Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
08/06/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 6, Whole Number 2183
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, *mleeper@optonline.net *
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, *eleeper@optonline.net *
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Topics:
A SCANNER DARKLY Discussion Rescheduled
James Bond Films (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Ursula K. Le Guin Stamp
Pre-Crime Programs Are Here
THE GOD EQUATION (book review by Gregory Frederick)
GIRL IN THE BASEMENT (letters of comment by Paul Dormer
and Keith F. Lynch)
This Week's Reading (KLARA AND THE SUN) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: A SCANNER DARKLY Discussion Rescheduled
The Middletown (NJ) Library discussion of the book and film A
SCANNER DARKLY has been rescheduled from August 5 to August 12,
still at 5:30PM, due to work on the library's HVAC system.
===================================================================
TOPIC: James Bond Films (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
We interrupt these opinions on James Bond films to give you another
(unrelated) opinion on James Bond films, requested by Fred Lerner,
who wrote, "I think I'd like to watch some James Bond movies this
summer. Can you recommend a few that have held up well after all
these years?"
Thank you for a nice succinct question. I would say the best, is
CASINO ROYALE (2006)/QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008), which is really one
story in two parts. The next would be SPECTRE, FROM RUSSIA WITH
LOVE, SKYFALL, and ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. After that
would be DR. NO, but there is a big drop in quality between ON HER
MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE and DR. NO. However, if you add DR. NO
for historic reasons, the "rule-based" answer is "Watch the Daniel
Craig films, watch the first two Sean Connery films, watch the
George Lazenby film, then stop."
Remember that taken out of Cold War context, some Bond films lose a
lot.
Len Deighton's "Harry Palmer" films came from much the same factory
and would rank highly if they were on the same list, so just as a
hint I would recommend THE IPCRESS FILE and FUNERAL IN BERLIN, and
some people like the third (THE BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN). Avoid the
last two (BULLET TO BEIJING and MIDNIGHT IN SAINT PETERSBURG),
which were made-for-TV movies.
For the full answer on James Bond films, here is my list of all the
Eon Bond films in descending order of quality:
1. CASINO ROYALE (2006)
2. SPECTRE
3. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
4. SKYFALL
5. ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE
6. QUANTUM OF SOLACE
7. DR NO
8. THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
9. LICENSE TO KILL
10. GOLDFINGER
11. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
12. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
13. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
14. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
15. OCTOPUSSY
16. THUNDERBALL
17. TOMORROW NEVER DIES
18. GOLDENEYE
19. DIE ANOTHER DAY
20. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
21. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
22. A VIEW TO A KILL
23. MOONRAKER
24. LIVE AND LET DIE
Evelyn adds:
My policy has been to start with DR. NO and watch them all in
chronological order through SPECTRE. Only completists need to
watch NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. Only super-completists used to need
to watch the "Casino Royale" episode of CLIMAX (because it was so
hard to find); now it's on YouTube, and worth a look out of
curiosity if nothing else. Only masochists need to watch the Woody
Allen CASINO ROYALE. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Ursula K. Le Guin Stamp
From *https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/literary-arts-stamp
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/literary-arts-stamp*-
series-honors-cross-genre-author-301342281.html:
The forward-thinking and genre-crossing writings of acclaimed
author Ursula K. Le Guin, whose novels and short stories increased
appreciation of science fiction and fantasy, are being celebrated
with a new Forever stamp--the 33rd in the Postal Service's Literary
Arts series. ...
As an author, Le Guin was interested in more than just science
fiction and her prescient writings are now viewed as more than just
fantasy.
"Ursula once said she wanted to see science fiction step over the
old walls of convention and hit right into the next wall--and start
to break it down, too," said Joseph Corbett, U.S. Postal Service
chief financial officer and executive vice president, who served as
the stamp ceremony's dedicating official. "She felt the ideas
represented in her fiction could help people become more aware of
other ways to do things, other ways to be and to help people wake
up." ...
The stamp features a portrait of Le Guin based on a 2006 photograph
with a background that references the wintry world and characters
she created in "The Left Hand of Darkness." Designed by Donato
Gionacola, with Antonio Alcala as art director, Le Guin's name
appears along the bottom of the stamp. ... News of the Ursula K.
Le Guin stamp is being shared with the hashtag #UrsulaKLeGuinStamp.
===================================================================
TOPIC: Pre-Crime Programs Are Here
*https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210724/15223647236/florida
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210724/15223647236/florida*-
sheriffs-office-now-notifying-people-it-will-be-inflicting-pre-
crime-program-them.shtml
Those selected receive a letter that says in part:
"You may wonder why you were enrolled in this program. You were
selected as a result of an evaluation of your recent criminal
behavior using an unbiased, evidence-based risk assessment designed
to identify prolific offenders in our community. As a result of
this designation, we will go to great efforts to encourage change
in your life through enhanced support and increased
accountability."
