Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
01/15/21 -- Vol. 39, No. 29, Whole Number 2154
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, *mleeper@optonline.net *
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, *eleeper@optonline.net *
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Topics:
Mini Reviews, Part 4 (TOTALLY UNDER CONTROL, SLAY THE DRAGON,
FEELS GOOD MAN) (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper)
THE LODGE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
INTERLIBRARY LOAN by Gene Wolfe (book review by Joe Karpierz
Biopics and RADIOACTIVE (letters of comment by Gary McGath,
Peter Trei, Scott Dorsey, and John Halpenny)
Biopics and RADIOACTIVE (letters of comment by Gary McGath,
Peter Trei, Scott Dorsey, and John Halpenny)
Weather in Texas, Incorrect Dates, RADIOACTIVE and
THE AERONAUTS, and Solar Pons (letter of comment
by John Purcell)
This Week's Reading (W. Somerset Maugham's COLLECTED STORIES
(VOLUME 2)) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 4 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper)
Here is the fourth batch of mini-reviews, three documentaries
connected with politics. Apparently, while the production of
narrative films slowed down this year, that of documentaries was
not as affected, and no one is delaying the release of their latest
blockbuster documentary because of the pandemic. In fact, the
pandemic, and the election year, probably resulted in even more
documentaries than usual.
TOTALLY UNDER CONTROL: This documentary takes a comprehensive and
convincing look at COVID-19 from its scientific underpinnings to
its political ramifications. Controversies are covered in detail,
and there is a strong political dimension in the narrative. I will
not say whether I agree or disagree (but somebody sure said
something right). It did not waste time but came to the point and
explained it. Released 10/13/20; available on Hulu. Rating: low
+3 (-4 to +4)
SLAY THE DRAGON: This is a documentary about the fight against
gerrymandering. There are a few too many sequences of young
politicians running around and screaming. On the whole, this is a
relatively familiar format (talking heads), though it does have to
convey a complicated mathematical situation. Released 04/03/20;
available on Amazon Prime and on DVD from Netflix. Rating: +2 (-4
to +4)
FEELS GOOD MAN: Essentially this is the story about three full-
grown men who, needing excitement in life, built themselves a sort
of tree house for adults. Matt Furie created Pepe the Frog as a
children's character, but a right-wing movement chose it to
represent them. Furie had initially been sanguine about other
artists using Pepe without permission, but this appropriation was
too much. Released 10/19/20; available on Amazon Prime. Rating:
low +1 (-4 to +4)
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE LODGE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
THE LODGE is a production from Hammer Films. Hammer was a British
company that specialized in horror and science fiction from the mid
1950s to the late 1970s. In 2008 Hammer came back or (as many
claim) a modern production company acquired the right to use the
Hammer name. The new Hammer has even taken images from the
original Hammer's films as part of their logo. Their first film
was the obscure BEYOND THE RAVE, but their second was the much
better known English-language version of John Ajvide Lindqvist's
novel LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. That novel had been adapted in 2008 by
Tomas Alfredson into a Swedish language film with the same title as
the novel. This re-use of other material makes sense since Hammer
won their stripes making English cinema versions of television
shows and American horror franchises.
Frankly I do not care if they really are or are not the original
Hammer. They are making movies in the best tradition of Hammer
Films. They are not in the same style, but they are solid genre
films made intelligently to make the most of a smallish budget.
That is the best tradition of the original Hammer. Even if they
only bought the name, they are doing well by it.
THE LODGE is their eighth film. A frozen environment is the
setting, leaving the viewer with a chilled feeling. Two children,
their stepmom-to-be, and a dog are trapped in an isolated New
England cabin in the woods during a blizzard. (The father has
taken the car to go back to the city.) Compared with old Hammer
horror films, there is more atmosphere, but the same or less
character development. The pacing is slow, perhaps to add to the
feeling of isolation. Soon strange things start happening. While
not quite up to Hammer's LET ME IN or THE WOMAN IN BLACK, it has
its moments.
Released 02/07/20; available on Amazon Prime. Rating: high +1
(-4 to +4)
The new Hammer Films productions are:
BEYOND THE RAVE (2008)
LET ME IN (2010)
THE RESIDENT (2011)
WAKE WOOD (2011)
THE WOMAN IN BLACK (2012)
THE QUIET ONES (2014)
THE WOMAN IN BLACK: ANGEL OF DEATH (2015)
THE LODGE (2019)
Film credits: *https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7347846/reference
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7347846/reference*
What others are saying:
*https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lodge
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lodge*
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: INTERLIBRARY LOAN by Gene Wolfe (copyright 2020, Tor, $25.99
harcover, 238pp, ISBN 978-1-250-24236-5) (book review by Joe
Karpierz)
INTERLIBRARY LOAN is the sequel to 2015's A BORROWED MAN, and is
the final novel of Gene's Wolfe's outstanding and celebrated
career. The novel continues the story of a reclone of a mystery
novelist named Ern A. Smithe. You may remember that a reclone is a
being that has been cloned from the original, and in fact there can
be and often are many copies of the reclone. Reclones reside in
libraries, and can be checked out just like any other book, and
must be returned like any other book. And just like any other
book, the more a reclone is checked out, the longer it stays in the
library. If a reclone isn't checked out often enough, it is
removed from the library by being sent to the Fire.
