SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #120
JPM@mit-ai
SF-LOVERS AM Digest Wednesday, 13 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 120
Today's Topics:
SF Books - Planet of Tears & James Michener on Space,
SF Topics - Physics Today (breathable water) &
Children's TV (Tom Corbett,Space Cadet and
60's Cartoons and Astro-boy) & Children's stories
(Here's the Plot What's the Title and 500 (now 21) Balloons)
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Date: 12 May 1981 12:22:21-PDT
From: ihnss!hobs at Berkeley
From: ucbvax!ihnss!hobs@Berkeley (John Hobson)
Subject: Planet of Tears
My wife recently got me a book when she was last in the drugstore.
This work is "The Planet Of Tears" by Trish Reinius (Bantam,1980). If
any of you think about purchasing or reading this book: DON'T!
Nano-review: If this book could talk, the sound it would make would be
"Gobble, gobble, gobble."
Micro-review: This book starts off with:
Once upon a time, way off beyond imagination,
stands a land called Everfor.
>From this cute beginning (the story seems to be written for the 3-5
year old set, except that my 2 elder children [ages 3 and 5] were
bored by it), the story goes rapidly downhill. As far as I am
concerned, probably the weakest device for conveying information to
the reader is to have one character talking to another, using the
immortal words "as you know." In fact, the paragraph in which this
phrase occurs (on page 4) is sod remarkable that I will quote it at
length:
Then Melkedek spoke, and his voice echoed from
heart to heart in the chamber, "Come, Mey and
Treaia, and look at the Planet of Tears with
us, for that is the world we have been
watching. We have sent for you to tell you
this: the time has come for you to go to one
of the planets, to continue your journey on
the path of existence. Like the other beings
of Everfor, you have journeyed from Everfor
many times before, and each time you have gone
to one of the planets to continue to learn the
lessons of life. Now the Planet of Tears is
entering the Age of Aries and as you know,this
will be a particularly evil time. It will be a
time of trials, and perhaps your struggle will
be hard and long. ... Know that you are loved
and that you are special, as all beings are
special.
As soon as I saw "the Age of Aries", I knew that the book had to be
written by someone in California. Well, I was wrong, Ms. Reinius
lives in Reno, Nevada (come now, nobody actually lives in Reno), but
she was born in Bell, California.
This book is just too cute for words, to call the characters
2-dimensional is to give 2-dimensional characters a bad name, the so
called dilemmas that the characters (Mey, the heroine and Treaia, the
hero) are too easily escaped from. (Mey gets into the clutches of the
villain, Tartek, who in Dungeon & Dragons [tm] terms would be called a
high level Illusionist. He wants some magic jewels that she has and
tries to trick her into giving them to her. Nowhere does he try to
remove them from her by force even though he is considerably bigger
and stronger than she is, and has plenty of henchpersons to back him
up. From the time that she realizes what he is up to, it takes her
less than 4 pages to escape, despite the fact that he knows what she
is up to. Treaia, who has a magic sword that Tartek also wants takes
even less time to escape.)
To sum up, this book is to be avoided at all costs.
May your wombats be free from mange,
John
------------------------------
Date: 05 May 1981 1718-PDT
From: Jim McGrath <JPM at SU-AI>
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Author James Michener promised Tuesday that
his next book on America's space program would be good news to his
publisher and readers who don't like too many pages.
''It will be a shorter book and it will not start four million
years ago,'' he said with a smile at an awards ceremony in the
Pennsylvania state Capitol. Michener's novel ''Centennial'' opened by
tracing life in Colorado back before the dinosaurs.
Michener did not disclose the title of his half-finished new
novel, but he did describe it as ''not science fiction but the role of
space in American society in the last 20 years.
''I'm on the advisory council that supervises NASA (the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration) so I've been working in space
diligently the last three years,'' he said.
Michener, a Pennsylvania native who now lives in Pipersville, Pa.,
was in Harrisburg to accept the second annual Distinguished
Pennsylvania Artist Award.
