THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
01/11/08 -- Vol. 26, No. 28, Whole Number 1475
El Honcho Grande: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
La Honcha Bonita: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
All comments sent will be assumed authorized for inclusion
unless otherwise noted.
To subscribe, send mail to mtvoid-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To unsubscribe, send mail to mtvoid-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Topics:
The Sounds of Science Fiction (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Auto Suggestion (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Political Films and the Box-office (part 2) (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
FATAL REVENANT by Stephen R. Donaldson (book review
by Joe Karpierz)
A Writer Named Phil Hall (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Dos-a-Dos Bindings (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
This Week's Reading (KALPA IMPERIAL, THE QUOTE VERIFIER,
and HAUNTED GROUND) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: The Sounds of Science Fiction (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
A different sort of trivia quiz is at
http://www.shegoddess.com/q/sf/index.aspx. The quiz asks you to
identify familiar sounds from science fiction movies. Most of the
choices are not too difficult, but it was till fun. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Auto Suggestion (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
General Motors reports that in a decade we will have driverless
cars. Like in science fiction these cars will drive themselves.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8U0M82O0&show_article=1
Apparently the large oil companies--who I think are in close
cooperation with GM-- are very nearly ready to give their
sign-off, so GM intends to go ahead with the development.
However, General Motors may be even a little behind the curve on
this one. There are, in fact, already driverless cars on the road
since the addition of message text messaging and the showing of
videos on portable cell phones. Statistics I have made up on the
spot show that 8.3% of all cars on the Santa Monica Freeway were
controlled by DAVIDs. During times of slow traffic the proportion
could soar to as high as 11.5%. In Manhattan the proportion of
DAVIDs is expected to be even higher but the statistics are still
being produced.
("DAVID" is the safety industry acronym for "Device-Absorbed,
Virtually Inattentive Driver", also made up on the spot) [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Political Films and the Box-office (part 2) (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
Last week I was talking about the quandary that the film industry
is in over films about the current conflicts in the Middle East
and western Asia. Several of the films have been released this
year, but for the most part they are not doing so well at the
box-office. I see several factors causing this. Last week I
mentioned the film CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR that tells the story
about a man who helped arrange to arm the Afghans and then only
lightly suggests that this decision probably had very negative
consequences. This film shies away from the implications of its
own story. By doing so it probably damages its own credibility.
What are some of the other factors hurting political films this
season?
The Scheduling of the Films: There is a glut of political films
right now. If there were one good film a year on the subject of
the troubles of the Middle East, probably a lot of people would
be seeing it and discussing its point of view. When there are
six or seven films coming out in a matter of a few months they
just glut the market. I would not mind at all seeing a
thoughtful film on the issues of the Middle East every six months
or so. But the feeling is apparently that if a serious film is
made, it should be an Oscar contender. If it is an Oscar
contender it should be released very late in the year. If all
such films are released within a month or so of each other they
are going to compete with each other and there will be losers.
The Gravity of the Subject: In a related thought, sadly there is
only so much market for intelligent films in general. A lot of
people go to the movies to see superheroes, car chases, zombies,
princesses with attitude, or Jane Austen adaptations. (Not all
in the same film, hopefully.) Movies are for most people a
source of entertainment and escapism. Preston Foster in
SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS makes a good case for the value of pure
escapist entertainment. I am not saying this is a good or a bad
thing that a lot of people want fluff, but it is a fact. So the
problem may be too high expectations from the filmmakers or it
may be the fault of the audience.
Axes to grind: Then there are not that many people who want to go
to the movies to see an angry, indignant harangue that what the
country is doing is wrong. When people go to a church they can
expect to be preached to. Going to the movies, they may be less
happy about it. Most people would not volunteer to be subjected
to a diatribe even if they agreed with the viewpoint. No matter
what side the film is on, it will probably turn off many of the
people who disagree with its point of view. There are enough
blogs on the Internet where people are giving their political
viewpoints and not charging one red cent for it. So there may be
a problem in this sort of political film itself.
The Internet: It may be that part of what has changed over the
years is that the public has lost its innocence. Most people who
have access to the Internet know that there is a huge diversity
of political opinion and for every opinion there are may people
willing to argue for that point of view. In an environment where
opinions are cheaper and more common than a facial tissues, the
filmmaker is just one more person expressing his own point of
view. He is using a more expensive medium, but that does not
mean his opinion is any the more valid that that of another
blogger. The fact that Michael Moore can put his ideas on film
do not make his opinions and his assertions any more right than
those of the guy across the street who is writing his opinions at
the computer while sitting around in his pajamas.