TechDirt elaborates:
It all sounds so positive. While there's really no evidence this
is actually "evidence-based" or "unbiased," at least the Sheriff's
Office is willing to "encourage change in your life." It sounds
nice but "encouragement" probably just means "constant harassment"
and "enhanced support" is probably a euphemism for suspicionless
searches. "Increased accountability" may be part of this program,
but it won't be applied to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.
Nope, there's a really good chance "increased accountability" means
more fines, more citations, more arrests, and more jail time.
And later TechDirt says:
The stated goal of the Sheriff's "pre-crime" program was, in the
department's own words, to make targets so miserable they either
moved or sued the Sheriff's Office. Now that some targets have
done both, the Office appears to be trying to rein things in just a
bit, or at least pretend the program is not solely about
vindictive, unjustified harassment of certain Pasco County
residents.
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE GOD EQUATION: THE QUEST FOR A THEORY OF EVERYTHING by
Michio Kaku (book review by Gregory Frederick)
This is another great science book by the physicist and author
Michio Kaku. I have now read four books by this author. He truly
makes complex scientific principles understandable for an average
non-scientific reader. As is typical for this topic of
unification, the author takes us on a journey from the ancient past
up to the present scientific understanding about what exactly
comprises the elementary ingredients of the Universe. This journey
starts with Democritus from ancient Greece and proceeds to physics
discoveries by Newton, Faraday, Einstein, Bohr and others. The
problem with unifying the four fundamental forces is that Gravity
will not fit into the accepted Standard Model which contains the
other three fundamental forces. Therefore a new theory is needed.
In a previous review of a book by another physicist, I talked about
a Quantum Gravity theory which combines all field theories into
only one entity known as Covariant Quantum Fields. That is a
possibly unification theory or theory of everything which combines
Gravity into a theory containing the other three fundamental
forces. But Michio Kaku is a supporter of the more widely studied
String Theory. String Theory is the other possible candidate for
the theory of everything that combines all of the four fundamental
forces. String Theory states that all particles are not points of
matter but actually incredibly small strings which vibrate. They
are much smaller than any sub-atomic particle, for example, so we
can never actually view them directly. The type of vibration the
string has will determine if the particle will be an electron or a
quark, for example. But with further study it was determined that
five different String Theories existed. This was confusing to many
scientists until 1995 when M (membrane) Theory was developed and it
was discovered that all five String Theories were actually all
included in M Theory. So actually, M-Theory is the unification
theory or theory of everything that Kaku really supports. Multi-
dimensional membranes in M Theory can collapse into these strings
in five different ways. That is why there were five different
String Theories. The author, Michio Kaku, is extremely talented
when it comes to translating complex subjects into information that
is accessible for the lay reader, making this a very good book.
[-gf]
===================================================================
TOPIC: James Bond Themes, THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD, THE INVISIBLE MAN
(2020), THE STEPFORD WIVES and the MT VOID (letter of comment by
Guy Lillian III)
In response to the MT VOID in general and various specific items in
the 07/23/21 issue of the MT VOID and earlier in particular, Guy
Lillian writes in ZINE DUMP #52:
Ever mutable, always readable and interesting, MT Void (get the
pun? It took me years) features wise opinions on all sorts of
stuff from Evelyn and Mark Leeper, and comes to its subscribers
weekly via e-mail. Great way to insure frequent renewal of fannish
spirit. Topics this issue include James Bond themes--FROM RUSSIA
WITH LOVE and GOLDFINGER excel here, as in all other measures of
007 excellence--and past issues hit on THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD (IMHO
the only film fantasy arguably as grand as LotR), Evelyn's reading,
the new (and quite excellent) INVISIBLE MAN, STEPFORD WIVES, and
anything else you, the Leepers, or the sundry Chorus enlivening
their letter column can think of. [-gl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: GIRL IN THE BASEMENT (letters of comment by Paul Dormer and
Keith F. Lynch)
In response to Art Stadlin's review of GIRL IN THE BASEMENT in the
07/30/21 issue of the MT VOID, Paul Dormer writes:
Yes, I remember the Fritzl case when it hit the headlines. Quite
creepy.
Not long after, English National Opera in London did a staging of
Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle that obviously had echoes of this
story. (I mean the staging had echoes, not the original story.)
For those that don't know the opera, Bluebeard brings home his new
bride, Judith. She finds the castle so dark, she persuades him to
open up seven doors. Behind each door is a secret--a torture
chamber and an armoury among them--each covered in blood. Finally
he opens the seventh door to reveal three previous wives, all still
alive. Judith goes to join them... [-pd]
Keith F. Lynch adds:
That also reminds me of the man who kidnapped three women and kept
them locked up in his house in Cleveland for more than ten years.
