From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:UNKNOWN:sf-lovers Newsgroups: fa.sf-lovers Title: SF-LOVERS Digest Volume 6, Issue 57 Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8765 Posted: Tue Oct 12 02:56:18 1982 Received: Sun Oct 17 03:13:52 1982 >From SFL@SRI-CSL Mon Oct 11 20:42:17 1982 SF-LOVERS Digest 11-Oct-82 Volume 6 : Issue 57 Today's Topics: Piers Anthony, comments on SU-LOTS messages, Carter's WIZARD OF ZAO, Lem, next Star Trek movie (and possible spoilers) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 September 1982 14:52 mst From: RMann.HDSA Subject: Piers Anthony oversight Reply-to: RMann.HDSA%PCO-Multics at MIT-Multics No mention of Piers Anthony in any of your lists of SF authors ? I find it difficult to believe that anyone who has read Mr. Anthony could not help but rate him with Ursula LeGuin, Robert Silverberg, Ray Bradbury (BTW Martian Chronicles deserves an A+) and other SF greats. Mr. Anthony is a master story teller who is able to charm the reader with his wit, intelligence, and incredible(but not impossible) imagination into staying up way past his bedtime reading "just one more page". For example, in "Viscous Circle" we are introduced to a a civilization of Bands living in the boonies of the universe. Now, the Bands are metallic toruses (tori??) that communicate by refracting light through the center of the torus and modulating it with information. They are incapable of war and have no concept of property. They do not die, instead they voluntarily disband and have their auras join the viscous circle. Intruding on this blissful and peaceful existence are monsters that are bony creatures covered with fat and water which leave refuse wherever they go called Solarians. The story involves the means by which this anarchic and peaceful Band civilization overcomes the invasion by the monsters. This book is a part of the Cluster series which includes "Thousandstar", "Cluster" and others. Also recommended are:"A Spell for Chameleon", "Source of Magic", "Castle Roogna", "Centaur Aisle", "Split Infinity". ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1982 09:22:32-EDT From: csin!cjh at CCA-UNIX To: sf-lovers at mit-ai Subject: su-lots comments I suppose we had to have someone quoting Rottensteiner here at some point. (It would be even more amusing to read what Farmer has to say about this spirited exegesis.) Rottensteiner's problem is that he usually talks about his opinions on what he's read, rather than addressing what he's read directly; his opinions seem to be shaped by the same forces that made Hawthorne, Poe, and Lovecraft the favorite American writers in Europe. I wouldn't go so far as to call him a toadying lickspittle, but he is a [socialist] who reserves his highest praise for [behind the Iron Curtain] authors, such as Lem, whose criticisms of the various regimes are most muffled, while being routinely abusive of the more sardonic authors such as Mrozek. I dug through as much of his badly-illustrated book about SF as I could stand; it's a great piece if you want to learn how to trash books but don't expect to get much insight into SF from it. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1982 18:23 EDT From: Heiny.Henr at PARC-MAXC Subject: Wiz. of Zao?? (P.PARDNER at SU-LOTS) To: SF-LOVERS@SRI-CSL cc: Heiny.Henr Yes "The Wizard of Zao" is the correct title. It's by Lin Carter, published by DAW books. I don't know if there are any more in the series out, planned, or whatever. If you find out, I would like to know, too. Chris ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 82 15:54:49-EDT (Wed) From: Steve Platt To: sf-lovers at Sri-Csl Subject: Wizard of Zao ...another book by Lin Carter, the one-plot author. The book is definitely one of a proposed series, as you state, involving one story on each planet in a solar system. To my knowledge, none of the other books in the series have been written. (Wizard was printed by DAW; I doubt it is still in print; Carter's stuff tends to stay available for around a year before fading away to used bookstores.) I have found Carter amazing in how far one author can stretch a single half-baked S&S plot -- at last count, he has written of the same book (let's see, a half-dozen Thongor, 5 Green Stars, around 5 World's End, a series I don't remember well, around a dozen assorted "hidden city in the valley" books, 8 Jandar's....)