THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
04/29/11 -- Vol. 29, No. 44, Whole Number 1647
Frick: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Frack: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Walpurgis Night (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
An Inconvenient Truth (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Books Are Like Families (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for May (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
HANNA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
THE PALACE OF LOVE by Jack Vance (book review
by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
LA FEMME NIKITA Redux (a mega-compendium review
by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
Hugo and Campbell Awards Nominees
Astronomical Eye Candy (letter of comment by Rob Mitchell)
THIS ISLAND EARTH (letter of comment by Dan Kimmel)
Girl Scout Cookies (letter of comment by Vince Guinto)
PLANET OF THE APES (letters of comment by Kip Williams
and Keith F. Lynch)
The Last Dangerous MT VOID LoC (letter of comment
by Taras Wolansky)
This Week's Reading (MONTANO'S MALADY and THE GREAT BOOK OF
MIND TEASERS & MIND PUZZLES) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Walpurgis Night (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Be warned that we are coming to Walpurgis Night, the traditional
night of Evil and the Witches' Sabbath. It is just about half a
year away from Halloween at the other end of the calendar. It is
the night of April 30. (You may remember that the 1930 film
DRACULA begins as Walpurgis Night is approaching.) I intend to
film myself a good horror film to celebrate. See
http://tinyurl.com/void-walpurgis. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: An Inconvenient Truth (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
It is very sad to realize just how actually ineffective both logic
and evidence are in convincing people to change their points of
view. These have been touted as the appropriate tools. I am sure
that the President producing his birth certificate will actually do
very little to change anyone's minds about any issue. The best it
will do is showing a little support for the people who support the
President. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Books Are Like Families (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I was telling Evelyn that two books were unrelated.
Evelyn: Did you say "related" or "unrelated"?
Me: I obviously said "unrelated". If they were "related" I would
have gone on to say how they were related. Books that are related
are related in many different ways. All books that are unrelated
are unrelated in just about the same way. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for May (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
Most of what Turner is showing in May is films that have run
previous months. THE ROCKING HORSE WINNER has been recommended
here before. It is a supernatural story by D. H. Lawrence about a
disturbed boy who rides a rocking horse in a frenzy to allow
himself to see into the future and find out what horses will win
races. The movie is beautifully filmed. That is playing Tuesday,
May 10, 9:45 PM. If you have not seen NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
(Saturday, May 21, 6:15 PM) and/or THE BICYCLE THIEF (Saturday, May
7, 8:00 PM), you really owe it to yourself to experience them. But
the really interesting film of the month and a very rare
opportunity is a Japanese vision of Hell from 1960.
In Peru I visited a church that had two large murals on your two
sides as you enter. One is a depiction of the glories of Heaven;
the other showed just how unpleasant it would be to be in Hell. I
don't really remember the two images, but I do remember the
reaction of the tourists. Nobody was looking to see what Heaven is
like. That looked like a total bore. The people were mobbed
around the Hell mural. We are all a little fascinated to seem
images of Hell. Far more people read Dante's INFERNO than ever
read his PURGATORIO and PARADISO. And Hell is the subject of TCM's
most interesting movie of May.
Take it from me, you have never seen another film quite like the
Japanese cult horror film JIGOKU (1960). Or at least I can tell
you I have never seen a film like it. The title is the Japanese
word for Hell, though for whatever release it got in the West it
was called THE SINNERS OF HELL. The film is about Hell and who
ends up getting sent there, according to the film's writers Nobuo
Nakagawa, who also directed and Ichirô Miyagawa. But even more it
is about the tortures of Hell.
The film is in two parts. The first part shows the main character,
a theology student Shiro, a sinner accumulating sins against his
soul. I might question whether what Shiro is doing is all that
much real sinning. People around Shiro keep having nasty things
happen to them, but it is not entirely clear that they are all
Shiro's fault. He is in a car that hits and kills someone, but he
is not the driver. His sin is not reporting it to the police, and
not giving in to his guilty conscience. Later other deaths happen
around him, but he does not seem to be the one at fault. This part
of the story is telling us why he will go to Hell, and it makes a
less than convincing case. But perhaps that is the intention.
Perhaps even the innocent go to Hell.
Then the film and Shiro move to Hell were we see all the tortures
of the damned. This is strong stuff, at least for a film from this
time period. Nobody has ever seen Hell and returned so the
filmmakers are free to give vent to their sado-masochistic
imaginations. This is one sick film. At this time Japanese films
shied away from graphic horror. However, Hammer Films of Britain
was just getting into their Frankenstein and Dracula series that
used then unprecedented amounts of blood. It was modest by today's
standards, but it was shocking at the time. And Nakagawa
apparently decided he wanted to shock in the same way--or at least
with no less gore. Shiro travels through a particularly Japanese
or perhaps Buddhist vision of Hell. Hell is ruled over by some
sort of painted overlord who sees people torn apart and flayed only
to somehow heal and go on to more torments. In one scene one of
the damned has to stand atop what looks like a flaming mill wheel
turning under her. There is some very bizarre stuff taken from the
Buddhist conception of Hell.
