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Date: 31 Jul 92 13:38:32 GMT

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SF-LOVERS Digest            Friday, 31 Jul 1992       Volume 17 : Issue 392

Today's Topics:

	       Books - Cherryh & Kandel & Kessel (2 msgs) &
                       Request Answered (3 msgs) & 
                       Reference Books (4 msgs)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 30 Jul 92 20:42:38 GMT
From: mvp@hsv3.lsil.com (Mike Van Pelt)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: New Book -- Cherryh: Chanur's Legacy

quasar@ctt.bellcore.com (Laurence R. Brothers) writes:
>... so you should all go out and buy it, if only to support one of the few
>female authors of traditional space opera around at the moment.

This is not a good reason to go out and buy the book, IMHO.  Buy it because
Cherryh is one of the very best of today's writers, and one of the few who
is still writing *real* SF, of whatever gender.

Mike Van Pelt
Headland Technology/Video 7
sun!indetech!hsv3!mvp
mvp@hsv3.lsil.com

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 09:03 EDT
From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: CAPTAIN JACK ZODIAC by Michael Kandel

		   CAPTAIN JACK ZODIAC by Michael Kandel
	     Bantam Spectra, ISBN 0-553-29367-2, 1992, $4.99.
		     A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper

   Kandel began his career translating the works of Stanislaw Lem, or at
least that is how he became known.  And that off-the-wall style that Lem is
known for has influenced Kandel and in this, his third novel (his first two
were STRANGE INVASION and IN BETWEEN DRAGONS), he gives us a world in which
the Soviets are nuking several of our major cities, but the real problems
are the garbage strike and the traffic jams (the latter not helped by the
occasional Soviet paratrooper squads landing on the highways).  One
character is trying to maintain a perfect lawn, but the combination of the
greenhouse effect, radiation leaking through the failing ozone layer, and
all the chemicals he has been using start to have some very undesirable
effects.  Meanwhile, out main character is trying to find his children: his
daughter has become a mall zombie (no, not like in George Romero's DAWN OF
THE DEAD) and his son has taken and is traveling off in interstellar space.
When you take one of Captain Jack Zodiac's pills, you really trip!

     I can't really describe this book.  The preceding gives you some idea
of the flavor, but only some idea.  Kandel flings his characters from one
improbable situation to the next, on this world, on other worlds, and even
in the next world.  Oddly enough, the Captain Jack Zodiac thread for which
the book is named is one of the less involving ones (at least for me),
though its solipsistic approach does reinforce the book's approach in
general.

     I definitely recommend this wild and wacky look at what just might be
just around the corner (well, okay, maybe not the Soviet paratroopers, but
I wouldn't dismiss the possessed chicken salad just yet...).

Evelyn C. Leeper
+1 908 957 2070
att!mtgzy!ecl
ecl@mtgzy.att.com

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 92 18:11:54 GMT
From: msk@betelgeuse.eca (Michael Kerstetter)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: "Buffalo" is SF?  /Hugo nominated/ SF?!

dave@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Schaumann) writes:
>I just finished reading "Buffalo", by John Kessel. 
>
>I am left with two questions:
>
>1. What exactly about this story makes it SF?  Except for the use of
>   H. G. Wells as a character, I saw no SFnal elements at all.
>
>2. I found this story disappointing.  Kessel does a reasonable job
>   of portraying believable characters, but... what's the point?

I'm afraid I have to second Dave's opinions in this case.  Furthermore, I
felt that Willis' "In the Late Cretaceous" also lacked any SF/F elements.
For this reason (and not because I didn't enjoy the stories) I placed "No
Award" ahead of these two when I cast my Electronic Poll ballot.

