THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
03/30/12 -- Vol. 30, No. 40, Whole Number 1695
Ollie: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Stan: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
With Deep Regret (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for April (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Counting Countries (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
FROM TIME TO TIME (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
THE LAST HAWK by Catherine Asaro (audiobook review
by Joe Karpierz)
Hypnotized by THE MENTALIST (television review
by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
This Week's Reading (THE MIRACLE OF FREEDOM: 7 TIPPING POINTS
THAT SAVED THE WORLD, THE REVISIONISTS, THE COMPANY MAN,
and THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE CLOCKWORK MAN)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: With Deep Regret (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I am very sorry to say that after publishing the MT VOID since
1978, almost all of that time as a weekly notice, this will be our
last issue. We have enjoyed writing the VOID over the years.
Thank you for all the quality readership.
As I say, this will be our last issue and will remain so for a
week. On April 6 our next issue will become our last issue and the
April 13 issue will become next issue. And so forth. That's the
way it works.
Hey, did you notice that April has a Friday the 13th as well as an
April Fools Day? [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Ten Things Your Tarot Reader Won't Tell You (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
I cannot believe this was written with a straight face. I can
think of one thing your tarot reader probably will not tell you.
http://tinyurl.com/void-tarot
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for April (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
Once again it is time to look at what is coming up on Turner
Classic Movies for the coming month and decide what I would
recommend. (Again I remind people that I have no connection to
Turner. They are merely the best source for older films--ones
generally without superheroes or torture porn. I have to show some
admiration for a television channel that essentially is running a
film festival that started and just never stopped. For most films
that they show they provide fairly good film notes which you can
find by putting the title of a film into their search box on most
of their pages and telling it to search their site. For example, I
notice that EYES WITHOUT A FACE has extensive film notes at
http://tinyurl.com/mrl-yeux. All times are Eastern Standard
Time.
Perhaps the most interesting film of the month for horror fans is
LES YEUX SANS VISAGE or EYES WITHOUT A FACE directed by Georges
Franju based on a novel by Jean Redon. If it is indeed a horror
film, it is an ethereal and almost poetic one. A plastic surgeon
will stop at nothing to replace the scarred face of his daughter.
He kidnaps beautiful women, kills them and steals their faces to
graft onto his daughter's face. It is an idea that showed up in
many European horror films, particularly in the decade following
this 1960 film. A very similar idea was used, for example, in ATOM
AGE VAMPIRE, made the same year. Jesus Franco's THE AWFUL
DR. ORLOFF also had a mad plastic surgeon trying to restore his
daughter's beauty. Wikipedia also adds Jesus Franco's FACELESS.
Mad plastic surgeons are still showing up, most recently in Pedro
Almadovar's THE SKIN I LIVE IN. But the image of the surgeon's
daughter in a mask to hide her face has an otherworldly beauty that
is an indelible sight and a true iconic image. This film was
released in the United States, unfortunately retitled as THE HORROR
CHAMBER OF DR. FAUSTUS, and put on a mismatched double bill with
THE MANSTER. The musical score was provided by someone who was to
be one of the great screen composers, Maurice Jarre. It has not
shown on TCM since 2008. [Wednesday, April 10, 10:15 PM]
As far as I am concerned one of the funniest films ever made is
BEDAZZLED (1967). It is one long sketch by the one-time comedy
team of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Moore plays Stanley Moon, a
little nebbish grill man at Wimpy Burgers in London. Stanley wants
to date co-worker Margaret who has never even noticed him. So Moon
decides to do away with himself, only to fail at that also. He
would try again, but he has a visit from the Devil, who uses the
name George Spiggott. The Devil has a great deal for Stanley,
seven wishes in return for Stanley's soul. What follows is seven
sub-stories Stanley getting wishes granted only to find out that
the Devil outsmarts him at every turn. Along the way there is
hilarious dialog like meetings with the Seven Deadly Sins in human
form. Raquel Welch plays Lust (a.k.a. "Lillian Lust, the babe with
the bust"). Stanley's seventh wish has become a classic all by
itself. This is a very funny film. [Friday, April 13, 5:45 PM]
One nice entry for the month is the steam-punky pirate film THE
CRIMSON PIRATE with Burt Lancaster. What Douglas Fairbanks was for
the silent era, Burt Lancaster was for the post-WWII period. From
the late 1940s and the 1950s he was an action star who could do his
own stunts. Frequently at his side was a 5'4" mute, Nick Cravat.
