From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!sf-lovers Newsgroups: fa.sf-lovers Title: SF-LOVERS Digest V6 #112 Article-I.D.: ucbvax.439 Posted: Mon Dec 20 09:53:53 1982 Received: Tue Dec 21 07:18:54 1982 >From SFL@SRI-CSL Sat Dec 18 07:52:52 1982 Reply-To: SF-LOVERS at SRI-CSL To: SF-LOVERS@SRI-CSL SF-LOVERS Digest Monday, 20 Dec 1982 Volume 6 : Issue 112 Today's Topics: Authors - Moorcock, Heinlein, Aldiss, Lucas/SW novels Misc - writing SF, bookscores T.V. - SF on the tube (or lack thereof) Movies - SW/TESB/ROTJ, The Dark Crystal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 December 1982 1131-EST From: Jim Anderson at CMU-CS-A Subject: MOORCOCK RUN ONS The most likely reason for Mr. Moorcock to write many thin books which are tenuously linked is that he has enough consideration not to make it necessary to buy N books to understand whats going on and get enjoyment from the tale. This allows each book to be evaluated on either a stand alone basis, or as part of a more complex whole. It all depends on how many books you want to buy and whether you have time to read a lengthy series. Jim(JAOL) ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 1982 10:24 PST From: GMeredith.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Re: SF-LOVERS Digest V6 #106 I have missed any previous mention of sex change in SF, so I may be duplicating. Does Heinlein's I WILL FEAR NO EVIL (one I never bothered to finish) qualify? ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 82 14:21:44-EST (Tue) From: David Axler Subject: Perceptions of Reality in SF (RE: Paul Fuqua's comments on reality as only the perceptions of the observer, SFL 6:101) Two other books that deal specifically with the perception of reality in sf terms are a pair of novels by Brian Aldiss. The first, "Barefoot in the Head is set in a post-WWIII Europe which has been heavily bombed by third-world nations, who used chemical warfare, specifically long-term, permanent-effect hallucinogens. When the book starts, the narrator is as straight as can be, and is watching the collapse of Western Civilization; by its end, however, the drugs have gotten to him, and his perceptions are totally altered. The other Aldiss novel worth noting in this context is his "Report on Probability A," which Illuminati fans would love because of the paranoia that's implicit in the plot premise, viz., that there are aliens from another time- track (almost the same as ours, but not quite...) watching us to determine the differences. Unbeknownst to them, there are aliens from another .... and so on, ad infinitum. Very well done, in that understated British style Aldiss does so well. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 82 17:07:06-PST (Tue) From: harpo!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxi!macrev at Ucb-C70 Subject: Writing SF Any aspiring SF writers out there? Maybe we all are. I keep hoping that just by being on the net a little POURNELLE will rub off on me. At any rate, have any of you submitted anything for publication? What sort of problems did you encounter? Any suggestions for those of us who may try in the future? What are the pitfalls? Shortcuts? Short stories, or novels? Are BEMs in, or out? (That last one may date me -- I haven't heard 'em called BEMs for years.) Mike Lynch mhuxi!macrev ------------------------------ Date: 18 Dec 1982 0933-PST Subject: SF Bookstores: Moonstone Bookcellars From: Mike Leavitt Minor note: Moonstone Bookcellars is near Washington Circle in Washington, DC, not Dupont Circle (well, actually, about six blocks down New Hampshire Ave). The address is 2145 Pennsylvania Ave, NW--under the barber shop. ------------------------------ Date: Sun Dec 19 20:17:36 1982 From: decvax!idis!mi-cec!rwg@Berkeley Subject: Re: SciFi on the Tube (or lack thereof) (...or, "Production and Decay of Strange Articles") Better than having four series, why not an 'Outer Limits' type format where there is no need for week-to-week continuity? Come to think of it, why not bring back Outer Limits? Rich ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 82 10:03:07-PST (Wed) From: harpo!floyd!edp at Ucb-C70 Subject: SW, the books The rumor about Alan Dean Foster ghosting STAR WARS is untrue. In actuallity, Foster wrote a take off on the original SW called "Splinter of the Minds Eye", which was not of the same caliber as SW. On the subject of the SW books, if you are looking for the answers to these questions floating around, read (or re-read) SW + TESB. Lucas goes into great detail about (seemingly) trivial things. There are a couple of prime examples in both books. For example, in TESB Boba Fett's uniform is described as the armor worn by of a group of warriors defeated by the Jedi knights {which might affect (+/-) the Boba Fett theory}. Before I get flamed about Lucas not writing TESB, Lucas did not actually author it but he did edit the final copy and his style is prevalent through out the book. floyd!edp ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 82 7:21:31-PST (Tue) From: decvax!decwrl!sun!megatest!fortune!wdl1!jrb at Ucb-C70 Subject: Lucas and SW Novel There is a widespread rumor to the effect that the novelization of SW was acually ghosted by Alan Dean Foster. Anyone have any further information? John R Blaker ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 1982 0326-PST From: Henry W. Miller Subject: Why Darth COULD be Luke's father. In SW/ANH, Obi Wan tells Luke that his father was betrayed and killed by a young Jedi named Darth Vader. In TESB, Yoda, I believe says in effect that the Dark Side can destroy you. Now, If Darth is indeed Luke's father, and if he did indeed give himself up to the Dark Side, then he in effect "killed" and "betrayed" himself in doing so. Maybe that is why Obi Wan was so reticent in telling Luke the full story, about his greatest failure. I still maintain the if Darth is Luke's father, then Obi Wan is Darth's father. (And that Han Solo is the "another") I don't believe that Darth Vader will come back to the good side; to do so would be to ruin the best movie villian since the Wicked Witch of the West. Darth realizes the importance of order, but for his own reasons. I expect that he hopes to become the new Emperor. -HWM ------------------------------ Date: 13 Dec 82 16:30:21-PST (Mon) From: decvax!utzoo!watmath!watarts!geo at Ucb-C70 Subject: Re: TESB Plot of willson@uci I just finished reading Stephen Willson extended predictions about the plot of RotJ. Emperor and Darth dispatched, "Other" discovered, Republic re-established, *Deep* *Philosophical* *Meaning* for those who like such things. However, it doesn't really leave very much left to happen in VII, VIII and IX does it? ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 1982 12:40-EST From: James.Muller at CMU-CS-GANDALF at CMU-CS-A Subject: a new hope Obviously the newest of the new hopes is . . . James Bond. Those of you who have only seen James Bond movies may not beleive this, but the movies aren't about the real James. Fleming's biographies portray a perfect other hope. James will make just enough mistakes in the first hour of ROTJ to keep the movie going for the requisite 2:02 (or is it 2:03 ?). James is suave, and will give those of us who are sick of Twit Skywalker a chance to let our stomachs calm down. The love triange will no longer be a problem -- James will sleep with a variety of girls, as he always has, and his true love will still be his Bentley. And remember, even if his wife is shot, he loses his memory, gets lost on an island, is brain washed be SMERSH, and spends three books doing so, he always gets his man. Finally, when he races races over Darth, brings the Bentley to a halt, and hops out, the broken mask will reveal that Vader is a clone of . . . Ernst Stavro Blofeld. James ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 82 18:22:44-PST (Thu) From: harpo!eagle!allegra!phr at Ucb-C70 Subject: Dark Crystal Early Report Dark Crystal opens Friday; a friend of a friend who previewed it "compared it to the first time she saw 2001." ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 82 13:41-PST From: mclure at SRI-UNIX Subject: Review: The Dark Crystal n048 1201 15 Dec 82 BC-REVIEW-''CRYSTAL'' (Newhouse 002) Film review, for use when ''The Dark Crystal'' opens at local theaters By RICHARD FREEDMAN Newhouse News Service (UNDATED) In ''The Dark Crystal,'' master Muppeteers Jim Henson and Frank Oz have themselves a ball filling the screen with assorted Skeksis, Garthim, Podlings and Landstriders. Unfortunately, they're all so ugly and menacing that this elaborate fantasy film is more like Edwin S. Porter's 1906 ''Dream of a Rarebit Fiend'' than any of the Muppet movies. In vain one longs for optimistic Kermit the Frog, to say nothing of that determined Gallic charmer, Miss Piggy. Instead, what we get is a sub-Tolkien epic about hibdibs and doodads engaged in a mighty confrontation of Good and Evil that boils down to exactly nothing at all. Good is represented by Jen and Kira, the last of the Gelflings, a race doomed by the buzzardlike Skeksis ever since the Conjunction of the Three Suns 1,000 years ago. Jen has been raised by the gentle Mystics; Kira by the Podlings, who carry on like the peasants in a Brueghel picnic. Both hero and heroine look and act like long-eared Barbie dolls. But it's their mission to restore the Crystal - which darkened and cracked - to its original luminous wholeness in time for the next solar conjunction. Accompanying them is Fizzgig, ''a friendly monster'' who is all bark and fur and clearly kin to Animal, the frenetic rock drummer of the Muppets. But nothing else in ''The Dark Crystal'' suggests that benign world originally created by Henson for ''Sesame Street.'' Instead, he has gone back to the grotesque worlds of such illustrators as Grandville, Tenniel and Rackham for his inspiration. And inspired his creations undoubtedly are, though it's doubtful many of them will turn up in toy stores next Christmas. A banquet of the odious Skeksis, with everyone dribbling and jabbering at once, resembles nothing so much as a collection of Hollywood producers and agents feasting at Chasen's. They even have dessert on the run - but it's the dessert that runs, frantically trying to escape their voracious jaws. Aughra, a mad astronomer with detachable eyes, shows Jen and Kira around his mechanized planetarium, and the Skeksis' roachlike warriors pursue them as they ride their long-legged Landstriders. Apparently working on the theory that the world has taken to its heart such weird creatures as the Yoda in ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and even old walnut-head himself, E.T., Henson and company have filled ''The Dark Crystal'' with an assortment of creepie-crawlies and slithering swamp creatures guaranteed to give any child nightmares for a week. So the result is depressingly like Ralph Bakshi's barely animated version of ''The Lord of the Rings'' in its relentlessly somber brand of fantasy. Henson can make the woods themselves come to life, but Jen and Kira are as lifeless as any Disney hero and heroine, and the heroic endeavor they're engaged in remains dramatically inert and unexciting. X X X FILM CLIP: ''THE DARK CRYSTAL.'' Muppeteer Jim Henson's rather dark and dour sub-Tolkien fantasy involving the battle between good Gelflings and evil Skeksis in a mystic woodland filled with a variety of creepie-crawlies. Highly imaginative creatures, but not much fun to watch. Rated PG. Two and a half stars. RB END FREEDMAN (DISTRIBUTED BY THE FIELD NEWS SERVICE) nyt-12-15-82 1503est ********** ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest *********************** Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com