramatic versions, and I was curious
if these were in the book itself. And, yes, they were. It
remains a complete mystery how Poirot comes to some of his
conclusions. (At one point, in fact, he just says "I sense a
good cook instinctively" as if that made any sense.) Christie's
stories seem to rely on something not just extremely unlikely,
but almost unfair. (And she has *at least* three stories which
turn on the intentional misidentification of a corpse! That is
just pushing it.) [-ecl]
[Actually there is sort of an interesting story associated with
this novel. Evelyn told me that in Britain the novel was called
MURDER IN THE CALAIS COACH and when it came to America it was
given the more sensational title MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. I
told her that it must have had the CALAIS COACH title at some
point in the United States because I can remember having a Pocket
Books edition with the CALAIS COACH title. A little research told
me that Evelyn was right that it was indeed originally called
MURDER IN THE CALAIS COACH and when it crossed the Atlantic it was
retitled MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. She just had the direction
it crossed the Atlantic wrong. Its first appearance was in the
Saturday Evening Post and it had the CALAIS COACH title. It later
appeared in Britain and the more sensational title was for that
audience. Americans probably would not have realized there was
anything romantic about the Orient Express until Ian Fleming
introduced them to it. In fact, the actual train was not
particularly romantic at the time of Christie or Fleming.
Accounts say in the 1940s to the it was no longer a very clean or
lavish train. In the late 1970s it was terminated, but it was
restored in 1982 to its former glory after the book and films gave
it so much free publicity. -mrl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
To question a wise man is the beginning of wisdom.
-- German Proverb