THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
05/17/13 -- Vol. 31, No. 46, Whole Number 1754
Adam: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Eve: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Book Title (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
You Read it First in the MT VOID (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The Cost of a Broken Hip (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Ray Harryhausen, My Tribute to the Giant Who Gave Life to
Miniatures (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
BLACKOUT by Mira Grant (book review by Joe Karpierz)
FRANKENSTEIN'S CAT by Emily Anthes (book review
by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
WHERE'S MY JETPACK? by Daniel H. Wilson, Ph.D. (book review
by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
DECEPTIVE PRACTICE: THE MYSTERIES AND MENTORS OF RICKY JAY
(film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (THE CASEBOOK OF VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN,
MURDER ON THE LEVIATHAN, book sales, and the Cranbury
Bookworm) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Book Title (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
JAVA 2: THIS TIME IT'S PERSONAL
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: You Read it First in the MT VOID (comments by Mark R.
Leeper)
After I wrote on cicada cycles of prime number year intervals, the
New Yorker Magazine decided to pass the information on to their
readers who do not get the MT VOID.
http://tinyurl.com/void-cicada
http://www.leepers.us/mtvoid/VOID0510.htm#cicadas
All the most prestigious periodicals get their ideas from the MT
VOID.
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: The Cost of a Broken Hip (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
A couple of months ago, I broke my hip. Mark and I kept a blog
about it and there have been a few recent updates to it. In
particular, we have added a spreadsheet of the various charges from
the hospital, doctors, etc., included "list price", Aetna-
negotiated price, and what our share of that was. Go to
http://leepers.us/hip.htm (near the end, 05/08/13) to see it.
(Note: This is with Mark's retiree insurance in NJ.)
[-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Ray Harryhausen, My Tribute to the Giant Who Gave Life to
Miniatures (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
When I was a teenager I loved fantasy films and idolized the great
filmmakers. At the top of the pantheon was Ray Harryhausen.
Harryhausen was the master of stop motion photography and stop
motion was the most versatile technique to bring believable fantasy
images to the screen.
The 1940s (the decade before my birth) was a time when imaginative
films were in large part costume fantasies like SINBAD, THE SAILOR
(1947). With a few halting exceptions the techniques for cinematic
creativity were makeup and costumes. If you wanted visual
imagination you usually had to go to animated films like the Max
Fleischer Superman cartoons. Sometime around 1958 I went to a
Saturday matinee and saw a very different sort of Sinbad film.
There on the screen was not a drawing of a monster but something
that looked three-dimensional. It had live people interacting with
creatures on the screen. The film was, of course, THE 7TH VOYAGE
OF SINBAD. But Harryhausen was doing on the screen what no other
filmmaker was doing. Who was this Ray Harryhausen?
Harryhausen had been one of three men, close friends since teens,
who worked in the field of fantasy all their lives. One was
Harryhausen, one was Ray Bradbury, and the third was Forest J.
Ackerman. Ackerman had founded the Los Angeles Science Fiction
League and Harryhausen and Bradbury were members.
In 1953 Harryhausen came to prominence in special effects with his
model animation bringing to life THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS.
Previously to then he had worked with his hero and mentor, Willis
O'Brien, who had attracted Harryhausen to effects with O'Brien's
work on KING KONG. The two had worked together on MIGHTY JOE
YOUNG, but BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS was the first feature film on
which Harryhausen had worked solo. From that point and for twenty-
four years Harryhausen was the most important name in fantasy
special effects on the screen. In those years while there were
many special effects technicians in the film industries around the
world, only Ray Harryhausen became so much of a brand name and
probably only he deserved it so much. Forry Ackerman who later
edited FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine undoubtedly played a
part in making Harryhausen an internationally known name.
In the next few years he created effects for IT CAME FROM BENEATH
THE SEA (1955), THE ANIMAL WORLD (1956), EARTH VS. THE FLYING
SAUCERS (1956), and 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957).
