THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
04/05/13 -- Vol. 31, No. 40, Whole Number 1748
Mickey Rooney: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Judy Garland: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Correction to Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups,
Lectures, etc. (NJ)
A Bad Sign (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Article on Alternate History
Classic Frank R. Paul Illustrations
Hugo Nominations (with comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Sixties Spy Shows Adapted to the Screen (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES and THE HYDROGEN SONATA: A Meditation
on the Transhuman Condition (television/book review
by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
Math Puzzles (letter of comment by David Leeper)
Gun Control (letter of comment by Jim Susky)
This Week's Reading ("Oresteia") (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
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TOPIC: Correction to Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups,
Lectures, etc. (NJ)
April 11: ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND and "The Memory
Clearing House" by Israel Zangwill http://bit.ly/ZeRLy4,
Middletown (NJ) Public Library, 5:30PM; discussion after
the film
[This was mistakenly listed as April 4.]
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TOPIC: A Bad Sign (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I see that next month will see the release of the next "Star Trek"
film STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS. Hot damn that's dramatic! INTO
DARKNESS! That is pretty scary, isn't it?
Am I the only one who is getting a really bad vibe from this title?
What a concept! The whole ship and crew are going into darkness.
I guess that is pretty unusual, huh? The Enterprise is an
interstellar craft, but I guess until now it has always gone into
pretty well-lit interstellar space. I mean, cheese, it isn't like
it is the first time. Why didn't they go all out and call it STAR
TREK OUT OF TOWN? [-mrl]
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TOPIC: Classic Frank R. Paul Illustrations
In the Huffington Post (of all places) is an article, with
Illustrations, about Frank R. Paul:
http://tinyurl.com/void-frpaul
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TOPIC: Article on Alternate History
Evelyn was interviewed for, and is quoted in, an article in
"Motherboard" title "Did Steampunk Kill Alternate History?"
The article may be found at http://tinyurl.com/mtvoid-vice-ah.
[-ecl]
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TOPIC: Hugo Nominations (with comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Best Novel (1113 nominating ballots cast)
- 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
- Blackout, Mira Grant (Orbit)
- Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
- Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas, John Scalzi (Tor)
- Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW)
Best Novella (587 nominating ballots cast)
- After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress
(Tachyon Publications)
- The Emperor's Soul, Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications)
- On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
- San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats,
Mira Grant (Orbit)
- "The Stars Do Not Lie", Jay Lake (Asimov's, Oct-Nov 2012)
Best Novelette (616 nominating ballots cast)
- "The Boy Who Cast No Shadow", Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Postscripts:
Unfit For Eden, PS Publications)
- "Fade To White", Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld,
August 2012)
- "The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi", Pat Cadigan
(Edge of Infinity, Solaris)
- "In Sea-Salt Tears", Seanan McGuire (Self-published)
- "Rat-Catcher", Seanan McGuire (A Fantasy Medley 2,
Subterranean)
Best Short Story (662 nominating ballots cast)
- "Immersion", Aliette de Bodard ( Clarkesworld, June 2012)
- "Mantis Wives", Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld, August 2012)
- "Mono no Aware", Ken Liu (The Future is Japanese,
VIZ Media LLC)
Note: Category has 3 nominees due to the minimum 5% requirement of
Section 3.8.5 of the WSFS constitution.
