THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
10/03/14 -- Vol. 33, No. 14, Whole Number 1826
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
The Egyptian Book of the Dead (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Disease Is Scarier Than Weapons (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
HERO OF THE DAY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
LonCon 3 (2014 Worldcon) (Part 5) (convention report
by Dale L. Skran)
DRIVE HARD (letter of comment by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Hugo Awards for Dramatic Presentations (letters of comment
by Paul Dormer and Kevin R.)
Sir Richard Francis Burton (letters of comment by Kevin R.,
Tim Bateman, and Peter Trei)
ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND LIVES! (letters of comment
by Tim Bateman and Keith F. Lynch)
This Week's Reading (THE WEIRD and THE WHITE MOUTAINS)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: The Egyptian Book of the Dead (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The Egyptian "Book of the Dead" has explanations about what happens
after a person dies. I have always wondered how the authors knew
what happens. How did they ever get a book like that fact-checked?
Did they actually run it by anybody who was dead to verify it was
correct? [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: What Is Art?
At his forgery trial in 1947 Han van Meegeren pointed to "The
Supper at Emmaus", his most famous Vermeer forgery, and said,
"Yesterday, this painting was worth millions of guilders and
experts and art lovers would come from all over the world and pay
money to see it. Today, it is worth nothing and nobody would cross
the street to see it for free. But the picture has not changed.
What has?"
==================================================================
TOPIC: Disease Is Scarier Than Weapons (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I guess my fascination with pandemics as a subject for horror dates
back to 1964 and the Saturday afternoon matinee when I saw Vincent
Price in THE LAST MAN ON EARTH. Now, this low-budget Italian film
gave rise to a lot of nightmares. It was really the first film to
show hoards of parasitic reanimated dead, or what we now call
"zombies." That I just thought was a nifty horror concept. But it
was not particularly scary because I knew it would not happen. But
there was an idea in the film that did get to me. What is really a
scary concept that was possible was the plague that as it happened
would later lead to zombies. I knew there were plagues and
pandemics in history, but I never actually thought about what it
would really be like to be in a society hit by plague. It was
seeing a loved one dying and who would die without help, but
reporting the sickness was itself a death sentence. That is not a
fantasy. That sort of thing really happened in history.
We think of the Plague as being a horror from the Middle Ages.
There are much better ways of fighting it these days, so it is not
so traumatic. But the fight goes on in modern times. There was an
outbreak near New Delhi just ten months after my October 1993
visit. In Surat 300,000 people fled their homes to escape the
Plague.
The last really bad pandemic was not Plague but the 1918 Influenza
Epidemic that followed World War I. That was when trench warfare
honed the virus to a deadly virulence. Why trench warfare?
Viruses mutate very rapidly. For any virus outbreak there are more
and less benign strains created by mutation of the original strain.
Under normal conditions if you get a bad bug you stay home and stay
put. The virus never gets much of a chance to be communicated to
other people. If you just have fatigue and digestive problems you
are more likely to go out and in so doing spread the virus to other
people. The lighter virus is what is spread. With trench warfare
it is reversed. If you get a light case of flu you stay put and
fight. You get a really bad strain of flu and you get taken to the
infirmary with other sick soldiers. It is the bad strains get
spread around. The war killed 16 million people and the flu
epidemic killed 50 million.
So since I was a teen I have had a fascination with science fiction
and disease as a threat. Certainly one existential threat to the
human race is disease. Alistair MacLean (using the pen name Ian
Stuart) wrote the thriller THE SATAN BUG about biological warfare
weapons. It was adapted into a film of the same title in 1965. As
one developer in the film adaptation explains,
"If I took the flask which contains it and exposed it to the air,
everyone here would be dead in three seconds. California would be
a tomb in a few hours. In a week all life, and I mean all life,
would cease in the United States. In two months, two months at the
most, the trapper from Alaska, the peasant from the Yangtze, the
Aborigine from Australia is dead. All dead, because I crushed a
flask and exposed a green colored liquid to the air. Nothing,
nothing can stop the Satan Bug."