The Track Record: A few of these films have had serious problems.
I suspect some people saw SYRIANA because it was directed by and
starred George Clooney. But when they saw the film they could
not make out what the film was all about. I admit I was lost and
have not given the film a second chance to lose me. I am not
saying that makes it a bad film, but I would be very careful
about recommending it to other people because it is so
inscrutable. Some may have been convinced that anything about
the Middle East will be complex and obscure.
Credibility Gaps: People claim to be aware that a lot of
filmmakers badly misrepresent the facts in their films in order
to make a particular political case. They say they are not
influenced by films. The same claim has been made about
advertising, and in fact a great many people are influenced by
both. On the whole filmmakers are not a particularly credible
lot. And if you reply to a film with facts the filmmaker will
not hear you and people nearby will hush you and perhaps have you
thrown out of the theater. (I suppose being able to express
righteous indignation is one of the nifty perks of being a film
reviewer.) Films like APOCALYPTO and KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
incredibly distort of history. Generally this is to make a
point, but it makes that point by a deception. And many really
are misled by the inaccuracies. I have been told many times that
people do not go to a film to learn history. But even more
frequently I see people repeating misinformation that they have
picked up from films.
I guess my suggestion, for the few who will take it, is to not
really trust fiction films about politics. You probably will
find marginally more accuracy in documentaries, though many of
those have distortions. Whom can you trust? Unfortunately in a
democracy with free speech you have to just judge as well as you
can and read film critics you think you can trust to point out
the inaccuracies. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: FATAL REVENANT by Stephen R. Donaldson (copyright 2007,
Putnam, $27.95, 610pp, ISBN 978-0-399-15446-1) (book review by Joe
Karpierz)
I finished FATAL REVENANT, the latest book in "The Last
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" by Stephen R. Donaldson a couple
of days before writing this review. I wanted to mull it over for
awhile, let it rattle in my head a little bit, just to make sure
that how I thought I felt about the book was *really* how I felt
about the book. And after all was said and done, my reaction
was, "Well, there's a chunk of my reading life I'm never going to
get back."
Folks, I'm not the fastest reader--you've probably guessed that
over the years. But when it takes me over two months to slog
through a single book by an author whose works I've enjoyed in
the past in a series that I've been very fond of, well, there's
something wrong. The information above states that the book has
610 pages--but twenty of those pages contain a glossary which was
necessary to repeated refer to in order to remember and figure
out what was going on. Yes, I know, my memory isn't what it used
to be, and if I was ten years younger I might be able to remember
everything. But between the constant referral to the glossary
and the verbose prose that Donaldson is fond of using (another
fellow I am on an email list with said something to the effect of
"the 'Covenant' series is Donaldson's excuse to use a
thesaurus"), this book dragged on and on and on.
Oh, and there were long stretches that I didn't find very
interesting. That will make a book drag on as well.
I suppose I should talk about the book, shouldn't I? When last
we left our heroine, for lack of a better term, she (Linden
Avery, for those of you keeping score) was standing outside
Revelstone watching riders approach. Among them were Thomas
Covenant--supposedly dead--and her son Jeremiah, who was now
lucid. It seems that Covenant is expending a great deal of
energy to be here with Jeremiah, who is actually trapped in the
clutches of our good friend Lord Foul. Their existence here is
precarious--Covenant says that if Linden touches either one of
them, they will go back from whence they came. Furthermore, if
she uses her Staff of Law to bring forth Earthpower in their
vicinity, they will also go back. Covenant is also holding the
Arch of Time together while bringing himself and Jeremiah here.
But why is he here? Why, to convince Linden to go with him and
Jeremiah so that Covenant can destroy Foul and free Jeremiah from
Foul's clutches, or some such thing.
Avery still loves Covenant, and of course her son is there, so
she agrees to go with Covenant to help him with his plans. She
is leery, however; something doesn't seem right about Covenant.
But she goes along, and they end up a few thousand years in the
past, around the time of Berek Halfhand. Oh yeah, they are
accompanied by a guy called the Theomach, one of the race of
people called the Insequent. The Insequent are powerful and
mysterious people, whose purpose here will most likely be played
out in the last two books. We also find out that the Mahdoubt is
also an Insequent, and we meet the Harrow, yet another Insequent
who wants Linden's Staff and Covenant's ring for his own
purposes. We do find out an interesting secret about the
Theomach later on in the book--one of the nicer little tidbits
that Donaldson leaves us.