Rather than mixing in a lot of special effects the production
design is kept simple, but effective. There are places the dead
relive their sins of the past and others where they hang upside-
down and are pierced by pieces of metal. The whole film is
decorated black, white, turquoise, and red to give a feel for the
cold of death and the pain of death and the pain of perdition. The
film is beautifully designed and photographed. The background and
sky to each scene is a rich pitch black. The torments are either
emotional or physical. This film is very rare and it is good that
Turner has gotten a copy. It will run Saturday, early morning May
21, at 2:15 AM. It is followed by another famous but rare Japanese
horror film, TOKAIDO YOTSUYA KAIDAN (1959), or THE GHOST OF
YOTSUYA. This is a famous story, but the film is a little slow
building to really only one horrific scene at the end. That scene
is a classic, particularly in Japan, but I am not sure the entire
film is worth watching for that one very odd sequence. (Saturday,
May 21, at 4:00 AM) [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: HANNA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Hanna has been raised and trained by her father to be a
perfect assassin, preparing for the battle he will have with his
former employer, the CIA. Director Joe Wright takes a somewhat
simple story and makes it complex in the editing and camera work.
The action is strong and well filmed, but there really is not much
in new ideas or ideas at all. Complex puzzle pieces fit together
to make an overly simple and familiar picture. It only seems
complex because Wright does not play fairly with the viewer.
Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Hanna (played by Saoirse Ronan) is a lot like a female Jason
Bourne. She did not just wake up one day like he did, but she
knows nothing of her origins. She just knows that her father Erik
(Eric Bana) has raised and trained her. To the viewer she seems to
have a huge stock of knowledge and a high level of fighting and
killing skills. Certainly she has levels one would not expect from
her sixteen-year-old appearance. She does not know why she needs
these skills but she does know that she will have to fight Marisa
Vigler (Cate Blanchett), a CIA operative who wants to kill her
father. She is trained for the fight in a forest in Northern
Finland. When she is ready she must go out into the world alone
and fight for her father and herself. This is a mission that will
take her to Morocco and Germany. Much of the time she travels with
an English family (parented by Olivia Williams and Jason Flemyng).
The script adds a bunch of bizarre characters, particularly
villains, to add entertainment, but their eccentricities and sexual
proclivities are rather gratuitous. Their peculiarity is just
window dressing and a cheap form of characterization.
Rather than have a complex story, Wright takes a simple plot and
uses his style to surprise the viewer and at times to intentionally
obfuscate the action. Sequences start with the viewer not really
sure what he is seeing. That frustration when relieved gives the
viewer a feeling of accomplishment much as if he had understood a
complex point in the plot. A sequence might open showing Ms.
Blanchett cleaning her teeth. At times we see this in extreme
close-up and clinical detail. Are we to believe she has some sort
of a dental fetish? Or does it just prove that she is fastidious?
It never seems to tie in to anything. What sense does it make? In
another sequence Hanna has been carrying an arrow. She has no way
to launch the arrow, but fire it she does. The camera is looking
at something else, and the viewer never sees how the arrow is
launched. The viewer is left to puzzle over this for only a beat
and then something else is happening. At another point Hanna has
killed an elk and it fell in the middle of a large snowy open
space, five minutes' walk to the nearest visual obstruction. She
stands over it, and Wright focuses the camera on her, and in from
the side comes her father who has apparently invisibly snuck up on
her. He is either the Invisible Man or she is not such a great
assassin after all. Remove all this cruft and what is left is
basically the three Bourne stories boiled down to one 111-minute
film.
Wright's star Saoirse Ronan (as well as his art director Niall
Moroney) is a veteran of Wright's ATONEMENT. In that film Ronan
played a precocious young girl who discovered that she actually
could do some real damage. Here she is a little older and can do a
lot more damage. Blanchett is always good, but Bana could be a
little more forceful. I have liked Olivia Williams since THE
POSTMAN and "Dollhouse", but here she is not given much of interest
to do.
In the end HANNA is more about its cinematic style than it is about
its core plot. That story has been done before and better. Take
away the look of the film and it is just an unimaginative and
mindless action film. I rate HANNA a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or
6/10.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993842/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hanna/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE PALACE OF LOVE by Jack Vance (book review by Dale
L. Skran, Jr.)
Jack Vance is a writer who seems to have grown in the estimation of
the literary community over time (see, for example THE GENRE ARTIST
by Carlo Rotella in "The New York Times Magazine", July 15, 2009).
Best known among science fiction fans for Hugo winners such as THE
DRAGON MASTERS and THE LAST CASTLE, he is not one of my childhood
favorites. However, at some point in my exploration of dark
fantasy I discovered Vance's THE DYING EARTH series and found it
strange but interesting. Vance speaks with a voice unlike the
plain prose of a Heinlein or the talky writing of Asimov--a lyrical
turn of the phrase setting him apart from the more beloved and
better known of the great SF writers.
However, there was one series I did read as a youth--"The Star
Kings"--five short novels telling the tale of one Kirth Gersen as
he systematically hunts down five bizarre evil-doers who murdered
his entire family (other than his grandfather, who trained him up
as an assassin). Skilled in the arts of death and trickery, and
focused on the single goal of revenge, he hunts five artists of
sadism across the galaxy. Alas, I was never able to find the third
book in the series, but thanks to the wonders of Amazon and the
Internet, I recently acquired and read it--THE PALACE OF LOVE.