(Nick had been Lancaster's partner when the two comprised the
circus acrobatic team "Lang & Cravat". Cravat would always be
Lancaster's sidekick. Cravat could speak perfectly well, by the
way, but public speaking was not his forte and he had a thick
Brooklyn accent so by choice he played mutes. Of nineteen films
that Cravat made, ten also featured Burt Lancaster. The last was
THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1977). Without Lancaster, Cravat also
played the gremlin that William Shatner saw on the wing of his
plane in the "Twilight Zone" episode.) THE CRIMSON PIRATE was one
of Lancaster's most fun films. Lancaster plays the pirate with a
sort of twinkle in his eye and his tongue firmly planted in his
cheek. As I say the film takes a decided turn for Steam Punk.
(Steam Punk is the name given to 18th century engineering science
fiction. Think Jules Verne or "The Wild, Wild West".) [Sunday,
April 15, 12:15 AM]
Also running in April is DETOUR, CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER, BILLY
BUDD, and RED PLANET MARS.
(I cannot actually recommend RED PLANET MARS as being at all good.
It is a strong jingoist anti-communist film of the 1950s. But it
is interesting because it is the only future extrapolation that
suggests that the Soviet Union would fall apart when people just
decided they just were tired of Communism. That is not a lot
different from what eventually happened.) [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Counting Countries (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
People often ask us how many countries we have visited. It is not
a simple question to answer. (States are easier--all fifty, though
even there one has to add "and Washington, D.C.").
First, there are 45 unequivocal countries:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada, China,
Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Finland,
France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica,
Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands,
Norway, Peru, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain,
Swaziland, Sweden, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Turks & Caicos,
United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam, Zimbabwe
Then there are four countries which were all part of one country
when we visited, but split up about a week later:
- Bosnia-Hercegovina
- Croatia
- Slovenia
- Yugoslavia (Serbia)
And another two that also split (though more peacefully):
- Czech Republic
- Slovakia
Two "countries" were actually British territories:
- Gibraltar
- Hong Kong
(And Hong Kong is now part of China, but not completely
incorporated there either.)
While we're at it, some people would count four more we have
visited as countries (if not sovereign nations):
- Puerto Rico
- Wales
- Scotland
- Northern Ireland
The last six are not sovereign nations, but are countries in the
sense of being treated as separate entities from their governing
nations by various organizations--for example, the International
Olympic Committee and AMPAS (Puerto Rico and Hong Kong), and
various sport associations (Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland).
Four others--which at least are undisputed countries--barely count:
- New Zealand (walked around the airport in Wellington two
different times)
- Senegal (saw the airport out the plane window during a stop
there)
- Namibia (was in riparian territorial waters)
- Zambia (was in riparian territorial waters, and also a short
stretch between Zimbabwe and Botswana))
And finally, three "one-offs";
- Palestinian Territories (in specific, the Jericho area)
- United Nations
- Vatican City
So I believe that the strictest count would be 49, and the most
inclusive would be 64. My guess is that the number the most people
would agree on would be 61. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: FROM TIME TO TIME (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is a kind of ghost story, but it is not a scare-fest.
It is a reserved but compelling adventure involving ghosts and time
travel as a World War II era boy finds his family's mansion is a
gateway to a mysterious past that holds family secrets. It was
written and directed by Julian Fellowes, who won an Academy Award
for his writing of GOSFORD PARK. The accent is on characters and
telling a good story and not on blood. For me the icing on the
cake was to discover that Ealing Studios made it. That is a
revival of the legendary British production company of the 1940s
and 1950s. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
Well, the first unexpected touch of the film is in the opening
banners. It said "Ealing Studios". That came as a very pleasant
surprise. Ealing Studios turned out some of the best British films
in the 1940s and 1950s. DEAD OF NIGHT was from Ealing. The Ealing
comedies were legendary and many of them featured a young Alec
Guinness including KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, THE MAN IN THE WHITE
SUIT, THE LAVENDER HILL MOB, and THE LADY KILLERS. I had thought
that the last Ealing films came out in 1959. Apparently that was
true for more than four decades. The IMDB tells me that that same
production company was revived in 2002. I had enjoyed their BURKE
AND HARE (2010) without ever realizing that was an Ealing film.