... If you want a quick plot synopsis of any and/or all, just string together Hero finds princess again and loses her Hero gets entrapped in some mortal danger as often as you wish, or until boredom. (Not that I should knock it too badly; if you are in the mood for a real pulp trash S&S book, he can't be beat...) -steve ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1982 21:34:38 EDT (Wednesday) From: John Redford Subject: Lem's "A Perfect Vacuum" To: sf-lovers at sri-csl Cc: vlsi at dec-marlboro A few weeks ago someone asked about Stanislaw Lem's "A Perfect Vacuum". I too looked long and hard for it until I found it in the MITSFS's library. It came out in hardback in 1979. Call me a fan; I've been tempted to order it from the publisher (Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, 757 Third Avenue NY,NY 10017). The book is a collection of reviews of imaginary books. It starts, of course, with a quite unflattering review of itself. And, as is also natural, most of the books are about reality distortion. In "Gruppenfuhrer Louis XIV" a fleeing Nazi general sets up his own version of the French court in the hinterland of Argentina; in "Being Inc." the mega-corporations discover the ultimate in consumer satisfactions: arranging the circum- stances of the customer's life to make him the hero or villain of his own personally tailored drama. The FTC, however, prevents the companies from merging, so they must compete with one another when their client's demands conflict. By the time of the book's action, they secretly arrange every event in the United States. Some of the reviews are philosophical parodies, Eg. "Kultur als Fehler" (Civilization as Mistake), where a stolid German proposes that culture arises when sufficient misunderstandings about the world accumulate to form a closed system of belief. The best two pieces, though, are the last, "Non Serviam", and "The New Cosmogony". "Non Serviam" was reprinted in Hofstadter and Dennett's book "The Mind's I". It is supposed to be a paper by a researcher into "personetics", the science of creating artificial personalities inside worlds inside the computer. The researcher has absolute power over his creations; he can bring them into existence, destroy them, and change their world at will. He is to these creatures as God would be to us. His main interest in them, therefore, is having them argue theology. Most of the paper is a debate among the personoids on what should be their proper attitude towards their creator. Their conclusion: "we shall not serve". "The New Cosmogony" is the acceptance speech of a Nobel prize winner in physics. He describes his remarkable theory about the source of physical laws. The universe is more than ten billion years old. Several generations of stars have come and gone. Billions of years have elapsed since the first civilizations could have arisen, so the question becomes, where are they? Why don't we see their names spelled out with galaxies for pixels? His answer is, they are there, in fact they are everywhere, and the structure of physical law is their handiwork. Laws did not arise out of the inherent structure of the universe; they are rules established by competing primordial civilizations. All the players are operating under game theory, so they adopt certain conventions to prevent catastrophic upsets. Thus, physical laws are homogeneous throughout the universe because all the players pick the same, optimal strategy. There is no travel through time because that would give an unfair advantage, and for the same reason information cannot travel faster than light. Relics of past conflicts can be seen in quasars and in the microwave background radiation. We haven't been visited by a dozen space-faring races because the big boys suppress young cultures that get too uppity. And the clincher is that the "psychzoics" (how the hell does that get translated from Polish?) have not yet finished with physics. There are subtle little asymmetries still to be worked out. For instance, left and right are indistinguishable except in the beta decay of a certain kind of muon. If we can see these inconsistencies being smoothed out we can tell that the psychozoics are still at work. Whoo-ee. Eat your heart out, Niven. John Redford ------------------------------ *** SPOILER, the following messages reveal plot details of the next Star *** *** Trek movie. You may not wish to read further *** Date: 15 Sep 82 16:22:07-EDT (Wed) From: Gene Spafford To: sf-lovers at Mit-Ai Subject: Next Trek The following is a collection of messages that were