I wondered if I would still find it readable; it wore the years
quite well. The general formula of each book is that Gersen,
rather like James Bond, travels to a number of exotic places and/or
cultures following a trail of clues toward one of the Demon
Princes. The target of this novel is one Viole Falushe, whose main
obsession turns out to be revenge on a young woman who spurned his
affections when he was a youth. This revenge turns out to be a
bit more subtle than you might expect from this sort of tale, and
Falushe proves ruthless and clever as well. However, eventually
Gersen gets an invite to the fabulous Palace of Love, and engineers
a final confrontation with the elusive Falushe, who up to this
point has concealed his true appearance, allowing him to hide in
plain sight.
Gersen stories turn more on exotic travels, impassioned yet
literate conversations, and colorful characters than violence, but
occasionally deliver brief sequences of hard-core action showing
Gersen as an ice-cold killer, for example at one point casually
dumping a henchman out the door of an aircar to his death.
Gersen's loneliness and necessary detachment from women is a
recurring theme of the series, also echoing in some part the Bond
stories. Finally, I expected the Palace of Love to be little more
than a brothel, but it turns out to be something quite different,
at least in part.
The technology projection wears surprisingly well, with a detailed
picture of humanity spread across a vast, alien galaxy, mutated by
cultural evolution into a thousand forms, yet all still familiar to
the reader. This is a decadent future, full of odd and forbidden
pleasures, but it still seems a possible future. The full list of
the "Star Kings" novels includes THE STAR KING, THE KILLING
MACHING, THE PALACE OF LOVE, THE FACE and THE BOOK OF DREAMS.
Recommended to those who like this sort of thing, or to fans of
Jack Vance in general. It does not seem to be available in a kindle
version, but it was printed fully twice, once by Berkeley Medallion
and once by DAW, and seems to also be available in a two-volume
reprint series from Orb in 1997, so you should not have too much
trouble finding it on Amazon. [-dls]
==================================================================
TOPIC: LA FEMME NIKITA Redux (a mega-compendium review by Dale
L. Skran, Jr.)
LA FEMME NIKITA (1990) [French]
POINT OF NO RETURN (THE ASSASSIN) (1993) [Warner Bros.]
LA FEMME NIKKITA (1997 TV Series on USA Network--4.5 seasons)
ALIAS (2001 TV series on ABC--5 seasons)
NIKITA (2010 TV Series on CW--currently in first season)
In a previous review in the MT VOID I covered one of my favorite SF
TV shows--ALIAS. I have also, to the best of my recollection,
previously reviewed the original 1990 French LA FEMME NIKITA, in
the Leepercon fanzine, or possibly in the MT VOID. It is not my
intention to recapitulate these reviews, but to put them in the
broader context of what has become a cottage industry of Nikita
spin-offs and derivatives. To facilitate this discussion, I will
refer to the original film as LFN1, the American remake as PONR,
the first TV series as LFN-TV1, and the second TV series as NIKITA-
TV2.
These days it is easily possible to quickly read up on a movie or
TV show in Wikipedia, and I assume you are capable of doing so, so
I will avoid repeating basic facts, actors names, etc. and focus
the general story. Setting LFN1 as our starting point, we should
recall that this original Nikita was, prior to her transformation
into a well-mannered assassin, a drugged-addled junkie and stone-
cold killer. Early in her training she is shown a large array of
guns, picks one up, and neatly blows dozens of holes in a distant
bull's-eye. Asked if she has even shot a gun before, she replies,
"Never at a paper target." This Nikita does not need to be trained
to be dangerous--she IS dangerous!
LFN1 tells the dark fairy tale of the transformation of this
frightening yet pitiful girl into a tastefully dressed yet ruthless
assassin by an unnamed French intelligence agency. The movie
recalls Shaw's PYGMALIION, in which Professor Henry Higgins trains
a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass as a duchess, with
the added twist that behind the girl's improved diction is a
license to kill. I have always considered this film the best
European action movie I have ever seen, and one of the best and
most realistic spy movies ever made. Nikita is a cog in a big
machine, sometimes asked to simply deliver a bomb to a room while
posing as a hotel housekeeper but at other times actually pulling
the trigger, killing an anonymous target.
Nikita does well in her assignments, and begins to enjoy her new
life, even falling in love. Alas, she does so well that she
eventually becomes responsible for planning her own operations, one
of which goes horribly awry, necessitating the involvement of a
psychotic "cleaner," an encounter in which she barely survives. The
film ends on a downbeat note, with Nikita on the run, her boyfriend
knowing she is lost to him forever, and her handler knowing that he
will never know her true feelings for him.
This perfectly excellent film was then remade with an American
actress (Bridget Fonda), sadly lacking much of the charm of the
original while still hewing closely to the overall structure of the
first movie. This might well have been the graveyard of Nikita,
but it turns out that it was then made into a TV series starring
Peta Wilson as Nikita. Al Gopin long ago recommended this series
to me, but it was only recently that I acquired the first two
seasons for a cheap price and started watching it. Although this
series is quite different from the films, it has a charm all of its
own.