That is really potent but not only scary; it is altogether
plausible. Biological weapons scare me a lot more than nuclear
weapons do. When it comes right down to it when you see a bright
flash, hear deafening thunder, and see a mushroom cloud your second
or third thought is that somebody did this to you. Shortly
thereafter you are thinking of retribution. Whoever did this to
you is probably worrying about that retribution. So they would
probably be less than likely to hit you with nuclear weapons in the
first place. A nuclear bomb is unsubtle.
On the other hand if one day you start feeling influenza symptoms
you are thinking about how to get better from this chance event.
You have no idea you have been hit by a weapon. That is why a
biological weapon is discrete and subtle. You might well be dead
without ever thinking that you might have been murdered.
Any deadly disease falls on a spectrum from "hard to weaponize" to
"easy to weaponize." As time goes by they migrate toward the easy
end of the spectrum. I hope they are also migrating from "hard to
defend against" toward "easy to defend against." But the
biological domain might very easily offer deadly and subtle
weaponized diseases.
The most current strong biological threat is Ebola--now also called
EVD or Ebola Virus Disease. I have been fascinated with Ebola ever
since I saw a prolog about it in the television movie AND THE BAND
PLAYED ON (1993). In 1976, it is documented, the disease had
ripped its way through a village in Zaire and everybody including
the doctor was dead. This looked like the sort of sort of scary
breakout I expected from science fiction. But it had really
happened somewhere off in Zaire.
As I read about the disease I can remember telling people that I
thought this disease, Ebola, was probably going to be a continent
hopper. The common wisdom at the time was that Ebola looked scary
with its 90% fatality rate, but was not actually much of a threat.
It was really too virulent to successfully take hold. It would
burn itself out. It would kill people in a small area but then
find itself with nobody else to infect. What made Ebola so scary
was what made it less of a dangerous threat.
But there were some factors that were not seriously taken into
account in those days. We are only seeing the danger now. The
first scary fact is that Ebola can take as much as three weeks to
incubate. For three weeks you can travel without knowing you have
it. Usually it is less time, but even if just a few people have it
incubating that slowly there is no telling where those people may
wander in that time. So there is no telling where we could have
new outbreaks occurring next. (Note: people are not contagious
until they start showing symptoms.)
In the current outbreak I hear on the news that doctors and
healthcare workers who take all the "right" precautions are getting
infected. It is probably human error, but clearly educated doctors
and healthcare workers are not 100% careful 100% of the time and
are learning too late there was a chink in their armor. This
happens to one worker in ten. So where are we going to get people
to replace them? Most doctors are not going to want to bet their
lives they are careful enough no matter how grave the need.
Volunteers are clearing up a wide variety of bodily excretions all
tinged with decaying blood and the smell of the dead. They wear
very hot uncomfortable suits, sweating large quantities of
perspiration. And they stand this one-in-ten chance of getting the
disease themselves. In the third world countries where the disease
is breaking out there are just not enough brave and trained workers
and not the required equipment. The volunteers are real heroes and
heroes are definitely not a sustainable resource.
Meanwhile I just heard that in Liberia, the country hardest hit,
the number of infected doubles every two to three weeks. A stretch
goal would be to get it to spread merely like wildfire instead of
like a continuing explosion.
We can, however, take some cold comfort that Ebola is not airborne.
You actually have to be in physical contact with bodily fluids of a
victim of Ebola to be infected with the virus. Not that you can
always tell when that has happened. Some diseases are spread
though with a breath. We are told that there is very little
probability that a mutation of Ebola will be able to travel through
the air by breath. However, viruses mutate very quickly and any
comfort we get that Ebola is not airborne would have to be
temporary and full of doubt. If Ebola were carried on the air it
is hard to imagine just how that would devastate our world. The
disease would spread very quickly. There would be no way to track
where it was wafted. Anyone who had been near a possible Ebola
infected person could be carrying the disease. It is hard to
imagine that it would not be like the Satan Bug. You might just
have the trapper from Alaska, the peasant from the Yangtze, the
Aborigine from Australia all dead.