I can't really go into too many more details here because I'll be
giving away some major plot points, but I can tell you that
Linden does get back to the present time after a couple of very
interesting encounters, then decides that she needs to get the
krill of Loric Vilesilencer in order to be able to wield both
Earthpower via the Staff of Law as well as Covenenant's white
gold ring. Along the way, she meets just about every one and
every thing that she has previously encountered in the previous
seven books, as well as a few folks that we've only heard about
in passing. In the end, she's trying to free Jeremiah from the
clutches of Lord Foul--and she has some other dire purpose we
know nothing about.
That brings up another point--Linden is so cocky and self-sure
that she cannot possibly believe that what she is planning is
even remotely wrong--something that could devastate the Land.
It's hard to like Linden--I wanted to strangle her most of this
book.
In its own way, the book builds to a sort of climax, where
Donaldson leaves us with a very nasty cliffhanger, probably the
best surprise of the book. However, the cliffhanger, in my mind,
in no way makes up for the rest of the book. Linden is still
whiny, the language is way over the top, and a book like this
shouldn't be a painful read.
Yes, it's a matter of opinion, and what I dislike other folks may
revel in (sorry, I needed to make that little pun). This book
was a chore to read, and I'm very disappointed in it. I'll read
the last two books in the series, because after eight books I'm
not going to stop now. However, what I do need now is a much
lighter read. I don't exactly know what will be next, but it
can't help but be lighter. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: A Writer Named Phil Hall (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
As a member of the Online Film Critics Society I have a certain
interest in Phil Hall. Phil is the hub from whom all information
seems to flow about the OFCS and its activities. He also can be
useful as someone who knows the interests of OFCS reviewers and
can make the connections between filmmakers and reviewers who
might have special interest in their product. I have been seeing
his name on the bottom of e-mail but until recently I have known
nothing about him. I did not even know what he looked like. He
pointed out a short film about him, "A Writer Named Phil Hall",
apparently a sort of self-interview made for a site called
storytellers.com. It runs something like 24 minutes in length
and has just about enough information for him to introduce
himself and discuss the his career as a professional writer and a
little of his philosophy of writing.
He introduces himself, showing the viewer his published writings
including some film books. He also edits two trade magazines
with named "Secondary Marketing Executive" and "Alternative
Energy Retailer". These are titles that probably sound very sexy
to secondary marketing executives and to alternative energy
retailers. He also does freelance writing for trade magazines
for trades like pleasure boat sales. But it is sort of a "Career
Day" discussion of what a professional freelance writer does. He
makes the point that any topic a writer chooses--even pleasure
boating--can and should be an education for the writer and there
can be a great deal of art in a lucid article five paragraphs on
the new Evinrude outboard motor. He considers all his writing to
be a form of storytelling. Even his film reviews tell the story
that he has seen such and such a film. "Did I like it?" he asks
rolling his eyes one way. "Did I not like it?" he asks rolling
another way. It is telling a story. This sort of parallels my
personal philosophy of reviewing is that I am not actually
writing about the film at all but about my reaction to the film
on one viewing.
In reviewing, Phil's area of concentration is the independent
film, a subject he was written a book on. Admittedly because I
am more interested in independent film than in pleasure boating,
that part his discussion hits on more cylinders for me.
Phil's presentation style is a little precise and formal. The
filming style from the unidentified camera operator is much less
polished and a little static. The filmmaker, Leszek Drozd, could
edit in pictures of the magazines he writes for to have some
visual interest. Instead, it is shot as a talking head for 24
minutes. The camera does not move and his head is at the dead
center of the frame with a lot of empty yellow wall over his
head. More lively than the words he is speaking are his facial
expressions. He talks about his experience writing about film.
Hall gives the sort of presentation that he might give to the
high school class who wants to know what a freelance writer does.
The film will be of interest mostly to aspiring writers, to film
reviewers in the OFCS, and to secondary marketing executives--
whatever they are.
http://www.storytellersfilms.com/videos/
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Dos-a-Dos Bindings (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
As a continuation of comments on dos-a-dos bindings in the
01/04/08 issue of the MT VOID, Fred Lerner writes, "With regard to
true vs false dos-a-dos bindings: I wouldn't cite Wikipedia as an
authority on matters of descriptive bibliography (or anything
else!). But if Terry Belanger says that I'm wrong about something
bibliographical, then I'm wrong, and there's an end on it." [-fl]
Evelyn adds, "I suspect it may be the case that the meaning of
'dos-a-dos' has expanded over time to include Ace doubles.