1958 brought Harryhausen's first work in color and his first
undeniable classic film THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD. It featured two
cyclopes, a dragon, a sword-fighting skeleton, and a human/snake
chimera. The screen had not seen so special a special effects
fantasy extravaganza since KING KONG twenty-five years earlier. It
was for this film that Harryhausen dubbed his stop-motion animation
process Dynamation (later super-Dynamation).
His next film was THE THREE WORLDS OF GULLIVER (1960), plagued by a
disappointing script. MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961), while not one of
his first ranked films, was still a fine effort.
In my opinion his subsequent film was his very best work. JASON
AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963) did for Greek myth what THE 7TH VOYAGE OF
SINBAD did for the Arabian Nights. He created a bronze giant and
winged harpies, and did some extremely sophisticated work to
animate a many-headed hydra. But his personal favorite effect was
a fight with a troop of skeletons armed with shield and sword.
Harryhausen was often imitated, but never duplicated. There were
films made to try to do what Harryhausen did, films like JACK THE
GIANT KILLER (1962). That was a very obvious attempt to copy what
Harryhausen had done in THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, borrowing
director Nathan Juran, hero Kerwin Mathews, villain Torin Thatcher,
and a host of stop motion animators including Jim Danforth, Wah
Chang, and Gene Warren--each of whom were inspired by Ray
Harryhausen. The film just proved that imitation is the sincerest
form of flattery.
The years that followed brought FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1964), ONE
MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966), THE VALLEY OF GWANGI (1969), and THE
GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1974).
1977 was the telling year for Harryhausen's technique. SINBAD AND
THE EYE OF THE TIGER was in Detroit released the same weekend as
STAR WARS--a film radically different that made extensive use of
digital image creation. Harryhausen's best techniques suffered by
comparison to the new computer technology, though a little stop
motion was included in the film as a tribute to Harryhausen. The
new approaches were just too powerful for stop-motion photography
to effectively compete. Harryhausen put his all into a second
Greek mythology film no doubt inspired by his JASON AND THE
ARGONAUTS. The film was CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981). But Super-
Dynamation was no match for the rapidly evolving computer image
technologies. CLASH OF THE TITANS proved to be Harryhausen's last
feature-length film.
When one thinks of stop-motion photography to create special
effects on thinks of Ray Harryhausen and his mentor Willis O'Brien.
For decades it was the premier technique of representing fantasy
on the screen and it still gives screen images a three dimensional
palpability and a sort of hyper-realism.
Ray Harryhausen passed away May 8, 2013. He was a man who made his
imagination his life and who shared that imagination with the
world. His contributions and the man himself will be and are
fondly remembered and sorely missed. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: BLACKOUT by Mira Grant (copyright 2012, Orbit, $9.99, 659pp,
ISBN 978-0-316-08107-8) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
Mira Grant's (a.k.a. Seanan McGuire's) BLACKOUT is the final book
in the "Newsflesh" trilogy, which started with the Hugo-nominated
FEED two years ago, and continued with the Hugo-nominated DEADLINE
last year. So, all three books in the series have been nominated
for the Hugo. Will this be the year for Grant to take home the
Best Novel Hugo? It's quite possible.
So, the story so far: We are approaching the mid-21st century.
Back in 2014 or so, two man-made viruses, one to cure cancer, one
to cure the common cold, are accidentally combined in the
atmosphere to create the Kellis-Amberlee virus. In any creature
over 40 pounds that dies, the virus causes that creature to
"amplify" and turn into a zombie. Everybody has the virus in them,
thus making any living, walking creature that's large enough a
walking zombie-bomb waiting to explode. The world is in lockdown,
living in fear. Blood tests are taken everywhere to prove that a
person is not "infected" (which is really the wrong word anyway,
since everyone is already infected). Large portions of North
America have been abandoned to the zombies; others are tightly
protected against them. The overall story arc, however, is not
about the zombies themselves, but how they affect the world around
them: normal lives, politics, etc.
