SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #122
JPM@mit-ai
SF-LOVERS AM Digest Friday, 15 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 122
Today's Topics:
SF Events - Convention Calendar addenda,
SF Lovers - A Fond Farewell, Digest Correction - Spelling Error,
SF Books - James Michener on Space & Cyber-SF & "High Yield Bondage",
SF Movies - The Man Who Fell to Earth, SF Radio - HHGttG & Star Wars,
SF Topics - Evolution of Unicorns & Childern's stories
(Title query answered and Tom Swift) & Fantasy vs Science Fiction
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Date: 14 May 1981 1103-PDT
From: Daul at OFFICE
Subject: FARE THEE WELL
I find my reaction very interesting (perhaps I am the ONLY one?) to
BRODIE's departure. I have never met him, but I find that sharing
this communication's media is special and that losing one person is a
significant lose. I hope you continue to have access one way or
another. --Bill
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Date: 14 May 1981 10:13:39-EDT
From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: important appendix to con calendar
Lexicon registration is open only until June 18; there will be
\\no// at-the-door registration. SFL contacts: DP@mit-ml,
cjh@cca-unix. There will also be an expedition to the Blue Strawberry,
a magnificent restaurant in Portsmouth NH; space for this is quite
limited and requires a $25 deposit.
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Date: 15 May 1981 00:26-EDT
From: Dale R. Worley <DRW at MIT-AI>
Subject: Michener's sense of time
Did that AP story really talk about a book whose plot "started four
million years ago", "before the dinosaurs"?!? My paleontology isn't
that great, but 60 to 100 million years is the minimum.
[ Actually, Michener himself said that his new book will not start
4 million years ago. This sentence was immediately followed by
the writers discussion of Michener's book "Centennial," which begins
with the formation of the earth itself. Whether the writer intended
people to draw a direct connection between the two sentences is a
matter of interpretation. -- Jim ]
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Date: 12 May 1981 at 0237-CDT
From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11
^^^^^^^^^^^ CYBER-SF PROJECT: Report on Some Robot TYPEs ^^^^^^^^^^^
>>> RO:anm ANIMAL SHAPE or FUNCTIONING ANIMAL REPLICAS <<<
These seem to be fairly uncommon; we've only come across about a
dozen, and about half of them are merely incidental or whimsical.
In--
Bunch, D.R., MODERAN
Dick, P.K., DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?
Goulart, Ron, CALLING DR. PATCHWORK
" " HAIL HIBBLER
High, P.E., INVADER ON MY BACK
" " THE MAD METROPOLIS
" " NO TRUCE WITH TERRA
Sheckley, R., JOURNEY BEYOND TOMORROW
Stasheff, C., WARLOCK IN SPITE OF HIMSELF
" " KING KOBOLD
plus in the movie novelization or spinoffs
Larson, et al., "Battlestar Galactica" series
and \perhaps/ the animals created by the computer in
Laumer, K., THE LONG TWILIGHT tho those may be merely biological.
>>> RO:mgc MAGICAL 'ROBOTS' <<<
These are even rarer (and usually also need another TYPE).
In--
Baum, F., OZMA OF OZ
" " TIC-TOC OF OZ
Lem, S., THE CYBERIAD
plus the (literally) incredible one in
Trimble, L., THE CITY MACHINE (which isn't \intended/ as fantasy)
and perhaps the Tin Woodman in the Oz books... I've never read them,
but would think he might be.
********** Does anyone have anything to suggest for these **********
********** two categories that may have been overlooked? ***********
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Date: 14 May 1981 (Thursday) 2359-EDT
From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager)
Subject: High Yield Bondage
Re: High yield Bondage
David Bowie starred in a film a few years back called "The Man Who
Fell to Earth". I got the feeling at the time that I had read it
somewhere but couldn't figure out where. NOW IT ALL COMES BACK! The
Bowie film, which is not a rock film but a rather good piece of
serious SF, is also about an alien whose ship crashes here and he does
quite a bit of money management in order to build himself a new ship.
