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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 04/24/98 -- Vol. 16, No. 43
MT Chair/Librarian:
Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 732-957-5087 jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 732-949-7076 njs@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
Rob Mitchell MT 2D-536 732-957-6330 rlmitchell1@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-2070 eleeper@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-933-2724 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society
meets irregularly; call 201-652-0534 for details, or check
http://www.interactive.net/~kat/njsfs.html. The Denver Area
Science Fiction Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of
every month at Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
1. URL of the week: http://daphne.palomar.edu/shakespeare/. One of
many Shakespeare home pages. The mystery anthology SHAKESPEAREAN
WHODUNNITS is reviewed later in this issue, and yesterday was
Shakespeare's birthday. [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. ZERO MINUS TEN by Raymond Benson (G. P. Putnam's, ISBN 0-399-
14257-6, 1997, 272pp, US$22.95) (a book review with commentary by
Mark R. Leeper):
After the death of Ian Fleming the character of James Bond must
have been considered to be too commercial to simply let die. Other
authors have received permission to write their own James Bond
novels. None, of course, has gotten the following that Fleming
did. However, Eon Films is starting to use material from John
Gardner, I believe, giving him their stamp of approval. As for the
quality of the novels, well, they are mostly pretty pat. But then
a James Bond novel is not supposed to be good--it is supposed to be
a James Bond novel. Bond is always highly self-confident and
supernaturally lucky. The James Bond villain is supposed to look
intelligent enough to be a threat, but then he is brought down more
by his own hubris than by anything that Bond does. James Bond
novels are not really good spy stories, or at least not the highest
quality spy stories. Len Deighton, Donald Hamilton, or John Le
Carre could sustain much better spy series than the best Bond
novel.
I had previously read James Bond novels by Kingsley Amis and by
John Gardner. But recently I saw that the mantle had been passed
to a new writer, Raymond Benson, author of THE JAMES BOND BEDSIDE
COMPANION. His first James Bond novel is ZERO MINUS TEN. I was
hopeful that with a new author would come some new twists. And
there did, but not as many as I would have liked. It appeared from
the book and some discussion I had read that at least part of the
novel would take place within mainland China. An adventure that
would take James Bond into the mainland of China is actually an
intriguing idea. Things are very different there than they are in
his usual glamorous Western settings. Even a chase through China
would be little like anything that has ever been in a Bond novel.
Bond would obviously be a stranger wherever he went and at the same
time the author would have to give us a great deal of detail about
life in current China. It sounded like Benson might have been
doing some serious and creative departing from the usual mold.
Well it turns out that the major settings are Hong Kong and
Australia, and there is a relatively short plot stretch in
Guangzhou. That is the city that the West used to incorrectly call
"Canton." The province is Canton, but the city is Guangzhou. Hong
Kong and Australia are unusual Bond locations, though not as
unusual as a novel set predominantly in China would have been.
Actually Guangzhou is the least adventuresome city in China for
Benson to choose. It has been the most Westernized city due to the
Guangzhou Trade Fair which would bring visitors from all over the
world. It was one of the first places where Western dress was seen
back in the early eighties.
One of the problems that a current Bond storyteller has is that
James Bond has been around so long. Benson should have decided how
old to make Bond, but he sidestepped the issue. In ZERO MINUS TEN
there are references to Bond remembering previous cases that we
know took place in the 1960s, but this novel takes place in 1997 at
the transfer of Hong Kong back to China. It does not sound right
to have someone as nimble as James Bond is in this novel
remembering cases he was on better than thirty years earlier. If
he had been thirty years old then, and that is about the minimum he
could have been, that would make him sixty-something now. And he
recovers from injuries much too fast for someone who is of his
apparent age. The same problem occurs with other heroes, of
course. Batman has been around for something like sixty years, but
one perpetually thinks of Batman as being about ten or fifteen
years into his crime-fighting career. I guess the reader thinks of
his origin as being true and the last ten or so years of the comic.
But then in the comic, at least when I read it, there were no
references to incidents that happened impossibly long ago. It
might have been better for Benson not to mention Bond's early
missions.
By setting this story in Hong Kong in part, Benson is able to give
us a painless introduction to Chinese history of the last 150 years
or so, including the story of the Opium Wars and how Hong Kong came
to have this unusual status of a forced "loan" to Britain.