So, we enter book three. Georgia Mason, killed earlier, is alive
again, but not as a zombie. Nope she's a clone, created by the CDC
in an effort to influence her brother, Shaun Mason, into doing what
they want him to do. The entire novel is told from the viewpoint of
both characters, a chapter at a time. The characters spend a good
portion of the novel apart. We spend time with Georgia in the CDC
facility in Seattle (as we eventually find out) as she finds out
who and what she is, and what her purpose in life is now that she
has awakened as a clone. Shaun and the rest of the After the End
Times staff (the gang of bloggers that the Mason's lead) are
working with Doctor Abbey on her zombie research. She sends them
to Florida to get samples of the mosquitoes that carry the virus
and arrived in the U.S. from Cuba not long ago (remember,
mosquitoes are too small to carry the virus and transmit it--yet,
they are doing just that). Things turn into a mess when Shaun and
Rebecca (one of the After the End Times bloggers) meet with Shaun's
parents, only to nearly get captured by the CDC. They escape and
get up to Seattle, where they eventually meet up with Georgia--
which of course causes quite a stir within the team (and which I'm
not going to tell you much more about due to the risk of spoiling
any more of the book than I already have)--and they head back east
to find out all about the conspiracy (what, you didn't think there
was one? Come on, the government is involved, of COURSE there's a
conspiracy) at the highest levels of the U.S. government and figure
out what they're going to do about it.
Okay, look. This book is nearly impossible to review without
giving away some of the important story points. And to tie this
back to something I said in my previous review of John Scalzi's THE
HUMAN DIVISION, notice my use of the word story in that last
sentence. I can't go more than a sentence or two without giving
away story elements because the whole thing is story. I probably
went several paragraphs in my review of 2312 without giving
anything away because there was no story there. There is story
here. It's big, it's fast, it's fun, and it's wild. It's a
heckuva ride, and while there may have been a thing or two that was
obvious and that you could see coming, it was still fun and fast
paced.
I've only read these three books by Seanan McGuire, but I know that
she's popular and has a big fan base. And with good reason: she's
a terrific writer who tells compelling, fast moving stories that
are fun to get involved with. And like Scalzi and Sawyer (to bring
back more of a theme from my last review), she writes commercial,
popular fiction. It works, and it's good. This book is good.
This book is fun.
This book has a shot at winning the Hugo. Well, yes, you say, it's
one of the five nominees, of course it has a shot at winning the
Hugo. No, I mean, really, I think it just might beat out the other
four nominees to win the rocket. I really do. It's that good. In
my opinion. [-jak]
[Hope I haven't jinxed it.]
==================================================================
TOPIC: FRANKENSTEIN'S CAT: CUDDLING UP TO BIOTECH'S BRAVE NEW
BEASTS by Emily Anthes (book review by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
FRANKENSTEIN'S CAT, a new popular science book by Emily Anthes,
walks a line between enthusiasm for subversive new technologies and
raising ethical issues. I found Anthes' approach refreshing. She
balances Luddites like Leon Kass and Bill McKibbin with
enthusiastic scientists, animal lovers, and entrepreneurs, while
taking on the task of splitting the ethical Gordian Knot herself.
Since virtually no one except Peter Singer equates human life with
animal life, Anthes can take a penetrating look at all of the
promised wonders of the biotech century in the context of applying
them to animals. This seems to allow for a more cool-headed
approach than is typically found when the technologies in question
apply to humans.
The first chapter, "Go Fish," describes one of the more widespread
usages of genetic engineering--the creation of fish that glow in
the dark in different colors. It turns out that this application
raises few issues since the pet fish can't exist in the wild.
Attempts to use genetic engineering to increase salmon yields have
been successful technically but remain stuck in regulatory limbo.
Anthes writes clearly with a good balance between explaining the
technology and telling the tale of a particular scientist or
entrepreneur.