Best Related Work (584 nominating ballots cast)
- The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, Edited by Edward
James & Farah Mendlesohn (Cambridge University Press)
- Chicks Dig Comics: A Celebration of Comic Books by the Women
Who Love Them, Edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Sigrid Ellis
(Mad Norwegian Press)
- Chicks Unravel Time: Women Journey Through Every Season of
Doctor Who, Edited by Deborah Stanish & L.M. Myles (Mad
Norwegian Press)
- I Have an Idea for a Book ... The Bibliography of Martin
H. Greenberg, Compiled by Martin H. Greenberg, edited by
John Helfers (The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box)
- Writing Excuses Season Seven, Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary
Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler and Jordan Sanderson
Best Graphic Story (427 nominating ballots cast)
- Grandville Bête Noire, written and illustrated by Bryan Talbot
(Dark Horse Comics, Jonathan Cape)
- Locke & Key Volume 5: Clockworks, written by Joe Hill,
illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
- Saga, Volume One, written by Brian K. Vaughn, illustrated by
Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
- Schlock Mercenary: Random Access Memorabilia, written and
illustrated by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton
(Hypernode Media)
- Saucer Country, Volume 1: Run, written by Paul Cornell,
illustrated by Ryan Kelly, Jimmy Broxton and Goran Sudžuka
(Vertigo)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (787 nominating ballots cast)
- The Avengers
- The Cabin in the Woods
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
- The Hunger Games
- Looper
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (597 nominating ballots
cast)
- Doctor Who, "The Angels Take Manhattan"
- Doctor Who, "Asylum of the Daleks"
- Doctor Who, "The Snowmen"
- Fringe, "Letters of Transit"
- Game of Thrones, "Blackwater"
Best Editor, Short Form (526 nominating ballots cast)
- John Joseph Adams
- Neil Clarke
- Stanley Schmidt
- Jonathan Strahan
- Sheila Williams
Best Editor, Long Form (408 nominating ballots cast)
- Lou Anders
- Sheila Gilbert
- Liz Gorinsky
- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
- Toni Weisskopf
Best Professional Artist (519 nominating ballots cast)
- Vincent Chong
- Julie Dillon
- Dan dos Santos
- Chris McGrath
- John Picacio
Best Semiprozine (404 nominating ballots cast)
- Apex Magazine, edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Jason Sizemore and
Michael Damian Thomas
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies, edited by Scott H. Andrews
- Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke, Jason Heller, Sean Wallace
and Kate Baker
- Lightspeed, edited by John Joseph Adams and Stefan Rudnicki
- Strange Horizons, edited by Niall Harrison, Jed Hartman, Brit
Mandelo, An Owomoyela, Julia Rios, Abigail Nussbaum, Sonya
Taaffe, Dave Nagdeman and Rebecca Cross
Best Fanzine (370 nominating ballots cast)
- Banana Wings, edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
- The Drink Tank, edited by Chris Garcia and James Bacon
- Elitist Book Reviews, edited by Steven Diamond
- Journey Planet, edited by James Bacon, Chris Garcia, Emma
J. King, Helen J. Montgomery and Pete Young
- SF Signal, edited by John DeNardo, JP Frantz, and Patrick Hester
Best Fancast (346 nominating ballots cast)
- The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
- Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce,
Tansy Rayner Roberts (Presenters) and Andrew Finch (Producer)
- SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester, John DeNardo, and JP Frantz
- SF Squeecast, Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire,
Lynne M. Thomas, Catherynne M. Valente (Presenters) and David
McHone-Chase (Technical Producer)
- StarShipSofa, Tony C. Smith
Best Fan Writer (485 nominating ballots cast)
- James Bacon
- Christopher J. Garcia
- Mark Oshiro
- Tansy Rayner Roberts
- Steven H Silver
Best Fan Artist (293 nominating ballots cast)
- Galen Dara
- Brad W. Foster
- Spring Schoenhuth
- Maurine Starkey
- Steve Stiles
The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (476 nominating
ballots cast)
- Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy
writer of 2011 or 2012, sponsored by Dell Magazines. (Not a Hugo
Award, but administered along with the Hugo Awards.)
- Zen Cho*
- Max Gladstone
- Mur Lafferty*
- Stina Leicht*
- Chuck Wendig*
*Finalists in their 2nd year of eligibility.
1343 valid nominating ballots (1329 electronic and 14 paper) were
received and counted from the members of Chicon 7, LoneStarCon 3
and Loncon 3, the 2012-2014 World Science Fiction Conventions.
Comments:
Because LoneStarCon 3 was able to tweet only one nominee per tweet,
rumor has it that at some point they were cut off from tweeting
because they exceed their daily limit.
Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant (her pen name) set a new record with five
nominations in a single year. In the fiction categories, there
were 11 female nominees and 7 male. (Last year it was 11 female
and 10 male.) And for the second year in a row, one fiction
category had no white males.
I would be curious to see the nomination numbers that resulted in
one episode of "Game of Thrones" (Season 2) being nominated in the
Short Form category, rather than the entire season in Long Form.
