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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 04/30/99 -- Vol. 17, No. 44
Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-957-5619, mleeper@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-332-6218, eleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@lucent.com
HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian Emeritus: Nick Sauer, njs@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
201-447-3652 for details. 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. This year's Hugo nominations have been announced. The large
number of categories with six or seven nominations instead of the
usual five is due to the unusually small number of nominating
ballots--this leads to a higher probability of ties.
It is expected that most, if not all, of the short fiction will be
available on-line shortly. Links will be provided here in a week
or two when the dust settles.
Best Novel
- CHILDREN OF GOD, Mary Doria Russell (Villard)
- DARWINIA, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
- DISTRACTION, Bruce Sterling (Bantam Spectra)
- FACTORING HUMANITY, Robert J. Sawyer (Tor)
- TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG, Connie Willis (Bantam Spectra)
Best Novella
- "Aurora in Four Voices", Catherine Asaro (Analog, Dec 1998)
- "Get Me to the Church On Time", Terry Bisson (Asimov's, May 1998)
- "Oceanic", Greg Egan (Asimov's, Aug 1998)
- "Story of Your Life", Ted Chiang (Starlight 2, Tor, Nov 1998)
- "The Summer Isles", Ian R. MacLeod (Asimov's, Oct/Nov 1998)
Best Novelette
- "Divided by Infinity", Robert Charles Wilson (Starlight 2, Tor,
Nov 1998)
- "Echea", Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Asimov's, Jul 1998)
- "The Planck Dive", Greg Egan (Asimov's, Feb 1998)
- "Steamship Soldier on the Information Front", Nancy Kress
(Future Histories 1997; Asimov's, Apr 1998)
- "Taklamakan", Bruce Sterling (Asimov's, Oct/Nov 1998)
- "Time Gypsy", Ellen Klages (Bending the Landscape:
Science Fiction Overlook, Sep 1998)
- "Zwarte Piet's Tale", Allen Steele (Analog, Dec 1998)
Best Short Story
- "Cosmic Corkscrew", Michael A. Burstein (Analog, Jun 1998)
- "Maneki Neko", Bruce Sterling (F&SF, May 1998)
- "Radiant Doors", Michael Swanwick (Asimov's, Sep 1998)
- "The Very Pulse of the Machine", Michael Swanwick (Asimov's,
Feb 1998)
- "Whiptail", Robert Reed (Asimov's, Oct/Nov 1998)
- "Wild Minds", Michael Swanwick (Asimov's, May 1998)
Best Related Book
- THE DREAMS OUR STUFF IS MADE OF: HOW SCIENCE FICTION
CONQUERED THE WORLD, Thomas M. Disch (The Free Press)
- HUGO, NEBULA & WORLD FANTASY AWARDS, Howard DeVore
(Advent:Publishers)
- SCIENCE-FICTION: THE GERNSBACK YEARS, Everett F. Bleiler
(Kent State University Press)
- SPECTRUM 5: THE BEST IN CONTEMPORARY FANTASTIC ART,
Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood Books)
- THE WORKS OF JACK WILLIAMSON: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
AND GUIDE, Richard A. Hauptmann (The NESFA Press)
Best Dramatic Presentation
- BABYLON 5: "Sleeping in Light"
- DARK CITY
- PLEASANTVILLE
- STAR TREK: INSURRECTION
- THE TRUMAN SHOW
Best Professional Editor
- Gardner Dozois
- Scott Edelman
- David G. Hartwell
- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
- Stanley Schmidt
- Gordon Van Gelder
Best Professional Artist
- Jim Burns
- Bob Eggleton
- Donato Giancola
- Don Maitz
- Nick Stathopoulos
- Michael Whelan
Best Semiprozine
- Interzone, David Pringle, ed.
- Locus, Charles N. Brown, ed.
- The New York Review of Science Fiction, Kathryn Cramer,
Ariel Hameon, David G. Hartwell & Kevin Maroney, eds.
- Science Fiction Chronicle, Andrew I. Porter, ed.
- Speculations, Kent Brewster, ed.
Best Fanzine
- Ansible, Dave Langford, ed.