"Got Milk?" reviews the relatively successful "pharming" efforts,
where genetically modified animals produce medicine for human
consumption. Notable examples are ATryan, an anticoagulant
produced by modified goats, approved for human use in Europe in
2006 and in the UA in 2009. Somewhat oddly, attempts to use
modified goats to produce milk possessing the key immune system
boosting compounds of human milk have yet to be approved. While
waiting for US approval, the creators of the goats are establishing
a second herd in Brazil, which has been more welcoming. Of course,
the most massive application of genetic engineering in animals is
the production of specialized strains of mice and rats for various
test purposes.
This chapter also covers so-called "chimeras" or mixes of human and
animal genes. An interesting 2009 experiment inserted the FOXP2
gene (thought to be associated with human powers of speech) in
mice, which changed the way they squeaked. There are some clear
examples of chimeras that are ethical failures. The so-called
"Beltsville pig" received the gene for human growth hormone, and
the result was a leaner pig that requires fewer calories to bulk
up, but that also suffered mightily from a host of problems ranging
from bulging eyes to diabetes. As Anthes suggests, the creation of
such pigs is wrong not because genetic engineering is evil, but
because of the suffering endured by the pigs. It should be noted
that the engineered goats mentioned above are indistinguishable
from normal goats. The basic technology of genetic engineering has
advanced since the 80s, with techniques like "zinc finger
nucleases" allowing a new gene to be inserted in a specific spot
rather than at random. Such techniques will allow for faster
progress and hopefully fewer side effects.
Chapter Three--"Double Trouble"--focuses on cloning of animals. It
turns out that cloning has a long way to go before anyone produces
a "clone army." Since clones are produced using donor eggs, the
clone has the mitochondrial DNA of the egg donor, and not the
original organism. Further, the first cloned cat had a different
color fur from the original due to a phenomenon known as "X
inactivation." Finally, although some clones are healthy, some
aren't, and the exact reason is not clear, but probably has to do
with genetic damage. It also turns out that for a variety of
subtle reasons it is much harder to clone dogs than cats. The net
of all this is that efforts to base a business on the idea cloning
dead pets have failed.
In spite of all these problems with pet resurrection, other
companies have been more successful with livestock cloning. There
is no law against using clones to breed livestock, so it is quite
possible that you have already eaten beef descended from a clone.
Also, in 2012 the horse-racing world opened its door to cloned
horses participating in races. These steps aside, it seems clear
that the full impact of cloning in animals lies in the future,
following the perfection of the process. Attempting to clone a
human with current technology would be both unethical and unwise.
The next chapter, "Nine Lives," looks at using cloning to save
animals on a course to extinction, or even to attempt to bring back
a species that is already extinct. This chapter suffers a bit since
it does not cover the full range of efforts at and technologies for
species resurrection. "Sentient Sensors" discusses attempts to use
implanted tracers in animals for research purposes; this chapter is
not as interesting as the rest of the book. The same can be said
for "Pin the Tail on the Dolphin," which focuses on animal
prosthetics.
The final regular chapter, "Robo Revolution," starts with an
interesting description of the CIA's early 60s efforts to use
cyborg cats as spy devices, the main lesson of which is--don't use
cats as tools--cooperation is uncatlike. From there we move on to
a mad scientist's wonderland. Did you know that you can buy an
inexpensive kit for making a cyborg roach? Or that a tiny light-
emitting helmet can be used to control genetically modified mice?
That someone patented the use of cyborg rats to string Christmas
lights (along with search and rescue in ruined buildings)?
Certainly the most amazing chapter of the entire book, "Robo
Revolution," shows that we really are living in the 21st century.
FRANKENSTEIN'S CAT is a brisk, fun read well worth your time. It
provides a broad survey of the application of biotechnology to
animals, and a balanced discussion of the ethical issues involved.