As usual, people are pointing out what they consider deficiencies
in the Hugo nomination process. Cheryl Morgan is not happy with
the "5% rule" (see http://www.cheryl-morgan.com/?p=16466). On
his Facebook page, Gardner Dozois notes the passing of the
generation of writers from the 1980s, with only Lois McMaster
Bujold, Pat Cadigan, Nancy Kress, and Kim Stanley Robinson
representing the "old" guard, and with the majority of nominees in
most categories coming from online sources rather than print. And
http://www.staffersbookreview.com/2013/04/can-we-stop-talking- about-the-hugos-now.html (unsigned) feels that the selections
indicate a decline in the taste of the voters and a rise in
enthusiastic niche fans (e.g., Mira Grant has a large following of
voters among her readers while many "better" authors do not). And
Jim Hines satirizes a lot of the complaints in
http://www.jimchines.com/2013/03/grumbling-about-the-hugo- awards/.
In the interest of full disclosure, I will note that I had a very
short item published in JOURNEY PLANET (#13), one of the fanzine
nominees. [-ecl]
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TOPIC: Sixties Spy Shows Adapted to the Screen (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
Warner Brothers has announced that George Clooney is no longer
going to be the title character of THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. He has
been replaced by Tom Cruise. I do not think the series needed to
be another Tom Cruise vehicle. This brings up a raft of memories
of 1960s spy TV.
Back when I was a teen--and here I will show my age--the James Bond
films hit the entertainment sphere and were a great success. The
TV networks, always racing to be second at something, wanted their
own spy series. There were several to choose from over the years.
The best were British, "The Avengers" and "Danger Man." The latter
had a title that did not scream "spy stories" so after a season at
the half-hour length, and when the producers took it to an hour-
length, it underwent a name-change in the United States and became
"Secret Agent". There were a number of attempts on the United
States networks to retread their old shows and make then seem a
little more James Bond like. The decent police detective show
"Burke's Law" became "Amos Burke, Secret Agent" and promptly
imploded.
But the American networks created three spy programs that at
various times showed some intelligence or at least creativity. I
have no figures, but my impression was that the most popular
American spy series was "The Man from U.N.C.L.E". It did not
provide much mental exercise, but it had a lot of the fun tropes of
the James Bond films. It had gimmicky weapons and gadgets and a
secret headquarters in Manhattan under a dry-cleaners. Somehow
underneath street level U.N.C.L.E. had built a large command
complex with nobody getting wise that there was anything unusual
underground. Much more intelligent was "Mission Impossible." This
program had scripts that were puzzles. A team is given a mission
to accomplish generally in an invented country. The individuals
go around doing all sorts incomprehensible things. Then in the
last five minutes they spring their plot and, as they say, the
penny drops. The viewer spends that last five minutes saying "Oh,
that is what THAT was all about." Somewhere in between in quality
was "I Spy". This series produced by Sheldon Leonard, who was very
familiar in films such as GUYS AND DOLLS, usually playing the role
of a gangster and always with a New York accent. Years later I
found out this comic actor had produced some of the best shows on
television. One of which was "I Spy." What makes this series work
is the relationship of primary characters Kelly Robinson and
Alexander Scott (played by Robert Culp and Bill Cosby). Some of
the stories were good also, but the real attraction was the
friendship of Robinson and Scott.
Those were the big three American spy series on television. I have
just recently heard that a film version of THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
is being made with Tom Cruise to play Napoleon Solo. Tom Cruise
already has a spy series with MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and it looks like
he wants to get his hands on another of the big three. Luckily a
(reputedly terrible) film version of I SPY has been made, the
franchise tainted, and Cruise will not put his name on that one. I
have always been a little irritated that Cruise or the people
behind Cruise have their hands on the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE franchise
since they have no intention of ever doing the sort of intelligent
puzzle-story that made the original TV series good. With about a
half-day of effort I think I could take a Cruise "Mission
Impossible" script and turn it into a "Man from U.N.C.L.E." or "I
Spy" script. You could not do that with the old TV scripts for
these three series. The three series had distinctly different
styles. I think Cruise and company seem to just want to do their
own thing and then put a respected label on it. THE MAN FROM
U.N.C.L.E. would be just one more franchise to allow them to do it.