Mike Kerstetter
msk@espresso.boeing.com

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jul 92 08:37:12 GMT
From: highlite!yarvin@uunet.uu.net (Curtis Yarvin)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: "Buffalo" is SF? /Hugo nominated/ SF?!

kcr@rushforth.Eng.Sun.COM (Kevin Rushforth) writes:
>dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein) writes:
>>Number of them.  First, it gave me an insight into its characters,
>>including Kessel the author.  Second, it brought an era (the Depression)
>>closer to my understanding when it was viewed from the past (Wells), the
>>present (Kessel's farther), and the future (Kessel himself).  Third, it
>>was a pretty well told story, which used actual people (Wells, Kessels,
>>even Ellington) in imaginary situations meaningfully and with restraint.
>
>I found "Buffalo" to be self-indulgent and boring.  About half way through
>the story I could hardly wait for it to end.

I was hunting the perfect epithet for this story, but no more; "self-
indulgent" fits it to a T.  At first I decided, as is my wont, that the
problem was the prattling social commentary.  Indeed, between that and the
encyclopedia reprints, there's hardly room left for any human interaction;
and when you boil out the easy sterotypes of Kessel Sr's work crew, the
well-strung-but-pointless tree-pruning lesson, the jazz criticism in terms
so woefully cliched that even the jazz critics have been wise to them for
the last twenty years...  well, there's plenty of steam in the air but not
much pasta in the pot.

Later, though, I decided the tale had a lot of potential in it.  It's a
pity; if Kessel had pulled it out better, we might have a well-written
modern story winning the Hugo, instead of Landis' retro-fifties abortion
(this cynic's bet.)

The problem with "Buffalo," as I see it, is the narration; Kessel has three
voices going, adn two of them don't work at all.

Kessel's father simply isn't a Hugo-worthy character; he may be real, but
he's so flat and stereotypical that before I started reading I had huge
yellow-and-purple snapshots of him burned into my retina, from too much
Campbelliana at a tender age.  Kessel explores him more than usual, but
there's only so much to explore under a cardboard skin.

Kessel himself - the self-indulgent part here, and what really ruined this
story for me - keeps butting in.  I'm not one of these fanatic hick
antipostmodernists who seethes inwardly whenever the author butts in, but
it's got to be done right and Kessel just isn't capable of the job.  When
the narrative voice is coming from the author, it should be clearly marked
and flagged.  Otherwise, it tends to drown out the characters - in this
case, Wells.  It's hard to tell when it's Wells moaning about capitalist
excesses and so forth, or Kessel. Since the only thing Wells does is moan
about capitalist excesses, this loses the only glimpse we get of his actual
character - and makes the story a dead loss by every criterion I can think
of.

What's painful about this is that "Buffalo"'s form and design have so much
damned potential.  If Kessel had truly explored Wells as a tragic
character, instead of narrating him into the ground - if he'd introduced
Wells to Kessel Sr. in a more complex interaction than an embarrassed
ricochet at a nightclub - if he'd taken the opportunity to twist, dissect,
and dismantle the abominable stereotype he installed as his father - I
think "Buffalo" would have been one of the best short stories I've ever
read, even if it weren't really sf.

Instead, it's shit.  Depressing.

>A pity, because it was well-written - it just didn't interest me in the
>least.

Yah.  With all the venom in the world you can't deny that Kessel is a
technically talented writer.  The problem, I guess, is that he has too few
competitors, in the miniscule lit-merit crowd; so he can get away with
peddling arrant garbage and no one will mind, because they don't want to
throw a Real Writer out with the bathwater.  Big fish in small ponds get
fat and lazy.

>>I think the story was the best of the seven nominated, though "Dog's
>>Life" and "One Perfect Morning, With Jackals" were well written too.
>
>Different strokes, I guess.  I felt that "Buffalo" was the worst of the
>seven nominated stories with "Dog's Life" being next worst (although it
>was, at least, enjoyable).  I did like "One Perfect Morning, With
>Jackals", although I felt that Connie Willis's "In the Late Cretaceous"
>was slightly better.

My vote goes to Willis as well.  The only stories I thought award-worthy
this year were the comedies (not including "Dog's Life," which should have
a category of its own, because not even "Buffalo" deserves a day in the
same cage); "Cretaceous" wasn't exactly sf, but it was at least worth the
read - which is more than I can say for its opponents.