LFN-TV1 transforms the original concept in numerous ways, resulting
in an interesting but morally divergent tale. However, we should
first place these films in the context of reality. One of the
really old problems of power is how to get other people to kill
your enemies, especially when they are put at great risk personally
in doing so. There have been many solutions to this problem over
the ages. In the time of the Assassins the "Old Man of the
Mountain" relied on a combination of training, religious
fanaticism, and hashish to motivate young men as killers. Murder
for money is a long-time staple, but the results are decidedly
mixed. To my best understanding, the Russian KGB relied on
psychotics carefully guided by sane men to do their "wetwork." Of
course, such tools are even more unreliable than paid assassins
are. Of the ham-fisted methods of the CIA, the less said the
better. Most recently, Al Qaeda returned to religious fanaticism
to motivate the 9/11 terrorists. In film fiction, brainwashing
produces loyal but professional assassins as in THE BOURNE
IDENTITY, but such methods appear completely imaginary. The truth
of all this is that the most reliable approach is that taken by the
Old Man of the Mountain and Bin Laden--recruit young but weak-
minded men, inculcate them in religious fanaticism and an ideology
of grievance, make sure they know only a closed life of training,
and apply them to a target before they think too much.
The notion put forward in LFN1 is that this problem might be solved
by taking condemned murderers and putting them through a suitable
training program that features both carrots (money, possibility of
a well paid job, freedom from prosecution, etc.) and sticks (brutal
punishment, death) as motivations. Whether any actual intelligence
agency has taken this approach I have no idea, but in Hollywood it
seems to be preferred. Certainly this is only a modest
enhancement over how the French Foreign Legion operated.
In LFN-TV1 it is used by an American intelligence agency called
simply "Section 1." Section 1 appears to be associated with the
United States government, but it operates outside of all those
pesky Congressional oversight hearings, and unlike the real CIA
seems in the main quite competent. It is called on not only to
"cancel" a variety of terrorist threats, but also to act as judge,
jury, and executioner for CIA agents that stray. Run ruthlessly by
an older, white-haired Vietnam veteran known only as "Operations"
and "Madeline," his profiler, strategist, and chief torturer,
Section 1 frames Nikita for murder and then offers her a new life
as one of their agents. The running theme is that Nikita is really
an innocent forced into a new and brutal life, albeit one that she
rapidly adapts too, although she constantly comes into conflict
with her bosses with her attempts to protect other innocents.
Still, Section 1 is not all bad, and it does have its own moral
compass. In one episode Nikita is assigned to review the
performance of a new recruit that is ready to graduate to being a
field operative, and it is made quite clear that a thumbs down will
lead directly to the "cancellation" of the recruit. Reluctantly
Nikita recommends cancellation after finding the recruit is a
blood-crazed psycho, only to discover that Operations/Madeline have
*already* decided on cancellation, and the real test was of Nikita-
-did she both have what it takes to recommend cancellation, and
also the moral clarity to realize that it was the best course of
action.
Nikita is assisted by two technical support people: Birkoff, who
does communications and computer work, and Walter (costumed as a
gray-haired hippie!) who provides weapons. She is often supported
by her original trainer, Michael, with whom there are some romantic
sparks. Nikita is quite competent, but not, at least in the first
season, anything other than a competent agent. Section 1 has some
advanced technology, like virtual screens that float in the air,
but for the most part the technology seems ordinary for this type
of story. The most jarring thing about the show is that all the
villains seem to be white folks, mostly of Russian origin. This
may have something to do with the actors available in Canada, or
with a kind of blindness we all suffered from prior to 9/11. It
should also be noted that although the computer technology in the
show was probably beyond state of the art for 1997, by 2011
standards it seems quite dated.
I am given to understand that a lot happens in the later seasons,
and that more advanced technology is introduced, but it does not
appear that this technology is a major theme of the LFN-TV1. A bit
into LFN-TV1 production of ALIAS must have started, as broadcasts
of ALIAS began in 2001. As a long time ALIAS fan, I was surprised
to see how much J. J. Abrams borrowed from LFN-TV1 in making ALIAS.
It is relatively easy to map the structure of LFN-TV1 into ALIAS.
Operations becomes Arvin Sloan, and Madeline the elder Bristow.
The two LFN-TV1 technical support characters are merged into
Marshall Finkman, and Michael becomes Michael Vaughn and Marcus
Dixon, Sidney's partner. Finally, Nikita has a neighbor and friend
who greatly resembles Sidney's best friend and roommate, Francie
Calfo. The ruthlessness of Section 1 is fully matched by that of
SD6. Of course, there are many differences as well. ALIAS is
greatly concerned about family, questions of identity, speculative
technology, questions of loyalty, and destiny while LFN-TV1 is
revolves more around ethical dilemmas.
Perhaps the most important difference is that Sidney is not just a
very good operative, but someone who has been subject to "Project
Christmas," her father's secret program for training children to be
super-agents. Sidney is an intuitive genius, with higher scores
than almost anyone, a mastery of languages to rival Scrooge McDuck,
a near-eidetic memory, and a prowess with weapons that would make
James Bond envious. Much of this can be attributed to her
parentage. Her father, Jack Bristow, is a top CIA field agent and
strategic expert, virtually impervious to torture, and possessing a
cold self-control that is almost superhuman. Her mother, Irina, is
a top KGB agent distinguished by that fact that she tricked Jack
Bristow into marrying her, with miscellaneous skills including the
ability to use yoga techniques to maintain muscle tone while
trapped in a tiny cell. As if this was not enough, it is strongly
implied that Sidney is either a direct descendant or a creation of
a long-ago genius and prophet named Milo Rambaldi, who has an
unknown plan for her destiny. If she is related to Rambaldi, she
would be a direct descendant of someone who is most probably an
ancient super-genius who either traveled backward in time from the
future or had the ability to foretell accurately the future. The
net of all this is that Sidney Bristow is no ordinary girl-spy!
