THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
01/16/09 -- Vol. 27, No. 29, Whole Number 1528
El Honcho Grande: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
La Honcha Bonita: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
STARSHIP TROOPERS Discussion
Life on Mars (Probably) (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Leeper Screws the Pooch (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
2008 in Review (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Seventy Years Ago (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The Mouse and I (part 2) (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
THE LAST THEOREM by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl
(book review by Joe Karpierz)
DEFIANCE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Mice (letter of comment by Wendy Sheridan and Robert Bohrer)
One-Book Recommendations (letter of comment by Rob Mitchell)
TWILIGHT, Mice, Faux-Reality, and Fargo (letter of comment
by Bob Devney)
This Week's Reading (THE BLACK STAR PASSES,
PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL, ANDROMEDA STRAIN, and
"The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror")
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: STARSHIP TROOPERS Discussion
The Middletown (NJ) Public Library SF Discussion Group will be
discussing STARSHIP TROOPERS b Robert Heinlein on Thursday,
February 12. The film will be shown at the Library starting at
5:30PM, and the discussion of the film and book will follow when it
is finished.
==================================================================
TOPIC: Life on Mars (Probably) (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The question of whether there is life on Mars seems to have moved
from a science fiction possibility to being genuinely probable.
It may be geological or biological, but either way Mars is a lot
more interesting.
http://tinyurl.com/nasa-mars-life
http://tinyurl.com/sciam-life-mars
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Leeper Screws the Pooch (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Okay, I have been caught flat-footed. I had heard about the woman
who was thought to have died as a result of believing the story in
FARGO and going to the location to look for the lost money. I
wanted an article that would inform readers about it. I found a
longish article and published a link reading most of the article,
but not all the way to the end. It turns out that very article
concludes that credulousness was not the cause of her actions. The
article only talks about that at the very end, further than I had
gotten. People who read the article further than I did probably
got the straight scoop. Bob Devney and Pete Rubinstein pointed out
my error. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: 2008 in Review (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
2008 was the year that that showed us how much Americans have a
capacity to become greedy, short-sighted, stupid, and--given half a
chance--as crooked as a pipe-cleaner caught in a vacuum cleaner.
Before "trickle-down" economics was ever proven it was replaced by
"hemorrhage-upward" economics. We saw people abandon their SUVs
when the price of a tank of gasoline crossed the hundred-dollar
mark only to return to buying more SUVs when the price of gas
temporarily dipped. When things went wrong in the war, the
economy, and everything else, the party in power blamed the party
out of power. We saw a Senate seat being sold to the highest
bidder and a Congress ostensibly protesting their own pay raises
but doing nothing to stop them. We got deeper and deeper in debt
to a country that censors what opinions its people can read and
cannot stop itself from exporting poison milk. We also elected a
black President long before anyone seriously thought it would
happen. That was 2008. Welcome to 2009. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Seventy Years Ago (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I have a little project to feel the pace of history and to compare
this bad year to a *really* bad year. Every day I Google the date
seventy years earlier and see what was happening. I am tracking
the coming of World War II and especially the Holocaust. I have
been doing this for about three months now. This sounds sort of
silly as a project, but I am surprised at how much more effective
it is in studying the period.
It is really a little scary how fast things are/were happening.
Early last November it was seventy years since Kristalnacht, when
the Germans coordinated an attack on Jews and their property. And
just a week or so later Jews were being told that their businesses
and houses were now other people's property. I used to wonder why
Jews did not see the signs and get out of Germany while they could.
But human nature says that big changes take a week or two to sink
in. Seventy years ago you either acted immediately or it could
have been too late. The blows were just coming too fast. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: The Mouse and I (part 2) (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Last week I was talking about protecting my house from various
animals, but particularly mice. Where I live mice are a serious
problem. And a mouse is an intelligent and clever animal.
My first mouse was many years ago. It taught me a lesson. Mice
are *not* magic. They are *not* supernatural. But if you are
going to catch a mouse, it is best if you assume they are magical
supernatural beings. Because what that mouse is going to do no
natural creature can do. I trapped the first one in a closet.