However, not everything that Benson tells us about the Chinese may
be entirely accurate. At two different places in the plot it is
claimed that Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek were members of the
Triads, a criminal organization that figures into the plot. Of one
of the men I might have believed it. Both I would have to see some
documentation to believe. Elsewhere it is said that the peach is a
symbol of loyalty in Chinese art. It is actually a symbol of
longevity and marriage. In Chinese lore the gods had a peach tree
whose fruit gave immortality.
But those are is just side issues. Does Benson give us a cracking
good James Bond yarn? Well, no. In the final analysis Benson
delivers on little of the promised originality. Most of the plot
really is just a retread of a lot that has been done before in
James Bond novels and films. Standard and overly worn conventions
are used. We have the villain who cheats at some game and Bond
comes along and out-cheats him. This is a tradition going back to
the golf game in GOLDFINGER and has been used in many other Bond
stories. In ZERO MINUS TEN it is Mah Jong. I find that somewhat
amusing, but then when I was growing up the only Westerners I knew
who played this game were middle-aged Jewish women. The concept of
James Bond playing a cutthroat game of Mah Jong is probably not as
whimsical as it seems to me. But overall too much of this book is
borrowed from tired James Bond conventions. There is a plot twist,
but one that is telegraphed as soon as it is set up. Most painful,
we have the villain who could easily just shoot Bond and be rid of
him. Instead, he tells Bond his plans and even hints at what
should be his best kept secret. Bond only has to use what he has
been given to foil the plot. Once Bond has talked to the villain
the last quarter of the book becomes very stereotypic and
predictable. Sadly, when the subtitle of the book calls this THE
NEW JAMES BOND ADVENTURE it is only partially correct. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. SLIDING DOORS (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: Two possible futures for the same
woman are explored in SLIDING DOORS. Issues of
fate and happenstance are the subjects of a
lightly science-fictional romantic comedy. Our
present seems to split into two alternate
futures just when Helen is having a bad day.
We follow her life in both of two parallel
story lines. We see what things are different
and which are the same as in both worlds she
works out the kinks in her love life. Gwyneth
Paltrow is charming in a generally cleverly
written script. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), +2 (-4 to
+4)
Some of the most interesting science fiction films have no special
effects at all. SLIDING DOORS is a new film much in the mold of
the 1971 film QUEST FOR LOVE. Each tells a pair of love stories in
parallel timelines that have split off from each other. In SLIDING
DOORS we cut from one story to the other seeing how things progress
for our character in each of the two possible futures. Some things
happen quite differently, some are mysteriously similar.
Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) is already not having a good day. She has
just lost a nice job at a London public relations firm. She is
headed back to her apartment where, unbeknownst to her, boy friend
Gerry (John Lynch) is two-timing her (no pun intended). He is
shagging with his old girl friend Lydia (Jeanne Tripplehorn). As
Helen is heading down the stairs to the Underground, time
mysteriously splits. From this point on, we cut back and forth
between the two worlds following the lives of Helen1 in one world
and Helen2 in the other. Helen1 is delayed ever-so-slightly on the
stairs and gets to her platform just in time to have the train
sliding doors slam in her face with her on the wrong side. Helen2,
who was not delayed on the stairs, gets to the train a moment
sooner, makes the train, and finds a seat next to the charming
James (John Hannah). Helen1 is forced to look for a cab and on the
way is mugged. She must spend a few hours in hospital. Helen2,
not delayed, returns to the flat to find Gerry2 in bed with Lydia2.
Deciding that she needs an entirely new life, Helen2 leaves Gerry2
and goes to live with her best friend. Helen1 is released from the
hospital and returns home to find some evidence that Gerry1 is
cheating on her, but is in no mood to chase it down. Each Helen
has to find a new living now. Helen1 puts her hair in braids and
takes a job as a waitress. Helen2 starts wearing her hair blond
and short and sets up her own public relations firm. After two or
three chance encounters with James2, Helen2 decides to start dating
him, in spite of not trusting him after her former relationship.
Gerry2 takes up with Lydia2 again but wants to win Helen2 back and
Lydia2 is just as determined to stand in the way. Meanwhile Helen1
becomes more and more suspicious that Gerry1 is cheating on her.