And to top it off, the jacket art, showing a cyborg cat
contemplating a remote controlled rat, is fun to look at. [-dls]
==================================================================
TOPIC: WHERE'S MY JETPACK? A GUIDE TO THE AMAZING SCIENCE FICTION
FUTURE THAT NEVER ARRIVED by Daniel H. Wilson, Ph.D. (book review
by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
After recently reading AMPED by Daniel Wilson, I noted that he had
written a number of other books, and that one was a humorous review
of futures past. I found it rather cheaply on Amazon and pretty
soon I had inhaled it. As some of the reviews on Amazon complain,
this is a hastily written book that seems to start with a mish-mash
of Wikipedia articles on each topic and conclude with some witty
words by Wilson. The book also suffers from a lack of exploration
of the fundamental science behind each idea, often leaving the
reader wondering whether the invention's full flowing is just
around the corner or never likely to occur barring some amazing
breakthrough. The "Jetpack" section is a good example of this
problem.
JETPACK's strength is that it does cover most "traditional" SF
ideas for future wonders. By "traditional" I mean the kind of
things that appeared in SF during the period 1930-1960, i.e. pre-
Cyberpunk, pre-Singularity SF. Wilson has grouped the inventions
under five logical categories--"Advanced Transportation," "Future-
tainment," "Superhuman Abilities," "The Home of the Future," and
"Humans ... In Space."
JETPACK appeared in 2007, and already in 2013 many of the sections
are considerably out of date. For example, the "Self-Steering Car"
does a reasonable job of surveying 2007 car automation
technologies. However, in the subsequent 6 years, robot cars have
moved from research projects to a regulatory issue as Google seeks
approval state-by-state for the sale and operation of its self-
driving cars. Even 2013 standard cars have a wide variety of
"intelligent" features such as front view collision alarms that
signal the driver when the car is too close to an obstacle. "Space
Vacation" also gives a decent tour of 2007 sub-orbital efforts, but
as we sit in 2013 on the very cusp of the future, with Virgin
Galactic testing Space Ship Two, XCOR assembling the Lynx, SpaceX
testing the reusable Grasshopper and flying the Dragon routinely to
the ISS, it has been a full six years, even if progress may not
have matched that of robotic cars.
The progress since Daniel wrote "Mind-Reading Device" has been
nothing short of amazing. Hardly a day passes without some new
wonder. Just recently there have been reports of dream-reading
machines that can produce videos of your dreams. They are tested
by waking the subject up and asking him or her what they are
dreaming about. The images are fuzzy, but the technology basically
works. "Invisible Camouflage," deals only with adaptive technology.
Since 2007 real invisibility shields that operate on various
wavelengths of light and rely on meta-materials have moved from
fantasy to lab-table demos that can conceal a small item from one
side. Personally, I find the idea that invisibility is a major
research area to be almost beyond belief, but here we are!
The "Ray Gun" rounds up 2007 research well, but here in 2013 the US
Navy just deployed the first laser-equipped ship to the Persian
Gulf. The laser gun is intended to be used against drones and
small boats. I've seen a video of a drone shoot-down, and it looks
just like those old SF illustrations--except the laser beam is
invisible! In "Moon Colony" Daniels relied to a large extent on
NASA press releases describing the Constellation "return to the
moon" program. Daniels could not have known that Constellation
would be canceled and replaced with the Space Launch System (SLS),
which was then re-targeted toward asteroid and Martian missions.
We are now starting to see private efforts to return to the moon,
but whatever happens Daniel's projection will not become the real
future.
JETPACK is a fun, quick read, and I recommend it to fans to retro-
technology. However, there is little danger of Daniels replacing
Arthur C. Clarke as a great futurist. PROFILES OF THE FUTURES is
and remains the best futurist book ever written, in my humble
opinion. [-dls]
==================================================================
TOPIC: DECEPTIVE PRACTICE: THE MYSTERIES AND MENTORS OF RICKY JAY
(film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: DECEPTIVE PRACTICE tells the story of the mysterious Ricky
Jay, at age seven already a professional stage magician. Today he
is an expert in all things arcane, but particularly sleight of hand
and anything to do with feats of playing cards or dice. He
frequently cameos in films by David Mamet and Paul Thomas Anderson.