We live in frightening times.
This column is dedicated to the Ebola workers and their tremendous
and mostly unsung heroism. They are risking and laying down their
lives for people they do not know. This fanzine all too often
discusses heroes who dress in spandex and whose talent is bringing
destruction to villains. What they do is far less heroic than what
real people are doing today in backward parts of the world.
Some of this material came from a BBC podcast "The Why Factor:
Risking Your Life for Strangers."
This might be a good time to contribute to Doctors Without Borders:
[-mrl]
[For the idea of weaponizing diseases, see Frederik Pohl's THE COOL
WAR. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: HERO OF THE DAY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: The fictional Allen Bradley wants to make a documentary
about Mark Chambers, once a pro-football hero now separated from
his family with his life on the skids. Chambers agrees to be
filmed for one day and hints that there is something unexpected
that will make it a pivotal day to capture on film. Writer
Christopher Allen Nelson keeps the viewer guessing where the script
is going. Its destination tells the viewer a lot about Mark.
Eddie Conna directs a film that questions what really constitutes
heroics. Warning: there is some blood and brutality in the latter
parts of the film. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Digital video has promised to make films less expensive to produce
and to enable more creative filmmakers to express fresh ideas.
Filmed on video in Los Angeles but set in the streets of
Pittsburgh, HERO OF THE DAY is an unassuming small independent film
that tells a reasonably engaging story on what looks like it could
have been done on a minimal budget with handheld cameras.
Allen Bradley (played by Paul Dietz) is an aspiring documentary
filmmaker who intended to make a film about one-time football star
Mark Chambers (Mo Anouti). Mark was once a football legend, but
has fouled up much of his own life off the gridiron. Mark is
strongly ambivalent about being filmed. One moment he is
cooperative, the next he is obstinate and belligerent. Mark had
strived for fame and got it through football. But he has
discovered that after his exhilarating high point, his life has had
to go on and perhaps has been mismanaged.
Allen wants to film Mark for one typical day. Mark agrees but
keeps hinting that the day he has chosen may not be typical at all.
Mark has been fighting depression after the court separated him
from his wife and son. Once well paid he now needs money
desperately. The big day starts prosaically enough until Mark
shares that he is going to sell what must be his most prized
possession. He is going to sell his championship ring to pay
bills. As Allen follows Mark around there seems to be more and
more evidence that Mark may be getting very desperate and perhaps a
little unhinged. Mark shares that for months he has been trying to
track down a man he has seen sitting in a car at a local grade
school. Mark guesses that this man is a child molester. His hints
about what is going to happen that day get progressively darker and
take on a feeling of finality.
Christopher Allen Nelson's script based on ideas suggested by its
star, Mo Anouti, keeps the viewer guessing just where the story
might be going. There may be logic problems with the conclusion of
the film. Director Edward Conna co-directed a zombie film
previously. This is his second film entirely on his own. Most of
his work has been as a stuntman and not a director. Perhaps that is
why he lets one action scene late in the film to go on what seems
to be too long. Producer and star Anouti is a champion body-
builder-turned-actor. He does have personality on the screen.
Perhaps this film will remind the viewer of Darren Aronofsky's THE
WRESTLER (2008). His character, Mark, has several parallels to the
Mickey Rourke character in THE WRESTLER. I rate HERO OF THE DAY a
+1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10. HERO OF THE DAY is on DVD
currently and will be on VOD October 23.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2177400/combined
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: LonCon 3 (2014 Worldcon) (Part 5) (convention report by Dale
L. Skran)
Monday, August 18th, 2014
11:00 [11 am] "Fermi Paradox Book Discussion"
A new book titled PARADOX edited by Ian Whates is coming out from
Aether. I had been looking for the book as it has a new Robert
Reed story, but I could not find it at the con, although it was
said to be available in the dealer's room. A rather large panel of
authors, including most famously Pat Cadigan, who had stories in
the collection, contributed to the commentary (but not Mr. Reed).