There was one exit. I watched that exit very carefully. I got a
net to catch it, but it was long gone. While I was not watching
the mouse disappeared like smoke in a wind.
A mouse looks like it is about an inch and a half diameter at its
widest point. I followed a mouse once as it ran to an outer wall
and in plain sight it seemed to disappear. I quickly looked
outside on the other side of the wall where the mouse had vanished.
The mouse was just squeezing through the wall to the other side.
Later I saw the there was a crack in the wood no thicker than the
thickness of two stacked quarter coins. Mice have this oddly
jointed body. At will they can dislocate their skull and parts of
their body and then just happily snap then back into place. It is
hard to begrudge the mouse his escape when he does something so
magical to get away. The mouse had found a crack in the wood and
tunneled under the carpet. Through concrete he tunneled. Compared
to this mouse, the Scarlett Pimpernel and Erik the Phantom were
rank amateurs. They only used what was already there. This mouse
had found a way to enter the house creating a passageway through
solid concrete. At least this story has a happy ending. I found
his passageways. Now I could have sealed them with putty. But
considering that solid concrete didn't stop him, what good would
putty do? But a mouse does have his own Kryptonite. There is a
substance that terrifies mice. And I don't mean a cat. A mouse
does not like ... steel wool. In the war on mice, steel wool acts
like razor wire does for us. No mouse wants to risk his eyesight
by getting too close to steel wool. He cannot really hold it down
with his foot because it is just too springy and chaotically
complicated. Mice leave it alone.
If you can find the holes they have dug to get in you just have to
stuff them with steel wool. That hole is now unusable. But for me
it has a real advantage. I walked away and the mouse walked away.
The mouse did not have me as a victim and the mouse lived. For me,
that is winning. So I gave myself one giant Atta-boy. I
eliminated the problem without killing the mouse. But as I have
said the problem is that I leave behind a thinking animal will that
is still dead set on invading my house and finding whatever goodies
there are. And to be perfectly honest, there are goodies. And
there are goodies that he would like. My taste is not a lot
different from the mice.
I am happier to let the mouse try again than to kill the mouse. As
I say, I am morally opposed to killing mice. Also most ways to
kill mice do not kill instantly. There are poisons that allow the
mouse to withdraw to die inside the walls of the house. That is
doubly bad. I have killed the mouse and the mouse has left his
rotting body to exact revenge. That is why I would never use
poison pellets. A very cheap but unconscionable way to kill mice
is to leave dry instant whipped potato flakes around. The mouse
eats the flakes. When he tries to digest the flakes the moisture
in his system goes into the flakes. They then expand to many times
their original volume. This is a horrible death and I will not
mention it again, because I do not want to think about it. It does
have the same problems that poison does. This method rates a giant
Mark Leeper "No Thank You."
You can leave sticky paper that will catch mice the way flypaper
catches flies. The mouse cannot move and just has to wait for you.
It is bonded to the paper and immobilized for life. I do not think
there is any way to remove the mouse and set it free. This method
does not kill the mouse. You, as the user, kill the mouse. The
mouse sits there terrified waiting for you. At least any feces
stick to the paper. When you get around to it you kill the mouse
with it sitting there watching you do it. And I suspect a lot of
people chicken out, which is even worse for the mouse. It dies of
dehydration and terror. This method also rates a giant Mark Leeper
"No Thank You."
Sadly, though I have tried to find ways to save the life of mice,
it has not always been possible. Can I get another week talking
about my battles with mice? (Well, that is what I intend to do.)
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE LAST THEOREM by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl
(copyright 2008, Ballantine Books, $27.00, 299pp, ISBN
978-0-345-47021-8) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
Those of us who have been reading SF for a long time were probably
brought up on Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl. From Clarke, it
was CHILDHOOD'S END, THE CITY AND THE STARS, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY,
FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE, RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA, and others. From
Pohl, it was JEM, MAN PLUS, GATEWAY, THE SPACE MERCHANTS (with
C. M. Kornbluth), his work as an editor, etc. Classics, all of
them (mind you, I was never very fond of RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA, but
I'm in the minority), so it would seem to follow that if you put
them together, the resulting story would be terrific. Heck, if
Clarke can collaborate with folks like Stephen Baxter and others
and come out with great material, and Pohl can collaborate with
Kornbluth and Williamson and come out with great material, a
pairing of two of SF's Grandmasters should produce what would
probably be the last Hugo for both of them. At least, that's what
I thought. Unfortunately, I was mistaken.