Ealing studios seems like a visitor from another time, which makes
it particularly appropriate that I noticed their return with the
film FROM TIME TO TIME.
And with FROM TIME TO TIME it is more than the production company
that brings up happy memories. This is very much an old-fashioned
ghost story with a bit of time travel thrown into the mix as well.
It is no gory scare-fest. The accent is more on fantasy than it is
on horror. The story is based on a novel by Lucy M. Boston, but
Julian Fellowes adapted the novel to a screenplay and then directed
it. Fellowes understands the British country house living of past
eras. He scripted GOSFORD PARK and with its meticulous attention
to period class structure detail and received an Academy Award for
his writing. Here he has only a light touch of horror. The point
of the film is story telling with good characters. And there even
is some interesting metaphysical speculation as to what ghosts may
actually be and even a bit of time travel paradox.
With an opening reminiscent of THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE
WARDROBE, we are in December 1944 with Tolly (played by Alex Etel
of MILLIONS), around fourteen years old, going to the country to
visit his grandmother, Mrs. Oldknow (Maggie Smith of THE PRIME OF
MISS JEAN BRODIE) who lives in the family's large ancestral home,
Green Knowe. The mansion itself becomes a character, the height of
early 19th century splendor, but now dark and dusty and soon to be
sold as no longer maintainable by the family. It is still tended
by caretaker Boggis (great character actor Timothy Spall), the last
of generations of Boggis family caretakers for Green Knowe. There
is an uneasy relationship between Tolly and Mrs. Oldknow at first.
Tolly is wound up in worrying about his father, missing in the war.
Tolly is convinced he will see his father again. Things take a
decidedly different turn when Tolly starts seeing translucent
images of people who lived in the mansion from the early 1800s. He
thinks of them as ghosts and his grandmother believes them to be
ghosts also. But they seem to be in a world that links the mansion
as it is in 1944 and the way it was in 1805. And Tolly becomes
involved in some unpleasant doings in his family back then. There
are one or two mildly scary scenes with ghosts, but this is not a
shock'em sort of ghost story but instead an adventure across time
as Tolly tries to help resolve some injustices of the past.
The cast is well-supported with Smith and Spall. Also present is
as the WWII-era maid is Pauline Collins, who in the 1970s played
downstairs maid Sarah on BBC's "Upstairs, Downstairs". She might
have been a touch typecast, but it is a role she knows well. Hugh
Bonneville of "Downton Abbey" does a nice turn as the sympathetic
father of the 1805 family. FROM TIME TO TIME is a reminder of how
enchanting a fantasy can still be if not taking over by digital
imagery and if it has a few interesting characters and a few nice
touches of plotting. I rate it a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or
7/10. FROM TIME TO TIME has been playing at film festivals and has
been recently released on DVD from Freestyle.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1031241/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/from-time-to-time/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE LAST HAWK by Catherine Asaro (Tor copyright 1997,
Blackstone Audio copyright 2000, 13 hours 51 minutes, narrated by
Anna Fields) (audiobook review by Joe Karpierz)
THE LAST HAWK is another entry in Catherine Asaro's "Skolian
Empire" series. It tells the story of Kelric, son of Roca Skolia
and Eldrinson Valdoria, who crashed on the planet Coba and was
missing from the Empire for over eighteen years. Of the four
"Skolian Empire" audiobooks that I have listened to so far, this is
probably the weakest, but that doesn't mean it's a bad book--it's
just the "least" of the four.
Coba is a planet that is off-limits to the Empire at the desire and
via the deception of the planetary leaders. Coban society is a run
by a powerful matriarchy. There are 12 "estates", each led by a
woman manager, one of which is actually the planetary leader. They
desire to keep their society separate and away from the Empire.
They believe that the Empire is evil and dictatorial, and fear the
consequences of the Empire coming in, developing a presence on the
planet, and making Coba a part of the Empire. The only evidence
on Coba that the Skolian Empire even exists is an automated Empire
spaceport. The minister (planetary leader) has been successful in
keeping Empire influence out of Skolian society--until Kelric crash
lands on Coba.
They don't know what to do with him. He is injured and dying. His
internal biomechs are failing, and the meds that keep him alive are
malfunctioning as well. Their choices are to take him back to one
of the estates, or let him die.