entered into a hobbyist-type bulletin board service. I thought these might be of interest and/or amusement to the readers of this digest. The discussion on that BBS stopped about 2 weeks ago so I guess this is the end of the matter there. I have deleted a few extraneous comments and the like; any changes I made to the entries have been indicated by a comment in square brackets. Enjoy. # 346 >From : PHIL To : TREKKERS Subject : THE PLOT OF THE NEXT ST MOVIE Date : Mon. 08/09/82 21:13 ******* S P O I L E R W A R N I N G ******* This is the plot of the next Star Trek movie, as pieced together by yours truely. Those who want to be suprised should ^c this message. Ok. Remember, towards the end of ST:TWOK (The Wrath of Kahn), just before Spock goes down to the engineering deck to fix the warp drive, he stops at McCoy, and does a little touching with his fingers, and says, "Remember..." ??? Well, bearing in mind that the average human uses 10%-15% of his brain capacity (In McCoy's case 4%-6%), there's lots of room left over. What Spock did was to take a "memory dump" (sorry) and make a backup of his mind into the spare space of McCoy's brain. (We have precidence for this. Remember the episode with Sargon, the intelligence in the white sphere? In that one, Spock's mind was transferred into the sphere, then into Nurse Chapel's brain, where she carried it around until they got Spock's body back.) Now, Spock's body has been dropped onto the surface of the planet that was created by the Genesis effect. It would be reasonable to expect that the body would be revived by the reminants of the effect, but since the body has been dead for so long, the brain will be blank. Also, since we would now have a new, revived Spock, here's a perfect chance to get Leonard Nemoy out, and replace him with somebody younger. I'm sure that you can see the possibility here. For some reason, the Enterprise goes back to the planet, they find Spock, and the memory gets restored! Viola! now, this wouldn't be much of a story by itself, so here's some twists. Remember, Mister Savvik is a Vulcan/Romulan half-breed. (I've got an idea how that happened, too.) Would it be beyond the reach of possibility that she will fall in love with the new, improved Spock? I suspect that it might be possible to see the Romulans discover the new planet, and pick up Spock. Then the enterprise goes after them, with Mr. Savvik (I love that "Mister") leading the way. Anybody got any more ideas? ...phil # 349 >From : GENE SPAFFORD To : PHIL REED Subject : TREK Date : Mon. 08/09/82 23:34 Pick up a copy of the book "..Kahn..." (etc.) There is a lot of background in there that wasn't in the movie, including the origins of Saavik. By the way, half Romulan, half Vulcan types are very sensitive about the fact...if they live. Read the book. As to your speculations....we have thought about all of what you mentioned, but figured that they probably won't try something in that vein since the first movie got into trouble by getting a little too far-fetched. However, the memory dump idea is a real neat idea. We must wait and see. I, for one, think that Spock is actually the one other hope of the Jedi, and they're in *real* trouble now that he bought the farm. # 354 >From : DAN DOSSIN To : PHIL REED Subject : MOVIE Date : Tue. 08/10/82 06:13 Thanks Phil, really thanks. You just saved me about $15 dollars (including pop corn). Perhaps you could give us the 6:00 news for the next week or so. With that information we could decide iif it is worth while to get out of bed. I would like some inside information on the stock market. Nothing big, just enough to make a couple of million. Thanks. The Mad Forester. # 355 >From : JEFF GARBERS To : TWIMC Subject : THE *REAL* STORY Date : Tue. 08/10/82 09:15 No, no, Phil, you've got it all wrong. Few people know it, but I am employed as a creative consultant to the studio responsible for the Trek movies, and they gave me free rein for the next movie. So here's the *real* story. Captain Kirk, despondent over the loss of his pal Spock, quits Starfleet and opens a Taco Bell on Betelgeuse 3. The tranquility and grease soon get to him, and we feel pity for the Captain as we see him sticking two burritos onto a tostada, running around with the resulting model, and crying 'Zoooom! Nyaaaaaaow! Pow! Pow! Take that, Klingons! Nyaaaaaow!' The Captain is relieved of his franchise when he is found stepping on Cinnamon Crispas "because I like the sound". Meanwhile, the brain