This is not an easy concept to get across to the audience. It
would just not be very subtle to put a placard in front of the
audience saying "time is splitting and we are following two futures
for Helen." At one time it might have been handled, as it was in
QUEST FOR LOVE, with a wise old scientist popping up to explain
that time has taken two paths and Helen is in each world living
different lives. But either would have been crude and the accent
here is not on the science but on just exploring two possible
futures for the same modern woman. And unfortunately just when the
concept would have been most confusing for the audience, just after
the split has taken place, the two lives are the most similar. The
viewer probably does not realize there is a Gerry1 and a Gerry2 and
wonders why Gerry1 does not remember the falling-out that Gerry2
had with Helen2. However as Helen1's appearance and life diverges
from that of Helen2 it becomes somewhat clearer
As everyone is aware, Paltrow is an actress who is pleasant to look
at but who rarely get challenging roles. This is by far her best
acting, as she plays two women growing and changing in different
ways from the same beginning. Unfortunately, there is not much
original required in either of her roles. Betrayed lovers have
been done all too frequently on the screen. John Hannah is likable
on the screen, John Lynch seems a little too befuddled to be
leading a double life. Neither does much extraordinary. This film
offers an interesting idea but little beyond the novelty of the two
parallel paths. Neither story by itself is of sufficient interest
that anyone would pay to see it in a theater. Even if both stories
were told consecutively one after the other they would be two very
bland stories. Only a little obvious contrivance gives the film a
tiny amount of dramatic tension toward the end of each story. It
is the editing together and simultaneous telling that give the film
its ginger. That allows the viewer to compare two futures and is
what makes the exercise worth seeing.
I rate SLIDING DOORS a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to
+4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
4. SHAKESPEAREAN WHODUNNITS edited by Mike Ashley (Carroll & Graf,
ISBN 0-7867-0482-9, 1997, 422pp, US$10.95) (a book review by Evelyn
C. Leeper):
This anthology of twenty-five stories should appeal to most
Shakespeare lovers. That means it will probably still have fewer
sales than, say, PSYCHIC CAT DETECTIVES, but one can't have
everything.
Let's start with what isn't covered. No one deduces who the "Dark
Lady" of the sonnets was. And no one deduces who wrote
Shakespeare's plays (other than that Shakespeare wrote them). The
stories fall into two major and one minor categories. The minor
category (two stories) includes mysteries set in the real world of
Shakespeare and centering around the writing of the plays. The two
major categories are stories which attempt to unravel a mystery
within a play (e.g., how did Mamillius really die in "The Winter's
Tale"?) and stories which follow the action of a play (e.g., what
happened to the people left alive at the end of "King Lear"?).
To the purist, of course, the former is more satisfying. It takes
only what Shakespeare has given us and derives its story from that.
It is like the "deductive puzzle" mystery in that we have all the
information necessary; while additional details are revealed in the
story, the basic facts are already established.
The latter is a bit dicier. The author can add all sorts of
characters and events to the existing story. But he or she must
tread carefully to avoid having a completely unrelated mystery that
just happens to have Marc Anthony as the detective who solves it.
(I made this one up. No one does anything this blatant.)
Ashley organizes the stories as follows: those based on the
histories, in event-chronological order, then the rest of the
stories based on plays, in historical order based on the plays'
settings (though I don't agree with his placement of "King Lear" or
"A Midsummer Night's Dream"), and finally the stories based in
Shakespeare's real world. The problem with this from a reading
perspective is that there's a fair amount of heavy history all in a
lump at the beginning. It also violates standard anthology
placement: strongest first, second strongest last. At the
beginning of each story, he briefly recounts the events of the play
so that those of us who are a bit rusty on what exactly happened in
"Coriolanus" (for example) are brought up to speed. (I suppose I
should note that I have actually read all the plays as part of my
reading plan a couple of years ago. That doesn't mean I remember
them all perfectly.)
And the stories themselves? Well, I'll list them all, with the
plays upon which they are based, but comment only to the extent
that seems necessary.
King John: "When the Dead Rise Up" by John T. Aquino: Not an
auspicious start for the anthology, in that the play is not one of
the most familiar. To some extent it creates its own mystery.
Richard II: "The Death of Kings" by Margaret Frazer: This actually
looks at what might be considered a real mystery in the play, which
makes it one of the more interesting stories to me. (The fact that
"Richard II" is one of my favorite plays might have something to do
with this.) It also seems inspired by Agatha Christie, but I won't
say more than that.
Henry IV: "A Villainous Company" by Susanna Gregory.
Henry V: "The Death of Falstaff" by Darrell Schweitzer: A well-
written story, with a disappointing resolution.
Henry VI: "A Serious Matter" by Derek Wilson: A bit of an attempt
to create a mystery where none existed before, with a somewhat
predictable ending.
Richard III: "A Shadow That Dies" by Mary Reed & Eric Mayer: Well,
it's not very hard to pick a mystery regarding Richard III. Reed
and Mayer decided to take a psychological approach rather than a
forensic one; I think I prefer Josephine Tey.