Pohl agreed to write THE LAST THEOREM from Arthur's (not so
copious) notes when it became apparent that due to age and failing
health Clarke would not be able to write the book. The result,
sadly, was a novel that falls well short of the quality that we've
come to expect from both of these historically important science
fiction writers.
In spite of the title, the book is not really about Fermat's Last
Theorem, which starts out with the Pythagorean Theorem as a basis.
You know, if you have a right triangle, the sum of the squares of
the lengths of the two legs equals the square of the length of the
hypotenuse. Fermat's Last Theorem says (and I'm sure the
mathematicians out there will correct me if I'm wrong) that the
previously stated relationship doesn't work for powers greater than
two. [*] What Fermat did was scribble in the margin of a book a
note that said he had a proof for it, but the margin was too small
to show it. The book really deals very little with Fermat's Last
Theorem.
So, what is it about? Well, the life of one Ranjit Sabramaniam, a
native of Sri Lanka, who does indeed discover the proof to Fermat's
Last Theorem. It's also about the mysterious Grand Galactics, who
decide that the humans are a violent race of animals who blow each
other up and thus deserve to be exterminated. It's about those two
separate story lines come together in the end for what was for me a
very unsatisfying conclusion.
Ranjit is a sixteen-year-old boy of way above average intelligence
who has an obsession with proving Fermat's last theorem. He is not
interested in girls, sports, or anything other than mathematics and
finally, his astronomy class. This really makes him no more
interesting than a lot of sixteen-year-old boys. He only becomes
important once he discovers the proof to Fermat's theorem while he
is imprisoned and being tortured for information about the
hijacking of a cruise ship by pirate terrorists. He does finally
become interested in the opposite sex and marries an AI expert by
the name of Myra de Soyza, with whom he has two children, both of
which play some part in the development of the story.
Then there are the Grand Galactics. We've seen them before,
haven't we? The Overlords from CHILDHOOD'S END, the monolith
makers from 2001, and the Firstborn from the "Time Odyssey" trilogy
(yes, at some point hopefully in the near future I will read and
review FIRSTBORN, the final book in that series). The Grand
Galactics have decided that humanity is to perish for its sins
(where have we seen *that* before?), and are sending their servant
races to come and deal with the human race problem.
I don't know, maybe I just wasn't in the right mood when I read
this book, but everything seems forced and trite. It seems that
Ranjit met Myra and got married just to advance the plot along so
their daughter Natasha could be born and play her part. And why
was it Natasha that the alien visitors chose to speak to the humans
of earth instead of someone else? The Grand Galactic angle has
been played before, and much better than here. They're supposed to
be mysterious, all-powerful, and forbidding. Instead, to me they
come off as a little cartoonish - not unlike their servant races
the Nine-Limbed, the One Point Fives, and the Machine Stored. The
United States comes off as a big bully in this story, although to
be fair it's in the person of a megalomaniacal Orion Bledsoe, but
even he is a stereotype. Pohl even manages to take a poke at
religion, shoehorning in Clarke's feeling that if parents expose
their kids to Sunday school and Bible study as children they will
become inoculated against adult religions and therefore said
religions will die out. It seems to be fashionable these days to
bash religions, faith, and the concept of God in SF novels, but if
we the SF community are as open minded and tolerant as we like to
think we are then it's time to balance the books a bit and start
portraying religions and spirituality in a positive light and not
superstitions to be dismissed (wow, did I digress, or what?).
Let's offend *both* sides of the fence, just to be fair, shall we?
The only really interesting technological item here is Silent
Thunder, basically an EMP weapon used to quell uppity countries
trying to impose their will on others. Hey, that concept has been
done before too.
Amongst the novel's flaws is one of the most damning, as far as I'm
concerned. It was uninteresting. I didn't care about Ranjit, I
didn't care about the Grand Galactics, and I didn't care if they
destroyed humanity.
