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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 03/04/94 -- Vol. 12, No. 36
MEETINGS UPCOMING:
Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in Middletown 1R-400C
Wednesdays at noon.
_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C
03/09 A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ by Walter M. Miller (Vividly Memorable SF)
03/30 THE MIND PARASITES by Colin Wilson (tentative)
03/31 Hugo Nominations must be postmarked by this date
04/20 VALIS by Philip K. Dick (tentative)
Outside events:
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the second
Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call 201-933-2724 for
details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society meets on the third
Saturday of every month in Belleville; call 201-432-5965 for details.
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2G-432 908-957-5087 holly!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell HO 1C-523 908-834-1267 holly!jrrt
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzfs3!leeper
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 908-949-7076 homxc!11366ns
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen HO 2C-318 908-949-4156 quartet!lfl
MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzfs3!leeper
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 908-957-2070 mtgpfs1!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
1. Our next discussion book is Walter M. Miller's _A _C_a_n_t_i_c_l_e _f_o_r
_L_e_i_b_o_w_i_t_z, of which Charlie Harris says:
Walter M. Miller, Jr. (according to John Clute in Nicholls' _T_h_e
_S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n _E_n_c_y_c_l_o_p_e_d_i_a) is an "American writer whose impact
on modern SF is out of proportion to the small amount of material
he had published in book form" during his scant decade of active
publishing. _A _C_a_n_t_i_c_l_e _f_o_r _L_e_i_b_o_w_i_t_z is his "best and best-known
work," having sold over 500,000 copies by the date (unknown) of the
15th printing of the 95-cent paperback edition. Brian Stableford
calls it "The most impressive single work to come out of the post-
War [WW II] SF boom ... one of the most thoughtful speculative
exercises produced within genre SF."
THE MT VOID Page 2
Originally published as three novelettes in F&SF in 1955-57,
_C_a_n_t_i_c_l_e won the 1961 Hugo--an award that both Clute and L. David
Allen (in _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _F_i_c_t_i_o_n _R_e_a_d_e_r'_s _G_u_i_d_e, a.k.a. "Cliffs Notes")
describe with the identical words: "richly deserved."
_C_a_n_t_i_c_l_e's opening sentence conveys to a remarkable extent the
subject matter, tone and concerns of the novel: "Brother Francis
Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents,
had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared
during the young novice's Lenten fast in the desert."
It's some 600 years after civilization has been virtually destroyed
by global nuclear war and its anti-technology sequelae. Brother
Francis is a member of the sacred Order of Leibowitz, founded
centuries back, in the hope of preserving some scraps of knowledge
for future generations, by a Brookhaven physicist named Isaac
Edward Leibowitz, now a candidate for sainthood. The few relics--
including memos, a blueprint, a shopping list in Leibowitz's own
hand--are revered and faithfully copied, though they are largely
gibberish to his spiritual descendents.
When the second section begins, 600 more years have passed.
Society has begun to rebuild, and the tension between secular and
religious learning has re-emerged. Another 600 years elapse and,
in the final section, the world has again advanced to the brink of
nuclear annihilation.
Is this a bleak and hopeless progression? No, the last pages
offer, on various levels, hope that humankind may be accumulating-
-haltingly and imperfectly--some wisdom and spiritual grace. This
is evidenced not only by the not-unfamiliar-to-SF-readers departure
of a saving remnant to a new world, but also by the reappearance of
an elderly wanderer--the same one seen with with girded loins at
the start of the book?--who may be the Wandering Jew still
expecting Christ's return, and by a striking mystical interlude
involving a dying abbot and a two-headed mutant woman who may
herald that return.
One of the very few SF novels that deals with formal religion
respectfully (yet often with humor and irony), _A _C_a_n_t_i_c_l_e _f_o_r
_L_e_i_b_o_w_i_t_z is indeed, as Allen says, a book that "grows in depth,
richness, and interest through repeated readings."