It is a tough choice for them. On one hand, they don't want him or
the Empire contaminating their world, and on the other hand letting
him die is anathema to them. They abolished war and killing long
ago, when society was on the brink of extinction due to endless
warfare. Letting him die is seen as a return to the old ways. So
they bring him back to one of the estates and attempt to nurse him
back to health. And they teach him an odd dice game called Quis.
Quis is more than just a dice game. Quis is an information
network, although Kelric doesn't know it at the start. Quis is
what the estate managers of Coba came up with to replace war. Quis
is played to make political decisions, pass information, perform
espionage, do science, etc. Let me digress a bit to state that
Asaro, being a mathematician and physicist, knows a thing or two
about networks, and indeed has them in one form or another all over
the Skolian novels. I found this particular incarnation of
networks, a dice game, to be quite intriguing, although in reality
I can't get my head around some of the concepts of Quis and how
information was stored and transmitted through the Quis network.
But I digress.
It turns out that while women run the planet, men run the Quis
network. Each estate has a commune of sorts, called a Calanya,
where the Quis players, called Calani, reside and do nothing but
play Quis, making decisions that change the destiny of the planet.
Each time a Calani is traded from one estate to another, he gains a
"level". There hasn't been anyone higher than a 4th level since
anyone can remember. Kelric becomes a Calani, and then through
various political machinations gets traded enough times to become a
powerful 6th level Calani. But the price that Coban society pays
for having a 6th level off-world Calani in their midst is to great
to bear. Kelric injects part of himself into the Quis, changing
the face of Coba forever.
As I said, this is the weakest of the four I've listened to so far,
but it's not bad. The narration, however, leaves even more to be
desired than in the previous books, as Anna Fields narrates this
installment, and isn't very good. Her attempts to do a male voice,
and of course do different male voices, falls flat, in my opinion.
I see that she's scheduled to read the next few installments that
I'll be listening to. I hope she got better. [-jak]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Hypnotized by THE MENTALIST (television review by Dale
L. Skran, Jr.)
A family favorite at the Skran-Paltin manse is THE MENTALIST. I've
been a fan since the first season, and Sam (my seventeen-year-old
son) has become a fan as well. Jo, my wife, has finally admitted
after seeing a few choice episodes that it grows on you. THE
MENTALIST is also fairly popular among the general TV audience as
well, possibly because it is the sort of police procedural of which
LAW AND ORDER and CSI are among the best known recent examples much
beloved to the American TV audience. It has all the elements of
the standard procedural--a weekly murder, a crack investigative
unit (the CBI--California Bureau of Investigation), and a colorful
detective, Patrick Jane. In some cases there is even a butler as a
suspect.
There is no such thing as the "CBI" although it is clearly based on
a real organization--the "Bureau of Investigation & Intelligence"
in the State of California Department of Justice, which has
regional offices in California, and, according to their web site,
is involved in "Investigating the 'worst of the worst,' including
cases involving acts of terrorism, child exploitation, unsolved
violent crimes, homicides, officer-involved shootings, and
organized crime groups."
What separates THE MENTALIST from a host of other police
procedurals is the character of Patrick Jane, a former carnival
mentalist and professional con man who has committed the
unforgivable sin of challenging Red John, a serial killer, on
public TV. Red John punishes Jane by horribly killing his wife and
child. After recovering after a spell in an institution, Jane
joins the CBI as a consultant, ostensibly to assist in murder in
investigations as a "psychic", but in reality to use the CBI as a
springboard to find and kill Red John.
On some level Jane is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, with the CBI
team filling the role of Watson. Certainly Jane possesses the
powers of observation that made Holmes famous, and apparently can
routinely replicate the sort of deductions attributed to Conan
Doyle's most famous creation. The Holmsian "scientific" detective
aspects are to a large part taken on by the well-equipped CBI team,
which can call on modern-day forensics and computer searches.
However, Jane brings to the table characteristics Holmes did not.
As a circus mentalist, Jane is expert at memory tricks and
strategies, and can apply his skills to gambling to such good
effect that he almost always wins, even at things like horse racing
that, to such an extent that his abilities appear supernatural.
Jane is an expert hypnotist, and hypnosis plays a role in some but
not all of the plots. Most importantly, as a professional con man,
Jane usually manipulates his way to the murderer in a fashion that
is much more hands-on than Holmsian. Jane's bag of tricks appears
to include the full Monty of Houdini-style slight of hand, séance,
and telepathy acts as well as the misdirection usually done as part
of a con.
THE MENTALIST is different from Holmes in several important ways.