I just didn't care. [-jak]
[*] What Fermat's Last Theorem says is that while you can find
integers x, y, and z such that x-squared plus y-squared equals z-
squared, you cannot find integer solutions for higher powers (e.g.,
there are no integers x, y, and z, such that x-cubed plus y-cubed
equals z-cubed. Pythagoras comes into it only because you can have
a right triangle with integer-length sides. -ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: DEFIANCE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is an unusual true story of two Jewish brothers from
Belorussia who fought back against the Nazis and offered protection
to a community of over a thousand fugitive Jews. Occasionally
using thuggish tactics and more often being heroic, they survived
in the forest while in constant danger from both the Nazis and the
Soviets. The story is made a little idealized, but this is a
chapter of history that has rarely been explored before. Rating:
+2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
"In August 1943, Hitler sent his most ferocious and lawless troop
into this puscha, with the intent to kill every member of the
Bielski group... Three men, brothers, saved as many Jews during
World War II as Oskar Schindler and organized a military force that
killed hundreds of enemy soldiers... Twelve hundred Jews ...
walked out of the Belorussian forests in July 1944." [--THE
BIELSKI BROTHERS by Peter Duffy]
Two decades ago Edward Zwick made a name for himself with GLORY,
the story of a black unit in the Civil War. Against a background
of historical fact he told the story of their well-meaning
commander who finds how he can be effective in leading his men.
Also there is an angry black soldier who finds he can forgive the
white man long enough to serve his country. The foreground story
was a touch melodramatic, but it made for a good film. DEFIANCE
also is a slightly melodramatic story told on a background of
historical fact. It is no worse than GLORY. Sadly it is no better
either and for much the same reason.
DEFIANCE is the story of the three Bielski Brothers. They were
Jewish and were in Belorussia in 1941 at the time the Nazis
invaded. In the occupation 50,000 Jews were murdered directly and
twenty times that number were deported to be murdered elsewhere.
The two Bielski brothers are Tuvia (Daniel Craig with hair dyed
black so that he looks a little more Jewish) and Zus (Liev
Schreiber, who does not have to do anything to look more Jewish).
When they find that a policeman who was collaborating with the
Nazis had murdered their parents the brothers decide to strike
back. They can borrow a pistol and four bullets. And with it they
kill the policeman. They hide in the local forest that they know
well. Soon they offer protection to a few other Jews and before
they realize what is happening they have a whole community. As
Tuvia says, "This is the one place in all Belorussia where a Jew
can be free." But even as brothers the Bielskis are very
different. The real Tuvia Bielski said he "would rather rescue one
old Jewish woman than kill ten Nazis." Tuvia is for rescuing Jews,
but is willing to fight Germans. Zus is for vengeance on the
Germans, but is willing to do what he can to rescue Jews. Allied
goals, but they will cause schism in the forest fugitive group.
We also meet two younger Bielski brothers, one played by Jamie
Bell, the young boy in KING KONG. Mark Margolis plays a ghetto
elder with some very heavy decisions.
The problem with the writing (the screenplay was co-authored by
Clayton Frohman and Zwick) is that it is heartfelt but not deep.
We have some humor, some romance, some cute old Jewish scholars,
and a little melodrama. This is the style that worked with Zwick's
GLORY. But with a more realistic approach, one like there was in
Stephen Spielberg's SCHINDLER'S LIST, the story would have felt
like it had more authenticity and it served the story better.
There is one possibly disturbing scene, but it is filmed in a way
that makes it hard to make out detail. Zwick was going for
"engrossing", and not "horrific". And he manages to make Liev
Schreiber, usually an intellectual actor, into an action hero.
Daniel Craig, who might well be right now the world's most popular
action hero actor, is nearly as fierce but much more likely to try
to avoid trouble.
Not all the parts of the machine work with this film, but it still
makes a good film overall. I rate DEFIANCE a +2 on the -4 to +4
scale or 7/10. Not sure how to pronounce "Bielski"? Don't worry.
You have a choice of about five different ways in the film.