DECEPTIVE PRACTICE is simply Ricky Jay telling his story--apparently
for once with a minimum of deception--and illustrated with
photographs and footage of some of the great stage magicians of
Ricky Jay's time. One almost expects that Jay would be performing
some sort of trick on the viewer, though none is apparent. But if
we got it, it would not be a deception. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4)
or 7/10
What is he doing there? Frequently you see Ricky Jay in films, but
he does not look like an actor. Jay looks just a bit scruffy and
squalid. He had a cameo as a mentor to two great magicians in THE
PRESTIGE. He was a high stakes poker player in David Mamet's HOUSE
OF GAMES. His films generally seem to have something to do with
stage magic or grifters or fooling people in one way or another or
perhaps just the arcane. When he speaks he gives the impression he
is not an actor but someone drafted off of the street. He seems to
be just being himself.
Who is he? His name is Richard Jay Potash, though he goes under
the stage name Ricky Jay. Put a deck of cards in his hands and it
will gracefully flow like it was a ballet dancer. Ask him for the
jack of spades and he will cut the deck and there it is. Or
perhaps he will just flick the deck and the jack will jump out on
its own. He may be the world's greatest expert on sleight of hand.
Writing on the history of the circus and of stage magic and of
spiritualism is a sideline, but he has written a lot of books on
the mysterious. His specialty is illusionism and conjuring, but he
has great knowledge in seemingly any field of the arcane.
DECEPTIVE PRACTICE: THE MYSTERIES AND MENTORS OF RICKY JAY is a
documentary telling the life and fascinations of a most mysterious
and hypnotic man.
The format of the film about his career is Ricky Jay telling his
own story with occasional narration from Dick Cavett. Along the
way he tells of the magicians he has met and many whom he learned
from. These are nearly forgotten stage magicians, absolutely
wonderful illusionists. They taught Ricky Jay the art and artifice
of illusion and in return they are here getting a short reprieve
from the oblivion of the forgotten. We get to see on film stage
magicians with mysterious names like Slydini and Cardini. Later
mentors included Dai Vernon and Charlie Miller. Many of these
magicians show up in archive footage.
Jay, now in his mid-sixties, grew up in Brooklyn in a middle-class
Jewish family. Early on he came under the influence of his
grandfather, an amateur magician. At age six, when most kids are
mastering the multiplication tables, he already had performed a
full magic act on television. Though his parents did not
understand his passion for magic, Jay knew that would be his life's
fascination. His grandfather introduced him to great stage
magicians who were his grandfather's and soon his own personal
friends.
But the stage magicians he met were not his closest friends. That
honor was reserved for decks of playing cards. He even named one
of his magic acts "Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants." He can easily
spend an entire day doing nothing but manipulating cards and
watching himself in a three-way mirror, getting his moves just
perfect. There are infinite possibilities for him in a simple deck
of cards. He sees possibilities with cards that nobody else would
have thought of. He wrote a book called CARDS AS WEAPONS declaring
that a deck of cards can actually be used for self-defense. I had
seen the book and thought it was a joke, but in the course of
DECEPTIVE PRACTICE he from a few feet away throws a playing card
about a quarter inch into the green hide of a watermelon. Can he
really do that or is it some sort of a trick? Probably nobody will
ever know.
Also along for the ride are several magicians and associates who
know Jay professionally and as friends interviewed to tell what
they knew or thought of Jay, David Mamet among them.
Ricky Jay's compulsion is not to be merely the best stage conjurer.