First, Holmes was portrayed as somewhat of a boxer and a swordsman,
although, of course, not nearly as dangerous as his modern day
incarnation in two recent movies as a kick-boxer. Jane is
completely non-physical in his crime fighting approach, or at least
is no more physical than the average person is. He avoids any kind
of physical confrontation, relying completely on his superior
mentality and on the CBI team for any required fisticuffs. Second,
Holmes often used disguise, but Jane, if he uses a disguise, it is
of the most minor sort, such as putting on a trench coat and a hat,
and is usually part of a con. Finally, Holmes is not primarily
driven by the motive of personal revenge as is Jane.
So far we have the elements of a decent TV murder-mystery show,
perhaps similar to COLUMBO or LAW AND ORDER. What carries THE
MENTALIST into new territory--SF genre territory--are the addition
of several themes that are not typically seen in police
procedurals, namely [1] plots that routinely skirt the edge of
fantasy and science fiction in subject matter, [2] an on-going
concern with the issues raised by mind-controlling cults, and [3] a
meditation on the conflict between what can only be described as
two supermen, and on the nature of super-humanity itself.
First let's take a look at some of the fantasy/SF themed episodes.
In Season 1/10, "Red Brick and Ivy" Jane's former psychiatrist is
accursed of murder while working on a project to alter mental
states between good and evil. Most of the main characters believe
that the technology works. Jane pulls a con where he pretends to
have been programmed by the machine to an "evil" state and goes on
a rampage. In the end, it turns out that the machine never had
been working. In Season 1/12 "Red Rum" a student is found, the
apparent victim of a satanic sacrifice. A witch, Tamzin Dove,
confesses to having put a death spell on the student. For much of
the show, it appears either that the witch is responsible for the
death via magic, or that at a minimum she is leading some kind of
secret society of dangerous witches.
The Season 1/18, "Russet Potatoes" deals with a mastermind who uses
hypnosis to commit murders. This episode has a lot of the feel of
the old Saturday matinee villains like "Dr. Satan" since it deals
with a bad guy who, although not actually having any superhuman
powers, is way over the edge of what most murderers can do,
resulting in an anything can happen, comic-book feel to the story.
Season 1/22, "Blood Brothers" revolves around the Legend of
Zachariah, a Jason-like murderous spook, who for at least part of
the story, appears to be real, before being outed Scooby-Doo style
by Jane. In Season 2/5, "Red Scare," during the early part of the
episode it appears that the murder was committed by a ghost with
supernatural powers. In due time Jane exposes the hokus-pokus as
fakery. Season 2/16, "Code Red," deals with the possible release of
a deadly bio-weapon.
THE MENTALIST explores at some length the dangers posed by cults
based on mind control. In Season 2/20 "Red All Over," the
character of Bret Styles (played well by Malcolm McDowell), the
leader of the Visualization Self-Realization Center, is introduced.
Styles displays many of the same abilities as Jane, and seems to
know more about Red John than an ordinary citizen should be able to
find out. The Visualization Center is loosely based on
Scientology, founded by former SF writer L. Ron Hubbard. Styles
returns in another episode in Season 4 which contains some
frightening scenes that demonstrate his absolute control over his
many followers as well as his deep insight in the human psyche.
This episode ends with Styles "owing" Jane a favor, as Styles
realizes that Jane has "been playing a deep game." Other episodes
that involve group-think and mind control include Season 1/18,
"Russet Potatoes" (a cult-like hypnosis training center using
"neuro-linguistic programming") and Season 1/22, "Blood Brothers"
wherein a youth camp uses disturbing methods to control its
inmates.
Patrick Jane is a suitable candidate for super-humanity. Although
he staunchly denies having any supernatural powers, it is clear
that he has so far developed his mental abilities that there is
very little difference between what Jane might do with actual
supernatural powers and what he can do without them. Jane has no
need to concern himself with the sorts of things that trouble
ordinary mortals. He demonstrates over and over that he can easily
obtain any amount of money if he needs it carry out a con or do a
good deed. His knowledge of the human mind and inner desires are
so great that he operates as a human lie detector and appears
telepathic if he wishes to exert himself. Jane can seduce any
woman--or any man, and get them to do whatever he wants. By
stopping criminal after criminal, including some quite clever
masterminds who approach him in intelligence, such as the SJK
killer, Jane demonstrates that he is almost without exception the
smartest--and the most dangerous--person in any room. To such a
person, a normal life presents not the slightest challenge.