transferrence between Spock and McCoy (Phil guessed right on that one) is taking its toll on the good doctor. Spock's personality has begun to assert itself (as a result of some assertiveness training, no doubt) and McCoy is found attaching little Play-Doh points to his ears. "I'm a doctor, dammit, *and* a computer technician," he shouts, much to the amusement of the lab animals in Sick Bay. On the bridge, it is revealed that Mr. Saavik really *is* a mister, and he/she is kicked out of Starfleet for dressing too extravagantly and attempting to corrupt an ensign. The main conflict in the movie arises when the female crewmembers mutiny, angrily demanding that they get their old mini-skirts from the TV show back. They take over the Enterprise and re-decorate in pastels. Starfleet is perturbed and threatens to ban the Enterprise crew from playing video games during shore leave. The situation is rectified. But what of Uhura? /// JPG # 357 >From : KATHERINE RIVES To : LUNITICS, ETC. Subject : UHURA??? Date : Tue. 08/10/82 11:32 Hi everyone. You folks don't know about Uhura??? Having discovered Kirk on B-3, Uhura takes over the ship with McCoy/Spock & Mr. Saavik. She then takes the now insane Kirk in tow and sets out to retrieve Spock's body. She then aranges a trade where Spock enters Kirk's brain, straightens out Kirk and can't get out again. So Kirk finds his way into Uhura's body, and Uhura, finding things a bit crowded for her taste, vacates for Spock's old body (which Spock understandable wants back). In the meantime, Saavik has fallen in love with Spock not knowing that Uhura is in his body, which iritates Uhura to no end. At this point Gene Rodenberry has a nervous breakdown and ST IV is eagerly awaited. >>KAT<< # 360 >From : JEFF GARBERS To : TWIMC Subject : TREK III Date : Tue. 08/10/82 19:17 Sample dialog from Trek III: Chekov: "Klingon destroyed, kyptin!" Kirk: "Ooh! What a difference photon torpedoes make!" /// JPG # 366 >From : PHIL REED To : TREKKERS Subject : SAVVIK'S PARENTS Date : Wed. 08/11/82 09:10 Jeff, nice try. However, see if you can top this. We all know that Savvik is half Vulcan, half Romulan. The question that springs to mind is "How did this occur" (Besides the mechanics, I mean)?? Curiously, we can answer this question with information from the ST series. Remember, one of the second season episodes had the Romulans owning a cloaking device that would make their ships undetectable. As usual, Kirk & Co. decide to rescue the federation. They draw lots and pick Spock as the person who could slip aboard without being recognized, and Kirk as backup, after he gets a little plastic surgery on his ears. So, Spock beams aboard, and after some (mis)adventures, gets himself captured. He is taken to the Romulan captain (a female, remember?) who, very much taken with him, invites him to dinner. In fact, we see them at dinner, *in* *her* *quarters*!! Who can guess what dessert was? So, we see that >>>SAVVIK IS SPOCK'S DAUGHTER<<< Top that. ...phil # 381 >From : ROY GREEN To : KAT & PHIL Subject : CAT AND TREK Date : Thu. 08/12/82 21:42 [Some non-Trek-related comments deleted here. -- Spaf] phil, your assessment of st3 sounds plausible, however..... betsy (the human) and i jumped to the same conclusion about mister savvik, however, since vulcans only go into heat (both male and female) once every seven years, i find it unlikely that such a clandestine affair could've occured. (spock's parents *were* married (or whatever they called it that era).) later.... r.green,esq. plot analyst for dean-witter # 388 >From : KATHERINE RIVES To : TREKKERS Subject : SAAVIK Date : Fri. 08/13/82 21:07 NO, NO, NO!! you have it all wrong. First of all, there seems to be some confusion as to how the woman spells her name. Once and for all, it is Saavik. Secondly, you must read the novel form of ST-TWOK. Besides being reasonably well written, it gives a lot of additional background that is not in the movie. For instance, Saavik is indeed half Vulcan and half Romulan. However, this came about on a planet where the Romulans were in charge of things. It seems that one of their notions of fun is to rape captive Vulcans and then force them to live to see the birth of the bastard or give birth to it, as the case may be. Since the official Romulan word was that mating between the species was impossible, these children were abandoned when they vacated the planet. Certainly the Romulan parents did not need them after they served their purpose