They have changed the story a lot but the concepts are there. One
line that I recall quite well from HYB is that the visitor had some
sort of machine that would extract all the gold (or whatever) from a
cubic mile of sea water. Of course, the price of gold et al fell to
near zero as soon as this news spread and our hero went out and bought
slews of gold. The problem was that the price of gold went straight
back up as soon as it hit someone that it was not really feasible to
pump a cubic mile of sea water! The Bowie film is weird but very
good. Try to catch it.
--- BTW ... as I recall, the short story was humorous... the film is
definately otherwise!
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Date: 14 May 1981 2328-PDT
From: Stuart McLure Cracraft <McLure at SRI-AI>
Subject: Hammil
Here's a good one for you, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hammil) is replacing
David Bowie on Broadway as The Elephant Man.
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Date: 14 May 1981 2327-edt
From: RHarvey at MIT-Multics
Subject: SF Radio in Phoenix
Starting on June 5th at 6:30, KMCR (91.5?) FM will be broadcasting the
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Following that, at 7pm, they
will rebroadcast the Star Wars Series.
Replacing Star Wars on Sundays at noon will be a radio series of
Tolkien's THE HOBBIT and then THE LORD OF THE RINGS. This will begin
on June 7.
- Ron
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Date: 14 May 1981 17:55:03 EDT (Thursday)
From: Morris Keesan <mkeesan at BBN-UNIX>
Subject: Corflu
Morning Glory may have been in a worldcon masquerade as a bottle of
corflu (mimeo correction fluid), but if she was, I suspect she wasn't
the first. It was done at NYCon in 196(7?) by Cory Seidman (who is
now Cory Panshin), who wore blue body paint and enough else to defeat
local indecent exposure laws.
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Date: 14 May 1981 18:26:49 EDT (Thursday)
From: Morris Keesan <mkeesan at BBN-UNIX>
Subject: Mrs. Coverlet and other children's literature
I'm not sure if this is the same series that Dave Ackley asked about
in SFL V3 #120, since all I have is the second book, "Mrs. Coverlet's
Magicians". This one doesn't have dodos or soda faucets, but it has a
little kid who does real magic using a kit he got by sending away a
coupon clipped from the back of a comic book. Mrs. Coverlet is the
housekeeper who takes care of the kids while their parent(s?) is(are)
away. There must be a whole sub-genre of magical-nanny books. I got
Mrs. Coverlet from the Weekly Reader Book Club, and how's that for
nostalgia?
While we're on the subject of children's books, I'd like to
recommend two of my favorite authors of more recent children's
fantasy: John Bellairs, who wrote "The Face in the Frost", "The
Pedant and the Shuffly", "The House with the Clock in its Walls", and
others (including two sequels to the house/clock one, whose names I
can't remember; and Jane Langton, none of whose fantasy titles spring
to mind, but who also wrote such mainstream children's classics as
"The Boyhood of Grace Jones" and "Her Majesty, Grace Jones", and some
adult mysteries which I've been trying to find copies of ever since
hearing them on Reading Aloud on WGBH, "The Transcendental Murders"
and one other (I'm not doing too well with titles today).
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Date: 14 May 1981 09:54:03-PDT
From: mhtsa!duke!unc!bch at Berkeley
Subject: Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
The strange woman referred to (re: faucets running soda, etc.) is Mrs.
Piggle-Wiggle. There were about three books in the series but I do
not remember the specific titles nor the author. As I remember, Mrs.
Piggle-Wiggle was noted for living in an upside-down house, serving
marvelous gingerbread cookies on cold days and generally messing
around with the lives of children who did not toe the line in one way
or another. It seems she was of the general morality of Munro ("This
is a watchbird watching you") Leaf. One episode (the books were
composed of short stories, each dealing with a different aberrant
behavior) had Mrs Piggle-Wiggle prescribing a deafness-inducing drug
to a child who used "I didn't hear you" as an excuse for not doing
household chores. The child was so glad to hear after the medicine
wore off, that the behavior disappeared. Another had her
administering an IQ-inhibiting potion to a child who perpetually
called other children "stupid" or "dummies."