The discussion, like many that did not include any practicing
scientists, was witty and entertaining, but tended to skip over the
real issues involved. One panelist based his comments entirely on
Kantian philosophy, which was entertaining and educational, but
entirely unhelpful in terms of coming to grips with the Fermi
Paradox. Still, I intend to order the book, which was reported to
be available on Amazon.
12:00 [12 noon] "SF and Space Travel: pragmatism or pessimism"
This "literary" panel started from a famous Stross quote that the
idea of space travel in the near term was nonsense. Moderated by
Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory, and including Ben Bova,
it is safe to say the panel did not agree with Stross. Guy moved
the panel over a wide range of both practical and literary topics,
and a generally intelligent discussion ensued, coming down on a
sort of in-between position that in the very short term not much
happens, and that the settlement of the solar system would
certainly take centuries, but space travel was far from nonsense.
The panel was reasonably balanced between scientific space
advocates and fans of private space activities. Ben Bova put on an
impressive performance to my eyes--I was glad to have the chance to
see him perform on this panel. He has aged well, and perhaps
improved with age. This was perhaps the best literary panel I saw
at this con, and one of the few that did not seem to base its
analysis on a "diversity-based" deconstruction of traditional SF
tropes. I note in passing that there were three men and two women
on the panel, but the two women (Mary Turzillo and Tsana Dolichva)
were apparently too busy writing SF about Mars and doing space
science to do much deconstruction.
13:39 [1:30 pm] "The World at Worldcon: Israeli SF/F"
Among the various strong points of a well populated set of panels
the con committee has created a series titled "The World at
Worldcon" focusing on various non-English speaking SF communities.
For my final LonCon 3 panel I decided to check out what might be
happening in Israel. This proved both surprising and interesting.
The panel was all female. They reported that fans in Israel were
overwhelmingly female, and young. Israelis are famously
argumentative, and fans equally so, so I trembled at bit at what a
panel of Israeli fans might be like. I was pleasantly surprised to
behold a warm and friendly panel that seemed like a bunch of folks
it would be fun to get to know better.
As a small country, you would not expect Israel to have a large
SF/F community, and it is clearly a small one. Israel is fully
connected to the worldwide film market, and English SF novels are
translated in large numbers into Hebrew. However, there is no
paying Hebrew SF market. Thus, SF in Israel is like the very early
days, in which for the most part no one could sell anything and at
least short SF only appeared in what amounts to fanzines/prozines.
From a literary point of view, realism is the dominant national
trend, and SF/F is completely outside what publishers will buy.
Oddly, many mainstream works are SF, including alternate histories
and so on, but they are not sold as SF nor recognized as SF. There
has been an award granted for the best SF/F Hebrew short story and
novel for 18 years, but none of this material is available in
English. There are so few writers that each writer can be said to
constitute a subgenre of their own. It was reported that the
limited number of fanzine/prozine editors in Israel would only buy
stories with downbeat endings, which is a bit of a national
characteristic of Israeli fiction in general.
It also turns out that there is a parallel Russian
speaking/writing/reading SF/F community in Israel, separate to the
point that a Russian-language cable SyFy channel was created but
only marketed to Russian Jews in Israel. All in all, this was an
interesting panel.
LonCon 3 General Comments:
LonCon 3 sported a max of over 7,000 "warm bodies" on Sunday, which
would appear to reverse a long slide in Worldcon attendance. It's
still nothing compared to Dragoncon or Comicon, but it is
definitely an upward tick. A London Worldcon brings out all the
British fans/authors/artists, so United Kingdom attendance was
similar to United States attendance. Also, many continental fans,
even if they are non-English-speaking, tend to come to an English
Worldcon.