------------------------------

Date: 27 Jul 92 05:13:11 GMT
From: potter@csusac.ecs.csus.edu (Carl Kolchak)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: "slow glass" / Bob Shaw / "THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS."

stevena@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Steven Alexander) writes:
> The story I'm looking for concerns "slow glass" which transmits light
> orders of magnitude more slowly than ordinary glass (but light emerges at
> the ordinary rate).  Thus, it could be placed in a scenic locale for a
> while, then rented out as a pseudo scenic window, providing realistic, or
> real, views.  This glass, or access to the scenic places, comes to be
> sold for dear prices to the poor, who at first got to enjoy their cramped
> flats more than before the discovery or invention of slow glass.
> 
> I read this story in some collection well over 15 years ago.
> 
> I had thought the story's name was "Through a Glass, Darkly" and found a
> Zenna Henderson story called "Through a Glass - Darkly" but that wasn't
> it.

I tried E-mail, and for some reason it bounced... so here it is.
  
"THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS" by Bob Shaw.  It first appeared in "ANALOG."
There was a sequel, whose title I can't recall, but you can find the
listing in the Ashley Index under Shaw's name.  I believe it was reprinted
in one or more of the ANALOG annuals, and several short- story collections.
Both stories appeared in the sixties (?).
 
Incidentally, Shaw had planned a whole series of these stories, and only
wrote two before someone pointed out that the ultrasonic "eraser" he
described would release all the stored energy at once, making the windows
in a neighborhood into a huge batch of bombs, if someone stood on a street
corner waving an ultrasonic projector around.  Campbell bridled and stopped
buying the yarns.  (I wrote in a note, pointing out that the ultrasonic
beam could just as easily have been described as "erasing" the information
in the windows by altering the crystal structure to allow "sideways
leakage," resulting in a white-light output, rather than an instantaneous
release, but JWC sent BACK a note saying I was reaching too hard, and Shaw
had a novel under way anyway.)

Good stories, great ideas.  (Like: You buy a picture window that's been
sitting in Muir Woods for eight years, and get a lovely view for eight
years... and during that time, everything you do in your living room is
being stored in the window, and anyone can tote it off, hang it on a wall,
and *watch* you for eight years... )

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 92 05:32:05 GMT
From: stevena@cory.berkeley.edu (Steven Alexander)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: "slow glass": story reference sought

Thanks to all who helped.  As I was informed, the particular story is
"Light of Other Days", by Bob Shaw, originally published in Analog
(copyright 1966), and it is collected in:

   * SF 12, Judith Merrill, ed., 1968
   * A Science Fiction Argosy, Damon Knight, ed., 1972
   * World's Best Science Fiction: 1967
   * Nebula 2

and several other places.

Also, it is one of several stories by Shaw using slow glass.

Steven Alexander
stevena@cs.berkeley.edu

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 92 13:54:59 GMT
From: evans-ron@cs.yale.edu (Ronald Hale-Evans)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: "slow glass": story reference sought

stevena@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Steven Alexander) writes:
>Thanks to all who helped.  As I was informed, the particular story is
>"Light of Other Days", by Bob Shaw, originally published in Analog
>(copyright 1966)....
>
>Also, it is one of several stories by Shaw using slow glass.

He also wrote a novel with slow glass. "Light of Other Days" forms the
first part of the book, and maybe some of his other stories do too, but the
bulk of the book is about the inventor of slow glass and his relationship
with his blind wife. It really develops the slow glass technology, and
winds up with kind of a neat transcendent ending.  Sorry I don't have the
title to hand. IMHO, the book is not as good as the story in terms of
character, but still worth reading.

Ronald Hale-Evans
evans-ron@cs.yale.edu
evans@brandeis.bitnet
tinfoil@world.std.com

------------------------------

Date: 28 Jul 92 22:47:42 GMT
From: UCPL040@unlvm.unl.edu
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: sourcebook of SF movies/TV shows

I have a 1977 edition of "The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction"
edited by Brian Ash, published by Harmony Books, New York.  The Book is an
excelent resource for digging up facts on books, rags, movies, TV shows,
etc. - it even makes reference to shows like "Land of the Giants"!.  It
doesn't cover everything, but comes very close. It begins with a
year-by-year journal of nearly everything produced which was related to
SciFi from 1805 through 1976. The only drawback is that's fifteen years old
and, obviously, doesn't including anything from 1976 on.