The only thing I never could figure out about Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle was
(a) why did children continually come to this obviously deranged
woman's house despite the terrible things that happened to them,
and
(b) why nobody ever called the cops.
If I sound bitter, it is because I consider this type of book the
*worst* that the children's literature of the late '40s and early '50s
-- promoting a kind of mindless expectation of conformity. I expect,
however, that is the subject for some other newsletter...
Byron Howes University of North Carolina
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Date: 5 May 1981 (Tuesday) 0236-EDT
From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager)
Subject: Children's SF books
Thinking about it now, I think that I was influenced a great deal by
two series that I used to collect (or that my father would collect for
me). The one the I recall most clearly was the "Tom Swift and his X"
where X included all sorts of bizarre SF gadgetry. I actually do not
remember any of the plots or titles but I can clearly recall many of
the cover paintings and I remember that the hero, Tom Swift, had rich
relatives and so could go out and build any sort of gadgets he liked.
Maybe someone with the collection could fill in the major holes that 8
or 10 years have generated.... The other series that I loved was
called "The Young Detectives" [I think] and was published or written
by Alfred Hitchcock. I can't imagine him having wasted his time
writing these but his name appeared in each book and I think that he
was the narrator. This one was not as much SF as detective novel but
the head of this kiddy detective squad was supposed to have been
exceptionally bright and there was all sorts of gadgetry involved in
their adventures.
Ah! One other children's SF comes to mind but I can't recall the name
or even a clear plot... something about an alien animal that is
discovered by some school kids and hidden in their house. It does
things like bitting the bullies and in the end, flys of into space
again.
-- Jeff
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Date: 11 May 1981 1646-PDT
From: CHRIS at RAND-AI
Subject: mythcon 1982
The Thirteenth Annual Mythopoeic Convention (the Mythopoeic Society
studies the fantasy/factual literature of JRRTolkein, CS Lewis and
Charles Williams, and related (that covers a lot of fantasy and SF)
materials) will be held at Chapman College in Orange County, CA, on
August 13-16, 1982. It will center on Celtic/Fantasy Lit, confirmed
GoHs are Katherine Kurtz, Katheryn Lindskoog, Antaniel Noel, and they
are inviting Tim Kirk (who did the first Tolkien Calendar in 1973 or
so; the Brothers Hildebrandt can't touch his work), Marion Zimmer
Bradley, Randel Helms, and others. Plans include preview slide shows
of work on Disney Studios version of Lloyd Alexander's The Black
Cauldron, a Society for Creative Anacronists feast, and the usual
music, masquerades, drama festival and art show events. Membership is
$10.00 to March 1, 1982, then $15.00 to July 31, 1982, then $20. Room
rates at the college are $20/day/person (double occupancy) INCLUDING 3
meals a day. Contact MYTHCON XIII, Lisa Cowan, P.O.Box 5276, Orange,
CA 92667. Thought someone out there might be interested.
I just got back from a discussion of Richard Purtill's The Golden
Gryffin Feather, and The Stolen Goddess. Both books are set on Crete
during the time of Theseus and the Minotaur, and are not-so-great
fantasy treatments of a few demigods descended from the Olympians and
the royal families of Crete and Athens. During the discussion we more
or less decided the books were not fantasy but really science fiction
(things like powers of ESP, foresight and controlling the bull during
the Dances explained in terms of genetics). Then we got into the
deeper (and perhaps ultimately meaningless) problem of what
differentiates fantasy from science fiction. Any good ideas?
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Date: 13 May 1981 11:24:43-EDT
From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: breathable liquids
In my mention of Darkover, it was supposed to read "they could
\teke/ [not 'take'] extra oxygen into the liquid.
[ Sorry about that. -- Jim ]
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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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