There is no question that LonCon 3 featured a diverse and rich
program. The science track was truly excellent, and featured an
entire day organized by the British Interplanetary Society (BIS)
and another day on interstellar travel organized by the I4IS
(Initiative for Interstellar Studies). Both sets of talks
consisted of subjects and speakers not normally seen at United
States Worldcons, and the topics--space settlement and interstellar
travel--fit perfectly with the interests of major English writers
such as Reynolds and Baxter. In addition to these luminaries Alan
Bond, Director of Reaction Engines, and a Russian cosmonaut were
given significant air time.
As I've reported elsewhere, overall the media panels were good, and
the organizers deserve a lot of credit for providing introductions
to nine SF/fantasy shows that con-goers might not be familiar with.
Of course, they could have easily had panels for an additional nine
shows. I never found an "academic" panel that seemed interesting,
and the "literary" track suffered from a strong left-wing slant
that made most discussions extremely one-sided. The same sort of
left-wing cliches appeared on various panels--zombies represent the
oppressed lower class, and so on.
The Excel convention center turned out to be an excellent location.
I was concerned that it might be so big as to require a train to
get from one end to the other, but this was not the case. Also,
the hotels were much more convenient than we expected. There were
lots of close-by restaurants, and tons of good fast food in the
hall itself. Best of all, the Excel had so much seating that even
at peak attendance you could easily find a table. There was
supposed to be another convention between the Crown Plaza and the
LonCon 3 space, but fortunately this convention was canceled and it
was always possible to walk directly through the Excel to LonCon 3.
The main complaint with the venue is that the rooms allocated to
the panel discussions were often too small. Standing/sitting on
the floors in the panel rooms was *strictly* forbidden--I've never
been to a con with anything like the enforcement I encountered at
LonCon 3(*). I was closed out of *many* panels--more than at any
worldcon I can remember. My theory is that they planned for 5,000
people and 7,000 showed up.
With regard to the Crown Plaza, we were operating on a pay more,
get more theory, and looking for air conditioning and elevators,
things often not found in English accommodations. The Crown Plaza,
which we endorse, offered free WiFi, as did the Excel center. The
only complaint I had with the room is that for some reason it is
not possible to get reasonable-sized beds in England. The best you
can do is two singles or one double bed. In the United States two
doubles are ubiquitous, two queens are common, and the better
hotels have a lot of king beds. One additional complaint--the
bathroom doorstops are metal posts embedded in the floor which are
*very* easy to stub your toe on or trip over. You never see
anything like this in the United States--it would probably be a
code violation. Finally, energy conservation is such a priority
that both hotel rooms could best be described as "dimly lit" even
with every lamp turned on.
One final word of warning--the Crown Plaza has a curious wake-up
system where if you don't talk or press a button, the system will
keep calling you until you do. It took a while for me to figure
this out. Then we switched to another hotel with the *opposite*
system--if you press any button they call you back in ten
minutes!!! I have never seen a hotel in the United States that
operates on any system but "you pick up the phone and that
terminates the wakeup call." Asking a groggy guest to push buttons
is going too far. [-dls]
(*) The Glasgow Worldcons, particularly the 2005 one, had similar
fire safety enforcement problems. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: DRIVE HARD (letter of comment by Evelyn C. Leeper)
In response to Mark's review of DRIVE HARD in the 09/26/14 issue of
the MT VOID, Evelyn writes:
In conjunction with DRIVE HARD, I have to suggest the obvious
double feature: DRIVE HARD and WALK HARD. [-ecl]
Mark responds:
I would have suggested another pairing, DRIVE HARD and HARD DRIVE.
Actually the working title of DRIVE HARD was HARD DRIVE. It was
probably changed to avoid confusion with the pre-existing film HARD
DRIVE. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Hugo Awards for Dramatic Presentations (letters of comment
by Paul Dormer and Kevin R.)