The film tones down the viciousness of the Bielskis quite a bit
from history. Some of their punishments for captured Germans were
on the sadistic side and were intended to spread fear in the enemy,
which they undoubtedly did. We see a little of that in the film,
but not to the degree that it happened in real life. The brothers
probably felt that Jews should give to Germans a taste of their own
brutality. There is some moral ambiguity in the way the brothers
are presented but perhaps not enough to accurately portray the
events.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1034303/
What others are saying: http://tinyurl.com/65fb5p
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Mice (letters of comment by Wendy Sheridan and Robert
Bohrer)
In response to Mark's comments on mice in the 01/09/09 issue of the
MT VOID, Wendy Sheridan writes:
I read with amusement the first installment of "The Mouse and I"
(part 1) this morning, and I wanted to share some of my own
adventures with members of the *group rodentia*. Our previous house
had easy access for local field mice, and our cat would retrieve
most of them for us and bring them to us live. We usually relocated
them several miles from the house, and pretended that they didn't
have cousins that neither the cat nor us could see.
After being in that house for about 10 years, we finally relocated
to a different house. While packing the basement, I discovered a
small mountain of mouse droppings behind a book-filled bookcase.
The books made quite the absorbent material for mouse urine, and a
shelf and a half of books had to be discarded (as well as the
offending bookcase). We knew there had been mice in the basement
for a long time, but we didn't realize how entrenched they had
become, or how they could get into what we thought were sealed-off
areas.
The worst discovery along these lines was as I was packing the
silverware drawer in the kitchen. I discovered mouse droppings in
the back/bottom of that drawer. I now do a much more thorough and
frequent cleaning of the kitchen in the new house. I haven't seen a
mouse in the new house at all, though. [-ws]
[I am reminded of Sam Gross's cartoon in the New Yorker. A woman
holding a mouse she has pulled from a gift-wrapped box. On the
floor her cat is saying, "Read the card. Read the card." -mrl]
And Robert Bohrer writes:
I have mice in my home. I trap and release them in the woods near
my home.
There is a relatively stupid group living upstairs that was eating
soap under the bathroom sink. They are easy to catch.
There were one or more exceptional mice living downstairs that
found their way into my bread pantry. These mice were able to eat
the peanut butter bait, spring the trap, and avoid capture
repeatedly. (I'd like to have an infrared camera record how they
managed this trick.)
My dog usually accompanies me with great excitement to release the
mice. She chases them in the woods, usually one or two hiding
places behind the mouse, to my entertainment. This morning she
caught and injured one, which saddened me. I will give the mice
greater protection from my dog in the future. [-rb]
==================================================================
TOPIC: One-Book Recommendations (letter of comment by Rob Mitchell)
In response to Evelyn's comments on what one book to read this year
in the 01/09/09 issue of the MT VOID, Rob Mitchell writes:
Rob's choices (at least at this moment:
If you read only one classic book this year, you should read:
ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES by Charles Darwin.
Runner-up: DISCOURS DE LA METHODE (Discourse on the Method) by Rene
Descartes
If you read only one 20th century book this year, you should read:
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH: A HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY by
William Shirer
Runner-up: THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J. R. R. Tolkien
If you read only one 21st century book this year, you should read:
THE EARTH IS FLAT 3.0: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
by Thomas L. Friedman
Runner-up: THE ALGEBRAIST by Iain M. Banks
If you read only one 2008 book this year, you should read:
THE NEW YORK TIMES: THE COMPLETE FRONT PAGES: 1851-2008 by The New
York Times
Obviously, several of my choices are famous books, but many more
people know of these books than have actually read them. Also, I'm
sure my choices reflect my biases toward history (including the
history of science) and speculative fiction. [-rm]
==================================================================
TOPIC: TWILIGHT, Mice, Faux-Reality, and FARGO (letter of comment
by Bob Devney)
In response to the 01/09/09 issue of the MT VOID, Bob Devney
writes:
Enjoyed the latest ish of MT VOID, entirely as usual. To be
honest, though, what finally moves me to write an LOC is probably
not its expected excellence. It's that I'm supposed to be writing
30 or 40 more precis for the Boskone program, and this makes an
attractive way to procrastinate.
Anyway, several points:
Enjoyed the defense of TWILGHT-as-harmless-escape from your
contributor Raven Stern. Incidentally, with a name like that, how
long can she avoid committing a fantasy trilogy?