At this point we are well over the edge of reality as girl spies
go, but ALIAS has led to further entries in this general theme of
super-girl spies, notably Joss Whedon's DOLLHOUSE and J. J.
Abrams's FRINGE. In DOLLHOUSE, Echo is a post-human with dozens of
personalities possessing a vast range of abilities "printed" over
her original personality. In FRINGE Olivia has been treated with
Cortexiphan as child, giving her the ability, when in the correct
mental state, to move between dimensions. I have reviewed both
programs previously in the MTVOID, and I refer you to my previous
articles.
To complete our recap of the Nikita industry, just recently a new
show, Nikita, has started running on the CW. In this reboot,
Nikita has left her agency, which is, unlike Section 1, an actual
rogue operation along the lines of SD6 but now simply called
"Division," although with a management team similar to that of
Section 1. She hits upon the scheme of finding another drug-addled
waif, Alex, training her as an agent herself, and then using Alex
to infiltrate the agency that trained Nikita, with the intention of
bring it to justice.
Nikita is played by the Asian-American action star Maggie Q, while
Alex resembles Nikita in the original movie. In the general theme
of a double-agent trying to bring down a rogue spy group, it
derives more from ALIAS than from previous Nikita efforts. For
example, as in ALIAS, Division has murdered Nikita's fiancé. I've
watched a few episodes, but it does not seem to have the allure of
the initial movie, the Petra Kelly TV show, or ALIAS. It is,
however, a competent and well-directed action TV show that many
will find entertaining.
So, to recap:
LFN1--great movie, R-rated for European style violence and sex, not
for kids.
PONR--watchable but not great American remake, also R-rated
LFN-TV1--somewhat divergent but quite interesting cable TV show,
cable TV soft nudity and violence, older teens and up only.
NIKITA-TV2--less interesting but still mildly entertaining current
CW TV show. You should probably wait to see if it gets better.
[-dls]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Hugo and Campbell Awards Nominees
A few notes:
BLACKOUT/ALL CLEAR form one novel in two volumes. The Short Story
category had only four nominees; nothing else met the 5% cut-off
rule. "F**k Me, Ray Bradbury" is available on YouTube with sign-up,
or http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/70bf2e4f05/f**k-me-ray- bradbury
with no sign-up (you need to replace the "**" in the latter URL).
"The Lost Thing" won an Oscar this year.
BEST NOVEL
CRYOBURN, Lois McMaster Bujold
FEED, Mira Grant
THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, N. K. Jemisin
THE DERVISH HOUSE, Ian McDonald
BLACKOUT/ALL CLEAR, Connie Willis
BEST NOVELLA
THE LIFECYCLE OF SOFTWARE OBJECTS, Ted Chiang
"The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon",
Elizabeth Hand (STORIES)
"The Sultan of the Clouds", Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov's 9/10)
"Troika", Alastair Reynolds (GODLIKE MACHINES)
"The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window",
Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer 2010)
BEST NOVELETTE
"The Jaguar House, in Shadow", Aliette de Bodard (Asimov's 7/10)
"Plus or Minus", James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's 12/10)
"Eight Miles", Sean McMullen (Analog 9/10)
"The Emperor of Mars", Allen M. Steele (Asimov's 6/10)
"That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made", Eric James Stone
(Analog 9/10)
BEST SHORT STORY
"Ponies", Kij Johnson (Tor.com 11/17/10)
"For Want of a Nail", Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov's 12/10)
"Amaryllis", Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed 6/10)
"The Things", Peter Watts (Clarkesworld 1/10)
BEST RELATED WORK
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN: IN DIALOGUEWITH HIS CENTURY: VOLUME 1
(1907-1948): Learning Curve, William H. Patterson, Jr.
THE BUSINESS OF SCIENCE FICTION: TWO INSIDERS DISCUSS WRITING
AND PUBLISHING, Mike Resnick & Barry N. Malzberg
WRITING EXCUSES, SEASON 4, Brandon Sanderson, Jordan Sanderson,
Howard Tayler, Dan Wells
CHICKS DIG TIME LORDS: A CELEBRATION OF DOCTOR WHO BY THE WOMEN
WHO LOVE IT, Lynne M. Thomas & Tara O'Shea, eds.
BEARINGS: REVIEWS 1997-2001, Gary K. Wolfe
BEST GRAPHIC STORY
The Unwritten, Vol. 2: Inside Man, Mike Carey; art by Peter Gross
Girl Genius, Volume 10: Agatha Heterodyne and the Guardian Muse,
Phil & Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio
Grandville Mon Amour, Bryan Talbot
Schlock Mercenary: Massively Parallel, Howard Tayler
Fables: Witches, Bill Willingham; art by Mark Buckingham
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, LONG FORM
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
INCEPTION
SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD
TOY STORY 3
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, SHORT FORM
DOCTOR WHO: "A Christmas Carol"
DOCTOR WHO: "The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang"
DOCTOR WHO: "Vincent and the Doctor"
"F**k Me, Ray Bradbury"
"The Lost Thing"
BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR, LONG FORM
Lou Anders
Ginjer Buchanan
Moshe Feder
Liz Gorinsky
Nick Mamatas
Beth Meacham
Juliet Ulman
BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR, SHORT FORM
John Joseph Adams
Stanley Schmidt
Jonathan Strahan
Gordon Van Gelder
Sheila Williams
BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST
Daniel Dos Santos
Bob Eggleton
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio
Shaun Tan
BEST SEMIPROZINE
Clarkesworld
Interzone
Lightspeed
Locus
Weird Tales
BEST FANZINE
Banana Wings
Challenger
The Drink Tank
File 770
StarShipSofa
BEST FAN WRITER
James Bacon
Claire Brialey
Christopher J Garcia
James Nicoll
Steven H Silver
BEST FAN ARTIST
Brad W. Foster
Randall Munroe
Maurine Starkey
Steve Stiles
Taral Wayne
JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST NEW WRITER [NOT A HUGO AWARD]*
Saladin Ahmed
Lauren Beukes
Larry Correia
Lev Grossman
Dan Wells
*All John W. Campbell Award finalists are in their 2nd year of
eligibility.