Coriolanus: "Mother of Rome" by Molly Brown: An interesting
interpretation of Coriolanus's death. One of the better stories in
the book.
Timon of Athens: "Buried Fortune" by Peter T. Garratt: Garratt
borrows an idea from "Hamlet" as well in this mystery.
Julius Caesar: "Cinna the Poet" by Tom Holt: A straight mystery
based on the rioting following Caesar's assassination. While there
is nothing in it that requires it be connected with those events,
it works well and feels right.
Cymbeline: "Imogen" by Paul Barnett: As with many stories, this one
looks at the events in the play and asks whether Shakespeare was
accurate. While that's a valid approach--and Barnett writes a very
atmospheric story--the problem is that this approach occurs too
often in this volume.
King Lear: "Serpent's Tooth" by Martin Edwards: Another look at
"what really happened" in the play in question, this one taking
place a generation later, which adds a completely new set of people
to keep track of.
Macbeth: "Toil and Trouble" by Edward D. Hoch: It's not surprising
that the best stories in the anthology are by the best-known
authors. Hoch tells the story from the perspective of the three
witches in a way that one might expect from a woman author. Or it
is just that men rarely write female main characters? In any case,
he does an excellent job.
Hamlet: "A Sea of Troubles" by Steve Lockley.
A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "A Midsummer Eclipse" by Stephen Baxter:
Another story which really has nothing to do with the play it is
linked to. Somehow it doesn't work as well as "Cinna the Poet"--
maybe it's the inclusion of fantasy characters in what is basically
a mundane mystery.
Much Ado About Nothing: "Much Ado About Something" by Susan
B. Kelly: Adds more levels to the impersonations in the play, with
another predictable ending.
The Winter's Tale: "Who Killed Mamillius?" by Amy Myers: This story
is one of those that finds (or creates) a mystery in the original
play. Whether it succeeds depends in large part on whether you
find the claim of mystery convincing.
Twelfth Night: "This Is Illyria, Lady" by Kim Newman: Another one
of the gems. It's short, and deals more with the general tone and
setting of the play than any specific murder or robbery.
Romeo and Juliet: "Star-Crossed" by Patricia A. McKillip: As the
introduction says, if Friar Lawrence arrived at the tomb after
everyone was dead, how *did* he know what happened?
The Two Gentlemen of Verona: "The Banished Men" by Keith Taylor:
Sets up a mystery during Valentine's time among the bandits.
The Taming of the Shrew: "The Shrewd Taming of Lord Thomas" by
Mary Monica Pulver: Focuses on the framing story of Shakespeare's
play. Or rather, the framing half-story, since after starting off
with the conceit of having a sleeping beggar dressed as the lord of
the manor and treated as such when he wakes up, no existing
versions of the play have anything at the end to wrap up what
happens.
Othello: "Not Wisely, But Too Well" by Louise Cooper: More about
the motivation behind what happened in the play, but no additional
mystery per se.
As You Like It: "Murder As You Like It" by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre:
Well, it certainly a different take on the impersonations going on,
with a distinctly down-to-earth approach, and a lot of understated
word play. Not for all tastes, I suspect.
The Merchant of Venice: "The House of Rimmon" by Cherith Baldry:
Well, I never thought the ending of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE a
particularly happy one, and Baldry seems to agree, with a story
that helps put the original in perspective.
"An Ensuing Evil" by Peter Tremayne: A mystery set in the world of
Shakespeare's theater.
"The Collaborator" by Rosemary Aitkin": I can't tell if Aitkin is
seriously proposing what the main character discovers in
Shakespeare's plays, or parodying literary criticism, or what. As
a result, this formed an unsatisfying end to the volume, though its
content made it a logical conclusion.
So the best ones (in my opinion) are "The Death of Kings" by
Margaret Frazer, "Mother of Rome" by Molly Brown, "Cinna the Poet"
by Tom Holt, "Toil and Trouble" by Edward D. Hoch, and "This Is
Illyria, Lady" by Kim Newman, and "The House of Rimmon" by Cherith
Baldry. But even the others are interesting, even if only for
their settings. If you've read this far, you're a Shakespeare fan,
so I feel safe in strongly recommending this. As Ashley notes in
his introduction, not all the plays are covered, so there's still
material for a companion volume if this one is successful. [-ecl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
It could probably be shown by facts and figures
that there is no distinctively native American
criminal class except Congress.
-- Mark Twain
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