I am not a Tom Cruise fan, but nor am I one of the surprising
number of people who hate Tom Cruise. However, I do not think he
is an actor in the way that Gregory Peck, Kirk Douglas, or James
Stewart was in the 1950s. These days Cruise seems to play the same
character all the time. At one time he played more complex
characters, as he did in RAIN MAN. Cruise is taking mostly
adventure roles these days and he is becoming the John Wayne of our
generation. As for his playing in THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., I
seriously doubt it will work as a "Man from U.N.C.L.E." story. As
a spy film it probably will not be very different from Cruise's
"Mission Impossible" films. Cruise just borrowed "Mission
Impossible" films with little interest in what sort of story made
that series what it was.
If Cruise were remaking a film (say, THE 39 STEPS), he would have
considerably more latitude in redefining the character. In some
ways adapting a TV series is more difficult since viewers of a
series have seen the major characters already and in a TV
adaptation the best the director can hope for is that the actors
will do a reasonably good impression of original characters whom
the audience already knows. That is a losing proposition. For the
"Mission Impossible" films, Cruise side-stepped this problem by
inventing a new character who was also in the Impossible Mission
Force but nobody ever bothered to mention. That superficially
removed the obligation to have the new films faithful to the spirit
of the original TV production.
My suspicion is that besides having Cruise be a man from U.N.C.L.E.
there may be a quick dialog reference to familiar characters
Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, Cruise has no intention
whatsoever of doing a "Man from U.N.C.L.E." story. [-mrl]
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TOPIC: THE VAMPIRE DIARIES and THE HYDROGEN SONATA: A Meditation on
the Transhuman Condition (television/book review by Dale L. Skran,
Jr.)
Some of you are probably wondering what THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, a CW
"hot teenage" TV series about vampires has to do with THE HYDROGEN
SONATA by Iain M. Banks. My thesis is that both are meditations
on the transhuman condition. Of late, issues relating to genetic
engineering, cyborgization, and so-called "mind drugs" have become
more salient as these technologies evolve. The public debate on
these topics is rather limited and chilly, with the high ramparts
of society (the President's Bioethics Commission, for example)
occupied (pre-Obama, anyway) by the forces of genetic ludditism,
and with little serious discussion of these topics in the public
space due to widespread and well-organized opposition.
Thus, aside from a few books and papers produced by a tiny minority
of transhumanists, the real dialog is carried on in plain sight via
the means of speculative fiction, otherwise called "SF." THE
VAMPIRE DIARIES concerns a group of friends in Mystic Falls, a
small New England town which for some reason is focus of vampiric
activity. As it turns out, there is a lot more going on than mere
vampirism, as we are gradually introduced to a whole mythology of
vampires, witches, and were-wolves. However, I intend to focus
mainly on the vampires of Mystic Falls and their "state," not on
the rather complex and entertaining plot lines, not to mention the
never ending soap opera of teen relationships fueled by
supernatural danger and power.
Vampires in this world, are, as per the usual mythos, immortal
blood drinkers who are unable to face sunlight or enter homes
without being invited. The vampiric characters in VD get around
the sunlight issue by wearing magical rings provided by witches
allied to them (each faction of vampires has one or more witches
friendly to them), so sunlight plays only a minor role in the
stories. In many ways, the vampires in VD represent the transhuman
condition, or at least one embodiment of it. Now that Elena
Gilbert, the main character, has become a vampire, the focus of
this season is the search for a magical cure for vampirism. This
allows for plenty of discussion of the pros and cons of being a
vampire, as well as the motivation each character had for becoming
or staying a vampire.
These vampires were all turned to vampirism as young adults, so
they are eternally beautiful and healthy. They need fear only a
local herb called vervain, and the bite of a werewolf, which is
always fatal. Their strength and speed are superhuman, and they
can heal from any normal injury, although being burned or
decapitated remains a terminal experience. Their hearing and
senses are highly acute as well.
So far, we have encountered a number of the tropes of
"superhumanity" as it might be genetically engineered. Immortality
is high the on the ultimate goal list of any serious transhumanist,
and immortality means little without eternal, robust health. Thus,
the immunity to disease and injury the vampires of Mystic Falls
display, coupled with their immortality and youthful beauty remain
a long-sought and as yet unrealized human yearning. However, any
real genetic superhuman would not be invincible or invulnerable.