In response to Dale Skran's comments on the Hugo Awards for
Dramatic Presentations in the 09/19/14 issue of the MT VOID, Paul
Dormer writes:
To be fair, although ORPHAN BLACK was made by the BBC they didn't
do much to publicise it in the United Kingdom, not even showing it
until about six months after the North American showings. I only
caught it by accident and it didn't make much of an impact at
first.
You might not get a full picture of what's available on television
just by looking at the listing pages in the newspapers. Because of
space limitations, many newspapers don't list every channel. I
just checked "The Independent" and they list just 12 channels for
today, whereas my low guess of channels available would be over
100. Even the "Radio Times", a major listings magazine (originally
the BBC listings magazine) only lists about 70 channels. Often,
the smaller channels will have only a couple of brought-in United
States shows, but many of the shows are available if you know about
them. [-pd]
Kevin R. responds:
I rarely use printed TV listings. Online services from Zap2it or
TVGuide give you customized listings for your zip code and cable
provider, so are much more accurate and can include any and all
channels. I've also lived where the cable company provided the
program guide on a dedicated channel. Looking in the paper now
seems quaint. [-kr]
Paul replies:
Indeed, I have satellite so many of the channels I watch are
nationwide. (The BBC variations are available for all the regions
on satellite.) There is an EPG available which gives you seven
days listings for all the channels. (Freeview and cable do similar
things.)
However, the listing magazines and pages in newspapers often
mention programmes I might not otherwise have watched as there are
now so many channels, keeping track of them all is impossible.
[-pd]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Sir Richard Francis Burton (letters of comment by Kevin R.,
Tim Bateman, and Peter Trei)
In response to Mark's comments on Sir Richard Francis Burton in the
09/26/14 issue of the MT VOID, Kevin R. writes:
I first encountered the real Richard Burton (not the actor) in
science fiction. He figures prominently in Farmer's Riverworld,
but I think I may have may have read a Ferdinand Feghoot short by
Reginald Bretner/Grendel Briarton that had FF meeting up with Sir
Richard. [-kr]
Tim Bateman writes:
I think I'd heard of him before reading the Riverworld tetralogy,
but Farmer was my primary or real introduction to Burton.
I must confess to being a little surprised that Mark believed that
he needed to explain him any further than some expression such as
'Richard Burton, whom you will know from Riverworld' or 'Richard
Burton, not the Welsh actor but the English explorer portrayed in
RIVERWORLD by Philip Jose Farmer,' possibly with a peculiar row of
characters in the midst of the author's name which at some point
denoted an accent. And I consider myself to be a mere or humble
fringefan. [-tmb]
Peter Trei adds:
Or 'Richard Burton', the Victorian adventurer, publisher of a
sexed-up version of the Arabian nights, and who visited Mecca
disguised as a Moslem, among other things.
I'd heard of him long before Riverworld. [-pt]
Evelyn responds:
Tim and Peter have a much higher opinion of fans than Mark or I do,
it seems. Mine was formed when a science fiction group I was in
was discussing Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's INFERNO, and I
said I liked the original better. One person asked me, "Oh, was
there an earlier magazine publication that was different?" [-ecl]
Mark adds:
Just last Saturday I mentioned "The Towers of Hanoi" to a high
school student. She asked what Hanoi was. Taken aback, I told her
that it was the capital of Vietnam. She had never heard of
Vietnam. That aged my self-image a decade or two. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND LIVES! (letters of comment by Tim
Bateman and Keith F. Lynch)
In response to Evelyn's comments on ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND LIVES!
in the 09/26/14 issue of the MT VOID, Tim Bateman writes:
Specifically on Asimov, I am really quite certain that Asimov
states that Campbell came up with the Three Laws of Robotics, in an
introduction to one of his books (or one of the interludes between
stories, possibly).
And it's just occurred to me that Asimov came up with the idea of a
science-fictionalised version of Gibbons's DECLINE AND FALL OF THE
ROMAN EMPIRE on a tube train to see Campbell. Had his parents not
migrated and he become a writer in New York City, would we have
Foundation at all?