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 18:39 cdt
From: VaughanW at HI-Multics (Bill Vaughan)
Subject: TV nostalgia
Sender: VaughanW.REFLECS at HI-Multics
My favorite nostalgia trip is Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. It was on in
1950 and a little thereafter, at least in Philadelphia it was; Captain
Video was also on, but I thought it was hokey and didn't watch it. (I
can't remember why ... eight-year-olds' taste hs no real rationale
anyway.)
The show was about Tom Corbett and his two sidekicks, Astro (no last
name) from Venus and Roger (?) something (my memory is trying to tell
me Manning or such) from Mars. Tom, of course, was from Earth. They
were cadets at the Space Academy and had some father-figure mentor
with the rank of Captain whose name I don't recall, and then there was
somebody called Commander Arkwright or Armstrong or something. (I am
really confused now.)
The show was set in 2350 AD, exactly (!) 400 years in the future.
When it became 1951, (you guessed it) the show chnged its setting to
2351, but I think they gave up on that the next year.
For a quarter or so, you could join the space cadet fan club and get
an autographed picture of the space cadets, and a Space Academy
diploma, and god knows what else. I did, naturally. I think I still
have the diploma somewhere.
The special effects consisted mostly of swinging the camera from side
to side while the space cadets leaned all over their acceleration
couches - but in retrospect, Star Trek wasn't much better. I liked the
(very rare) zero-gee scenes, where the space cadets would float around
the cabin, hanging from their wires, kicking. (Remember what I said
about eight-year-old tastes.)
BTW: I am 38 and do not remember Danny Dunn or Miss Pickerell, but I
do remember the Winston (?) juvenile SF series, which was quite good.
They were my first science fiction books - maybe around 1953 or 4.
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 0852-EDT
From: Jeff Shulman <SHULMAN at RUTGERS>
Subject: 60's Cartoons
While I don't remember Astroboy I do remember Felix the Cat
with Poindexter (sp?) and the Master Cylinder. Not to mention
Gigantor, Speed Racer, and the Big World of Little Atom (actually my
memory is fuzzy on this one, anyone remember it better than I?).
Jeff
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 16:24 edt
From: Greenwald.INP at MIT-Multics
Subject: Re: Astro-boy query
Yes, I remember Astro-boy. "Astro-boy bombs away,on your
blah-blah today,...." However that song went. There were three schools
of thought in my kindergarten, those favoring Superman, those favoring
Batman, and those favoring Astro-boy. I am not sure why these three
were considered competing, but I do remember that the Astro-boy
proponents (the good guys) thought he was the best character because
he was the most "likely to be realistic". Or something like that...
Astro-boy was a cartoon character around 1963-1965. He was a
robot who was created by Dr. Elephant at the "Institute of Science".
He was powered by a battery and frequently the plot cliff-hanger would
hang on whether and how he could get "recharged".
One thing that I vaguely remember, and I'd really like someone
to tell me if this is a figment of my imagination or it really
happened, was one episode where **budget cuts** threatened the
"Institute" and Astro-boy was one of the projects scheduled to be
dropped. He was actually "shut off", but was resuscitated when an
emergency arose during which he proved his worth by saving the world,
so the administrators decided, "well, X Dollars to save the world is
marginally worth it, We'll let him hang around for a while". Anyone
else confirm/deny that one?
- Mike
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 10:55:55-EDT
From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: Astroboy et al; breathable liquids
I remember this all too well, as there is a fanne of Astroboy (and
worse, of Prince Planet) at the MITSFS. My recollection is that the
originals were in Japanese (though I may be remembering just her
remarks about PP) with the usual bad translations; I also seem to
recall that Astroboy also appeared on late-afternoon weekday TV.
Doesn't anybody else remember the animated weekday morning serial
"Space Patrol"? It was on some hour-long cartoon collection and
alternated with other serials, including at least one fantasy ("The
Firebird"); animation is expensive enough that I'm sure this wasn't
local to DC.
I'm sure Bob Forward is correct about the official date of the
cited article (on breathable liquids); it's the issue of SCIENCE 81
that appeared in my mail box about a week ago, so given the peculiar
dating of some magazines it could well be cover-dated June even though
I've since received mags cover-dated May.