Rather like these vampires, however fast or strong they might be,
however acute their hearing or vision, decapitation or a large bomb
would surely be the end of a real genetic superhuman.
The vampires in VD can be divided into several groups based on
feeding habits. There are those, who, like Stefan, who limit
themselves to animal blood, or human blood from a blood bank.
Others, like Damon, use their hypnotic powers to feed on occasion,
but avoid killing anyone when doing so. Finally, some eat and kill
without limit. Such questions would surely confront our genetic
superhumans as well. Whatever they might be able to eat, there is
always the temptation to over-indulge, something one suspects there
is no genetic cure for.
The hypnotic powers of the vampires, which extend to both
erasing/implanting memories and controlling the actions of others,
are not that far removed from what a real hypnotist can do, not
mention a super-intelligent genetically enhanced hypnotist along
the lines of Patrick Jane in THE MENTALIST. Such powers are a long
held wish fulfillment dream, but as is explored at length in VD,
they can't bring real love, and ultimately are not a sold basis for
resolving your problems. Since the vampires and many of the main
characters are resistant to such hypnosis, it plays only a modest
role in most of the events in Mystic Falls.
A more interesting power the vampires exhibit is the ability to
turn off all normal emotions, including fear, love, doubt, and so
on, and to live only as a vampiric predator. When not in this
state, the vampires experience enhanced human emotions, and thus
are sometimes driven to turn them off completely. Both the
ability to more fully experience strong emotions, as well as to
shut off completely our emotions when we don't want them, are long
held components of the transhumanist dream. We need look no
further than STAR TREK's Spock for an example of a character who
can suppress human emotion in the interest of higher performance.
Another example would be Vinge's use of the drug Focus, or Richard
Morgan's Reaper drug. The current use of drugs like Adderall,
which don't make you smarter, but certainly (for a while, and with
some rather nasty side effects) do help you to like what you are
doing better, and perhaps to become a better, happier, more
energetic version of yourself, are another example of these
desires.
It is easy to imagine a genetically engineered a "human" with
complete control over their emotions, but, as the vampires of
Mystic Falls could report, this change is unlikely to solve all our
problems, and will almost certainly give rise to new ones, as the
now emotionless Elena has discovered in recent episodes.
Some of the vampires in VD (Stefan and Damon) are old by human
standards, and others (Klaus and Rebekah) are many centuries older
than that. They all bear the burden of immortals in a mortal
universe--they can form long-term relationships only among
themselves. Some have sought solace in art, some in power, and
some in blood, but the passage of time often is a heavy burden.
The unspoken message of VD is clear, however. You are better off
as a vampire, at least a vampire like Stefan or Damon with some
level of self-control.
VD deserves credit for a balanced portrayal of vampirism. It's
vampire heroes and heroines are neither gods nor monster, but a bit
of both. Some might even find them human in their strivings to love
and be loved, to find meaning and purpose in their immortal lives.
At it's best VD operates as an extended meditation on the
transhuman condition, with a focus on the every-day meaning of the
transhuman condition rather than on the technology that might get
us to that point. Vampirism is an apt metaphor for the transhuman
condition in that although it has many benefits, it also has real
drawbacks, much as for example, a cochlear implant might allow you
to hear, but at the price of having a machine in your head, and
forcing you to deal with upgrades and computer viruses that affect
your hearing. We should expect as is the case with vampirism,
whatever technology we may deploy to create the transhuman
condition, be it drugs, cyborg devices, or genetic enhancements,
there will be a shifting play of light and dark in our lives, with
each gain coming at some cost, and with the fundamental broken
nature of human life remaining much the same. Truly, there is
nothing new under the sun.
In THE HYDROGEN SONATA Banks provides a different take on the
transhuman condition. Technically Banks writes "space opera" but
rather like the best of Alastair Reynolds, he often transcends the
genre. I've been a fan of his "Culture" tales for a long time, but
recent entrants have seemed a bit padded and thin on the plot. THE
HYDROGEN SONATA for the most part escapes this trap as it follows
the adventures of Lieutenant Commander Vyr Cossont, a Gzilt, as she
struggles to carry out a final mission before the Gzilt "sublime"
to higher dimensional spaces. The Gzilt were part of the group of
species that long ago formed the Culture, but for a mysterious
reasons backed out at the last minute. Now, after thousands of
years they have decided to "sublime," which seems to operate much
like "ascending" in the Stargate TV series.