I'll add another log to the controversy by recalling an argument
that an Amazon.com reviewer whose name I unfortunately don't recall
made about TWILIGHT. Essentially that these books hand teenage
girls the following life lesson: "Love means staying with your guy
forever, even though he may well injure or kill you at any minute."
Mark, loved Mouse Pt. 1. They should put your discursive circle-
and-return style in a book on good essay writing. So often with
the offbeat colloquial concluder: "I kill ants with my conscience
giving me dirty looks." Color you Jain Austen.
Evelyn, nice piece on the Christopher book. Beautifully expressed
thought on why it's bad medicine for hacks like Dan Brown or it
seems Paul Christopher to impose a faux-reality apparatus on their
supposed nonfiction. They "seem to think that doing so makes their
books better, but it just serves to degrade the public's
intelligence." Yes! That's it exactly.
My back went up, though, when you brought in that sublime flick
FARGO. You say, "It could be that the Coen Brothers need to take
some blame here, for saying at the beginning of their 1996 film
FARGO as 'This is a true story.'"
1) With that title card in the film, the Coen Brothers were
explicitly satirizing the cheap attention-whoring falsity of such
claims to truthiness.
2) Given any large audience, some people won't be hip to the irony
of a particular satirical element. If that meant that the satirist
should avoid any such irony, by Saturday night there wouldn't BE
any more satire.
3) Was Orson Welles to blame when people panicked at his WAR OF THE
WORLDS radio broadcast? Was Heinlein to blame because Charles
Manson says he was inspired by STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND?
And Mark, your footnote made it worse: "[This is more serious than
it sounds. One woman died as a result. See
http://tinyurl.com/fargo-death. -mrl]"
I read the attached GUARDIAN article with interest, about a
Japanese woman who wandered around the Fargo area in winter and was
eventually found dead in the snow, and a policeman speculating that
she was looking for the treasure briefcase from the FARGO movie.
But [SPOILER ALERT] the article explicitly concludes that she came
to the area stalking a former lover, a married American. That she
mailed a suicide note to her parents in Japan giving that unhappy
affair as the reason she was in despair. And that the whole FARGO
flick connection was just wrongheaded speculation by a Bismarck
cop. To quote the article: "Yes, she had come to the upper midwest
to kill herself. But not because of FARGO. It seemed the whole
treasure story was nothing more than a Coen brothers-style series
of tragic misunderstandings. Nothing more than the figment of an
earnest policeman's imagination."
To sum up, you two: I call take-it-backsies!
[-rd]
[Writing praise from Bob Devney is high praise indeed. I would
just request that he stop making good writing look so easy.
I admitted to my FARGO error up above.
Orson Welles admitted right in the Mercury Theatre Broadcast that
he intentionally pulled a practical joke with the broadcast, a bit
of Halloween mischief. He most likely wanted to show the power of
radio drama, his field of expertise. Unfortunately, the joke got
out of hand. He was filmed the next day saying how shocked he was
that his broadcast was taken so seriously. Somewhere I heard that
during that filming he was intentionally mimicking with his face
paintings he had seen of Christian martyrs. He enjoyed being
irritating to people in a way we usually attribute to Harlan
Ellison. But in my opinion Welles had more talent. -mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I mentioned THE BLACK STAR PASSES by John W. Campbell (ISBN-13
978-1-557-42931-5, ISBN-10 1-557-42931-6) a few weeks ago as an
example of early 1930s techno-babble. I read this (and its two
sequels) when I was in high school--I'm not sure which year, but I
can even remember where I bought the books. Arcot, Wade, and Morey
were the quintessential nerds, who kept discovering new elements
that somehow fit into previously unknown holes un the periodic
chart, and could whip up invisibility devices or destruction rays
overnight.
Of course, re-reading it I notice all sorts of negative aspects I
had missed when I was younger. For example, they go to Venus (a
Venus of oceans and only about 150 degrees) and find a giant
airship attacking a city. Now they don't know anything about the
two sides fighting or what the issues are, but because the city is
so pretty, they decide to attack the airship and save the city. I
guess I'm glad they didn't decide to show up while we were bombing
Tokyo.