But Jane does have an overreaching challenge, a "great white
whale"--killing Red John--someone, who, although twisted and sick,
seems just as capable as Jane, or even more so. Red John
demonstrates phenomenal ability in many areas--operational
planning, manipulation, technology, computers, recruiting, and
hypnosis, where he is clearly Jane's superior (he is able to
hypnotize a woman into believing that she is dead and a ghost so
deeply that Jane can't undo the effect). Red John seems to be able
to assemble a team of highly skilled and completely fanatical
personnel to take on any task, and to get to individuals that would
otherwise be incorruptible. It often appears that Red John enjoys
his battles with Jane, who may be the only person capable of
offering John any challenge. Red John even goes so far as saving
Jane's life on one occasion so that the game can continue.
Red John is clearly a psychopath, but as is revealed in the fourth
season, so is Patrick Jane. Jane has made a conscious choice to
separate himself from humanity as he pursues Red John. In this
journey he is willing to use anyone, kill anyone (well, almost),
including himself, and do anything. He has divorced his feelings
from his thoughts so that he operates with total clarity and
stability in the most trying circumstances. Jane has no respect
for the rule of law or the conventions of humanity, except as it is
convenient. This makes Jane incredibly dangerous and
unpredictable. Circumstances that would be deeply distressing to
normal folks, like being locked in a cell with a dangerous
murderer, are for him just another problem to be solved. What
makes Jane such an interesting character is that as he seeks Red
John he regains his humanity a bit at time, gradually starting to
care about the CBI team and himself. Along this journey, Jane
takes every possible opportunity to enjoy a life he knows could end
at any moment, and to do good deeds as he passes, certain he is
unlikely to survive his final encounter with Red John.
To Patrick Jane and Red John, the normal run of humanity are simply
tools to accomplish their ends, little more than shadows. Their
abilities of manipulation are so strong that knowing what they are
does not protect even an intelligent, experienced agent from being
manipulated by them to achieve virtually any outcome. There are a
few people that rise to be noticed by Red John and Jane, such as
the SJK killer, but those persons always end up crushed in the
cross-fire. So far only Bret Styles seems to operate anywhere near
their level and remain unscathed.
Patrick Jane could easily be a Heinleinian or Campbellian superman.
His apparent lack of any true superhumanity is in itself a type of
superhumanity. Jane and Red John are on the far end of the bell
curve, the one in a billion intellects that are so far advanced
over even so-called geniuses that they exist on a different plane,
a plane in which only each other offer a real challenge. It is
clearly this challenge that draws Red John to Patrick Jane. At
first Red John merely appeared to want to punish Jane, but one
wonders if their relationship is not in Red John's view a long-term
recruitment/training exercise.
Programs like THE MENTALIST create the conundrum that Red John is
such a great villain that almost any ending will be a
disappointment, but not to have an ending will be a still greater
disappointment. I wish the writers the best in bringing this show
to a satisfying conclusion. Along those lines, I have a few
speculations I would like to go on the record as making:
* In a season one episode one of Red John's victims leaves a
cryptic note in his own blood on the wall, which may be read "He is
man." I suspect that the victim was trying to say "He is many" and
that Red John is really a death-cult, perhaps led by a mastermind,
but in reality a collective of psychopaths or would-be superhumans.
This would go a long way to explaining how Red John appears to be
so powerful and all-knowing. It would not surprise me to learn
that Red John the cult had an origin in some kind of secret
government program gone awry.
* I believe that Jane is running a long con on Red John. Some
important part of "Patrick Jane" is a lie put in place to be
unveiled at the proper moment. One possibility is that Jane is
not, in fact, as physically ineffectual as he often appears. There
is a season one episode where he throws a bottle in an ash can
accurately over Lisbon's head, perhaps 25 feet or more away. It is
certainly possible that young Patrick was trained in something
other than the tricks of a carny mentalist, perhaps a knife
throwing act, etc.
* As I mentioned above, the possibility exists that Red John's real
purpose is to recruit Jane, or even train him as his successor.
This would explain Red John's protective actions toward Jane which
are otherwise hard to fathom. John's goal would be to transform
Jane from a mere con man to a wholly amoral killer by setting up a
series of situations where Jane is induced to kill someone, either
directly or via manipulation, in the furtherance of the quest for
Red John. So far Jane's body count is not insignificant. And it
has always been true that when you look in the abyss, the abyss
looks back.