A faction of the Gzilt has embarked on a reign of terror to cover
up the reason that the Gzilt never joined the culture, and to
ensure that sublimation takes place on schedule. The Culture Minds
get wind of what is happening, and use Cossont as a tool to figure
out the heart of the mystery. Culture Minds are a form of
superhumanity--AIs that occupy interstellar ships with whimsical
names like "You call this clean?" and "Outstanding Contribution to
the Historical Process." They can sublime, but have chosen not
to, instead occupying their time with adventures such as those in
THE HYDROGEN SONATA .
The scope of THE HYDROGEN SONATA as a meditation on superhumanity
is vast. We are introduced to an immortal body changer, a Mind
that returned from the sublime realm, a bizarre experiment in
artistic surgery, various Gzilt in different stages of merger with
machines, and the four-armed Cossont herself. As the plot roars
toward an ultimately tragic confrontation between the Gzilt faction
and the Culture Minds, Cossont struggles to master her "life task"
before her sublimation--to play the Hydrogen Sonata on the
Antagonistic Undecagonstring, something which requires four hands
to accomplish.
I've always thought of the Culture as being a sort of parody of
Western, and specifically American culture. In the Culture you are
free to be decadent, to indulge any desire, as long as you don't
hurt anyone. It is easy to view the Culture as weak, and this has
led over the years to attacks by various enemies, all now
exterminated. The Culture can seem decadent and self-indulgent,
but once aroused, rather like the USA, it displays a ruthless
efficiency in war that somehow always comes as a surprise to the
opposition. The Culture Minds are somehow American--eccentric,
whimsical, independent, bridling at authority, arrogant, and yet
honorable, brave, clever, ruthless, dangerous, and self-
sacrificing, all at the same time.
These characteristics are on full display as the Culture ship
"Mistake Not ..." and Vyr Cossont engage in a desperate struggle
with the best the Gzilt military has to offer, a battle that,
rather like the current drone war, results in significant amounts
of collateral damage and a confused ending that satisfies no one
except the reader. THE HYDROGEN SONATA does not come to a
Hollywood ending, as is often the case with Banks novels, but it is
a realistic ending, and Vyr Cossont does complete the Hydrogen
Sonata. As to her final fate, and that of the other Gzilt, you'll
need to read THE HYDROGEN SONATA.
As always, I recommend THE VAMPIRE DIARIES and THE HYDROGEN SONATA
to those who like this sort of thing. Both are definitely for
older readers, and feature explicit violence and a certain amount
of sex. [-dls]
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TOPIC: Math Puzzles (letter of comment by David Leeper)
In response to Walter Meissner's comments on the math problems in
the 03/29/13 issue of the MT VOID, David Leeper writes:
Thanks, Walter ... great solutions to those math problems! I'd
never seen Foxtrot, and I thought the author might have
accidentally concocted arcane-looking problems that were actually
solvable analytically ... except maybe problem 3 as you point out.
But it looks like they were actual homework or exam problems. They
did look scary.
Now that I know you're out there(!), I'll check my work next time
instead of stumbling through once. It looks like I made a lot of
smack-myself-in-the-forehead errors. I've lost the scratch sheets I
used, so I can't look for them, but your forensics look accurate.
(Were you ever a math teacher?)
Working on the problems brought back memories of my old math
classes (and lots of "Doh!" errors) from the 60's and 70's.
Maybe we can coax Mark into posting more problems for us like those
in Foxtrot ... (?) [-dgl]
[It would not take much coaxing. Though most problems I post I aim
for a high school senior level. -mrl]
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TOPIC: Gun Control (letter of comment by Jim Susky)
In response to Mark's comments on the Second Amendment in the
03/29/13 issue of the MT VOID, Jim Susky writes:
Mark, I've read enough of your fanzine by now to know that you are
thoughtful and a careful writer.
[Thank you. -mrl]
I'll offer a quick reply for now--a more thoughtful one later.