===================================================================
2. I can't win. Just when I start to think I am doing things right
somebody comes along to tell me I am doing things all wrong. I try
to be good but one person's virtue is another person's sin. Take
greeting cards. Now all along I thought that it was supposed to be
a virtue to send people greeting cards. When that special occasion
THE MT VOID Page 3
comes along I have just seen an episode of the Hallmark Hall of
Fame. Somehow they always know when a special occasion comes up
and run their program just a week before. It used to be just a
week before Christmas featuring Christmas cards, or a week before
Mother's Day featuring sentimental pictures of old time mothers
bearing steaming apple pies and rocking in a favorite chair. (The
last real specimen of that sort of dear sweet old mother died in
1957. I know. They have her stuffed in the Museum of Natural
History. They also have her chair and a plastic pie.) Or a week
before Valentine's Day they will run an episode featuring--guess
what. Now the data age seems to have gotten into the act. They
have radar and run one with birthday cards just before my wife's
birthday or anniversary cards just before our anniversary. I live
in fear the week after they feature "Congratulations on your
vasectomy" cards. But somehow I have let them convince me that
sending greeting cards on these occasions is the right thing to do.
It's the polite thing to do. It's what people with pearly white
teeth and refined manners do. It seems like what nice people do.
At least they look nice in the ads. Just like the people in the
smoking ads seem to have the bloom of health in their cheeks. And
of course with smoking ads we know the people we see have lungs
like black crepe paper--at least if you believe the educational
films on smoking they showed us in gym class.
I have recently become aware that these nice people in the greeting
card ads are considered by some to be lazy, inconsiderate slobs. A
better representation would be to show them sitting around in their
underwear, drinking beer and watching "Lifestyles of the Rich and
Famous." At least that's how Miss Manners sees them. It seems
like Miss Manners and Amy Vanderbilt are better people than the
people who send greeting cards. Ms. Vanderbilt wouldn't be
apprehended deceased in a greeting card store. Well, I want to
prove I am the right sort. So from now on, when I send a greeting
card I will crumple some buttered scone, accidentally on purpose,
into the card. That way people will know how refined I am. Hey, I
wouldn't shit you.
===================================================================
3. MR. VAMPIRE (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
I recently have had a much appreciated opportunity to see three
horror films from Hong Kong: _M_r. _V_a_m_p_i_r_e, _A _C_h_i_n_e_s_e _G_h_o_s_t _S_t_o_r_y,
and _C_h_i_n_e_s_e _G_h_o_s_t _S_t_o_r_y _I_I. They were fun films, somewhat similar
to each other in approach. Each was heavy on the comedy aspects.
Generally I don't care much for comedy in horror, particularly
slapstick. But I am told that Chinese audiences really expect it
and it would not be a Chinese horror film without being tongue-in-
cheek. While horror does not get in the way of the comedy, in my
opinion comedy often damages or destroys the impact of the horror.
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In each of these films the result is a horror film that works no
better (though certainly no worse) than _A_b_b_o_t_t _a_n_d _C_o_s_t_e_l_l_o _M_e_e_t
_F_r_a_n_k_e_n_s_t_e_i_n. While these films have the pacing that a _K_w_a_i_d_a_n
lacks, they could afford take themselves a little more seriously
like _K_w_a_i_d_a_n does. Perhaps what I would enjoy most is something
between the Hong Kong approach and the _K_w_a_i_d_a_n approach. It would
be nice if Hong Kong were making films of the style of Hammer Films
of Britain, but that just isn't their style and probably not what
their audiences want.
_M_r. _V_a_m_p_i_r_e--which would more aptly be called _M_r. _H_o_p_p_i_n_g _G_h_o_s_t--
has the novelty of adding a new folklore monster to the horror
film, at least new to us Americans. I have, though, read a little
about Chinese Hopping Ghosts. The idea is that in most dead the
Po--that is the soul--has departed for the next world. But some
corpses die with unfinished business, for example if the body has
not been buried in the corpse's home town. In such circumstances
the Po will stay in the corpse, which will then not decay. For
even more the corpse may get up and walk. And when it walks it
will have superhuman strength and will kill any mortals it can get
its hands on. Rigor mortis will, however, make the stiff, well ...
stiff. It will be too stiff to walk, but will be able to manage a
hop. That is why a hopping ghost hops. So as an American seeing
_M_r. _V_a_m_p_i_r_e you have to be part cultural detective as well as being
a film fan. But some of the images are as eerie for me as they
would be for someone raised with the culture. Some perhaps even
more so since they are such alien images. The film opens with a
scene of a row of hopping ghosts standing in a monastery, each with
a prayer paper seemingly tacked over its face. I suspect it is as
weird for me, not knowing what it meant as it would be for someone
who did. Perhaps a bit more.