Generally on the Lebow, while it tempts me somewhat severely, I
fear that it is somewhat naive to think that the First World War
would not have broken out anyway without the assassination of Franz
Ferdinand. It nearly happened in 1912, in which we had what
remained a localised Balkan War. The Fischer theory of the origins
of the war is based on the premise that Germany was looking for a
war as a way of, imprimis, expanding and, secundus, defeating
Russia in a war before Russia was able to defeat Germany
(Opinionopedia has an article on this for starters:
http://tinyurl.com/void-fischer-thesis
Or you can Google if you remember to add an appropriate term to
'Fischer theory' to avoid results to do with economics or
educational psychology)--ergo, the assassination was an excuse for
Germany to declare war rather than an event which 'caused' a war.
Of course, in an 'alternate reality' the course of the war might
have been radically different, probably enough to settle the
issue(s) for longer than two decades so that Episode Two became
unnecessary. [-tmb]
And Keith F. Lynch responds:
[Re deaths from wars versus epidemics:] People saved by antibiotics
tend to be older, on average, than victims of wars, the Holocaust,
and the gulags. So it's a reduction in the number of years of life
lost.
Also, death by natural causes doesn't seem as horrible as death
directly caused by another person. (At least to me.) Few people
deplore the billions of deaths due to old age, even though those
are all preventable with a sufficiently advanced technology.
[Re Asimov and the Three Laws:] Perhaps [Asimov] was in
communication with Campbell from Odessa, especially given that
Russia never turns Communist in that timeline. Even in our
timeline, not all of Campbell's authors lived in New York. Many of
them he only communicated with by mail.
[Re Tim's comments:]
Nitpick: New Yorkers don't call their system the tube.
We'll never know for sure [whether WWI would have happened anyway].
It's hard to study the causes of wars that didn't happen. But
there are plenty of tense international situations that looked like
war was likely, but it didn't happen. [-kfl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE WEIRD: A COMPENDIUM OF STRANGE AND DARK STORIES edited by Ann
and Jeff VanderMeer (ISBN 978-0-765-33362-9) has 110 pieces of
fiction, is 1,152 pages long, and is probably "the largest single
volume of fantastic fiction ever assembled" (according to Stefan
Dziemianowicz in LOCUS). Even limiting the contents to the 20th
and 21st centuries, the VanderMeers have an enormous range,
covering all the continents (except, as always, Antarctica), and
many different styles and sub-genres. This reminds me of the
wonderful range that Terri Windling used to achieve in the "Year's
Best Fantasy & Horror" series that she co-edited with Ellen Datlow
(she did the fantasy, Datlow did the horror). This is an essential
anthology for fans of "the weird", and a real bargain at the price.
(Dziemianowicz says there hasn't been as diverse an anthology of
the fantastic since Alberto Manguel's BLACK WATER and BLACK WATER
2, so I'll give those a plug here as well.)
THE WHITE MOUTAINS by John Christopher (ISBN 978-1-481-41477-7) is
the first of the "Tripods" trilogy, and indeed seems to have been
renamed TRIPODS in the latest edition. The name "Tripods"
inevitably brings to mind H. G. Wells's THE WAR OF THE WORLDS.
Christopher's Tripods are not as malevolent, at least in THE WHITE
MOUNTAINS--I have not read the other two volumes, THE CITY OF GOLD
AND LEAD and THE POOL OF FIRE. And that is part of the problem--
the first novel has no real conclusion. Even the arrival at the
mountains happens "off-screen," making it a complete anti-climax.
Nowadays we would say that maybe Christopher wrote a single volume
and the publisher insisted that he split it into three books, but
that was not common at the time (1967). Maybe someone else can
explain it. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
And Lucy, dear child, mind your arithmetic...
What would life be without arithmetic,
but a scene of horrors?
--Syndey Smith, 1835