of humiliating their Vulcan parents. This is where Saavik comes in. She was about 12, and a wild abandoned child when Spock found her on this planet. He saw some potential in her and saw that she got thru the Academy. Much of her upbringing, not to mention her Romulan ancestry, shows up in her temper. And being very proud, she refused the test that would positively identify her Vulcan parent, not wishing to bring disgrace on the dead parent's family. For all you who hoped that Spock had gotten something from that Romulan commander long ago... sorry. >>KAT<< # 392 >From : PHIL REED To : WHOEVER Subject : QUICK NOTES Date : Sat. 08/14/82 23:33 Trek: I will point out that in the Trek movies, as with SW and TESB (Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back), the ONLY thing you can count on is the movie. G. Lucas has made a great deal of noise to speculators that all speculation must NOT include any written sources, that only the information in the movies must be considered. I understand that the ST folks are the same way. [non-Trek-related stuff deleted here --Spaf] ...phil # 393 >From : MARVIN YIZAR To : JEFF Subject : SPOCKS SPERM Date : Sun. 08/15/82 01:41 SAAVIK IS SPOCK'S DAUGHTER!!! A VERY LOGICAL DEDUCTION!! BOY ARE YOU GUYS UP THERE!! YOU ARE REALLY ON THE BALL!! WE ARE STILL WONDERING HOW THAT BOY BECAME KIRK'S SON?? WHEN DID KIRK GET MARRIED?? [Some comments concerning behind-the-scene activities deleted for lack of couth. --Spaf] # 395 >From : HOWARD MILLER To : TREKKIES Subject : KIRK'S PECCADILLOES Date : Sun. 08/15/82 09:35 Anyone who has watched Star Trek knows that there were many scenes in which Kirk is seen putting his boots back on after spending more than the required 5 minutes in his quarters with some strange but beautiful woman. As for marriage, everyone knows his marriage certificate says 'ENTERPRISE'. # 404 >From : ROY GREEN To : MARVIN YIZAR Subject : SPOCK'S WILD OATS?? Date : Mon. 08/16/82 20:08 Once again, I reiterate.... Spock is a Vulcan, no? Vulcans have mating cycles of SEVEN (Count 'em) years. It is 'highly illogical' to assume that Spock would have wasted his 7-year itch on a Romulan female, since Spock himself seems to be a bit insecure of his own half-human status. Kat's explanation (from the book) is much more plausible. It would be a nice turn if Saavik were Spock's daughter, and eventually married David. However, I'm sure that someone on the production team has nixed that as being too trite a situation. I'm sure Saavik and David will be married. And I think there will be a not-so-silly way of bringing Spock back from the dead. Since the Genesis matrix was so strong it could create from nothing, it should be strong enough to revive Spock. But that brings the focus to the 'remains' of Khan's merry band. Might they also be revived?? And track Kirk down to thank him??? and what becomes of uhura? # 411 >From : PHIL REED To : ALL Subject : HELLO, I MUST BE GOING... Date : Wed. 08/18/82 04:42 Roy: The difference between Spock and Kahn's crew was that they were caught by the initial burst of the Genesis effect, but Spock's body was stuck on the planet later. ...phil # 413 >From : KATHERINE RIVES To : ALL Subject : ANY Date : Wed. 08/18/82 20:55 Marvin and other Trekkers: Everyone knows that Kirk was married only once. The episode was entitled "The Paradise Syndrone" and his wife was the indian woman Mirrimani (sp?). As for Spock, I agree with Roy (msg 404). Look up that and msg 388. Phil: That's very interesting about the written sources not being officially sanctioned by the ST crew. I had thought otherwise. What is to prevent someone from distorting the story all out of proportion, once getting permission to write it?? Roy: Hi, you have a very good point about Spock. Even when he was officially married to T'Pring, he was not interested in her (granted, he had just 'killed' his captain to get her). One wonders, though, what Amanda (Spock's mother) did in the seven year intervals... bet she was plenty bored. >>KAT<< # 427 >From : ROY GREEN To : KATHERINE AND DAVE Subject : AMANDA AND CAT HAIR Date : Fri. 08/20/82 21:34 KAT, IF AMANDA WAS ANYTHING LIKE MY EX-FIANCE, THEN SHE COULD GO 14 YEARS WITHOUT BLINKING AN EYE. (WHICH IS WHY MY EX-FIANCE IS EX-) MAYBE HER HUSBAND WAS A VULCAN VERSION OF A SUGAR DADDY? [non-Trek-related comments deleted here. But what of Uhuru? --Spaf] End of SF-LOVERS Digest *********************** Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com