Some of the fun of seeing this film, and it is fun though faint
subtitles also make it also hard work, is in trying to figure out
the rules that apply to hopping ghosts. If you are being stalked
you can make yourself safe as long as you neither move nor breathe.
Apparently they home in on their victim's breath. (How long can
YOU hold your breath?) They can be stopped by putting some sort of
inscription on a piece of paper and attaching it to the hopping
ghost's forehead. I don't know what the inscription says since I
don't read Chinese, but I think it is a kind of death prayer. They
cannot walk on uncooked sticky rice, probably because it absorbs
things around it (which is why restaurants will put some rice in
with the salt in shakers). They are repelled by inscriptions
written with a mixture of Chinese ink and chicken blood. You kill
them by burning them coffin and all. So they do have some
characteristics in common with cinema vampires but they are not
vampiric--they do not seem to suck blood. Instead they strangle
and mutilate.
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I will say a bit less about _C_h_i_n_e_s_e _G_h_o_s_t _S_t_o_r_y _1 & _2 since they
are a somewhat better known in this country already. In some ways
they borrow a lot from the _E_v_i_l _D_e_a_d films but they have a panache
all their own. A sort of ne'er-do-well happens upon a haunted
monastery and soon is facing ghosts and Chinese demons. Eventually
he is has a guide through this world in the form of a Taoist master
who sings an amusing song that is a sort of commercial for Tao.
They are sucked into another world where mythical figures battle.
It is fast paced with variable special effects but always
watchable. Again the worst touch is the poor subtitles, but much
of the action transcends the language barrier. Again, as with _M_r.
_V_a_m_p_i_r_e, there is a disadvantage for the Western viewer in that the
rules of this universe are foreign. But like spiciness in some
Chinese food, for some the foreign-ness of the mythology will be a
disadvantage and for others it will be the main advantage and the
greatest attraction.
When I was about six years old there was a foreign-language movie
theater in the town I lived in. I think it was Polish, but I don't
remember for sure. And I found that frustrating because I imagined
they had their equivalent of Godzilla films and I was missing them
because there was this language barrier between me and the films.
As I got older many of these mis-impressions became obvious to me
and I realized I wasn't missing a whole lot of great monster movies
because I knew only one language. Well, what I am discovering is
that my fears were not so foolish, they just were premature. Today
in Asia there are a lot of good fantasy films being made, many of
which just are not making it to America for years or perhaps never
make it. So far there are relatively few films I would miss, but
the number is clearly growing.
===================================================================
4. ON DEADLY GROUND (a film review by Dale L. Skran):
Periodically, I review an ultra-violent, hackneyed movie that is so
bad it is actually funny. Recently I saw _O_n _D_e_a_d_l_y _G_r_o_u_n_d, the
latest Steven Seagal opus. My official motive for following
Seagal's movies is to observe his martial arts technique. Unlike
some other box-office superstars, Seagal is a legitimate Akido
blackbelt, and his fight scenes are, by and large, more realistic
than most, and often make use of a large variety of techniques.
However, _O_n _D_e_a_d_l_y _G_r_o_u_n_d is far more than a martial arts film. It
is, in fact, a rousing educational experience for the entire family
(or, at least, for the Addams Family). Among the fascinating facts
we learn are the following:
1. If a violent movie has many scenes of cute animals (bears,
dogs) it will be more popular, presumably with women.
THE MT VOID Page 6
2. There must be a considerable audience for extended
dissertations on torture techniques, since one part of the
film actively strives to compete with _M_a_r_a_t_h_o_n _M_a_n in this
vital aspect of film-making.
3. There is no "I" in the word "TEAM." (This was taken from the
torture scene.)
4. If you wish to shoot someone quietly, but have left your
silencer at home, you can improvise a silencer by taping an
empty plastic coke bottle to the gun barrel and shooting
through it.
5. If you happen to be carrying a claymore mine in an elevator,
you can use it to really surprise anyone who may be waiting
for you.