One of them gave birth and that child spent the first six years of
her life locked in that house. Perhaps the most tragic part of the
story was that one of the women watched, on TV, her mother
consulting a psychic who falsely told the mother that her daughter
was dead. The mother soon died of grief. The good news is that
all three women and the child survived in good health, and that the
perpetrator pled guilty to 937 counts of rape, kidnapping, and
aggravated murder (for induced miscarriages), and was sentenced to
life plus 1000 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
He hanged himself in prison. See
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Castro_kidnappings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Castro_kidnappings*.
As for deliberate errors in movies based on true events, see this
well-written thread by Amanda Knox, who is not happy about the new
movie STILLWATER, "based on the Amanda Knox saga":
*https://twitter.com/amandaknox/status/1420871392266911746
https://twitter.com/amandaknox/status/1420871392266911746*
I recently watched THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA, which is largely about
the Dreyfus case. The movie was full of deliberate errors,
including having no mention of anti-Semitism. I learned that the
non-mention of anti-Semitism was so as to not offend Nazis. (The
movie was released in 1937, when Nazis were still considered just
another political party.) [-kfl]
Paul notes:
I remember watching that film on TV when I was at university in the
early Seventies. [-pd]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
KLARA AND THE SUN by Kazuo Ishiguro (Borzoi, ISBN 978-0-593-31817-
1) has the "Subjects" on its copyright page as "Science fiction"
and "Love Stories". but your chances of finding this in the science
fiction section are slim to none. Even my library, which at least
used to hone strictly to the copyright page classification, has
filed this in "Fiction".
I have talked before about how Jose Saramago was a Nobel laureate
who had written at least a dozen stories of the fantastic, at least
two of which are absolutely science fiction rather than fantasy, as
well as few fantastical short stories. In spite of this body of
work, when (from the audience) I recommended Saramago's work at the
"Things You Should Read (But Don't Know about Yet)" panel at the
2015 Philcon, not only had no one in the audience heard of him, no
one *on the panel* had heard of him.
Kazuo Ishiguro is the new Saramago.
On the (highly recommended) Coode Street podcast, they talked about
how a lot of SF (i.e., speculative fiction) was marketed/positioned
as literary or mainstream fiction rather than SF. This is
definitely science fiction, but you won't find it in the science
fiction section of your bookstore. If you did, it would have a
cover that showed Klara, and would have "In the grand tradition of
Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury" blazoned across the cover. (Well,
maybe not--Asimov is not well known to the current generation of
science fiction readers, and most of those who know of him also
know of his reputation as a sexual harasser. And while so far as I
know Bradbury's reputation remains intact, his is no longer a name
to conjure with either.)
Anyway, the connections to Asimov and Bradbury are obvious. Klara
is an "AF"--an "artificial friend", i.e., a robot/android that
serves as a companion for a child. This is a world where most
people keep their children in isolation, apparently schooled via
some equivalent of Zoom, but the children also have "interaction
meetings" (in-person get-togethers where the children presumably
learn how to live in society with others)--shades of "The Machine
Stops" by E. M. Forster, and Asimov's spacemen in THE CAVES OF
STEEL and THE NAKED SUN as well as Asimov's "Robbie" and Bradbury's
"I Sing the Body Electric", a.k.a. "The Electric Grandmother", I
suppose.) I should note that this was almost definitely conceived
before the COVID-19 lockdowns, remote learning, and so on, but it
seems eerily familiar now.
But there is more to KLARA AND THE SUN than that. For one thing,
Klara has a religion. And of course, from our perspective this
religion is entirely misguided, based on Klara's misperceptions of
the world. Which of course leads the reader to ask if *their*
religion is entirely misguided, based on *their* misperceptions of
the world.
There are definite parallels to Ishiguro's earlier novel, NEVER LET
ME GO. In both, people rely on "constructs" to fulfill tasks that
should be done by other people, or perhaps not at all. Calling the
clones in NEVER LET ME GO "constructs" may seem demeaning, since
they are clearly fully human beings. But they are treated by
everyone else in the novel as "constructs", and it is defining the
clones as not human that lets humans decide what tasks can be
foisted off on them. In both NEVER LET ME GO and KLARA AND THE
SUN, humans have used technology to create a class of slaves. That
the reader is horrified by this in NEVER LET ME GO, but only
somewhat bothered by it in KLARA AND THE SUN says something about
our attitudes.
The reliance on technology in care-giving, in education, and in
other aspects of life is obviously something that concerns
Ishiguro, but most specifically when it involves creating sentient
beings who are not given self-determination. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
*mleeper@optonline.net *
Logical positivists have never taken psychology into
account in their epistemology, but they affirm that
logical beings and mathematical beings are nothing
but linguistic structures.
--Jean Piaget