    -Is there a second edition of this book?
    -Does a book exist which lists SF movies and TV shows (no matter
     how short - or bad!) ever produced by any studio (no matter how
     small or low budget?

Skott Underwood
UCPL040@UNLVM

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 92 17:23:27 GMT
From: gbradley@uks197.Berkeley.EDU (Gary Bradley)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: sourcebook of SF movies/TV shows

UCPL040@UNLVM.UNL.EDU writes:
> Does a book exist which lists SF movies and TV shows (no matter how short
> - or bad!) ever produced by any studio (no matter how small or low
> budget?

   Don't know about that. My "Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" lists every
SF film ever made from 1896 to 1983. No matter how good or crap the film.
No matter how short (e.g. 1 minute!), or how long. No matter which country
of origin!! Add to this that as well as naming all these films, the book
also includes at least a dozen lines of plot synopsis (although the average
is about 30 lines), full production crew and cast details (where available,
which is 99.9% of the time) and running times, alternative cuts etc. for
EVERY ENTRY! It lists them year by year and every page has a wealth of
(b/w) stills from the films on that page too.
   The print is quite small, but it is still a bloody huge book. I don't
know what you call the format, but it'd about 16 inches X 12 inches X 1.5
inches thick and is hardbacked. Lovely it is! But no television show
information at all unfortunately.

Gary Bradley
ORACLE Corp, UK
Edinburgh, Scotland

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jul 92 21:13:42 GMT
From: tnt@netcom.com (Terry Turner)
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: sourcebook of SF movies/TV shows

UCPL040@UNLVM.UNL.EDU writes:

>  -Is there a second edition of this book?
>  -Does a book exist which lists SF movies and TV shows (no matter
>   how short - or bad!) ever produced by any studio (no matter how
>   small or low budget?

The book I use as an sf film bible is _The Film Encyclopedia - Science
Fiction_, by Phil Hardy. my edition covers through 1982. It only covers
film and i have been told that it is missing some films. i have no evidence
of this however. my only complaints are that it does not give music credits
and its listing of format (scope/flat/1.33) are not reliable.

It does give all other important credits and a synopsis/review of each
movie. These are of course personal and some may find them irritating.

I swear by it. I wish I could find a newer edition.

Terry
tnt@netcom.com

------------------------------

Date: 30 Jul 92 08:48:07 GMT
From: boyajian@ruby.enet.dec.com 
Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu
Subject: Re: sourcebook of SF movies/TV shows

tnt@netcom.com (Terry Turner) writes:
>The book I use as an sf film bible is _The Film Encyclopedia - Science
>Fiction_, by Phil Hardy. my edition covers through 1982. It only covers
>film and I have been told that it is missing some films. I have no
>evidence of this however.

I have evidence of this. Well, there's at least one sf film that is not in
the book that should be. A 1980 British/French/German co-production titled
DEATH WATCH, directed by Bertrand Tavernier, and starring Romy Schneider,
Harvey Keitel, Harry Dean Stanton, and Max von Sydow. It's based on the sf
novel THE CONTINUOUS KATHERINE MORTENHOE [a.k.a. THE UNSLEEPING EYE] by
D.G. Compton. Excellent, in my opinion, both as a film and as science
fiction. Even Leonard Maltin gives it 3-1/2 stars.

>I swear by it. I wish I could find a newer edition.

You can't find one because there isn't one. Hardy did three such
encyclopediae. The first volume was on Westerns (which I haven't been able
to find; if anyone knows where I could get hold of a copy, I'd be
interested), the second on SF, and the third on Horror. None of them have
had second editions, nor have there been any more since.

 --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian)
    boyajian@ruby.enet.dec.com

------------------------------

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