6. Ex-CIA agents generally have secret rooms in their homes full
of guns and other goodies. These ex-CIA agents also maintain
remote cabins in the woods which are filled with enough
explosives for a small war.
7. No film is complete without a loyal old buddy of the hero who
is tortured to death by a German-punk type bad-guy corporate
lackey.
8. Corporate women are not only ball-busters, but untrustworthy,
unreliable, and good candidates for incineration.
9. Native American women (played by Joan Chen), are, of course,
competent, at least in the vital work area of ammunition
carrying, but also fully in tune with the natural
environment, as well as being real babes.
10. Oil companies are run by bad ex-CIA agents who regard Alaska
as a third world country, and are environmental hypocrites.
These oil companies regularly hire German punk-type lackies
to "clean up problems," but when they prove less than
adequate for dealing with other ex-CIA agents, are perfectly
willing to hire large numbers of additional "Soldier of
Fortune" type cannon fodder.
11. The Oil Companies and Big Business are forcing us to use
gasoline, poisoning the environment, and cheating the native
Americans out of their tribal rights, not to mention building
drilling rigs using faulty parts.
12. Movies are vastly improved by long, dry, didactic lectures
near the end, especially when delivered by excellent vocal
talents such as Steven Seagal, appropriately dressed in
pseudo-Indian garb.
THE MT VOID Page 7
13. Wearing buckskin jackets with lots of tassels is a great way
of showing your solidarity with native Americans, and
further, the more different jackets you wear, sometimes even
in the same scene, the better the film.
14. Scenes where the powerfully built, highly trained hero beats
the crap out of a mean-spirited but dull-witted bully by
forcing him to play a sadistic game add a lot to the film,
and help the audience to really respect the hero.
15. If you, perchance, are a mean, tough, smart mercenary captain
who is wily enough to sneak up on Steven Seagal by hiding a
vat of oil, for heaven's sake don't talk to him while getting
closer and closer, allowing him to skillfully grab your
shotgun and blow you to smithereens!
16. Long dream sequences, especially those populated with naked
Alaskan babes, really pull in the young male audience.
Enough baffling images will convince the audience that it all
actually means something.
17. Gratuitous mysticism is great--it draws in the new age crowd,
but it can be abandoned in time for the big shoot-out, thus
appealing to gun-lovers and action freaks, as well as hard-
headed environmentalists who know that the only good
corporate lackey is a dead corporate lackey.
18. Any big technical device, especially an oil rig or refinery,
is the devil's work, but if blown up by a real expert like
Steven Seagal, will do hardly any damage to the local
environment.
All in all, _O_n _D_e_a_d_l_y _G_r_o_u_n_d is a powerful educational experience,
that may well be finding a wider audience than the earlier Seagal
movies. Although we can hope than a film this heavy-handed will
not be taken too seriously, it always concerns me when such a one-
sided and negative portrayal of a particular technology is
presented. Much like Ralph Bakshi's _W_i_z_a_r_d_s, _D_e_a_d_l_y _G_r_o_u_n_d is
completely hypocritical in attacking corporate violence with the
deadly technology of war at its best, wielded by expert
practitioner Seagal.
From a martial arts perspective, Seagal presents only a limited
number of action sequences, one a bar fight, and the other a no-
holds barred stick and knife fight with a mob of mercenaries where
guns are not used since the air is full of gasoline vapor. The
stick fighting is actually well choreographed, although not for the
faint of heart. Seagal has started imitating Van Damme in his use
of slow-motion, but the focus appears to be on making the technique
more understandable rather than increasing the effect a la John
Woo. Seagal actually uses rather more kicks, usually front kicks,
THE MT VOID Page 8
than in previous movies.
Recommended only for hard-core action move freaks and Seagal fans,
as well as those who like watching practical Akido in action. Keep
the kids far, far away. After watching, read a Jerry Pournelle
novel as an antidote to the extreme environmentalism of _O_n _D_e_a_d_l_y
_G_r_o_u_n_d. Rated (-1) on the Leeper scale.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
leeper@mtgzfs3.att.com
Besides learning to see, there is another art to be
learned--not to see what is not.
-- Maria Mitchell