My operative conclusion to gun control is that with over 300-
million firearms extant and a free society to be 100% (or 99.999%)
free from gun violence is a fantasy. I just can't conceive of a
desirable society (or a multiplicity of them--see below) in which
the unlawful or the insane will respect gun restrictions. My
imagination fails to describe a desirable society that can restrain
those bad actors--the solution would be worse than the problem.
(Perhaps you can flesh one out?)
[Perhaps not. Headline from the Daily News: "Americans far more
likely to suffer violent deaths than any other wealthy nation"
http://tinyurl.com/void-violent. -mrl]
Further, some of those "insane" or unlawful ones might respect the
possibility/probability that their attack might be credibly met
with armed disapproval.
I'll add that, since the elementary-school shooting, I have run
some (not "the") numbers.
In the United States the broad likelihood of being killed by
lightning is roughly three times greater than being killed in a
mass shooting.
(analysis attached [but we don't include large spreadsheets here])
Of course if you expand gun violence to include being killed by
family, friend, associate, neighbor, citizen, the numbers change a
lot.
I went through a similar, very brief thought process as you
regarding armed guards--and consider deploying such to be
undesirable in most instances.
Regarding the framers: I heard recently that the gun issue was
addressed within the Federalist Papers. I confess I haven't sought
out a copy of them.
"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one
may have to back up his acts with his life." -Robert Heinlein
(I'll bet you know, better than I, where he wrote that)
Heinlein's aphorism deserves more than a digital aught/nought,
right/wrong, "quite wrong"/quite right characterization.
If you hang a bad neighborhood, armed associates may well be none
too polite--but perhaps more polite if they know you yourself are
packing.
If you hang with my Texas-born, ex-sheriff friend, and know him
well enough, you know he's armed at all times (and triply so when
he comes to the "big city"--which you visited some time back)--and
are not at all concerned--because you never knew a more polite,
even-tempered, and entertaining fellow in your life. If you had to
hang in a bad neighborhood
he'd be a good escort.
Since you don't know him, you'd never have a clue that he's armed.
Bottom line--there are many societies--and more than fifty of them.
Finally, here's my observation about Alaska in general vis-a-vis
arms:
"In Alaska, even Liberals think guns are cool."
[-js]
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TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Next in the philosophy/literature course I described last week was
Aeschylus's "Oresteia", a trilogy consisting of AGAMEMNON, THE
LIBATION BEARERS, and THE EUMENIDES. Greek drama was written for
competition in the form of a dramatic trilogy and a related satyr
play (in this case, the lost PROTEUS), and the plays were normally
performed only once. Yet the "Oresteia" was so popular that it was
performed over and over.
Dreyfus spent a lot of time explaining why the "Oresteia" did not
fit Aristotle's framework (or for many, definition) for tragedy.
It is not about the fall of a hero with a tragic flaw. If it has a
hero, that would be Orestes, and he does not fall.
The first play, AGAMEMNON, has very little action and consists
mostly of speeches relating what has come before the play starts.
In particular, we get a sketchy outline, more in references than in
descriptions, of the beginnings of the Trojan War and Agamemnon's
sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia in order to get a favorable
wind to carry the Argive fleet to Troy.
In AGAMEMNON, Agamemnon returns home, where his wife (Iphigenia's
mother) Clytemnestra has taken up with Aegisthus (Agamemnon's
cousin). When Agamemnon is in his bath, Clytemnestra kills him,
claiming the reason was Iphigenia's sacrifice. (I would find this
more convincing if she hadn't already taken Aegisthus as a
husband.)
It is interesting to compare the stories of Iphigenia and Isaac.
To get the frivolous similarities out of the way first, "Agamemnon"
and "Abraham" both start with "A" and "Iphigenia" and "Isaac" both
start with "I". (This is even more frivolous when one considers
that the names are in two different alphabets and the comparison is
being done in a third.)
In both cases, the father is told by (a) god to sacrifice his
child. In the story of Abraham and Isaac, no reason is given--it
is apparently just an arbitrary commend. In the story of Agamemnon
and Iphigenia, Agamemnon's ships are stranded on an island with no
way to get off, and Agamemnon is told by Artemis that if he
sacrifices Iphigenia, they will get a favorable wind. With his men
starving and his promise as king to come to Memelaeus's aid in
jeopardy, Agamemnon at least has *some* reason for the sacrifice.