* As has been hinted in the show, the Director of the CBI Gale
Bertram (played by Michael Gaston) will turn out to be part of Red
John's team/cult, although not actually the mastermind himself.
* Finally, I suspect that Jane has figured out that Red John is
"many" and knows that he must assemble a similar team (the "Cult of
Jane") to overcome Red John's many fanatical assistants and
henchmen. Bret Styles' "favor" owed to Jane might make him part of
Cult Jane, and of course the CBI team has been carefully guided to
trust Jane over anyone, and certainly over CBI management. CBI
Special Agent Grace Van Pelt, who killed her own fiancé after
finding that he was an agent of Red John, seems like she would be
especially willing to take on any risk to bring down John. Another
possible member of Cult Jane is Madeline Hightower, who owes Jane
her life and has ample reason to hate Red John.
In conclusion, I remain hypnotized by THE MENTALIST!!
[-dls]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This week seems to be an alternate history week, although the first
book is not, strictly speaking, alternate history.
THE MIRACLE OF FREEDOM: 7 TIPPING POINTS THAT SAVED THE WORLD by
Chris Stewart and Ted Stewart (ISBN 978-1-60641-951-9) is
definitely a book with an agenda. The authors describe their first
book, SEVEN MIRACLES THAT SAVED AMERICA, has trying to answer these
questions:
- Were there events in the history of this nation when God
literally intervened to save us?
- Was there a reason for these miracles?
- Does God have a purpose for us still?
And their later statement that they believe in American
Exceptionalism confirms their point of view. So it seems unlikely
that this book is going to be an impartial, objective look at
history.
However, from a counterfactual point of view, it is certainly worth
considering 1) whether the tipping points they chose are tipping
points, and 2) whether tipping in the other direction would have
had the results they claim.
Their tipping points are:
- Sennacherib, about 701 BCE
- Thermopylae/Salamis, 480 BCE
- Milvian Bridge, 312 CE
- Poitiers, 732 CE
- Death of Ogodei, 1241 CE
- Discovery of the New World, 1492 CE
- Battle of Britain, 1940 CE
[I have to say that though Evelyn does not entirely agree with me I
think the author is wrong on what a "tipping point" actually is. A
tipping point is the same phenomenon as a "watershed" or "the straw
that broke the camel's back." It is an even when a continuous
change causes a sudden non-continuous change. For example, snow
slowly falling on the side of a mountain accumulates a tiny bit at
a time until it becomes too heavy and falls in an avalanche. What
is listed are "pivotal points," but an argument would have to be
made to show they are "tipping points." Wikipedia says, "[Malcolm]
Gladwell defines a tipping point as 'the moment of critical mass,
the threshold, the boiling point.'" -mrl]
"Had the Franks not succeeded [at Poitiers], respect for religious
freedom, minority rights, women's rights, and government based on
reason and democracy would surely not exist." Poitiers was in 732,
and if one looks at the next *thousand years* of the Christian
Europe that was saved, one sees nothing of religious freedom,
minority rights, women's rights, or government based on reason and
democracy. To claim that these suddenly appeared over a millennium
later because of this victory is not a statement one can apply the
adverb "surely" to.
To be fair, the authors do acknowledge that Christianity has had
its negative influences as well, but they seem to limit these to
"the corruption that befell the church in the latter centuries of
the Middle Ages" (specifically the 14th and 15th centuries). This
manages to put the blame on the Roman Catholic Church, and as a
side effect making Protestantism look like the church's savior.
They gloss over the Crusades, the Inquisition, the persecutions of
religious minorities (often other Christian sects), and all the
sorts of things that they are quick to point out in other
religions. They talk about Christianity's message of equality for
all, and do not discuss how it supported slavery for centuries. In
short, they give credit to Christianity for all its good aspects,
and blame corrupt men and women for its bad, while blaming other
religions (specifically Islam) for all the negative things done in
their names.
More specifically, Christianity gets the credit for making Europe
what it was in the 18th and 19th centuries. But Christianity just
as surely made Russia what it was in the 18th and 19th centuries--a
land of serfs (basically, slaves) where individuals had few rights
and an all-powerful Tsar ruled them all. The claim that they were
worse off than if the Mongols had remained needs something more
than mere assertion. All the barbarity the authors ascribe to the
Mongols can be found in the Russians, or for that matter in the
Europeans.