The new story has Ern A. Smithe getting sent to a libary in small
town Polly's Cove on an interlibrary loan along with a cookbook
writer--Millie--and a romance writer--Rose. Ern is checked out of
the library by a girl name Chandra on behalf of her mother, Adah
Fevre. There are a couple of mysteries for Ern to get involved
with here. The first is that Adah's husband Barry, an anatomy
professor, has been missing for several years. The second is a
book that contains a map which appears to mystical powers. Adah
hopes that Ern can help her with these mysteries, as the last copy
of Ern that she check out from the library was unable to help her
with the problem.
And that's just the beginning.
After poking around at the university where Barry taught, Ern
charters a boat to head to Corpse Island, where Barry supposedly
gets cadavers to aid in teaching his anatomy class. Along with
Ern, Auda, and Chandra comes another reclone named Audrey who is
known for her seafaring exploration books and exploits. The group
encounters a surprise during their journey (it would be spoilers, I
suppose, to say what the surprise is, but I suspect that it's not
hard to figure out) to the island, where they discover that the
residents have been burying their dead in ice caves for hundreds of
years. Other things that the reader encounters include a magical
box that seems to shift realities, a portal to another world that
reminds the reader of the portal from A BORROWED MAN, the discovery
of the death of the aforementioned prior version of Ern A. Smithe,
a western writer reclone, and a hidden treasure, among other
things.
The problem is that the story doesn't seem to fit together very
well, if at all. While it turns into something else entirely--even
though I'm not sure what that something else is--after starting out
as a straightforward mystery, it's hard to discern where Wolfe was
going with all this. The book also ended on something of a
cliffhanger, which leads me to believe that Wolfe intended to write
a third book in the series.
INTERLIBRARY LOAN was turned into the publisher not long before
Wolfe's death. If that is indeed the case, then there was no time
for editing to be done, for plot threads to be tightened up, and
for the story to be made more coherent. It is a book that feels
rushed, and probably was. If so, one could argue that it shouldn't
have been published at all. Then again, as I stated in my review
of A BORROWED MAN, I found reading the classic Gene Wolfe stories
difficult, potentially because I wasn't mature enough as a reader
back then. I think I'm a better reader now than I was then, and
while I could be wrong about this book, I don't feel I am. There
is a Twitter account that says, and I may be paraphrasing here,
"You don't read Gene Wolfe, you reread Gene Wolfe". I will not be
rereading INTERLIBRARY LOAN. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Biopics and RADIOACTIVE (letters of comment by Gary McGath,
Peter Trei, Scott Dorsey, and John Halpenny)
In response to Evelyn's comments on biopics and Mark's review of
AMMONITE in the 01/08/21 issue of the MT VOID, Gary McGath writes:
I don't care very much for biopics, for this reason. If I watch
one, I try to think of it as an alternate-universe version of the
historical people portrayed. [-gmg]
Peter Trei writes:
My favorite bit of Marie Curie trivia is that she was utterly
cavalier about radiation safety. She, her lab, her possessions,
her home became heavily contaminated. In later life, when she
visited other labs, radiation alarms would go off. She and her
husband now lie in the Pantheon in Paris, interred in inch thick
lead coffins.
*https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/02/27/marie-curie/
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/02/27/marie-curie/*
[-pt]
Scott Dorsey replies:
Everybody was at the time, though. Nobody had any idea that this
energy would be harmful. People were carrying around pitchblende
in their pockets, walking around energized x-ray tubes, and
drinking radium water for their health. [-sd]
John Halpenny adds:
Radium was the wonder drug of the time. There is a "Radium Hot
Springs" in Alberta. I was once in Bad Gastein, Austria, and was
told that the naturally radioactive caves were at one time famous
for their healing properties. You could still go in for a form of
radiation therapy if you had a note from your doctor. [-jh]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Weather in Texas, Incorrect Dates, RADIOACTIVE and THE
AERONAUTS, and Solar Pons (letter of comment by John Purcell)
In response to various comments in the 01/08/21 issue of
the MT VOID, John Purcell writes:
I hope you two are doing well today, and that the weather over
there in New Jersey today is better than here in
SouthCentralEastern Texas. At present it is a whopping 35 degrees
Farenheit here, which is about 20 degrees colder than the normal
January temperature in this region. It's also raining as this cold
front zings rapidly through--should be back into the 50s and 60s in
two days--and there is even a chance of snow flurries this evening.