There were 1,006 nominating ballots received from members of
Renovation and Aussiecon 4. The deadline for online ballots and
receipt of paper ballots is July 31, 2011 (11:59 PDT).
==================================================================
TOPIC: Astronomical Eye Candy (letter of comment by Rob Mitchell)
In response to Mark's pointer to "astronomical eye candy" in the
04/22/11 issue of the MT VOID, Rob Mitchell writes:
The Astronomical Eye Candy has been displaced by this disclaimer:
This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by
British Broadcasting Corporation. [-rlm]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THIS ISLAND EARTH (letter of comment by Dan Kimmel)
Mark recaps:
Last issue discussing the novel and film THIS ISLAND EARTH, I said,
"By WWII imperialism did not work quite the same way. The Americans
were fighting a war in the Pacific. They needed island bases to
fight and defend against the Japanese. Without consulting the
natives they would set up bases on the islands and bring in modern
technology. These islands were just a tiny part of the big war.
Some of the natives the Americans would perhaps help them in the
war effort. But whether they liked it or not everyone on the
island had become a combatant and could justifiably be attacked by
the other side. Some of the helpers would see technology like
nothing they had ever seen before. Raymond F. Jones took a cue
from Wells and wrote his stories about what it was like to be a
native on one of these islands. How do we like it when this
island, Earth, becomes a minuscule part in an interstellar war?
Jones makes clear in the novel that that is what he is writing
about.... I don't think I would see the anti-imperialism in either
film [THIS ISLAND EARTH or WAR OF THE WORLDS] if I didn't know to
look for it." [-mrl]
Daniel Kimmel responds:
Mark, I reveal myself as the person who said THIS ISLAND EARTH is
just an empty special effects film without really having anything
to say. And I thank you for your essay which brilliantly concedes
the argument to me. I accept your concession.
How did you concede? You base your argument entirely on the book
the movie is based upon, an admission that you can't find any of
that actually IN the film. This is not the place for a discussion
of books vs. movies. Sometimes the book is better, sometimes the
movie is better. However each work has to stand on its own and,
taken on its own, THIS ISLAND EARTH has nothing to so say. It's a
shaggy dog story in which nothing changes for the human characters
even after to being taken to Metaluna and back. Except for a few
scientists, no one on Earth is inconvenienced or even aware that
the space war is even going on. The Pacific Islanders caught
between American and Japanese forces may not have understood what
it was about, but they were directly impacted by it.
Now a movie that was dismissed by many that actually did have a
message along the lines you suggest is the recent "Battle: Los
Angeles" in which the Americans learn what it's like to be on the
wrong end of a "shock and awe" campaign by technologically superior
forces.
To end on a note of agreement, you're spot on about "The Day the
Earth Stood Still." Once the Christian symbolism is pointed out
it's rather hard to miss. [-dk]
And Mark responds:
Yes, our discussion was what suggested last week's article. I
think we are in violent accord. We both agree that by seeing the
film alone it is hard to find what Raymond F. Jones, the author of
the novel, was driving at. I know I didn't and said I didn't last
week. Somehow that theme got muted going from Jones's book to
Franklin Coen's and Edward G. O'Callaghan's screenplay to Joseph
M. Newman's film. Whether one can see anything of that message in
the resulting film may vary from person to person and imagination
to imagination. I did say that that inspiration would not have
occurred to me from seeing the film alone without having read the
book, but having read it I can see that idea in the film. I just
thought it was an interesting point and worth sharing. But I do
(continue to) concede that like myself some people will see no more
in the film than an empty science fiction exercise. For me the
film has always been sort of a fun sci-fi ride and any depth to the
film has always been secondary. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Girl Scout Cookies (letter of comment by Vince Guinto)
In response to Kip Williams's comments on Girl Scout Cookies in the
02/25/11 issue of the MT VOID, Vince Guinto writes, "Thank you,
Kip! I have tried describing the sugar-topped Trefoils to several
people, all roughly the same age as myself, so I assumed they would
have had similar experiences with Girl Scout cookies. But all I
ever get in response are blank stares. I was beginning to doubt my
recollection, but you have reassured me that those cookies actually
existed. I would also buy them again." [-vg]
==================================================================
TOPIC: PLANET OF THE APES (letters of comment by Kip Williams and
Keith F. Lynch)
In response to Pete Rubinstein's comment on PLANET OF THE APES in
the 04/22/11 issue of the MT VOID ("Given recent developments, are
we sure that the statue seen in PLANET OF THE APES was really the
one in New York? It could have been the statue outside the MGM
Grand in Las Vegas.") and Mark's response ("It's too big for
that.", Kip Williams writes, "Not too big to fail!"