I do not deny that these "tipping points" (more accurately, turning
points) made a difference. Certainly things would be different if
any of these went a different way. But "saved the world"? What
exactly does that mean? To the Stewarts, it means "saved the world
to become a Christian, capitalist culture just like ours." But if
man-made global climate change is real, and as serious as some
claim, perhaps all that these have done is set the world up for
another massive extinction--in which case, one could hardly say
they "saved the world." If this is the case, wouldn't a change
that avoided the Industrial Revolution be what would save the
world?
THE REVISIONISTS by Thomas Mullen (ISBN 978-0-316-17672-9) seems
like a response to all those "Time Police" stories where it is
taken as a given that the "present" that they are trying to save is
worth saving. A few weeks ago I reviewed THE END OF ETERNITY by
Isaac Asimov, which ultimately did not take this position, but most
of its followers have (in part because it makes it a lot easier to
write a series if you are effectively pressing a reset button at
the end of each story). But in THE REVISIONISTS, the time police
have come back to our Washington, D.C., to safeguard the events
leading to the "Conflagration" that destroyed our civilization and
almost all historical records, and hence allowed the creation of
their "Perfect Present.
Or so it seems. But this "Perfect Present" is clearly a Stalinist
dystopia where knowledge of history is forbidden except in the
broadest terms, and even thinking about the past is prohibited.
(For example, we discover that when someone dies, a squad comes in
and removes all traces of their existence: pictures, belongings,
clothing, even their smell.) And there seem to be far more "hags"
(historical agitators) than seems reasonable.
One reviewer has criticized Mullen's history--for example, the
statement that the atomic bomb was used on Japan only because
Americans felt that the Japanese were subhuman. That statement is
made, but by Zed, the time policeman from the future who has a very
sketchy idea of any history not directly related to his mission.
Zed is clearly confused about other aspects of 20th and early 21st
century history, so why should this be any different?
THE COMPANY MAN by Robert Jackson Bennett (ISBN 978-0-316-05470-6)
is basically steampunk, which means it can be seen as alternate
history, but not very effectively--alternate history requires more
actual history, while steampunk emphasizes the technology without
spending more time on politics, or sociology, or other aspects.
(Which is not to say that steampunk ignores the alternate history
aspects, but it does not focus on them.) So while Bennett does
have some geopolitical changes (without McNaughton, he writes, "the
German Crisis might never have been averted"), he does not spend a
lot of time on them, and in fact makes the error of referring to
"Pakistan" in the world of 1920 [page 216]. The name "Pakstan" was
coined by Choudhary Rahmat Ali in 1933 as an acronym of Punjab,
Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh and the suffix -stan from Balochistan.
The "i" was added later to ease pronunciation. (A variety of other
acronymic break-downs were created later to use all the letters.)
Its use by someone in 1920 is completely anachronistic.
THE COMPANY MAN is okay as a noir steampunk, but if you are looking
for alternate history, you will be disappointed.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE CLOCKWORK MAN by Mark Hodder (ISBN
978-1-616-14359-6) is a sort of supernatural steampunk adventure
with Richard Francis Burton and Algernon Swinburne as secret
agents. It is okay, but every once in a while Hodder makes a goof.
Sometimes it is something blatantly wrong: "The cactus has reloaded
already. For as long as it's in a defensive state, it'll produce
spines continuously. You could fire this thing for hours on end
and never run out of ammunition!" (page 214) Has this cactus
repealed the law of conservation of mass?
Other times it is an awkward attempt to draw a parallel between
Hodder's world and ours. Burton is Burton and Swinburne is
Swinburne (or at least as far as one can have transworld
identities--this may be a future article), but his Burke and Hare
are not our Burke and Hare, no matter how cute Hodder gets:
"Palmerston's odd-job men [who are named Burke and Hare] resembled
nothing so much as a couple of eighteenth-century gravediggers."
(page 211) Well, *our* Burke and Hare *were* a couple of
eighteenth-century gravediggers, and plopping them into the
nineteenth century makes no sense.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE CLOCKWORK MAN is a sequel to THE STRANGE
AFFAIR OF SPRING HEELED JACK, and is followed by THE EXPEDITION TO
THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON. If you're going to read this, you
should probably start at the beginning of the series. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared,
for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man
can answer.
--Charles Caleb Colton