And do I need to mention that there are no women in the book--
anywhere?
I can't really recommend this book except for those who already
know they like 1930s techno-babble hard science fiction. (If
you're really into this stuff, the sequels are ISLANDS OF SPACE and
INVADERS FROM THE INFINITE.)
PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL: THE HIDDEN FORCES THAT SHAPE OUR DECISIONS
by Dan Ariely (ISBN-13 978-0-06-153544-4, ISBN-10 0-06-153544-0)
addresses questions such as "Why are we happier to do things when
we are not paid for doing them?" and "Why are free things
frequently more expensive than things we pay for?" I don't
necessarily always agree with Ariely's conclusions, though. For
example, Ariely claims that more people will choose a free $10 gift
certificate than a $20 gift certificate that costs $7, but that the
latter is a better deal because one gets $13 of profit rather than
$10. Well, he uses amazon.com as an the vendor and they are
probably reasonably priced, but consider a more extreme case: you
have the choice between a free $100 gift certificate for Tiffany's
or a $200 gift certificate for $70. Unless you are the sort who
buys in Tiffany's, most of what they have will appear over-priced
(and unnecessary). You may very well prefer something that
requires no expense on your part than a "better" deal that puts you
out of pocket for $70. Or, put another way, if you think
everything at Tiffany's costs four times what you are willing to
pay (i.e., what it is worth to you), a free $100 gift certificate
gets you $25 worth of goods for nothing, while a $200 gift
certificate that costs $70 gets you only $50 worth of goods for
that $70--hardly a good deal.
The newly formed science fiction discussion group in Middletown
(NJ) chose ANDROMEDA STRAIN by Michael Crichton for the January
meeting. (Each month we choose a book and the movie made from it--
we read the book ahead of time, then watch the movie for the first
half of the meeting, then discuss the two for the second half.)
A few observations about the book: It is a massive expository lump
(or as Mark said, "an expository lump with trimmings"). [As opposed
to THE BLACK STAR PASSES, which is expository lump with plot-like
trimmings. -mrl]
A couple of weeks ago I talked about novels that blurred the line
between fiction and fact. Crichton did that forty years ago--the
"Acknowledgements" at the beginning and the "References" at the end
are both made-up. Even the opening quotes after the title page are
made up, attributed to characters in the book.
Crichton cites Lewis Bornheim's definition of a crisis: "a
situation in which a previously tolerable set of circumstances is
suddenly, by the addition of another factor, rendered wholly
intolerable." Then he says, "At the time of Andromeda, there had
never been a crisis of biological science...." What about the
bubonic plague, the introduction of European diseases to New World,
or the 1918 Influenza Pandemic?
He also claims that "1-101-1110" is "a perfectly reasonable
telephone number". No, it wasn't at the time (1969) and probably
not even now. Exchanges (the "101" part) could not start with a
"1", because that signaled long distance.
On page 201 he has the characters discussing "what is life?" One
definition they give is, "All living organisms in some way took in
energy--as food, or sunlight--and converted it to another form of
energy, and put it to use. (Viruses were the exception to this
rule, but the group was prepared to define viruses as nonliving.)"
Then someone claims three items stretch this too far: a black cloth
(in sunlight, it converts radiant energy to heat), a watch with a
radium dial (radioactive decay produces light), and a piece of
granite ("It is living, breathing, walking, and talking. Only we
cannot see it because it is happening too slowly.") While one may
agree with the first two, I have no idea what he means by the last.
But the classic test case that is usually given is fire--it
consumes fuel, outputs waste, etc.
The "Year's Best Fantasy and Horror" series has been discontinued
by St. Martin's Press. It had appeared for twenty-one years, with
Ellen Datlow editing the horror aspect the entire time. Terri
Windling edited the fantasy part through 2003, when Gavin Grant and
Kelly Link assumed that role. While I am sorry to see it go, I
have to say that I read it only for the fantasy and after Windling
left it was never the same. (Night Shade Press will be doing a
"Year's Best Horror" anthology for at least a couple of years.)
[-ecl]
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Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Debt is the slavery of the free.
--Publilius Syrus