He very likely long ago achieved that. He wants his agility to be
perfect, and any imperfections he still has are not likely to be
noticed by the likes of me and you. DECEPTIVE PRACTICE is a
fascinating study of one man's mania to attain perfection. And
only he can judge how far he is from that goal. Ricky Jay right
now has the compulsive desire to be better than his fiercest
competitor, Ricky Jay of ten minutes ago. I rate DECEPTIVE
PRACTICE: THE MYSTERIES AND MENTORS OF RICKY JAY a low +2 on the -4
to +4 scale or 7/10.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2654360/combined
What others are saying: http://tinyurl.com/rt-jay
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE CASEBOOK OF VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN by Peter Ackroyd (ISBN 978-0-
307-47377-6) is a "re-imagination" of Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN.
One way it is a re-imagination is that Mary Shelley, and Percy
Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, and John Polidori are all
characters in THE CASEBOOK OF VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN. (There is also
a character named Jack Keat. I don't *think* this is supposed to
be John Keats, but I cannot be sure.) Given that the historical
facts about the real characters are not entirely consistent with
incorporating them into the story as Mary Shelley told it, Ackroyd
has to some extent given himself an almost impossible task, but he
does pull it off (although the complete explanation is more
something to be inferred than explicitly explained).
There is a lot more politics in THE CASEBOOK OF VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN
than there was in Shelley's work, but part of this is that Ackroyd
is writing with hindsight from almost two centuries later. The
biggest problem, though, is that through most of the book the
reader is wondering why Ackroyd wrote it, and it is not until the
end that it all comes together.
MURDER ON THE LEVIATHAN by Boris Akunin (ISBN 0-8129-6879-4) is an
interesting mystery novel, in that it is apparently in a series
featuring Erast Fandorin, and billed as "A Fandorin mystery", but
the main character is not Fandorin. It is as if someone wrote a
Sherlock Holmes novel where Lestrade was the main character and
Holmes appeared only in a secondary role. Akunin's solution is
ingenious, but not absolutely original. (I won't say more, since
any explanation might be a spoiler.) This is not a great novel,
but it's a reasonable way to pass the time.
Normally in the spring, I write about the annual book sales. But
things this year did not go as planned. I broke my hip the day
before the grand opening of the new Cranbury Bookworm, the week
before the Bryn Mawr book sale, and two weeks before the East
Brunswick Friends of the Library book sale. It turned out I also
missed the $5-a-box Cranbury Bookworm close-out sale *and* the "we-
have-to-get-the-books-out" Cranbury Bookworm give-away day. I can
only conclude someone (or Someone) is trying to tell me something.
(Clearly, if I had been able to get to the give-away day, we would
have left with the car absolutely full of books, mostly science
fiction.) My two consolations are 1) Mark went to the $5-a-box
sale and picked up lots of odds and ends to keep me entertained in
the nursing home, and 2) barring future problems, I will be able to
get to the annual Old Bridge Friends of the Library sale the end of
this month.
(The Bryn Mawr sale was incredibly inconvenient this year anyway,
being on the first day of Passover. And from what I heard, the
East Brunswick sale was not all that great.)
I did manage to get to the new Cranbury Bookworm a week ago,
though. I must say that its new location, alas, is a pale shadow
of its former self, and where one would leave the old Bookworm with
a bag of books, from the new Bookworm one is more likely to find
only one or two. The good news is that they consider this an
interim location until they can find something larger in Cranbury.
Currently, they are occupying a space approximately equal to the
space in the SF/mystery/childrens room and the history room in the
former location (or between one-tenth and one-sixth the size).
They apparently have put a lot of inventory into storage in
anticipation of a larger space. The SF section is still fairly
large, but no longer double-shelved, and the second half is hard to
find--it is around the back of the first half, but it is not
obvious that you can get there. The recently acquired trade
paperbacks are effectively in the same location--right at the front
door where whenever anyone comes in, the door hits you in the tush.
It's good to see them maintaining their traditions. :-) [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
You can improve your talent, but your talent
is a given, a mysterious constant. You must
make it the best of its kind.
-- Gore Vidal