Other thoughts on breathable liquids: first, on Darkover all bets
are off, since the monitors in tower circles (at least) know enough
about physiology and other fine manipulation that they could take
extra oxygen into the liquid. Also, at least one of Carter(?)'s pieces
of tripe mentions a crew of pirates living under a sea of some red
liquid (on Venus?? memory completely fails me).
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 17:24:03-PDT
From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley
Subject: Breathing under water
Poul Anderson's "Three Hearts and Three Lions" has an underwater
breathing scene. I quote:
"Holger noticed his breath. It felt no different from
usual, except for a slight heaviness on his chest. He
rolled is tongue around in his mount and squirted saliva
between his teeth. Somehow, he thought -- striving for
a toehold on sanity -- the forces called magical must be
extracting oxygen from the water for him and forcing it
into a thin protective layer, perhaps monomolecular, on
his face. The rest of him was in direct contact with the
lake. His clothes flopped soggy. Yet he was warm
enough...."
The book has many other attempts to explain or deal with magic in
light of 20th century science and engineering. For example, the gold
belonging to a troll turned to stone by the sun is really accursed,
because when carbon turns to silicon you get a radioactive isotope....
By the way, has our moderator been using a time machine instead of a
computer? Recent digests have been dated sometime in March.
[ A true slip of the pen on my part. The archives have been
corrected to reflect the true (May) month in which these
things originate. -- Jim ]
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 1803-PDT
From: OR.TOVEY at SU-SCORE
Subject: water balloons
I read an article about animals breathing underwater several
years ago. At the time, the problem was in getting them to survive
the transition back to air. The liquid in the lungs killed them.
Until that little problem was solved, scientists didn't want to try it
on people.
The balloon book won the Newberry Award (the Caldecott medal
is for best illustrated book--the story counts but picture books like
Make Way for Ducklings or the Madeleine books are the typical
winners). I think the number of balloons was less than forty. The
Thirty-One Balloons? (36?).
good reading,
--cat
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Date: 11 May 1981 1349-EDT (Monday)
From: Dave Ackley <David.Ackley at CMU-10A>
Subject: Recherche du S.F. Perdu
Sender: David.Ackley at CMU-10A
Yes, yes, I confess! Me too! I remember Danny Dunn and Miss
Pickerell. I read the Tom Swift series (including some of the T.S.
Sr. series -- titles like T.S. and {the Big Cannon/his Wizard
Camera/the Electric Boat} and so on) too. I even read my sister's
Nancy Drew books when I couldn't find anything else, but I always
looked down on "mainstream" stuff like the Hardy Boys.
Reading SFL lately has really been bringing it all back -- I have to
get through the daily wallow in nostalgia before I can get down to
work -- and it's been harder and harder not to throw in a memory dump
of my own.
Lauren's message about the x000 Balloons was the last straw. I
remember the book distinctly, especially a picture near the end
showing the giant raft lifted by thousands of balloons that they used
to escape the island. One big point that I had forgotten came out in
conversation around here: the island was Krakatoa! (Thus the need to
escape, thus the fact that the modern world never heard of these
engaging folk, and so on.)
What about that book (those books?) along the Mary Poppins line --
some old woman comes to take care of some kids, and strange things
transpire? Like the faucets in the house running soda; like meeting
the kids' mirror images; like the old woman's pet: a dodo? Sound
familiar out there? That isn't Pickerell again, is it? Was it
Pepperell, perhaps? How about Homer Price? Not exactly SF, perhaps,
but certainly in the same big bag of lost pointers in my head that all
these reminisces have been digging into.
Ah well. I hope I've sent at least a few of us off on new nostalgia
rushes. These are the petite madeleines of our generation -- we
should treasure them!
-Dave
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 0927-PDT
From: Isaacs at SRI-KL
Subject: "balloons" story
The "5000 balloons" or "500 balloons" is actually only "Twenty-One
Balloons", a story by William __ Du Bois. I also enjoyed it very much
as a kid, and found it is in current print in paper, and got it for my
children.
- SPOILER - SPOILER - SPOILER - SPOILER
The island of the High-tech civilization is Krakatoa, and the
balloonist lands there just before the big explosion. They escape in
the 21 balloons.
--- Stan
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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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