And Keith F. Lynch adds, "The statue seen in PLANET OF THE APES was
on a coast. That rules out Las Vegas unless there was a *lot* of
sea level rise." [-kfl]
Evelyn notes, "Las Vegas is at about 2000 feet." [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: The Last Dangerous MT VOID LoC (letter of comment by Taras
Wolansky)
In response to a lot of past issues of the MT VOID, Taras Wolansky
writes:
[Starting with his title for this letter:] (So named because I keep
adding comments to it, as new issues of MT VOID come out, and never
seem to get finished!)
The classic story of which Frank Leisti was reminded by the movie
SOURCE CODE was James Blish's "Beep" (1954), novelized as THE
QUINCUNX OF TIME (1973).
The casting director of the movie GETTYSBURG probably had more to
do with casting "Third Soldier from the Left" than Joshua
Chamberlain or Robert E. Lee. By the way, I thought Jeff Daniels
was magnificent as the former, and Martin Sheen, a nullity as the
latter. Admittedly, Lee is a character people had a hard time
getting to know, even when he was alive.
[Mark notes: On casting for GETTYSBURG I really don't know. On
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE Phelps could pick who he wanted for his team and
yet the same faces showed up week after week. If you are casting a
Turner movie you have certain actors who show up a lot and who you
might be likely to pick again. But you might still have the
freedom of choice. That would explain why Sam Eliot shows up. I
am a bit surprised they did not have Tom Selleck. -mrl]
We also got cost-cut from a suburban building with private offices
to an urban one with cubicles--but then the cost-cutting continued
to hot-bunking the cubicles, by letting people work from home five
days out of every ten. Yessss!!! (If they ever change the policy
back, I'll probably retire.)
[Mark notes: Hot-bunking cubicles? Cubicles are cheap enough.
Having to share desks with someone else is pretty low. -mrl]
Dickens may have been an influence on Tolkien as well, but it is
said that the real source of Hobbit names was Kentucky:
"Practically all the names of Tolkien's hobbits are listed in my
Lexington phone book, and those that aren't can be found over in
Shelbyville. Like as not, they grow and cure pipe-weed for a
living. Talk with them, and their turns of phrase are pure hobbit:
'I hear tell,' 'right agin,' 'so Mr. Frodo is his first and second
cousin, once removed either way,' 'this very month as is.' These
are English locutions, of course, but ones that are heard oftener
now in Kentucky than in England."
http://tinyurl.com/void-hobbits/
[Mark notes: The Tolkien-Kentucky connection is fascinating. -mrl]
I get the impression that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost did no actual
research about creationism before they used it in their movie,
PAUL. They seem to think that hard-line creationists believe the
world was created 4000 years ago: actually, it's 4000 B.C. (4004
B.C. according to Bishop Ussher). If they had done any research,
maybe they would have learned about the Creation Museum, which has
got to be a real mother lode of humor! However, it does seem
likely that a creationist would tend to interpret Paul the alien as
a demon. And the visions he grants would remind her of Satan
tempting Jesus on the mountain top.
The review of Sergei Eisenstein's IVAN was very amusing. I now
understand that "Terrible" is not part of Eisenstein's title, but a
description of the film! Sounds like it deserves the MST3K
treatment
I'm a fan of 3D movies but, after seeing the trailer for MARS NEEDS
MOMS several times, I decided to give it a go-by--until I got
curious about why it turned out to be a monumental flop.
I found the film dismal, in more than one sense of the term. The
Mars it gives us is grim and gray, and the filmmakers made lots of
bad decisions. The little boy hero is unattractive. His kidnapped
mom is voiced by the great Joan Cusack, but looks merely bland and
generic. The stranded human the boy meets on Mars is an annoying
and repulsive imitation of the late John Candy--though I suppose
dedicated John Candy fans may enjoy the character more than I did.
The title is such as to attract very young viewers, but the film
seems to be designed to confuse them. Certainly all the 1980s
references will go right over their heads. Worse, it includes a
scene in which the Martians murder (disintegrate) a little boy's
mother right before his eyes.
[Mark notes: And I am pleased you commented on MARS NEEDS MOMS. I
have to expect to enjoy a film before I pay to see it. (Which
skews the distribution of my ratings in the positive direction.)
At no point from first hearing the title to reading your comments
was there anything appealing about this film. -mrl]
Dale Skran is on the wrong track, citing the Constitution to
contradict the assertion that leftists more often rely on great
leaders than great documents. The Constitution that leftists
revere is the "living" Constitution--which, as Prof. Walter
Williams likes to say, is really a dead Constitution, because it
can easily be reinterpreted to mean whatever leftists want it to
mean at a particular moment. One can always find a "penumbra of an
emanation" of the Constitution, to paraphrase liberal Justice
William O. Douglas (who was not kidding).
A conservative Justice asks what the Constitution says about a
particular issue; a liberal Justice asks how the Constitution can
be made to serve the cause of social justice. Indeed, a liberal
Justice would consider it unethical to permit the text of the
Constitution to get in the way of social justice or other desirable
goals.
Thus, the FDR Court's ruling that growing wheat for your personal
use constitutes "interstate commerce". Thus, nude dancing is
constitutionally protected free speech--but criticizing politicians
isn't (campaign finance reform, the Fairness Doctrine). Another
example: I was recently gratified to learn that liberal Justice
Ginsburg believed as I do, that eugenics and population control
motivated the Roe v. Wade decision (though I think she now says she
has changed her mind).