- File 770, Mike Glyer, ed.
- Mimosa, Richard & Nikki Lynch, eds.
- Plotka, Alison Scott & Steve Davies, eds.
- Tangent, David A. Truesdale, ed.
- Thyme, Alan Stewart, ed.
Best Fan Writer
- Bob Devney
- Mike Glyer
- Dave Langford
- Evelyn C. Leeper
- Maureen Kincaid Speller
Best Fan Artist
- Freddie Baer
- Brad Foster
- Ian Gunn
- Teddy Harvia
- Joe Mayhew
- D. West
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (Not a Hugo)
- Kage Baker*
- Julie E. Czerneda*
- Nalo Hopkinson*
- Susan R. Matthews*
- James Van Pelt*
* denotes second year of eligibility
===================================================================
2. I woke up this morning early. I lay in bed a little while but
could not get back to sleep. Pity. I would like to sleep a little
later on the weekends. I just am by nature an early riser. When I
looked at the clock it was 6am. That really is too early to get up
on a Sunday morning.
I did get up and went into the kitchen. There was a sort of
rhythmic thrum, thruming. "The slaves are up early this morning,"
I thought. "They are making fresh bread for breakfast." And
indeed it was true. My slave was kneading the dough for a loaf of
French bread. It felt downright ante-bellum to have my slave get
up early in the morning and make me some fresh bread. What was
different between me now and the GONE WITH THE WIND South was that
my slave did not mind getting up early. My slave did not know or
care anything. I could take a hammer to my slave and my slave
would not mind a bit. That is just the way my slave is made. My
slave is made up of a motor and a heating element and some silicon
chips. None of that stuff has any consciousness. I don't need to
care about any of that or waking it up early. The difference
between me and Katie Scarlett O'Hara is that I use a piece of
machinery that I don't have to worry about and Scarlett used a
human being that she was taught she did not have to worry about.
And so we condemn her and her way of life. And as Lincoln might
say, "It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do so.
But in a larger sense ..."
But in a larger sense what Scarlett and I want are the same things.
What she wants is fresh bread for breakfast and what I want is
fresh bread for breakfast. I just prefer the way I do it. And I
can't say for sure, but I bet you a nickel that if she were given
the choice, she would also prefer to have a mechanical bread maker
wake up at five in the morning to make her fresh bread. It is
really easy for me to pass judgement on Scarlett, and I do so with
only this one qualm. She and I want the same things. She just
lived in a time when the only way to get fresh bread for breakfast
was by inconveniencing another human being. It is easy for me to
condemn her ... over breakfast ... with fresh bread.
Throughout history there have been powerful people who have wanted
to live in a certain standard of luxury. Kings, emperors,
potentates have wanted things to just be nice for them. If summer
is two hot or winter is too cold they might have the peasants build
two palaces for them. One is a summer palace in some cool place;
the other is a winter palace so they would not have to suffer too
much from the cold. What percentage of Americans do not control
the temperature inside their houses these days? We condemn human
slavery and consider it immoral, but we know we cannot have it
legally and technology has come to the point where we don't need
it. If it was socially acceptable and the only way we could be
comfortable, I am afraid there would be backsliding. In fact, that
is just what is happening in Sudan.
But we are a rich country and--more to the point--we are a
technologically advanced country. We can afford slaves made out of
plastic and metal and silicon. We complain about social
conditions, but it is good to keep a perspective that most of the
poor of today live a lot better than the wealthy of just a century
ago. There are those among us who dislike technology. Someone I
know has told me that he would prefer to be living in some previous
age. As it happens he is a diabetic who could not be living in a
previous age, he could only be dying in a previous age. His house
has a thermostat and an automatic furnace and electrical wiring and
he has a gasoline-driven car. Just a century ago his lifestyle
would have been fairly uncomfortable. Society then could afford to
have just a handful of people who did live so comfortably. My
friend does not realize it, but he can live like a person of a
previous age when he wants. He could, but he has to give up
considerably more of his modern conveniences than he realizes he
uses. He lives more than he realizes like a slaveholder of a
century ago. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience
is a delight to moralists--that is why they
invented hell.
-- Bertrand Russell
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