A more modern interpretation is that if the king is willing to send
the children of his people off to die in war, he must be willing to
sacrifice his own as well. The modern explanation also emphasizes
the purposeful nature of Iphigenia's sacrifice, as opposed to the
arbitrary nature of Isaac's. Artemis stopping the sacrifice would
have destroyed the message of Universal sacrifice." (In IPHIGENIA
IN AULIS, Euripides wrote a variant of the legend in which this
does happen. Artemis sends a mist and replaces Iphigenia with a
hind at the last moment, carrying Iphigenia off to serve her in a
distant land. It is considered a lesser play by many, including H.
D. F. Kitto in his classic work, GREEK TRAGEDY, where he calls it
"thoroughly second-rate.")
In THE LIBATION BEARERS, another of Agamemnon's daughters, Electra,
is mourning her father and praying for someone to avenge his
murder. Just then, Agamemnon's son, Orestes, returns from his long
exile and, after a lot of speeches, confronts Clytemnestra and
kills her. Before he kills her, she pleads with him, saying, "Oh
take pity child, before this breast, where many a time, a drowsing
baby, you would feed and with soft gums sucked in the milk that
made you strong." (lines 896-898) Again, the conviction of these
lines has been undercut by an earlier speech the Cilissa
(Orestoes's childhood nurse: "I wore out my life for him. I took
him from his mother, brought him up. There were times when he
screamed at night and woke me from my rest; I had to do many hard
tasks, and now useless; a bay is like a beast, it does not think
but wants you to nurse it, do you not, the way it wants. For the
child still in swaddling clothes cannot tell us if he is hungry or
thirsty, if he needs to make water. Children's young insides are a
law to themselves. I needed second sight for this, and many a time
I think I missed, and had to wash the baby's clothes." (lines 750-
759) This is much more naturalistic than anything else in the
play, and hence much more convincing. Assuming it is not just a
function of the translation, this is the beginning of naturalism in
drama.
THE EUMENIDES is in many ways the most interesting of the three
plays. It has the most "action," by which I do not mean car chases
(or chariot chases), but dialogue rather than soliloquy and (for
the first time in the trilogy) nothing taking place off-stage. (By
tradition, all gruesome events take place off-stage, so we saw none
of the previous murders.)
THE EUMENIDES is basically a courtroom drama, with the Furies
charging Orestes with matricide and insisting on his death, and
Apollo defending Orestes. One element of the defense was that
Apollo had encouraged Orestes to do it. But Apollo had another
argument that must seem peculiar to most people today. To the
claim of the Furies ("He has spilled his mother's blood on the
ground"), Apollo replies, "The mother is no parent of that which is
called her child, but only nurse of the new-planted seed that
grows. The parent is he who mounts. A stranger she preserves a
stranger's seed, if no god interfere." (lines 658-661) This is
apparently what the Greeks believed, and has on at least one
occasion been used as the basis for an alternate history ("Seventy-
Two Letters" by Ted Chiang).
Of course, the arguments of the Furies are also alien to us. When
Orestes asks why the Furies did not hound Clytemnestra for killing
Agamemnon the way they are hounding him, the Furies say that the
person Clytemnestra killed was only a spouse and not a blood
relative.
In terms of world-view (which is more the focus of this course),
Dreyfus claims that the "Oresteia" represents a transition from the
older gods and ways (the Furies and spirit of vengeance) to the
newer gods (the Olympians and the rule of law and justice in a
formal society). The problem with this theory, in my opinion, is
that Homer barely talks about the Furies--and even Dreyfus admits
this. It seems to me that if the Homeric era was all about the
Furies rather than the Olympians, then THE ILIAD and THE ODYSSEY do
not represent that very well at all. And if that is the case, then
trying to use *them* to deduce the Homeric world-view is just
wrong.
Dreyfus claims that the "Oresteia" makes a distinction between
"father" and "king", in that Orestes killing Clytemnestra for
killing his father would have been similar revenge of the Furies'
sort (hence improper), but killing her for killing the king is
demanded by justice. (The apparent claim that one does not need a
trial for the latter is glossed over--I guess the argument is that
there might be an excuse for killing an ordinary person, but not
for killing the king.)
[to be continued]
[-ecl]
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Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Write something, even if it's just a suicide note.
--Gore Vidal