That's going to blow quite a few Texan minds. I consider this
sweater weather. In fact, yesterday when it was in the mid-40s and
the sun was out, which is really nice weather to me, an ex-
Minnesotan, so when I went to Kroger to get a few items I was in
jeans, t-shirt, sneakers, no jacket. It felt great to me. Most of
the native Texans going into and out of the store were dressed up
as if they were part of the Shackleton Expedition. Needless to
say, I garnered some very strange looks. The good news is that
everyone I saw was wearing face masks, so at least that part of the
national situation is seeping through skulls here.
Anyway, a couple comments on the latest MT VOID are in order,
notably your date snafu. Personally, I don't want a do-over of
2020; so far the first week and half of 2021 has not been much of
an improvement. At this point--given what happened in Washington,
DC a few days ago and its ensuing fallout--the only thing that
could improve 2021 right now is whether a large asteroid impacts
Earth or the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts before Easter; the
sooner the better. Life has definitely taken a surreal turn, and I
truthfully do not want to see what happens next.
Valerie and I watched both RADIOACTIVE and THE AERONAUTS on Amazon
Prime on our not-so-new-anymore large screen television, and we
enjoyed them both. As biopics go, they were good, and we thought
that the focus on Marie Curie's personal life, especially the
misogyny of the academic world that she endured, was well done,
giving the viewers more than just the historical viewpoint into her
life's work. I really liked the focus being how her work fit into
her life. A good movie. As for the AERONAUTS, that was pure
escapism based on a real event. Even so, it was fun, and the
visual effects on our 50-inch screen were like being in a private
theater. Very cool! They made you feel as if you were actually on
top of that balloon or floating along in the gondola with the
characters. Taken simply as an adventure film, THE AERONAUTS works
just fine. We have not seen TESLA or AMMONITE yet, but they are
saved on our watchlist. Valerie and I tend to like historical
mash-up biopics, just fyi.
I have always enjoyed Sherlock Holmes stories, whether part of the
original canon or pastiches, and the Solar Pons tales of August
Derleth are very good. I need to find them either online or at our
Half-Price Bookstore.
Holy crap! It started snowing outside. [-jp]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I have returned to W. Somerset Maugham and his COLLECTED STORIES
(VOLUME 2) (Penguin, ISBN 978-0-14-001872-7). These are billed as
being set in the South Seas, though there are some set elsewhere.
Most are novelette length (around 15,000 words, give or take). All
are gems, and usually have a bit of a twist in the end, albeit an
often predictable one.
"The Vessel of Wrath" tells of Miss Jones, a straight-laced
missionary and her attempts to reform (or have deported) Ginger Ted
a drunken reprobate. But the fates conspire to send them together
to a an isolated cholera-ridden island.
In "The Force of Circumstance", while Guy, a white planter from
Malaya, is on vacation in England, he meets and marries Doris and
takes her back to Malaya. She is full of good intentions but
discovers there are aspects of Malaya that she simply cannot adjust
to.
"Flotsam and Jetsam" has another Englishwoman who marries a white
expatriate in Malaya. She expects glamour and excitement in the
jungle, but finds that she has made a big mistake.
On the surface, "The Alien Corn" is a well-known story: someone
wants to undertake an artistic career against his family's wishes,
both sides agree to a trial period at the end of which his talent
will be judged by an expert, and if he is lacking, he will give up
his hopes and follow the family's plans. But there is another
level: the family is Jewish, but has changed their name and hides
their origins, trying to pass themselves off as Englishmen for many
generations.
But the story also raises the question of whether Maugham is
promoting anti-Semitic tropes. Certainly the first-person narrator
seems to do so, but the question is whether those view represent
Maugham's views, or the views held by much of the English
population of the time and placed into his narrator. Not every
first-person narrator is the voice of the author. And in fact
Maugham says this explicitly in a preface to this volume: "... the
'I' who writes is just as much a character in the story as the
other persons with whom it is concerned." Maugham goes on to use
this as an explanation of why the 'I' may be better in some way
than the writer, but it is also a reason not to attribute all the
characteristics of 'I' to the writer.
In this case, however, one can discover that Maugham expressed
anti-Semitic feelings when writing as himself, so one much concede
that these negative views are indeed Maugham's own. Then, of
course, one is left with the question of what to do when an artist
whose work you respect turns out to be (as one person has
understated it) "a jerk." As that person has said, it is much
easier when the artist has been dead for years (and especially if
their work is in public domain), but more difficult if your
continued purchase of their books or music or whatever is putting
money in their pocket. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
*mleeper@optonline.net *
Every time you stop a school, you will have to build
a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other.
It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't
fatten the dog.
--Mark Twain