In effect, the Constitution becomes a collection of blank checks
that the Supreme Court writes itself, and the Court, a permanent
sitting Constitutional Convention. So we're back to "great
leaders" again: our only guarantee of liberty is how our unelected
"delegates" choose to vote, from one day to the next.
Finally, responding to Evelyn, the Constitutional doctrine of
"original intent" does not place "individuals above the principles
expressed in the documents". For example, to understand what the
First Amendment meant when it banned the Federal Government from
creating or interfering with religious establishments, one needs to
know the specific legal meaning of the term "religious
establishment" at the time.
By the way, few people today understand that the First Amendment
did not ban religious establishments in the states, which continued
to exist for another fifty years. It's only in the 20th century
that the Supreme Court rewrote the First Amendment, inverting its
meaning. (See "permanent sitting Constitutional Convention",
above.)
[Mark notes: I would not limit the people who re-interpret the
Constitution to leftists. Some on the Right revise with surgical
accuracy. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the
security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear
Arms, shall not be infringed." Many rightists want a right to bear
arms, but are not so keen on militias being well regulated. But it
is no surprise that people take freedom in reinterpreting the
Constitution, they take probably more freedom reinterpreting the
Bible. As I have said "The greatest political opportunist of all
time has to be God. Somehow He always manages to say just exactly
what His audience is predisposed to believe." -mrl]
As always, MT VOID is a blast. [-tw]
[And Mark replies, "We try." -mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
MONTANO'S MALADY by Enrique Vila-Matas (translated by Jonathan
Dunne) (ISBN 978-0-8112-1628-9) was written in 2002, but not
translated into English until 2007. I reviewed Vila-Matas's
earlier work, BARTLEBY & CO., in my article on the course "The
International Legacy of Jorge Luis Borges. In that book, Vila-
Matas wrote about something he called "The Literature of No": the
phenomenon of writers who write one book, or a few short stories or
poems, and are well-received, and people look forward to their next
work--but they never write anything else. In MONTANO'S MALADY, he
appears to refer to this work, but as NOTHING EVER AGAIN.
As he did with BARTLEBY & CO., Vila-Matas fills MONTANO'S MALADY
with a mix of real authors and imaginary ones, all presented as
real. So Jorge Luis Borges is real, but Teixeira, the author who
stopped writing and started teaching laughter therapy, is not.
Danilo Kis and THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE DEAD is real, but Felipe
Tongoy, an actor who is a distant relative of Bela Lugosi and looks
like a vampire, is not. Henry Frédéric Amiel is real, but Margot
Valerí, the South American aviator, is not. And so on. Fernando
Pessoa is real, but had so many pseudonyms, or heteronyms, that one
might put him somewhere between real and imaginary.
But even more, in the second part of the book, Vila-Matas tells us
that he is an unreliable narrator and that many of the things he
has told us in the first part are not true. But in fact, some of
the things that he re-iterates are true are not true, so he is even
more unreliable than he seems. And while Kafka is real, when Vila-
Matas says of him, "He said that he felt like a stranger [at home],
although he had great love for his family, parents, and sisters,"
there is someone being mendacious here. Kafka famously had no love
for his father; it is not clear from Vila-Matas's sentence whether
Kafka or Vila-Matas is saying that Kafka had this great love for
his parents, but whoever it is appears to be lying.
All in all, Vila-Matas uses an assortment of literary references,
tricks, and deceptions to produce a labyrinthine novel. But all
these references have another (probably unintended) result: they
remind us how every language has its own literary background, and
the cross-overs are a small minority of it. For example, for
English-speakers, the background includes a vast number of authors
who wrote in English, but of authors who wrote in Russian only
Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Solzhenitsyn, and some of Gogol,
Turgenev, and Pushkin. Russian readers have a much larger Russian
background to draw on, but do not have Andrew Marvel, Robert
Browning, or any number of important but lesser English or American
authors. So when an English speaker reads a translation of a
Spanish author who makes all sorts of references to Spanish-
language authors (especially modern ones), the English speaker is
going to have trouble identifying the real from the imaginary--
almost all will be unfamiliar.
BARTLEBY & CO. and MONTANO'S MALADY are considered the first two
books of a triptych; the final one, DOCTOR PASAVENTO, has not yet
been translated into English, but I'm looking forward to it.
You would think that brain teasers and logic puzzles are things
that do not become outdated, but one of the puzzles in THE GREAT
BOOK OF MIND TEASERS & MIND PUZZLES by George J. Summers (ISBN
0-8069-6320-4) is a counter-example. On page 18 of this book
(published in 1985) is the following puzzle:
Lee, Dale, and Terry are related to each other. Among the
three are Lee's legal spouse, Dale's sibling, and Terry's
sister-in-law. Lee's legal spouse and Dale's sibling are of
the same sex. Who do you know is a married man?
They claim this has a unique solution, with Dale as Lee's spouse
and a married man. They rule out Terry as Lee's spouse, because
then Terry and Lee would be two men married to each other.
Like I said, you would think that brain teasers and logic puzzles
are things that do not become outdated, but you would be wrong.
(And before you quibble about various states, the book was
published in New York, which does recognize, though not perform,
same-sex marriages.) [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Man is the only animal that can remain on
friendly terms with the victims he intends
to eat until he eats them.
--Samuel Butler