Meanings change, and with few 'true' dos-a-dos bindings these
days, it's easy to believe that the term has found new life in Ace
doubles. And didn't Professor Thompson accept that meaning?"
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
KALPA IMPERIAL by Angelica Gorodischer (translated by Ursula
K. LeGuin) (ISBN-13 978-1-931-52005-8, ISBN-10 1-931-52005-4) was
billed as being in the style of Jorge Luis Borges (as well as
that of Italo Calvino and Franz Kafka). While there is some
truth to this, it seems far more in the style of LeGuin. That is
perhaps partly due to LeGuin's translation, but it is more likely
that LeGuin was drawn to the original work because she saw in it
something with which she could relate.
One major difference I see is between Gorodischer's writing and
Borges's is that Gorodischer's stories have characters--perhaps
minimally drawn, but characters nonetheless. Borges's stories
frequently have no characters, or only one character.
Gorodischer's are mythic at times, but nevertheless interact with
each other in at least somewhat realistic ways. On the other
hand, Gorodischer's descriptions of *places* (for example, in
"Concerning the Unchecked Growth of Cities") are very Borgesian.
Consider the following passage:
"The streets and buildings and balconies and facades are all
mixed up together, factories stand next to mansions, shops next
to embassies. Very few of its inhabitants know all its streets
and ways. I won't go so far as to say it's a labyrinth. [...]
The mountains are buried under walls, balconies, terraces, parks;
a square slants down, separated from a steep drop by stone
arcades; the third floor of his house is the basement of another
that fronts on the street above; the west wall of a government
building adjoins the ironwork around the courtyard of a school
for deaf girls; the cellars of a functionary's grand mansion
become the attics of a deserted building, while a cat-flap,
crowned with an architrave added two hundred years later, serves
as a tunnel into a coalhole, and a shelf has become the transept
for a window with golden shields in the panes, and the skylight
doesn't open on the sky but on a gallery of waterwheels made of
earthenware."
(Sort of a half Borges, half Escher description, don't you
think?)
I notice that the blurb on the back cover says that LeGuin has
received the PEN/Malamud and World Fantasy Awards, but does not
mention her five Hugo Awards or five Nebula Awards. (Those are
relegated to the longer biographical paragraph on the final page
of the book.)
I got THE QUOTE VERIFIER by Ralph Keyes (ISBN-13 978-0-312-34004-
9, ISBN-10 0-312-34004-4) as a holiday gift, and it is more than
just the usual collection of quotations. This is more like the
"Snopes" of quotations, tracing the origin of hundreds of famous
quotations, and trying to determine whether they were said by
(any of) the people credited with them. For example, Harry
Truman did not originate either "If you can't stand the heat, get
out of the kitchen (Buck Purcell did), or "The buck stops here"
(no, not Buck Purcell, but an anonymous originator). And "It's
like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall" is an update of the
original "like trying to nail currant jelly to the wall," coined
by none other than Theodore Roosevelt (describing negotiations
with Colombia in 1903). Not surprisingly, Keyes concentrates on
quotes that are usually mis-credited, rather than those that
really belong to the person most often cited. Those that are
correctly attributed are often revisions or alterations of what
was actually said. For example, Ivan Boesky said, "Greed is all
right.... Greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel
good about yourself." This was condensed in the movie WALL
STREET to "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." All in
all, a fun book, and worth having if you are the sort of person
who likes to nit-pick other people's .sig files.
HAUNTED GROUND by Erin Hart (ISBN-13 978-0-743-27210-0, ISBN-10
0-743-27210-2) was chosen by the newly formed afternoon book
discussion group at my library. This is a mystery novel
involving a skull found in an Irish peat bog, a missing woman and
his child, and the murder of the sister of one of the main
characters. I have to admit that I had some problems keeping the
characters straight because I had no feel for how to pronounce
most of the Irish names, and that appears to be how I remember
names. (Strangely, I remember books visually, seeing the cover
as part of my re-collection.) Anyway, I found this book
disconcerting--there was something about it that made me think of
it as a science fiction book (which it is not), but the writing
style seemed wrong for that. The end was a bit too convenient,
and overall I was underwhelmed. Your mileage may vary. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
There are people who have an appetite for grief;
pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain.
They have mithridatic stomachs which must be fed
on poisoned bread, natures so doomed that no
prosperity can sooth their ragged and dishevelled
desolation.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson