THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
09/04/09 -- Vol. 28, No. 10, Whole Number 1561
C3PO: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
R2D2: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Acknowledgement (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Safe Bet (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Seven Essential Fantasy Reads (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Change the Past? No Problem! (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon (Part 2) (convention report
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
PONYO (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
WWW:WAKE, by Robert J. Sawyer (book review by Joe Karpierz)
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Stereoscopic Effects (letter of comment by Morris Keesan)
This Week's Reading (THE BEST OF FREDERIK POHL)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Acknowledgement (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
This week's MT VOID is brought to you by the Pre-Owned-Humvee
Owners Exchange. Buy a used Humvee today. There are seven billion
other people in the world. Let one of them save the planet.
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Safe Bet (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I was watching a documentary about a heavily armored dinosaur. A
paleontologist said, "It is safe to assume it was a slow runner."
I am thinking to myself, "Yeah, it is safe to assume that *now*!"
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Seven Essential Fantasy Reads (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE NEW YORKER had an article listing their "Seven Essential
Fantasy Reads" (http://tinyurl.com/pwosb5). These were:
THE DRAGONBONE CHAIR by Tad Williams
Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay, but particularly TIGANA,
THE LIONS OF AL-RASSAN, SAILING TO SARANTIUM, and
"The Fionavar Tapestry" trilogy
WIZARD'S FIRST RULE by Terry Goodkind
ASSASSIN'S APPRENTICE by Robin Hobb
THE SCIONS OF SHANNARA by Terry Brooks
THE NAME OF THE WIND by Patrick Rothfuss
GARDENS OF THE MOON by Steven Erikson
This brings a new meaning to "essential" with which I was
previously unaware. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Change the Past? No Problem! (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The universe of physics has changed a great deal in my lifetime.
And one of the things that changed a lot is the concept of the
universe itself. Now the term is "multiverse". There is not one
universe but an infinite number of them and there are universes
that are arbitrarily similar to our universe. There are an
infinite number of universes and an infinite number of Mark Leepers
who are writing this very editorial. It is an interesting idea to
think about and play with in the mind.
But I have to say that the whole concept of the multiverse has been
an absolute disaster for the time travel story. Since the concept
of the multiverse came along, time travel stories have really
degraded. The multiverse is a very simple way to get around the
Grandfather Paradox.
What is the Grandfather Paradox? It is said that if you could
travel back in time, you could kill your grandfather before he had
any children. Therefore your parents could have never existed and
hence you would never have existed. Hence you could not have
killed your grandfather hence you would exist. Hence you could go
back in time. Etc. etc. As an aside I am not sure why it was not
the "Father Paradox" since the patricide version is just as
effective and less complicated.
The Grandfather Paradox is really the heart of the time travel
story. They make the time travel a lot more interesting. The
Grandfather Paradox seems to imply that it will never be possible
to send information back in time and we just do not know why it is
not possible at the moment. But time travel stories need the self-
discipline of avoiding the paradox.
If you accept the multiverse then the Grandfather Paradox is easily
explained away. If I go back and kill my grandfather there is no
problem. When I went back in time I went back to a different
universe. In that universe I killed my grandfather. So though I
have shuttled over to that universe, I will never be born there.
It is this universe I was born in.
On Twilight Zone there was a story, "Back There", of a man who goes
back in time and tries to prevent the Lincoln assassination. He
finds it impossible because Lincoln really was assassinated. The
time traveler discovers that history is inviolable. It is
explaining the Grandfather Paradox that makes it so.
On the other hand a major multiverse story I remember, one that may
even pre-date the concept of multiverse, is the Planet of the Apes
series. That starts with a world where apes hold humans in bondage
and through time travel spirals around to a future where the apes
and humans live together in harmony and mutual respect. The story
is a little syrupy, but it has the concept that time travel has
actually changed the timeline. That may have been just sloppiness
on the part of the writers, but it created the interesting concept
that there might be two different universes.
But the discipline of having to live by avoiding the Grandfather
Paradox has gone away. Add the concept of the multiverse to the
Twilight Zone story and it just dissolves the point. There is no
longer any logical reason that Lincoln might not be saved. But
what multiverse adds is that there are an infinite number of
universes with an infinite number of Lincolns, in some of which he
is saved and in some of which he isn't. The whole struggle is to
save him in just one of those universes. And since it is a
different universe already, there is no way to know if the
assassination attempt would have been successful in this universe
anyway. Without the concept that Lincoln cannot be saved, he might
as well be some unknown fictional character. An interesting
science fiction suspense story has been turned into a real ho-hum.
And if you do save Lincoln in one universe who cares if you are
only changing one of an infinite number?
Too many writers now feel they are free to have stories in which
the past can be changed as much as they want it to be. But it
better have something to make it interesting if the author is
throwing out the rulebook. That seems to just lead to weak
writing. It may be justifiable with a multiverse explanation, but
it makes the story much less interesting. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon (Part 2) (convention report
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This is the second part of my brief report on Anticipation, the
Worldcon held in Montreal August 6-10, 2009. My full report will
also include panel descriptions, but will probably not appear for
some time (though I hope before the next Worldcon!).
Last week I covered our hotel, the convention centre, registration,
and publications.
Restaurant Guide
The restaurant guide was almost useless. Admittedly there are so
many restaurants in downtown Montreal that they cannot all be
listed, but the ones that were had insufficient information. There
were no hours listed, so the fact that that all the cheaper
restaurants on Rue de Notre Dame closed by 6PM came as a surprise
after we walked over there. Nor was there any indication of which
served breakfast, or when. And though addresses and a map were
given, the restaurants were not located on the map. You might know
that a restaurant was on Rue de Notre Dame, but you had no idea
which block it was in.
They also did not list the food court in the nearby Complex de
Desjardins at all, and probably missed a few others I was unaware
of.
The one saving point of all this was that Chinatown was literally
just outside the convention centre and one could rely on getting
good food there--even breakfast at a couple of places! And one
could always find fans wandering this area looking for food (and
dinner companions--one morning we had breakfast with Jean Lorrah
and talking about our respective trips to India).
(Tip for choosing the best Chinese restaurants: they are the ones
with primarily Chinese patrons, or those where the tables are
preset with chopsticks rather than forks.)
Ever since the Minicon Restaurant Guide got nominated for a Hugo a
few years ago, people seem to have decided to get creative with
their convention's restaurant guide. This is a mistake. Yes,
there are those who will enjoy the clever writing and the
descriptions of distant, expensive restaurants. But most fans, I
think, prefer a straightforward list of the restaurants closest to
the convention centers and hotels with the categories, price range,
hours, and special details (wheelchair-accessible, serves family-
style, or whatever). If possible a short list of breakfast places
and late-night places is useful (though the hours should help
there). Any restaurants further away that are listed should be
there for a reason (kosher, best in town for smoked meat, serves
its meals in a ferris wheel, etc.).
These are not new complaints. In 2000, I wrote that the Chicon
"Dining Guide", while a good restaurant guide for someone visiting
Chicago, was not as good for people attending a science fiction
convention in Chicago. The restaurants included were too widely
distributed geographically, and more heavily weighted towards more
expensive restaurants. And the main flaw in the guide was the lack
of geography, or map.
The next year, Millennium Philcon did such a good job that I used
the guide for several years following. But then in 2002, at
ConJose the restaurant guide was a triumph of style over substance.
Oh, the descriptions were fine, but there were no hours listed for
restaurants, and NO MAP!! Yes, they had addresses, but you
couldn't figure out *where* on West San Carlos number 140 was. (We
think, alas, it was actually in a site then under construction.)
What ConJose overlooked was that the primary purpose of a
restaurant guide should be to give people useful, complete, current
information on where they can eat during the convention rather than
a fancy book with cover art by the Guest of Honor and great write-
ups of restaurants no longer there or three thousand miles away.
(I'm not making this up.)
For example, ConJose listed only three restaurants as both "short
walk" and "breakfast." This included the aforementioned defunct
restaurant, but did not include Express Deli (listed as lunch and
dinner but no breakfast) or McDonald's (not listed at all, though
you passed it one block before the Jack-in-the-Box that was
listed).
Let me re-iterate my main point: The purpose of a convention
restaurant guide is to guide people to restaurants. Anything that
gets in the way of doing this, or supersedes it, is
a bad thing.
Or most specifically, here are my requirements for a convention
restaurant guide:
Regardless of how long, detailed, or elaborate the full guide is,
there must be a single sheet (two sides) that has a list of all
restaurants nearest the hotel or convention center (two blocks,
three blocks, whatever radius fits) with description of what they
serve, price range (in typical cost, such as "entrees $15-$20," not
"$" to "$$$$$$"), and hours. The hours should be the hours for the
weekend of the convention--this is critical for conventions over
holiday weekends. It should include all fast-food restaurants and
grocery stores. And there should be a map with all the restaurants
on it. People who want to go farther afield can use the full
guide, which should also have a map for the closest ones,
directions for the rest, and distances for all.
Dealers Room
This was smaller than usual for a Worldcon, perhaps because
crossing the border and dealing with customs was a real hassle for
United States dealers--so hardly any came. An additional
complication was the bilingual nature of the convention. The
result was while half of the dealers were selling books, half of
them were selling books in French. Ironically, everyone I talked
to about the lack of English-language used books in the Dealers
Room said the same thing: "Just as well, because the last thing I
need is more books."
Art Show
The art show was similarly small, probably for the same reason. In
Europe, the show is small but at least one sees a wide variety of
cultural influences. (I still remember some of the Czech and Dutch
artwork from ConFiction in The Hague.) Here there were mostly the
same artists, or at least styles, that one always sees.
More to follow next week. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: PONYO (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: A magical "goldfish" turns herself human to learn about
the real humans. A five-year-old adopts her, and the two find they
love each other. But dark forces from the sea bring a natural
disaster in vengeance for her misbehavior and the boy and the girl-
fish have to go find the boy's mother. This film is really aimed
at young children. Hayao Miyazaki is off his game with this film
that has weaker art and animation than his usual films and a script
that needed another draft or two. Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4) or
5/10
Hayao Miyazaki is one of the most respected makers of animated
films in the world. His Studio Ghibli has given us classic films
like MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO, PRINCESS MONONOKE, and SPIRITED AWAY. (A
treasured memory was sitting across the aisle from him at the North
American premiere of SPIRITED AWAY.) Sadly, I think his PONYO is
several steps backward for him. That is not entirely his fault.
The animation of PONYO is flat and dull, but part of that is that
he does not obviously use computer animation and he is competing
with animators like Pixar. I can accept that he does not have the
detail that Pixar has in their images, but PONYO animation looks
primitive compared to previous Miyazaki films such as SPIRITED
AWAY. Near the opening of the film is a flood of jellyfish filling
the screen. It seems intended to convey an awe of the wonder and
beauty of sea life. But as a hand drawing it loses the edge of
realism that would have made it look believable. It ends up
falling short of the desired effect. MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO also had
simple animation, but that film is now sixteen years old and
standards have changed.
Ponyo (voiced by Noah Cyrus) is a goldfish living in the ocean.
But she has a driving curiosity about the humans who rule the land.
To see land people, and without the permission of her human-shaped
sea-magician father (Liam Neeson), she goes to take a look at what
life is like on land. This gets her trapped in a small jar and a
human has to smash the jar to get her out, luckily unharmed. The
human is the five-year-old Sosuke (Frankie Jonas). It is love at
first sight between her and the boy. Later the magical Ponyo takes
a form of a human. The love of a boy for his fish/girl becomes
like the love he would have for another person. The two have
different backgrounds but build a firm relationship on both liking
ham. Trouble comes when Sosuke's mother Lisa is angry that
Sosuke's father is taking too many overtime shifts fishing for the
company he works for. And she has good reason to worry. Ponyo's
father is arranging a tsunami in punishment for this daughter's
disobedience.
I doubt that anybody at Disney, the company that released PONYO in
the United States, would tell someone of Miyazaki's stature that he
should have changed his storyline, but there is much in PONYO that
probably would have been unacceptable in an American-written
script. Some touches just seem strange. This is in large part a
romance between two five-year-olds, though they act a good deal
more mature. At one point Sosuke just wanders away from his
school, which is probably against the rules and quite dangerous,
but either nobody notices or the results seem to be left as a loose
end. Later Lisa is driving up a wet, twisty, and dangerous road
and takes her attention off the road to lick an ice cream cone.
Eventually she goes off in a disaster and leaves the two children
untended. She seems like a terrible mother. There are portions of
this film that make no sense. Non-magical people under water seem
to have the power to breathe, talk, and walk. (This may have been
intended to be inside a bubble, but that is never made clear.
There is a lot of unexplained magic going on. Even if they were in
a bubble they do not seem to be very ruffled by their situation.)
Way too much of PONYO seems ill-considered and rushed. I know this
film is getting really good critical response, but it really is a
pale shadow of the best films Miyazaki has made. I rate PONYO a
disappointing low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 5/10.
Note: In a time-honored tradition of Disney films the assumption is
made that squid swim with their tentacles ahead of them. It is
thought real squid are capable of some movement like that, but they
swim almost exclusively in the other direction with the tentacles
trailing. Also goldfish do not spit and they live only in fresh
water. Ponyo's magical origins might explain the inaccuracies, but
somebody should have noticed that Ponyo was like no other goldfish.
The Japanese version may have made Ponyo another kind of fish.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0876563
What others are saying: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ponyo
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: WWW:WAKE by Robert J. Sawyer (copyright 2009, Ace, $24.95,
356pp, ISBN 97800-441-01679-2) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
After reading the complex doorstop that is ANATHEM, I needed a
*story*; one that would be interesting, contain a lot of ideas, be
thought provoking, well written, and a page turner. It turns out
that the latest Robert J. Sawyer novel was sitting on my to read
stack, and his novels usually, for me, fit the bill quite nicely.
So, I snarfed it off the snack and got to work.
Caitlin Decter is a blind teenage girl whose family has just moved
from Texas to Waterloo, Ontario, a center of technological
activity. Caitlin's father got a job there, and so the whole
family moved up north of the border. Caitlin's pretty much a
normal fifteen-year-old-girl, with the same emotions and activities
that any other fifteen-year old girl has--except that she's blind
(I happened to like her immediately because she's a hockey fan).
She's also really good at math (her LiveJournal name is
"Calculass"), and while other blind folks seem to have one of their
other senses heightened, Caitlin is able to surf the web better and
faster than anyone else.
Back in Texas Caitlin underwent numerous procedures to attempt to
cure her blindness, all of which failed. So, when she is contacted
by a Japanese researcher with yet another way of attempting to cure
her blindness, she, and her mother (especially her mother) are
skeptical. Why should this time be any different? But, with the
support of her father (whom we later learn is autistic), Caitlin
heads off to Japan for the procedure. A device is inserted behind
her eyeball (one eye at a time), and she must carry around a device
(which she calls an eyePod) that will aid in transmitting the
signal necessary for her to see.
But when the device is turned on and tweaked a bit, she doesn't see
normally--she sees the World Wide Web, with circles representing
websites, and lines representing links. And she sees something
else--something that at the same time disturbs her and excites her.
As with any other Sawyer novel, there's always more than one story
going on. There's the story of the outbreak of the bird flu in
China, what that country does to deal with the problem, and how one
man attempts to break the silence imposed by the Chinese
government. There's the story of the chimp (who really isn't a
chimp, but that's part of the subplot :-)), who paints human
profiles. And there is the story of Caitlin's autistic father,
struggling with his inability to communicate with and show his love
to his wife and daughter.
I think most people know by now that the main advertised story line
for this novel is the awakening of the World Wide Web, but the Wake
in this title refers to more than just that awakening: Caitlin's
sight (which she finally does get, and, as an added bonus, she can
shift between real sight and websight at will), the chimp who can
paint, Caitlin's father struggling to communicate without the
stress that comes with it for an autistic person (he finally breaks
through near the end of the novel), and I wouldn't be surprised if
the whole Chinese bird flu storyline expands out with a similar
theme in the next book of the trilogy.
Wake has all the things you look for and expect in a novel from
Sawyer--a ton of ideas (I'm especially enamored of the Jagster
search site technology as well as where I think he may be headed
with just how the Web gained consciousness), very real human
stories and characters, and the affect that near future or current
technology has on his characters. As I've said before, the best SF
deals with real characters and the effect technology has on those
characters and their lives, and I believe that Sawyer hits it right
on the head again.
The other wonderful thing about this Sawyer novel (well, all of his
novels, actually) is that it is well written and extremely
readable. I do get so tired of books that make me work to read
them. I certainly don't mind books that make think, but reading is
supposed to be enjoyable, and Sawyer's books are always an
enjoyable read. Go out and pick up a copy of WWW:WAKE. You'll be
glad you did. [-jak]
==================================================================
TOPIC: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Christoph Waltz shines and the patented Tarantino dialog
does not in Quentin Tarantino's WWII action war
fantasy/comedy/drama INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. Brad Pitt's character
organizes a team of nasty, homicidal Jews to strike terror in the
Nazis occupying France. The story is very original, if nearly
totally impossible, but it is like nothing you have seen before.
Sadly, the film starts to drag with excess dialog, too often
gratuitous and annoying, and it goes on for 153 minutes. Rating:
high +0 (-4 to +4) or 5/10
Quentin Tarantino is like the Andy Warhol of film (even more than
Andy Warhol was when he was involved in film). Warhol would borrow
the label from Campbell's Soup and turn it into Pop Art.
Tarantino's style is to find the gaps in his own film and borrow
from other films--maybe pieces of many different styles of film--
and to piece them together to make his film. He slams this bunch
of ill-fitting elements together into a revenge fantasy about the
war with little respect for the events or the hair fashions of the
time. He works hard to create the proper look in the background,
but the people look wrong in the foreground.
The primary story features Lt. Aldo Raine (the name sounds like an
allusion to the actor Aldo Ray; Raine is played by Brad Pitt
struggling hard to look tough by jutting out his lower jaw). Lt.
Raine has put together a team of the toughest, dirtiest, meanest,
ugliest Jews he can find in the Army to go into occupied France and
beat the hell out of the Nazis, spreading terror by scalping their
prisoners. If we can have blaxploitation films, Tarantino is
trying to make, at least in part, a jewploitation film. Tarantino
pits his nasty Jews against the upper echelons of the Third Reich
in general, but specifically against S.S. Col. Hans Landa (played
by Christoph Waltz). If nothing else works in the film, and there
certainly is plenty that does not work, Waltz makes up for a lot.
Waltz is a tremendously hypnotic and evil Nazi. He plays wonderful
extended cat-and-mouse games with the people who fall into his
clutches. His manner is almost winning up until the moment he goes
in for the kill. Raine and Landa each spread terror in occupied
Paris during the war, each against very different sorts of people.
Caught in the middle is Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), who is secretly
a Jew whose family was murdered by Landa. Eventually all the
threads will knit together into the story of one night with the
world premiere of a German propaganda film being shown in the Paris
movie theater owned by Shosanna.
There is much that Tarantino gets right, but he is also going wrong
by abusing his own trademark. Tarantino's films have always
sported off-the-wall dialog that usually is almost as captivating
as the action of the film. This has worked well for him up until
his last film, DEATH PROOF. In that film, dialog had lost its
charming spark and instead just felt like irrelevant padding. In
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS the plot seems to just slow to a stop when the
characters go off into long tracts of dialog, usually subtitled
from German or French into English. It stretches the film to a
tiresome 153 minutes in a film with not enough plot to fill a
90-minute film. At one point the whole film grinds to a halt as
characters play a silly children's guessing game--in subtitled
French yet.
One would think that a film like this would be aimed at an older
audience who see films about World War II and about the Holocaust,
but Tarantino is really writing for a younger generation who have
fewer expectations about what a film on those subjects would be
like. The score is a patchwork of music from other films that may
carry very wrong connotations for those who have seen more film.
He opens the film playing "The Green Leaves of Summer", which is a
likable piece of music. I am not sure it fits even this film. But
for audience members old enough it conjures up images of John
Wayne's story of THE ALAMO. It feels all wrong here. Tarantino's
World War II film has borrowings from 1970s blaxploitation films,
style from Spaghetti Westerns, music from Ennio Morricone scores
and films like CAT PEOPLE (1982), plots of other WWII thrillers ...
and the list goes on. Perhaps part of the point is that the film
intentionally forces in its strange style choices, or perhaps
Tarantino is saying he does not care.
The publicity for this film makes it look like it is mostly a film
like THE DIRTY DOZEN. Brad Pitt and his team of killer-soldiers is
ne thread of the film, but by no means most of the film. It is a
piece of the film, but there is just as much about Shosanna working
against the Germans in Paris. The Brad Pitt segments are a major
thread, but no more than that.
Comedies about the Holocaust usually feel out of kilter and
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is no exception. But then this is not
entirely a comedy. It is more a concoction of mismatched film
styles. Some of it is good; much of it is preposterous. In trying
to meld comedy and tragedy it entertains fitfully and requires more
patience than most Tarantino films do. I rate it a high 0 on the
-4 to +4 scale or 5/10. I did like the reference to Italian horror
director Antonio Margheriti.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0361748/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inglourious_basterds/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Stereoscopic Effects (letter of comment by Morris Keesan)
In response to Kip Williams's letter of comment on 3D in the
08/21/09 issue of the MT VOID, Morris Kessan writes, "The
one-darkened-lens 3D effect mentioned by Kip Williams is known as
the "Pulfrich effect", and as Mark suspects, it's not very
good. Some information about it is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulfrich_effect and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscopy#Pulfrich_effects."
[-mk]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Our discussion chose THE BEST OF FREDERIK POHL (ISBN-13
978-0-345-24507-6, ISBN-10 0-345-24507-5) for the August meeting.
This book was published in 1975, but as someone observed, if a
"Best of Frederik Pohl" were published today, it would still have
most of the same stories.
I don't normally comment on every story in a collection, but doing
so will help me remember my impressions for the discussion, so here
goes.
"The Tunnel Under the World": Classic Pohl story that everyone
remembers--"Buy a Feckle Freezer!" It seems to have been the
precursor to several films and stories: DARK CITY, GROUNDHOG DAY,
perhaps even BLADERUNNER in part. (Someone at the meeting
mentioned THE TRUMAN SHOW, an even better parallel.) Pohl had
worked in the advertising field, so the basic premise probably came
from that. The structure is interesting--you follow the
protagonist through some very confusing events, wondering what is
going on. Then you find out the big secret. Then you find out
that is not the big secret, something else is. No, wait, there's
an even bigger secret. No, wait, .... through five revelations.
"Punch": This seems very similar to another story with a time
traveler who arrives right before an atomic war in which everyone
is going to die, or one in which it turns out that the time
traveler has destroyed the world when he jumps back in time
(because of the energy use)--and he's jumped back from five minutes
in the future. The traveler here isn't a time traveler, though.
"Three Portraits and a Prayer": This made no impression on me; I
have no idea why not.
"Day Million": At the time (forty years ago) it was daring. Now it
is topical. In another forty years it will be quaint, relegated to
the same museum as "South Pacific" and "Guess Who's Coming to
Dinner".
"Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus": If "Day Million" seems to have a lot
of its ideas fixed in the past, "Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus" seems
depressingly prescient, with the commercialization of Christmas
gone amuck. All those people who keep telling us that everyone
should have the Christmas spirit and *love* all the store
decorations et al should read this. I mentioned this a few years
ago in conjunction with China Miéville's "'Tis the Season". In the
latter, I wrote, "The worst fears of the Religious Right have come
to pass, and the celebration of Christmas is prohibited. No
parties, no holly, no mistletoe, no trees, .... But it is not
political correctness gone wild. And it has nothing to do with the
First Amendment and the separation of church and state (in part
because Miéville is British, writing for a British audience). No,
it's because all of these things have been trademarked and so you
can't have a Christmas tree, you must have a Christmas Tree(tm) and
pay a license fee for it. The same with Holly(tm), Mistletoe(tm),
and so on. 'It felt so forlorn, putting my newspaper-wrapped
presents next to the aspidistra, but ever since YuleCo bought the
right to coloured paper and under-tree storage, the inspectors had
clamped down on Subarboreal Giftery.' Frankly, Miéville's
'nightmare future' seems far more likely to me than the nightmare
future of Christmas being forbidden because of political
correctness. After all, one cannot now sing 'Happy Birthday to
You' in public without owing royalties on it! The Miéville and the
Pohl get added to 'Newton's Mass' by Timothy Esaias in my mental
list of stories that *I* would put in a Christmas anthology, were I
ever to undertake such an unlikely task.
"We Never Mention Aunt Nora": This reads like a typical "Twilight
Zone" story, though written a year before that show went on the
air.
"Father of the Stars": Is this 1964 story the first instance of the
idea that technology overtakes itself? In this case, the
interstellar colonists who went out in cold sleep and relativistic
speeds are met near the end of their voyage by earthmen in a
faster-than-light ship that had been invented after they left. We
actually live this now in a way--many people put off buying a new
electronic gadget because in six months there will be a better,
cheaper one.
"The Day the Martians Came": It may be true that supposed
antagonists will unite against a common threat, but whether that
would apply to aliens who are not threats is unclear. Then again,
as someone says in LONE STAR, "It's always heartwarming to see a
prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice."
"The Midas Plague": It is a clever idea and all, but of course it
makes no sense. I cannot help but feel, though, that it at least
somewhat the inspiration for David Brin's THE PRACTICE EFFECT. And
both of them seem to have their roots in the notion that we must
have an ever-increasing gross product, that the only way to
maintain a healthy economy is to produce more and more, to build
more houses, to manufacture more cars. The "Planet Money" podcast
had a show about the problems of the car manufacturers, and one
problem is that there are about a third more cars being
manufactured worldwide than are actually needed. So either people
have to keep buying new cars when they do not need them, or the
automobile companies have to close a quarter of their factories.
(According to the notes by Pohl at the end, this idea was suggested
by Horace Gold, it is Pohl's most reprinted piece of short fiction,
and it has even shown up in economics courses.)
"The Snowmen": I suppose that this is interesting in the context of
global climate change, but it spends too much time on characters
that seem very outdated and not enough time on the idea. There's
something about these stock characters of the era--the gold-digging
night-club-singer type, the small-time con-artist, and so on--that
make so many stories or movies from the 1950s and earlier seem very
dated. (Consider the Phil Foster character and his girlfriend in
THE CONQUEST OF SPACE.)
"How to Count on Your Fingers": This is an article, not a story,
and included primarily because Lester Del Rey (the editor of the
book) wanted to give an example of Pohl's science writing.
"Grandy Devil": Okay, it did not quite go where I thought it was
going, but it ending was one of those surprise endings that seems
utterly predictable after you hear it.
"Speed Trap": "I honestly think we can do four times as much work as
we do. And I honestly think that this means we can land on Mars in
five years instead of twenty, cure leukemia in twelve years instead
of fifty, and so on." Yeah, and have a baby in a little over two
months instead of nine.
"The Richest Man in Levittown": This is one of those humorous
science fiction stories that were popular in the 1950s. The
characters have the same sort of mannerisms that make them seem
dated as the ones in "The Snowmen". It is not that it couldn't be
written with a more current feel, but it does seem as though humor
often relies on stereotypes for the jokes, and stereotypes are more
prone to becoming outdated.
Okay, I lied. I ran out of steam and either did not read, or had
nothing to say about "The Day the Icicle Works Closed", "The Hated"
(close-quarters space travel), "The Martian in the Attic", "The
Census Takers", or "The Children of Night". [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Don't judge a man by the words of his mother,
listen to the comments of his neighbors.
-- Yiddish proverb